Guai?

The lanes were getting narrow, the shadows starting to loom.

Bougainvillea never had it so good. Ibrahim did not know what to expect, nor was he trying to expect any. He kept on walking. The tunes changed with every turn. Now, this was getting bizarre. How come this was so abrupt yet ever ending! So assured was he of the conclusion that he was no longer concerned with the closure anymore. It was the journey he was geared up for. The wilderness and the wantonness with which the bougainvillea grew, flanking him on both end, made him feel secure, though strangely. May be it was because he was out of doors, in the open land, after a relatively long time. He was getting tired of lurking you see. But from whom? We are yet to see, of course. But yes, all this naturaleza was doing him good, or so he liked to believe. But, he knew that the journey has not begun yet, not in real. No, not yet. Only he was out, finally.


.... to be continued.

chasm

And the comedy assumes magnified proportion, so much so that the noises outside get a physical presence - suffocating and soiled.

While some long lost music plays in the background, you only try not to fall into the well of crust nostalgia, faded to inglorious paleness.

The birds chirp in the early morning sky, sitting on the stairs leading to the terrace, talking of faraway lands you realise you can never visit while the concrete present and everyday life suck you inside a whirlpool - inescapable, deep and ceaseless.

Where are you stuck?

The pied-piper left way back.

Song No 47

On randomly opening the newly gifted Gitanjali, verse no XLVII flashes across, thus becoming my first song out of the hundred and three.

The night is nearly spent waiting for him in vain. I fear lest in the morning he suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out. Oh friends, leave the way open to him - forbid him not.

If the sound of his steps does not wake me, do not try to rouse me, I pray. I wish not to be called from my sleep by the clamorous choir of birds, by the riot of wind at the festival of morning light. Let me sleep undisturbed even if my lord comes of a sudden to my door.

Ah, my sleep, my precious sleep, which only waits for his touch to vanish. Ah, my closed eyes that would open their lids only to the light of his smile when he stands before me like a dream emerging from the darkness of sleep.

Let him appear before my sight as the first of all lights and all forms. The first thrill of joy to my awakened soul let it come from his glance. And let my return to myself be immediate return to him.

The things, situation, people that inspire a poet to write is manifold.

De Este Modo

It was a cold Winter night, Ibrahim was engrossed in his after dark hours introspection inside the tranquility of his one room apartment. Life is one amazing 'jack-in-the-box', he finally inferred. Sigh.

The kettle was whistling meanwhile. He walks towards it, turns the knob, prepares a cup of black tea. There are grand pleasures in small deeds. Ibrahim then walks towards his balcony for his everyday surveillance of the night sky. The tethering bonds suffocate him. It's only during this hour that he feels completely untangled, being alone in the overpowering lightness of the night. He awaits tomorrow once again.

...to be contd.

Glimpses

the lull

One evening. Same old roads and drifting winds. Blurry captures and vehicle in motion. The comforts of familiarity. The break in the lull.

The Alleys Without Djinns

The earth has been wet, drenched. The sky - forlorn, grey, heavy with clouds. The raindrops are still fresh on the wires from last night’s rain. But these are all invisible from the box of the room I live in. But when you come out and stare at the remnants of the destruction left by the previous night’s rain I’m transported for a few moments, if not longer, to that window facing the lotus spread pond of mine on a rainy afternoon.

It is hard to think that more than a year have passed since I landed on the heartland, the capital, The City. This is definitely not the first rain I have witnessed here of course. I have braved its infamous winter, the unbearable summer and the mad monsoons. Time is an amalgamation of all the seasons as we see. The essence of the city (as one of my friends had remarked) - the spirit takes time to unfold. Likewise, for me the core of what Delhi is, is merely not the swanky malls, the concrete roads, the troublesome traffic, the famous somany sites (sounds), its high quotient life. Delhi for me, at this stage, is a collage of images, everyday images - an early morning glimpse of the India Gate in fog; the pigeons, the omnipresent pigeons, behaving like your guides throughout the city; the labourers with their shiny black backs labouring on the sweltering streets in midday, the view from the terrace of unending blocks of tall buildings, the laughter shared by a bunch of friends in an obscure small Chinese restaurant (whose waitresses have also traversed a long way from home), the momo corners around the market place, the gypsies habiting in the middle of the city. The subtlety has been minimal, almost unseen. The prejudices I had against the city (not that I was loaded with them) kind of got lost by the time I was actually seeped in by a part of it, as a curious observer. The music of the place have not formed a symphony nor do I expect it to be build up into one so fast but the amaltas of the last season, the unexpected quite moments shared in the heartland makes for some unforgettable starts to probing of the city with alleys without Djinns, real, throbbing with life, with variety and variants. Simple activities become enlarged. Introspection gets time even in this otherwise fast life.

That is the most amazing thing about the city, its full of strangers, full of outsiders, most of the people you see do not actually belong to the city - The students, the labourers, the gypsies, the job seekers, the transferred ones, the drifters, everyone. But how we become a part, an unmissable part, to create the whole the city is. I have been lonely but at times only when I chosen to be. Finding myself in the newest surrounding, which will slowly cease to be new, I wonder, I don’t reminisce. The time spent has been fast, keeping up to the fast paced life. Delhi is not a mirage and it’s a relief or perhaps. The discovery reaches the next phase and I can’t be more prepared to take on the role of the explorer.

P.S: Was written a month back, during the Mad monsoons