eternal horizons

Between the cross crashes of the mid-month waves
The noisy disquiet attempts to recapture,
The five tempestuous elements that have been left for dead,
Goes forth to pull me
Toward the night’s foaming, expansive exhibit of desire
… Don’t try so hard;
I’d gladly yield

Who is that?
A rhinestone ring on a rotting toe
Beams at me
The back of the foot lined,
Designed to delight an astrologer of feet
Destiny that he and I meet?
The raw boat of planks with a solitary light;
That hangs from a decomposing rod?

Would I sail into salt and serenity?
Lands of pure serendipity
Perched on a stranger,
Who nods gently;
Clothed in fossil weed,
Cloaked in the wisdom of disappointing history?
Into the land of air,

And eternal horizons?

ocean walking

The weak 6 am sunlight streams in through the ragged red curtains, transforming her brooding boudoir into a mysterious chamber of rust. And as she teeters at the edge of wakefulness, she feels herself sucked into an ocean of lust. Crows bray, donkeys caw, children cry, milk vans yawn down the road outside. Entirely immaterial, terribly mortal. The familiar cymbal-ic taste of metal spreads across her tongue; puts a silencer on her tympanum. Jazz hands, shiver, shiver, shimmy. A tireless tingling rolls down her chest, like lightly warmed wild honey; it reaches for her belly button- the holy trail of sensation. Invisible fingers trace a waltz around this powerful button- second in command in the quest for O, second only to the holy grail of ecstasy located further south. But to get there, one must cross the district where pelvic personnel hold fort, guarding the throne below with calcium caution. They allow only the purest, most persistent of passions down the valley of crevices, into the receptacles of wild oats. There they may partake of an affair that is as sweet as Japanese sticky rice, sour as young plum, fiery as hot sauce, rhythmic as a slow rumba. 

Winter fortress

All manner of riff, raff and trash

The unholy, the ugly, the unintelligent

They flock the church

In a procession of silent adoration

Hopeful hymns forming in their hearts

That never dare leave their lips

It isn’t a beautiful structure, the church

But it beguiles in its solitude, in its lack of apparent beauty

Leaves the viewer in the lurch

In a land of excess in the way of gleaming glass tower

This tome made of the earth stands like a warlock in power

Written to completion

With bricks of contradiction

Particles of dark secrets, so fine they’re almost colloidal

Collide with sterling specks stolen from the Nephilim 

Ancient gums of tempestuous love

Piece them all together

Giving the institution a stench that

Altogether cannot be ignored

Like dogs drawn to a bitch’s piss

They come sniffing greedily

Put off in the gut, turned on in the gonads

But the unholy, the ugly, the unintelligent

They’ve been deceived wholly

For, the church isn’t a church at all

It is a winter fortress

A glacial manor

Closed for renovation, go away

Twins

Twins they may be, with diaphanous DNA strands that beat with the same helical heart. The strands float like jellyfish- empty and packed with sting all at once- in a bloody ocean through which echoes a steely whisper, 'They are but the same, they are but the same...'. In every way an exact copy of the other. Identical, down to the purple moles on their left earlobes, the Roman noses with Parisian peaks.

Destiny has deemed their faces disparate. For, their sorrows haven't cried the same tears. Their cries haven't plucked the same heart strings. Their hearts haven't sung the same bird songs. Their songs haven't painted the same love stories.

Therefore their faces, as science insists, are but the same. Their souls, however, paint a coat of varnish across their visages. An invisible paint that trumps science. An invisible paint that is more blatant to the keen observer than the purple moles, the Roman noses with Parisian peaks.

My Mother's Magic Madness

I remember London’s cosy underground more vividly than I do its drizzly above-ground. That was the trip… the one where I started inheriting her magic madness for travel.
When I was 15 years old, my mother insisted on spending an entire day exploring the London underground. We were on vacation and the nomad-at-heart, who had long fantasised about visiting said city, declared that the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Madame Tussauds could wait. Down under before all else, she announced. So, armed with a day pass, we got into our first train. At Paddington, we de-boarded and began walking around- never leaving the station itself (we’d cleverly packed sandwiches and fruits). Pierced and patterned stray buskers vended their electronic art, two men smooched, a homeless old man sang the blues... we took photographs of them all. When we’d exhausted all the entertainment options, we got into our next train, only to jump out at the next stop, regaled by the sight of a man who seemed to be reciting poetry. On closer inspection, we found the bard was crooning loony tunes. He began chasing us, angered by his own madness. We ran for our lives and right into an incoming coach, laughing our heads off, half scared. We kept at this flighty behaviour- trainspotting and hopping- until sunset. Then, it was back to ground reality and ground level.
The adventure was not to end yet, however. As we ambled onwards arm-in-arm, we chanced upon a wig shop decorated with plastic streamers and Moulin Rouge lights. She pulled me in excitedly. At this dystopic Barbie-land, we spent a good hour trying out a series of outlandish mock manes- blue, blonde, curly, poker straight, crimped, satiny, cheap, exorbitant. She looked like the most beautiful woman in the world, in a certain black silken wig that brushed against her hips. The amused shopkeeper wanted to gift us a smart bob. No thank you, bye. Skipping, conversing, cackling, we next made our way to an empty Indian restaurant that was dying to the tunes of an outdated Hindi film song, in which my dear vegetarian vagabond asked the waiter a million questions about the peas pulao before settling for a simple dosa. Back at the hotel, she tucked me into bed and secured all the locks. Together, we made great plans for the next day- riding a red bus, tickling the royal guard, posing by the Big Ben, a Happy Meal at Mc D,  waxing eloquent at Madame T- till sleep shut us up.
Such was the average day spent with my mother. And I inherited some of her madness.
In Dandeli, where I went on a short trek last year, I encountered a poisonous cobra. I near fainted but could almost hear my mom giggle and inch closer to the reptile, to stroke it. In Bangla Road, I knew she was ready to drag me back to the hotel as I continued dancing towards a tequila sunrise. She was the perfect company on my drive to Auroville- she didn’t change the music, she didn’t tell me how to drive, she left me be. When I held the pocket-sized Olive Ridley turtle in Hikkaduwa, I felt her blowing them tickly air kisses past my ear. In Melaka, I sensed her guffawing at the young mother who had her two tots on a cotton leash. In the Himalayas, she and I had great, wordless conversations as I trudged through snow, water, mud and silence. On my many train journeys to Bangalore, she tells me stories of my younger days, just as she always has.
Except nothing is as it always was.
The travels are many, the adventures aplenty, and I’d be a fool to grumble. As long as she’s there in spirit at least, I shall resist uttering words of complaint. After all, her magic madness is forever and inextricably entwined in my own DNA. 

Faded blue hat

The faded hat was once a regal, royal blue. The faded man who wears it now was a regal, royal boy when he first saw the hat on his pillow.

He was 14 when his mother left the striking new cotton helmet on his bed. ‘Wheee!’ he had cried, spotting it in repose on his pillow, when back from school. The pages of the much-thumbed magazine in which he’d first laid eyes on the royal headgear perched on a blond model’s crown gently rustled in the sleepy evening breeze, as if celebrating with the young man. In front of the mirror, the proud owner stood for hours, taking in his newly-regal reflection. The blue perfectly matched not his deep brown eyes but the depth of his determination. To be worthy of the hat someday.

Fifty years on, the boy, now a man of 64, twirls his hat absent-mindedly, till his eyes settle on the vanishing words etched on the inside…

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

Love forever,

VA

So used is he to seeing those words, he merely regards them as a part of the hat these days. But today, the memory haunts him.

They studied in the same college and she was taken in by his wit from day one. He took his time acquiring a taste for her, but when he did, he wanted her to be his every meal. They spent all their time together. Reading, creating, loving, just being. Seven years later, she was taken by the Grim Reaper. The pain was acute and he buried his head in his hat, weeping endlessly. That’s when he noticed the tiny inscription from his lost love. He didn’t even know when she’d written it there- lines from her favourite poem. She’d loved him in secret between the shadow and the soul; now, between his head and his hat.

The years succeeding the death of VA went by in an OH-and-ho fuelled haze. Some of the drunken nights were really not too bad. His mates and he would hit the local pub and drown their respective worries in pegs and pints. The revelry was there; so was the occasional rivalry. The rust-coloured spray on the brim of the hat was testimony to the swipe he’d taken at his best friend who’d sneezed blood as a result. It was a silly fight and the swipe was meant to be light. The stain stuck; luckily, so did the best friend. 

His buddies, most of them collected during his school days, are just as faded as he is. Jaded as he is. And to think something as stupid as a food fight could excite them back in the day. The tiny stains strung together during those chip wars now present themselves as a necklace of persevering oil beads. A chain of good memories.

A memory he isn’t too fond of… the period when he’d abandoned his hat at the back of the closet, in favour of a shiny silk fedora. He was a successful businessman at that time. With a dog, a house and a trophy wife who’d picked the new hat out for him, to go with his newly-acquired invincibility. When it had all come crashing down two decades later, the vultures fed hungrily on the remains, leaving naught but the faithful blue hat. It was in quite a state, having been fed on by all manner of pest and pet, but came back to life after a wash- retaining only a few itsy-bitsy holes.

Wearing it, he ventured right back into the rat race, starting at the bottom of the pyramid- where the perks are few, but perspiration is aplenty. The streaks of sweat decorated the hat too, in the manner of an ECG, as seen through the eyes of a drunk.

It was stressful. The hat has the rapidly-falling hair to show for it. Brown hair, grey hair, even white hair sometimes. His hair is fading. The memories seem to be fading faster. His eyesight too. And his sense of smell and taste.

He hangs up his hat. On the steel bridge beneath which lies a sea of eternal solace.

Summer is a fruit

Orbs of varied greens and varying sizes lie in a state of restless repose on hot hay, as if waiting to hatch. Hatched they are by a hatchet in a moment of thirsty rage. Large cups of watermelon soaked in Ballantine, mix and make merry in our small intestine. Pink blood dribbles down the corners of greedy lips, black seeds slip out inconspicuously and settle into the earth, hoping to be caught by a stray wheel and transported to more fertile growth zones. Thus begins the summer every year- in a feverish flash of green, red, stripes and fruit flies.

It’s like a carnival. Vendors haggle, their voices carrying way over town in musical, manic notes. The fragrance of dry hay nudges images of past summers' rustic rendezvous into our heads. Roadblocks are rife where there is an obese watermelon and a sharp knife. We are all like patients at a clinic, waiting in line for a precious transfusion of liquids. Smiles intermingle with sighs of ecstasy, as couples feed each other and kids jiggle their bottoms. There’s laughter and an unsaid communal dance in progress. Freeze the moment mid-note- when the Sustainers strum and the flies hum… mid-step- when there’s an entwining of limbs and a visual exchange of untainted nothings. The moment, all shy and gooey, is sealed by a concentrated ray of sunshine that reflects off a passing car. Laminated for a lifetime in a sweet glaze of transitory innocence.

Generous fruits they are, that give their lives up for us. The watermelons we consume now will, till the time we say our final goodbyes, remain with us, captured by our clever memory cells. We are all part human-part watermelon. Man is melon; melon is man. A great conversation starter for sultry soirees, in the midst of hubris-cloaked herbivores and uncaring carnivores, perspiring bodies and precipitating thirst. The seeds that we accidentally swallow… we can only hope that a watermelon patch may, several generations later, grow over our final resting spots. A communion that is to never break. Like foetuses that are nourished and held in place by a conduit called the umbilical cord, we too delight in being nourished by our vine-like conduits. We hold on to them and begin the sweaty trek out of summer.

Meanwhile, the sun continues to slowly disrobe, exposing us to an inch more of his harsh perfection every day. In a few days, the melas of melon will begin to rust. The heat will dislodge logic, vendors will vanish, kids will collapse, couples will breathe synthetic ice in concrete caves. Green globes will be smashed upon jagged pavements. Tread carefully, man of melon, lest you trip on the very flesh that sated you so. Be prepared to be afflicted by the inevitable seasonal jaundice that will skulk through your veins and cloud your vision. You will begin to see the world like a much-and-many-times married Mughal emperor might have gazed at his nubile lover through a cut of topaz.

Rest awhile, thirsting comrade. In a few days, the sun will ripen to a sweet slush. We can then squeeze it, scoop it, bite in, let it run wild down our hands. In our dreams, we can dance the mango tango as pulpy cords bind us to heavens of swarthy skin and fluid flesh. The saccharine scent of summer will eventually arrive to make juice out of our jaundice, and tide us through yet another season of rust, lust and daydreams of August. 

Middle earth

The eerie voice

Drifts from snowy caverns

Drips from dangerous distant stalactites

And I rise from a strange sleep, to follow the soulless melody

Syringes and hard boiled plastic deck the land

Copper wires lay discarded on the ice

Still throbbing mildly with oxidised blood

Keeping tune with the dead beats of decaying hearts, the angst of chalkboard scraping

I am gripped by a steel addiction, an unidentified affliction  

Harsh white light aims needles of oblivion at my phantom cerebrum

A visual monitor that is carved into a blade shows me vaguely familiar images

A surge of fire is stifled, destined not to burn

It’s going to be a long winter

Monkeys covered in wire wool clamber to warm me

Their eyes are like granite

Inert, impressive

Terror grips me, icicles pierce my chest

I run for warmth on a floor polished with my plasma

Run for release to a dark beach

Of mercury seas

Deserted waves weep tinsel onto shingle

Shingle tingles

As a spectral resident attempts to immolate herself, unsuccessfully

A lethargic rage echoes through the expanse

In the midst of all this is evident the sound of slow, hollow breathing

My eyes are pulled to a bench of daggers on which sits a thin man

A mane of iron filings shimmer down his back

And he waves his arms as if in a trance

He conducts a mass of black energy into a flaming peephole

White energy, he puffs up into vast space

The grey energy- the one that is like dust but glitters in sunlight, the one that resembles me

He keeps, locked in the middle earth

A nanosecond in the life of a mind

It’s a crowded railway station. Shoulders rub against and bruise my own. How smelly. Puke. Footsteps are carefully choreographed. Tock, tock, tock. People run towards wrong trains. Tick, tick, tick. Before I digress, I must tell you about that time when I was playing tennis and a nasty boy kept tossing balls at my bottom. Oh my god, arthritic woman, you’re missing the train. Run! You’re going to be late for your exam. Have I packed my pens- black and blue- and my ruler? Frick, frick, frick- who was the ruler of Greece in 496 BC? You’ve missed the train. Go back home. You can’t come late for exams, admonishes a severe teacher. I beg, I cry… please let me attend! I haven’t attended a single grandparent’s funeral. Stupid, unlucky heap of muck, I am. Pigs feed on muck. And I feed on pigs. Oh my, wouldn’t it be nice to have a hearty steak now. Medium-rare, waiter. And you, friend? Will you have a mug of beer to wash down your fries? Stupid boy, stop aiming tennis balls at my bottom. What is your problem? But you do have such a cute smile. He’s so cute, I bleat. My friend agrees. We’re walking around a park. We’re supposed to be running. YOU’RE MISSING THE NEXT TRAIN TOO, HAG! You are making me very nervous. I need to be at the exam hall an hour before the exam begins. The driver is late. Hyperventilation. Hey you, good looking man, you’re stuck in my head. And I’m stuck in a moment. That walks of yours is driving me nuts. Don’t smile- doesn’t suit you. Try to get lost, please. Just two more hours and I have to get ready for work. I am going to feel so sleepy all day. Oh god, oh god. I look like a wet sock. And that pimple. I look so disgusting. I should run away to a mountain forest and begin farming. Waterfalls, fresh air, red-nosed, alone. Echoes. A fresh start. But, who will cook? So depressing. I’ll have to cook and farm? The waterfall sounds so nice. I wish I could stand under it and will it to cleave my body. One half for the kitchen, the other for the farm. Salt and pepper is the colour of your hair. Take me to your lair. Do you dare? Do you not care? Please be fair. We’d make a fine pair. Okay, okay, I’ll stop my poetry, whole. Yoinksss, all that poetry that was written for me. Eyes like a cooking pan, words in Tamil I can’t understan’. I am a black hole- mysterious and bearing powers of suction, you said. So sweet, so lame. You, yes you man of salt and pepper. You’re still here, I see. Why won’t you sod off? My best friend is this close to disowning me.  Sigh, she’s been there through all my self-inflicted nonsense. The sound of the departing train is killing me. My mother almost fell in that stinky gap between the train and the platform. Angels in white saved her, she insisted. Angels in the outfield. Such a nice movie. Flap, flap. Just like that Hindi song in that bromance movie. Flap, flap- retro style. Remember when we went for one of those school culturals and everyone started flapping when the song played? I had no clue what on earth they were doing. I was so uncool. Am uncool. Always the mouse. Mysterious mouse, I give myself that. I would donate myself to a lab. As long as I have my daily fix of methanol. Swig, high, drunk, dead. Oye, salt and pepper, come back, come back. I almost forgot about you. But you look positively delectable today. Just don’t smile, please. Stay stern and middle-aged. And do that walk. I can watch you do that manly sway all day. Hey, hey, here’s an ode to you. Type, type, type. And the poem is done! Just one more hour before it’s get-ready-for-office time. I will get back home early today and sleep. I will drink cough syrup. No, cough syrup is terrible for my skin. Beer is good. My steak is better. The lard is melting in my mouth. I might die of contentment this very moment. Swig. Hmmm, then what else? How’s it going with your lady? I have no boy scene. Blah. I don’t know why. Haven’t found Him. I haven’t visited my friend and her baby after the little dude’s delivery date. Should go, should go. Prioritise, Anu! I must visit the aunts too. I worry for them. So old, so frail, so insulated. And dear father. Sigh. I am so selfish. That’s hardly breaking news. I should run away to a mountain and farm. What kind of stuff grows on mountains, anyway? Tea? What else? I need to get away. Jeeeezus, airfare discount. Let us book tickets and go to Osaka. Flights. I won't sleep. Budget airlines and cramped seats. Malaysia Airlines. I am not scared. Whatevs. Dying is not the end of the world. Oh, hi. You like me? I like you too? You’re not really my type. But I like you. Salt and pepper. Salt and pepper… fades to grey. You want to give it a shot? Sure! Yayy. Let’s talk some more. I spoke like an idiot and ruined it. Good lord, I am hopeless. Salvation is never to be mine. Come back! One more shot? I look so disgusting. Eeeksarama. Anush Jal is a brand of water, did you know? I was named after my star but then they found out… oh you’ve heard that story a million times. Some more mash please, waiter. It’s terrible but I need it to finish off the remaining steak sauce. Slurp. I’m going to become so enormous. I want to be imprisoned in my room. With my books and music. That’s all I want. Sigh. Life is so unfair. I AM SUCH A WASTE OF SPACE. What am I doing with my life? My career? I will never live up to my potential. There’s still hope. I might die at 28. A year more and a few months. Over, gone and out. You’ve missed the train. Goddamn you.

A land of salt and pepper

In a land of salt and pepper

Resides the interloper

In a castle of middle-aged stone

Alone

She collects the master’s footsteps

Plucking them from the air with red forceps

She stores them in crystal drops that hang at her ear

The next best thing to him being near

The careless looks he tosses in her direction

Are captured in a moment of reflection

She stores them in a gilt mirror, against her eyes

The look of her savior in disguise

He passes by in a light cloud of cologne

She inhales deeply and makes the perfume her own

Stores it in a tiny stone that decorates her nose

The grand allowance of olfactory prose

Sometimes his elbows brush past her skin when he’s in a hurry

She commits the gossamer path they tread to memory

Stores them on a map, spread across her forehead

Traces them every night in bed

All that is left for her to do is steal a kiss

For the sense of taste is yet amiss

If she is to be from her crucifix unhung

She must have a piece of him against her tongue

Bye, Paco

By some crazy design of the universe, I fell in love with the song at a time when I stood quivering, shivering in the middle of two magnificent bottles of hypnotic tonic water. Entre Dos Aguas loosely translates to the same thing… between two rivers. I had heard the fading notes of the song at someplace insignificant and knew instantly that I wanted to make it mine.

The opening bass line of the song was an enchanted door that landed me in a sunny Mediterranean street. The beats that followed… they seated me on a comfortable stone by a broken fountain. Then the strums came. They unseated me expressly. I was transformed into a real woman of the earth- not the cold sculpture my soul calls home in reality. I was dressed in a vibrant, many-layered skirt. A voluptuous string of carnations lay serpentine in my hair. My face was suitably accessorised with pent-up emotion. I had my dancing shoes on- they would act as a leathern stylo through which I’d relate my story- and I was ready to present my case. Words have only ever failed me. But dance…

Is it possible to talk by dancing? And yet I dare swear that's how the gods and devils must talk to one another. The famous line by the manic, magnificent Zorba comes to mind.

So, I shut my eyes and let the tunes touch my skin. Like a balm, they slowly entered my blood stream, veneering my conscious with mystic myrrh. I cleared my throat and broke into a slow canter, covering all corners of the crowded plaza, appealing to anyone who would listen to my tale of confusion. Give me answers, I mumbled, ‘a solution!’ I flexed my fingers into symbols of deep grief, all the while executing simple pasos of pathos with my possessed limbs. My voluminous skirt flounced about as if trying to rid itself of an invisible resident evil.

And then came a point when I could no longer take the callousness of my audience. So, aided by the progressive aggression of the suddenly-rogue sonata, I became more vocal. I stamped my foot till my knees hurt, beat my chest till it turned red, reached for the Gods till my hands protested, twisted my hips till they impinged upon every surface of  indifference. Jumping, shuffling, slithering, shimmying, gyrating, waltzing with the twangs, the slides… My voice exploded in a moment of hoarse lucidity. This was ecstasy. I kept at it till the tune tapered off into nothingness. Exhaustion. Bliss. Lucidity. I would pick neither tonic, I decided. I would find my way forward in between the two rivers.

Some days ago, the wizard behind the song- Paco de Lucia- died. His heart stopped. Just like that. I remember watching a live concert video of the legendary flamenco institution, as he played alongside two other guitar greats- John Mc Laughlin and Ai Di Meola. The three of them, each equipped with a piece of wood and a few strings- were in the midst of building heavenly castles in the air. McLaughlin smiled, rapture oozing from every pore of his body. Di Meola nearly laughed with delight. But, de Lucia… he didn’t smile, he didn’t even move that much. He sat cross-legged on a stool- his trademark position- brewing distilled magic. As if it were the simplest of procedures. So, while his fingers struck great stories upon those strings, the master himself stoically refused to read his letters of rapture. He would not sip on his own magic brew, it seemed.

No wonder; his heart must’ve simply imploded with all the contained emotion.

Goodbye, Paco. Dethrone all those lyre-bearing angels in heaven and show them how it’s done.

Curd Rice Or Pizza? The Last Meal Conundrum

I woke up in a cold sweat this morning. It was 48 hours before execution day and the warden walked into my high-security prison cell. “What will it be, then?” he inquired. I was supposed to have made up my mind. But, deciding what I wanted my Last Meal to be was proving to be a tough, tough task.
I was favouring curd rice, potato fry and mango pickle till the night before. But, the wild spices of Mangalorean ghee roast chicken had voodoo needled their way into my system, pricking away all manner of lactose from my memory. And, yet, when the scary warden stood before me, all I could think of was sinking my fingers into a massive hunk of dark chocolate cake. Err. Err. Tick, tick, tick. “…your time is up.” I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when I woke up, mid-way through the harrowing dream. Did I get my final meal? Or had I sacrificed it to the whims of my indecisiveness?
I confided in a friend who had the misfortune of having called me. I told him everything, right from how I was given a day to decide, to how I had acted like a gold fish when it was time to utter my final cibo syllables. “Oh, cool, so, what’d you go to prison for?” he asked with all the sensitivity of a saw dust heap. Men. Pfft!
 I hung up and retreated into the culinary chambers of my own imagination. Just in case I had the dream again. I wanted to whet all my options and come to the best conclusion.
Straight off, I decided against the curd rice-potato fry-mango pickle combination because it was home, and I’d remember the taste of home even up in heaven (haha, I wish). The Mangalorean ghee roast chicken… well, the fiery red hue of chillies and aroma cocktail would linger on my fingertips for ages. And, this might make me homesick, as I tried to teach Mathematics (my idea of personal hell) to noisy school children in the nether world. Chocolate cake. Sigh. How I’d love to. But, I wouldn’t want my family to go through the shame of having my extreme chocolate addiction going public.
How about a rich, coconut-y green Thai curry? Sure- except, the coconuts of my native place in Kerala would weep toddy buckets at my traitorous ways. Hmm, I could make the government pay through its nose for a platter of fresh sashimi. Or not. I don’t want to risk ending up a fish in my next life. I don’t trust karma.
 Pizza!! It’d go viral. “Indian criminal’s last meal is American!” would proclaim all the dubious-yet-addictive websites of the West. It would be heralded as the death of Indian tradition and culture. Italy would be mighty angry too. Global mayhemmmm. In your face, government, for killing me!
I’d certainly put a good mutton biryani on my list. Also, chicken 65. Bacon and cheese. Coorg pork? Yes, please!  Ghee dosa and fifty little bowls of piping hot sambar. Check. Gotta have a good pasta. Dal rice and tomato pachadi… only if made by my aunt. Hot coconut payasam… only if stolen from a Syrian catholic wedding hall.
When I called my insensitive friend, to discuss my list, he was far from supportive. In fact, he went so far as to insinuate that I had gone to prison, in the first place, for a food-related offense. “You must have walked into a food store, seen the last pack of your favourite green American Lays and killed a woman who happened to reach for it before you,” he said, paying no heed to my fragile emotional state. (I had, after all, just escaped the execution chair and lived to tell the tale. Insensitive cow.)
So, to make myself feel better, I turned to my good friend- Mr Emotional Binge Eating, who also goes by the name Mr Giant Ice Cream Tub.  And yes, in life as I would be in death, I was at peace! 

Memories in fabric

The fabric of his imagination

Comes alive, in a light rush of light blue and indigo cotton

Threaded together by its soft touch

Bearing still the memory of her careless caresses

And Arden, who co-habits with the dying spice of her tresses

He wraps this inebriating cloth around his neck sometimes

To feel her fingers tracing his being, chin to clavicle

Coiling with it, into a place of ceaseless wonderment

Flashes of laughter, innocence and worship

Whip past his face, as he spins around the room

Flushes- carnal and karmic- make his visage bloom

Even as a lone salty, crystal ornament glitters down

With all the purpose of a slow waltz…

… his legs are affected by it too

One step to the back, one forward

One reaching for castles in the air

A tinkle touch lands softly on his feet, as on cue

And, once again, he is dancing with his lady of honeydew

But only until the dotted stole comes undone

Extricating man from memory

Extinguishing happiness from his armory

A cotton circle unto eternity

Out of the mouth of a 'babe'...

‘Hey babe, sorry babe.’ Instantly, I was overwhelmed by a burning desire to rip the bonnet off my car and smack the criminal’s head with it. I was almost run over by this particular roadside Romeo, who was riding his bike like the street belonged to his ancestors. Still, I would’ve let it pass because I was in a hurry. But then he went and ruined it all by referring to me as ‘babe’. Twice. Naturally, I felt compelled to bestow upon him the most riotously potent version of ‘sod off’. Tomorrow will be better, I semi-growled to myself as I walked away from the scene of crime. This was yesterday.
‘Thanks babe.’ This greeted me earlier today. And it roused again the many-headed monster that was already seething from last evening’s attack. This time, all I’d done was convey my warm wishes to a male friend, it being his birthday et al. And ‘thanks babe’ was how he recognised my gesture. It was absolutely uncalled for and I was, understandably, b-stung. After all, I am not this nincompoop’s girlfriend. I am not his blonde secretary. I am not Cher. Or Sonny. I am not a cute, talking pig. And I don’t have the IQ of a sponge. So, I sent the only appropriate reply. ‘K’.
It is bad enough that some of my female friends refer to each other (and me) as ‘babe’. ‘Me n ma babes’ is a standard group photo caption these days. Might as well proclaim to the world that we're a bunch of brainless dingbats whose hobbies include ‘gtng manicures’. Still, I swallow my annoyance and put it down to severely deficient vocabularies. But, when a man utters the monstrosity, I want to freeze him and catapult him to another galaxy in which everyone’s name is Babe. In that distant land may he spew the word until he’s gotten it out of his system. There’s one thing worse than a man who calls me babe… a man who is a stranger who calls be babe.
There is just something so inherently off-putting about the word; in my case, even when it is said in context. (Context being if indeed I were an infant, an innocent simpleton or the utterer’s romantic partner.) It is sexist. It is condescending. It sounds like a blob of phlegm. The only environment that is conducive to the usage of the term is if one wants to describe a good looking woman and decides to say, ‘She’s such a babe!’ Cool, that’s acceptable.
When I discussed this with a male pal, the ignoramus simply shrugged and said he thought ‘babe’ was the equivalent of ‘dude’. A female acquaintance said the word was just a substitute for the word ‘dear’. (Oh dear, that’s another word I despise when used loosely and out of context.) She calls her husband ‘babe’ even in front of others, especially in front of others. As though the word is an infallible indicator of relationship strength. My heart goes out to the poor emasculated being. Yet another young woman said she in fact liked being called babe because it brought in familiarity to the equation. Like guys call each other ‘mate’, we girls must call each ‘babe’, insisted she. ‘Kinship will come off,’ she added eloquently. K.
And, then there are my closest friends who think I am far too reactive for my own good. Well, I seem to have company this time, ladies. #dontcallmebabe was trending on Twitter sometime back. Besides, according to a survey, ‘babe’ has been voted the most hated pet name for women. ‘But what if your future partner likes to call you babe?’ one of them demanded. I will call him Princess Consuela Banana Hammock till he gets over it.
Think I am being irrational? Yes? Okay, talk to the hand, BABE.

Leather bound, dust found

My longing for you swam in a secret place, hidden from light- incorruptible and criminal at the same time. I will never wake it from its lust-drugged slumber, I had decided.

But now, we’re both at a party and there’s a chance for a little dance. A spin with a dangerous romance. You tie my hands up in strips of coarse crocodile skin and steer me around- the willing puppy-t. My feet, you bind to your own with shoelaces of plaited leather. We dance. It’s dreamlike. An enchanted dust is manufactured right there on the dance floor, the particles swirling slowly, percolating body heat and the thickness of wanting. The ashes of combustion they are. Combustion of a combined desire. The dust is amorphous but threatens to crystallise unto eternity if not handled with calculated wantonness. That’s why you used leather, you whisper; so that neither of us strays from intention. You tug, I turn. You pull, we embrace. The shimmery gun-powder shrouds us, absorbs every worry, falls to the floor as photons of dull grey. The effort has turned our bodies scarlet. The perfect hue to be overcome by, given our state of satiation.

Let’s jive and grind till we grow tired. Till we’ve burned off the carnal calories that have been getting in the way of every normal function. Let’s hold each other tight and spin till we’re lean and wet with exhaustion. Till we stop producing that intoxicating dust of ours. No more magic powder to snort. Why would we stick around beyond that? With spent bodies and rent souls, we must say au revoir. And face up to the inevitable withdrawal symptoms that present themselves as cruel reality. I will have secretly stored away some of our private dust. To ease my way back into grey, the unwelcome successor of red.