REFLECTION

                                         

I stepped into a crowd that had vanished in the ominous smoke of the burning Taj.As grenades exploded inside the monument of pride, I felt my spirits dying. Crawling vehicles, beggars clawing at my taxi window, a 12 hour old sun roasting my herbal massaged back, a pilgrimage of dust in the air- this was not the Mumbai that I had dreamt of. It was a wretched foil to the wet, green honeymoon paradise. But then, the honey had been licked and the moon had waned.

The taxi grumbles through signals and jams to smoother roads with ugly menacing buildings, rising up to their fullest heights. I shudder,  I cringe, into arms that hold me tight in an embrace that assures me- I can fight, I can win.

I see her again, two weeks after her wedding. Her once sun-burnt skin has a glow that only a newly wed can have. Vermilion sits pretty in the tight parting of her hair. I stare at her and she looks at me with mellowed eyes. A golden giggle of unfamiliar bangles at her wrist, spreads a sumptuous grin on my face, she gives me a smile. I wave at her, she gives me a softer smile. Where is the hug, the fire, the energy, the rebel? I scratch my hollow cheeks- I know her, it is she. But she simply smiles, shadows of dimples dancing on her cheeks, cheeks turning plump with the glut and joblessness of marriage. There is so much to do, so much to strive for. Has she forgotten? I hold out a sturdy hand to her. Her ringed fingers, freshly out of detergent touch mine. But it won’t hold me. I look at her, puzzled, and she smiles. She will not come. I spit on her face, and she still smiles, an idiot’s smile. “You are not me”- I hiss through clenched teeth and my reflection still smiles. Huh!

02-12-08

NOTHING….SIMPLY NOTHING

“NOTHING…. Simply nothing”

Drooled her Reynolds gel;

Lean long letters

Etched for the puzzled world.

I walk a stranger in a house   

They say is mine.

Scarcely breathing,

For the air smells strange.

Looking beyond furniture,

My vision hits the walls.

Build a home within the walls-

They said.But its built

And I am a new piece

That fits nowhere.

“NOTHING….simply nothing”

She was the happiest bride ever seen.

Shamelessly in love

With a stranger from the net.

I search for the confident

Young lady

Who knew her mind,

But she crumbled

Between wrinkled knuckles

That set her in shape.

But the new joints ache

And I wish to be what I was.

Good girls comply

So said silent and whispering voices around.

“NOTHING….simply nothing”

Never heard her complain

Never seen a mark of pain

Then WHY????

Loved, adored, admired, respected

In a world of desks and benches,

Where I carved

Myself, my beliefs

And became the I,

Became the mistress

Of my rented home, Then left it

In a blink of an  eye

For a world of dreams

Where my I

Melted into non existence.

NOTHING….simply nothing

No reason for her to grumble

So much of love from her man

And well deserved rest after years of work.

I pushed the stool

With the tip of my toe.

My soul squeezing out

Of tightening fists

Pulling at the noose

And snap! I am out

Looking at myself

Swinging like my mood swings,

Sticking out a tongue

At everyone who will come.

NOTHING….simply nothing

Too vague a suicide note

For a woman

Who had everything.

nest

NEST

She has started knocking. It’s a gentle tap once in a while, as if to convince me of her presence. No one can hear her but I.

It seems it was so often that I had heard them chirp at my window on warm mornings and noons. Always in pairs, they flew away to pair up again. They knew that the ventilator was too high for me and they could snuggle cozily, undisturbed. They could chirp away their secrets in my unobtrusive presence.

I woke up on sultry mornings to their delightful discussions or their angry arguments. The kohl-eyed he-sparrow refused to be hen-pecked by his pale partner. They would go on for hours, creating a racket at my window sills or on the branches of the pomegrate or even while swinging on the clothes line. Occasionally they would pause to gargle their sore throats in the puddle next to the water tank. They never bored me. They were a pleasant distraction from my morbid Chemistry and Physics text books. I enjoyed my ignorance of their feathered tongue though I tried to decipher their chirps in my colourful imagination.

The noisy couple had no rest. Fluttering and twitching in the grass, they would fly up with a dry grass, or a tiny feather dropped off a hurrying wing. They would tirelessly pull out cotton from the seams of the bed- left in the sun to dry- or a faded golden thread from the skeletal remains of a birthday bash- long forgotten. Shreds of paper, lumps of cobweb, strings of wool, tiny twigs, all found their way to the ventilator. The discussions were louder up there. The hole had to be perfected. Each would perch in and stamp around, cowing down revolting pieces of straw to make a perfect nest for the eggs and fledglings to come.

I knew it when the eggs hatched because the mother never ventured far again. A harried, loud eyed father foraged by himself to smother the hunger in the ventilator.

Its years since I last saw them. I am in a new land- a bird’s paradise. From my window I can see kingfishers, crow-pheasants karalanchatan, chedala and many more whose names I do not know. But no sparrows. However I think of them more now. I had a mate; I thought I had a nest. But there was also a pair of scheming diabetic eyes. I can feel my baby knocking on the walls of my womb. It’s a gentle tap once in a while to shake me out of my thoughts. There is no time to gather straw. But there is a nest in which I was born. I stamp around in it, without my mate, making it cozy for my little fledgling.