Safe-keeping

Inside silky
cushioned upholstery
within
closed doors
and airless
windows
life was
nurtured
with
extreme
care
and comfort

Care was
taken
of every aspect
dusted
cleaned
washed
fed
put to
bed
In the end
when the
time came for
the casket
to be
opened
and the lid
to be lifted
it was
found that
the grain was missing

dried,
died ,
shrivelled
vanished
evaporated
long ago;
what
remained was
the
mere
husk/shell
peel/outer cover
for one
to
ponder
over

Benediction

 The river was in spate.
Women wore frilly, blinged dresses, with flowing silk, colourful, perfumed dupattas; men wore cowboy hats with that string forever dangling beneath their chins.
It was a recipe for disaster.
Women squealed, shrieked, and ‘omg’ ed their way across. Someone’s raw leather shoes were ruined , someone else dropped her Faux -hide bag into the stream , and one lost her dupatta to the fury of monsoon Gods, billowing away into the gray skies.Another sacrificed the gold embroidered hem of her ornate kurta, as it emerged dripping wet, all its golden glory muddied.
A cowherd, sitting on a mound of green , some distance away , found it really funny.He just kept pointing and slipping into paroxysms of uncontrolled mirth.

The men followed, their footwear and cameras, held aloft like a torch, whooping gleefully,while the trouser legs had been rolled up to reveal manly hirsuteness.

There is a vicarious pleasure to be derived from peeling caked mud from one's carefully depilated limbs. Almost like an impromptu mud-spa for free. Except that you are doing this in the middle of a rice -field , balancing on slippery"Pugdandi"while goodness-knows-what-insect has just crawled up your lycra leggings, making one emit howls of most un-civil nature, every twenty steps or so. 

All were miserable , except for one.

He was in his elements. Jeans rolled upto thighs("Sheesh,such shamelessness!! almost revealing his balls , as it were")  shoes tidily dangling from his neck (" wasn't the shoelace biting into his neck omg. dont even look at his mud splattered vest")he clicked snaps of everything, the muddy stream , the gray sky, the rolling-with-laughter cowherd, the flowering reeds on the bank, the injured-bug-that-a lady-almost-squashed-as-it-emerged from her undies.

 It was as if he was in heaven , and he didn't want to miss any moment of this trek.

It was an amazing and pathetic / hilarious sight to witness. There was this group of wet stragglers, grumbling and dragging themselves, and there was this man totally oblivious to his wet and muddied state, soaking up every sight, hungrily.

Once they reached the top of the green mound,the sun broke out.

Out of nowhere, the gray clouds parted, and heat and light poured forth. A gorgeous sight welcomed them. A green and gold carpet rolled out at their feet, in every direction, as far as they could see.

Even the most wet and complaining matriarch was silenced.They shook themselves dry , as dogs, and kept looking on , in awe-filled silence.

rebellion

Today I wove a blanket of words
soft , comforting words,
A world of make -believe
and tried to cover myself
and hide
behind
the
comforting
anonymity
of
my word-blanket.
but
how was i to know
that
my words
were
rebellious
noisy
thought provoking
some were
downright
nasty
and hit you hard
in -your-face
brazen
and raised
a forest
of prickly
 questions

one by one
they left
the comfy
confines
of  the
blanket
refusing
to be woven into
 a comforting
whole.
It was
a literary
balkanisation.


After a
quick
conference
my words
armed
with
their own
counter
questions
and
armed with
unfilled
blanks


marched
menacingly
towards me
their
creator
and
I am ashamed
to admit

I ran

like a
coward
like a
renegade
a refugee
a recanter of
thoughts
a spineless
shipwrecked
sailor

for I had
no answers
to
questions

whole army
of them

raised by
my very
own
words.

evidence

The door was half open, and a stream of the sickly yellow light fell into the corridor.She immediately knew, something was wrong. Two reasons, first, the door was open; second, the “pariah” bulb was on instead of the usual cheerful tube light.
She called out his name.
“That’s right !! When in trouble , call him”, her own mind chided her.
A dining chair was lying upturned in her path, the table cloth was askew, a faint whiff of an unfamiliar cologne,and another odor she was dreading to name.
The bedroom window had been thrown open, forced rather, chipping off a piece from the walls, the curtains dancing wildly in the unrestrained breeze.
“What the”, She leaned forward to shut the window, and crunched on broken glass.
A limpid , large pool of dark blood ,shimmered in the evening sun , on the floor, there were bloody smudges everywhere.

“That was the last thing I saw before , I passed out,officer.”
“Definite evidence of a struggle, and a crime, ” the cop spoke impassively into his walkie-talkie.

The opium peddler

by pampapam2

The Godman sat gesticulating and expounding loud wisdom from the “podium”, a ramshackle wooden structure, raised on rickety stilts, and pathetically festooned with garish, zari-bordered , strips of clothes. A large , dusty peacock feather duster, swung slowly , from one corner to the other.
The “baba” himself was adorned, as loud and garish, as an enthusiastic entrant to a child’s fancy dress competition.
Facing a forest of tired,dusty, deadbeat faces, upturned in abject indifference.
Periodically, a wave of enthusiasm would course through, as the crowds parrotted a slogan after a mike-wielding crony at the base of the stage. Most of the time however, the poor kept up their vacant stare. It was a farce , on a huge scale .
Or as Marx would put it , the people were drugged, with that “opium of the masses.”

Slowly, the sun started setting, but the show went on. People continued to chant, occasionally, roused by the mike-wielders.Large rotis and lukewarm, tasteless subzi, the gravy dripping everywhere, were passed in the name of” langar”. Preparations were underfoot, for another round of “show stopping ” rock-show, to be conducted by none other than the “baba” himself.

As the night fell,large speakers materialised, revolving disco-lights, tv cameras , huge screens swung into action. It was an entertainment extravaganza on an unbelievable scale .The dusty and sad looking arena transformed into a stadium of gladiatorial proportions. Although, it was being performed in the name of a person ,a human, venerated as a God, a religion of the most dubious nature.

The number of cronies multiplied. Now four of them appeared, at a stage of their own, dressed in shiny outfits, holding pages of rehearsed script. This was getting really serious now. To loud salutations and chantings, the “Lord ” himself made an appearance, as an Elvis caricature. White and gold tasseled and blinged , bejewelled outfit.Even the white sneakers were not spared the “gold-ness”. Apparently, the “Baba” himself, designs his costumes, writes his songs, composes music and rehearses them . Truly “god-like”.

Everytime the cameras swung in their direction, the “devotees” would go berserk, chanting and shouting the “God’s” name, jumping up and down. The enthusiasm was pronounced in the female enclosures. I, a mere bystander to the grand spectacle, was frequently being coaxed by my companion, an ardent “devotee”, to do the same .It was not just silly, but a positively, “out of body” (LSD-like) experience to see my friend, a qualified pathologist, dance to a “Baba’s”tune.

The hirsute “baba”, his every curly body-hair, enlarged million times on the giant screen, presented a very hilarious and entertaining sight, had it not been marred with sundry accounts from “devotees” about how the “God” had wrought “miracles” in their miserable existences.

The “God” himself , seemed more focussed on performing his rustic, raucous songs than hearing paeans of praise and dismissed every “miracle ” with an impatient wave of his tasseled hand .

All said it was entertaining, albeit unnecessarily marred with un-called for “religious fervour.”

Burglar

"I saw a burglar last night'!! The boy calmly declared to his stunned family at the breakfast table.
Mama's hand froze at the tap, leaving the tap on ( a sign of extreme duress) she asked him, with dripping hands, almost in a whisper,"why didnt you wake me up then , boy?"
"He was looking in through my window"The boy coolly took a bite of his toast and proceeded to noisily chew it.
"What? Omg!!" the drama queen pulled at her ear plugs, leaving Taylor Swift mid song,"did he wave a gun at you?"
"What did he look like?"
"He must have looked like you"
"Rather like you I guess".
"Should have stolen your wretched ipad"
"Should have taken a shot at you while he had the chance, "
"Point blank hota, na "

The air around the table changed swiftly from fear to fight,and Mama didn't like it one bit.

"Sileeence!!"Hands on hips, the matriarch yelled, and Taylor Swift swiftly went crooning back into ear canals.
Toasts were hurriedly crammed into mouths.
"Now, tell me what had happened?"Lowering her voice, Mama pulled up a chair as she demanded to know the relevant details.

"Your son reads in the bed."
Papa declared from the doorstep. stamping his foot on the doormat , to get rid of the mud from early morning watering the plants.
"Kya bolte ho ji?"(what are you saying?)
"I am right!!Aren't I ? Young man!!"
The boy stopped chewing.
"He lights up a torch, inside the quilt , and reads dirty novels , like that Harry Potter fellow."
"Hai na!!"(Isn't it?)

Hurriedly swallowing the large bite, the son asked wide -eyed"How do you know?"

"Because I saw you doing it last night, when I looked in through your window, after tying up my petunias."

Alibi

She clicked open the lock to the door and a strong unfamiliar odor hit her.
Alcohol or some kind of spirit.
Reflexly, she pinched her nose, and gingerly entered.
The room was dark and foreboding. She traipsed onto the changing room area, not bothering to switch on the lights. The odor was stronger.
Something told her that danger lay there.
True enough.
Sprawled full length on the dark stone floor was her roommate, still in her uniform, the pinafore clinging to her spindly legs,softly moaning, head lolling dangerously close to shards of glass from a broken bottle, glinting in the semi-darkness.
“This time she has no alibi.” The first thought that came to the mind in a cascade of worrisome notions.

Minutes later, the ample room seemed small , as it was crowded with girls from neighbouring rooms, monitors of various shades and portfolios, Teachers bustling in and out , importantly, and other hanger-ons.Matrons rifling the cupboards and cabinets looking for traces of drugs, reading all correspondence, with positive vicarious delight. What she hated most was the grilling she received at their hands. Hows, whys, whats and whens.

As if she was supposed to be in possession of all answers to problems that plagued her roommate!How was she supposed to know, when, where from and how the bottle was smuggled onto the premises ?How many friends did she have ? Why wasn't she close enough to her roommate? What rubbish? She thought she will feign heart attack now, when the senior , most repulsive , rescued her ,out of the blue.

"Leave the poor girl alone , will you?" 

The authority in the voice was not challenged, and she was left alone. Phew.

 She changed in the privacy of her bathroom, still faintly reeking of alcohol, damn the girl! Glumly thinking of how many hours will be spent at the psychiatrists' office trying to convince everyone , that she truly didn't know the person her roommate was metamorphosing into. 

Hair

Here, and there, and there. ”
“You again left a strand , here, here.’
Weaving a braid out of the meagre hairs of the old lady, was tough. Hearing her constant directions and remonstrations was tougher still.
Poor girl did the hair twice in a day, without a murmur. God bless her.
These are the moments , I thank God for having given me , two wonderful daughters, instead of loutish sons , who are more likely to break your sofas, china and hearts , in that order.

The class teacher

A twist of the mouth, a pout and an attempt to whistle. A giggle .And the class erupts into joyous laughter.

That was Sister Teresa for you. Each of her classes were unique, fun and we got to learn various things, some dangerously veering off-chart(read off-syllabus). For instance, today she was teaching her proteges to" whistle". A definitely "un-nun"-like thing to teach.

She was in fact, imitating series of whistles, from a train hoot, to a cat-call, and spent a good fifteen minutes "wasting time ".But she got the "circulation going" , so by the time, she started on the boring topic of logarithms, she had  adroitly, captured the attention of the class.That was Sr.Tresa quintessential. You would be eating out of her hands in no time , and not even being aware of it.

On another occasion , an algebra test was due: she breezed into the classroom , and started teaching us malayalam alphabets. The class heaved a sigh of relief. Just when we were beginning to get the hang of the simple two letter words, the black- board was wiped clean , and the dreaded equations appeared! Whole 20 of them! A tired and very" chalky-dusty", Sr. Tresa turned and gave us her characteristic impish grin , adjusted her veil, and ordered us to "get down to it".

If she wasn't a nun, she would have been a siren. She was a perfect picture of feminine beauty. Some months into her tenure at our school, she went for a workshop, and their usual black and white habits were traded for saffron-ish coloured saris , with matching veils.That only ended up multiplying her beauty.

We would wait anxiously, for her to walk in, on a talcum -scented air,and begin our day.The day was deemed successful, if she took the first class.