Welcome to my world of dreams where imagination and reality, fancy and truth, laughter and tears move hand in hand. I will let you have a glimpse at the share of my own sky, sometimes sunshine bright, and sometimes with rainstorm.
I will take you to memories that are like a serene glow of moonlight, a whisper of mountain breeze, and a rushing gushing brook.
The breeze was strong and it made the dust and the leaf run helter-skelter, and fly
The trees unfurled their leaves, quivered, shook off the
droplets to see those men walking by
And oh how beautifully the flowers bended with an urge to satisfy
About those men - one was drenched, one rain-clad
Another was
happy and the other was a bit sad
One forgot to wear her kohl-liner and the butterfly-garland that she had
One was forgetful
in love and wandered like a lost nomad
That day it rained sharp and also pretty heavily
But the day was sweet and was smiling at all coyly
Then the waterlogged lanes and platforms sang in tune fostering fantasy
Seeing them the red and blue umbrella whispered music in rapt rhapsody
Some noticed; some ignored; some were in a hurry to walk
away fast
And no one knew who was hiding a shattered soul and who
killed someone’s dream with a brutal thrust.
I was thinking of you today. Hope you are doing fine. But we
aren't! :) ... you know, it is as if the world has changed altogether!
I had gone out to buy
essentials and provisions for the home. Nothing seemed familiar any more. A
group of watchmen stopped us asking a hundred questions inquiring about why we were going out and when we would be back etc. And all that was for our safety. We
all looked weird, faces covered with masks, gloved hands desperately clutching
onto the sanitiser bottles, eyes gleaming with the nervousness of survival. The
streets were empty, vacant, in an eerie kind of way. The shopkeepers, the
vegetable vendors, the salespeople at the departmental store, all looked
worried and scared. The fear was not just for the deadly virus but also the
diminishing prospects of their businesses. There was hardly any stock on the
shelves. Manufacturing units are closed, services are stopped, transport
is at a halt and there is no new stock coming any more - they piped in an
anxious tone. You know, Ruru, the stores too looked so odd as all of them were
kind of half-lit and ready to close down at any moment. the shelves with clothes,
cosmetics and toys were pouring out as there were no buyers but just one or two
packets were lying here and there for rice, dal and edible oil! it was uneasy feeling to
realise one's basic survival need. The whole scene was from that of a movie but
it's just that no one knew when the movie would end. People were sitting on the
road; no they weren't beggars but they were labourers. Jeet had bought fruits
for all of them and the way they snatched those from him reminded me of a scene
of famine that I had watched in a movie. My heart was palpitating hard in panic
as this world was not the one I have known so far.
Ruru, Italy doesn't remind me
of Art and fashion anymore, Paris doesn't remind me of romance. China's wall
appears weak and the Statue of Liberty looks vulnerable. My perception, my memory,
all are invaded and jeopardised. I, the mother, who would give anything to be with her son, is now asking him not to come to India for the entire year. Love is now
staying apart. Hugs and kisses are a curse. I do not get ready to go to the office in the morning, no one rings the doorbell. Chatterjee aunty died from Cancer but her children couldn't come from the other State because there were no flights allowed. My mausi-aunt died in Kolkata but the entire family could not attend the cremation as not more than 4 were allowed to be together at the crematorium. If you are sick, people would be looking at you with suspicion and not sympathy. Hasn't the world changed overnight?
Will the caged humans (including I) now
understand the worth of living, the value of humility, Ruru? This too shall
pass like all the good and bad things in the world. But those of us who would
survive and come out of this deadly phase will surely not be the same persons. I just hope that we become better.
But whatever it will be the music must go on!
P.S. - Did I tell you before that I find your eyes quite hypnotic? :) ... This music is for you Ruru ... someday I want you to close your eyes and dream, and then my beautiful dreamer, please wake unto me ...
Be so vulnerable that
the falling of the flower from its branches makes you sob incoherently!
Be so vulnerable that
the raindrops on your palm make you fall in passionate love!
Be so vulnerable that
the flipflop wings of the butterfly fill your heart with intense joy!
Be so vulnerable that
you don't care to hide how your heart melts with a smile of his
how you remain awake thinking of him
how you seethe in anger at his betrayal
how you forgive him, nevertheless!
Be so vulnerable that
you are not afraid to listen to the whisper of the universe
to create the new you in your imagination
and then again, to lose the creation in your careless whimsicality!
Be vulnerable,
For,
Vulnerability is strangely liberating!
Home, for me, was that huge bushy tree standing all alone in that timid field, looking at me, shaking its leaves, welcoming, smiling whenever I would go and stand in my balcony. It kept me company as I sat there staring, writing, reading, sipping coffee, day-dreaming. I tried to google out its name but other than its handsome unruly head, umbrella-like leaves and a thick straight spine I couldn't find anything relevant but then that's my own ignorance about the names of these Indian species. Nevertheless, it remained mine and it remained as my friend, and it remained my home.
On the days it would rain, two small children who kept reminding me of Apu and Durga from Pather Panchali, would take shelter below the tree and then they will start throwing those strange-looking small tamarind like brown fruits to us. Aayu, Neelima and I will be of the same age at that point, busy collecting those fruits and giggling and befriending those children. Someday, when it didn't rain and the heat is mounting on the grey of the field and the tree is stubbornly flaunting its green amongst all those grey, the red-brown greater Coucals couple will keep playing around the babblers and the sparrows will chatter in shrill voice sharing their stories with me. And I would be the happiest soul sharing my space and the same wavelength with the tree.
But like every other good thing as well as a bad thing, this too passed away. One day, quite suddenly, it all ended. The construction on that site started, for another skyrise. Soon, in front of me lay the lonely grey of the field and those broken rocks like a wound that oozed pus. Everyone was gone; the tree, those birds, the Apu-Durga children, all were gone. Aayu left for another country, Neelima for another home. I stayed. trying to collect those broken parts and building the tree in my mind. My home lay in its branches, among the light and shadow mischief of its leaves. Since then I have been wandering to other countries, states, houses, but, till now, I could never build another home!
When Reading your poems ten different men think that you have written for them, and ten different wives curse you, cooking up a storm in respective homes, you sit back and smile, continuing to weave magic words, stitching a patchwork quilt, wondering how universal the word poetry is!
