World of Small Things

This bridge to the bus stop knows my frenzied footsteps well. It’s a dance I do everyday.  But today it stares at me like a stranger, it’s never known me to halt midway.  Faces pass by in a flurry.  They all have someplace to be.  In its last breath the dying winter tells me, even January is making haste to leave.  Maybe even I should head home now, the sun is getting low. But I want to stand here and let life go by, I feel no need to hurry.  From its tinsel towers I’ve watched this city preen, on the ground I’ve heard its people scream.  But from this bridge I see life itself, in the river of tarmac and gasoline. For is this life not a highway, where stillness is met with death?  Where the soul is too nervous to look around, too wound up to take a breath? I know life is a highway, because it’s been mere moments since we met.  But before we can let ourselves be seen, you’re another memory to forget.   And though life is a wide open highw...

I’m afloat in the pale, red reverie that separates dreams from daylight.  Evading the daily rebirth into sameness, it is in this undecided delirium that I thumb through the pages of my life.  And as I do, clarity cuts me deeper than the papercuts.    It burrows beneath my skin and gnaws on my bones. Then it ties my tongue and siezes my vision, before stealthily settling into the depths of my soul like a cold, calculating creature of the sea. I must lure it out and spear it right through the heart. For that, these words must cut deeper. But as the pages flail and flutter, the sentences seem to be struggling to drag themselves home. The words hang on as long as they can, before collapsing under the weight of the author’s ineptitude. Before I’m drawn back into a slumber, I pry my eyes open. The unremarkable glow of this early winter morning is meekly attempting to colour the walls of the room. A familiar cooing belts out from the niche underneath the window, where a pig...

Dear Unknown, My eyelids are heavy and weary, yet too timid to embrace each other. Autumn whispers shyly through the netted window. This damp, dismal night is lit only by the sickly glow of flickering neon letters perched atop a preening building, screaming in shades of electric red and yellow. But it is in this horrid limelight that I speak tonight, to an audience of famished trees, elusive crickets and the anaemic winds of October.  Through half open eyes I watch this vulgar vista contort itself into hypnotising swirls in the murky puddles that litter the construction site below. In the haziness of a sleepless reverie I could see a reflection of myself in them. These puddles were cowards too, skulking behind a veil of unintelligible obscurity, distorting anything that remotely cared to pry beyond the surface.  I think back to the drivel that I have spilled on these pages. Brutish brushstrokes I have smeared canvases with. All those stuffy verses and crude colours never stood...

Dear Reader,  There’s something grotesque afoot on the rain-drenched verandah floor.  A broken wing of a dragonfly is erratically wandering about, as if in a frantic search for its now flightless, maybe lifeless owner. The obvious perpetrator is underneath - a contumacious ant, coloured bright red by a churning rage that refuses to be confined in such a mortal being.  I silently cheer it on. Not unlike a dragonfly and its wings, time too is unpredictable and menacingly beautiful, feigning stillness by moving blindingly quick. The spirited ant reflects our fate - a frail creature battling a gargantuan foe, celebrating every inflicted wound, even a severed wing.  Knotted veils of rain now drape the landscape, peeling it into distinct layers. Within a few moments, a feeling of ineffable warmth envelopes my senses. Reality refracts and smudges into painterly realism. The painfully metallic scent of the world is replaced by the intoxicating fragrance of nostalgia. The eve...

Dear Reader,  The clock has struck eleven.  A thin yet austere blanket of clouds has materialised over the once starry sky, like algae on a stagnant pond. I can feel the stars stray farther away into the unknown as the wisps of pale violet consume them.  But the goddess of love now shines brighter, exuding her enigmatic allure.  I have found a neat corner on the verandah for this rather unexpected session of documenting absurd contemplations. Accompanying me is a modest white pillar which is subtly conveying its disregard for 'meaningless' imagination. I am tempted to engage this silent gentleman in a discussion about reality, escapism and the meaning of it all.  The harsh surgical glow of a fluorescent light dramatically bathes the rocky broken soil of the front lawn which is now occupied by a lanky, drowsy stray dog which was intermittently breaking its nap to peer at me with curious, melancholic eyes.                ...

Dear Reader, On this crisp February evening of the new decade, I find myself in yet another turbulent bus ride. Buildings were shimmering in the distance. Their lights flickered methodically:- a message lost in translation.  As we inched forward, the people behind the wheels seemed to be in a trance, hypnotised by the floating lights that bloomed and faded before them. A group of people crossing the road abruptly broke that spell. Even in that tiny group of individuals, there was a lot to observe. Some walked briskly with their eyes fixed on the other side of the road. Others broke out in to brief jogs and their gaze shifted from one approaching vehicle to another. As a person who dislikes, but embraces change, this group of jaywalkers made me ponder about how different people handle change. Some judge, assess and predict. Others make the leap of faith. But some choose to remain on the sidelines. Like bystanders, they watch life fly by in streaks and blurs of light....

Dear Readers, Today I write to you in a more mundane state of mind than usual. Huddled in a corner of a bus amongst other ruffled inhabitants of the city, I feel grounded, yet entangled in the inexplicable threads that help this metropolis move. In my hand was a crumpled piece of paper on which I had penned down a few words in crooked handwriting. Seated in the sanctuary of a dilapidated bus stop, gazing out at the swarming street, my mind had wandered. I had written: The first gust of monsoon brushes gracefully through the wilted leaves, Her locks of sienna and hazel surrender to the frenzied breeze. The dusk serenades in orange and gold. Swarms of feet toil in the drizzle, Rhythmically they stomp and shove. The once dusty roads are now abstract paintings of the eerie sky above. The rain has granted reflections to all. All sans one. The dusk was slowly being invaded by the darkness of night. The faint moonlight filtered through the sm...