How the so called poet stopped writing the so called poems!

The urge,
The obscene urge
To extract a ‘poem’
From anywhere
And everywhere
Had started to become nauseous.

It’d been coming for a while,
The urge, like a nouveau riche’s
Desperation to show off his wealth,
And the subsequent wrath towards the self.

The ‘poet’ first noticed it standing
Outside a chicken stall.
One among the chickens
Had been pulled out of the cage
And butchered.
A piece of the innards was thrown
To the cage, and the rest fluttered
And fluttered, eager to get their share.
The ‘poet’ assumed a ‘holy cow’ face
And pity the chickens’ unpardonable
Response to the tragic death of their comrade.

Then, one fine day the ‘poet’ got to know about
‘Thalaikoothal*’, blood oozed out of his heart for a while, suddenly
The ‘poet’ gleefully thought of cashing on the practice
Of killing mothers, fathers…, and settled down comfortably
In the evening at the favourite corner of his favourite watering hole nicely
Covered in a woolen sweater and cap in order to resist the November chill.
After a while the monk, the very old monk, told him what an asshole he had become.
Out of shame the ‘poet’ downed and downed the ‘monk’ till he couldn’t gulp anymore.
He paid the bill, caught an auto and proceeded home muttering to himself.

Constant knock on the door woke the ‘poet’ from his rum induced stupor the next day.
A woman and her teenaged daughter, all dressed up, were there at the door.
The woman explained why they were there at the ‘poets’ door; marriage of the daughter.
Despite her conditions, the daughter maintained an expression of dignity and humility.
The sleepy ‘poet’ shoved in the mother’s hand a 20 rupee note, closed the door and returned to bed. But sleep was adamant and unyielding. The rest of the day the ‘poet’ tried to figure out poverty rather than poetry and its thousands of manifestations, but didn’t reach anywhere.

Though, not quite sure when, it might be during one of those moments, the ‘poet’ realized that he no longer gets that high he used to get thinking about writing ‘poems’ and decided to put an end to it, forever.

*http://www.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne201110Maariyamma.asp

Nocturnal conversations, overheard

Last night
As I tossed and
Turned in bed since
Sleep had deprived me of her luxuries
I overheard conversations from my bookshelf.

Dr.Ayyappa Paniker was asking Gregor Samsa,
“What trick is this?*” and chuckled, quite satisfied.
Harold Bloom was consoling an attention seeking Naipaul
While Anne Frank gleefully joined the man who shouted "Teresa."



* I’ve heard several stories about the late Dr. Ayyappa Panicker’s humour sense and ready wit. One of them was his asking his student Patrick while giving him a helping hand, ‘Patrick what trick is this?’, when the latter tripped over.

Calm

Like books on the shelf,
Holding all
The storms within
With stupendous dignity.

Healed!

'Is there anything
Wrong with your neck?’
Asked my friend.

‘No, no, why?’
And I craned my neck
To show that it’s fine.

Then, at that moment,
I realized that my sprained
Neck has been healed!

13

13 is not a number.
13 is the side view
Of a cat sitting
Expectantly in front
Of a closed door.

Expectantly like
Beggars or a humble
Lover. (Is ‘humble lover’
Redundant?)

Before we proceed
Any further I would
Like to have a word
With the sceptics.

Please do the exercise
Prescribed below
In parenthesis.

(Tilt 13 to your left,
A 90 degree tilt)

We have this bad
Habit of embellishing
Anything and everything.

Thus we have cornices
And platforms on top
And bottom of 1.

When I say 1
I mean a vertical line
Nothing less, nothing more.

And 3;
3 should have a horizontal
Line on top, then a connecting
Slash, and then a bootylicious
Bottom, just like Shakuntala,
The Steatopygiac
Damsel of Kalidasa.

13, my friends,
Is not a number.
13 is the side view
Of a cat sitting
Expectantly in front
Of a closed door.

Anticipation

Raincoat in the saddlebag
Helmet on the head and a
Pack of ‘moods’ in the wallet.

An ode to masochism

‘Leave it!
The problem
Is you keep on
Thinking about that,
Move on.’

Wiseman friend of mine
Who made a fortune in the
Gulf urges.

How does the poor fellow
Know the pleasures of
Having a school of piranhas
Deep inside gnawing, gnawing…

The one that gave me a chill down the spine...

The Black Sheep

He loomed large over me
Since childhood; the black
Sheep in the family.

‘He looks exactly like ………,
Look at his nose, eyes…’
They used to say, the women
From the neighbourhood
Causing greater worries
To mother and aunt which
Subsequently changed
To anxious stares, filling
Me with tremendous guilt.

I loathed the said similarities
And did everything I could
To overcome his shadow.
I picked up habits which he
Didn’t seem to have and
Groomed myself as different
As possible trying to shun
Even a distant possible similarity.

But I found him the other day,
The black sheep in the family
In the mirror, giving me a cold stare
Goosebumps and a sense of futility.

Memories

They act like
Crabs in the bucket,
Holding me back
Every time I try
To make a way out;
Memories.

Tour

With whom you go
Is as important as
Where you go.

A silly poem on people in particular and life in general

Some people tend to believe that
Life is all about; ‘sorry’, ‘thank you’,
‘Excuse me’, ‘nice to meet you’…

Let me tell you that it’s also about ‘f**k off’.
Just f**k off.

Survival

I’m no longer afraid of losing my humaneness.
I’m afraid that I’ve lost my animal instincts, to survive.

The Joke

‘I wouldn’t like
To call you even
When I’m on my
Death bed’, thus beeped
Your ultimatum in the middle
Of the night, waking me up.

The morbid tone upset me,
And as you expected, I gave in.
But now I wonder why didn’t
It strike me then, that I wouldn’t
Be there for you to call when you
Lie there, on your death bed,
Surrounded with children,
Grandchildren and great grandchildren
At the age of 115, wrinkled like a salted mango.

The Mousetrap(s)

You’re a rat.
It doesn’t mean
That I’m not one.
In fact, we are all rats.
Ah! The sense of unity,
No, the knowledge that all
Are equally distressed.
Nothing comforts like that.

By the way, it’s not about
Reveling in universal brotherhood
Or sisterhood. (You know, I don’t want
To make anybody feel left out.)
It’s about mousetrap, mousetraps to
Be precise; each outgrowing the other
Or belittling. Now, don’t rush for my
Jugular; it’s relative and is about attitude.
I mean what to call it; outgrowing or belittling.
Excuse me once again for beating around the bush.
See, I’m not focused. My Maths teacher used to say that.

Anyway, let’s come to the point. We are all trapped.
There are mousetraps of various sizes. We move from
One to the other. We are always excited to move, from one
To the other. But then, gradually we feel the confinement.
Then, it’s time to move to a bigger one. Now, you know why
We always feel bored at each stage and wait for the new ones.
Don’t you? You rat.

Burj Khalifa

I was told to write
Four sentences about
The 828-metres high
Burj Khalifa, the tallest
Structure in the world.

I got stuck after two!

A few things along with Onam Wishes…

My friends, do you have any idea how lovely it’s to be here reading and replying comments, reading your posts, commenting…All these make me feel so good, so damn good. Of late, I’ve been a bit late to reply to your comments. I’m sorry, it was just hectic and I was busy meeting insane deadlines.

Let me make a confession. It struck me very recently that you, one and all of you, reading my posts in the midst of your busy schedules. Till recently you’re just those pictures, but then suddenly it came to me, a banker here, a journo there, an editor, a poet, a writer…all reading my posts in their separate places; you adjust your position in the chair, you smile, you frown, you knit your eyebrows…I can’t explain it in words; the feeling. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much.

Wish You All A Very Happy Onam. Cheers!

Statutory Warning: Drinking is injurious to health. Any person who associates the above mentioned ‘cheers’ with drinking or view it as an indication to drink will be doing it at their own risk. Dark Alley or the very nice gentleman named Arun Meethale Chirakkal who writes it, is in no way responsible for their deeds or misdeeds. Cheers!

PS: For the last two months a bottle of ‘Chivas’ has been waiting for me back in my hometown. I can see that impatient friend of mine buzzing around it like an ill-tempered bee. Last time, I met a guy in a toddy shop. We are friends now and he has promised to introduce me to a new toddy shop. I’m all excited. I’ll be heading home soon.

Once again, Cheers.

Ciao

Blindness

Your smile is crooked,
Teeth zigzagging,
Hair smelly,
Eyes like a dead mackerel’s…

I just wonder, why
It took me so long
To realize it all
Till now, till you
Told me; ‘get lost’.

“The reason is…”

The reason is nothing
but what is assumed or
fabricated, depending upon
which side of the fence one is.

“the reason is …”
“f**k the reason.”

Alienation

At the tavern they sat
Swigging cheap liquor
With a sense of urgency;
A group of labourers,
Like poor relations
At a rich cousin’s place.

My Desktop

The elegance
Of Damayanthi
Portrayed
By the maestro
Kottakkal Sivaraman
Has paved way for
The hell-hath-no-fury-
Like- a- woman-scorned
Rage of Ms. Jyoti Devi,
The ‘lady of the house’.

I'm loving it

Picture Courtesy: MSN India

All it takes for
An all-engulfing
Devastating flood
Is a single
Drop of rain,
Of memories.

Post No. 101

(It’s a revised version of the last post, thanks to the invaluable suggestions of erudite readers)

On bright,
Sunny mornings
They plod
Like herd of cattle
Dragged to the
Slaughterhouse,
And gush back
On pale evenings
Like excited calves
Let loose on the valley;
The school children.

On bright,
Sunny days
They plodded
Like herd of cattle
Dragged to the
Slaughterhouse,
And gushed back
On pale evenings
Like water, released after
Dammed for years;
The school children.

The Kiss, Postponed

You demanded it
But I restrained myself
Telling you to wait
For I know
It’s easier to plant
And impossible
To uproot;
A kiss
Upon those
Cherry red lips.

‘Hi,
Hey,
Hru?
Fine,
Thanks,
Vow!
Great,
LOL
TC
Bye
:)
Oops
Sad’
:(
Thus we bask in
the warmth exuded
by monosyllabic expressions,
and symbols
that gleefully run away
from our finger tips
to each other
without having to decipher
the sparkle in the eyes,
the mysterious smile,
the shrug,
the quivering lips,
the knitting eyebrows…
The online friends.

‘How to Win Friends & Influence People’

With that captivating smile
I adored, you thrust upon my face,
the book; ‘How to Win Friends & Influence People’.

That’s when I decided to sever all ties with you,
once and forever.

Bad hair days

The hair dryer ad
in the magazine
grabbed me by my hand
and took me down
the serpentine lanes,
mossy, dark, to
the X-O barber shop
where I used to sit
wrapped in
a white sheet
enjoying all the
attention the man
had for me while
styling my hair
to the then
trend; Bachan cut,
and the occasional
warmth on the nape
of my neck as the
hair dryer blown
warm air.

Everything has
gone into oblivion;
the attention, warmth
of the blowing air…
for there remains
just a few strands
upon my head
that neither deserves
attention nor warmth.

Butcher, beautiful

Plaited hair
shiny, dark
adorned with
contrasting
colours of
jasmine and crossandra.

The bangles
jingled coyly
when she stretched
out a hand to grab two
white chickens
from the cage.

The cleaver went up,
then, down.
Rivulets of red
went hiding
into the feathers;
white, dishevelled.

They set
themselves
against
each other
in their
eagerness to be
unique, different,
distinct…
and ended up
being comically
identical!

‘That’s a rose,
no, a bleeding heart,
no, a scarlet socks, wet, folded,
frozen blood,
the remains of a butchered fowl…’

The pandemonium rose into a crescendo
with each one trying to prove
themselves right.

Daggers and swords
were drawn
out of their sheaths.
Blood spilled,
warriors fell, beheaded.

And there remained
the rose, bleeding heart,
scarlet socks, wet, folded,
frozen blood,
the remains of a butchered fowl…

Metamorphoses

Last night,
I turned into a cow,
grazing upon the hills
and valleys you’d become.

The Collector

He collected, on the way,
whatever came to him,
not purposefully though.

It varied from
pebbles to petals
and feathers to splinters.

‘Leave behind some
in order to carry on smoothly’,
advised the wise men.

But he was clueless
what to abandon,
and hence he plodded
till crushed,
rather ridiculously
like a fat frog, squashed.

The Perfect Simile

Snuggled against me
you giggled.
Sceptically
I scrutinized,
the accuracy of
the worn out simile;
conch-like neck.
Perfect.

‘I LOVE YOU’

We sat there
against the purple sky
face to face
flowing into each other.

Then, you let out;
‘I LOVE YOU’.
Those three words,
like three giant pillars
in an ancient temple,
fell upon me,
leaving me dead
spewing blood.

‘Don’t you feel hot?’
stepped in my colleague
post lunch
turning the fan on.

‘I felt something’s wrong
but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what’,
I replied, extracting the hanky.

It happens…

It happens
just like
everything else
that happens anyway,
desired or not,
quite unknowingly;
falling into patterns.

How many deaths
do I need to die
till I DIE?

The Outsider?

There descended
at his doorstep
along with the
dipping sun
the messenger.

He overheard him
squatting in the kitchen
and finished
the potful of rice
and fish curry
in a hurry.

Then he proceeded
to see the deceased,
his mother.

Don’t say…

Don’t say,
'forget it’,
never ever.

For, from the rage
against forgetfulness
comes forth;
madness, poetry
and the like.

And hence,
don’t say
‘forget it’,
never ever.

Soft Terror

In infancy they were a source
of motherly love and its nectar.

In youth they became the
cynosure of youthful fantasies.

Later, they provided the warmth and
softness of first love.

Now, they are a source of terror,
a soft pair about to explode!

Source: I was inspired / terrorised to write this a by a piece by Amit Verma titled ‘Exploding Breasts’ ( http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/exploding-breasts/ ). Please copy paste the link to a google page and get to know all about ‘soft terror’.

First I learn to expect, then life taught me to accept.

I Accept

You’re gone, I know.
I accept it.
I won’t talk to you anymore
for it’s become like talking to a stone;
the warmth missing, the feelings unrequited.
I accept it.
But I always think
how it would’ve been if you’re around
when I go through something new,
each time, every time.
I can’t help it. I just can’t.
I accept it.
All that matters is that; ACCEPTANCE!

Getting to know people is like reading literature. It’s not the obvious that matters but subtle, hidden or even buried stuff.

You are dead and gone. And you find yourself in a far better place, with people and things - you thought were essential for you to be happy - around. How long you’ll take to stop repenting for thinking so bad about death? How long it will take you to enjoy the new life?

Death holds a lot of hope. The only thing is that we need to change our perceptions about it.

Me and The Banker to Every Indian

From now onwards, whenever you come to my blog be reverent for I am no more a Tom, Dick or Harry. I, Mr. Arun Meethale Chirakkal, have joined the league of extraordinary gentlemen, the kind that you can’t even dream of. Clueless about what am I arriving at or already writhing in jealousy wondering ‘how, how this goddamn moron managed to reach such heights in such a short time?’ Wait, I’ll tell. But before that let me add some more oil into the fire, I love doing it, you know.

I’ve Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Dr. C.V.Raman, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and the likes for company. Aah! I can almost see that; your eyes getting popped out, mouth agape and you try to conceal that horrible expression, indeed unsuccessfully.

I’ve been accorded greatness by allowing ‘The Banker to Every Indian’ to serve me. I’m damn sure that a day will come when they will be proud of getting a chance to serve me. But as of now they won’t admit it for reasons you can guess (no price for guessing, let me clarify). But once I’m dead and gone your great grandchildren will be able to see me in the bank’s future campaigns; ‘The Banker to This Indian’. But considering the fact that I managed to open an SB account in one of the branches of ‘the largest bank in India’ only on the 5th day and spent long hours there, I can’t help ruing about the things we might’ve missed. Things the great men of our country could have achieved – yet another masterpiece, yet another invention - had they trusted some other bank with their money.

Day 1: Around noon I go to the bank to enquire about the procedure. The bank is as crowded as a railway platform during peek hours. I spot a board hanging with ‘Customer Relations Manager’ (to be referred as CRM from now onwards) written on it. I approach the woman and ask her about the formalities/documents to open an account. She sends me to another person. He informs me what and all I should bring to get it done. Then the C R M gives me the form that runs into a dozen pages. I spend the whole afternoon writing everything about me in a thousand and one tiny boxes.

Day 2: I step in with the documents I’ve been told to present. The C R M directs me to Manager, this time yet another person. I ask him whether the documents are enough only to be told to ask the CRM again. I tell him I’ve been sent to him by her. He washes his hands of saying that he’s there temporarily and tomorrow I won’t see him. Lesson learnt: In the largest bank in India no one wants to be responsible for anything. He also informs me that since it’s Saturday they are going to close.

Day 3: I go to the CRM to present the documents. She is in no mood to listen as she talks in an excited manner to a person about someone’s ‘Bharathanatyam Arangettam’. I wait there wondering is it time for me to do an ‘Arangettam’ in violence. At last she pays attention to me and sends me to the Manager; this time the original. He seems to be busy and I sit there for some 20 minutes. Finally he snatches the form and documents and quickly declares that it can’t be accepted and I have to produce a salary slip if I want to open an account with them.

Day 4: This time straight to the Manager, only to see someone else in the place. Going by his expression, I assumed he has constipation. “Please wait”, he announced staring at the monitor and tapping the keyboard. He seems to be clueless of what he’s doing. After making me wait for sometime he takes the forms and documents from me. Scrutinising it he objects a couple of times stating that the address is not clear enough for a postman to find out the place and I haven’t mentioned a landmark in the address. Ooh! At least he’s concerned about the postman. “O.K. Moron, when I reside somewhere near Taj Mahal – famous enough for you to accept as a landmark, huh? - I’ll open an account here, bye.” I quickly erase the thought and assume yet another expression of extreme politeness. “The address is clear sir; I’ve mentioned the cross properly.” Hesitantly he accepts and asks me to write the pin and announces; ‘come tomorrow it’s time for us to close’.

Day 5: Directly to the Manager, the same person. “You have to wait” he tells grumpily. After a while he starts to scrutinize the form and marks the places to be signed / filled. He sends me to the CRM and she with horror announces that it’s mandatory to have a nominee and fill the page meant for that. (I had told by the Manager otherwise) ‘Show it to Manager and get his sign once it’s over’, she quips. I show it to him and his facial expression changes quickly as if I told him that I am in love with his daughter and we are planning to elope. “I am not going to sign this, I don’t want to be a witness, get help from her.” Then, again I come back to the CRM. Fortunately this time, may be absentmindedly, she accepts it and provides me a couple of sealed envelopes. Pinching myself to make sure, I ask her; “it’s over, right?” “Yeah, that’s all.” “That’s all”, as if it has been done in a few seconds.

PS: In this particular branch (I don’t know whether it’s the same in other branches as well) other than the Manager’s Cabin there’s yet another board that hangs in a corner that has the word “Manager’ on it. The funny thing is that ‘Managers’ keep on changing there as I’ve mentioned.