(Im)modest Proposal

Spitfire the sweet faced, from the East, thought of me after a after a long time. It was a welcome surprise. "What's happened to your blog?" she said, among other things. I wondered too, what had happened to it? I'm tempted to say "life's like that" with a nine to five job and some more. But that's bull shit.

So Spitfire, I decided to make a feeble attempt to resuscitate it back to life. Thanks for being my muse in a way, you've been good (for a change :P).  I dread looking back to see these pages splattered with monochrome. It would be cooler to see something tinged in a hue of pink and yellow, red and green.

During this longish hiatus I missed writing about the first rains that left the city smeared with some more muck and grime.
Of the early morning train ride with raindrops and raingear.
Of the black tarry road which glistens with an unusual radiance.
Of lazy strolls on cobbled sidewalks.
Of cutting chai and piping hot vada pavs
And of course, some of my favorite people.

(I'm sick of all of you leaving my city.)

So if the rains haven't reached you yet, you know where you can find some showers, made more wonderful with chai and me! 

Derivatives

I try to pin it down to mediocrity. Self doubt. Disinterest.
Options: Swirl into a blaze of  orange flames. Dissipate into vapor.Mingle with the heavy molecules of humidity.Hang ominously over you like a wretched day in Mumbai.

It might be easier to just pass out.
The heat provides an easy excuse for laziness. And procrastination.
So may be its not mediocrity after all.

Confessions of a compulsive consumer

The silver on my  toe is chipping.

The electric pair of silver mojris carries a wisp of dusty Hyderabadi grandeur. Tired creases on the insoles spill a tale of worn feet.
My electric pair of silver mojris sadly, has lost its sheen.Beyond redemption.

The humidity laden Mumbai air plays truant with the carelessly strewn silver earrings.They've steadily gone from sparkly silver to gray to a dull black.They now face an uncertain, pasty fate...the yearly ablutions with toothpaste and water.
The hundred bucks buckled belt from Causeway now shows it true colors. Unlike the earrings, the silver buckle doesn't metamorphose into something old but pretty. It ungracefully bears orange stains of rust.This orange now slowly spills and spreads all over the white body of the belt. Cancerous.  
The silver of the stainless steel cutlery looks dubious.The shiny silver is too shiny. Can it be?
The thin line of mercury in the thermometer is a relief after the shiny silver. It comes closer to the silver of my Hyderabadi mojris.Erstwhile silver of the mojris.

Encased in the tube it looks placid and cool. While the mercury in the city rises I'm tempted to pour out this beautiful, thin strand of mercury.

It is the perfect shade of silver I'd like on my toe.

As always, I'm left a little more saddened at my compulsive consumerist status.

Endlessly

It begins with a knotty feeling.It's like a black, shadowy, gloomy, distrustful, menacing feeling.
Pit.
Hollow pit.

A nerve strains somewhere in the center of the pit.Then, it slowly starts radiating.
It's an empty sort of gnawing ache.
You want to spit it out, but you're ashamed of what it might look like once it's let out.
You silently choke on it instead.

You wait.
Wait for something
Right
For a knock
A glint
A beam

I had always wondered how it feels to wait for a miracle.

On Doorways

Jew Town Road,
Fort Cochin

The narrow stone cobbled streets seemed like they had meandered out of a book of illustrated Fairy Tales.Now, black tarred roads stick out only as a unsure memory.Here, feet mostly tread on age old stone, bathed in a film of sand blown over from the thin shoreline. 

Every other street corner was splashed with color or bedecked with beads, flowers, clothes or jewels.Resplendent.

In the midst of this extravagance I spotted a humble door way. Welcoming curious feet was a worn out but formerly bright yellow wall. Leading on was a cobbled stone path. Hovering over, cautiously was the blue sky.

Where will it take curious feet?
I have yet to find out.

This is as far as my camera's eye could see. 
But does another door always open when one shuts?
Is everything illuminated?

A Catalogue

Unreasonable

Dominating

Infuriating

Irritating 

Illogical

Petty

Obstinate 

Annoying

Autocratic

Hypocritical

Nerve-wrecking

I have it in the same measure as you.
Measure for measure.

Walls, now and then

The car snakes its way around the hill, through the bastis and mandis. We are momentarily distracted by the women in their red,yellow and pink lehengas and silver chudis. A bright sun beam bounces off a metal pot carefully balanced on a woman's head. Our driver squints for a moment. He shifts from the third to the second gear. The car slowly purs up the gradient. Brown stone walls stealthily creep up against the blue of the sky. The pale blue transforms into a dramatic space as battles of yester years peek through the small windows, chiseled out of stone. Mouthfuls of the sky emerge from behind the open windows of the thick fort walls.  He tells us it was a city ravaged in the past by pillage, murder and deceit. Every window has a steep decline, going all the way down. Buckets of hot oil were poured down these slopes if an enemy tried to scale the walls to enter. What bloody walls they must have been. Now they stand as a silent relic of the city's past. Mute spectators to the unfolding of a new history.

Speculations anyone?

"You're still the same! Just as you were in Junior college." She said with no hint of incredulity.
"Really?" I ask, stunned.

Cringe.
Cringe.

Brain doing a mental check:
Should I let my hair down and show her how wild it can get?
Should I rattle off unsavory invectives I've picked up over the years, in different languages?
Should I flash her a packet of goldflake lights?
Or my shiny new credit card?
Try getting her into an argument about Mumbai v/s Bombay or Obama's policies?

She's judged me. 
But she tries to be judicious


As an after thought she adds, "No but I'm sure there's lots more up there now." (Pointing to the wonderful brain inside her wonderful head)


"So do you still attend the Music fest in college?" (the college I left five years back)
"No" I say.

It's her turn to cringe now. That's it.I've confirmed her speculation .
I exit, so she can be happy about her judgment.
 
I wonder why I stopped by to say a hi to her in the first place.

In this country, speculations are a national pastime. Or so I speculate and comfort myself.

Rumblings

I sit back and stare at the blankness of the white dashboard on my screen. My fingers itch to type something. But I punch in this instead. Words and images whir through the mess that is my head. I momentarily feel like something is going to burst. With a short but loud 'pop'. Petering into a soft fizzle. Nothing happens. I think of a few well rehearsed lines to write, so I could sound grand, or may be profound or may be interesting. I scroll  the gray button on my black mouse up and down. Randomly. The bloody auto editor underlines my 'grey' in red and indicates to me  I am wrong. I correct it. I spell it as g-r-a-y. The utter blandness of my writing of the past months strikes me. The remarkable insignificance of my words makes me cringe. There's an unusual cold wind rustling the orange curtains in my window.The soft beat of the wind chime does little to drown the noise of the silence around me. I switch on the television just to make sure the noises inside my head become inaudible. The very happy people on Channel V make me cringe a little more. I switch it off. Now i can hear the comfortable breathing of my dog. It is in perfect harmony with his little tummy which goes up and down and up with every breathe. The curtain rustles a little more. This is uncannily cold by my city standards.

I decide to call it a day.
I'll savour the cold, so rare in my city, on my train ride to work tomorrow.

Kerala Diaries Part II

Some funny sign boards I spotted propped up in different places in the motherland. Within a context or despite one, I think you'd still chortle. No?