Farewell

Image by gingerpig2000 via Flickr

Goodbye – probably the easiest thing to say and best said without emotions clouding your judgement, said with a smile plastered across your numb face. People believe it. Their faces will smile the same way, numb in the moment and honest. They move on, but do you? They are just faces that dotted your memories for a moment or two of your travels. Moments of empty conversations in filled classrooms. Moments spent at tapris with burning cigarettes and outside stalls with oily vadas in soiled hands. Memories are easy to forget, once you accumulate more of them. You just need to keep walking that far. Someday, these faces might confront you and you won’t even remember their names, but till then you will remember. Strange and unknown faces, that you saw everyday. Imagining that you knew them as they know you. Faces you looked forward to meeting. Awaiting their arrival with a weird anticipation. Faces that made you feel you are not the lone sucker in this shitland. There are more like you. Wondering, waiting and struggling. You loved them for the sense of companionship that they provided, even if it be fo a little while. You lived in those few moments that allowed you to be who you are. You wanted to fit in. Nothing is warmer than a smile at the end of a tiring day that says “This too shall pass.” A hand on the shoulder that said “Cheer up! You piece of shit! You got it better than us.” And nothing can beat that poor joke cracked in the midst of a serious deadpan conversation. Intentional or unintentional, it was welcome. I said goodbye to all that. With a deadpan face that had a smile stuck on it. A smile, I couldn’t feel.

I bid farewell to meetings under ancient trees. I bid farewell to borrowing credit on lunch food, to fights over silly change. I bid farewell to the ‘cigarette of the day’, that made us think better. I bid farewell to ideas thought up in crowded trains that got off at the next station and were lost in the streets at night. I bid farewell to early exits at boring examinations. I bid farewell to foolish discussions. I bid farewell to violent girls and vain boys. I bid farewell to hope and joy. I bid farewell to getting embarrassed and letting the blood to my face. I bid farewell to a foolish heart and its hopeless ways. I bid farewell to an awkward beginning and a pallid end. I bid farewell to all my friends. If we meet again, we meet again.

Run H Run!!

Let me go

Let me go

Walking past painted streets

Beneath tired old buildings

Towards greener pastures

Better stories with better endings

Let me go

Write my own fairytale

Bask in the sun’s glory

Drink a couple of tubs of ale

Let me go

Release my soul

From this prison that holds it

Bound by chains of wants and needs

Let it fly, soar

Let me go

I do not want to

But I have no choice

This is not my world

A world of dos and don’ts

This right and that wrong

No

Let me go

No more bills and paper wads of money

No more saying I can’t or I won’t

No more of you nor me

Destroy me, create something anew

Let me go.

MY Dad. MY hero!!

I had heard about it. Floating rumours, mentioned in party time stories, recollected by aging aunts and frustrated uncles. It was all so unbelievable that you were forced to believe in it as they were. As stories and myths, recreated to entertain children. Make them fee proud of where they belong. But everytime I saw my father, I saw a 60 year old, bald, short, passive educated man. The kind of men who work their asses off their whole lived for the return of nothing. Men brought up on values and ideals so strong that their morals might lay foundations. They are not the kind to fight. To take risks. To do what is right and not what they think is.

My father hobbled up the staircase in the evening. From the first look I knew something was wrong. It was different from the regular tired look that he brought back from a day at the office. He slumped into the chair with a grimace on his face. Wincing as he bent to untie his shoes. He asked my help, and as usual I sighed and made a fuss befor e I did help. As I was taking off the shoe, I noticed the slight bump on his forehead. His shin was blackened too. For a moment I was scared. Fear comes to a man before anger seeps in.And when anger does, your first instinct is to scream. I did.

I asked him what happened. And he narrated the whole story. There was an accident outside the factory. A man was hit by a trailer truck. Men gathered and the factory being located in a village area was soon witness to a mob. My father just happened to be in the area. He intervened as the mob was trying to beat the driver. And because of this reason, the people thought he was a part of the same company as the driver. Before he could explain, he was hit.

I was bloody pissed off. More so, owing to the fact that I was helpless. I asked him if he filed a police complaint. “Yes”. I asked him if he could identify the culprits who hit him “well, I don’t know them personally. Forgot to ask their names, but yes. I do know their faces.” I told him he should not go to office the next day. “NO …You think I’d chicken out like this. It’s nothing.” I asked him if he wanted me to come to the factory.”No thanks. I don’t want to be babysat by my own son.” I was royally angry. I didn’t want ot say a word, but what could you do with someone who is like that.

Later I asked him about the accident. Was the driver known to you? “NO”. Well, was the victim known to you? “NO”. Why in heaven’s name were you hit then? “because I interfered to save the driver and advised to take the victim to the hospital instead of creating a ruckus in the middle of the road.” And why did you have to do that? He looked at me like I was crazy. “There were two men almost dying out there. What would you have me do? Stand and watch!!”

For that moment I saw the stories come alive. I saw why my uncles were frustrated with an idealistic younger brother who did not know when to shut up. I could see why people in the society hesitated to talk to him about society problems. I knew why he hated when I took things too casually. For once, I could see I was wrong. I was happy that I was wrong. And for once, I was proud of my dad.

Tale of a Mad woman

Eyes have a strange way of talking

Telling magical tales,

They travel continents without walking

In mysterious ways.

But sometimes they are not so pleasant

Fear clouds their sight

Black eyeballs shiver like water currents

Like dead leaves on a windy night.

They looked sad and tired

Running away from a cruel world

A world of hypocrites and liars

Who at her curses hurled

And laughed as they heard her cries.

The eyes, they were filled to the brim

With tears glistening like pearls

Tears that cried out to me

Of hope that failed to swim.

She cried because she was sad

That is all she could do

Everyone called her mad

But that was not necessarily true.

“Am I really mad”, she asked me,

“Just because they think so.

But I cannot be happy

Not with what I know.

I know they hate me,

They hate my bloody guts

They talked in whispered voices

Their gossip drives me nuts.

I was a sane rational being,

Till they began talking to me,

Then I started seeing

What so far I refused to see.

This is the world of talkers,

Of gossipers and wily politicians,

Mean neighbours and meaner stalkers

Meanness is their only mission.

Son, you are far too young

To understand what I went through

You do not know what a name is,

It is much more than you.

You build it by the sweat of your heart,

Mould it gently by your hands,

And smile as you warm its hearth

And gaze longingly as it stands.

But this world, this group of animals

They rave and rant at it,

And drive a hammer through its walls

They bring it down .Destroy it.

Now alone through the streets I walk

‘The lone mad woman’.

Because I refused to join their talk,

Like an old mad woman.”

She took her bag and moved on,

Weaving through the streets

Singing a bad tune, an old song

About a man with two left feet.

And all the while people laughed

While she walked on her path

Children made jokes and scoffed

And women spewed their wrath.

I looked around and saw

Man speaking in two tongues

His eyes wily and glancing

Within them the devil dancing

I saw what the mad woman saw

A dying world talking.

On Easter at Mount Mary

I kneel at your feet

Beneath kind eyes

Shaded from the sweltering heat,

I don’t know what to say

Or think or how to pray

All I can do is sit

And try to talk;

I know this,

I am a sinner allright,

I have never believed,

Nor tried to perceive,

The truth when it stared at me.

But today I sit here,

In a silent prayer

Inadequate and broken,

A small simple token

Of all that I have to offer,

My eyes are sore and legs tired,

Limbs ache for needed rest,

But my heart aches to fly higher

To do what it does best.

Help me mother, help your son,

The waylain sheep, the black one,

I ask not a lot

But only this,

Take me in your arms

And render me a kiss.

Lay me down once again to sleep

Under your careful eyes

In the valley deep

Then once again shall I rise

Rejuvenated and strong,

Walk through the desert,

Ride upon the storm.

I am lost. I am afraid

I am neither alive nor dead.

Lead me from here ,

Lead me away.

Take me from the night into the day,

I have wasted and squandered,

All my strength.

But still have I much,

Much more to do, much more to say.

So here today

Defeated and hurt

Help me up from where I lay,

I do not know how else

But this is how I know to pray.

Tired Dreams

The pain is a killer

When you cannot speak or cry;

Your heart seems stiller,

But you still can’t die.

Every hour your eyes are open

You feel the darknesss close in

Nothing feels good, no one

Every sound is a noise, a din.

Words struggle to form meaning

The brain is in an intoxicated fury,

Hands smash against invisible walls

That imprisons powerless will,

Voices insinuate and curse

And heart struggles on

Wishing to die every moment,

But too much of a coward

To take its own life.

Oh! The suffering of a mute soul!!

To live and die at the same moments

In excruciating pain.

The pain is the only thing

That feels close to life,

The only source of joy

To a dead corpse,

Something that tells it

It still belongs to earth

It has a life,

‘You are alive,’ says the pain

Till the barbs begin to slowly sink in

Extracting flesh from blood

And a silent scream whispers

Out of tired lungs

To pass beyond the grey sky dome

When the screaming is done

And the blood dries up,

There is nothing left

Nothing that is human.

Except the eyes,

Still staring at faraway dreams

Long dead and
buried.