The 'Spirit'ual Emptiness of a Monk

Death

After the third peg, it rained.
When the last drop of water
Fell off the tip of my nose,
There appeared a sunflower field
That stretched to the horizon.
On the other side stood the
Pristine, immaculate figure
Who made me wonder once,
‘Can life be this beautiful or
Is it just another stupid dream?’
As she came forward, I could see
The gleefully moistened eyes and
The fine curves on her cascading tresses.
In her husky voice that gave me sleepless
Nights she whispered playfully,
“Come to me, come to me…”

The Standard Answer

“It was wrong, what I did.
I feel guilty and it gnaws
Me sharp. You know, the
Pain is unbearable…”
Suddenly, as if annoyed
By my silence, he turned to
Me and grabbed me by the shoulders.
Shaking me violently, he asked,
“Do you think that what I did was right?”
Shifting my gaze from the ground
Beneath to his eyes,I gave him
The standard answer that contained
The word, ‘relative’.
Were I wrong?

Onam, the joys of being at home, and the memories they evoke

A digital camera I purchased recently and an unusually long stay at home during Onam made me walk around clicking. I had hardly clicked pictures before. For reasons unknown I always shied away from taking photographs even when I was asked to. I don’t even know how to use an SLR. Once I saw three men in a mall sitting on a bunch right under a name board that shouted ‘scary house’ with perplexed expressions on their faces. It would’ve been a very good photograph had I got an opportunity to click, but just like unheard melodies are sweeter, unclicked photographs are greater. Imagine, I try to click them and they ‘pose.’

On ‘uthradam’ my nieces came home (rumour had it that they were sent to their grandparents because their mom found them unmanageable during the holidays: D). It was real good fun. Though most of the times ‘chechi’ and ‘aniyathi’ got on to my nerves with their noisy games and quarrels, it was just great to have them around. By evening they declared that ‘tomorrow we will do ‘pookkalam’ and I was the one assigned with the task of getting flowers from the market. Yes, from the market. I hate to lament the loss of the so called halcyon days. But the fact is that the once ubiquitous ‘thumba’ or ‘mukkutti’ were nowhere to be seen. So we had to be content with whatever I got from the flower market (not bad though, we got 10 colours somehow by adding hibiscus and mosanda that grow in the compound). I’m exceptionally bad at things which are even remotely associated with art. I can’t even draw a line properly. But still, I agreed to do the floral pattern. Thus the tree of us, me and the kids, with their suggestions, quarrels, protests and even walk-outs, finished it at last. And they even congratulated me saying that it came out pretty well and was way beyond their expectations: D

I don’t how many of you are familiar with ‘Onappottan’. It’s a custom in Malabar, especially in the erstwhile Kadathanadu. During Onam, ‘Onappottan’ visits every household and is given rice, clothes and money. Nowadays the emphasis is more on money. As the name suggests, ‘Onappottan’ doesn’t talk, he communicates solely with gestures. It was when I tried to click ‘Onappottan’ that I realized that I can never be a photographer. A photographer needs to approach his subject objectively. I found it impossible to treat the figure which I’ve been seeing since childhood (As a kid I used to watch him timidly from behind the door or clinging fiercely on my mother while my sister, 3 years younger, terrified me by trying to grab me outside and in the process terrified the ‘Onappottan’ too.)objectively. I felt that I was making fun of him. So I clicked the photographs trying not to bother or attract his attention.

There is yet another figure who was an inevitable part of my childhood. Unlike ‘Onappottan’, this man clad in a neat dhoti and shirt, comes with a small drum (edakka) to ward off evil during the month of ‘karkkidakam’. He sings in his mellifluous voice while gently tapping on his drum. After years of listening to his song the only words I could pick from it was ‘mullu muratu moorkhan pambu’. I think it had been 5 or 6 years since I saw him. However, his face, the jet-black spring- like hair and the lean figure is still afresh in memory. I would like to call him ‘Cleopatran’ for the man looked exactly as I saw him for the first time when I saw him last; ‘age cannot wither him’.

No matter how busy one is one should always find time for ‘spirit’ual activities? Don’t you think so? Though me and my friends didn’t drink on Onam we had it the previous day, a bottle of Johnny Walker Gold Label and then an Antiquity. Hope all of you had a wonderful Onam!

Me

A familiar object photographed
From an unfamiliar angle;
Sometimes, that's how I seem to me.

Love, eternal

Seduced by the ethereal night,
The day takes a plunge into her
Unfathomable depths, drinks in
Her beauty and resurfaces to
Experience the ecstasy of going
Back into the depths, again and again…

Two women in transit

One, dangling herself on the strap
Amidst the jostling crowd read
Umberto Eco with fierce concentration.
The other, sitting comfortably
On the window seat leafed
Through ‘The Power of
Your Subconscious Mind’,
Often yawning.

Claustrophobia

Just when he was about
To be lowered to the grave,
The dead man stood up
Causing the small gathering
To flutter.

Glaring at the pale faces
He screamed before falling
Down on his face; ' make a pyre
And set me on fire. Don't you know
That I am claustrophobic?'

Ah, puppy!

Disposed off
the yellow van
the little ones
marched in silence
with huge bags
on their back.
Then, they lit up
the street
and lifted it off
its early morning
lethargy with a
collective 'ah, puppy!'
as they saw the
young canine
chained to the
pole near
the school gate.

The missed frame

Strife- torn area,
A pair of feet
That belongs to the
Policeman who
Sits on a bench
Reading newspaper,
His gun and lathi
Beside him,
Seen slipped out and
Placed upon his shoes.
Strife-torn area...

Perception

On the second floor balcony
I stood, holding the railing and
Wondering at what I saw
Beneath, a portion of the ground
Neatly paved with cement bricks.

‘Strange’, I judged, or else why
That area no one treads got paved?
But then, in the next moment
I realized that it was not a pavement
But a wall collapsed in last night’s rain!

The valiant lizard and the slimy cockroach

I tend to stand by the prey, but this time my wholehearted support went to the predator.

On the white tiled dado with leafy patterns they struggled, one for life, the other for the means to sustain its life. When I saw them, a quarter of the cockroach’s body was in the lizard’s mouth. The roach was in no mood to give up, it put up a big fight often dragging and shaking the reptile. I watched the process keenly without battling an eyelid, though on the backyard of my mind were running all the chores that await me at office. At one point it seemed the cockroach would escape. I felt the lizard was dealing with something which was way beyond its capabilities. The whole affair brought back to mind two entirely different things from the past. 1 A scene from a movie in which the fisherman and his boat were dragged along by a shark. 2 A couplet from a Malayalam poem which I studied in school, ‘chakshusravana galasthamam darduram bhakshanathinnapekshikkunnathu pole' (like a frog that got trapped in the mouth of a snake pleas for food). I took my toothbrush, applied some paste and started brushing, all without taking my eyes from the battling duo. It was a slow process, the merging of two bodies - acquisition in corporate parlance - not as in sex, but in a different way in which, only one lives, to tell the tale. As time passed, the prey went into the mouth of its predator bit by bit. Though the resistance had not ceased completely, it was evident that the roach started to accept defeat. Once the lizard finished its breakfast, it raised that cute head, said ‘thank you’ to me for the silent support and scurried away.

Content and joyous
Just like a floating feather
Rudderless, no control
Over the course
Drifting, drifting downwards
An imaginary spiral staircase.

Books

Springboards are they,
Designed to catapult us
To a thousand worlds!

The Difference

He who marries
The same girl he
Has been romancing
For seven years will
Die with an imbecile
Smile.

He who is to be dumped
By all the seven girls
He would love will die
With a mysterious,
Mona Lisa-like smile.

Here I go, alone!

‘Cheers’, I shout
‘Cheers’ they echo;
My beloved friends.

Drunken revelry,
The unfathomable
Depths of friendship,
‘Count on me, buddy’
Promises, terrific bonding,
Silly misunderstandings,
Tearful reunions…

And at last, a farewell
Quite unsuitable for the
Boisterous life I lead, but
Truly complementing the
Indifferent coldness of a hospital
And the complex mess of wires
And tubes that surrounds me
In solemn attendance,
Adieu friends, here I go, alone!

I want you to do with me
What a sculptor does
With a piece of marble;
I want you to liberate me.

Is it that I’m so far away
That I can’t hear the ‘ssshhhh…’
When the blazing hot ball in the
Horizon takes a dip into the sea?

Pleasure

Pleasure is like a ruthless moneylender,
Scheming and calculating.
It invites you with a smile
And cast its eternal spell on you
With the memories
It leaves behind
With a vengeance.

Hence you long for
Piping hot tea, dark rum,
Supple skin, wet lips…
On sultry afternoons
And Sunday evenings.

Our Love

First it skyrocketed to the air
Then nosedived into the abyss.
Our Love.
Unfazed, we the brave souls
Shook hands, smiled, parted ways
And started to live happily ever after.

A Plea

Descend upon me
Shroud me
Engulf me…
Oh! Darkness
Why does it take
So long to accept
Me to your soothing bosom?

Evolution

“You prepared what!!!?
Fish curry? ha ha ha…
A decade had passed
But I still remember
You, standing there,
On the terrace of our
Hostel, fresh out of a bath
Refusing to take part
In the ‘farming’
While we muddied
Our hands.
That YOU prepared ‘fish curry’?
Nopes, no way, you
Can’t make me buy this.”

“Believe me”, I pleaded
With a sinking heart;
“I prepared it
And it turned out well,
Time, the ultimate leveler,
Had changed me too.”

A guffaw at the other end.
“What?” I asked irritated

“Time? I would like to give
That ‘time’ – the ‘time’
That changed you - a salute
If ever I get to see it!”

The Embarrassment

The turd that puts up a fight
Against the swirling whirl wind
Instead of going down the commode
Brings forth memories of Kuttan,
Sathi Aunty’s eight year old son who
Washed away during last monsoon.