Life On The Coast

The coast is a difficult place to live once you seemingly settle in. After the euphoria of an everlasting summer tides by, the weariness of a bright, relentless sun sets in. Being a mountain person, I begin to wonder if there will be any respite from the constant state of sweatiness or the almost burnt chocolate tan on my skin. And, I welcome the monsoon’s pouring rains with open arms. Because, in this part of the country, the clouds are our respite from the burning sun.

And just like that, without batting an eyelid, my mind opens itself to the wonders of a coastal life. Each morning, walking up the sloping laterite pathways at the work place, I get a peep into the horizon as I begin the climb to the villas, with the sun burning down.

I don’t seem to mind the sun so much now. My skin has settled into a deep dark brown, making me look like the local girls—chocolate brown skin and curly black hair. It’s funny how the coast has also made me grow my hair to lengths I always deemed cumbersome. 

As I walk up to see my guests, I breathe in the scents of the elephant ears, the picas, the palm trees and the spider lilies. An occasional sneeze on account of the red grass pollen makes me look at their tufts accusingly. And as I walk past the sea-facing villa, I marvel at the shades of blue the sea throws up. Blue, indeed, is the warmest colour. 

Just as I found myself peering into the quiet remarkability of the Himalayan snow peaks, I now catch myself sighing, gazing into the currents of the Arabian sea, wondering what secrets it holds in its rumbles and crashing waves. Mornings bring waves that dance lightly, the surf crowning them seems merry. And the sea tends to nap in the afternoons—when us human take on it, parasailing because the beast sleeps. By evening, the Arabian sea shows youthful excitement and invites a strong breeze to cool the effects of a day-long burning sun. 

As I dive into a pool, the water just right—warm from the sun, cooling from the sea breeze, I find myself looking longingly toward the sea. I want to dive deep and discover its secrets. I want to know what it says to me. I want to understand the universe it creates—in its coral, its fish, its undergrowth, its strength and in its resilient force. In my humility, I also fear it. I fear being lost in the sea’s eternal world.

Then again, I marvel at human grit; at the ships I see as a blip on the horizon. I am awed by their courage nearly as much as I am wide-eyed at the sea’s personality. To me, the sea is a giant—physical and intellectual. It knows all and reveals the tiniest parts of itself to those who will only listen.

Much like my loved mountains—that allowed me to breathe in their crisp air and made me shiver during their stormy nights. 

Each day, the sea lets on a word, a small phrase to me. And I find myself hoping that one day, as I walk along the beach, my mind shall hold hands with the sea, in a gesture of understanding.

The Last Goodbye

I wish I never had to write this piece. Momo left on 31 May 2016 ; she was less than 03 years old and we never found her remains, which lie lost in Binsar wildlife sanctuary.

Beethoven’s Five Secrets will always be kept safe

Between us. The music hanging onto the webs of our oak trees.

Into the crevices of each rock you sniffed

Every blade of wild bamboo that  you fought

As it bristled in the winds of our forest trails.

We met, Momo, when I was old enough to embrace a baby

And you were young enough to be blind to my inexperience.

And in these past years, we grew—I, into a scattered parent

And you, into a gorgeous brown, beautiful lady

From the puppy with rabbit ears and eyes

Eyes, that showed me what a volcano and a sea meeting would look like.

Your love for the cello and drools for Tiger cookies lie untouched

Like books abandoned, a fine line of dust just appearing,

In my heart, where you live on.

And in my eyes, watering with the reflection of your fierce golden green ones.

This goodbye is a helpless stacking together

Of all our stories together, all our little memories

The time when you walked around proudly with a white moustache

And then declared, in the smelliest farts, that you hated milk.

The rat which you hunted and proudly served onto my shoe, for dessert.

The times you chased your friend Basanti,

Convinced that the little brown fox was your mother.

The first time you met your lover, Simba

And played so hard to get, he had to kill a langur to impress you.

The days you spent languorously sprawled in the sunshine

Which bathed you golden and me, tanned.

Every time, I climbed the stone steps to my room

Which for you had only one name, “Cookie time”

And you raced me till we panted, empty of breath, full of joy.

The nights you scratched at my door and slept on the wooden floor,

Staring into the fireplace, like you had all the answers to this universe’s ways.

All the pots you broke, bones you chewed, pieces of toast you buried away.

The way only you could make your entire bum wag, when I came home

Your sprawl, tummy up, staring at the bright blue skies

Always keeping a lookout for flies and my hand on your belly.

You taught me, Momo, that food is all the joy in the world

And hugs and walks come a close second.

That it doesn’t matter what the world thinks,

One must drool and wag like there is no tomorrow

And one must sleep away all stress.

You showed me that your wet nose and warm paw on my knee

Can fix all kinds of heartache.

This last goodbye, is mere words,

Of which you only understood a few.

You spoke with your eyes,

Scolding, nudging, prodding, loving, fearsome eyes.

You left, barking into the face of a leopard.

And in that too, you taught me

To look fear in the eye and shout.

To look death in the eye and not give up.

I have not found you, or the red collar you hated so much.

And as you remain obscure in the forest,

I will learn to embrace all that you left behind,

Until the day we meet again.

Until the day I can let go of this boxful of memories

And begin anew, with you.

Momo and I, January 2016

Secrets of the Mountain

I met a little girl today

Named Joy.

I climbed over a mountain,

And sighed at the shades of green of a forest

So full of trees, you’d think these were the tresses of the earth.

Briars bruised my shoulder and a thorn pinched my thumb,

Almost as if, instructed by Joy, to stop me.

Like a child left alone too long, pushes your love away.

So I climbed on, leaves cushioning my footfalls

And grassy sides of the mountain,

Half gold, half green scrunching underneath.

Joy sits on a side of the mountain,

Watching the thick forest change colours

With each passing cloud and piercing sun.

You’d almost miss her, left alone, under the history of the ruins up above.

The gallows after all, are more terrifying than a little girl.

Joy, born 31 December 1908,

Died 5^th June, 1909.

An infant, buried.

Almost, as if in her own backyard.

And no epitaph to guide her own.

Except the fading whiteness of the marbletop.

Lt. Molesworth, you did an injustice.

To a white baby.

As much as to the brown Indians you enslaved and hanged here.

Graves, don’t they say, shouldn’t be left solitary.

The dead too, cannot live alone.

Especially, not so far out with the silence of leopards.

Always cautious, always preying.

View from Joy's grave site

To You, Delhi

I am always looking for poetry,
Wafting down mountain paths lost over time.
The city comes with noise I fear to call my own
In its renditions are thoughts  manifold,
Teeming with laughter, cafeteria blenders, horns, voices--
Solitary and crowded.
Buildings-- all blanketed with plumes of smoke.
So I fear to call city noise my own.

Tinkling glasses of wine and short dresses here
Are accompanied by bow-ties and credit cards.
Perhaps, I've got this wrong.
Perhaps, the steely mane of finance is not so cold.

I wish I could tell you
The moment I saw you reading a book on the couch
Let's go for a walk in the park.
There is no need for credit cards, dresses, bow-ties here.

I do not know you or the yellowing pages you hold
But I wish that in this fall evening so thick
With Delhi dust and cooling winds,
We could walk together, unknown, in the park.
Until dusk, or the end of the path.

"You" Delhi, refuse to walk in the park
Instead, you stubborn old fool, you douse yourself
In garish, fanciful cars, malls and
Artificial, cling film wrapped people.
Like dirt under the nail, you hide
That Chandni Chowk gramophone amidst tyres;
That man who walks daily to work
Just so he could buy grain for pigeons from saved money.
That funny man who resides in the book market
Drawing laughs outside and inside? Inside, who knows which city resides within him?

So in these people and places you call your "errors" Delhi,
I look for you. I look for your letters to me.
Whose words have been lost in your circular roads
And changing signboards.
"8 km to South City", "Turn right for Terminal 3"
Bright city lights and you Delhi. Oh my love,
You are blinded. Don't you see?
Don't you see?
Don't you see the debilitating death force suck the life out of the withering couple?
You cannot be happy about life while they giggle over the joys of wheelchairs.

And as the airplanes depart toward your grey skies Delhi
I shall immortalise that wheelchaired couple giggling on the runway.
I shall immortalise you Delhi, in my nails and teeth.

Letter From The Mountains To The Sea

Dear Sea,

I’m not big on nomenclature though “Dear” suits you in my heart just fine.

And you, Sea, you are too wide and too salty for my pure white snow. Though there is some magic in our silence.

Silences we don’t share together; silences that you on the coast and me in the north are constantly protecting from human cacophonies.

I heard you grumbling and roaring in the night, as you covered up those thirsty, dried sands in the dark.

Your charity comes by night time; mine with the sun glowing on the chirping gliding birds and trees.

Your roar, just a few metres off the beach, is it an ecstatic yell of triumph upon reaching the shore?

Or is it a wail on leaving the vast solitude of waters behind?

I watched you, Sea. I watched you from the white thrones  I occupy, bereft of humanity

While you are splashed around in the throes of bikinis and rubber tubes.

You and I, we are calm when the sun shines upon us. We have humans crawling around us, trying to derive even if just an inch of brevity and understanding from the rocks and sands they scratch on our surfaces.

Have you understood them, Sea? I have tried to. As they burn plastic brown clouds around me; an impending shroud that lays me naked, bereft of my white robes.

Have you understood them, Sea? Have you tried to? As they pump black waters into you and sigh at your raging beauty surrounding them on plush beach beds?

Oh sea, all those messages in bottles they set asail on your waves, can’t we leave one for them?

All those bright flags they pierce into me, when they summit, can’t we leave one for them?

I would like to tell them, don’t watch our beauty in rising and setting suns and moons.

We are bathed golden and silver in those lights, much like the metals humans covet.

Don’t try to understand us in your neuron filled minds.

Oh Sea, you and me, land and water, cannot grasp the human mind.

Except in avalanches and storms. High tides and winters.

I wish they saw my wonder in the forest set aflame by the sun

I wish they heard your hum in the night time stroll and warm waters caressing their feet.

I wish Sea, that you and me would meet.

I wish Sea, that beyond the reasons of silent conversation

Lay just you and me, mingling  like the valley clouds bathing my forests in translucence

Like the mist hiding your murmur in the early morning.

I wish Sea, that our greens would combine.

My gnarled oaks and your soaring palms.

I wish Sea, that you would write to me, in the twinkle of the stars.
In the vastness of the blue skies we share.

I wish Sea, that you would love me in the distance.

As I do. And our history would be confined to this letter.

In the chatter of humanity.

Love,

The Mountains

The Madpackers

There is a man at the door drawing a hand,

Wrapped in colour from Texas to New Delhi.

In the midst of brush strokes and swirling red wine

Are voices of laughter, ringing over bruised passports.

Home, oft debated and seldom found

Is not a thing of permanence.

It's in the first breath you draw as you step off the airplane.

It's in the quiet conversation of chins on knees spent gazing at moving cars from a bus stop.

It's in the unfamiliar nod in a new city.

It's in that sliver of tastes of childhood in exotic cuisine.

Home, you see, isn't an entity.

It is in your hands, brushing away eternity and me.

And when the drawing is complete,

Take a step back. No, take two steps back.

Admire. Admire the handiwork that is you.

And as you pack your bags to  leave,

Know that a piece of you lives on...

Perhaps, one day, you will return.

With crow feet and wrinkles spreading out like the waves of the sea.

And once again, dip the brush into paint.

Relive all that was you and all that will be.

Afterall, rebirth isn't just a Buddha tattoo on your side.

Afterall, rebirth and home walked hand in hand with your years.

Though, wait. You weren't watching, were you?

Forgotten?

You sang to me under city lights

Where I found your skin quiver with the music

As you hummed and strummed a hallelujah

To what was to be, a love affair under candle lights.

Three years of grey boots on Christmas baby, and a digital watch to keep time

Of the walks across hallways, forests, beer bottles and

Always, always canvas shoes for ferocious table tennis matches,

As the snow peaks looked on silently upon us.

Camping tents found in the city, pitched in forests we found with exotic names

Mawphlang, Bunga, Mawlynnong, Jilling, Mylliem and fondly, being called kong.

I thought kong was a gorilla and you said it was a beautiful woman.

Language that pulled us together like slow moving cable cars, back when flights were expensive and smiles free of cost.

We walked a lot together

Just being average, you and me.

Through malls filled with people and forests filled with silences

That enveloped my hand around yours, always too small to fit and hold its head high up at the same time.

But the longest walk was the one down the cemetery

As the motorbike braked to a screeching halt.

Little did I know then that the sweaty passions hereafter

Were no foretellers of sunny afternoons spent waving happy goodbyes at railway stations, confident in the knowledge that they’d be followed up with phone calls of “I’ve reached love, and I miss you”.

I went up to the world’s highest mountain pass

To see how far and how high up were the mountains rising between us.

And exotic names followed us here too

Stok, Turtok, Tso Moriri, Thiksey.

But never the only one that belonged to us, and we to it,

Never that piece of sky called Home.

We loved Briseis, the lone Royal Enfield of the Himalayas

Named after a priest’s daughter abducted by your favourite man—Achilles.

How we savoured the sound of "Achilles and Briseis" in the chill of stony 9000 feet altitudes.

Knowing little that mere boredom would crumble all these stories into gorges yet unknown.

They survive, you know. They survive.

Every story lives on, to surprise, to come up suddenly as a teary smile.

One, when you’re sipping that coffee in the middle of mayhem.

Two, when you’re dancing yourself silly in swirls of wine and whiskey.

Three, when you’re desperately searching for the smell of their skin on those you called home for one night.

Lastly, maybe the story comes upon you, listening to a girl’s silly slam poetry.

But, the story survives.

Even when you move across the ocean, wiping your slate clean.

Even when, love, you want the blue sky and I the blue sea.

Even then, the stories survive and search in futile rhymes, like these.

Until one day, you just cannot remember the voice anymore. Until one day, the voice disappears.

My Father

For my father, who in words unspoken, continues to inspire me with his smile and his perseverance.  The one man who never gives up on me. I love you papa.

In the symphonies of loss,

I have found my father time and again.

Once, as a young man carrying his child.

Once, as a weeping man caressing his liquor like an old lover.

Once, as a photographer nearing his death on a water tank

Because the eye of the camera showed him more of the world than the eyes of the wary watchman.

In these symphonies,

I have found my father time and again.

He often said, “let your mind and your heart play see-saw to achieve a perfect balance”

Because his heart always won and that is one fight which always hurts when you win it.

He told me stories of Romeo and Juliet in the same breath as the existential pains of Bertolt Brecht and the vagaries of war.

Maybe in love and war, he saw mind and heart playing see-saw.

Just as he did, between court room disasters for custody

And a child who hung herself from his tie, refusing to let go, because he was Tarzan.

And he always told her, the forest never lies. Believe in it. Live it. Find your Tarzan within you.

In these symphonies,

I have found my father time and again.

A young bearded man, best known for playing madman in his father’s play

He now walks, slowly, very slowly, holding on carefully to the walking stick

The only madness afflicting him being not a show

But a de-anchoring of his feet and a trembling of his hands

From years of sifting happy stories from those of loss.

Maybe it is just old age. And maybe, it is just life playing examinations.

If I could watch him once more, laughing and chasing me down the garden of hibiscus, jasmine and guavas

I would perhaps not look for him in these symphonies of loss. Time and again.

As you become older, you become more aware.

Of parents becoming grey haired children, of their frailty.

Frail, fragile, innocent. Somehow that order doesn’t seem right. Doesn’t seem fair.

I find myself wondering if I’ll see him lift his arms up again, for my sky jumps

And he’d catch me before gravity got the better of me.

It feels like another lifetime, does it not?

To find your father in those images because the movies played it out for you

To find your father in symphonies set in the piano keys of a jazz festival your father never cared for or heard of.

Let me tell you the story of his life. In monosyllables.

Brilliant. Loving. Estranged. Trampled. Cornered.

Resilient. Brave. Actor. Victorious. Silent.

Silent. Silent. Silent.

In the symphonies of loss. Silent.

I cannot find him in the silence that time bears upon him.

Can you find yours? Tell me if you do.

We could entwine our fingers around that memory of our first heroes.

August Verse

She saw 7 shooting stars

Did she see 7 sprays of heavenly dust hurtling through the sky?

Or did she see James Bond, 007 shooting out of a barrel?

Bullets he PTSD’d as stars?

She saw 7 shooting stars.

Language is like unrequited love, is it not?

One minute you know exactly what it is.

The next minute, you’re left wondering if that was a reflection or a shadow?

She saw 7 shooting stars.

Defining us and ours, around and within.

That child under the city flyover,

Lovingly feeding water soaked biscuits to her toddler brother

A fleeting glimpse of home

I felt, you’d feel, beyond our riches and distances

A symphony of filial love. In that moment.

Much like unrequited love. Unexpected and untold.

Yet, familiar and smelling of home.

Much like language. Spoken beyond words that blend to become one with rain-soaked mud.

Because you may think you are the star in the room

But, perhaps, just this time, it’s not you.

It’s not your loud, vociferous nature that makes everyone come to you.

Perhaps, this time, it’s that little man in the corner.

The one who says less and hunts fervently with his eyes, for a moment of silence.

This time, it’s that man who may have taken my heart away.

Unrequited love and language, are both landmarks and forgotten knickknacks

Much like bookmarks left and abandoned in returned library books.

And this little man and I shared the same bookmarks.

As we looked upon you.

Singing for a room, a treble in your voice, an adoration in the eyes of all

For your gorgeous skin.

The little man and I gulped down that goblet of magnetism for you a long time ago, my friend.

After all, we both saw her see 7 shootings stars.

And in the knowledge that you left us, the bookmarks of the past

Left to mark the very same chapter that you refused to read.

When you returned the library book.

In that knowledge, we let you pass as a dull buzzing crinkle

In the spirits we now guzzle, a sheen of untruths hiding us from you. For all time to come.

Prose Becomes Poetry

Prose becomes poetry in my thoughts that mingle with the smoke rising from rain tired clouds. They rained all day, all night and finally, there is the “phew, I am done” in the whiffs rising above them, freed of water drops from their blue and grey masters.

The sky is trying to resolutely break out, a bright blue, reassuring the trees it will bring the sun tomorrow. Who knows? The sun is no one’s slave. Not even theirs who dare to break through rock to grow.

But I do see the sun on a distant village. Determined to shed it’s golden light on one specific point across the mountains. Almost like a geometrical angle drawn with compasses long forgotten in the schoolroom giggles of hardy desks scratched out with love names, more than a decade ago.

The pain of beautiful landscapes is experiencing them with no one to share . That’s also how you experience them and anything else most keenly. Because after all we are born in swarms such as the rain clouds and we drift away, over one hill or the other.

Hill folk say the houses have been washed clean, the tin roofs shine like shiny new shoes on the first day of preschool, grins plastered in the reflection on shoe polish.

I have tried to capture these moments in my words, in my camera to show you when I meet you. And I find myself looking forlornly onto roads cut through, almost teasingly, into the forest. I don’t know when you will walk this road. I don’t know if you have ever walked this road. I hope you haven’t. But then again, I hope you have. So we may tread these paths, now wet with too much waiting, and leave our squelching shoeprints behind. Even if for just a brief posterity.

There is too much going on in the world. There is too little I am able to breathe. Do I spend these evenings watching the brilliant patters of the bugs and beetles crawling on my window? Or do I suit up my mind with theories that are embellished and impress all, like a chandelier in a ballroom? I know not.

Prose becomes poetry in my mind. Much like the hint of a cheese grater in your deep voice, the warm moist palms I have held against the dry callouses on them, the ribbons of white cloud that remind me of your hair. Much like them, prose turns to poetry when I think of you. And yet, I know not you, only an idea of you that I see in the shadow of a mountain on the cloud below. Prose becomes poetry.

Alcoholic Reveries

The throes of alcohol
Looking  into your blue eyes
Only see ageless
For eternities gone by.

The hums of greetings, food, walks, chirps and laughter
Buzz in my ears, clapping, applauding
The welcoming sun of our fairytale.
The one that was lost in the pages of the sea.

My father told me never to believe
In fairytales born of vodka shots.
Especially the ones on nights of solitude
Such as these, when lights blinked star-like.

You've been gliding away, knight like
On quests you named "change/challenge/finding yourself"
While I've been searching for the map
That leads me to you.

We don't know anything about earthquakes
Says news that likes to believe otherwise.
We don't know anything about love
Says my father, a forgotten romantic of the 80s.

Words come out of me, leaving
Along the same pathway as all the men before.
I'm whispering to you and only you now,
"Stay. Just stay. Words can flow away"

Painting by Artist Sacha Pola

www.sachapola.com

Nameless Verse

Passion and its dying embers
Keeping me awake this summer night.

"There are three things that make us sleepless--
  Passion, the lack of passion, and disease.", said he.

Our crossing smiles and shy eyes betrayed
Stories of our pasts that led us here.
He misses her and she misses him--
A reality washed over by their tumbling bodies
On nights when human nature turned awash
Their hearts that once leaped as wild dolphins
On seas they could call their own.

In captivity of those seas that turned stormy,
Those dolphins smiled, yet. 
The throes of their passions undaunted.
And when those seas the dolphins held ever so dear, washed them ashore.
The burning, brittle specks of sand caged their hearts.

The dolphins existed no more than the cities you see from the skies--
Scattered gold dust, a mere illusion,

Their hearts learnt to live in self-made cages.
Their eyes learnt to give curtained glimpses
Of the bay windows they used to be.
He sang to her and she wrote poems.
Trapped in illusions  of their selves
That once roamed free, drawing gasps
Like the red beaked blue magpies fleeting past.

Little did their hearts know of proximity
Born of cages and lost loves.
Theirs was a blossoming question mark,
Etched deeply, swept under the rug determinedly,
Their longing for his face and her face
Marking all their destinations across life.

Little did he know, she felt it.
If only their seas of yesteryears were wiped off,
Their hearts-- the happy dolphins would discover
Oceans they would find in each other.

(This image is from here: https://jessicajanecharleston.wordpress.com/)

Coming Home

Coming home always has multiple meanings
From awkward hugs that remind me
Of too much time passing by.
To the smell of old age wrapping home--
A constant reminder of goodbyes.
Goodbyes that can and will be permanent.
But the heart won't learn to accept.

Coming home to boxes full of sweets
And eyes withering with decades gone by.
Eyes that look at me, with so much love.
It would fill an ocean.
Sadness permeates the books lined so haphazardly
In every nook and cranny of the house.

Too much knowledge and too much love destroy equally.

Coming home to my two fathers
Whose love is more than that of a large, joint family.
Whose care and scoldings mean so much more today
Than all the years when teenage ruled and rebelled.
Conversations that blend mathematics with governance,
Geography with historical tales and books--
The books in this house are family trees of voluminous emotion.

Coming home to hands that shake as they feed me.
So much pride in home-grown mustard greens-- 
Growing accidentally, like the distances between us now.
Expansion-- of silences, of origami boxes and withering pages
Resonate consistently, saying, "come home for good".
I am a little stranger to it all each passing year
Growing fonder of and more distant from their balding, greying heads.

Coming home each year-- a little older.
Growing within myself, growing smaller from them.
My two fathers occasionally chuckle from memories
Of my infanthood and their youth.
Those chuckles turn to sudden sighs of the present
Like dying batteries of a constantly ticking watch.
And we all return to the normalcy of today.