Clean slate- Part 2

Cajoled by the cool evening air, scented with wild red roses, she walked towards the woods at the back of her Spartan cottage, following the call of native birds and gurgling streams. Like Blindman’s Bluff, she thought, with another small giggle. Giggles, chuckles, smiles… not so long ago, she had absolutely no recollection of how they sounded when they zip-clawed their way up her throat and nasal passage. But, right at that moment, everything seemed so funny. She lifted her hands to the skies, looked up and laughed like she never had. As her unbridled glee echoed through the mist and olive green, earth and flowers in mid-preen, a leaf rustled. Two stems clapped against each other. A ladybird waltzed with a flea, atop a wild boar’s back. Streams rushed down slopes, hastily petting the pebbles and moss along their way. The wet earth released its mineral-laced aroma. All the while, her neighbours, the mountains, patiently packed the gigantic, growing ball of energy with the twine of their own goodwill. They tossed it at her, finally. And, as her laughter finally showed signs of extinguishing, she was jolted by the electricity of the special parcel that surged through her fingertips, through her inner labyrinth.

She had run away from home. She had run away from life. But, she would be fine, she mused, heading to her fragrant, hay-and-honey-suckle stuffed bed of, what she hoped would one day be, eternal sleep. 

Clean slate

She sat by the doorstep, having just finished plaiting her long hair, gazing at the little rivulets that caressed her feet, as they skid past merrily, eager to commune with their older, more stream-lined siblings. But, really only looking resolutely at the tiny vestige blocking a certain turnpike of her memory. It had lost most of its sheen, and now floated about in its grey cell, prison cell, like an old showpiece that had seen more chipper, flapper days. She reached out for the intruder with feigned frustration, and maybe a tinge of a grin. She should have known it was a conduit.

But, she did. And now, she felt herself getting sucked into a vortex of emotional paraphernalia. Faces, houses, laughter, dancing, love, lust, yearning, learning… they whirled about all around her. With every swirl, they seemed to get brighter, juddering off layers of ancient dust, in the manner of a retriever vigorously shaking the water off his mane. Each of them threw little, hand-crafted arrows at the tender tendons that held her resolve firmly in place, even as it stewed patiently, waiting for its steel jacket.

Going back to where she started- square one- wasn’t an option. Her passion fruit tree needed her, as did her herb garden and her precious Muddy, who she’d found in dire waters, as a pup. And, then, there were all those journals, each of which eagerly suckled at the bosom of her soul, nourished by a diet of Indigo ink and the reds, greens, blues and greys of her existence. She could not, would not desert them.

So, she put her feet down firmly and walked through the centrifuging curtains, bruising her nose just a little as she stepped out.

She chuckled silently. Tickled a little by the rivulets that had stopped to watch her and were now nudging the tips of her toes, but for most part, pleased as punch at the thriving health of her resolve. This was her home now and she wouldn’t leave it. Not for years. And when she did depart, she wouldn’t trace her steps back to where she came from.

But, now, all she wanted to do was be in constant awe of the mountains that were her neighbours and whisper stray anecdotes from her life to them, as they pretended to sleep. And, hope they wouldn’t judge her the next morning. To ripen the fruit of her beautiful tree with her personal fertiliser of maternal passion. To ensure precious Muddy didn’t go to pieces in the mixed acids of abandonment. To milk her soul dry and splash the magical discharge across her journals. So that one day, some day, she would be able to sit in solitude in a quiet verandah, somewhere obscure, and understand it better. Understand it in a way she never had when it still clung to her, aided by the adhesive of youth.  

Eye long(itude) for you

Tiny flecks of memory forever ingrained

Dance in the lucid liquid

With swirls of emotion

Like slushy cola sorbet

Melting slowly, like the heart of the beholder

The beholder, who takes on a fresh salmon blush

Growing pliant at the sight of you

She is the loyal pupil to your compelling depth

The iris to your cold obsidian

A slave to your brilliance, when Raman and Rayleigh render you breathtaking in sunlight

The cartographer, she is

Dedicated to tracing the skeins of rust that shoot into the ebony

To drawing maps interspersed with the little shivering, anticipatory peaks of her ECG

Maps that tell the story of a girl who yearned, in crest and trough

In latitude and longitude

And longing

Mornings in Mangalam

It is 4.20 am on a Saturday morning. In exactly two minutes, the younger aunt will start looking at the alarm clock every few seconds, so she can spring out of bed at 4.30 am, sharp. The older aunt makes annoyed ‘tut, tut’ noises, because she’s a late riser- choosing to wake up only at 4.45 am, and she wants her sister to keep it down. Me? I haven’t slept all night, owing to the dreadful anticipation of being rudely woken up at 4.30 am. And, the lumpy pillow that I somehow always end up with. My aunts never ask me to wake up. In as many words, that is.

But, try sleeping in a house in which two elderly women insist on thundering in and out of rooms- starting 4.30 am (every day, government holidays included), slamming and yanking creaking doors, turning off and on bright tube lights. But, decidedly, the worst part is dealing with the inevitable, unholy cacophony of shlokas and devotional songs that come at me, fangs drawn, from a multitude of devices. First, there’s that small, very vile plug-in-and-play contraption. Once switched on, an almost-demonic voice begins disgorging its love for Vishnu in the most terrifying fashion. The instruments accompanying the singing, I am convinced, are plucked from the Indian equivalent of the Addams Family mansion. The seconds are provided by a lady in a garish silk sari, who sits inside the idiot box and sings to the high heavens, contorting her face with yoga flexibility, for added effect. (Till it- thank you God- broke down, the cassette player would take part in the jugal bandhi too.) Third sound- Aunt No 1 singing along to Device No 1. Fourth sound- Aunt No 2 humming along to random song running in her head. The younger aunt used to be a skilled veena player, back in the day. She, however, cannot hold a tune. The older aunt was never a skilled veena player. And, she can hold a tune with even lesser finesse than the former. The overall effect is enough for me to begin the day with murderous thoughts. I love my aunts. But, it is my dearest wish that someone (perhaps my little niece) accidentally break all those darned devises.

My aunts aren’t an anomaly. Mangalam Apartments is infested with people who are in eternal competition with the Sun. ‘We will perform nine million namaskarams in tribute to you, but, ha, catch us rising later than you!’ they seem to imply, with relish.  As if to add to my overall delight at the proceedings, the acoustics of the building are such that one can hear what’s happening in B-Block’s Flat 10, in A-Block’s Flat 6. What does this spell? Cacophony x 100 = Slow Death. 

Age has made me wise, however. When I was younger, I would make dirty faces at my aunts and mumble threats in my sleep-laced voice (which was really a bleat, and therefore impossible to be taken seriously). The older aunt would make faces back at me, sometimes. These days, I usually just resignedly untangle myself from the sheets and get the morning ablutions out of the way, before I dive right into a book, telling myself that I will catch up on some shut eye in the afternoon. But, you know, good luck Anusha. Afternoon is when all the devilish children crawl out of their caves, solely to ring their cycle bells (stolen, I bet, from that Satan church in California), and yell collectively like a crowded slave market.

The irony of life. On a Saturday, a holiday, I should technically be able to wake up whenever I want. Even if it is at 2 pm on a Sunday. But, every Friday evening I make my way to my aunts’ place, of my own volition, knowing fully well that Saturday morning will be a total downer.

Anyway, it is 11 am, now. I am seated at the dining table, growing impatient at my aunts who have exhausted all their energy, storming about in the wee hours, and so, are moving at snail’s pace, settling themselves at the table. The day’s meal comprises all my favorite things in the world. Shallow fried potato. Tomato rasam. Radish sambar. Tomato pachadi. Rice fritters. Hot rice with ghee. Mango pickle.

4.20 am? Hmmm? 

Insomnia

Stupid styptic, soul septic. Peptic devil, evil heretic. Give up hope. Now. Before the moon meanders into sight. Before the stars switch on their shine. Before the sky shrugs off its synthetic blue cloak.

When you look up and all you see is the rolling expanse of blue-black Vaudeville velvet, studded with cheap rhinestones… that is when I wake from my sweet slumber. That is when I slip into my dark robe and get behind the proverbial desk at my cosmic office. I exist to feed off your thoughts. Don’t, for a minute, be flattered- I have little use for your fantasies and the subconscious tripe spewed by your silly mind. But, attached to each of these inane thoughts is a precious molecule; a sleep particle, you may call it. When I suck your fantasies in, a little groove on my tongue catches these tiny, gleaming pearls, and I place them carefully in a chest lined with Chantilly lace, thereon. I make jewellery out of them, when I feel like it. Bracelets, anklets, armlets, earrings, necklaces, brooches, hair adornments. Not because I particularly like how I look with them on. I merely enjoy the feeling of having your peace of mind wrapped around my body.

What do I do with the thoughts that slide down my throat? I wash them down with methanol. And I gargle. The fantasies…the dreams…the hopes- the ones you convinced yourself were so sincere, they all evaporate. All that remains is a sticky coat of black. This, I scrape out with a knife and throw on a ceremonial heap by the back, where, one day, will be born a splendid masterpiece- the Mountain of Dead Dreams.

How do you know I exist? That isn’t even a real question. You know I do. I am that demonic shape you see half-hidden among the clouds, when all the person next to you can see is a sky rabbit. I am the dark shifting shape you see in your peripheral vision. I am the sinking feeling of your eyes being pulled inwards when you look at the clock at 2.40 am, at 2.41 am, at 2.42 am…in one-hour gaps. I am the raging distaste you experience when a plate of food is placed in front of you. I am that cold emptiness you feel in the core of your being. I am blurred vision and black outs. I am the numbness that resides in the tip of your fingers.

Why do I do this? What is my remuneration, you may wonder? Honestly, nothing. But, I have this good friend- Grim Reaper. I owe him a big one. Once upon a time, I was a peasant- unwanted and undesired, in a land of steel gold and sad happiness. He gave me a beautiful piece of jewellery at the most opportune time. A nylon noose, it was. I still remember wearing it and realizing that pleasure was indeed pain. He then came for me and brought me to what I now call home, right next to his prison office.

He likes to keep his prison full. I like to keep him happy. And, so, I feed off your useless thoughts…the ones that coat my throat a sticky black. The pleasure of seeing you one particle poorer of soul, every single day. The dark circles under your eye. Your shrinking frame. Your disdain for the very doctrines of existence. Your vehement hatred of life. Your deep longing for death. Your subsequent- expedited, death. My rewards, they are. Debt repaid. 

Memories of rain

I sauntered down the cement ramp, semi-deaf to the severely unpleasant vehicular orchestra playing out to my left, training my concentration instead on the complex drama unfurling in my head.

Strange things were happening. Darkness begged to be my friend. Light wanted a vacation. In their vehemence, they bumped into each other sideways, to form smoky self-styled Venn diagrams and condensed areas of rainy grey in between.

And, so, it had to begin with a drizzle.

Only, the drizzle was really just overzealous mist. It hung heavily in the air, weighed down by gravity, relenting in miniscule droplets. They dripped onto my hair inconspicuously, forming a talcum halo. I was reminded vaguely of several patches of paradise. I walked in the first paradise for a while, listening intently to the bright green grass beneath my feet rebuke me for intruding on its morning dew bath. The air was redolent of vanilla and something musky. Voices of children wafted about in the fading background, intermingling with the explanatory tones of an older man- an uncle perhaps. I was almost transported to another time… in a car from the past, in which I now sat, listening to my heart beat feverishly. I looked in the rear view mirror to find my lips stained a bright orange and my face red and raw. There was a wild glint in my eye, and my lips curled in a manner that suggested feral moments had been partaken of in the muggy confines. As I turned to my right, I could discern but a waning mass of memory. My arms, however, and my neck, bore scarlet imprints that I could only begin to comprehend. I touched my arm to imbibe a sense of that time, but it wasn’t my arm. An older woman held my hand, and steered me down a wet boulevard. I tried to look up at her face, but she was too tall. I was too short. I had taken my first steps not too many moons ago, and the damp tar road seemed to teem with possibilities. I was being fed stories. Tales from the epics, epic tales. In my head, pictures formed, like a comic strip. A bunch of young Brahmin girls fighting wordlessly for a comb, for the next turn in the bath, for the one extra biscuit. Sisters. My aunts they must’ve been; and my mother. And then, I was on her hips. The hips that, not too many years ago, took part in emergency ejecting me into the world. She was running. It was a drizzly morning in the city I call home. We were racing against time and alongside the bus we desired to board. An angel’s hand, she later said, pulled us in, just when she thought the destination would be forever lost to her. And, so we sat in the bus. I was around 19 years old by then; talking to my peers, as we sped into the verdant wild. I cosied up in a corner, by a window, feeling the wind course through my curls and the mounting drizzle gently attacking my rods and cones. I was happy, I was sad. Teenage pangs did their job well. I had to shut the window before long, because the drizzle had built into a promising rain. It was extremely stifling inside the bus.

So, I stood up and pressed my ears against the large window in my hotel room, which looked like it was sweating. I faintly heard the rain sing to me, in a voice that was layered beneath the more apparent percussion patterns she beat on the glass pane. She began to tell me secrets from lands afar. That she had left her home in Egypt; evaporated from the Nile so cruelly. I listened to her cry of longing. She and I both sang the same song that day. When I could no longer bear the piercing pitch of pain, I moved away. Walked away. Into a dark room where the television took pride of place. On a large bed sat an apparition. Young love set my cheeks on fire, stoking something I identified as desire. The warm specter and I sat in harmony, not saying anything, just relishing the heat that separated us, brought us closer. And there was the heat of the hot chocolate we shared- a delicious contrast to the steely concrete wild which was being hosed down by the Gods. Broken lyrics and unchained melodies looped around us. I shut my eyes, lost to the world, swimming in swelling streams of anticipation. I woke to the sound of thunder and dangerous creaking of branches. I sat huddled under an old oak; a thin stole my only respite from the copious tears of heaven. I was alone in a dark jungle, infested with reptiles. A lizard, the colour of bile, began its ascent up my leg, even as a red snake slithered across my collar bone, turning slowly to look me in the eye, as if to establish its superiority. I thought I had died. They say I fell into a cold, cold coma.

I woke at all because they say I was struck by some kind of sympathetic lightning. I believe I was struck by a mysterious epiphany, if ever there was such a thing as a mysterious epiphany. I looked at my limbs to find them covered in the glittery salts left behind by heaven’s temper tantrum. On closer inspection, I found that the minerals had formed rapidly-absorbed miniscule pictographs on my skin, depicting forefather secrets.

I got on my feet and stretched memory’s moisture away. In the dazzling sunlight, I glittered like a life-sized diamond, as I sauntered down the ramp. Walking towards and into a lifetime more of liquid remembrances and shifting shapes. 

lamb

Love, lamb, ruin

Unholy trinity

How you feed my vanity unto infinity

Ensure the cessation of reason’s impunity

Grab my beating musculature

Squeeze it through a circular maze

Let it float in an uncertain haze

Attention, lamb, apathy

Terrible three

Your words of butter melt down my neck free

Attend to your intent’s every decree

Wrap around my throat so slow

Choke free will

Abandon me in feverish chill

Come, lamb, go

Triplets of desirous paradox

Will you stay till Equinox?

Or, be gone at dusk, like a silver fox?

Step in

Step out

What is this all about?

A mere stakeout?