Forward to the Past

You took the first portrait of me. I was just over a little year old, probably sleeping when you clicked the photograph. My family did not know, quite possibly only a handful of people in the world knew about it at the time. It was a little secret that I discovered close to three decades later. Better late than never.

I was not alone in the portrait. The person who introduced me to books, the teacher who showed me the path to a good life, the friends who went along in stupid adventures, the love, and the heartbreaks- all were in that portrait. And so was a Dusky Seaside Sparrow, probably returning to its nest in the glory of a Florida sunset. The gentle giant Sudan was drowsing in captivity in a foreign land. The Saint Helena Olive was in full bloom with its pink flowers. A school of Baiji Dolphins were frolicking in the Yangtze River. I rode the bicycle for most of my daily activities. Disposable cutlery was unheard of in my family. Life was unhurried while you approached the edge of the solar system.

As you continue into the infinite darkness, Sudan has since been freed. But alas, he has breathed his last. And with him has dimmed the hopes of an entire species. The olives eventually met the same fate as an exiled emperor. The dolphins of the Yangtze have not whistled in years. Three decades and seven thousand miles later, I witnessed the first light on a surreal place. A glimpse into what the Earth must have been in its prime. An automobile is now a necessary part of my life. Plastic straws and styrofoam containers are not too uncommon. I have changed. We have changed. The memory that you carry of us- is but a memory. The blue dot from your younger days has become paler over time.

Four decades and fourteen billion miles hence, you do not need to take another portrait of me. But the sparrow can find its nest again. We might not be able to reverse the clock. But we can keep it ticking. And your swan song can be our overture. We are significant because we are insignificant.

Epilogue

When the steaming cauldron, that once held the primordial soup,

From where the sugars went right,

And the amino acids to the left.

Life found a middle ground, evolving over eons,

Till the intelligent species took over.

And the cauldron started to spill.

Too many cooks indeed spoil the broth.

Because we need the sun at night,

And the blinds by daylight.

Have you ever paused at the phrase 'fossil fuels'?

How we built our lives, entire civilizations from Her graveyards?

Without mourning, without reverence.

But Her heart weeps

With the melting glaciers.

When shall we learn?

That when there is nothing left to burn,

All will burn.

And when the dust settles,

She will be ready with more love, and fuels.

But who will be there to receive it?

(Or it might be that the fact we are not trying to stop the madness is actually Nature’s

survival tactics? Maybe the only way to reset the environment is by extinction of the

human race that depends on us not caring about it?)

A tribute to Voyager I and Carl Sagan on Earth Day, with the dream of a better world.

Yearnings

What if you were a star?

Will you still come out every night?

Knowing that I will be light years away,

And it will be ages before I set my eyes upon you.

What if you were a wildflower?

Will you save every drop of life?

To bloom for me?

Knowing that it might be miles,

Before I reach you.

Will you be my shade in the sun?

Will you be my desert oasis?

What if you were a dodo?

Will you preserve yourself?

In stones and moss, in river beds deep,

With the slime of times over you.

Waiting for the rock hammer,

Waiting for resurrection.

Will you be standing still?

An eternity in entirety.

Amidst the blowing winds

And the flowing water,

Will you still blush at the twilight?

Will you be strong enough?

Will you be my Delicate Arch?

When all is dust, will you be the harbinger of love?

And lead me to the light of a million stars,

And the scent of a thousand flowers,

And all that has vanished from the earth,

Or is yet to come.

Will you be my phoenix?

Will you be the cocoon of peace?

While entropy rages.

Will you stand still at the edge of time?

When eternity is a forlorn conclusion.

The Promise

I will call you in the twilight of the storm,

You will find me in the seeds of tomorrow.

In revolutions stillborn, in fields yet reaped

In the sun at the end of the mist, and rain drops yet to scatter.

In the holes of our souls, in teary eyes

Through the trickling lights, in visions to be realized.

In hope behind wars, in smiles waiting to burst forth

I will stand tall, sway not in the face of the squall.

For what looks up can only be put down, never brought down

And that which doesn’t yield, will never be destroyed

For what belongs to the future, is invincible to the present.

(Terribly late for another post but this is probably fitting in continuation with the last one.)

Promise of Memories

Like footprints on the sand,
Washing away with the waves.

Like the arch of the rainbow,

Melting with the clouds.

Like the dewdrops of night,

Vanishing with the first light.

Like the leaves of fall,

Departing with the snow.

Like the resting butterfly,

Hustling away at the footsteps.

Like the grass kissed golden,

Falling flat with midday sun.

Like the shooting star,

Freezing at the Earth.

Is not the end as I construe,

But the promise of more to come.

For the eyes twitch and the face contracts,

Before the lips burst forth with smile.

For the pain of childbirth,

Makes the mother an artist.

And in the memories of today,

We hold the seeds for tomorrow.

A poem for the beautiful woman in this photograph and to look back into our wonderful time after marriage on the Kavvayi island in Kerala.

Hemispheres, in Love

When you scorched your kingdom,

I sowed my fields with snow.

And while you draped in the hues of fall,

The summer tempest was yet to beckon me.

When winter came, you were ahead

In the pride of spring.

I chased you in vain,

Through all seasons.

You always escaped,

As the light, while I lingered in the dark.

In the gloomy sunsets,

As you burst forth with hope of dawn.

You are timeless,

And I can go on for infinity.

But one day the sun shall not glow,

And the sea will swell,

The Equator will cease to exist.

Then we shall meet at the Poles.

Ours will be a frigid affair,

On the face of one Earth.

And we shall move mountains

And exude fire and create waves

And gush with the waterfalls

To shape the future lands.

As we move from one twinkling star to another
Together we shall bring life, again.

The Escape

I was alone, paragliding over the glaciers. Not ‘I’ exactly, and not alone either. The cold wind found many ways to get through the airtight suit. And the sun, being closer to me than it ever was, was not helping too. It was a strange, piercing feel of heat and chill. When you are invaded down to the veins and arteries, you don’t know where you ended and Nature began. There was no brooding, no luxury of time to be alone and worrying about the ordeal. With the skies above and the ground below, all I could do was to keep flying.

Flying? I turned around, looked at myself…I am here, glued to my garden chair and enjoying my evening tea. Funny that I thought about flying! Maybe a little bit of football on weekends with the village children to deceive myself that I am still strong but nothing this wild.

Now that the glider had considerable momentum, I relaxed to look at the grazing sheep. And the deodar trees seem so tiny. 

Wait. Why am I having all these visions? Glaciers are supposed to be vast expanses of white. Did the wind get the better of my vision while gliding? 

But I am not gliding; I am just out for a walk while the sun is setting over the valley. The sheep are being herded back to the villages and the evergreens are standing tall, as if in guard against the advancing darkness. This is my hamlet in an inconspicuous hill-station in India, nowhere close to Denali.

The last orange kiss of the day on the peak of Denali seems so dear. From above, I can clearly see the sunset hues criss-crossing the whites. But the cold is getting harsher, even the numbness has ceased to exist. I need to get past the peak and land on the other side where the National Geographic expedition team is waiting for me, with warm blankets and hot food. Probably wondering why on earth they agreed to the idea of me gliding over the Alaskan ranges. 

I pulled the blanket closer to me…but the cold doesn’t go away. A few more knots, then a descent of a few thousand feet and I will be safely back with my team, after a week of hiking and flying in the wilderness.

I twist and turn on the bed, rub my palms together. The cold is very stubborn. I need to steer the glider correctly during the descent. Am I dreaming?

Rubbing my eyes, I left the bed and took a seat near the telephone. It was a cold, new moon night; nothing to look outside of the window. Except for the stars that do not wax or wane. They are always here to look out for us, till they burn themselves out.

The warmth and light came with the ringing of the phone. ‘Daddy, I did it. I flew over Alaska.’

I didn’t understand whether it was the voice of an exhausted adventurer or a little girl. I cannot remember why I was feeling cold or having all those visions. Everything seems confusing with the Alzheimer’s. But I think I was living the dream. And now I can sleep.

Freedom

You want to sway with the leafy boughs

Remember they too have anchorage.

Eagles may soar above the midday sun

But the nests beckon them at dusk.

Crashing waves recede

While the sand is left naked,

And the rebel who walks out

Finds home in distant shores,

Like the seed that falls farthest from the parent,

And greener is the other side.

O heart, when are you free!

Are you when you break shackles?

When legs carry you as far as possible,

Faster than your beats.

Ah naivety, the earth is round

And all is dust.

Build on it, paint with music,

And the stars will be your bed,

And no dams can arrest your flow.

You shall burst forth with light,

With the shadows as your guide

And though the cord won’t be severed,
You will be born free.

Perspectives

Of the gentle war

And the cruel love

Of the blind betrayal

And the mild belief

Of the dark cloud

And the faded moonlight

Of the mad sanity

And the regular eccentric

Of the painful sob

And the faint smile

Of the strong dislike

And the weak passion

Of the cozy frost

And the shivering warmth

Of the ideal gibe

And the awkward hug

Of the long gospel

And the short sight

Of the wet sun

And the dry rain

Of the harsh censure

And the soft acceptance

Of the brazen knowledge

And the shy wisdom

Let us not be extinct in the former

But live in the footprints of the latter

For the ocean knows that the drops are not lost

But grow onto making itself.

To Us

Give me your hand, the sapling needs water

Give me your hand, the walls will be painted

Give me your hand, the puppy is restless for a walk

Give me your hand, the kitchen will be cleaned

Give me your hand, the baby wants lullabies

Give me your hand, the car will be repaired

Give me your hand, the novel is nearing the climax

Give me your hand, the long drive will be covered

Give me your hand, the starry night is waiting for the campers

And our hearts danced with the blooming daffodils

And postcards grew younger against the green walls

And the dog always ran to the door at the sound of our footsteps

And the bread was earned and relished too

And our child haven’t missed a good night wish from foreign land

And the sedan carried us without a grumble

And revisiting old books made the heart fonder

The road to stars is now shorter

While the light ever more radiant

All because we held our hands together.

His Prayers

The chants of the Surya-Namaskar, deep in reverence but fervent in appeal, was His wake-up call. How soothingly it resonated with the Ajaan at dawn! A perfect daybreak, if you would ask Him. Still, He didn’t want to be left out and played His part through the chorus of birds.

The mundane daily schedule then takes over- even He cannot escape the drudgery. There are so many things that need His attention. The Yeti’s gene-mapping is yet to be completed- he tried studying a few mutations but before any conclusions were drawn, some mountaineers created such a ruckus that He had to slow down. The magnetic field near Bermuda triangle needs proper calibration, it goes off every now and then. He has to fine-tune the Earth’s temperature again; it has been increasing dangerously in recent times.

When He was exhausted, He could always turn His ears to any corner and listen to the melody from the other world. Last Christmas, He heard a Sufi saint singing carols in Istanbul. He listened to Honkyoku at a musical class in Nairobi. That particular synagogue in Berlin playing the Pizmonim was one of His favourites. And after shining all day, He quenched his thirst from the Baul songs of the Portuguese missionary in Darjeeling.

Though, of late, He was feeling that the orchestra was losing its symphony. The notes were off in India, there were piercing sounds from the middle-east and the western lyrics were hurting the soul. However, He was hopeful that experience will impart wisdom to the novice musicians. Also, He was pre-occupied with a glitch in the lunar trajectory. It took Him a few days but in the end, He averted a major tidal flood.

Happy with Himself, He opened His ears again to celebrate with music. But He was met with disappointment. What on Earth were they doing? The United Nations, before getting disbanded, was in the process of certifying the newly drawn boundaries of belief. He was always skeptical of the word ‘Nations’ after ‘United’.  And now, hymns are banned in middle-east, Qawwali is not heard in Lucknow anymore and the Lotus-Sutra cannot be uttered in the west. The concert was over.

He had so many dreams- He had actually started working on the one with providing water to the nearby ‘red planet’. All those trials now need to be put on hold.

He took out an old book from the shelf- the dusty cover read something like ‘Handbook of Rob…’ He started revising the basics-

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

1.  A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the Zeroth or First Laws.

3.  A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the Zeroth, First or Second Laws.

This time too, He is hopeful that the robot will help re-create the music. He does not care about naming them anymore; humanity was better than Him in this game. Krishna, Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha- what interesting names they came up with!

As He sends the robot away on the mission, His heart grew heavy. He had always thought that free will was the best ingredient in His creations. Alas! Humanity, with its free will, still forced Him to fall back on His lesser self. Himself.

(Humbly acknowledging Isaac Asimov, from whose works I have borrowed a significant theme and my deepest regards to Suvro Sir for introducing me to his books and so many other wonderful things.) 

The Amateur

Yuri was introduced to pornography at the age of thirteen by his friends. Mostly steel photographs and cheap magazines; sometimes the silent adult movies that used to run in the dilapidated video parlours in the outskirts of Moscow.

It was mere curiosity at first, succeeded by a brief stretch of repulsion when the very thought of those dirty pictures made him nauseate. Succumbing to peer-pressure, he went for a second time and not so surprisingly, got hooked onto it. And addiction followed.

1920s Russia was experimenting with a new socio-political order. A voyeuristic teenager had limited outlets in such a laboratory. Yuri improvised. He started by copying some photographs from the magazines. Very soon, he was able to harness some of his own wild fantasies on pencil and paper. Yuri was thrilled to discover that his imaginations far exceeded what was out there. His popularity grew among friends and he started earning pocket money by drawing erotica.

However, the addiction got the better of him. He was losing his youth in these voyeuristic pursuits, incapable of a normal relationship, awkward in even conversing with a girl! For Yuri, the fairer sex existed in these photos. Or to be fair, sex only existed in these passive reproductions.

Not that it would have mattered anyway! Like most Russian youths, he was conscripted for the Red army.

Eventually, it was the end of summer in 1945. While the world settled for a lesser evil, Yuri was sent to Siberia for not serving the greater good. His crime was deserting the frontline against the Germans a few months ago in the face of hunger, cold and lack of ammunition.

The Gulags were designed to keep humanity at bay. Neither the clock nor the daylight determined the working hours. Whilst the prisoners tore away at stone and ice, the guards did the same to their spirits’. Where life was cheap and labour was never wanting, the authorities couldn’t be blamed for inadequate rations or winter clothing and warm shelters.

The capability of humans to lose something when you need it most is amazing. In the face of tyranny, one would expect the prisoners to be compassionate to each other. But fellow inmates turned to snitches in the hope of getting an extra bowl of watery soup or another torn blanket. Or they humoured the pervert seeking’s of the guards. They lynched the meek, enforced homosexuality upon each other. Probably ‘survival of the fittest’ came true here like never before.

Thanks to his drawing skills, Yuri enjoyed a special position among the inmates. He brought them, albeit on a paper, something that the starved hadn’t experienced in years. Requests poured in from guards and inmates alike. In return, he got a piece of meat for supper every other day and a bottle of vodka on the weekends. Times like these reminded Yuri of the cold night when his father discovered his notebook and turned the boy of fifteen out in the snow on an empty stomach.

Five winters hence…the world tries to move on from the war. In the Gulag however, constant is the only change. The season, the prison, the labour- all seem to have brought destiny to a standstill. Except for Yuri; his stature among the prisoners had diminished over the years. He was not productive as before. Weak health, trembling fingers from the labour served as an excuse for a while. Soon, the vodka on the weekends stopped. The guards started threatening him. Being the only source for pornography, he was not violated yet.

Yuri was unable to fathom himself. There was a time when he could draw unnatural coital positions in a single stroke. His vocabulary set was different: normal to him was what perverse is to the society. Now, he had to struggle for hours to outline a busty nude! Strange that he was drawing a sun rising from the mountains the other day. Phew…no one there had seen a rising sun in years. What was he thinking? What was happening to him?

One evening, someone saw Yuri drawing a flower. It was so funny that that inmate wanted to share the joke with others. Sensing danger, Yuri stopped him with the bribe of meat from his own supper.

Few months later, Yuri couldn’t bring himself to sketch any more of obscenity. Instead, by now he had almost perfected the outline of a baby girl, just learning to crawl. That night, he was working on the smile on the baby’s face. How does someone smile? In the last few years, he had seen howling, shrieking, hysterical laughter. He knows grinning, he had been sniggered at. But a smile is so elusive…

Someone snatched the piece of paper from his hands. Yuri looked up to see a bunch of jail-mates crowding around him. Seeking help was in vain, he knew the guards would turn a blind eye. Everyone was always jealous of the perks that came with his ability. The time was theirs to get back now…he had not catered to their base passions for more than a fortnight.

What kept Yuri alive was not a life. Forsaking it didn’t keep him alive but gave him a life…his only regret was not being able to catch the smile on time. Now, he will remain an amateur artist. Forever.

A smile is always so elusive…

কাঁথা (Kaantha)

সবুজ সুতোয় বোনা কাঁথা

ওতেই শুত মা-মেয়ে

একদিন সকালে দেখল কাঁথায় রক্তের দাগ

যদিও মায়ের কাছে সে এখনো খুকি

আর পাঁচজনের কাছে তো তার বুক আছে

ঠিক বুক নয়, বয়স সবে এগারো

বুক হবার জায়গা তো আছে

সেটাই যাচাই করতে এলো পাঁচজন

সবুজ সুতো ছিড়ল

এবারে দাগ নয়, লাল স্রোত

একটাই কাঁথা, ফেলা তো যায় না

ওই কাঁথাতেই তার ছেলে হল 

ছেলে এখন আঁকিয়ে

কাঁথার ইতিহাস কেউ তাকে বলেনি

তা ছিড়ে ন্যেকরা বানিয়েছে সে

ছবি, রং মোছে

ছেড়া কাঁথায় তখনও লাল মেশে

প্রথমে ছিল প্রকৃতির, পরে দানবের

এখন অবশ্য শিল্পীর