Wednesday, July 14, 2010

         The low ceiling hits my head each time I want to stand straight. So I keep my head bent. It does ache after sometime but then again sometime after that the back of my head stops feeling anything at all. The ceilings on the side are blank wooden planks. I shamelessly write there with my uneven scrawly handwriting, glad that whatever I am writing no one's going to ever read. I doodle too sometimes. It never happens consciously. It's only when I am absent minded it happens. 
        On the ceiling below me I have kept a 5' 5" gap. The rest is strewn with food that I am going to devour each  day. Every moment. In some places in my room, " the food" piles up and touches the low ceiling.
        I have an in built camera in me and an in built notebook. The moment I have gathered enough strength from the food I shall take off. For a while the room is my world. But I know that the world outside my room is a massive place. When I take off, I'll try to cover the world. Am sure by then I will be strong enough to fly that distance. Strong enough to fight the opposing current and fly against the air flow.
       For now, excuse me . I need to eat.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

          

I was walking down the street the other day. As absentminded as I have become, I had forgotten to wear my specs. Well with just -0.50 power in my left eye and -0.75 in my right, I have a nearly perfect vision. But the only problem is that the faces of the people a little away from me appear as if though a translucent glass window. This street by the way , at the time I was walking , becomes extremely colourful. Literally and not literally. In the morning, that is the time when I was walking , the morning bazaar operates in full strength. The make-do shops eat their way into the street in a way which makes it impossible to walk straight. It's like concentric circles, it starts with the vegetable jhuris , that get surrounded by the wayward onions and potatoes that roll off and in a way increase the property area of the sabji ola. Then that gets surrounded by the morning risers that come to buy their daily ration and finally this concentric formation gets fortified by the cycles that these morning risers bring and carelessly park. With the fortification and all, the make do shop reaches the middle of the street. Walking down absentmindedly, the hub of the haggling buyers and sellers and enthusiastic advertisers and morning greetings all gets stirred into a hum.

I was walking down the street the other day. As absentminded as I have become, I had forgotten to wear my specs. As I walked ahead, like a movie camera focusing on random faces to create a prologue to an approaching danger, random faces caught my eye. Only the faces were not random and all I could see of the faces were their eyes. When they met mine they said the same thing, " I have seen it too."

As my eyes shot from one pair to another pair of eyes they echoed the same thing ... "I have seen it too."

I squinted. How did they know that it was chasing me ? No wait, how did I know it was chasing me? I think I read it in their eyes. In their eyes, "it" said to me, "he saw me in his cousin who ran away with a boy of a lower caste", or "she saw me in her son who could not come home because the train left the tracks" or "she saw me when her best friend felt that anti depressant pills were not working." and the stories went on and on. And then in the time space when I was ricocheting from one pair of eyes to another, out of nowhere it said " and I am coming for you..."

A loud honk. I jerked back in reflex and the Auto which came from nowhere missed me by a millimeter.

"Dekhe cholben toh didi "

It was not a near death incident before which I had a premonition of it. It was a coincident. If the auto had hit me, it would be an accident and nothing more. But no matter how much I utilize my rationality, I still feel that day, I met Death. In person and not in action.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

High

I could distinctly hear "desert rose" playing somewhere. I opened my eyes. No. I don't want to let go of that. I don't know how to word it, it was a feeling which had no scent that I could recognize, only images which were drawing me back to it and a sound - the rhythm- the tune of "desert rose" but there was something so unreal about the effect. I shut my eyes again.

The stone staircase. I started rushing up. Two, four, six, eight...landing. He stood there. The first three buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. I moved up to him cautiously.

I wish I was not wearing my faded night clothes. I wish I was wearing that gown which Cinderella wore to the ball. I was so close to him that I could close my eyes and feel him breathing. I looked up to look straight into his eyes. He had no eyes. He had no face. He was not there. I was standing with my nose touching the wall. I knew it was time to run again. I began running up the stairs. Again. Twelve, Fourteen, Sixteen...I tripped. Fell down a couple of stairs.

I sat on the twelfth stair panting. I had tripped and I had no idea how. I got up and started climbing again.

" Why did you trip?" screamed someone from the top.

"I was absentminded." I screamed back.

"That is disgraceful!" screamed back the voice.

I did not stop. Twenty, Twenty two, Twenty four.....

"Why did you trip?" screamed a voice from below.

"Um....I twisted my ankle." I screamed back.

"So predictable." commented the voice.

Another landing. He stood there with the first three buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. I slowly walked up to him. I was wearing the gown which Cinderella had worn to the ball. I stood so close to him that I could feel him breathing with my eyes closed. I felt nothing. I opened my eyes. I didnot dare look into his eyes. But he was still there. On the wall of the landing there was a life size painting of box which had each side painted in a different colour. I hid behind the painting and waited till he went away never to come back.

" Why did you leave her?" they asked her.

" I could not understand her," he answered.
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