Healing

They say open wounds heal faster...

Writer's Tale

The roads of my village, filled with rustic mysteries, the bustling complicated lives of the big cities I lived in, the pool of faces that drift aimlessly in this island country, all seek to be written.

I write to conceal a part of these stories, the ones you and I cannot share, like the essence of my experience that escapes you even when you read my tales.

I wander within my characters, empty of any originality, but then-is there any such thing as the quintessential individual? I am all my characters put together, maybe they are parts of me that I put together in seeking to understand me.

Ever wondered about the writer’s tale, about the torments of choosing between stories, the pleasures of living many lives, the discontent of every insufficient word? I sit by the window now trapped by the pale violet of an unknown bloom on the tree outside.

A solemn song in the backdrop is competing with the gaiety of many birds and the sluggish cars and buses revving up their engines to go uphill on the road next door. I am writing here in the moment what I have lived in parts, but never thought, now these stories are finding words, yet they get skewed by the definitive forms of words, fighting for abstraction even as they get immortalized and trapped.

There is a knock on the door, and I tentatively close the window, embarrassed at the incomplete script that solitude and I had together created. The lock on the dorm pantry has been replaced; I am reminded of the pantry regulations and informed of a new security guard who will be making rounds peering into lives, sneaking glimpses, just like me. I smile, and fidget with the doorknob, barely hiding my urge to relegate all voices outside the wooden door and return to my written world. The informer has moved on to the next door, and I am left with a morning craving for a frothy coffee, Indian style.

With the strong essence of coffee filling the limited confines of my room, I sit down to write. The world melts away, and I leave the aroma of coffee behind me as I drift into the mind of Sulekha, the little girl in a small town....

Reading

The blue Bedspread: Sublime prose, melancholic and haunting, its a book that stays with you.
Here's an excerpt of the author's interview that i find fascinatingly revealing..

q: At a book discussion for your last novel If You are Afraid of Heights, everyone else was going on about how more people should read, but you said that was an unrealistic expectation. Why?

Jha: See, the few people who are damaged enough to love reading are essentially those who are comfortable with solitude. Also, reading forces you to have both imagination and empathy – two troubling little things – so you see a bit of yourself in anything you read. And to expect all of us to be like that is ridiculous.....

Ride(revisited)

I take the same train to work everyday, and yet as I walked in I had a feeling of sudden unfamiliarity. As though I was seeing through alien eyes. Scanning my co-passengers. Thinking to myself about them. Their uncomfortable moments, their day jobs, their struggles and their drifting days. Funny we never make conversations with strangers anymore.

There was customary silence between the curt announcements being broadcasted. I could hear the ruffle of paper, strutting of high heels, even the vibrations of the base of Linkin Park from the iPod plugged into someone’s ears.

I am still taken in by the unusually flamboyant old Chinese aunties with their bright colored shoes, loose shirts with large prints, and matching cheap leather purses. They stood out in the crowd of bleak formal clothing which was sporadically jazzed up with fashionable accessories-retro-style tinted glasses, fine yet conservative jewelry, and tedious hand-bags. And then there were the anomalies, the deliberately drab or bold dresses, smiling exteriors, breaking the monotone of the sluggish days.

I gathered my bags, it was time to alight. I had forgotten to get the novel I was reading.

Chase

It’s almost palpable, this craving.
This feeling like my guts are about to spill
Frenzy of thoughts, and then stuck in doldrums, spinning, stumbling, my legs and brain.
I am chasing, this specter of a dream....

Remembering Jagada

In reply to Ammani:

She was born in 1940. The second of five children born to Vedaranyam Seshadri and Rajalakshmi ammal. She passed away after a brief illness in November 2006. How will Jagada be remembered?

Vedaranyam Sheshadri was a veteran freedom fighter, much respected in and around Srirangam. He and Rajalakshmi lived a comfortable if not luxurious life with his pension. Now Jagada was not a very normal kid in her times, she reverently read about the long struggle her father had been part of, and gave speeches on how she was going to change the course of the nation when she was 14!

But things changed when she was married away after her 19^th birthday. Her marriage was important as three other sisters were next in line for marriage in quick succession.
She accepted the decision, which also meant she had to move to Mayiladudurai and the end of any hopes of a political career.

And then one day, she created Sunanda the social activist in her story for Ananda Vikatan. The thread of sequels became her schizophrenic reality, as she penned on through languid afternoons. Jagada’s husband proof-read her stories, took notes, and added his two cents worth.

Sudandira Naadu- the youth group of political activists prided themselves with the mission of restoring freedom to ‘Free India. They mobilized public opinion, held political awareness forums and led demonstrations. Megha the founder was a well known spokesperson and devout socialist. When Megha returned one day to find a courier from her source in a local magazine, she immediately opened it. They must have sent it a month ago, but her All India tour had kept her busy.

When Megha reached Jagada’s house, there was chaotic activity everywhere. Jagada’s husband walked her to a far veranda as his grandchildren were creating a ruckus in the backyard and there was bickering in the kitchen. It was nothing like a house in mourning.

“I am looking for Mani, the writer.” Megha said after she was asked for coffee.
That would be Jagada, my wife. No one knew her real name, I am surprised you have come this far seeking Mani. But Jagada is no more.”
“Oh", she paused."I have read Sunanda’s story, infact grew up with it.”
They sat in silence for a while. The two people who would remember our Jagada, and find their courage in Sunanda’s courage.

Poster boy

Old Mahabalipuram Road was awake at 5 am, not groggy but warmed up. There was activity in all corners milk vans rushing, newspaper piling and tossing, vegetables arriving in crates, and the chattering at tea kadais. Suryan FM was blaring at the street corner and the DJs voice was competing with the Ayyapan songs playing at the temple further down. Fumes rose from the coal-black tavaas, along with the sushh of the spreading maavu. Ravi sneaked closer to it for some warmth, his eyes barely open he held out his fists and rubbed the warm fingers against his face. There was a burning feeling in his stomach, the watery black coffee his mother gave him every morning still didn’t agree with him. He fished out a piece of groundnut sweet from him pocket and munched away to the municipality office.

He was asked to wait at the steps outside, while the peon went in to fetch some posters. There were few dozens of them, big and small with huge prints and pictures of the MP. Ravi was pre-occupied with thoughts of the biryani at Kannan hotel he could buy for ten rupees. If he finished posting all the posters, he might be able to sneak in for the new Rajini movie at the theatre down the lane. He whistled aloud balancing the rolls of paper on one hand.

He mentally thanked the big man who was going to visit the locality the next day, these important events always brought many small jobs that paid well. Tomorrow he would come back and hover around the office, and see if he was needed for any chores. He didn’t know how to read the bold words on the poster. He walked from one wall to another shooing cows, and sticking the posters on lamp-posts, walls, gates and all corners. He wanted to finish the work quickly.

The clouds gathered all of a sudden and he looked at the sky with dismay. What if it rained? Will the fat man with the big purse pay him for the posters? There was bustle at the street corner as a group of youth struggled to put up the long wires studded with red bulbs on both ends of the street. The wind blew hard, and the poles where the bulbs hung began to wobble. Ravi saw the fat man shouting orders and looking at the sky with his fists folded on his waist.

Notes:
kadai- small stalls set up on roadsides
maavu- batter from which dosai a south indian dish is made

Rescue

They say its time.
I hear the soft morning buzz
And I can’t tell why I stand here waiting for a word from you,
for your smile to warm me,
And then I would be safe.

Change

Meanders on the life path
Nothing profound,
Just a turn around the bend,
I will be glad for the change it brings
But when I look back,
I will feel the urge to trace my path,
Back to you, someday.

Relief by Sanjeev

This is one of my fav poems by Sanjeev Koppal..a friend of mine

Relief
Silence in a movie hall, when the crowds are gone
and credits stream by silently.

Relief after pain dissipates
soft rain on my window, breaking many dry months.

Sleep for an exhausted body,
a quiet sunset after a long, hard day.

that is how you are to me,
a love like small miracles.

an anti-climax of passion,
i am both grateful and disappointed.

Intution

Don’t speak
The silence is dear to me
Hold me, we might not meet again
Smile when you let go,
Because it is all that matters