Romantic Friday Writers Challenge : New Year! New Love!

It’s time for the first RFW Challenge  of the year!  With the New Year there are some changes there,  the challenge will now be monthly, with an extended word limit and time frame.  Must admit I like both the ideas.  Higher word limits mean more elaborate, fleshed-out stories to read (what fun!), and the new deadline means more time to come up with one and also greater leeway to tell it, all entirely welcome.

Membership is not mandatory for participation, so if you like writing, then do go over and see if you want to give it a try.

Here is my entry for this challenge:

Vikram shakes a spoonful of sugar into his coffee, stirs it and brings the mug through to the sitting room.  A quick sip later, he sets it down; on the lace coaster Anita had got, that looks as frozen snowflake-like as ever.  So many things in this room, in his life are so completely hers that it’s practically impossible not to see her everywhere.  In the stuff she’s left behind, the clothes and the books, her collections of milkjugs, old handwritten letters, brass oil lamps, newspaper cuttings; she’d always been a great one for squirreling.  Friends had helped him pack them off, the ostensible bits anyway.  But many frozen snowflakes in the gullies remain unnoticed; refusing to melt.

He still wishes that things had worked out different.  Sometimes, back from work, he absent-mindedly thinks that he must call her, calculating the time difference as a reflex almost.  Then he remembers and comes to himself again. No-one knows that she is still there on his personal gadgets, password-protected among his Skype contacts and cell-phone shortcuts. A photo of them both, grainy and indistinct, still preserved in one of the rarely used flaps of his wallet.  Shot in their final year at the university, she looking at the camera unsmiling; his face is flung open in a wide smile, his eyes trying to look wicked and not quite making it.

He had teased her about that fortune-teller. They, with friends had visited the winter fair, and trooped into the astrologer’s marquee.  The old man had looked at Anita’s palm and face and mumbled stuff about her past life, mostly accurately. Vikram had known Anita right from childhood, the two families had lived close by.

The chap had stroked her palm, and peered at it; and then mumbled, ”What you think is love now, isn’t.  Real love will come late.”

She had withdrawn her hand sharply, and let the next person take her place.  It was ridiculous nonsense of course, just some harmless fun among friends.  So he had teased her afterwards, but she hadn’t laughed, her irritation mounting at his banter.  A little later, some friend had clicked that photo, a sharp silence in her face forever captured in monochrome.  He had got a copy and carried it in his purse; he always did think that she looked magnificent when she was annoyed.  Somehow the photo had taken on an extra significance, an added shade of humorous defiance when they had got married later.  He had never removed it, stuffing it in all the successions of wallets that he’d used in over two decades. He had never had any occasion to think of the astrologer or his predictions.  He’d never had much use for astrology anyways.

They got married, moved a couple of times, then Vikram had got an offer abroad.  He had wound up his life and moved, and she’d followed him after she found work there; things had fallen into place in uncommonly lucky ways.  The children came, and the beam of their love widened to include babies without weakening its focus on each other. The kids grew up and first Sam went off to university a whole continent away.  Then Vir and Vidhu followed, but were somehow unable to settle down.  So after much discussion she had gone to look after them, leaving Vikram alone and a little at sea.  It had been difficult to get used to the empty nest, a lot emptier than he had bargained for. 

For several months he had felt unsettled; hard done by because he had to come back to a dark home and eat alone; robbed of the pleasure of seeing the children’s sleeping faces at the start and end of day;   the rooms stripped of their laughter and rivalries, the bickering over the TV remote suddenly acquiring a shine now that it had gone entirely quiet.  But he had gone about building his solitary life slowly and painstakingly, employing his empty evenings to pick up a hobby, rekindling old friendships, and acquiring a deeper understanding of himself and the culture he lived in.  And a sudden empathy for many co-workers living here without their families.  He had coped somehow, moved into a smaller home that didn’t emphasise their absence in such an unnervingly pointed manner.

He and Anita spoke every day.  They wrote emails and texts, on screens large and small; shared photographs and updates, in too vehement an attempt trying to erase the distance.  They met every holiday. He never doubted that they would resume their old life from where they’d left off.  And they had done, too; she’d come back once the offspring were settled and there remained no excuse for her presence there.  But something about her, and perhaps him too, had irrevocably changed. Picking up the threads of the relationship turned out surprisingly difficult.  It felt like having to relearn to live together all over again.

They’d had a baffling number of arguments about complete trivia, shockingly vicious, the painful aftermath lingering for days.  One night she’d been disproportionately angry about some piffling serving spoons, claimed to be her favourite suddenly, of which he’d had no inkling. It had ended with the absurd idea of moving back with the kids. 

 

He’d tried reasoning but she was impervious.  He’d lost it then, at her playing the victim always, supposedly uprooted at every whim of her family.  Did she think he’d had it easy?  She at least had had the children. He’d had nobody. Did she even know what being truly alone was?  A silly argument had somehow morphed into a life-changing one.  He’d suddenly remembered the strange prediction.  Was there somebody else? She’d said nothing, just looked at him appraisingly for a long moment. And then gone back.

That had been a year ago this New Year.

Vikram finishes his coffee and picks up his cell.  Who knows, perhaps it’s time to go wooing again. He dials a number; and waits.

WC-993
FCA

 

 

 

 

Comfort and Karma

Image courtesy Dina M. Ramadan. Used with permission.

I too will find my comfort somewhere

treading these virtual hamster wheels.
There are spokes enough for people in despair -
a moment’s fragile foothold made in steel -
that bring me around, endlessly spiralling stairs
and I climb forever, blindly follow the spiel
of a final happiness that’ll always be there
just because I’ve bought into this deal.

 

Outside in the world, minute by minute

the old lamps are switched off one by one
other brighter bulbs are tentatively lit
and already some splutter, and some are done.
And circling is easily bent into habit
wherever it is that I might choose to run
and despair equally impossible to quit
it has its own headiness of addiction.

 

Not every night explodes into a dawn,

the flare of dawns can likewise be a curse
the wheels might turn, the roads go on and on
with nothing worth tugging into a verse
and comfort itself so brief that it’s gone
before I’ve raised my head, or even worse
it’s just like despair, its face wan and withdrawn
and even as I look its outline blurs.

 

Each chipped beaker that I stop at and sip

whips past so fast, before I can make out
its contents or its level, just touch my lips
and swill and swallow the stuff in my mouth
and then again get back on that doped trip
the spokes and the bespoke roundabout,
the treadmill and the wheels of pain and hardship
the routine numbers of despair and doubt.

 

My small world within worlds within worlds

each nested into others and the infinite;
Tiny fists of events eternally unfurled
and analysed till they splay and fray to bits
despair seeded deep in them and pearled
and strung into the same lines and orbits
that grain of pain preserved and never dulled
though the nacre vainly tries to cover it.

 

But I will find my comfort, never fear,

in the vastness of the universe, its splendour;
in the microcosms that my life here
tries to replicate fitfully and so render
them meaningful, yet meaningless too; in spheres
of unreality, where I grasp the slender
rim of that wheel, though I can’t feel or steer
by it; though all I do is, in the end, surrender.



Shared for OLN@dVerse where "each week we connect to share our words, our hearts, our hopes and dreams…linking up with one of the most awesome, vibrant, poetic communities on the web"…

Back to school

The new term starts tomorrow,

the children go back to school
a different kind of peaceful
will warp the day, almost semi-sorrow.

 

While they were home, they woke up late,

ate at odd times, played with screens
kept hours that wouldn’t be allowed in
your days, but you didn’t remonstrate.

 

Two weeks of merry upheaval -

young voices in the living room,
weird music played at a hiked volume
you can barely call civil;

 

thank god, the neighbours can’t complain

because their children, home as well
make enough noise of their own, cancel
out yours, but it’s still hard to entertain

 

sudden demands for junk food,

cola, rides to places, movies, malls;
your day’s routine scrambled by it all,
your days of ordered solitude

 

now they’ll lie blankly tranquil,

with precise routines of nothingness
tomorrow a sterile silence, less
noise, politely low music, time to kill;

 

leisurely prepared and sipped coffees,

unbroken quiet hours to yourself
minus all turmoil, but you can’t help
wonder if it really makes for peace.



Shared at Poetics@dVerse where the prompt today is "peace".

Hearts

At the heart of pearls

just the dark,
earthly grains of sand

 

and the blue-green world

its core the
darkness of metal.

 

You don’t know the heart;

don’t presume
you do, or you can.

Pirouette

Another year comes and pirouettes

twirls once, twice, and then leaves the stage
without making time for elaborate
recaps, without the clichéd, set
speeches that fall grandly off the page;

 

the last of the mornings draws to a close

behind an amorphous mist of rooftops
behind the naked trees, and winter shows
of merry red blooms, and jingling radios
and pushy red signs in the malls and shops;

 

somewhere the leaf-drop of terrible news;

the scream of a shell fossilised into stone.
Soft mollusc insides of lives torn, the livid bruise
of blood in stinging brine, the wounded queues,
the bubbles of pain, each cruising alone.

 

But the vicious trickle of viscous black despair

still gets stoppered by the crumbly cork
of shaky hope, and love pricks it everywhere
and breaks the quick-formed crust over its layer.
The new year comes in with its turns and torque.

Not exactly a fairy tale

Cindy came into the room limping a little, her feet were killing her!  This particular pair of evening shoes was wickedly uncomfortable, she really didn’t know why Rex insisted on her wearing them on every possible occasion.  She didn’t know why she continued to pander to his wishes in this either.   She sank down thankfully on the couch in her bedroom, glad to take the weight off her feet. 

Molly was still waiting up, bleary-eyed and moved in closer to help, but Cindy was irritated beyond measure just now by her timidity and subservience, by her toeing the line unquestioning, much as she, Cindy herself, was used to do.  That’s all they did, each woman of them, from Cindy down to the last poor female chit in the staff.

“No, leave it,” she said to Molly, rather roughly, as her shoes were taken away, ”Go to bed now.  Leave me alone.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Molly looked like a whipped puppy,” Are you sure, ma’am?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Go get some sleep, you do look you could use it,” and when the girl still hesitated, ”Don’t stand there gawping, my dear.  I’ll be fine.  Let’s postpone the fuss till tomorrow morning, shall we?”

“Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night.”

God, she was exhausted.  And angry with a vague rage.  She wiggled her toes, and then folded her legs to tuck her knees under her chin, and massaged her instep with the tips of her fingers.  Her feet were still lovely, beautifully shapely and small, though not as narrow as they once were, the long toes with their delicate whorls of fine skin on the knuckled joints still ridiculously pretty.  She wished she had asked Molly to run a footbath, a good soaking would do the trick.  Splash away her blue funk and get her to sleep easy.   She got up and got a basin from the bathroom, filled it with hot water and a dollop of shampoo, she couldn’t find the gel she wanted, who cared what went into the water so long it was hot enough? She brought it back and wriggled out of her dress. Leaving it pooled in a minimalistic mass of silver lace on the floor, she curled back into the couch with her feet immersed in the foamy hot water. 

How had she landed up here? How had she landed up at that gala this evening? Wearing those uncomfortable old shoes that sparkled coldly and beautifully, and pinched her now coarsened feet; that Rex was so insistent that she wear everywhere, as though she still needed to prove anything to him or to the world.   Why did she go to the gala even? When all she had wanted to do was to spend the evening in with her boys, playing at Scrabble maybe, and then get some vastly greasy, sinfully basic meal eaten together off trays, huddled in the small sitting room while watching inane telly, laughing like maniacs.  But no, she had dressed up in that silver lace, it was a very striking number, elegant and austere and mind bogglingly smart. 

Rex had come into the room and said in his usual mild voice, "You look your usual beautiful self, my dear.  I hope you’re wearing the Timmy Woo shoes?  They are just made for that shade of silver grey.” And soured her pleasure in the dress. 

But she hadn’t protested.  Or to coin a bad pun, hadn’t put her foot down where she wanted to.  She had set aside the exquisite grey and emerald suede statement shoes she had had custom made, and worn those cruel old evening slippers again and gone tripping out on his arm and stood and danced and made small talk as though her feet were resting on fleecy clouds.  It was beyond stupid.  She couldn’t imagine the conversation even in her head.  It’s been 15 years, my feet are 15 years older, I have had three babies, life threatening illness, minor and major surgery, chin hair, cellulite, wrinkles.  I don’t want to wear Timmy Whoever girly shoes, I’ve evolved beyond them. Jeez, whoever heard of a marriage becoming stifled because of a pair of shoes? It was insane!

Cindy sighed and got up from the couch.  Best go to bed, otherwise she would fall asleep here.  She changed into a raggedy flannel nightdress, the fabric worn and softened with many washes.  She slipped under the covers, but still couldn’t sleep for the wound up thoughts in her head kept going round like clockwork mice.  Except for his blind spot about this shoe business, Rex was otherwise such a good egg.  He’d been a caring husband and father, within his constraints.   He loved her passionately still.  She couldn’t imagine her life without him, what trajectory it would have followed had he not sought her out the way he had, had she not been out that evening at that specific dance, or not worn that specific pair of shoes.  How tiresomely random it all was; and how tenacious habits became; and how impossible to go on for 15 years wearing the same inflexible shoes grown uncomfortable over time. Old shoes that didn’t wear down to accommodate her ageing feet.

Rex came and climbed into bed just as she was drifting off, but he touched his lips to her forehead and she bobbed up, instantly awake and fully lucid, picking up the threads of her anger from where she had left off. 

“Rex?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“I hate those shoes! I just hate them, I always have.  I am not going to wear them one more time. Not one more time!”

He remained quiet for a long moment before speaking again, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, what’s there to tell? It’s bloody crazy to make those shoes in the first place, or hasn’t that occurred to you? My feet were dead sore the first time I wore them too.”

“There’s no need to get excited. Chuck them if you don’t want them.  I wouldn’t want you to wear anything you aren’t comfortable with, you know.”

“Really?! You mean that?!”

“Yeah, of course. They’re only shoes, not your wedding vows.”

How strange, it was suddenly done, in the middle of the night, just like that!  She had broken the spell of the shoes, though now she was no longer sure that there had been any spell at all.  All these years! Putting up with so much discomfort, and all for nothing.  She got out of the covers and walked to the closet.  The shoes twinkled up at her when she opened the shutters, as dainty as they were on that far off day when she had first slipped her feet into them.  She took them out, and holding one in each hand, moved to the window and raised the sash.  The summer night was balmy and a million stars twinkled down at her with a glassy blue light.  She threw out the shoes one after the other and each curved a high arc in the air and fell on the paved concrete far below.  The musical tinkle of glass shattering into pieces wafted up into the room. Cindy stood for a few moments breathing in the summer fragrances of the night.

“Come to bed now, Cinderella. It’s really late.”

She turned then, and ran across the room and leapt into bed beside him, as light of foot and heart as she had been once upon a time.

Cracked

The door’s open a crack

a scoop of light shows
where to hook the toes
on limits to be pushed back;
hinges open close
along circular tracks;
facepalm maniacs
stand in straightened rows;
the trees’ stripped rib-racks
pant against the windows;
golden faun shadows
stalk aphrodisiacs.
The season’s in death throes -
the knots of zodiacs
tighten up the slack
disguised as ribbon bows.
But then, the rest is black.
But then, no-one knows
what’s there in the hollows
behind twisted almanacs.....

Romantic Friday Writers Holiday Spirit Blogfest: A Different Diwali

Most of my poetry sort of writes itself into a first person or second person narrative, without my really thinking about it much.  Writing has been my method of making sense of my world, so it’s natural that I write on most festival days, when and if there is a little window of solitude.  The verses are almost never autobiographical, though I suppose I draw on my conscious/subconscious memories.  But if anyone asks me which event are you portraying in this piece of writing, it’s all blurred.  I can’t ever find one specific memory that I can point to and say, yes, this one’s the one I have written about here. 

 

As I have mentioned here, Diwali is a pan-Indian festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness, though darkness has never seemed to me automatically synonymous with evil at all. However, the idea is to light up all spaces with little oil lamps and candles and fairy lights and fireworks.  A different way of making a joyful noise unto our respective lords, I guess.  It does look very pretty and meaningful, even if you don’t personally celebrate it!

 

This poem was written several years ago, and as with all my poetry, doesn’t reflect any real events.  As such it is not a real memory, but I’d still like to share it here, because the narrator does feel like she is me in some ways!

 

 

I.

 

There have been many mistakes, but some unknown hand has rectified

the major ones, and the minor errors just graciously waved aside;
and this has taught me nothing yet.  The urge to control still consumes,
every detail of each action and their results and reactions specified.

 

The mind still stalks mesmerised around disbelief that hugely plumes

hotter and higher and prettier than the prettiest anar that blooms
into the Diwali night each year. And even after the sparks subside
goes round the courtyard counting the lamps still left burning in the gloom.

 

II.

 

Some lessons are learnt early, some late, and some never at all.

Like the one on turning loose this obsessive need for control.
Even when each blade of grass shows me on its poor, crushed face
that neither of us can determine exactly where my foot will fall.

 

Interlocking seams and verses, even as I try hard to erase

the idea that I am the one who can decide and sustain the pace.
No matter how carefully I cup my hands around the flame
in the end the winds blow out each of the lamps I set in place.

 

There is no-one and nothing to which I can attribute the blame

for the winning and losing hand both appearing much the same.
The heart dearer than diamonds or clubs, but above them all the humble spade;
the highest given the lowest rank, based on the rules of the game.

 

Control and blame are concepts that by now I should have been made

to unlearn as fast as I learnt them.  Perhaps I should stop and ask each blade
that I trample upon unconcerned, its own perception of its role -
why doesn’t it grow some thorns, why offer the feet the lawn instead?

 

III.

 

Not only does it offer the lawn, the next morning there are the marks.

Spilt wax and oil, broken lamps, and a million scars from the sparks.
Cigarette butts in various lengths, torn trails of tinsel come to rest
alongside the charred embers of the burning binges after dark.

 

But still the grass goes back to growing, the thing that it knows how to best

without pausing for blame or praise, without lodging a single protest.
Before I sweep away the pieces, pick up the lamps with their burnt out wicks,
newer shoots are budding forth even as burns blacken its breast.

 

As I walk around and idly pluck the many used-up sparkler sticks,

torn cartridges smelling of sulphur stuck in the cracks between the bricks,
golden wrappers now in shreds, spattered with mud cry out to me,
beauty is in both the burnt and green, if I can only accept the mix.

 

And that really is the crux, the very core of this complexity –

acceptance of the scars on grass from a transient and terrible beauty.
To spot the beauty in things burnt, to take a lesson from woodlands and parks,
to grow new shoots on a burn site, with the strangest pride-like humility.

 

 

IV.

 

 

How simple it is to twist garlands of pretty fire in many hues

into deadly explosives and weapons by the differentials we all choose.
The same ingredients and a different effort can so easily combine
and deflect a pleasing, sparkling display into quite a different and dreadful use.

 

Cracker bursts in my backyard and somewhere beyond this starshine

the same principles morphed into a shell or grenade or land mine.
And nearer home.  All our children play with fire indiscriminately.
But we think boundaries, and end up drawing the wrong battle line.

 

 

V.

 

The hawker who came to sell the sparks, I asked him about differentials in cost

why his *bombs* were priced so cheap, and the *rockets* priced more than most.
He thought a minute, and smiled and said, “Sister, noises are easily made,
but to spatter the sky with music for eyes, that needs to be thorough and well-composed.”

 

I remembered his words on Diwali night, as the rockets and wheels whizzed and sped

into the sky and climbed up the dark enticing our minds with their colours and spread -
music for the eyes. But all music in the end gives way to the music of silence,
all flames stilled, all lamps darkened, all books must close once they are read.

 

And the rockets must fall back to earth lighting up the sky for mere moments,

music for the eyes chars the grass even with its most charming cadence.
Only the balm of darkness stays, all the rest is here to be lost
The grass that’s burnt, white candle wax, as also the greenest gardens.

 

 

 

This entry is my second contribution to the Romantic Friday Writers Holiday SpiritBlogfest where we are getting together to share and celebrate the holiday spirit and our holiday memories. Do feel free to click on the link and join in with yours. Wishing you every joy of the season and a very happy 2013.

Which side of the border? and fence? and angle?

 

 

 

All your shapes are drawn into paper

as jitter-quivery as brains;
your limbs flared out a little
for balance on the water;
someday no-one will bother
to ask what it all means,
someday all the borders will smear,
and where  will cease to matter.
I ponder the asking of questions
that really have no answer - 
the lift of pig-snouts in and out of  
the muck and melees of rains;
the blinks of streetlights climbing into dawns.

 

East Bengal or Mohan Bagan?

which of the narratives, dialects
do you speak at home, oh none?
yeah, your accent’s wrongly clipped -
where did your foremothers come from?
where are your descendants going?
what do you mean you don’t know
when our lives are being ruined
by borders drawn long ago?
how do you take your riverfood?
that’s the wrong recipe entirely!
The silver fishtail thrashes in the bowl,
the nib gleams in a sad chuckle.

 

An ad banner for a photo club says

to focus on the bigger picture
and then choose the smackro-ed details
to rub into an artistic blur;
someone like me in her status updates
has “control” paired with “gun”!
Somewhere a man holds aloft a banner;
near home the march of a million.
I ponder the building of echo chambers
that have no other options
except to return the same last words.
The domes and arches of your minds
fade away into the shadows.

 

Why do you worry about the murdered

halfway around the world
when your sisters are gang-raped
and your brothers killed
bloodlines can neither be erased
nor can they be re-drawn.
Sister, who do you call brethren
and which side are you on?
Specify your birthplace here,
and where is your deathplace?
The forms crinkle their eyes at me.
The ancient bones of pyramids crack
before the secrets spill.

For my readers who are not Bengali/Indian, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are football teams.  Bengal was partitioned into two separate nations based on religious lines during the independence of India in 1947, and there was massive displacement of people on both sides and horrific casualties.  The Hindus by and large came to India, and many Muslim families left their homes and went across to the other side.  Bangladesh has subsequently fought Pakistani control and become a sovreign nation in which struggle India too played a role. They celebrated their Victory Day on Dec 16.

The Partition is an event that Bengalis regretted then and some continue doing so now, it is artificial as the heritage and language and the culture is common. Even now, where an Indian Bengali has his roots - "this" or "that" side of the border, is an important part of his identity.  Signs of i.d. compliance, adherence to the correct protocols, supporting the "right" football team, cooking with the "right" recipe etc are given undue and sometimes quite ridiculous significance.  And we as a race elevate nostalgia to a fine art! Probably a little like the Irish from what I've heard, but then I wouldn't know firsthand :)

 

 

This week has been eventful in a bad way, too many terrible headlines right round the world, Sandy Hook, a young woman gang-raped in Delhi, political unrest in the ME, where to start or stop? Expressing in a poem is the best way to cope sometimes!

Shared for OLN @ dVerse