Good Days

 

Tiger Hill, Darjeeling. 

On good days I notice the smaller things -

how the light strikes the litter, crumpled foil

bravely tries to give back. Butterfly wings.

On bad days - there are headlines on the boil.

On good days - the birdsongs. And their echoes.

How long they take to reverberate, to fade.

How the bracken on the mountain slope grows.

On bad days - the leaders and their tirades.

The waterfalls, the orchids, the lone skink.

The squirrel come to scope the balcony

as everywhere their normal habitats shrink.

The clouds offering handkerchiefs to me.

Most are good. Sometimes it's hard to discern

the exact point they end and where they turn.

The main purpose of going to Darj this time was to  get a clear view of the Kanchenjunga, which as you can tell from the image, was fully achieved.  We had several absolutely clear days, not a speck of rain anywhere, magical sunrises and sunsets, clicked everything I possibly could, so all in all - fabulous.  Much changes, and yet much remains the same. The mountains feel timeless though we know they too erode.  We went back to the old haunts - Glenary's, Penang, St Paul's School, hubby being an Old Paulite. He showed us the spots where the best views (and food!) could be had. It helps to have an insider in the team. 

I had planned to get a little introspective for this post, rounding up the year etc, but there are still three weeks left.  So still some way to go. In case you're taking time off from blogland  over the rest of the month -  season's greetings  to you and yours. Wish you the very best for the holidays and the New Year 2025. 

Fernweh

 

All round me is autumn, but over there it’s spring.

The lure of a distant season’s strong. Everything

here’s gold, but it’s a withered gold – the end is near,

there it’s newly green, different world and hemisphere.

I’ve dived into that world,  and I’ve been forced up too

and home wasn’t home anymore, all strange and new –

it morphed to a restlessness, a vague sharp ache

for distant worlds once touched, and those I’d hoped to make.

Not that they’re not splendored, the withered, the yellowed,

but there’s a yen to be again on unknown roads

to drink once more from some strange stream, to face crosswinds

never felt, to plumb worlds never quite imagined.

Not that these are not enough – they are. They are.

But there’s a lure to green and gold that’s somewhere far.

If you google the title -  the straight translation is wanderlust, but I like a different one that explains it as 'farsickness' or 'farsoreness.' Way more on point. I'm quite often farsick. A friend posts pictures of fall colours in the higher latitudes and presto! - farsick. Another puts up ones of flamboyants blooming in the southern hemisphere - farsick.   Yet another shares travel pictures from Africa - you get the idea. 

I'm a constant tug of war between wanting nothing more than to be curled up on the couch at home and to escape it and get thousands of miles away this instant. Armchair travel is one way of indulging the farsoreness. Poetry is one too. There are a thousand virtual ways to escape. 

However, I'm pleased to report that I'm off the hills in a couple days for a much needed break. Most unvirtual, though in the same hemisphere and season. Back next week. Till then keep well and happy. See you soon.

Cocoons of Stone

 

'Rivers know this : There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.' ~ Winnie the Pooh.

Sometimes it needs a little bit more,

sometimes a little less.

All life sustaining grains are grasses,

I’m told – so’s mortal flesh,

and I’m told love’s like the breeze in trees

never seen, only felt,

a shaken bud and some falling leaves

try hard but cannot help.

 

I’ll go with you to the bamboo grove

alight with fireflies

and to ancient riverbanks raked up

their gold and silver prized,

some boat cruising the narrow stream

will call for us to come -

we’ll signal back panicked that we know

neither to sink nor swim.

 

I’ve read in books with that paper smell

that love’s a fever dream,

it burns and cools and boils up again -

no one knows what it means,

and most times what we think are stars

are just bugs with backs aglow,

and for a hundred crowns of thorns

there’s just one reluctant rose.

 

I’ll come with you to the desert sands

pleated even by the wind.

The wind that’s a metaphor for love

on some eternal brink,

there’ll be no birdcalls at sunset

only the slinking fox,

the viper fangs, the scorpion nests,

no human calling the shots.

 

The rainsong’s loud and the desert’s wide

and the sands consume the drops,

the earth gives back as per its whims

a field of flowers or nought

and everyday the sun segues

a degree north or south,

a puppet moon tugs at the tides

hidden behind the clouds

 

I’ll come with you to medieval forts

like cocoons spun in stone,

walk beside you on paths laid prior

in some forgotten aeon,

and every step we take on the grass,

winds keening into storms,

each blade a sign of mortality - 

our arms make no final home.

 

I’m told star constellations have formed

some sort of secret code,

those who know how to decipher them

know the miracles wrought,

and though grass dies the secret lies

in its always cycling back

as we too of the mortal flesh.

No need for panic attacks.

 

Sometimes it needs a couple of words

and sometimes a fortress

to understand how the grass withers

to equal dust of flesh,

sometimes it needs a stanza or eight

to figure the meanings here

and sometimes it needs nothing at all

the silence’s loud and clear.

A long time ago, the offspring was a child then, his age in single digits, during a different autumn delirious with hope, he had asked - is he the President of the World? - the capitals very evident in the question. Indeed, my son. I had tried to explain why it seemed that way with the TV coverage, especially in the Middle East, because millions of lives are impacted by who gets voted in there even though the rest of the world has no say in it. 

Elections leave me feeling somewhat battered, in my country and in the most powerful nation. I have extended family settled in the USA for decades, some of them are feeling on top of the world right now, some others are devastated. It was the same here in India a few months ago. Endless gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts, houha unlimited, analysis of this percentage and that share and why? why? why? and how are we ever going to survive?

My own two cents - Rome wasn't built in a day, therefore it is unlikely to be destroyed in a day too. What's been put together over two and a half millennia/centuries can't be annihilated in four or fourteen or even forty years. Calm down, people. Whoever gets voted in will leave too, sooner or later, and someone else will take his place. No matter how far the pendulum swings out to the left or right, when it stops, it stops in the middle. We'll get the future we all deserve, equality, liberty, justice and peace, whichever route it takes to get there. Equilibrium is a law of nature.

On a completely different note, this here is the 1001th verse entry on this page. And the October post for WEP was the 50th flash I've posted. That feels like a milestone or something, which I have to admit I'm bad at noticing, but better late than never. Or I can say, there need be no hurry here either. Mini celebration is duly being observed, if with a time lag. 

Have a peaceful and happy week, hope you have lots to celebrate at your end.

Simpler places

 

Come, let’s go back to places where festivals

came simpler – without the show and dazzle

the autumn nights bright with a thousand stars

smoke curling from a bushfire somewhere far

the tunes of a cowherd yanking hearts awry

the earth the goddess.  her canopy the sky

 

where the river bent to preen in its reed fringe

the sacred hours were marked by the dove and finch

the acacia shadows laid in filigrees

reptile tracks echoed the signs of rice paddies

quieter joys flared in the pulse of the firefly

the earth the goddess her canopy the sky.

Happy Diwali and/or Happy Halloween to you, whichever you'll be marking.

Write...Edit...Publish...Halloween Special Flash Fiction Challenge 2024

 

Hello, hello! I am so glad to be back at the Write…Edit…Publish… Halloween Special Flash Fiction Challenge 2024. Life has thrown up its own, rather unpleasant, challenges at me in the past several months. There have been two shocking, untimely deaths in my extended family and among my school alumna back to back. We've lost long time members of WEP too - both Sally and Nancy will be missed. And here in my hometown, we're still dealing with the fallout of the terrible rape/murder of a young doctor. It's been a stressful time. This  hereunder is a diversion and an  escape route. 

October is an insanely busy time as the main festival season starts from the 2^nd in India and ends with Diwali on the 31^st/1^st Nov. Whatever it is you are celebrating – Durgapuja, Navaratri or Halloween – happy festivals!  

Btw, the worship of Durga, the underpinning mythology of this entire festival is the battle of righteousness versus evil - Durga, the warrior goddess descending to earth to vanquish a demon symbolising sinfulness.  

It's beyond ironic the exponential levels of casual misogyny and crimes against women forming the backdrop of a festival worshipping feminine cosmic energy. 

Anyway, here is my entry for this Challenge  - 

The Other Side

There are always two sides. The story tellers tell and retell a single version a million times till all others seem impossible.  Endless repetition makes even a lie sound like truth. And the real truth slowly dies out, unspoken, unwritten, unperformed, its fire reduced to ashes and dispersed to the winds till not a trace remains.

 

***

 

We met through the theatre. A brooding, handsome man, widowed with motherless twins. An accomplished performer, he played the role of Othello with a passionate and spellbinding artistry. Night after night, he killed me on stage. And then he killed me offstage too. He made love to me with a starved tenderness that was simultaneously terrifying and irresistible.

 

At the wedding, I smiled at the children. They did not smile back. I was too euphoric to mind. I noticed their eyes though. Positively ancient eyes in young faces, too still, too opaque, way too knowing. Dark coloured like deep waters, beneath which unfathomable secrets lay.  They could stop any friendly overture dead in its track at hundred paces. It made me vaguely uneasy, but it got swamped by the music and the mood as I stepped onto the dance floor.

Final sum

 

Some things I wished for – a guava tree,

a small, stone fountain on a balcony,

fragrant green herbs plucked fresh out of a pot.

Some wishes came true and the rest did not.

 

A cowrie shell from a faraway coast,

a smooth, round pebble from a river I’ve lost,

feathered clouds, perched birds from some childhood zone.

Some were granted, some had to be foregone. 

 

A blooming trellis – or just one climbing vine

on a porch or pillar that felt somewhat mine

under skies of black pearls, rinsed in starlight.

Some were given easy, some never by right.

 

A painting of a deck with an easy chair.

The final sum of what is, and isn’t, there.

This above is the first part of a triad of 14X3 poems, something I thought would take me away from the doldrums and dismals currently prevailing.  Counting blessings, by any name  including poetry, has a remarkable mood altering ability. 

However, it did bring into focus one of the things that will never be - a trip to catch up with a childhood friend. We've been talking of a reunion of the school expat alumni for years, it's practically impossible for all the stars to align, so widely dispersed we all are now from the origins of our friendship, from Australia through the subcontinent to UK and North America. 

This particular friend had settled in Australia. We caught up on Facebook in the 2010s, we texted and chatted plenty, planned and plotted for a face-to-face meeting. 

Then it happened that I had to go and live in Fiji for a couple years, I was excited because it was only a short flight to go see her. But my own family situation stopped that from materialising. I came back without the much longed for trip.   

Yesterday I got the news that she has passed away. Way too soon. What can one say? The final sum is arbitrary, not open for re-evaluation and not in our individual control. There's no option to give it a pass either. 

Rest in eternal bliss, dear Nalini. We'll catch up on the other side.

Vibe

 

You come back and come back and every time

you plaster yourself flat to the doors and walls,

you snatch at the silver threads of tramlines,

you clutch  at the bricks and stones, the road signs,

but you’re still separate, not part of the whole

and they say that you haven’t come back at all.

 

Half the people are gone, there’s a new tenant.

The kerb’s a strange colour, the lamp post’s three pronged,

there’s a swank new park and a waterfront.

Gone too is the ice cream shop – your childhood haunt.

All the places where you seamlessly belonged.

Everything’s changed. And everyone feels wronged.

Well, it's not rocket science - every time someone leaves his hometown for any substantial span of time, both the home and the town, the people who stay, the person leaving - all change irrevocably, there's no coming back. Not to the people, not to the spaces. And the one who leaves is not the same person who returns. The whole thing is an exercise in expectation management. 

But the transition shouldn't be this hard. Kolkata is still reeling from the murder/rape of the young doctor last month. There are on going protests, the involvement of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the case ordered by the Calcutta High Court as there were trust issues with the Kolkata Police, there are allegations of evidence tampering against the police and the suspicion that they were shielding the master mind. There are calls for the resignation of the Police Commissioner and the Chief Minister. The Supreme Court of India has taken suo moto cognisance and hearings of that are also on going. The opposition parties are making hay the most of it while the clouds are thick, ordinary citizens are outraged, upset and quite beside themselves. There have been protests for justice across the country and also across the world in solidarity.  India has its own equivalent of the George Floyd situation. 

Bengal used to be a liberal, progressive state, Kolkata has been voted the safest city for women for three years running, it is beyond shocking how we have come to a situation where a woman is raped and murdered in her own workplace and then there are attempts at a cover up. 

It is a living nightmare. It is also an inspiration - the way the junior doctors' front has handled their demands for justice in peaceful and dignified protests. A moment of hope too - an opportunity. To reassess our justice systems, to reassess our own selves and attitudes towards women. I for one am awash with questions. Why do Indians condone everyday misogyny in words and deeds and erupt into worldwide protests only at rape and extreme violence? Why do we turn a blind eye to the rapes/murder of women from the marginalised sections of society and take to the streets demanding justice only for middle class/upper class/educated/urban women? Why is there only episodic outrage and condemnation? 

Thank you for reading. 

When will you be home?

 

You haven’t come home, the street’s got emptier.

A car whooshes past, an ambulance somewhere

pierces the dark. The clouds overhead clear

but the remnants of rain still drip on the stairs.

I’m on the balcony. I’m on the phone.

Where are you my girl, in this night alone?

 

I’ve taught you a few things early, much before

I’d wanted to. Hands, touch, violence, abuse.

Bliss was not an option. Every day’s a war –

girls have to grow up fast. We cannot choose.

I’m at the doorway. And still on the phone.

Where are you sweetie, in this wide danger zone?   

 

I’ve taught you to dream. But I’ve been circumspect.

Only hoped that you’d be safe on the streets,

that you’d be given some basic respect.

We dream small, where red lines and limits meet.

I’m out on the lane. Please pick up your phone!

Where are you, daughter and when will you be home?

News of the Kolkata rape and murder of a post grad trainee doctor on 9th August has been reported in the international media,  you might have seen it and therefore can surmise the reason for the poem above. 

Widespread protests have erupted across India this time, people are marching in their thousands calling for justice for the doctor and for women's safety. It's distressing, outrageous, preposterous that women face this level of violence but it's also heartening to see the solidarity. I'm hopeful still. 

Kolkata used to be a safe city for women, it's still regularly voted as the safest in India. However, the sad truth is that India has become progressively unsafe for women over the last 20 years. The reasons are many layered and complex, but what is not in question is that we require a seismic societal shift if things are to change. Making the laws more stringent can only achieve results if they are implemented rigorously, that is where the system is failing. And it is failing deliberately - because there is political patronage of criminals, an enabling of violence against women across the board and across party lines. That needs to stop immediately if the rape culture is to change. 

Hoping for that change soon, for speedy justice for every case of abuse/rape and in the R.G. Kar Hospital case in particular.   

Wishing all women a crime free, disrespect free and stress free environment at every corner of world. May we get to see the dream of an equal and just world realised in our lifetime. Thank you for reading.

August evening

 

Image credit : Pixabay

The street lights, for some reason, aren’t on today

and in the dark, even rain comes on tiptoes

the traffic’s still gridlocked beneath the windows 

but it’s quieter, because light has got a way

to amplify sound. One streetful of darkness

has dialled down urban angst and calmed the restless.

 

The balcony here  wears no trellised shadows

no umbras, penumbras of leaves filigreed

against the walls – those arabesque patterns need

a strong light, a municipal lamp that glows

at railing height. No one’s willing to disturb

this chiffon silence, the cars crawl past the kerb.

 

The streetlights  haven’t been switched on this evening

a minor malfunction, human or machine

a sensor perhaps that hasn’t signalled green.

Some epiphanies only darkness brings,

that light fails to show. A small error has led

to a darkened lane, cars going past muted.

I've been reading more than I've been writing  - old favourites in poetry, where even if the eyes get a bit blurry, the lines are known so one can do without crystal clear anything, recognise the words from their shapes on the page anyway. 

Edna St Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson, Auden, Neruda, Yeats -  the all time smash hits. Mary Oliver and Maya Angelou, of course. Some Mahmoud Darwish, top of mind right now because of the conflict. 

Some children's poetry as well, Eletelephony is guaranteed to cheer me up every time. I love Escape at Bedtime and this one of Shel Silverstein too. Escape from the doom and gloom in the blink of an eye. What is your favourite children's poem? Do you have any favourites? What do you read when you get exhausted with the headlines? 

Marayoor

On the way...

To be on the road in a car, or a dirt track,

slicing through the mists and never looking back -

that’s where you’re most at ease, without any need

to think on what lies beyond or what recedes.

 

Ferns dip their dainty toes into the highway

waterfalls weave small rainbows into their spray

the eucalypti raise their hands to the sky

a mile is a unit of time flashing by.

 

As you draw near, the sandal trees make it plain

there’s no scent without a price of crushing pain.

The border staff check the car for smuggled goods

for gold’s almost equal to this sandalwood.

 

The yearning to breathe in freely perfumed air

does not work - you return to the road from there. 

From NH 85

I am back from Kerala after a wonderful trip - the monsoons are absolutely gorgeous in the mountains, whether it's the Himalayas or the Western Ghats. Kerala, being at the very south western tip of peninsular India, has two monsoons - one when they come in from the Arabian Sea and again, when they recede. It rained nearly everyday, a beautiful drizzle that gently misted everything to a dreamscape. Clouds floated across the slopes so close you felt you could just stretch your arm out and touch them. 

I first went to Munnar in the early 90's on a work trip. It wasn't the huge tourist destination that it's become now, I'd never even heard of it before. The town was a line of straggly buildings along a tiny main street, which I had no occasion to get into because we were put up by the client at a property some distance from it. My room had wrap around windows with the most spectacular panoramic views of the mountains and tea gardens. 

It was the kind of place that makes you want to return to it even before you've left it. I resolved to go back someday. On holiday - no work meetings, no client directed facilities tours. Taken me thirty plus years but now that's been ticked off. :) 

Marayoor is about 40 km from Munnar - there is a forest of sandalwood trees, some 65000 of them. I wanted to check out the scent of the live forest as opposed to dead wood and processed oils. So I badgered the family and our guide into a drive there. Unfortunately the whole area is fenced off, naturally...sandalwood is one of the most expensive woods in the world, illegal felling and smuggling has been an issue, deforestation is an ongoing problem in India anyways...So. Walking among the sandal trees is a strict no-no. The main road cuts through the forest, that's as close as a visitor can get. I asked everyone in the car if they could smell anything. No one could, our city noses are not up to the task. Cautionary tale in there somewhere, also a life lesson if one looks hard enough. 

The drive was beyond sublime though. The only sounds that of the winds and the wheels on the road. Occasional waterfalls cascading down the how-green-is-my-valley-type slopes. And once the engine was switched off, a thousand different birdsongs in chorus.

Strangely, I did not feel half the disappointment I thought I should. Maybe I'm finally becoming capable of appreciating the meaning of the journey being the destination. 

I hope your week is filled with the most beautiful sounds and scents of nature wherever you are. 

No high alert

 

I don’t have to close my eyes to see your face,

it’s in passing clouds, in each clod on the road,

it’s been outlined in the rise and fall of days –

as winters have frozen, as springs have thawed.

 

As summers have stormed in with their fangs bared,

as the lissom rains have twirled on the ground.

I hear your voice in the soft, whispered prayers

of the sea breeze in trees that it weaves around.

 

I don’t have to prime myself body and mind

I don’t have to take any extra care,

to sharpen my senses for symbols and signs.

Wherever I reach out blind – you’re always there.

 

However great the time and space we’re apart,

you’re with me still – nothing needs a high alert.

A scheduled post - because I'm on a short break in the Nilgiris but I'm reluctant to let anything disrupt the hard-fought fortnightly schedule of posting here. Fortnightly? is that archaic? I never see people use it, come across it anywhere in writing either, unless it's 'period' writing. Ennyway. I digress.

What I meant to write was that I'm quite unsure how to label this poem - all love poetry feels like something else too, to me - deeper than the glib labels words define. However, the lines have come about because of an old 1970s photo a childhood friend posted on a social media platform. I oohed and aahed over it, I'm a sucker for old snaps. It struck me later that I've managed to remain in contact somehow through all the intervening years with all the people captured in that photograph, though we each are continents apart at this exact moment and have been so through the major part of our individual lives. 

Should poems be labelled to reflect their source of inspiration? On a different note, isn't that - that I'm still able to be in touch with them - an ineffable blessing and a celebration deeper than words? 

Hope your month has begun well, have a wonderful July.