A Song for Eliot

So this is an old poem of mine that I discovered recently while revisiting a now defunct blog of mine. When I wrote this, I was going through a "O, i love T.S. Eliot" phase, and I had written this in absolute awe of the man. Cut to present, I've tweaked the original a bit. Hope it reads better, for it is now in my eyes, more complete. 

*

Winter mornings:
The stale smell of cigarette
and sky bruised purple.
I muffle, biting into your skin.

The morning groans
stretching its arms
across the sleepy city
Its breath pressing against filthy windows
and empty streets—
waking up in its own waking
to a handful of illicit love affairs

Promises crawl against one’s bare back
scratching against the skin like broken porcelain
searching for answers.

Time comes undone
like paint peeling off the walls
fragmenting from a whole
slipping into dark, nameless corners
and beautiful misery.

Outside,
the streets linger on
walking, swerving, smoking, mulling
running, hiding, halting, waiting.

They whisper tales
of sinful nights
that walked
dressed in handsome winter coats
and big black hats
knocking on doors
waiting for someone
to welcome them in

When they leave
Emptiness slithers inside bedrooms
through filthy windows
left half-open

She reeks of pity
and stale cigarettes.

She moves
across crumpled bed sheets
and coils around my neck

I muffle, biting into her skin
waiting to come undone.

***

{poem, eliot, dreams, emptiness, love, note from a forgotten diary, heartaches, memory}

Rain and Earthworms

It's the beginning of the monsoons and I am looking outside my window. The drizzle seems to resemble the gentle sprinkling of caster sugar. The road wears a pale, melancholic look which is occasionally dotted by a few umbrellas scurrying about in anonymity. A motorbike skids by, making an annoying spattering sound. Suddenly the sky, as though it has slipped on a cape, seems dangerous and menacingly dark. Trees sway indecisively like a pendulum; the wind hisses through the leaves, swooping down and spiralling into a crazed dervish swirl, enveloping granules of dust and abandoned plastic bags.  

During the monsoons, my world shrinks, more or less, to the size of my apartment. It's a self-imposed exile that is characteristic of an adult life. Children behave in a manner contrary to that—they lack the peculiar self-consciousness of playing in the rain that one learns as one ages. When I was a kid, I would head out the moment I heard a thunderous announcement. I would swoop down the dingy L-shaped staircase of my apartment building, sliding my palm across the dusty railing, shouting names of friends at each floor in the hope of an immediate congregation. The moment I'd reach the ground, I'd rush towards the open courtyard with my arms stretched out, my chin tipping upwards, my mouth open and my eyes shut.

I would squat near puddles and peer wide-eyed into the shallow pool to find an earthworm, or two, floating languidly. Imagination is a peculiar gift. In your head, its landscape is gigantic, fertile, sprawling. It's where mythical creatures and the fantastical reside. My friend had once whispered into my ear that earthworms were in fact, siblings of a great serpent, and if I ever harvested one from a muddy puddle and took it under my care, it would eventually grow into a huge serpent and would have magical powers. That I could travel to school riding a gigantic serpent was in itself quite a kick. Just the mere imagery of that would trigger off other certain fictions in my head, where I would end up imagining what it would be like ruling an empire of earthworms. It's a disgusting and rather stomach-churning thought, I know, but at the age of five, becoming the sovereign of a land, no matter how slithery or slimy your subjects are, is nothing short of an achievement.

So while other girls my age would burst into cacophonous shrieks, I remember dipping my fingers into the puddle to pick out a rotund earthworm that wriggled and wrestled to loosen my grip. It eventually succeeded and fell tepidly on the ground. A sense of pity [and defeat] washed over me and I let the poor chap crawl away. 

That was the time I conceded that ruling over a legion of crawlies was perhaps not the best idea.   

{monsoons, notes from childhood, memory}

Memory

Memory is a strange thing. It will find you in the most unwitting times, when you’re not expecting it. The tapping of the rain on the window, the discovery of a wrinkled leaf pressed between the pages of a book, your favourite song playing on the radio as you drive back home after a long day at work, the rustle of a sari…

The rustle of a sari — I remember ma wrapped in a sari — of her quietly walking into my room; the crackle of the starch as she sat down beside me when I was half-asleep. She always looked beautiful: long dark hair falling on her face, which she tucked behind her ears before pulling the chaadar away from me. The fan always stirred with a lazy whrrr and the sunlight from the window filled the room with a lovely light. I remember her eyes gleaming, her face lit up, earrings pinched to her ears, her spectacles sitting at the crown of her head like young girls with shiny hairbands. I’d mumble, whine, curl my toes and cringe my nose, hold my throat and cough so loud that I’d almost scare the pigeons off the window pane. But my drama was pointless—somehow, she always managed to send me to school.

*

My father had big, strong hands — the kinds in which my tiny chubby hands would disappear every time he held them, and I’d always feared that they've been eaten up. So I would wriggle my hands out every time, just to make sure they were still there. I remember going to school, skipping and hopping with my hand wrapped around his sturdy finger, my long hair galloping on my back, the pleats of my skirt ballooning with every thump of my feet, my shoelaces untied, and my socks which my mother made me pull up every morning before sitting in the car, sagging at my ankles. Very few kids like going to school. I probably belonged to that “strange” lot. I loved the drives with my dad before he dropped me to school. We would sing songs throughout the journey. His big, puffy red cheeks which I always thought were filled with cotton candy, his thick black moustache which curtained his smile, his wisp-like curly hair spiralling out and spiralling in by the wind from the pulled down windows, his thumbs drumming on the steering wheel as we sang: “I’m Henry the 8th I am, Henry the 8th I am I am, I got married to the widow next door, she’s been married 7 times before and every one is a Henry. HENRY. Henry the 8th I am I am, Henry the 8th I am!”

These excerpts were a part of a collaborative project titled Memory: A Visual and Musical Performance for DesignxDesign closing party at Alliance Francaise, New Delhi, 2015.

{memory, childhood, stories, Diaries, autobiography, notes from memory, prose}

Fire + Paper

i still remember
the way your tongue
mapped my mouth

and searched the contours
of my body
filling crevices
of my broken self

trying
to make me whole again.

i remember
how we so easily
fell into each other
entangling ourselves
weaving our present

to make a past

like a photograph.

and i remember
how you told me:
we were too alike
too volatile
too much--
in ourselves

so when we were together
i was fire
and you, paper

and we burned--
both of us,
consuming each other
hungrily.
uninhibitedly.

and now i lie
in the ashes of your memory
in the catastrophe we created
in the masterpiece we created
like two artists full of soul

on a rampage

the funny thing about memory is
it’s not ephemeral

like the ashes that crumble in my fingers
darkening the tips of my fingers
that try to trace the contours of my body

like you once did. 

{love, heartache, poem, writing, remembering, memory}

Remembering

Every Sunday morning, Yoginder visits this particular restaurant and sits by himself. His thoughts sweep him to another time. Fifty years ago, he met Zaira for the first time here. She had come with her family for breakfast, and he had instantly been smitten by her eyes: pale blue, curious but intense. She had caught his gaze and dipped behind her father's shoulder, watching him suspiciously through the crescent cut of her burqa. He smiled unknowingly, holding her for a few moments with his eyes; the staff occasionally disturbed his view with the haphazard scurry of early morning. She looked away, of course, but her eyes kept returning to him, like a person curious to know the end of a spinning top.

Distracted by her presence, he took a sip from his chai and accidentally burnt his lip. There was a momentary scuffle with the saucer; the tea leaped from the cup, broke against the glass table and made thin lines of dirty brown. Zaira giggled noiselessly, bowing her head. Embarrassed, Yoginder struggled to wipe the table clean with the corner of his sleeve, smearing it further. A waiter with bushy brows and dark eyes rushed to his rescue. As grunted he cleared the remnants of the chai. Zaira had not looked in Yoginder's direction after that, behaving like strangers ought to, ignorant of the other's presence. Yoginder began to wonder whether there was something between them or if he had unnecessarily made up stories in his head. 

A few moments later, the family finished breakfast; the father licked the final crumbs and lifted himself from the chair. His wife and daughters followed suit. With bowed heads, they formed a line behind him and discreetly disappeared behind a door. Yoginder remained in his chair, speechless, watching the wiped tea stains vaporise like ghosts on the glass table.

{Fiction, Scribbles, Notes, Stories, Tiny Visual Tales, Love, Memory}

Unmade

In unmade beds we lie unmade
naked, sweaty palmed
wet eyed with wet insides
lying across the wrinkled sheets

moments ago
you had dug your fingernails
altering the lines my palm contained
becoming the cartographer of my world

outside
the owls hooted and spied wide-eyed
inside
I feel into your arms and you slipped
into mine

I gave you my world in kisses and rhyme
and you gave me
memories--

memories
that lie on my bed
like torn out pages

crumpled, abandoned, silent,
unfinished

{love, stories, heartaches, scribbles, remembering}

Notes from a Diary

Sometimes we sleep open-eyed, thinking of what is to come, or what may have been. Sometimes we listen to the words of a poet and fall in love with him unknowingly--not because of who he is, but what he thinks. Sometimes we fall like torn out pages from a book of an unforgiving author. And we lie on the ground, crumpled, abandoned, silent, yet unfinished. Sometimes, we build our worlds around the past and live in the moments that have gone by, loving lovers who are now ghosts. And when we have finally assembled our memories and tied them neatly in a bow, when we have mustered the courage to become citizens of the present--we realize that we've become too old to fall in love again.

Uninvited

After months you visit me again. You had disappeared, I thought. I had torn our memories and flung them in a corner, where they could no longer break me. Alas, you arise like a ghost...I see you walking in my arms across the street, as I wait at a signal in my car. I see you sprawled on my bed, when I reach home. I see you in the face of every stranger who walks by. I see you sitting at our favourite table in a café we frequented.

***

Love is a glamorous affair. How we love to prick our heart and drown in self-designed misery. How we foolishly relish every moment built by time, reliving certain situations over and over again. We become broken records. Un-repairable. Un-amendable. And we continue to play ourselves out, even though the tune may not be right anymore. We become an album of imperfect, cacophonous images, faded by time.

{heartaches, longing, love stories, memory, remembering, thoughts}