Big bang

And I wait. I sit on the Brown stripped comfortable sofa in my father's office. He seems busy. I wait for Mr. X. He is one of my father's colleagues. Young and just into the service. I wait to learn if he holds the magical spell that is going to change my life forever. I wonder if today is the day it begins. If today is the big bang I have been waiting all along for.

Village bard

  Its only words,                    
And words are all I have,
To take your heart away.

These lines play in my head over and over again. A song long forgotten by its masters. I hide beneath this song, for it makes more sense to me now than before.
I am seated in the last seat of the 40A route bus. I look out and see the world go about its daily routine. People going places, Places meeting new people. I am  apprehensive of the person I'm sharing my two seater with. I do not like strangers getting too close to me.  And she switched places, I spread my legs and hog the seat again.
It is a bright beautiful day, a Monday. I sense bangalore's morning yawn, I too contribute to it. My bus snaking its way through the undergrowth. A Sea of people in rectangular boxes engulfs 40A, we wait for the signal to turn Green.
I continue to stare at the world passing by through the dust strewn eyes of the bus. I see the exact same places I have been seeing for the past 23 years pass by, with the exact same curiosity. I am stuck here. I have grown roots into the undergrowth, I am part of it now. This city has been my life so far, I feel it's trying to consume me. I want to escape. My 40A is stuck too, on a road too narrow for giants together. Slowly its master trying to untangle the knots. And we're free again.
I talk too much. I am the village bard. I sing along about the merry times and make valiant plans. But I'm too drunk to live it up. A drunken stupor that I call life, too intoxicated to walk. Will I ever make it? Self doubt hangs around my neck, a dead weight.

Give me an hour each day
The guitar I shall play

One of the many promises I make to myself. When will I ever stop.

My bus continues to haunt smaller streets, and I myself. Do ghosts ever feel haunted?

I shall stop now.

Stop.

The will and the want

I unplug my ear plugs. I pause audioslave to listen to the city breathe. The weather God's seem to be smiling at us today. Masons going to work,  vendors setting up shops and software engineers unplugging ear plugs. The day has begun with the chilly winds and the stale garbage smell. How do I make this day any special? I want to do something drastic. Something that would make me escape the system,  even for a little while atleast.
The want always high,  the will not so much.
Today is going to be different. I will make it so.

Lucifer

You were cast out,
Fallen among elite,
On to this earth
that was once paradise

You had frailties,
So did our fathers and their's
You were proud
so am i and my sons shall be;

You had a choice,
and you chose wrong
with gods above
and men below

You dint bow,
not to man or Gods above,
You live now
among us in our shadow

Why Lucifer? The fallen one.
Why did he choose you?
Why did you choose us?

And now - millennia apart
You're still here - fighting
A God with a forgotten enemy
An Enemy, a Forgotten God.

Ivory

There is a boat. Carved out of the biggest Oak.
With Ivory oars. And none to row.
I look with envy. I look without hope.
I watch its rotting away with the crop.
I know not how to Oar. I'm afraid to step afar.
I want to cross the ragged sea. I Want to fight its monsters head on.
I am sick of running away. I want to be sea sick again.
I don't want to be a coward. Or an earthly prince.
I am a prisoner. And prisoners die a slow death.
To escape my fate I look at the boat.
I would row across and reach unfamiliar shores.
I would sell the ivory worth its weight in gold.
The gold will fetch me men and arms.
An Army I shall build.
An Army I shall fight.
An Army I shall defeat.
Our Victories shall not lose its charm.
A King I shall be. Inherit a kingdom so warm.
As a King I shall rule. At the capital my throne.
A beautiful queen. And hungry subjects gone.
I shall be kind and merciful. Noble and Just.
I shall live a comfortable life and return to dust.

All this and many more valiant prophecies in store.
Only if i knew how to row an Ivory Oar.

I am.

By not speaking
I spoke too much
by not smiling
I laughed
By not seeing
I grasped it all
By not listening
I followed

By not seeking
I found
By not waiting
I remained
By not sleeping
I slept
By not dreaming
I dreamt

By not wanting
I longed
By not crying
I wept
By not fighting
I fought
By not losing
I lost

By not moving
I reached
By not thinking
I thought
By not feeling
I felt
By not being
I am.

Achachi

I lay comfortably twisted on the floor; you know that one particular position that seems to work for you. I am at my native; or rather you can say my dad's native. I have very fond memories of this place. Ah! what beautiful days those were! Childhood at its best! Every summer spent in this part of the world. How I used to long for these vacations. We did nothing and everything. Every day was as eventful as the previous. So many memories etched on the plantation trees, on the tiny pebbles in the tiny river-lets we bathed in.
All these memories remain fresh in my mind, lamenting at the thought recreating the past. The past remains beautiful, shiny and crystallized in happiness. But i stare at the fact that it is the past, and as all beautiful things memories too die away slowly.
I characterize time with respect to events. I associate the passing of an era with something eventful that happened at that point of time.
It had been a year since my last visit. The last time i was here to visit my grand-dad, for the last time. I miss him dearly. Now when i try to remember my time with him, I always see a smiling face. I cannot remember him as a sick and bedridden person, but as a strong individual going about the rubber plantation or the house doing odd jobs or fixing something. I remember he used to make bats and balls for us, using some or the other part of a coconut tree. He was always there to make our vacations memorable. I remember the time we used to buy chocolates in his name, and he would pay the shopkeeper later. He never complained. He was a happy person. I wished it could have been different, wished he was here with us. Life could have been a bit kind to him. I am sure he’s still with all of us, still living through the memories we have of him.
He loved us all. We all loved him too.
'Achachi' - That's what we grand kids called him. His name was A. P. Govindan Nair (the 'A' and the 'P' for his house name and fathers name respectively). He was a small stout man. He had a small frame but he seemed big in the eyes of a 7-year-old.
 He had thick rimmed reading glasses. There was a framed picture of him hanging in the dining room, Achachi in his youth. He looked immaculately dressed, like a perfectionist. He always had a knife kept under his pillow, a habit from him youth i guess. His hair was pearl white, and we almost had the same hair-do.
He used to go to the village 'Vayanashala' every evening, he and his fellow comrades playing cards in the library. I wonder if they gambled there, or if he was even good at it. And while returning he used to get us chocolates again. Good old chocolate-rubber-trees-coconut-bats filled days.
He had an old steel suitcase under his bed, it was green in colour. I always hypothesized that it was in this, that he stacked his bundles of rubber-money. I was wrong of-course, but it gave me a sense of mystery about suitcase. It was what I wanted to believe.
What else do i remember of an old man who lived in a faraway house middle of a plantation? Who used to be a Malayalam teacher, who conjured play-things out of thin air when we need something, who used to hang rubber sheets up in the kitchen chimney to dry.
Who had that ever so welcome smile.
I miss you Achachi.

We have all grown up now, Ammu chechi just got married. The house on the hill is uninhabited and the rubber trees in need of your attention. Nobody visits during vacations and no more chocolates in your name. No more coconut tree bats and no more memories to etch.

Appu