Winter

Fog rules
you submit
wind howls
and whistles
piercing
your
woollen armor

with ease
and
jolting
you to the core
numbing
your bones

cars fog
inside
out,
honking in
sheer blind
exasperation

dogs sleep
curled
in their own
warmth

flies worms
mosquitoes
birds, cats
pests
nowhere
to be
seen

your fogged
breath
marching
ahead of you
defiantly
the fruit seller
hisses and blows
on his
raw red fingers

numbing shock
of a splash
wakes you up
with a shiver

worst of all
is a
wet
kitchen duster
defying
all attempts
to dry.

cleanliness

You lie there, and watch the cobwebs grow,
each day a  new strand
as  other life forms , quietly
swell and ebb past you

swirling around you
surrounding you, whispering
goodbyes into your ears
even as you lie,fixed

in your beliefs of a
perfect world,
progenies,
lives,

cobweb-free ceilings
wrinkle-free faces
crease -free  tuxedos (which you want
your sons to forever be
adorned in )

complaint -free existence
stain-free table-tops
termite -free cupboards
odor-free refrigerators

where all can you
swipe your broom?
even the best witches
with their magically -endowed

brooms have failed
to clean the
detritus/grime life leaves
behind.

some treasure them
rather.
choosing to call them
memories/mementoes.

Cancelled

"You have successfully cancelled your ticket ."
The railway website announced cheerfully.
Thank God for quick cancellation.
No more hurried packing , hasty , gut-wrenching good-byes, and stocking up the refrigerator with ready-to-eat meals, ( praying that they do not fungate before consumption).No more worrying about surprise class tests, and strange projects, snakes in bathrooms and sudden spikes of inexplicable fevers.
It was a new experience. Euphoria at cancellation of a journey.
I am like a dog , at home in my kennel. Loathe to venture out .
Journeys do not appeal to me much.
If at all one has to travel, one may as well carry the entire brood along .Amen.

Raghu

"Don't kill her , you lame bastard(langda harami)"
"Today. I am not. Going. To leave her.So dont. Try to. Stop me."
This  plea and its breathless answer would rouse the entire village , almost every morning.
Today's screams and shouts emerging from the velvety, dew covered, still slumbering paddy-field ,was no different from every other day. Raghu was chasing his newly wed bride across the horizon, with a lathi ,spinning wildly in his hand.
 Being lame, each of his steps were a jump and a drag.
So , there he was, jumping and dragging his one leg, behind his fleeing, terrified -but giggling wife of one month, who was , in all her nubile naiviete , treating this as a game.
 "How to out run your lame husband?" It was easy. Just use your legs!!
Every day, she would oversleep, the husband would ask for tea, the mother-in-law would grumble , and the cycle would begin all over.
 A drama in the morning would attract all the attention , in the sleepy village. People would climb on their terraces, emerge from their doorways, still brushing their teeth, or rubbing their eyes, woken up from their sleep, by this family fight , out in the public.
"Like savages that they are!!" My grandmother would mutter furiously, shooing all of us down from our vantage viewing points on rooftops and window-fronts,"What do you think you are seeing ? Some Ram-leela?" She would admonish, roundly.
That is one of the reasons I never got to see /know if Raghu ever caught up with her, or did he hit her with the lathi, he so menacingly promised to ?
One thing we knew for sure, that the wife returned back , every morning , demurely, with her long ghoonghat(veil) concealing her tears/smiles/giggles/grimaces, her red sari fluttering apologetically, as it were , while the husband would be seen trailing several metres behind her, with his jump -and-drag step,and the free wheeling lathi,triumphantly whooping. More whistles and hoots from various rooftops would resound in the cold still air of the morning ,and people would settle down, alighting from roofs and going back in , with a sense of mission fulfilled.
Amazingly, the very mother-in-law who had ignited the battle in the first place would play the peacemaker, by quietly whisking her bahu away from the public glare , and , shockingly, shutting the door in the face of the grinning , baboon that was Raghu.
During the course of the day , if an innocent query was posted regarding "how Raghu brought his runaway bride back in ?", it would be met with a stony silence and a cold glare from my granny. People who knew my grandmother, knew better than to challenge her feared glare.
 So the answer hung in mid-air and was never really answered.
 Once , we even cornered Raghu and demanded an explanation. His lips went thin and a faraway look settled in his sad eyes. After that, even the most persistent amongst us gave up.

 Raghu was born with  a perfectly  normal body. In his infancy, he had an episode of very high fever, wherein, it was thought, or believed ( and in some heartless, but practical quarters, hoped ) that he would die; but nature had different designs in store for him.He survived ,  with a gross deformity.One of his legs was found twisted at the knee, and the rest of the limb wasted.
But ,the grit and courage in face of adversity allowed him to discover ways and means of getting around his disability. He would walk with a jump and a drag, as his better leg would pull the wasted one , and he could work up quite a fair pace at this rate. Only , he would soil his dhoti like no one else  did. When it was not the clothing, it was his twisted leg, muddied below the knee; and frequently raw and calloused from being dragged  in dust and dirt.
He could graze cattle , herd them and could do all the chores that a farmhand had to do, some of them with alarming cleverness. Like he could shout at the top of his lungs, emitting a high pitched war-cry sort of a sound, scarily loud enough to scatter stray cattle and goats from the paddy -fields within five kilometres radius.
This ability of his earned him a town-crier kind of a status, and whenever stubborn grass nibblers were noticed grazing amidst crop fields meant for human consumption, Raghu was called. His blood curdling scream would raise hair at the nape of everyone's necks, but served its purpose well.

Amongst all the characters that populated our childhood world, Raghu would stand out like a benign monster. Benign , because of his abilities to craft the perfect wick of a lamp, with almost artistic finesse, and monster because of his disability and his lung-power. Once, a cousin saw the flickering shadow on a mud wall of a limping Raghu, and he was tormented with a profusion of nightmares.

At the brahmin-bhoj after my grandfather's cremation, some few years earlier, I came to know that Raghu's wife had passed away , due to one of the many illnesses , that afflicts the poor.Leaving him a legacy of three boisterous boys and one bad-tempered mother. Refusing the elder's demands outrightly, Raghu never remarried.
 I cornered a grayed and wrinkled Raghu at the well, pulling up water (and splashing lots of it), and asked him the quintessential question-"Did you hit your wife everyday Raghu?"

He wiped his hands on his still-murky dhoti, looked down,and replied in now husky whisper( voice  having been ruined due to years of khaini , and the town-crier routine), -"Kenaka bolecho ho?"(How can you say that even ?)I could never hit her. I was honoured that a pretty girl like her agreed to marry me despite my obvious deformity.That was just a show put on to appease my monstrous mother . Every morning. I would chase her till 'jharkatta'(the dome shaped vast arid plain-legend has it that there used to be a dense forest there, hence the name.),when we would disappear from the view of the villagers. Then , I would ask her to stop running. She would comply, and I would follow her back."

I was speechless. "Everyday?"

"Everyday."

"You never hit her, even once?"

"Never.Are you mad ? Okra kenaka dungayetiye? (How could I hit her?)" She was my princess"

Raghu bent and wiped a streak of spittle drooling from the corner of his mouth with his dhoti and straightened up, tears brimming in his eyes with the familiar faraway sad look,
"She still is."

I give to you

I give to you my time, so you may grow,
I give to you my energies, so you may draw inspiration
I give to you my faith, so you may believe in yourself
I give to you my resources, so you may build an empire of success
I give to you my wisdom, so you may rely on your judgement

I give to my eyes, so you may see the world as I do
I give to you my ears, so you may distinguish music from cacophony
I give to you my gifts , so you may revel in them
I give to you my industry,so you may be proud of yourself
I give to you my love , so you may be able to tell grain from the chaff.

Birthdays of your offsprings

To know and to acknowledge
that
more the things change
more they remain the same

Time passes by
In the blinking
of an eye
you , my baby

Have grown
I am yet
to reconcile
with such

impudence
that fate and time has
revealed,in
charting their own course

not heeding
to my whip-cracking
or cussing
warning

Why do I feel
like an impotent
driver of a horse cart
run amok

Making
ineffectual
clucking
noises

the world
having
sped away
out of my

control.
Was I ever
in the driver
seat? Or
is it a joke
fate has
played
on me.

Can you hear
raucous
hilarity?
Or is it just me?

dirty word

What determines if a particular word is dirty or not? Our prudence? Our overwhelming sense of uptight righteousness?Our belief in the religious heads ?
History has proved to us time and again , that whatever was in vogue yesterday,is passe’ today. Nothing remains for ever. Neither do heroes, civilizations. monoliths, beliefs, faiths, ideals. Everything in this world has a shelf life. Even life as we know it , comes with an expiry date.
How can we be sure that the so called “dirty word” is actually dirty , and to be shunned by all and sundry. I personally think, “dirty words ” or expletives actually help you emphasize a certain point, and drive home certain opinions, in certain circumstances.
They too have their uses. Basically, they are like exclamatory noises, and should be treated as such, without the moral hand -wringing that accompanies every cuss-word heard or uttered.

Bereavement

He would sit there, next to the window, his back bent, hunched against the oppressive load of time, of having shouldered generations,his hands warming beneath his thighs, clad in a transparent dhoti,his bald pate shining in the morning sun.
At  every sound of the wrought iron gates clanging open, he would half -turn, squinting  at the new arrival.

Two years had passed. He had lost  his spouse, to cancer and old age , and all those ailments that catch up with you when you have neglected them long enough . Now , his memory dimming, he could no longer differentiate between what was and what is. The past and the present. Living in the past most of the time, the line blurred between the two.

Now , he was a strapping lad of twenty, applying for his first gun- licence , to the bad-tempered and foul-mouthed, british resident.

Again, he would recount how his brave bride saved their only son from being crushed underneath boulders of plaster falling from the roof , in a devastating earthquake. He could recount the scene blow by blow, as if it was happening right in front of his eyes.

At other times, he would be stuck in the coal town of Jharia, when the earth cracked open and swallowed an entire sleeping town, so many years ago. How an undergarment manufacturer refused to abandon his factory cum home building, and went down with his home, a legend in his own. How the old man, then a young thirtiesh man, clung to the edge of a cracked road, and had a cliffhanger's view of death and destruction from close quarters.

Naturally, it completely escaped him , that his spouse , his companion, partner, alter-ego , was no more. He would pretend, nay, believe, that she has gone to the village , to oversee some field-work, and that she will be back by the evening. When dusk would fall, and no one returned, he would be heartbroken, and resolve to go bring her back, personally, the first thing , tomorrow morning.

Next day, he would be up and about at dawn, and brushing aside , all entreaties and explanation, would hail a rickshaw, and go about hunting a person long departed. It  moving and comical , plus dangerous at the same time. Luckily, the rickshaw-wallah  was a neighbour too. A dependable guy called Gafoor.( Once, when stuck during communal riots curfew, with no access to green vegetables or fresh milk, Gafoor would smuggle in bags of gourd from his kitchen garden, and jarfuls of fresh, frothy, goats'milk of his own goat. We can never thank Gafoor enough. Goes to prove that goodness of heart is not dictated by religion / size of your pocket)

The wild goose-chase would end at noon , when driven by thirst, hunger and frustration, the duo would reappear; the old man in a state of resigned silence, and Gafoor grinning like the cheshire cat.A hot cup of tea, and very minimal wages later (he insisted on not being paid -never heard of any other rickshaw-wallah do that) Gafoor would depart and Dadu would be taken to be bathed, where hot water would be waiting for him.

Woman

She was burnt on a stake
and made a
saint martyr

She was burnt
forcibly
on her dead one's pyre
and a temple was built
on her still warm ashes

It matters not
if her
screams
still echo
against
those walls
of
deification

Alas
i am living
still
let me
live
and
breathe
my quota
of
breaths
before
you try to
worship
me.

Berated, and deified
in the same breath
it is
infinitely easier
to garland
a stone bust.

Earliest memories

Earliest memories are that of a village.
Not any village, my village,the village.
 Some where in the forgotten corner of Bihar, tucked away beyond the snoopiness of world at large, far, far away, beyond the sea of green rice fields, lies my village ( or what it used to be ). You don't have to sit in H.G.Wells' contraption to time-travel.All you have to do is to reach there, and you will have left centuries behind you.
People here dress and behave the same way they had, probably , in the Mauryan period. Men wear dhotis, dirtied from working in the fields, women saris, with a mandatory' ghoonghat'(veil), children run amok, naked, lawless, till their genitals grow large enough to attract undue attention, when they begin to be clothed.
Child marriages are rampant, womenfolk take care of the home and hearth, men work in the fields. Some of them are adventurous enough to try something out of the mundane,and catch a train to faraway provinces to earn money.
The landowner gets to live off the fields, cattle, poultry, a measly sum of which is doled to the rest of the populace. Women have difficult childbirths, and numerous too. The nearest doctor lives twenty or more kilometres ( and fifty rupees in bus-fares) away, hence , is unaffordable. Whatever treatment is meted out by' dais'(midwives)and quacks is meagre and dangerous.
There are no Pucca roads leading to or from the village. A dirt packed road (long-route, a precariously thin and muddy path between the fields was a shorter version; but one has to hitch up one's trouser/salwar legs, and spread one's arms; Titanic fashion , to keep from toppling over, one way or the other,into sloshy froggy/fishy damp -boggy fields. Forget about carrying your bags!!) leads to the river -bank ( in spate for six months in a year) ,cross the river (at the peril of your life-the river bed being, rocky and shallow, dangerous rapids overtake you from nowhere),trek for another five odd kilometres , till you come to a dangerous uphill climb( here the bullock-cart will have to be abandoned-as the cart will slide back, precariously), a small temple and a bus stop. You wait there for ages, swatting flies, and being an unwilling listener to the village gossip, recounted by a garrulous dwarfish priest , till a perilously tilting and overloaded bus stops for you, and whisks you away to civilization,groaning under all that human weight.

But this miserable little place was my home for the first one and a half decade of my life .
It was love, warmth,cosy togetherness, and caring kindness all put together.

 It was also an eye-opener in ways more than one. Far away from the modern world, if one stumbled across a Span or Life magazine , or an Illustrated Weekly of India, Dharmayug, however old or yellowed it might be, it would spark an immediate war for possession, amongst all the siblings, one which my brother always won, as , he was , you know. the son. And the son was always backed by everyone( all adults). Another lesson in the unfairness of life, an unforgettable one.

Sun-washed , cow dung coated courtyard , crisp mornings. (The cow dung dries , like plaster, and leaves a pleasant grassy smell if it is fresh, if it is stale,God forbid the odor!!)

Cool concrete floors, sumptuous meals, electric fans , caring elders and a serious attempt at good education.We had lot of things, which was denied to many other people in our vicinity.We were born, so to speak, with the proverbial brass spoon in the mouth(if not the silver). Yes, I have eaten out of brass and bronze plates. Part of my grandmother's and mother's dowry, one discovered quickly that if you do not polish off curd, or any food item containing tamarind/lemon juice,fast enough; the food mass starts turning green at the edges ( formation of copper salts from the copper in the plate; we learnt later),which, trust me, tastes real funny.

Primarily agrarian occupation and bucolic kind of an existence; it was as far away from the madding crowd as you please, a tad bit too far , I guess.

During the first year of my life , I am told, there was a cholera epidemic in the village. People died like flies. Health officials came in 'motors', masked and armed with DDT sprayers. They sprayed some, talked some , and counted the dead and dying, and left hastily; as they are wont to.

Some of our cattle died too. Whether due to cholera or and unrelated disease , is debatable.

My elder sister is a trifle over zealous , in so far as religion is concerned She once poked an infant me in the eye with the stick end of a burning agarbatti , in the process of propitiating the gods for my well-being .She has this story to tell of me having fallen sick too, during the epidemic. Coincidentally,  a favourite cow (black) too fell sick around the same time , with similar symptoms(fever, stomach-upset). And my sister prayed to the Gods , that I may be spared, and that "Kaali"(the cow) may be taken , in exchange, if death God(Yama) so desired. Her wish was fulfilled. The cow died and I lived (with tremendous bovine guilt).

The word

The helicopter went past, its motor purring away, into the distant skies.
A loud wail issued from my arms- “papaaaa!!!!”
Puzzled, my neighbour stopped midway, putting out the clothes on the line,hands frozen.
“Why is she calling papa?”
I sniffed, and mumbled from behind invisible lumps -in-my-throat.
“But why papa?”
The baby in my arms howled louder.
“For heaven’s sake, Rajni,stop saying the p-word.”
I blurted out.
“She thinks it was he who flew away in the copter.”
“Oh, I see”. Rajni immediately comprehended, and resumed her wringing and hanging of clothes, albeit with an air of remorse.”Deepu has got a new set of building blocks, want to take a look at it baby?” She added helpfully. The wailing stopped abruptly, and my daughter regarded Rajni with interest, wet eyes squinting ,in the morning sun,across the balcony.
“I will send her over later, thanksda.” I sighed and turned in.

Ever since Paul left for his Afghanistan Deputation, it has been like this. Every morning , she insists on seeing her elder sister board the school bus, then she will wail at every passing motorised vehicle, presuming her father left in one of those.And I have two years of this ahead of me. I slumped on the sofa, feeling totally dejected.

Manjuladi

"Neighbor's envy , owner's pride!" so went an old ad for a second rate TV.
But Manjuladi was not a thing to be owned.
 She was free spirited, like the billowing parrot-green dupatta she wore on her shoulders.
 She wore many hats.If you got stuck in algebra, trigonometry, or shakespeare, you could ask her. She would gleefully set aside everything that she had been doing, and solve your sums. You could ask her about class tests, cat-fights, broken hearts,acne,face-packs, cracked tea-pot sets, faded kurtis, embroidery snags, impossible projects or incorrigible friends/siblings, she would always give you sane advice and keep your secrets to herself.
She was an angel in disguise. Or as my parents put it, a lotus born in the' mud'. Mud here alluding to her illiterate mother, and her shop owner father, who steadfastly refused to see the glittering gem that was born in their home. To them, she was just a burden, a" wild weed" bagandi ( a local green with white waxy leaves and showy , purple flowers, which grows to impossible heights within matter of weeks) .In fact, her popularity actually dwarfed her parents , into some kind of wormhood.
Several times in a day, we would hear her mother bellowing her lungs out -" Monju,monju, MONJUULLLAA" If the last scream was unanswered, it would be followed by the loud lament -"May God take me away,I can't take this anymore"(Bhogowaan tule nen, aar paarchchi na.")
The arthritic joints of the mother would creak audibly( incredibly loud enough , for us neighbors to hear ) as she made her way to wherever she thought her daughter was, in the large house; sighing and muttering all the way.
As a matter of fact, that would be the cue for manjuladi to apparate ( thanks JK Rowling , for supplying this word, for there is no other way of describing this) silently. Wet-haired (she had glorious waist length raven hair, that turned all the girls green with envy)from the bathroom, bespectacled from her bedroom, or disheveled and flustered from the rooftop(where she would be reading forbidden books(non study books), she would silently stand in the path of her bent-double mother, waiting for the mandatory tongue-lashing.
Not only would she hear out the insults being heaped on her own poor self, she would grab the elbow of her aged parent,and helped her into a chair while being berated.
It was a poignant scene , but one which burned rage into my adolescent heart.
I hated her mother, her father , her home ( which imprisoned her, or so would I believe).

Her home resembled a giant prison.There were tall ten foot walls , all around, topped with broken glass, to dissuade monkeys and possible suitors from trying.
The monkeys, giant , black-faced langurs would , most cheekily, find a way out. The massive courtyard would be routinely invaded by marauding bands, who would help themselves to anything, laid out to sun, pickles, preserves, badis, grains ; and then , nonchalantly park their butts on the glass topped surface while they ate, littered the area, scattered the leftovers, groomed themselves, occasionally snarling at manjuladi's mothers' hysterical screams and loped away only when they tired of the place.In the end, the entire courtyard would resemble a war zone. Littered with stones, shoe brushes, chappals, and other sundry items, thrown at the monkeys , in futile desperation.
Occasionally,some  of these missiles , would land in our courtyard. Once, a pretty sandal , with a gold braid for strap landed inside. It was placed on the top shelf of our clothes cupboard ( out of the reach of brattish cousins , but visible enough for a worshipful peek, once in a while), and kept sitting there, till aunty sent a servant inquiring.
Monkeys were not the only ones to thumb their nose at the forbidding exclusivity bred so carefully within those walls.
Occasionally, a clear voice would emanate from the bathroom, singing the latest lata mangeshkar hit, in so heavenly a voice, that a hush would descend over our household, just to hear the rest of it. The bathroom walls were flush with our own boundary wall, so the voice carried across, spontaneous, joyful. It was manjuladi .

Like the occasional creeper of gourd, or lajwanti that would poke its head on the glass -topped wall, and wind its way down , on our side , in an act of clear rebelllion, the lyrical notes would weave magic in our hearts, and compel my teenaged cousins (some of whom had serious boyhood crush on manjuladi) into forbidden  realm of daydreams."Neighbor's envy , owner's pride!" so went an old ad for a second rate TV.
But Manjuladi was not a thing to be owned.
 She was free spirited, like the billowing parrot-green dupatta she wore on her shoulders.
 She wore many hats.If you got stuck in algebra, trigonometry, or shakespeare, you could ask her. She would gleefully set aside everything that she had been doing, and solve your sums. You could ask her about class tests, cat-fights, broken hearts,acne,face-packs, cracked tea-pot sets, faded kurtis, embroidery snags, impossible projects or incorrigible friends/siblings, she would always give you sane advice and keep your secrets to herself.
She was an angel in disguise. Or as my parents put it, a lotus born in the' mud'. Mud here alluding to her illiterate mother, and her shop owner father, who steadfastly refused to see the glittering gem that was born in their home. To them, she was just a burden, a" wild weed" bagandi ( a local green with white waxy leaves and showy , purple flowers, which grows to impossible heights within matter of weeks) .In fact, her popularity actually dwarfed her parents , into some kind of wormhood.
Several times in a day, we would hear her mother bellowing her lungs out -" Monju,monju, MONJUULLLAA" If the last scream was unanswered, it would be followed by the loud lament -"May God take me away,I can't take this anymore"(Bhogowaan tule nen, aar paarchchi na.")
The arthritic joints of the mother would creak audibly( incredibly loud enough , for us neighbors to hear ) as she made her way to wherever she thought her daughter was, in the large house; sighing and muttering all the way.
As a matter of fact, that would be the cue for manjuladi to apparate ( thanks JK Rowling , for supplying this word, for there is no other way of describing this) silently. Wet-haired (she had glorious waist length raven hair, that turned all the girls green with envy)from the bathroom, bespectacled from her bedroom, or disheveled and flustered from the rooftop(where she would be reading forbidden books(non study books), she would silently stand in the path of her bent-double mother, waiting for the mandatory tongue-lashing.
Not only would she hear out the insults being heaped on her own poor self, she would grab the elbow of her aged parent,and helped her into a chair while being berated.
It was a poignant scene , but one which burned rage into my adolescent heart.
I hated her mother, her father , her home ( which imprisoned her, or so would I believe).

Her home resembled a giant prison.There were tall ten foot walls , all around, topped with broken glass, to dissuade monkeys and possible suitors from trying.
The monkeys, giant , black-faced langurs would , most cheekily, find a way out. The massive courtyard would be routinely invaded by marauding bands, who would help themselves to anything, laid out to sun, pickles, preserves, badis, grains ; and then , nonchalantly park their butts on the glass topped surface while they ate, littered the area, scattered the leftovers, groomed themselves, occasionally snarling at manjuladi's mothers' hysterical screams and loped away only when they tired of the place.In the end, the entire courtyard would resemble a war zone. Littered with stones, shoe brushes, chappals, and other sundry items, thrown at the monkeys , in futile desperation.
Occasionally,some  of these missiles , would land in our courtyard. Once, a pretty sandal , with a gold braid for strap landed inside. It was placed on the top shelf of our clothes cupboard ( out of the reach of brattish cousins , but visible enough for a worshipful peek, once in a while), and kept sitting there, till aunty sent a servant inquiring.
Monkeys were not the only ones to thumb their nose at the forbidding exclusivity bred so carefully within those walls.
Occasionally, a clear voice would emanate from the bathroom, singing the latest lata mangeshkar hit, in so heavenly a voice, that a hush would descend over our household, just to hear the rest of it. The bathroom walls were flush with our own boundary wall, so the voice carried across, spontaneous, joyful. It was manjuladi .

Like the occasional creeper of gourd, or lajwanti that would poke its head on the glass -topped wall, and wind its way down , on our side , in an act of clear rebelllion, the lyrical notes would weave magic in our hearts, and compel my teenaged cousins (some of whom had serious boyhood crush on manjuladi) into forbidden  realm of daydreams.

All aboard

My grandmother’s dentures would begin grinding, her breaths would come in short gasps, as the steam engine chugged, puffed and shrieked its way onto the station platform. Having lived all her life, in the placid village, where even throwing a stone in the holy pond would create news,the bustle and excitement of the train journey would be too much of a stressor for her. I remember tightly holding her hand, even as the crowd swelled, churned and hustled around us.
His shirt billowing, my father would rush ahead of us to secure us berths/seats, despite there being a pass ( railway employee’s dependents’) for all of us. The madness lasted for precisely five minutes, the stoppage time for the train on the remote station.
Once, we were all aboard, we could breathe a sigh of relief, as the train pulled out of the station, blasting its horns into rice fields with lush crop that swayed, and regained their composure, unimpressed and unruffled.

The phone or the mobile

Yesterday , on a trip to the city, I witnessed a strange sight.

 A large car, gleaming in its opulence ( in Punjab, everything and everyone gleams with opulence - trust me ) sat idling by the road -side.The driver, a fair-skinned, goatee-sporting , spike-headed youngster was busy, you have guessed it right, talking on the phone.
 You may say, what is strange in that? No, the strangeness did not end there.
By the roadside, squatted a  turbaned seller of pink and cream colored candyfloss, one hand steadying the pole with the candy-packets tied to it like so many garish balloons,the other ,you are right, holding the mobile to the ear for a hushed discussion, face furrowed with concentration, right next to raucous traffic.
A little ahead lay the sprawling bungalows of the richie-rich.At the wrought iron gates of one abode, stood a lady, smiling at other , who was astride a scooter ( idling) with a child on pillion, impatiently pulling apart the upholstery on the scooter seat. Cute guy. My guess is the same as all sane human beings. One was visiting the other, only talking to each other; on their respective phones. I swear, on every single thread of ripped upholstery, they were  talking to each other.
It was as if I had entered a gray-zone of the future world , in a sci-fi movie. In fact, I half -expected Keanu Reeves to come tearing out of the bill-board in his metallic outfit, with a gas mask on, spraying bullets .

I hastily hurried on, and repeated an oft said prayer, nay, lots of oft-repeated prayers, to various gods, spanning three religions, and four decades of fearful existence.(hanuman chalisa, mool-mantra, and our father-to be precise)Followed by a general plea for forgiveness (Lest I offend someone's ego).

As if in answer, I spied a fruit-seller, his cart laden with  unsold papayas, picking his nose, with gay abandon.

I sighed with relief, and thanked the Lord(s) , for having saved us from possible alien invasion by mobile wielding automatons. Jai Shri Ram!Sat Sri Akal!Hallelujah!!

Thirst

Harivansh Rai Bachchan , the great poet , in his iconic Madhushala, write
"Itni pi jeene se achcha
sagar ki le pyaas maroon
Sindhu trisha di kisne rachkar,.
bindu barabar madhushala."

These words have bothered me for ages. They still do.
May I die with the unquenched thirst of an ocean, rather than drink this meagre drop.
Who gave me the thirst of a river ( Indus-sindhu), and  a drop of benediction, to quench my thirst .

It must be the creator alright, with his black sense of humor. He must be laughing his head off at the plight of us creepy-crawlies, scraping the dust for years(khaak chchanna) to get to a drop of nectar.

Very apt. A succinct commentary on our existence. Driving home the futility of it all, with ruthless force.

Suresh

"Suresh kuthe ahe?"
"Suresh kuthle gele hote?"
Where is Suresh?Where has the bugger gone off to now? Our warden would enter her office with these words.They constituted a morning ritual, and no one strove to answer her.If someone happened to be in the pantry at that moment, the person, just looked up ,mildly alarmed, from whatever one was doing, and continue forthwith.
She was unpopular enough to expect no greetings either.   She would proceed to keep her large , full-face helmet on the table, shake her golden mane free, and fish her spectacles from her ample purse. Pulling up her chair, she would put on her glasses and peruse all the various books kept in front of her.
The milk-account book, the bread account book, the egg account book.All with the day's entries duly made by the home-sister."Hmm, hmm,hmm.One hum for each book. Read and slammed shut.
Now her blue eyes would scan the pantry again.
"Suresh kuthe aahe?"
She would ask no one in particular. And no one answered.


Suresh, meanwhile, would have rested his sorry backside on a stainless steel covered three legged metal stool( lend from some bankrupt OPD) folded his cracked heels underneath him,and wrapping his fingers around a large steel tumbler full of hot, syrupy, tea would be regaling a motley crowd of fellow mess-workers with the details of his latest exploits. With the adroitness of a master story teller, he would weave a story, punctuated with violent movements of arms(to the perils of other tea tumbler holding hands),and full throated guffaws.

Tea-session in full swing in a secluded corner of the kitchen, would be interrupted by a bellow from the pantry,"SURESH"

People would scatter, justifiably alarmed.

 In her shining golden mane and piercing blue eyes , Warden could look pretty scary.

Muttering curses and expletives under his alcohol-and-tea laced breath, Suresh would materialise at the creaking wire-mesh door, mouthing an innocent(faintly piquant)-"Kai?" what?

"I will tell you what, you good for nothing loafer, there are milk packets to be counted, milk to be boiled, girls are coming down to breakfast, if you do not come down this moment, you are fired."

"Never let a man finish his tea". Suresh would mutter as he sauntered off, wiping his hands on his grimy apron. They all were issued ash coloured uniforms by the mess,but months of wearing them in and around the kitchen, and never once washing them, would convert them into a shade of brown, stinky, and a fly-magnet to boot.

Even now a whiff of stale toddy and a cloud of flies entered the pantry with Suresh as he approached  the pantry .

Directly in front of the warden office, stood a light blue fridge, with rusted walls and a handle too grimy to be described. It had a glass front(probably gifted by pepsi/coke companies in a fit of misplaced benevolence),and was packed with umpteen packets of milk. All one litre, all embossed with the words," military farms" in green, all frozen. The sheer numbers threatening to open the fridge, it was locked with a padlock joining two loops of a thick metallic chain .

It was warden's Fort Knox.

The key was handed to Suresh, after much glaring and Suresh proceeded to drag an enormous 'patila'(vessel) to the much dented aluminium table, with as much ruckus as possible. The padlocked chains opened with a loud clang,and few frozen packets rolled off to the floor.Suresh emptied the fridge(Till warden, hawkishly counting, would scream-"Bus'(enough)),expertly slicing the polythene and letting the frozen milk mass fall with a thud.

The noise would be jarring and very disturbing to somnolent breakfasters.But was music to Suresh's ears.

Upon being reprimanded "Suresh tumi kai kartos!! Asa karu naka!!" ,(Reduce the din ) the noise would double. Slash, thud, jangle. Slash,thud, jangle.It would continue, ad-infinitum.

Just when the milk and tea drinkers would have given up all hope of getting a hot beverage on this day,Suresh would plonk a tray laden with steaming hot cups of milk on the dining table. Next , an oversized steel drum full of tea would be hoisted onto the table top followed by a huge basket of washed, wet, gleaming  stainless steel cups.

Girls chorused-"Thank you Suresh",and he would blush and wave us off, like some newly elected politician.

Miraculously, all this happened within the impossible span of ten to fifteen minutes.

Suresh was a life-saver, rascal and drunkard, all rolled into one.And indispensable  too, as he proved , every day , at almost every meal.

One fine day, Suresh disappeared.All hell broke loose. A cook had to be cajoled into counting and the old Atmaram , who usually was seen trying to do some grass cutting on the outer periphery of the mess- lawn at this hour, was coaxed in , to , do the boiling and serving.

Result, great deal of sploshing of milk, less sugar in tea, and delayed serving.

Even in his perpetually inebriated state, he was sharper and more efficient than his sober counterparts. He had been found sleeping his booze off in some grassy patch, and was sacked.

But this was nothing new for Suresh. He knew they would come looking for him when things heated up , real bad, and he would be reinstated; with full honours.To his throne of the bearer of the girls' mess. Till then, he would bide his time, and keep off toddy-if that was possible.

Death/destruction/deviant nature

Unspoken questions
resentment bubbled
inside
and turned
the insides into
a
frothy
smulch.

The
finitude
of knowledge
thoughts
scares me,
as I am surrounded
littered
with
the detritus
of human
thinking

An unuttered
word
a thought
not recorded.
how wasteful
the nature
could be
as to be
scattering
such
invaluable
gems

Others fill
their
worlds
with mansions
clothes
gems
I filled
mine
with words
and more words
information
crammed
to the rafters
only
now when it is all
to go waste
that
I realize
how greedy
have I been!!

There is
no time
neither
opportunity
nor
possibility
of
regurgitating
all that
one has learnt
in a lifetime

what a shame
what  a waste!!
I wish
I could lick
my plate
clean
and depart
with
a clean
fresh
slate/soul/mind.

Scriptures
tomes
recipes
quotations
algebra
trigonometry
shakespeare
going
up
in flames
in a
whiff
of wispy/curly/relentless/inevitable
smoke

Every
death
is
such
an
awful
squandering.

It is almost
akin to
burning
down of
whole
libraries.
a crime
of epic
proportions/
unthinkable

The Transition

At some point in my teenage years, my father decided to take me under his wings , and got me admitted into a school in the city.

It was a wake -up call. From the cloistered and protected environs of a convent school in the backwaters of bihar, where swear words and dirty 'thoughts' were as alien as the unicorn amongst a herd of water -buffaloes, I was thrown into the rough and tumble of the 'real' world. Whether that was a good thing to happen or not , is not for us to decide. But , it was definitely, not a pleasant thing.

 I also saw a new breed of people from the close quarters, the anglo-indians.They were mostly hot-headed bullies, over-age(for they failed at least once in most of the grades), and illiterate. They were mostly good at two things, viz, bullying and sports. They made most of the house captains, and were boarders. Over the span of two years that I spent there, my emotions swung from awe, fear, disgust to frank pity. Of the many dregs that the british raj has left behind, this is the most poignant one . These girls , mostly fair and robust, could speak the vernacular (hindi and bengali) very well. But insisted on talking in their own lingo- which was a pidgin version of the queen's language that had been bequeathed to them.

They had parents who wore last century's clothing. Flowery frocks and dull- coloured suits with bow-ties. You could tell them from a mile. When the parents arrived, it was almost as if , a fancy -dress ball was under way.A great show of affection ensued, but you could tell there was no genuine filial affection; at least not measuring up to  Indian(bengali) standards. For starters, most of them lived in the boarding (free for the anglos), despite having homes close by. Some were dark, almost Indian complexioned, others were pale pink, turning to red when they had to "fix" a junior.

All the english expletives that I know, can be traced to these enthusiasts.

I saw waxed legs, done-up eyebrows, tank-tops and condoms from close quarters. Things I had only heard/read about, hitherto. I also learnt that fear of "God " and "God " himself , was a fictitious concept, drilled into your impressionable minds by god-fearing nuns.I saw teachers being abused , behind their backs( and in some commie/ anglo cases- right in front), and people getting away-scot free.I also learnt sexual innuendoes and overtones to normal conversations.

I also learnt not to trust girl-classmates'(kaal ke kichchu podi ni'-"I didn't study at all yesterday,' the class topper will lie to you on the morning of exam finals, batting her eyelids innocently). I distinctly remember a classmate, who got top marks in all papers; used to guard her papers/notebooks so jealously, that no one was allowed even a peek inside .She made it through to MBBS Entrance- a coveted position then and now, and was known never to smile( had uneven teeth). I can imagine her examine patients, in the  unsmiling  gloom of cold efficiency. She had only one friend in whole of the class, and she was the class' moron'/outcaste.; someone who would /could never compete with her.

Then there were mothers. Overprotective,ubiquitous, omnipresent.Bengali mothers are the worst breed of mothers on the planet earth.(My mother too, is a bengali mother. But she never smothered me, and I thank her for that. I may have not become a doctor; but , at least, I am not a human bonsai) They have no idea of personal space.I know of one particular mother who used to drop her fat bespectacled  daughter(an only child) in the morning, and patiently wait outside the school gates (doing what? chatting up with the gatekeeper probably),be there with hot tiffin at lunch-break, feed her morsels while the scholar daughter consulted her books or gossiped with her cronies; and again at the off-time to pick up her darling daughter and escort her home safely. She practically lived and breathed her daughter's life. Heard later that the pampered girl made it to the hallowed shrine of IIT in first attempt.(probably the mother accompanied her to coaching classes too, after school; patiently sitting under a tree , doing her knitting, as her daughter grappled with calculus). But what happened to her mother? Did she shift residence to the banyan-tree-outside-girls'-hostel- of -IIT Kanpur? In any case, she would have to abandon her child's side , sooner or later. I mean, how can a parent camp outside her married daughter's bedroom door? May be this lady can. With a coffee percolator in hand, she may appear as a genie in the middle of the night, with a steaming cup'o''joe in hand.

 It was overwhelming, scary, and disquieting.

 It also put me off studies in the two crucial years of my life. (class 11 and 12 ). I had entered the hallowed portals of the competitive times and chose to remain shut-eyed /deaf to the incessant chants of IIT/JEE carrying on all-around me.To top it all, I had been given science in class 12, with both maths and biology(another recipe for disaster).

It was an ostrich like response to too much stimuli in too little a time.

Manika (mania)

"Maniaa"
"Maniaaa"
"Maniaaaaaaaa
Piercing the early morning fog,a cry rising  in pitch and amplitude , emanated from the window. reaching a crescendo, and threatening to drown the drone of the water-pump.
A door on the outer periphery of the courtyard opened with a bang, the small chain latch continuing to dangle and clang noisily long after, and a short , squat figure shot out across, bare chested, hastily tying a knot on his lungi, almost tripping on the doormat, as he entered .
This happened everyday.
We would gleefully snort at his discomfiture, like little devils  that we were.He was a laughing stock for various reasons. One of them was his overwhelming vanity, at his good looks; second his pathetic education and english , in that order.

It is not mania as in madness(english), it is just an irreverent tag of the syllable "aa" to what was , actually a beautiful name-mani(jewel).It belonged to a much mocked relative. An uncle of sorts.Actually, he was the second son of my grandmother's youngest brother,"Laal-Dadu'.

 Being a poor and ill-educated relative, Mani ka was taken under my grandmother's wings to secure  some form of "living". As he was younger, he was called' mania ' by my grandmother. Seizing the opportunity, we quickly set matters straight by calling him 'mania', behind his back , and out of my grandmother's earshot.

He called himself "Gulaab-khaas" ; a moniker invented by himself , for himself. A silly name, meaning "a special rose".To us , he seemed neither , but a fool and a caricature. He was finally employed  at a prehistoric family welfare clinic, as a compounder. A compounder was a nomenclature meant for  a doctor's assistant( person who' compounded medicine -or pounded various mixtures-during the pre historic times), the name and position continuing till date, in accordance to all things old that perpetuate in our country, due to sheer inertia.

Amazingly, he managed to make a decent enough living out of the archaically named job. He belonged in a formalin jar. Or in a museum, lined up with dusty boulders of coal or granite, with fragments of fossilized fern sticking out of his ears .He was something straight out of a pre-british census book.

He could barely write his name, but took great care to groom himself, was against education of all types,(that is, didn't  have much regard for the educated types) Considered women as inferior beings, and himself married a nubile 17 year old daughter of an impoverished farmer, who was dazzled by the mere sound of his 'sarkari naukri'.

He was known to gift people flowers(phool) when having been made an' April Fool'.When being sent to fetch us from school, some pet phrases like ,'good morning', how are you?''where is ....'would be taught to him hastily , by my grampa,to avoid tight situations. He would still manage to make a perfect fool of himself (I am sure he spoke all the wrong sentences, in the wrong order),and stand grinning like a baboon , while we were summoned. Sister superior would be red in the face , with suppressed laughter, and we looked away, beetroot red with embarrassment.
At that point, I wished I could say that I didn't  know this man. Man, did  we blow it up when we reached home!!

Now, in retrospect, we realize, he was just trying to help, and obeying orders. Nothing more.

The Precipice

(On learning of the passing away of yet another acquaintance, an uncle of sorts)

Each passing day
you are coming closer
to the
cliff face
first
the pebbles
scatter
then come
stones/rocks
When the
boulders
start
rolling, know this
you
have
reached
the edge.

My shoes

My first power joggers. Woodland. Dark brown, suede, with really long laces. My beloved shoes. My second skin.

 For ten years, we raised two children together, running to bus-stops,walking to stationery stores for endless school supplies, climbing umpteen stairs hewn onto hillsides of Andamans to reach a really disappointing mud-volcano crater(“It is just “mud” mama”).

Then, on daily evening walks with the man I love, my better half, quickening to a semi-jog when kids’ exam revisions are due, granny is waiting for her hot meal, or a call from the hospital emergency room crackles on the mobile for my doctor husband.

Endless taking off and wearing them ,outside monasteries in Leh, cave temples in Ajanta -Ellora, Pir-baba-mazars to beg the Gods for good health. Wearing them through rain and slush, mud and macadam, on pavements and dirt-tracks.

I love you , my shoes.But it is time for me to give you away. The laces are caked hard from constant muddiness, the soles worn thin, the body wrenched apart from the seams.We have had good innings. Goodbye.

Philanderer

So lost was I , in a stupor of glee;

like an overdose of things sugary

Sweetened world in a pink haze

of happiness and glossy glaze

That woke up one fine day 

With my IQ in the way

asking me to look into eyes

I saw only the smile freeze

on the lips from the last joke

but the man had thrown his yoke

And had sped across , away

cleared all hurdles in his way

He wasn't there at all,mon ami

though he sat right next to me

I had lost him ,like many others

have before me, wives and mothers

pretending that their hearts and soul

so pure and alien to thoughts afoul

Shall keep love and the one loved

forever enshrined and enthroned 

Not knowing ever, with the ebb and flow

time does eventually mellow, and how

time flies, hearts change, bells w(ring)

destined to stand at doorstep and cringe

As the cuckoo flies the nest,eastward

and the cuckold leaves too, wayward

Growing old

All that you cribbed about, appears nice and rosy.
Every crappy note scribbled , seems pretty prosy
Every struggling rhyme ,sublime poetry
Every common person is a veritable gentry

Your textbooks, school, your songs of old
you are still , completely out and out,  sold
What are you? Some peddler of fool's gold?
Methinks you ought to stop , you should

Every age has its day
You have had your way
Now let the lads today
Have their own say.

Look around your ankles

(Written when needled by my daughter's accusation that 'mama, you don't even have an opinion of your own!!)

As you stepped
So did I
I was not
ever
in doubt
about
following you
not only
blindly
but
dumbly.
Neither did I
see
where I
went
nor did I say
anything
I had silenced
my
senses
and taught
myself
to dream
your
dreams
think
your
thoughts
loyal
in all
ways
possible
you couldn't
even
see me
as you
stood
straight
and tall
for
I
resided
somewhere
around
your ankles
sitting
like a
patient
dog
waiting
for
scraps
of
attention

The bus ride from Gurudwara

"Just because there is a free bus ride doesn't mean we have to avail it."
My daughter won't let go , of the thread of argument which began outside the "langar-hall" , the communal dining hall.
All packed and dressed for  travel, we still had to cover our heads with cloth, as technically, we were still in the gurdwara precincts.
No one replied her as we busied ourselves, hauling up the strollers and duffel bags onto luggage racks.
A large man in dirty white kurta-pyjama poked his large black bearded head in, with a worried look on his face, and almost shouted-"Is this the bus to the station?"
Not trusting my fluency in punjabi, I just nodded my head in assurance.
He gave me a look of disapproval as he took in the jeans-t-shirt-on - a -middle-aged-woman-in -the gurdwara look and disappeared.
Soon we heard him announcing loudly, "this bus is to leave for the station."
Minutes later, an entire group of salwar-kameez clad women crowded at the entrance.
A lady in pale green took charge. Scores of bulging suitcases, bags, and duffel bags were loaded onto the bus. None made their way to their rightful place on the luggage racks. All were stacked up on the seats, piled up on the passage way, higgledy-piggledy.
I could sense a storm of protest brewing up in my husband's throat.
Impulsively, he grabbed the nearest duffel bag; stuffed to the point of bursting; and shoved it unceremoniously up , onto the empty luggage rack overhead.
'Na,na paaji.'
Came a mild protest from the green salwar-kameez.
Then the ladies boarded.
Reeking of ghee and sugar, wearing unwashed clothes, the group of arthritic pilgrims,all in their mid-forties, stood awkwardly, some sitting on seats with legs splayed atop bulging bags.Some sat on the sea of bags itself , on the aisle, too tired to lope their way to the seats.
The bus driver, another bearded and saffron turbaned Sikh,  hauled himself in,took a look behind him, and started the engine.
"Ruko, ruko,!!!""Preeto nahin aayye halle"
A cry of alarm arose from multitude of female throats, almost simultaneously. Wait!!Wait for Preeto!!
Disgust, disapproval and impatience writ large on his face, the driver turned back, still revving the engine,threatening to take off any moment, Preeto or not!
"Kithe gayi Preeto?"(Where is she ?)
Someone gave words to a pertinent query.
"She was buying sweetmeats!"(Gurpare kharid rahi sigi)
Someone ventured to reply.
A vision in yellow and orange fluttered at the footboard.A pretty, nubile girl made her way in, a small brown paper package clutched to her chest, silencing all and sundry.Preeto had arrived.
She was immediately followed by a couple of young men with backpacks ;who steadfastly refused to take their eyes off her throughout the journey.
Preeto was gently chided by a few elderly ladies.
The driver adjusted his rearview mirror, focussing on Preeto's face , and roared off, full throttle;scattering stragglers, beggars, and rickshaws .
As we exited the massive gates of the Gurudwara, the driver bellowed in joy-"Jo Bole So Nihal!!"
The motley group in the bus was joined by pedestrians in answering-
"Sat Sri Akal"
(Blessed is he ; who takes the name of Lord)
My eldest daughter hid her face in her hands; embarrassed beyond words ,by this sudden show of religious fervour.

I come from

I come from seeing the blue sky darken with the portend of fulsome monsoon.
I come from smelling lush ears of long grain basmati ripening in the golden green fields.
I come from hearing a fresh cob of corn being roasted over an open fire, crackling, sizzling popping and hissing.
I come from tasting spicy pakoras with sweet tea on a wet rainy day.
I come from feeling the calloused palms of my grandmother as she soothed my fevered brow with balms and whispered prayers.
I come from a land that gave the concept of compassion, brotherhood, tolerance and nonviolence to the world

The secretary

She breezed into the room on a waft of an expensive perfume. All eyes turned towards her.
Clad in a knee length skirt and a chintzy, flimsy , sheer top with various georgette flaps that waved this way and that with her each movement; like the gossamer fins of a showy coral fish; she grabbed all eyeballs. Then her rose coloured lips,dripping with gloss, parted into a perfect, toothy smile. The entire hall sighed audibly.
Hugging a clipboard to her ample bosom, she clicked-clacked on her stilettos to our bench and announced-“Mr. Shaw?”
“Yes?”
The man sitting next to me answered. All looked in his direction.
“Humph!! Overdressed secretary!!” my sister audibly hissed in my ears.
I was not sure that she wasn’t overheard, for I saw the lady’s back stiffen.

The last time

It was a typical busy street , on a weekday morning.
The narrow strip of asphalt was choked with honking autos, carts laden with gunny bags, pedestrians, commuters rushing to catch buses, school children, scrubbed and dressed, ready to
board their school buses, hawkers calling out their wares.
Streetside chai-shops doing brisk business, as plumes of sickly sweet vapour arose from boiling pots atop kerosene stoves.
Then I saw him.
Stout, slightly unkempt , in his crushed white shirt, large baggy trousers,almost balding, a dark stubble on his chin,unpolished shoes, walking rapidly away from it all.
His eyes fixed ahead, almost robotic in his step.
He had said he was going for a walk.
He never came back home.
Deep down in my heart, even at that moment, I knew.
I was seeing him for the last time.

Double -trouble;Boil and bubble

"Where is your case-book?"
"It is on Ma'am X's table".The reply was muttered ever so timidly.Almost inaudible.
"Sorry!!."She cupped her right ear with her manicured hand, almost yelling. "God! I really wish I could slap her now." The girl thought and smiled  at her own private joke.
Wrong move.
"What are you smirking at?" Red painted lips glistened and quivered with an oncoming storm of rage.
"You!! girl!!female!!(she spat the words here), have the temerity not to submit your case-book in time , and smile at my face!!"
Alarmed the girl took two steps back, eyes wide with fear.
She was positively roaring now, breathless with rage, leaning across the desk,pointing one long quivering,red painted fingernail towards her face.


Every fourth year student had to face this quagmire.There were two teachers for the same subject,and both were equally demanding, hard task-masters. This produced lot of awkward situations like the one mentioned above,but had a pleasant fall-out. Our batch produced the greatest  number of distinctions in that particular subject, put as we were through twin grinds of endless tests and vivas, presentations and questionnaires, over and over again,by the two of them.

Matters were complicated by the fact that both couldn't see eye to eye. Both thought that she was superior to the other in her knowledge of the subject, both considered the other a first-class pretender and nincompoop.


No one asked our opinion. Privately, we all agreed; both were insufferable, blood- drinking vampires.

There were but several differences between them. One was a social butterfly, the other happily married (given her treatment of the girls, there were serious doubts as to the happy part).


The differences were glaring during parties. One loved to bat her mascara-ed eyelashes and pout luscious lips painted dangerously red: another, without much make-up or ado , stuck to her spouses' side, way taller than him, in her stilettos ,warily sipping her drink, keeping a lookout for batters -of -lashes and pouters-of-lips.

One was trying very hard to have a baby, the other trying very hard to get hitched.Their famous single mindedness coming to their aid, one ended up adopting a beautiful baby girl (after years of agonising fertility treatments), the other almost got hitched to a businessman(widower with two cute boys),who literally followed her around like a pup(who wouldn't);unceremoniously dumping him when the father raised the religion issue(devout christians versus brahmins).

Later,we would come to know that this wasn't the first troubled affair in her life.She was at the pinnacle of her career,she chose what she knew best. and that was how to 'sort out"erring students.

With alacrity,and no trace of heartache or remorse: she went back to her work and her rise there was phenomenal.

The other teacher went onto greener pastures abroad,where her husband continued to accompany her to stuffy parties, He became rotund,jovial and sported a beer belly. the wife turned thinner, sterner and continued to sip her wine with a hawkish air.

The daughter meanwhile blossomed into a pretty young thing herself. But that is another story altogether.

Doppel- ganger

Today I met
myself.
I screamed
and shouted
pulled my hair
exasperated
at all my
flaws
haunting me since
childhood
I kept
stoically
listening
to me
rant
and rave.
After a while
I looked at
myself
and smiled
me being me
I patted myself
on the back
and forgave
myself
absolving
myself
of all
wrongdoings
I had accused
myself
of
and
parted
friends
with
me

Roll-call

The eggs were always hard boiled. Their shells cracked, still steaming from all that morning boiling.
 "Hool murning, boilin' and boilin'"our home sister would inform us in her cracked Tamil accent,greeting us with a dizzyingly white smile. A strong waft of sandal weaving into our crowd from her direction.She would have bathed and changed so early in the morning, unlike the lot of us , still sweaty from the PT.She would have this small mark of ash and sandalwood paste on her fore head, revealing not only her vegetarian/brahmin status, but also her fastidious religiosity.Not to be messed with. Her buck-tooth projecting beyond her lips, even when her mouth was closed, she hustled around , reeking of efficiency and talcum("Pond's dreamflower,from the csd," we would bitch behind her back)
My tiny roommate would make an elaborate  ceremony of eating those goddamn eggs. She would shell them , with great care, then proceeded to mash them up with the back of the fork; then , she would butter her toasts at leisure. It was a test of patience sitting next to her, waiting for her to eat up . Rest of us would have wolfed down our toasts, eggs , tea in a mad frenzy.There being a valid reason to the rapid repast; for the moment tiny took a bite of her perfectly buttered toast, and was about to eat the  first spoon of egg ,the bell would ring, for roll-call.
All of us then lined up, chewing our last remaining portions,hissing through tongues scalded with super-hot tea, and wiping wet hands/lips on hastily concealed hankies.
Most of our teachers would read out our names, pass a few nondescript remarks(on weather/on regular offenders/late -comers)we would giggle in acknowledgement,and the roll-call would end,on a bland note.
But some teachers, like their personalities, would make this small time -slot (roughly 15 odd minutes) memorable. This piece is a tribute to those crazy, godawful, and downright insane" imparters of knowledge."
A lady( from Haryana , I think) would ask to see if we had polished the back of our shoes. She would compare that part of our attire to" Pakistan".
Another nightmare, would bark out our names with bright -red coloured lipsticked lips, which would pout distastefully, and would send our hearts racing if they grimaced , in all their red glory.Every speck in our pristine white dresses would make themselves visible on "her" day.  If she decided to check pocket articles, all hell would break loose. A mad scramble behind the backs for missing "articles" would ensue. Providing great deal of amusement to seniors lined up behind (we stood according to seniority).
"You are nightingales, you are expected to carry the "universe "in your pocket!! Get it !! " She would bark, in impeccable english, and we would gulp.Universe indeed( pocket articles included pens in three colours , ruler, eraser, pencil,a small note pad, a measuring tape, a pair of folding scissors, and a wrist watch), made our pockets, bulge and sag dolefully.
Your's truly had been  sent to change her uniform on umpteen occasions , as my uniform would invariably, be grimy.
Another notable was an extremely educated teacher, with Phds under her belt,  dressed indifferently, would pretend to be nasty; fail miserably; and gave us one of her famous, endearing, buck-toothed grin.
Greeting the birthday girl had its own hilarious moments. Once, I was entrusted with the job of carrying the card for the birthday girl at the roll-call.In an attempt to keep hands-free (for breakfast) and to conceal it(being a surprise) I pushed it up my shirtfront.Once the name was called out, the card simply wouldn't come out, entangled as it was, in an unholy mesh of loose wool from my jersey. Thus creating a morning of unparalleled hilarity.
The teacher summed it up as - "Very warm wishes".
Another teacher had a funny made up accent, and rode her two-wheeler with her long legs splayed to the sides; earning her the unenviable nick name of a witch(riding her broom). She was normally bad-tempered, and thinking of her as a witch would bring -on giggles, an unforgivable offence.Her duty days would remarkably, coincide with the worst food on the menu.
Brinjal and pumpkin curry,dalia kichri, gray colored mutton broth with large,uncooked, onion pieces floating in them ;all deeply loathed, inedible stuff would be doled out. The square entrance to pantry framing her, she would fix us with her basilisk glare as we stuffed our mouths with all these items that tasted almost like mud.
Yup, she would win the most-feared contest, hands-down.

The task-master

ITM for, intimidating task master. She was always at war. With this imperfect world, and her perfect concept of it . As a result, she would channelise all her brilliance into finding fault with things that would seem ordinarily, perfect and flawless.
She would be sitting in this holiday cottage , owned by a former royalty and governor to boot, with all these antique bric- a-brac adorning the walls; mounted , stuffed tiger /deer heads staring down at us from various corners, and she would discover cobwebs in the corner. The vegetarian dish would have beans too raw for her, bathwater too lukewarm.
Such was her obsession with perfection that she would harangue her son on his paunch, grandson on his stoop, granddaughter on her crooked teeth, all in public ( with the sensitivity of a sledgehammer) loud enough for the neighbours to hear.She would swaddle her grandchild in a blanket with arms by her side,whereas she always slept with her arms over her head.Several times in a day , this charade would repeat itself, as she swaddled the sleeping infant, who by some miraculous force of nature, wriggled her arms free within minutes of being swaddled, while fast asleep.
Her advancing age did not diminish her caustic attack on the alleged imperfections. The hands shook, the fingernail long and cracked but the finger would point alright; at pots not scrubbed adequately, at marble floors that gathered grime on the edges, at the epicurean elder son buttering his toast, at curtains that needed washing , at frayed edges of her daughter-in-law's faded kurtas, her world was just too imperfect for her.
In an attempt to make the earth bend to her squeaky clean laws, nature ended bending her up instead. The constant and failing wars against cockroaches, grime , fungus, dog-hair, fraying/wearing out of things/bodies/senses took its toll.
It bend her instead. Double, literally.
Old and infirm, now she is a laughing stock of the family for her finickiness .
She is also on a heavy dosage of antidepressants.
But as rahim/kabir  said -nindak niyare rakhiye , aangan kuti chavaih/ bin sabun , paani bina; nirmal kare suhaih (keep your critics under your roof; and you will shine through)

Ageing

The beloved print
seems
out of focus.
unforgivable
words
that even bitten tongues
cant
swallow
back
wrinkles
and
caries
stiffness
of
joints
once
straight
now
bent
repent
now
or
rot in hell
so said
the
scriptures.

Nature
they say
is
a
formidable
sculptor
and
shall
mould you
in its likeness
of
age
whether
it be
to to
your
liking
or not.
Never
mind
the
heartburns
the
twisted
knuckles
the
engravings
of
corns/wrinkles/cellulite
on
thy pristine
temple
time
spareth
no one
know
this
moron
you
are no
exception.

Doggone tales

Some childhood memory has made me forever wary of wolves, dogs, foxes and their ilk. Here, I extend my sincere apologies to all dog lovers, nay animal lovers, Maneka  Gandhi,Jane Goodall,Greenpeace, PETA and all such individuals and groups of people who deem it fit to equate humans to our animal/canine brethren.The wild varieties one encounters only inside the safety of the wire mesh enclosures, whereas , the domesticated variety is encountered almost anywhere. From posh drawing rooms, to seedy garages.
The block I live in comprises of  four flats. We occupy the ground floor.My family comprises of only humans, no dogs.The two neighbours on the first floor have pet dogs , of the exotic breeds too. There is a huge , shaggy, St.Bernard called Sugar,and a frisky labrador called Alex . The block in front houses a black labrador who goes by the name of Scooby( a misnomer, for if I remember correctly, Scooby was a Great Dane). Then there is a flea-ridden, hairless, stray bitch who has been adopted by my next door neighbour(in a spirit of canine camaraderie), who consumes all the uneaten and inedible portions of tandoori chicken with gusto.Needless to mention, the bitch, thereby , does an immense favour to the punjabi couple and the quantum of garbage ,produced by them.
When we moved in, the garage had been lying empty and unused for quite some time. A friendly neighbour decided to help himself to the empty space and parked his huge ,glistening white sedan there.(His own garage being full of packing boxes, the bane of all army men ).
But the appearance of the roaring metal beast did nothing to deter a determined group of stray dogs from setting up camp there. When we moved in , we requested the neighbour to kindly withdraw your sedan(if you please),and he complied. But the dogs, (being dogs), put up a' dogged' resistance.All 'doggerels" of appeasement fell on deaf flea-bitten ears. There must have been ten odd of parents, siblings, pups put together.They set up a regular howl of protest, barking at our mere presence.Any trip to and fro, the kids school, shopping complex, or the workplace, was fraught with embarrassing cacophonous howls and angry barks, not to mention the potential danger of bites.Canine crowds would growl, blood-curdingly, from beneath parked cars, and chase shoppers overloaded with groceries. Many a time , yours truly has had to make a panting breathless,sorry arrival into the foyer, deprived of footwear and groceries scattered all over the driveway.
Dogs  being' dogmatic' in their disapproval of the scheme of things,we took to keeping the garage shutters lowered,at all times, (after having checked the automobile underside for glistening pairs of yellow eyes and warning growls).
Gradually, the dogs dispersed,and peace reigned once more.
Then the pets moved in.
Dog poop reappeared on immaculately trimmed lawns.Because you cannot' tell a dog from its poop', after weeks of patiently cleaning the lawn, we erected a makeshift fence made of green netting .When we arrived, we had found these fences everywhere, and were puzzled. Now , we had the answers .
Some weeks earlier, the stray bitch gave birth to a pair of black and white pups, which surprised everyone in the neighbourhood. Being emaciated, she didn't seem pregnant at all.The upstairs neighbours'(Sugar's keepers) garage was vacated in a moving show of magnanimity and canine solidarity. Anti-flea powders and left over chapatis were showered upon her. The only protest came from a possessive Sugar who was likely to greet her competitor with a half-friendly swipe of hairy paw, whenever the two met.
Now, any postman, milkman or newspaperwallah had to contend with three sets of stranger-danger barks. No wonder, our leaking taps and flickering bulbs remained unattended, despite repeated complaints.Dogs were in , so humans were out. Classic Arab and the camel scenario.
One morning, Alex and Sugar, normally quiet, went berserk.Their loud lion-like barks were interspersed with plaintive squeals of the stray. An intruder dog, as emaciated and hairless as the stray herself, if not more, had crept into the garage and mauled both the pups.
Now we could correctly say that our neighbourhood had" gone to the dogs".What we had just witnessed was a "dog-fight" to the finish, no less. 

The day that I died (on the passing away of a loved one)

That day dawned so blindingly bright
That was also the day of gloom
It was the summer solstice , right?
The spectre did correctly loom

Of heartbreak and wrenching loss,
No words can describe the feel
of being abandoned, alas
In a world brimming to the  fill

With gaiety and mirth and song
Of schoolkids waiting for buses and kisses
Of radios blaring, and life going on
As if nothing's  really amiss

Of heart's sudden desolation
and a world torn asunder
In a blinking, an unfelt motion
I cremated my dreams, desire

With full vedic rites
The smoke spiralled
out of the temple spires
and in my soul snowballed

a deep dark belief
that here lay the remains
of my  insignificant life
I too had borrowed a leaf

out of my grandmother's
book, and laid myself
to rest ,in the depths of ganges
where we submerged her ashes.

Parade-charade

(The early morning sun had dimmed, as the parade was being held on the verandah.The Colonel's jeep was still running,and this is what I saw and felt, as I passed through.)

A picture
of composure
the back
being ramrod
straight
the creases
in the
olive green trousers
having
been
tended
to
very carefully.

Shoes
glistening
in the sun rays
of early morning.

A sharp waft
of
cologne did
nothing
to mask
the overpowering
stench
of disdain

Disappointment
writ
large
on faces
shaven
shorn of
gaiety

Sharpened
spears of
masterly words
burying deep
into dark
depths
of
scarred hearts.

Like a
vampire
feeding
on the
life blood
of discomfiture
helpless boys
squirming
in pain
plain
for
all to see
even as
sharp talons
twisted in deep
tongues
words
lashing
whiplike


leaving
welts
of remorse
disgust
tattoed
into
souls

Is one
that worthless?

(kabir once said-
maati kahe
kumhar se
tu kya
roonde moy
eek din aisa
aayega
main
roondoongi
toy)

The hapless
mound of clay
in the potters'
hand
says
why do
you
knead me
so?
there will
come
a day
when
I shall
dismember
you

Munnidi and her mother

"It is my turn."
A pair of  gold bangled, manicured hands, with every perfectly shaped fingernail the colour of rubies, materialised at the drum-tap.
"What?"
We all scruffy, scrawny, country-rats looked up from our daily squabble at the drum-tap, all  jostling, pushing and screaming frozen mid-scream, and mid-shove to view a picture of total, incredible contrast- a vision in orange and yellow chiffon saree,fumes of perfumes emanating from her peaches-and-cream skin, voluptuous lips painted bright red,perfect eyebrows framing pretty kohl-lined eyes, bent down, to wash her hands , in slow motion, as it were.

 The shoving , pushing resumed the moment she left, but a lingering aroma of her mysterious perfume stayed on in the air.There was some swooning(fake), and raised eyebrows accompanied with hysterical giggles .

Suddenly, the mother appeared, looking very upset. We were informed that Munnidi was sobbing in the bedroom, and that we were to be blamed for the gross"miscarriage of justice".Someone(it was difficult to say who)touched her 'flower-petal hands'(exact words used by the fawning mother)with curd-besmirched hands. That too 'sour-curd'(here, our venerable aunt assumed a high- pitch voice)

My grandmother turned to us in mock gravity(her eyes dancing with mirth)'Is it true?"

We all shook our heads in collective negation of the crime.

"And that's not all Maa, they even had the temerity to laugh at my Muuni's back. My dear sweet Munni."

At which point, my grandmother thrust a ball of her cotton pallu(saree-end) into her mouth to stop her own giggle, face rapidly turning red.That was the cue for us all to erupt in joyous, gay laughter, and aunt beat a hasty retreat, grumbling, fuming.

She was Munnidi ,and she was not a girl, but an apparition of made-up beauty("fake, I am telling you, that mother of hers is spoiling her silly."-my grandmother would declare, her nose high up in the air),and totally out of place in our austere, no-nonsense home.

She and her mother would descend on our simple, non-descript house with all the pretensions and airs of the city-bred visiting the country cousin.They would arrive in a flurry of suitcases and bags, riding high on a wave of cologne/perfume/face cream-scented air into our rustic environs.

Munnidi's mother was the youngest daughter of my grandmother.She would indulge in this annual "high -profile visit" to our humble abode for two reasons. One , ostensibly, to meet her parents(i.e., my grandparents) and secondly to hunt for eligible grooms(IAS/ IPS officers of the highest sub-caste in the kayastha category, my poor hassled grandfather would be informed).

Her electric blue ambassador would be parked in the grounds and a poor, hapless, driver(she brought one along with her )would be forever scrubbing it down. She came from a place called Hazaribagh(she made it sound like the best place on the earth), where her husband was a "daroga"(in our childhood naivete, the best -paid job in the world) who was probably, driven to heights of bribery to meet his wife's and daughter's burgeoning demands,thereby remaining suspended for most of his lackluster career as a cop.

She would shop voraciously. In an age where materialism was frowned upon, she was the ultimate shopaholic.For chiffon sarees, sweetmeats, takeaway meals, anything that caught her fancy.She would bully shopkeepers for a good bargain,(mis) using my grandfather's and her disreputable cop husband's name .

She also had marked prejudices, and she made no effort to disguise them.Fair kids and male children were favoured over the dusky girls(her own daughter being of the' milky-white skin').

But the nadir of her bad behaviour came out in the open one day when she' stole'( or lured him away with false promises of better salary/cop-job)one of my granny's servants.The aunt had taken up residence in the same town as us , for a short period of time , as her husband had been posted there(on' demotion', was the whispered rumour). This lad must have been 14-15 years old, a highly impressionable age.

That meant war. My grandmother's hackles were raised. Like a wounded tigress, she did the best thing. She abandoned her errant cub. We stopped visiting the aunt. Later, she would come and apologise, bursting into uncontrolled sobs of remorse, one rainy evening, startling the normally sedate and sleepy maths teacher out of his chair.

But the wounds had been several, and too deep. In our collective memory, she still remains a laughing stock. Like all mothers, my grandmother forgave her.For us , she and her quirky nature is the stuff, family gossips are made of!!

Ammaji

(It is strange that we look for bravery and endurance in newspapers, or plastered across billboards,when it is staring us in the face , right in our backyard.I have, in my short and singularly uneventful existence, come across many such individuals and I am sure there are many more out there, their stories waiting to be chronicled.)


Sari hitched between her legs, her spindly legs all wet, she would be assiduously sweeping the water off the tiled floor in our kitchen, hissing like a goose, all the while, to beat the chill of late December.Occasionally, she would break into a bhajan(a holy song),loud enough to make the inmates of the house smile in indulgence.

"Ramji jehi vidhi rakhiye, tehi vidhi rahiye."(roughly translated as 'let the Lord decide your fate)

The floor would still be muddy and wet, and had to be mopped with a mop, which would be dripping wet owing to previous days' floor washing and bad weather ,put together. Any amount of reasoning and convincing (that a dry floor is cleaner than a wet one) wouldn't work with ammaji.
She would , invariably inundate large parts of the house with vast quantities of water, and then proceed to mop it up; wetting things,and her saree , further.

This act of apparent thickheadedness is prompted by the rustic hindu belief of dousing everything with' gangajal' (water from the holy ganges) to render it pure.

Ammaji, or mother, as it would mean in Hindi, was a braveheart and a fighter.She worked as a domestic help, or maid,for us and couple of other houses too.She bore five children to a drunkard , who drank his way to oblivion, "many winters ago".He probably drank up all her savings and left her in abject penury, with several mouths to feed, and bodies to clothe.

But she bore him(' a soul long gone' ) no ill-will. Single handedly, she raised her kids from the scratch, earning money from her several jobs,living in various servant quarters , and over the years, developed a rock steady faith in the" Lord", and her own abilities.She also made an attempt to educate them, wherein one son matriculated last year , after a string of failures, and others just gave up after having "learnt the letters".

One daughter was married to a guy who lugged gas cylinders in the gas agency,other to a sweet shop owner(halwai) in a remote village. The second marriage being somewhat of a failure, the daughter would land up at ammaji's doorstep every six months' or so, with her latest newborn in her arms, a large number of runny nosed kids of various ages in tow, probably pregnant with the next arrival.She would then proceed to stay at her mother's place, for an uncertain period of time, thereby straining the meagre resources further.She would be welcomed every single  time with equal enthusiasm, and gifts showered on her numerous progenies. The family shifted a little to make space for' baby'(as was her name)and her babies, and few more kilos of groceries bought with borrowed money.

Every twelve years, a festival of mammoth proportions is held in the holy city of Allahabad, a site of confluence of the three holiest of holy rivers for hindus, the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati(albeit underground).Ammaji was determined to take a dip into the holy river, despite the risk of stampedes,overwhelming crowd, filthy waters and freezing temperatures.Take a dip she did, and returned back safe and sound with' prasad'(holy sacrament) for all and sundry.

When a neighbour fell ill, she would be the first one to pay a visit.
 When the government decreed that new identity cards be made, she was one of the first to apply and receive a copy. Not only did she brave long queues, stifling heat, and inefficient Govt. employees, she also didn't let her illiteracy stand in the way of her grit and enthusiasm.
 When my mom-in-law broke a hip, she pressed her sons into service too, and took over additional tasks of cooking , without a murmur. Later when she recuperated, ammaji used to accompany her on her routine evening walks. A chore demanding tremendous patience.
She would offer to bring groceries in, even when it rained, or the winter sleet howled around her bony ankles, growling like a dog.

She had corneal opacity in one eye, which indicated a trauma to the head , long ago. Probably sustained during the early marriage years. Something she was always reluctant to talk about.But that didn't slow her down.She would have near-brushes with disaster , on a daily basis , almost. Once she was almost hit by a speeding car, on other occasions, utensils with food still in them would land in the sink, peelers chucked into dustbins along with masses of peels, but she would make up with the most endearing gift of assiduity and generosity.

On busy mornings, she would offer to carry forgotten notebooks to classes of irresponsible kids having hurried off  to school in a huff. Not once unfazed by the fact that she might have to face rude sentries and displeased teachers.

In a world that turned increasingly literate, computer savvy and fast, she remained unfazed, old-fashioned, illiterate , but a generous and enthusiastic beacon of hope to people around her.