Orange Evenings

The fire burning in the tiny angiti,
Tiny hands stretching out to the warmth,
Sitting hunched on end
Like children around a tale-granny
Warming oranges, glowing oranges in the fire.

The warm sweet juice bursting forth
In one's mouth, the seed cast aside
And the home was such a warm, sweet place
And warm, sweet was the cold
And the heat.

Haunting Sniper on the Edge

A plane flies overhead, flies like a fiery dream...
A ghost stands behind my back, shadowy eyes poring into my scream.
He feels so close behind, yet distant like the plane.
He is my brother from an erstwhile age, and takes away my pain,
I wonder what it would be like...to be him and to be free!
So I look into those shadows...now which am I and which is he?

A Day's Worth of Thoughts

I hate see-offs at railway stations. The feeling of standing immovable as the train ambles out. Your friends wave, leaning out of the door. Plastic smiles on everyones’ faces. Then they are far away, ever shrinking. Then you watch the others, the strangers, stare with indistinguishable expressions at you and then the thing next to you. And then they’re gone and someone else is there. Coach after coach of grumbling, creaking, complaining metal and life pass you by. And then, suddenly, it’s gone. And you’re facing the semi-naked man enjoying a bath on the rail lines on the other side. Two puppies crawl in under the leaking pipes meant to replenish trains to have their own share. The man shoos them away. You look around. Life moves on. The train has left. The coolies shift base to another platform where yet another train is to leave. You look behind your back. Your friends are nowhere in sight.

 I give my head a shake and try to get used to the idea. I walk. It’s a long way. People push and shove me here and there. I assume my vulture mode, head buried in chest. Long face. Maroon 5 is on today’s menu. I wish I could wear my jacket. I like hiding behind its high neck. Alas! I never thought November could be hot... anywhere.

 “How I wish... How I wish, you were here/ we’re just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl...”

 I take a bus. Not the one at the front of the queue. The one behind. It’s empty. I get a window seat of my choice. It takes its time to get filled and then grumbles across the Bridge like a wounded tiger on the Hooghly.

 There’s a lot in my head. I wonder how all of that can simultaneously hold my attention at ransom at all odd hours of the day, in all odd places. It’s like I started a slideshow on loop and lost the remote. How foolish of me to lose it! But I do lose it every now and then. The remote, that is! So here I was, presently descended from the bus, with a bitter-sweet-bitter-nice slideshow on. A tram buzzes past. So stoic, so dignified in its passage, unmoved from its path even in the maze of traffic. I try to do the same on the pavement, vultured. I fail miserably. I’m such a sucker for being the anti-hero.

 “...it’s not over tonight, Just give me one more chance to make it right/ I mean I’ll make it through the night, I won’t go home without you.”

 The traffic is like the train, and yet it’s not. For while the vehicles keep moving on and faces keep getting replaced, yet you’re never left stranded at any point of time. Somehow, the roads seemed to be filled with these herds of goats. I wondered why.

 After two stops to drink sugarcane juice and at Chini’s (where Thapa Da had raised prices post-Puja), I was at 68/9. That’s my room by the way. My own humble place in this great city. I like to compare it to the inside of a giant wave. Right there in the thick of it, and yet so remote and distant. It’s what symbolises me. It’s not perfect; for that matter, nor am I. Today, it is in a mess. Friends have left. The room is still suffering from a hangover. My entire luggage, my trunk with my name scribbled untidy on it, sits on one side. A couple other bags as well as my old NCC kitbag lie sprawled next to it. The bed has its legs up in the air. One look at it and it implores me to restore it to its normal position. Not yet, I say. Somehow, I can talk to everything in my room. The preserved bottles, the bookshelf with its ever-increasing load, the run-down table, the tiny mirror, my posters of Slash, Alonso, Federer and CRY, all have something to say. A betel-nut hunter climbs a tree on my home state’s calendar fluttering in the fan air. Quotes by Rousseau, Orwell, J.S. Mill, William Henley, Vikram Seth, Bismil and a certain Rajat Roy litter the walls. A mat is spread out on the floor which serves as my bed. I do the cleaning and sit down to surf the Internet. Through the window, I can see the University building with their gaping windows. The sight of that ghostly white building on a full moon night with vacuum-like arches can be creepy enough, even if you’re not sitting in a 125 year old hostel known for a bloody history. I have goose bumps on my arms as I write this.

 Mom calls up. I am promptly reminded that tomorrow is Eid. I just drop my head, knowing I had absolutely forgotten about the festival. After all, this will be my first Eid away from family ever. Despite the busy college schedule, I have always managed to sneak home for Eid. Not this time. So I go about the business of contemplating how to spend Eid. Going for prayers on Eid has always seemed hypocritical to me, for I hardly showed my face in the mosque the rest of the year. So on that front, a lonely Eid meant less double standards. I log into Facebook. Immediately, a friend asks me how many cows I am sacrificing tomorrow. I don’t feel the need to reply. There’ll be a lot more than animals sacrificed on my part tomorrow, I feel. Even if I can’t match Abraham’s standards, I do have sacrifices to contemplate that go way beyond animals (with all due respects).

 So here I am, sleepless on the mat, thinking of words to fill in the blanks. How tomorrow goes is another story, but I guess this will be enough for a day’s work. Wishing you all Eid Mubarak. Enjoy the festivities for those who are celebrating, and a happy holiday to the rest. Stay safe.

Two Mynahs

There's a sting at my back and a glare in my face,
A glaze in my eyes and in my mind, a daze.
Two singing mynahs would sit on my shirt and look,
While the weeping world around them shook.






*Written sitting idle in Sreeleathers, Esplanade.*

Cardiology

"I open my eyes, I try to see/ But I'm blinded by the white light/ I can't remember how, I can't remember why/ I am hee..re tonight!"

 So sang Simple Plan half a decade ago. You must be thinking what's with me and punk lyrics. I wonder too. It's a wonderful feeling when you think that an artist has composed something especially for you: when you turn the last page of a novel and go "Hey, that sounded familiar!" or when a stanza from the latest national chart-buster resembles your oh-so-modest life. It's a wonderful feeling. All through high school, I thought I had a secret deal with Green Day to write songs for me. And when the vagaries of love showed its face in subsequent years, Good Charlotte seemed to fit the bill. I found it uncanny - the regularity with which their songs came to mean something more than just a collection of emo lyrics to me.

 But then came college, and life was good and busy. Intellectual even! Punk took a backseat as Floyd, Nirvana and GN'R took centrestage. I was expected to appreciate the 'good' music. Not that I didn't like it. But then, the lyrics always spoke of somebody else. It wasn't too difficult listening to Denver to imagine golden countries and brilliant sunsets. Or to listen to Floyd and dream of smoky Sherlock-Holmesque living rooms and a life bordering on the surreal. Or to sing along with Axl Rose and feel a wonderful high. Or to listen to the songs of a Bengali bard and feel the rustic tension in the air. But somehow, they were never about me.

 At this point, I won't even blame you if you were to stop and impatiently enquire what all the fuss was about and why I even wanted these musicians to sing for "me"! After all, I am nobody. But then, you always have a soft corner for that one book, that one song that you feel is biographical. As such, I would continue beseeching your apologies for the writer's vain narcissistic fancies.

 And then I came home. And things were different. Suddenly, I wasn't in the 'league". All those beautiful memories of lazing down Jacob's Ladder with heavy schoolbags teasing a heartbroken friend how he was "Sorry, I can't be perfect"  seemed but memories. And when I went back to school and stole a quick glance through the window at that bench I once  sat on, and remembered how 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' was such a craze back in Classes 9 and 10, I couldn't but smile at myself and recall all the weird interpretations we made in our attempt to decipher the lyrics of 'American Idiot'. (Those were of course the days when instant Googling of lyrics wasn't yet possible, thanks to our Northeastern status of being disturbed regions where such things as easy Internet access weren't a priority for our Shining India government.) :).

 At once, I came back home, turned my music library upside down and filled my cell phone with all the old favourites. All Black, Everytime, Jesus of Suburbia, Dance Floor Anthem, I Just Wanna Live and similar titles which would make any pseudo-intellectual rush for air, once again adorned my collection. And it was just in time that Good Charlotte released their latest offering in years, "Cardiology".

 It was a happy return to the (g)olden days. As the night lit up with brilliant colours and for once, the stars disappeared entirely from the Shillong sky in a haze of Diwali smoke, I quietly put my earphones on and pressed Play.

 It took a while to sink in. The music was so like 2002. And no matter how much I had changed over the years, there are some things that never do. If the title song was memorable, Harlow's Song  left me utterly heartbroken. And then it came. It almost felt as if the entire vacation had been building up towards this one moment. As if everything that had happened over the fortnight had in one way or another, led to this instant. And with this pagan belief between my ears, Benji whispered those words into my ears that made me look up at the sky and shed a silent tear...

Autumn in Paradise City

There's something intriguing about autumn. The in-between season. Neither here nor there. Neither the warm love of the summer nor the bitter cold thrashings of winter. And especially, autumn in Shillong can be a wonderful treat aesthetically. On one hand, jacaranda flowers bloom along the roadside trees, adding that touch of soothing melancholy to the air. While looking around, there is that sense of apprehension in Nature, the slow giving away of life to the harsh strangles of death and winter. Nature seems to be at war with itself. It is not unnatural or unlikely or even bizarre to go through an average autumn day here where you have harsh sunshine till noon, rain in the afternoon, a gloomy evening suddenly broken in by a brilliant sunset and all this followed by a windy and treacherously cold night. Indeed, the seasons do play out a celebration of their diversity, all in a day's work. What comes out of all this chivalrous and chaotic natural play, is again a wonder in itself. As winter begins to win the battle of the seasons on the battleground of autumn, there is a renaissance in the air. While the ordinary among the beautiful give way and perish, the evergreen symbol of Shillongite beauty, the pines, gear themselves for the rough ride. And indeed, they stand green and bountiful, lending colour to Paradise City (The GN'R number might well have been written for this sleeping beauty of a town!). Then the walk along Ward's Lake becomes all but just a walk, and the greens of Golflink bring more than just the piercing wind to you. Then Shillong becomes a cloudy paradise till Nature wakes from its slumber...