Under an urbane sunlight

Midafternoon. The sunlight’s hard.

Intractable. Like raised placards
in the hands of silent citizens
pushed beyond frontiers of words,

 

far beyond bafflement and ken.

Exhausted men and women,
clock hands, numb bells, boulevards
ringed into rallies. Some broken,

 

bent contrails, spent smoke, and yards

of straight gun barrels and guards
and this hard smiling sunlight, fallen
on random faces, slogans, and hazards.

.

I’ll paint you a picture - easy dozen

birds to a cloud, speckled, sullen,
twisting in the sky, tugged homeward
under an urbane sunlight. And omens.

Write...Edit...Publish.. - the inaugural entry - A Tough Customer

Feels great to be part of the brand new bloghop over at Write..Edit...Publish, created by Denise Covey.  The prompt for this month is vacation, and I am here with a flash, condensed from a much longer story.  

A Tough Customer

The Rajdwar is no ordinary hotel, she feels lucky to have landed this job.  Savera pulls her bag onto her shoulder with a frisson of smugness, and checks her hair once more, pats a stray strand back as she calls out, “Amma, I’m leaving.  Bye—e –e.”

The lobby will be crowded today.  The vacations have just started, so people are either moving out or moving back into the city.  It’s only a filler job, a trainee’s assignment for the weeks of the vacation, but it will polish up her résumé another shade.  She enjoys people-watching, especially children, so it will not be any hardship.  Rather fun getting an insider view of a hotel this large, this luxurious.  There is a swing to her step, a jauntiness to the way her head sits on her shoulders. 

 ***

It has been easy this far. For a city with such a record, no extra security measures are in place. 

“Have they already forgotten? 1993? 2006? Not even a metal detector in the whole place. Really!”  He jostles into place at the queue for the unreserved carriages, holding his single case carefully close, disguising its heaviness with a light, three-fingered grip.   No-one gives him a second glance, another unshaven college kid in a scruffy T-shirt and large shades, going home on an impulse without advance reservation.   He smiles a little.  These people are such fools, they imagine they are invincible, when no-one is.  Well, they’ll find out soon enough, he thinks to himself; and then wipes the smile off his face swiftly. 

The queue moves forward as the train pulls into the platform.  He notes the route, the next stop will be at another end of the city on the long journey east.  He can recollect the map faultlessly, though he has never stepped here before.  The trainers have been strict and his training is superb.

He is in some amount of shoving later, and finds a sliver of an aisle seat by requesting an old man, “Uncle-ji, a little space?”

The man looks at him with milky, cataract-filled eyes, he is old enough to be the younger man’s father, “Come son, sit.  How far are you going?”

He grunts and sits down, opens a newspaper out to discourage talk.  The usual stream of passengers and hawkers of tea and meals, of cheap plastic toys and miracle portions pass through the carriage till the train finally draws out of the platform in long interrupted shudders.  Later, when the train has picked up speed, he walks through the vestibule into the first car, and enters a toilet with his small case.  Inside, he gets quickly to work, and by the time he finishes, a small black oblong shape is clipped below the lavatory opening, well out of sight on the back of the soil tube.  He flushes twice to make sure it is secure and invisible and dry.  He then shaves, changes into a business suit that instantly ages him a decade, and gets off at the next station. There’s work to be done at Rajdwar too.  He takes out a phone and sends a clipped text.  “Gone east.”

 ***

Savera puts down the telephone and looks at the guest, “Good evening, Sir. How may I help you?”

“I haven’t seen you here before.  Are you new?”

“Yes.” She keeps her smile smooth, even though she is bristling a little, “Do you have a reservation, Sir?”

He mimics her tone sotto voce, “No, I don’t have a reservation, and yes I need a room, and I am sure you are full up.  I need to see your manager, is Singh around?  Now be a sweetie and run and get him for me.  I am not a customer you can handle.”

“If you will provide an i.d. Sir, I will do my best.  As you know it’s the start of the holidays and you may not get the choice you want, Mr Singh is a busy man.” Her shift was nearly over, her feet were hurting, it was only her third day at work, she didn’t want to run to the manager bleating like a clueless lamb because she couldn’t face a tough customer.  Deal with this odd fellow, too bold by half, bung him into a room and then straight home.

“Have it your way sweetness.  Here’s the i.d.”  He’s got through this far without a hitch, the room matters nothing now.  He just needs to kill time till the others get in.  Kill time first, and then zoom in for the real thing.

The passport feels light, she looks it over dubiously, but can’t pinpoint any flaw exactly.  She photocopies it and goes through the forms; allocates one of the less-prized rooms.  He takes the key, but she notices that he saunters over to the lobby and sits there waiting.  Anyway, it’s none of her business, she winds up her work, and leaves.

 ***

Outside the streets feel jittery.  The shops which should be open, are closing their shutters early.  She wonders what’s happened as her autorickshaw crawls towards the station.  The streets are choked.  

“Kya baat hai, bhaiya?”

“Pata nahi.  Tirayn ka kuch gadbad .” *

Trains being disrupted isn’t anything unusual, she slumps back into her seat.  But she is stopped from getting into the Samrat Ashok Terminus by a cordon and a senior looking official, “The terminus is being evacuated.”  

Then he looks at her puzzled, young face and drops the offialese.  “Daughter, the city is under attack, go home some other way, get somewhere safe fast.”

“How? What?” her bewilderment knows no bounds, but he just waves her off resignedly.

She walks back into the milling crowds and turns to face the station.  Above the ornate entrance the large news-screen blinks the headlines out in dotted green lights.  Breaking News.  Synchronised blasts in long distance trains.  Rajdwar under siege.  Terrorists occupy landmark hotel.  

Not a customer you can handle.  The words and the passport pages swim into her mind, and she finally realises the flaw in them in one stinging flash of remorse.

WC -1013
All feedback welcome.

* "What is the matter?"

   "Don't know.  Probably a problem with the trains."

India, where I come from, and where I come back to every year for home leave in July-August, has long been a target for terrorists. Many of the vacations I have spent here in the last decade have been disturbed by news of blasts and attacks and high alerts all across the Indian cities. This flash is distilled from all those vacation headlines. 

Updated as per suggestions in the comments.

Read the other entries here:

1.	Denise Covey	8.	Michael Di Gesu ... In TIme ....	15.	Lisa Buie-Collard
2.	Trisha F.	9.	Spunky L. Diane Wolfe	16.	Tessa Conte
3.	Sally	10.	Beverly Fox	17.	Morgan @ Writer's Block
4.	Yolanda Renee	11.	Pat Hatt	18.	H J Musk
5.	Nilanjana Bose	12.	Madeleine	19.	N. R. Williams
6.	Linda Katmarian	13.	Hart @ Confessions of a Watery Tart	20.	Adornments for Dreams
7.	Michelle @ Writer~In~Transit	14.	The Armchair Squid	21.	Roland Yeomans - direct link

Different transit

I thought I knew where to go when I started out -

the road lay straight, but there was spilled mud on it
in strange smiles, and grasses shook their beards in laughing doubt,
a flock of birds shrilled a tune and wheeled about
overhead, and underfoot a track slid off from the main
and vanished in the woods in a longer circuit
unknown and inviting in the frail mists of rain;
so I stepped off-road beyond the hard, painted limits
into the whispers of light and shade, into silk-soft soil,
its red mouth against my skin. Into a wholly different transit.
The narrow, dimly-lit mud track cracked and split,
doubled up on itself, wound back and forth through the terrain
climbed into different levels of peace and turmoil
and then returned me to the same wide road again.







 

No explanations

I snap a flower with a trembling raindrop

folks admire the colours, applaud the whole job

so I don’t really have the heart to explain

that there is no colour to a drop of rain.

 

 

 

Narrow roads open to broader horizons

Much broader my loving because of this love,

much wider my world because I travelled this lane -
narrow and steep from the valley on rough,
loosely scattered scree, the tarmac quite worn off;
an interrupted trickle of gravel and mud
sliding slowly down from the hills to the plain.

Not just the horizons that change in travel

and here the hills clipped them, whipped them into piles
somewhere foreshortened, elsewhere invisible
and yet they broadened, on narrow paths and tunnels,
on stilts of bridges that looked like they’d fall
but stood still, when I glanced back, with skeleton smiles.



Narrow roads open to broader horizons
and clear the view of the mists and the rains;
and one slender bamboo grove, some fronds of fern
droop over the road, secret arches of caverns
and a stripped knuckle of stone imperiously summon
some shift of pulses in the extremes of veins.

Drizzle

Way out, beyond every city limit

far in the hills, peace drizzles through the leaves
just ahead on the ribbon of the road
and no-one seems to catch up with it;
the sodden pathways gleam, a sudden mist
in luminescent white washes the spun weaves
of a delicate truth, heavily bedewed
with the rain, trembling and restless.

Wordless

The heart’s full

the lips sealed
the fingers still
of their own accord.
Far away, a rainbow sky
chooses me as I pass by
and neither side says a word.







 

RFW July - Honeymoon

It’s time to head back to Romantic Friday Writers, where the challenge for July is Honeymoon, following on most naturally from where the June one ended. I am posting my flash bang in the middle of my nth mini-moon to the Himalayas, and majorly apt it feels to me too. :)

As always, look forward to your feedback and of course reading the entries, when I get back to my own laptop.

 

The Right Words

I didn’t think of Paul, or his hometown very often, so it was a shock when Chet finally told me.  I had to think for a split second why the destination made me uneasy, felt ominous somehow, more significant than I could immediately pinpoint.  Then I remembered and my brain went into a tailspin, one memory among the whole rising like a black plume of smoke.

Chet stood non-plussed meanwhile, the knot in his forehead made the breath snag in my throat.  It always did.

“What’s the matter, Savvy? You haven’t been there, have you? Do you want the bookings changed?”

“No, I haven’t been there” I tried to figure out the right words, but there weren’t any, “it’s fine, really.”

His frown smoothened. Should I tell him? Wouldn’t that make it seem more important than it was? I dithered; the chance passed.  It was a memory I was happy to forget, I had buried it deep.  It was all so long ago.

 

 

Paul and I met at Perugia, both of us out of our respective hometowns and I massively out of my depth.  We were both doing language programmes, both lonely.  I talked to him about my island home, and he told me about his.  He was on a sabbatical, an air-traffic-controller or a coastguard or something, studying Italian to better his career graph.  I didn’t have any job experience, or any experience for that matter, just a meagre scholarship.

Soon I was in love with that asphyxiating desperation only youth can muster.  We spent more and more time together, I spent more and more of my scholarship money on things most unscholarly, it’s a familiar story.  The only difference was the end.  Instead of the usual dust up, Paul robbed me, then beat me almost to death, and left for good.  Friends picked up my pieces and put them back together.  I had failed my exams, had no money, had no stomach to ask my parents back home for help or explain the whole sordid saga.  So I made a patchy recovery, stayed on and worked at whatever meanly-paid jobs I could find.  I lost my self-esteem, but I managed the degree.   

I left Perugia a year later, came back home.  I never mentioned Paul to anyone.  My parents were puzzled, but they attributed the changes to my being away, alone, among strangers.  I never corrected them, didn’t see the use.  The nightmares persisted for some years.  I avoided going out, avoided men.  But time coats the most excruciating memories with the tarnish of forgetfulness, fades every scar.  There were others later, who helped rub them out.  It had been a long time.

 

 

Chet was the guy next door.  He moved in and on the first evening knocked to ask for coffee because his wasn’t organised.  We kind of fell into the habit of seeing each other.  He wooed me slowly, as though he had all the time in the world, and  he'd flash me that high-voltage slow smile making my heart turn over.

This time love washed over me in an insidious tide, I never quite knew when the waters got so deep, so thrillingly high.  Yet there was also a coming to rest, a firmly grounded, bone-deep contentment in the very centrepoint of my life.  When he brought up the idea of marriage, I didn’t even have to think.  I was the wedding planner, it was going to be a simple one anyway. Chet ran a travel business, so naturally his were the honeymoon arrangements.  He had asked my preferences a few times, diffident, wanting to please. “Surprise me,” I had said breezily.  And so he had, and how!

 

The wedding was a blur.  I tried to look suitably dignified, but probably smiled too wide and too much.  Chet’s hand at my waist rested with an authority I’d never experienced before, his fingers taking the moonstone clips from my hair later had an entirely new tenderness.  In all that time, among the people, and then away from them, I never figured out the right words.  Not even when Chet kissed my scar.

The flight out was uneventful but I felt edgy for no logical reason.  I had a brand new husband who loved me passionately, and who I loved as deeply, life was as good as it can possibly get.  What were the chances of something going wrong?

It was a fine, clear day and the island sat like a jewel embedded in a turquoise sea.  We landed and came through to the customs from the baggage carousel.

“Welcome to Valletta, ma’am, can I just have your bag in the scanner for a minute?”

The voice was the same.  I looked straight at the same face that had looked at me as I had coughed blood and fainted, only then I hadn’t noticed how sly his smile was, how cruel his eyes set deep in their sockets.  I saw them widen and knew that I too had been recognised.  I checked the name tag, but it was totally superfluous.

“Savannah? Savvy?”

“Paul.”

I had expected to be nervous, too freaked out to think straight, but my voice was steady.  I had forgotten, he was a customs officer.  From the look of it, his sabbatical hadn’t helped his career graph much.  I turned to Chet, his forehead was knotting up in that delicious way again.

“Chet, this is Paul.  We studied together at Perugia. I was lovesick for him once, but got cured after he beat me to a pulp. He’s the one who gave me that scar.”

I didn’t speak especially loud, but the words carried.  Another officer looked around, astonished.  No-one said anything.  Our cases came through the baggage X-ray.  I grasped Chet’s hand and drew him close, my heart soaring at the firm squeeze he gave my fingers.  Paul remained frozen, his mouth agape.  We picked up the bags, walked on and out into the sunshine.

 

 

WC - 995

FCA 

Weeds ( Leaves, not just of grass III)

Is it a weed if it blooms? some oversmart-aleck

doodles on some bricks, and many years pass
the mortar shrinks, the bricks smile up a crack
the purple flowered vine slowly chokes the grass

the trees grow rings, leaves carpet the deck

layer on layer, one for each year, amass
the tales of seasons written on their backs
and there’s the graffiti, barefaced and flash

that doesn’t fade, and there’s no-one to check

how fast flowers go, and how long graffiti has
how large the effrontery of humans, how black
their writing, the exact depth of a minute’s sass

fourteen bricks fallen in a heap, and maybe

rudiments of insolence, or philosophy.

Absences (Leaves, not just of grass II)

No-one’s opened the windows for a year

the air hangs heavy with absences
stuck hinges reinforce the atmosphere
the door swings open as though you are here
but the rooms are hunched empty, and the sun winces.

I wipe sills clean, polish the panes and clear

the leaf-drop of a season, the silences
of sparse urban streetlights, a few austere
threads of cobwebs on a chandelier
and then check once more the smoothness of hinges.

Leaves, not just of grass

No-one’s lived here for more than a year

the garden’s gone wild and overgrown
so I tell the gardener to trim it clear
I want the shrubs tidied, the grasses mown.

 

He brings his step ladder and pruning shears

and gets to work on the plants and the lawn;
the trim takes him a couple hours or near
and then it’s done - the wilderness’s gone.

 

He calls me at the last and I’m aghast,

“My god! my brother, what have you done?”
“But this madame is what you yourself asked!
How else can I tidy up a garden?”

 

“This is not what I want, in two hours past

you’ve trimmed off the plumes, the flowers, not one
remains on the plants, it’s just leaves and grass
just bare branches, only green and barren.”

 

The birds too are hushed, he stands there non-plussed

till my ire’s spent, says in an even tone,
“don’t worry, they grow back, but you must
decide how green you want your garden grown.”

 

He stands there and smiles, “leave it a bit wild

and there’ll be flowers in all colours and tones;
but if you want it neat, then get reconciled
to the idea of shades of green alone.

 

“Pruned neat and square, it will always be bare

you see, madame, the buds are often borne
at the tip of shoots and they must bloom there,
and the grass loses its plumes if it’s mown.”

 

I look at his wise face, and the spruced up place

and though I have been slow, it at last dawns -
the lesson he has taught with such careless grace
with a pair of pruning shears, and a wordless lawn.

Moult

The dream moults me in the deep of night

and goes tripping on urban streets
slow blinking milky sight spread wide,
rehashed the tread of heavy lead feet,

 

my mind rolled up like a yoga mat

writhes, and flesh resonates and turns
as it stops at a lamppost, scans a map,
outruns the roads and then returns.






My bug is back!  And a different bug here in the air.  But all well so far with us. 

Speech Day

The lit up stage is way down front

the last row’s cramped, no leg space
maybe an afterthought just meant
for children, or those who came in too late

 

to find a spot in the coveted aisles

and I should fit, but I don’t;
the names are called of each child
and each one carries something to flaunt -
deepens a father’s applause, a mother’s smile

 

some things my son you’ll learn from books

others you won’t find on your page
you’ll have to go elsewhere to look
the speeches are made on the stage
the awards given, small and huge
markers of childhood, and coming of age

 

a sibling sits filming an event

with shaky hands and a steady pride
a polished routine draws to an end
then you are called to collect your prize
you walk down, gawky angled, unkempt
hair spiked, beautiful innocence
looking back once to catch my eyes.




 

RFW June Weddings

June.  The end of spring, the start of summer.  The last bit of the transition.  I always feel the seasonal cusps more than the seasons, and this one’s been a bit hectic.  So I am glad of the chance to get back to Romantic Friday Writers, where exciting changes are afoot and the challenges get more sumptuous with each passing month. Who doesn’t love weddings, or prizes? Only I am stuck in some sort of medieval melodrama mode which I keep stumbling back to, can’t seem to snap out of it. And I seem to have lost whatever little grip I had on word counts too :) so I guess that rules me out of the race, but I’d still love your critiques!

 

A bit about the context – henna tattoos are applied to the hands of brides in many parts of North India. An ancient tradition still observed today, the designs very elaborate, very beautiful!  It is commonly held that the deeper the colour sets on the bride’s palms the more deeply she will be loved by her groom.  The Indian Hindu wedding ceremony at its core consists of vows made in the presence of the sacred fire-god, Agni-dev, and sealed with sacrifices and libations.

 

Here is my entry for the challenge:

 

 

 

 

 

Hennaed hands

The groom’s name had been hennaed, hidden, discreet

within the exquisite design the bride wore,
and the women joked they’d bar the bridal suite
they’d allow him in, only open the door
if he could find in her hands something his own;
else he’d have to spend the night outside alone.

 

The bride flushed and looked away, then anxiously

sneaked a look at her palm, would he find his name?
Oh, it was done too fine, this filigree;
it wouldn’t do, she’d never live down the shame!
She cursed the henna-woman, and the age-old jokes
played on bridal couples by rowdy womenfolk.

 

The wedding was quite out of the common run,

it’s not every day that a princess weds;
and this one was a brave heart, a young woman
who could ride and fence and drop her enemies dead
at thousand paces with her unerring aim
and in her hennaed hand was her groom’s name.

 

The Senapati’s son, Samir – beloved of the gods,

his eyes blazing coals, his skin, dark and tanned,
sheathed a supple body keen-edged like a sword
and his was the name hennaed on her hand
and his the face on her throbbing heart tattooed.
They had trained and played together since childhood.

 

***

 

First met when she was six and he was eight,

at the royal armoury choosing their bows.
Together they learnt to shoot their arrows straight;
they fenced and parried and evaded deadly blows,
they honed their arms and their weapon skills
to a fearsome point able to defend and kill.

 

There were other children there, but somehow these two -

the young, fearless boy and the little princess
formed a natural team when they were required to,
then fought duels amongst themselves with ferociousness,
relished a deep friendship off mock battlefields,
and on them fought to win, to make the other yield.

 

She dealt him a blow one day in a late teen year

the wound too shallow to do any lasting harm;
his blood made her drop her blade and some strange fear
unnerved her heart and petrified her sword arm.
The cut was his, but hers felt the painful sting
and a poignant epiphany that only love can bring.

 

The days went on and he came back, his wound healed

and she who was whole never again felt whole,
she thrust and parried in the arena, rode the fields
with the same ruthlessness and superb control,
but distracted, she slipped whenever Samir was close,
she never dealt him anymore those hard blows.

 

***

 

They fought one day paired again in a free-for-all

and a weapon point flashed too near Samir’s face;
she turned pale, and intervened with a concerned call,
her demeanour, and the words, left no trace
of doubt and so finally she stood revealed
and he knew her yearning heart in that field.

 

He didn’t speak, but his coal-black blazing eyes

burnt a hotter flame, a sparking, leaping light
pared his soul during an arms exercise
and awakened to love through sudden insight;
and so the two who were once childhood friends
came to be lovers suddenly at its end.

 

The king was pleased to bless their union

for the Senapati was a friend both noble and staunch,
the two old men had seen many battles won.
And so  the palace hung garlands and blew the conch;
and so the henna-woman piped paisley designs
and hid Samir’s name within the saffron lines.

 

***

 

Seven vows the groom made to his princess bride

and sealed the pledge with libations for entire life,
seven circles around the sacred fireside
their garment ends knotted tight as man and wife,
palm upward, within it his hennaed name
she gave him her hand before the holy flame.

 

The news came a lightning bolt from the blue

the messenger ran panicked in disarray -
a rebel attack on the fringe, what to do?
they must be stopped at all cost without delay!
The old king left to strategise and oversee
and he was followed closely by his Senapati.

 

The shehnai took on a newly mournful strain,

Samir undid the bridal knot and laid it flat,
“Princess, you will understand I cannot remain
while our fathers lead soldiers into combat.
My darling, please let me go with them now,
I’ll come back to you if the gods allow.”

 

The merry pace of a happy wedding band

the fates can flip in an hour to battle march -
a groom came at dusk to claim a hennaed hand
and left a soldier ready to face the enemy charge;
his bride watched him go, her heart aflame
and tight her fist gripped around his hennaed name.

 

***

 

Battles end, soldiers return, lovers reunite

but none return the same, they come back scarred,
and Samir of the blazing eyes, coal-dark and bright,
returned at last after the gods treated him hard;
six slow days and nights he rode on his horse
held steady by kind men on homeward course.

 

The henna-woman wept aloud, the rest too shocked

eyed his many grievous wounds on breast and thighs;
just one whisper rose and fluttered, then was choked,
“Alas, Samir of the blazing coal-black eyes!”
Wordless his bride the princess stood and gazed
disbelieving, at his eyes that no more blazed.

 

She looked at him then at her hands hennaed deep,

the designs refreshed every day since he’d left
and still she didn’t speak, nor did she weep,
though one by one her women lost control and wept,
“Alas, O Samir, beloved of the gods!
Their love counts for nothing at the point of swords.

 

“And how will he find his name written on his bride

and who will press his warm lips to that pulsing spot?”
The bride meanwhile drew a dagger from her side,
and held the point to a torch till glowing hot.
On deeply hennaed hand she branded his name
with scorching steel, in letters of blood and flame.

 

“Yours the name, my love, my hand will always bear,

trace the blood and find yourself in my palm;
and in its corded burn scars too you’ll be there.
Beloved, I‘ll be your eyes and your weapon arm.
Women, hurry, now open and deck the rooms -
he’s found his name, and tonight I have my groom.”




WC  - 1049
FCA






Senapati - Defence chief (Sena=army, pati=master/lord)

shehnai - a flute-like instrument played during weddings