ഇവിടെ, ഇപ്പോള്‍

ഈ ഭ്രാന്തിനു
തുരുമ്പിച്ച ചങ്ങലകളുടെ
മുഴക്കം പോലുമില്ല

on a rainy day, the memories are wet

in a room that smells of wet clothes, hung to dry on a yellow rope dotted with grime, and secured by clips, dead, if you have seen mothers who hold children who have gone to sleep forever, for the winds don't come in.... the windows are shut against the rain, rain that tickles down the wire mesh, a reminder, but there is none to answer the call.... the dampness spreads across the pale walls, and up from the ground, the curtains are wet too, the rusted old fan, turns and turns and turns, there is water falling, not lashing, not painful, only falling, a trickle of air.... secret letters of love, guilt, blotted by tears that roll down unwashed, unpowdered cheeks, salty letters in black ink that spreads on the paper, smeared now with secret guilt, hidden passions, honest scars which you can deny later when the wounds shall heal, the bandage shall go and leave no mark, but hidden too long and too quick, like doors shut on noise and light, maybe, only maybe and rarely, develop into pus, but for now it is wise to cover it up with a bandage..... like the lichen that grows beneath your clean white palm and the old wall now silent, so quiet, like the talkative grandmother who was dressed in white and wore those black rimmed glasses and there was an argument about which side to place her head that will not now be restless, will not argue, but the chin was up, and she was powdered again in cream sandalwood powder, the floor of the old house was wet that day and mother said it was from the nearby pond, that there was water beneath all this, so when she was buried, maybe she floated or swam away to some safe haven, she did not come back to tell her grandchild this last tale of adventure, i know the grandchild waited.... but weren't we talking about the lichen, that soft and green, its tender tentacles, a growth that spreads on memories that will soon be hidden, and under the softness you can still feel the hard red stone, firm still, but no outward traces.... like the reflections we left on our favourite waters, the stones we threw in must sure be there still, when now will we hold hands and go in looking for round white pebbles, boats made from grandfather's old newspapers and father's office documents, a wooden doll, a silver anklet, is it still there.... but our reflections are now different, or is it because the river has grown old....

മാറ്റം

മാറ്റം അനിവാര്യം ആണെന്ന് നീ പറയുന്നു
നിന്നിലെ മാറ്റങ്ങള്‍
കിടക്കവിരിയില്‍
ചുവപ്പ് ചിത്രങ്ങള്‍
വരകാരില്ലലോ ...

waiting

darling, you come to me

like fleas on the leper's wounds

how they refuse to go away

as he crawls grime-covered

arms outstretched

for money you won't give

precious pity aplenty

garnishing for your speeches

in a purple bottle i have stored

a dragon fly

it must be dead now

like the baby in a bell jar

in the biology lab at school

do you know

how haunted i was for days

and what a pretty baby it was

the smell of old photographs

yellow, the colour of memories

left to decay in old trunks

of my father's prodigal relatives

who cheated on their spouses

and flew away like birds

do they always return

will you?

നാണം

സ്നേഹത്തിനും,
ഇരുട്ടിനും,
വിശപ്പിനും,
നാണമില്ല.
സധാചാരബോധമില്ല.
കാപട്യമില്ല.

criminals

let there be music. and the trees ought to be green, the fields too. the skies a clear blue. and let the skies wear that look they often do before they pour forth their frustrations, not dark clouds and on the verge of depression, but in that mood of contemplation, when they are still clear blue, the facade so and yet will water down very soon. and let the winds blow. a light, gentle one, blowing my hair into my faces so you can tidy it for me, draw it to the behind of my ears and look into my eyes to see your pretty face. or let it be that i am looking into your eyes that hold the moon. the skies then a velvety blanket, with silver specks. and let there be lots of those silver specks, shining on for you and me. and then i shall look into your heart, without wearing these black-rimmed glasses, and i shall tell you what i feel.
in this room we have come to, climbing those steep flight of stairs, each step covered with dirt and disease, and the corners all reddened (no, not by the red we both love, but by wasted betel nuts), and both of us looking down and then glancing up to see where this patterned secrecy is leading us. to this room whose door creaks and the latch threatens our little secret, our crime. and on a bed, the linen of which is stained by the woes of men and women who came before us, all of them in a hurry to unburden a part of themselves, to prove this point but behind closed doors, priced at Rs 200 a night. i don't see the reflections in your eye, the quivering of your lips, but i have seen well the spiders scurrying in and around their cobwebs and lying in wait for their prey, i can see the dirty fan going round and round, with its monotonous croaking, and though it goes on and on it still cannot wipe the nervousness we are drenched in. i can see the plaster peeling off the walls, i can see the men and women who were here before us, fear and victory fleeting through their eyes and limbs, all of us doing all that has been done before, nothing new, and each of us thinking it were new, and so near to the meaning we seek in the busy streets down the closed window. i then see no skies, no waters, no greens. i only see parts of you, not whole, and a you so untrue to your self. i want to tell you to stop, to tell you this will come to nothing, that there is no meaning and pleasure this reeking bed and room will give us. but yet we go on, performing meaningless acts, hurting each other and then all tired we run down the flight of steps, me first and you following to impress upon the accountant, for whom we really care not, that we care not for each other. and then i wait at the turn of this narrow street while you settle the bill, and emerging like a criminal. no, i cannot here tell you. never can i tell you in this dry room of acrobats and their gimmicks what i feel. i will never be able to say, " keep this - my soul". and, even if i did, this monotonous fan will drown out my voice, just as it does our panting nervousness, our whining helplessness, this petty crime of ours.

a piece of sky

(Wrote this for a college assignment. But this has remained very dear to the heart. And hence...)

Indifferent wheels that screech past the road; concrete colossals that crane their necks to make their mark in the firmament above; hoardings of motley colours that scream for attention; men, women and children who trot the happy, puddle-laden, slushy street……these are things anyone would notice. But not the old, dilapidated house that seemed to have ungrudgingly absorbed all the grime of the metropolis onto itself and stood there still like a stubborn old hag refusing to give up. With its moss-laden boundary walls, tiled roof, flaked interiors, broken pillars and cracked flooring, it stood there, an anachronism, as against the grand confusion of a city striving to earn that-something it had long forgotten in the chaos of progress, expanding roads and concrete sprouts.
The heavy iron gate, rusted beyond repair, whined as if to protest when pushed open. There were unkempt bougainvillea trees on either side, a melancholic pink and in full bloom, that had spread to an unweildly canopy, like the hair of the witch in the fairy tale book, so much so that it almost shut the sun out completely. But you notice the shrivelled bark, the termites happily eating away memories from the wood, and you realise this may probably be the last time spring will kiss the optimistic trees.
Climbing dust-laden steps, one reaches the grimy black porch on which muddy shoes had left their imprint, unconsciously leaving the only outward traces of human habitation there. And then one enters the one-time ‘living’ room. On one side are wooden cupboards with glass panes , full of books – from classics and old dictionaries to the latest bestsellers and magazines. And on the other is a long wooden table and a couple of wooden chairs around it. And at the table is the man of the house, reading the day’s newspaper. All that one sees of him is the held up newspaper and wisps of smoke rising from behind it.
The dimly lit corridor with rooms on either side leads to the smoky kitchen with its dark walls covered with soot. And along the corridor one notices the clandestine flight of stairs which leads to rooms upstairs. The wooden planks creaked rhythmically when trodden upon. Many a time a young rebellious teenager would have romped these stairs, in anguish, mostly in rage. And even as you climb up the stairs, you can still hear the clutter of vessels in the kitchen downstairs.
Atop is a large room, full of books, which leads to another room. Books, newspapers, magazines, clothes, accessories, pens, paintbrushes and loose sheets of paper lay strewn all around the room – on the floor, table, chairs and bed. Near the table is a window that opens out onto the noisy street. And through the dusty bars of the window, one sees the firmament. Not vast stretches of it, but only a rectangular piece. A piece of sky. Beyond the framework of that window, the sky is not yours anymore. The owners are many; they are unknown.
It is strange how distance cannot diminish real warmth and fondness. And the finest details push their way through the veils of memory. I close my eyes. This is home. Warm as ever.

observation

painted nails

have red-painted mouths

that spit

sugar-coated words

punctuated by

"oh my" and

squealing "really"

and uh-uh and tch-tch

painted nails

grow on waxed fingers

that hold delicate phones

and travel on coquettish heels

and discuss 26/11 and darfur

and malnourishment in some african forest

while red lips sip cappuccino

and candy mouths nibble on pizzas

red painted nails

are fastest growing species

their mother

the same vending machine

you pop in a gold penny

and you get a fine face

and you might call it

hypocrisy

red and blue lights

i hate blue and red lights,
i feel like eliot on the operation table.
a prison. did dungeons have such lights?
or like walking on a dark street,
turning back to gaze into the stalker's eye.
my footsteps gather pace, but the heart's leapin
it's a game of shadowns down unknown alleys
of a drunken crowd, that screams and taunts
cause you have refused to drink tonight
when they hate your fist-sized calm,
and you envy their bliss-laden forgetfulness
not wanting it though under blue, and red lights....
it is not that you hate red
of the christmas star, of the flag that faced the skies
of the hibiscus flower of childhood
that lay crushed to crimson and purple the next day
of gulmohar trees in my hometown
of the first heart you scribbled in your notebook
the smallest, for you were afraid of those watchful eyes,
their opinions, the judgements they would pass
and go into a corner and gaze at red earthen tiles
of school walls, and the red wet earth
it is not that you hated them..
nor blue neither
all transparence that flows as a blue whole
the colour of dreams laced with white clouds
the same crayon to paint the sky and the river
little v-shaped black crows circling above
while a boat and the boatsman hooked on to a fish,
two, three more of them, all in a line...
and later, the boy you called
"my blue horse"
knowing well there was none
it is not that you hated them
it is that i hate red, and blue lights

vladimir n estragon

ഞാന്‍ എന്തിനാണീ കാത്തിരിക്കുനത് .... ഏതോ ഉള്‍നാടന്‍ ഗ്രാമത്തിലെ തീവണ്ടിയാപ്പീസില്‍, ഓണത്തിനും സംക്രാന്തിക്കും മാത്രം വരുന്ന തീവണ്ടിക്കെന്നപോലെ. അന്ഹനെ വന്ന അവസാന വണ്ടിയും, ഉറക്കെ ചിരിക്കുന്ന ലകഷ്യസ്ഥാനത്തിലേക്ക് മുന്കൂടി ടിക്കറ്റ്‌ എടുത്ത യാത്രകാരെയും പേറി പോയ്കഴിഞ്ഞു. ഇരുട്ടിലെ ഈ കാത്തിരിപ്പ്‌ വിഡ്ഢികലുടെതാണ്. ഇതു വ്ലാടിമിരിന്ടെയും എസ്ട്രഗുനിന്ടെയും കാത്തിരിപ്പാണ്. വരുവാന്‍ സാധ്യതയില്ലാത്ത, വരുമെന്ന് പ്രതീക്ഷ പോലുമില്ലാത്ത അനന്തമായ നിരര്‍തകംആയ കാത്തിരിപ്പ്‌...

in medical terms

the body has betrayed me yet again.it fails me when i need it most.and this time, when i walked into the doctor's cabin, i knew every word he would say. so when he said my body is losing wait and that dangerously, i smiled.only i know where all the weight has gone, where i've secretly tucked it all away, piled it on day after day, after every fear and frown, tear and taunt .....what my body has lost, my mind has gained..... and is mine still. i shall clutch on it selfishly.someday, a smile and touch will come my way, and i shall then give it all up.....

but as my mind waits, will my body give up waiting.....

only the soul knows how to sing.....

when kamala surayya aka kamala das or madhavikutty passed away on May 31, for many it was the end of an era, an epic; it was also the death of one of the finest writers in Indian English, also one of the controversial; it meant the passing away of one of Malayalam's favourite writers; but for the sad majority it was merely the death of a writer who had written stories and poems laced with sex, courted a controversy too many, and who was "born a Hindu but died a Muslim".....
for me, it was the death of an inspiration....
true that the woman who screamed through her verses to break away from conventions and confinement, adorned the burqah in her later years, given that she relinquished her beloved Krishna to embrace Islam.... but it is not her change of religion or her writings on so-called sex that should have hit the headlines. it is just plainly wrong and so very unjust to the writer and the rich legacy she has bequeathed to lovers of literature all over..... all of us reported the story, but missed the real one, or rather was not even inclined to probe deeper, to find out if there was more.....when she died, all of us conveniently hid ourselves behind the burqah, and sought comfort when her corpse was covered with it....
and more than injustice, i think there was a certain hypocrisy when national dailies reduced the story to single columns or carried it in the inside pages as if to show "we haven't missed the story"..... she deserved more, at least now...not that she really would have bothered, but still....
for me, she cannot die..... she will continue to live.... she lived her entire life through her words, and so death has not really conquered her....
i still remember how i read her "controversial" book My Story.... i was down with heavy fever, my eyes were burning, throat dry and whenever i opened my eyes it was to read from that book..... and reading, i would grow tired and go to sleep still clutching the book..... and by the time i finished the book, and also recovered, i had my mind made up.... i realised i needed to write ...and write without reservations and freely and from the heart.... and through her works, she taught how writing liberates one, how writing is a refuge, an escape, an utopia that urges you to move forward, and sometimes, as for me, writing is the only pleasure and pain in an otherwise dull life.....
.....i can only remember her with respect, gratitude, and more than all this, with irrational, unreasonable love.... with respect, for her not mincing words, her guts to write every word she wrote and for her conviction in every word of it, how she survived every controversy, how she faced every speck of mud that was slung in her face......for gratitude, for inspiring me to write, to introducing me to Malayalam literature.... the first books I read in Malayalam and which still remain my favourites are hers......and with a love that is beyond reason for every word she has written, for her, for the writer and the woman.....
.....On the night of May 30, I was dejected, depressed, that sunken feeling that drives me to the brink of insanity, and in the bouts of which i am pulled into time and again, sinking in melancholy that is too painful.....i was indecisive, had my whole damn life - the past, present, and future - staring at me mockingly.....and like is my temperament of late, i was sleepless....and i opened my diary and wrote..... to actually stare at my feelings, to get an idea of its shape, its contours, its craziness.....and i wrote..."i don't know what to do. i dont know of any job i can do. all i know is i can write...." the next morning the first thing my roommate told me when i opened my eyes was "madhavikutty is dead".....and i suddenly knew, i asked her when....but she didn't know....later i found out it was at 1.55 in the night.....almost to the minute i had written, "all i know is i can write".....well, it is a vague co-incidence..... but i know there is a connection, i had felt that connection when i read her first poem, her first story.... there was a numbness as i came in to office, and was asked to do that copy, a numbness when i read reports of her death on news websites, but the connection remained.....
.....and which is why i feel so enraged at the kind of reports that went following her death...i wouldn't say all, but yeah, the majority..... she was a true artist, a lover, there is so much of love in her works and ironically, she received so much of hate.... her krishna, was not someone she traded off when she converted to Islam, it is the archetype of the lover who loves and hurts, and radha is the woman in love, torn between her husband and lover, between stability and irrationality.....and in love, i have always identified with radha.....i have known and felt krishna, and love that hurts and the hurt that is fulfilling as much as love.....
she wrote, she screamed, she lived, loved, she sang....hers is the only soul that knows to sing.....she is the real story.....

on mallu pride

dear fellow-"mallus" out there, ever wondered if there is something called "mallu-pride"? have just reached this conclusion that there is one, that operate at a very subtle level, one that twists its head from the layers of identity sedimentation and "settling in" we undergo over the years, when it is threatened, hurt, questioned and mostly by the ignoramous bunch. well, not that i always go in for such generalisation, but after so many questions regarding my mallu identity and on what tourism brochures have helped establish to unquestioningly be "god's own country", i cant help but conclude that all those questions i have bulldozed with did belong to the largely ignorant.

all through school, i remember we had to mug up names of states, languages spoken, capitals, blah blah blah. and as a dutiful student, i mugged up all of those and somehow managed to preserve it in memory. so i wonder what all these morons who badger me with questions the moment they discover i am from "south india" did during those precious school going years and during those boring hours of geography and history.

you are walking around in the capital, not really bothering about your identity, until someone runs into you and goes on the often predictable conversation, i am sure most "malls" like me have had to undergo painfully, frustratingly. and for someone who detests the very term "mallu", these questions offer little solace. phoo. well, here is how most conversations go....

Moron: hey, u new here?

S: Yeah.....

M: whats ur name

(i give the one over which i had no choice)

M: (a 99 per cent chance this) oh, nice name....what does it mean?

S: a parrot..

M: oh, that's interesting. where are you from?

S: Kerala....

M: Oh, that's in South India right?

S: (phew! sigh! here we go again)

M: I've never been there. But i've heard it's a beautiful place..

S: yeah, it is....

M: oh, so you came all the way to delhi? good lord!!

S: (well, did i have a choice? could delhi have come all the way to kerala, huh?)

M: is it really god's own country?

S: (smile, for fear i'd sound pompous if i answer)

M: so, you are from trivandrum?

S: (yeah, yeah, like all bongs are from kolkata) No, from Thrissur.....

M: oh, where is that?

S: never mind....(tired by now)

for the next question, again in order and very predictable, there are usually two diversions - say, moron1 and moron2 versions....

M1: What language do you speak there? Tamil, right?

S: No, Malayalam

M1: oh, is that different from Tamil

S: (nod)

M1: but i thought all of you speak the same language in South India?

S: (a weak, irritated, forced, sarcastic, cynical stretch of the facial muscle made to look like a smile and wondering what the hell did you do through all those hours of social studies, you pighead!! but etiquette has been driven into my barbaric mind and i try hard not to tear out the person's brains before attempting to do the same with mine and hit my holy head against the damn wall.phew!)

Now, for the second category of Moron2

M2: Oh, you speak Malayali na?
S: not really. it is MALAYALAM. ( and for the benefit of all those who dont really know, or don't care enough to distinguish between the two - the language is MALAYALAM, and the person is called MALAYALI, and strictly not the other way round)
M2: (with that typical "how-does-it-matter-anyways" look) Will you teach me Malayali, err...what did you say....Malayal- er-am??
S: smile (yeah right, you pighead!!!)
well, there are many more, it just gets more hilarious or bugging depending on the mood you are in. and mostly, the morons manifest themselves in the form of a financial consultant, an MBA student, your doctor, a colleague at office, oh , forget it, it could be anyone off the so called educated block(-heads!). but there is this conversation i had just couple of days back and it has been the best so far.
Yours truly is sitting on the terrace, enjoying one of those rare evenings in the midst of delhi's sultry summers when the wind is blowing and the skies look ready to pour down on the slightest provocation. and up comes this fellow hosteler. she comments on the weather, says how she had to rush from the parlour, and the usual blah. and then she HAS to go for the kill.
She: Btw, are you from Delhi?
Me: No
She: Where you from?
Me: Kerala
She: Oh, it is a very beautiful place i have heard
Me: (so you have, eh?) (Smile) ehmmm....
She: It is famous for its spas, right?
Me: Well, I am not sure (what really did she mean by beautiful???)
She: Hmm...it is also FAMOUS for prostitution, na?
Me: (wtf??? @#$%&$%) well....not really....(grrrrrr.....)
She: No...my friend had told me
Me: Hmm...then maybe you should ask your friend.....
well....what could you possibly say, other than, dear friend, fellow hosteler and moron, you take the cake, the icing, and the cherry!!! cheers!!!!

gathering evidence...

i would rather keep my bed unkempt.....my clothes scattered all around.....my wet towel all rolled up and moistening the bed spread......the shavings of crayons from a crazy picture i made the previous night...half-read books piling up near the pillow i never use for the purpose it was invented for.......my little chikoos always upside down and within arm's reach.....and the little alarm clock pressed to the bed.......and alongwith these, pens, pencils, week-old-newspapers, the iron, my favourite lilac comb, the moisturiser, the sunscreen, wallet and bills all tossed in......i wouldn't change one thing.......for these are proofs that point to my existence, bits of evidence more concrete than the wisps of air i inhale and exhale......

the glass jar must break

i collected little words from all around me - on roads, in buses, on my bed, under it, the kitchen, the near-dead living room, from smoke-filled chimneys, concrete-bodied terrains, flyovers, trains, flights, closed rooms, dark corners, the markets, rails and ponds and hills and plains, the highest point of cliffs, of buildings, the wet ground, the parched spaces.....from all over wherever I spotted them or they walked past me.....I caught hold of them, of all colours, of all smells...the harsh ones, the soft, the pointed, the crude, the raw, the pretty, the kind, the ugly, the grey,..........and since i didn't know what to do with them, i put them one by one in a glass jar back home.....it's an old glass jar i had from a long long time....and i put them as i caught them.....everyone of them i caught, i put them in there.....without discretions or divisions or reserved spaces......one glass jar and into it all went.........today, you cannot differentiate one from the other.......it is difficult sometimes to identify their origins, from where i picked this one, or who presented me that, or which of them was thrown at me, or the one i nearly missed, or the one thrust into my arm by a boy with compassionate eyes, or even the ones i inherited.....it has become so difficult to recollect their names, addresses, mobile numbers, e-mail ids.....and then i placed the lid atop of my glass jar.....lightly, and let it be....darkness pushed the lid down....tight and hard....rules, mores, conventions, values, morals, all of them, they pushed it so down further.....harder each time...and i had forgotten to leave a hole......the words, i had so fondly picked up, my possessions those, must be suffocating inside.....inactivity, drudgery, sloth sat atop the lid clamping it down......it has now become so tight, it is difficult to take the lid off....the words need to see light, to breathe lest they die, and a slow death it will be, and painful, and heavy.....if the lid won't come off all my collectibles will just perish.....or else the glass jar should break......and the glass scattered in a thousand directions....there will be a thud......and as the jar breaks, the words will flow......it will be the glass that breaks, and the words will form another jar.....afterwards, i will go hunting for more......