Crossing

She carelessly tosses a few strands of hair that sauntered to her forehead, and crumples it up a bit above the nape of her neck.
There she is, in her jeans and sports tee, the predictable tick of the maker on her bosom, her black cotton jumper undone.
And the dangling earrings. What are they, he thinks.
Indian? Turkish?
Some influence from the Far East, for sure.
Billy looks on at her, the sunlight touching her face at right angles. The wrinkles done up neatly. Who would even know they exist?
She has this bohemian, even a good witch kind of charm about her. The kind that stands out in a crowd, that makes you look on without knowing why.
Maybe it is beauty of a certain kind, in another culture.
He walks by her sometimes. When she waters the Germaniums in the garden. Or lies with a book, squinting in the sun.
He somehow just wanted to be an observer today, looking closer at something that has always been there, just to unravel some hidden puzzle, some curious answer that finds its way to you with a smile.

Through all those little tasks that fill your day, you seamlessly take your fragrance along with you, creating magic and little pieces of sunshine along the way.
He had this gift, Billy.
He could tell that from what he sees now, people would have been younger years ago.
Many men would have happily wanted to spend the rest of their lives in her arms. That even say twenty-five years ago, she must have had that wistful sadness, that longing for something one can’t quite put ones finger on, in her eyes.
She looks the other way.
The lights change. He walks on.

Rendezvous

They say you were the best thing that ever happened to me.
I took a walk among the woods. And picked Pomegranate flowers- pink, with the blush of first love, and yellow with the radiance thereof.
Where there is a path now, there once was a dream we traced. With our fingers together, little by little.
I took a little trip. To where the white Dahlias caressed your tender skin. And you lay, holding it, like it were a fragile treasure.
But the wind had plans of its own, other treasures to blow away.
It is not your turn today, my love.
And when I had enough of it all, enough of fading memories, I stopped by your place to make some more.
He was there.
Like some people are. Like some people who wait in the corners of dark streets.

He was there.
I looked in his eyes.

I am not afraid.

He muttered something.
Something about passion. And gently sent a flame of the forest my way.

Certain flavours, certain smells always remain with you.
Which is why I pulled him close that day.
Pulled him close and kissed his blue lips, the lips of death, with your cold grave for a witness.

Between here and now

Happiness is a slimy thing. It catches you unawares on some dark nights, and on some others, decides to go on a long walk. To some it may seem like the measure of their lives, and yet to others just a passing purple breeze. Ah, the transience of Frangipani scented afternoons.
How many lives and how many hours we spend, wondering what is amiss, or thanking our stars- when the answer is staring you right in the face. This vagabond word starting with an ' h'.
Holden also starts with an h. It is a proper noun (I think). He shares the first alphabet of his name with the theme of this piece- and he is the protagonist in many ways, if you may.
Though it is often said that the world is a small place, Millie always thinks these labyrinths are anything but small. She gets lost a lot and is incapable of telling right from left just after she has had a strong dose of some existentialist she just met on the welcoming racks of a library.
Maybe it is this quality that attracted him to her. Or was it the look- when she looks up with those dark eyes of hers, lost deep in thought, and gives you this intense stare like you are some beautiful anonymous hamlet she sees from a train window.
I am attracted to you because I know I cannot touch you, cannot be a part of you. We are but divided by the thin metallic frame of time and space.
If this is not ethereally sad, then what is?
Hush starts with an h. It is a strong word, lots of personality to it. It can be something you say holding a wailing lover in your arms, or something you say in the middle of the night when your spouse can’t seem to stop snoring and you think you heard a little noise downstairs.
Examples are hilarious figures. You can build so many stories around this. Hilarious simply because hilarious starts with an h.
She read an example once. Twisted and turned it here and there and added touches of imagination to it. That is how her favorite story was born.
Once upon a time there lived a king. This was a strong, handsome king who loved his people and generally did a good job of managing his kingdom. One day his empire came under attack. He lost.
He takes refuge in a forest close by with some of his followers.
Needless to say, they were heartbroken.
It was as if the entrance to the forest had those lines from Dante’s Paradise Lost.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
The king was dejected, but had not lost heart. One of his followers asked him how he managed to look forward to the next day given what had just happened. His answer was simple- this too shall pass.
Sweet transience.
Like a bunch of monkeys who never tire picking lice from one another’s hair, they managed to keep each other’s spirits up, and even make a strategy.
Stratagem is a pretty word. Like a pale young woman standing at night by the shore, waiting for a sign, while the wind amuses itself playing with her hair and her knee-length, thin cotton dress.
So they planned and attacked their erstwhile kingdom. And won.
What do you know; life allows you victories every now and then.
A celebration was thrown on the streets of the kingdom. The beloved King is back. Through the procession that followed, a follower asked the King “ Are you not happy, my Lord”?
Simplicity etched meticulously with wisdom. The King’s answer- this too shall pass.
So she has all these thoughts, these stories running through her head.
It is so absorbing, almost like a vaccum, where there is an opaque fragility to your aura- that of your thoughts.
But really, does that sounds like a bad thing?
Is there such a thing as bad or good? Who makes all these laws that govern our life- good, bad, three meals a day, laundry, waxed arms.
In many ways Holden is like The Little Prince. He only asks questions, does not answer them.
So then why does he leave her little presents- like a copy of a book he saw a woman read in a coffee shop? Just before he did what he likes doing most afternoons- charming his way to a woman’s heart.
In many ways their story is like one all of us share with our destiny.
Hoi polloi is a funny word. It belongs to the masses and still is a part of you. It starts with an h.

That thing they say

Okay, so I know this is coming a little late. But nevertheless, here is the string of annual thought if hmm-what-was-2005-about-scratch, scratch-hmm..??

This is going to strictly be a literary piece, to avoid additions to the who to throw off my ninth floor window list.
A few years ago when Vikram Seth's An equal music hit my bookshelf, I found it a tad heavy to digest in one go.
I picked it up again towards the fag end of the year. It lasted about a couple of days, the stpry took me in slowly, and with one odd reference I thought that had a lot to do with Salinger.

( In The catcher, there is a rather prominent reference Holden makes. He wonders where the Ducks in CPW go during the winter. Seth says the exact same thing, except it is some other bird. I, honestly, found this is bit odd since there was no indication provided that this is a reference. Am wondering if there is a thanks Mr. Seth has conveniently forgotten to give. )

While on Salinger, I also found myself stable to be able to deal with a book that has long been giving me vibes. Franny and Zooey. It is one of those books I cannot bring myself to say anything about.

Also stumbled on this wonderful, little heard of ( in this part of the world) book called The famished road by Ben Okri. It tells the story of Azaro, a spirit child, who has decided to linger on in this world. Between recollections of what seems like another lifetime, a better one, resisting other spirits who want him back and a reality- that of dire poverty and harsh life in an Africa that has just won its freedom- this tale meanders through images that the inward eye sees and wonderful little stories scattered here and there. Magical, to say the least.

Lolita ( Vladimir Nabakov)
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Promises a rather unsettling degree of ambivalence. As pages turn and you see the perfection in the perversion in
Humbert Humbert, there is an overwhelming confusion of emotions running in your head. It oscillates endlessly between holy-cow-I-dont-believe-this and am-I-actually-enjoying-this?
The book plays horrible mind games in your head. Personally, I think the reader needs to be on the stable side to be able to take this one down, without harm to oneself or anyone else.

Night ( Elise Weisel)
The slim little book. It tells a story. It is a book without characters. It is a tale (a real one) that is simply told.
If someone has to live through this tale, live to tell the rest of the world all about it, then all you can do as a reader is be the silent dark apparition between pages.
I cannot actually bring myself to saying anything more, my apologies, except I wish Mr. Weisel has found some peace. And if he has, I hope he writes about getting there.
And if he has, then I also know that even if life might seem like one moribund, long tragedy, we all survive. We may carry our baggage and our scars, but the human spirit survives.

And late one afternoon, on a shared cab ride back home between utter exhaustion and the smell of nictotine, he introduced me to my first lesson on Sartre. The Age of reason saw afternoons of discussions and many a thought. It is on my bedside now, the last few pages waiting to be read.

Columnist Pradeep Sebastian (who writes a column called Endpaper for The Hindu's monthly Literary Review) continued to write pieces that silently put happiness into many more Sunday mornings.

Finally, an utterly delicious interview from a writers fest in 2005.

****
Tuesday April 19, 2005

Michael March: Victor Klemperer said: "What is tradition? Everything begins with me." Where does everything begin - and when did things start going wrong?

Irvine Welsh: If I were a Christian I'd go for the Garden of Eden. And I don't know if things did go wrong; I would dispute the current climate of pessimism in the west. Things are getting better. But maybe that's just with me. After all, who cares about tradition?

MM: According to Roberto Calasso, "loss proceeds presence. Every image must abide by this rule". What about the loss of hair?

IW: To lose a few hairs is careless, to lose the lot is truly a blessing.
MM: For Hannah Arendt, "mercy insists on inequality". Do you feel equal to the task?
IW: Yes, mercifully.
MM: Martin Heidegger said: "The light of the public obscures everything." Does this confirm "the unbearable lightness of being"?

IW: I never really got on with Heidegger, although probably shouldn't say that as I'm headed to Vienna. Sometimes I think the light of the public illuminates what might be better kept hidden.

MM: What is the language of love and how is it practiced?
IW: Love has it's own bizarre codes. One of the benefits of it is that you get to construct your own private language. Fortunately, this language can never be shared.

MM: While surfing near Lesbos, Friedrich Schiller remarked that "man forms himself as a fragment". Was he off his rocker?

IW: It's the sort of fleeting rumination to which surfing in the Greek islands may lend itself. It shouldn't be seen as indicative of mental infirmity.

MM: Are we what we eat?
IW: Without a doubt. The older I get, the more inclined I am to believe that we are the sum total of ingestions and immersions.

MM: Are we condemned to hope?
IW: I would certainly hope so. The alternatives seem unsustainable.
MM: Is power the leprosy of the world?
IW: Yes. There is nothing good and honourable that cannot be destroyed, corrupted and warped by the pursuit of power. Every decent enterprise can end in tyranny and brutally if those in charge are allowed to pursue it.

MM: Is ignorance our sole resource?
IW: It's seldom a real resource at all, and although it can often seem that way, that's only because we are operating from a position of ignorance.

MM: Why are Austrians ignorant of your work?
IW: I didn't know they were. My only real indication comes from my German royalty statements which are very healthy at the moment. Austria isn't counted separately, and I had always assumed that the Austrians pulled their weight here. If that isn't the case, maybe the festival will help rectify that sad state of affairs.

MM: Tell us about your new novel.
IW: Oh god, I hate it so much. I'm at that stage where I wish it would just leave my life so that I can do other things. I can't make head nor tail of it. I think it's about identity, but I could be wrong.

MM: Why are we doing this to each other?
IW: It's what we do.

Without further ado

So it happens over another innocuous sounding weekend. The sun is shining down on you, and you have no sense of from where - east, west or such.
And you tread a small red sand track. You hear it.
The ocean calling out to you.
Come here, my love- let me hold you close and intimate. And almost as in a delirium, the remaining few steps are taken.
Do you know that line? The line where the last flat minor of the sinous sea meets stand? You stand there.
The sea is like an old lover. It seems like you just give and give, and he wants some more. He pulls you closer to him, small tingles on your ankles.
And closer.
The rest of the world does not matter any more now. Its just you and him.
He envolopes your senses and promises you happiness you have not seen before.
Do you know that gravitating moment before a first kiss? You know, that silence.
So he is holding you real intimate now and you dont have control over things. No way to make it stop. To go away.
The tingles and coolness all at once get more intimate. Here, my love, let me drown you in my love. Let me show yuo my abode and tell you all my dark secrets. I will tickle you in ways you can't tell till you see the stars in the palm of my hand.
Be one with me, your sea, and may your soul soar as high as my spirit. May your young feminine spirit blush around the essence of my being, even as your body loses signs of life, so that this embrace etches its way into eternity.