Obsession Revisited

Now you’re quiescent,

Each time threatening to rearm later

Maliciously you blackmail me

Promising to become greater

It’s a slow poison; killing me ever so slow

Yet without you, I think I’m incomplete.

You are unwanted, but it’s you that I need.

You have grown, now you grow more and flow

In my soul you have made your abode

Don’t let me live in peace, or even without.

You are the vampire, who thirsts for my soul

You are the venom, which spreads in my whole.

You make me writhe, you tease and taunt

Insolence: your word – by which you swear

You stir up a storm inside me

Your power is of no measure

You raise your hood and thunder –

That is your quintessence of pleasure.

You hurt no end,

Never realise what you do

Never care, never bother…

Sink me to the bottom

Of that deep dark ocean

Plunge me to the depths

Of the darkness unseen

Raise me to the stars

Beyond those ever created

Above those empty spaces

Never reached, nor explored.

Down at the bottom, you give me not a breath to breathe

Far up above, you blind me with the height.

Into the deafening silence, never heard before

Into the shattering cacophony, that surrounds all o’er

You take me and tear me

To a million pieces

And again it’s you, who mends me back

To the whole I am.

Not a teardrop to shed,

Not a smile to pass,

Not a feeling of emotion – sweet or sour

You bar me from everything

You bar me from all

Into another world, I find myself fall…

Falling I am, fallen all over

Into another world, now I’m transmitted

I wake from my death

For you've revisited.

Obsession

The heart doesn’t heed

O what a creed

It’s there within

Yes! It lies therein

It’s raging in my core

Keeps saying – once more

I’m trying to quieten it down

It overpowers me sore

The flames are dazzling

O the urge is sizzling

Can’t help it now that I’m sinking in it.

It’s all spinning and twirling

Right down to my soul.

Stable I’m not, just shaken all over

Still it’s just crying for another encore

Trying to fidget, I’m trying to forget

It’s already taken root

Now I can’t fell it down

O it’s curling on my arms

It’s stretching on me all over

Uh! It’s constricting me

Oh! Now pulling apart

From where did you come,

O from where, which breed?

These flames I’m trying to douse

Now they’re creeping to my eyes

They’ve grown heavy and sunken

I can’t see for miles.

The red river is rushing

Its streams are gushing

They’re flowing above gravity

To my head, in insanity

I’m about to fall,

Save me before the end

The blue death is lurking

Trying to plunge into the white road.

Tell me why you came,

Your objective and your aim

Why you hinder me and hold

Don’t allow me to behold

That’s what, exactly why –

The heart doesn’t heed

Why it’s a creed

Because it’s my absolute need

That’s what I’m pursuing –

My aim, my mission

And that’s how it feels

To be struck by obsession.

There's A Place, I know...

The dawn of the day, bathed in golden ray

The heavens that were twinkling

Are now fading away.

They scatter like sparks

Their abode lights with flames bright and mellow

The zephyr takes a start, ready to blow

It’s under their wings, now they wade and flow

The seven-coloured bow pierces the undulating masses

Compelled, they fall, the drops of elixir

The dew drops on the blades now drool and splutter.

The embers are dying,

The blossoms are vying;

The space is confined, now they’re opening wide –

Where coloured wings fly,

Where twittering and buzzing are not limited to the sky.

The splash of colours, intermingling feathers

Seamless as they seem

Tranquil and serene.

Spreading their freshness,

Leaving a trail of effervescence.

The mauve pansies, dangling as if through mid-air,

Laugh with the sunflowers,

Sharing secrets like teenage girls.

The old men – the leaves, in a trance, move in whirls.

The capricious breeze

So abstrusely blows

In the balmy ambience

A bairn sits and adores.

The sensuous cajolery

Like a dandle enraptured

Inspires to fantasise a fantasy.

The rivulet is garrulous

The bairn is immobile,

Beholding the jackdaws that embellish the isle.

The old men are macerated,

The chick lings emancipated.

The rollicking romantic, saunters for naught

Nonchalant a smile, presents each novice he meets.

Nothing abstract a thought;

Only palpable by heart

The anxiety is quiescent, only to rearm later.

The tern is tendentious towards the now turquoise heavens.

The bairn in his vagary, vascillates now and then.

A wavelet of the breeze hits him again.

I want to take you and show you

The land in which I wish to grow,

Not fantasy, not utopian

There’s a place, I know….

Mango Orchard

For  you my love

A green roof is prepared for us

Of foliage thick, lush and tender

No walls to encage, or shut us tight

Just imaginary rooms ‘tween the mango trees

To set us wild, to set us free

And bathe in the sweet scented breeze.

Here is our world, just you and me

To bring alive what we believe

Play our games, call each other names

Drown in our songs and melodies

In this little heaven under the mango trees.

Bite into one, ripe and round

Lick the nectar trickling down

Let your tongue swirl about

Let your soul scream and shout

Feel the golden flesh body

Come partake a bite of me

Come meld under the mango trees.

Distasteful Silence

Of late, Alisha had become quite busy and wasn’t getting as much time to spend with me as she used to before. Mallika and Kavya said they had joined some dance classes, and George had to rush back home every day for his basketball coaching. These are the people I hang out with in college. And now with none of them free anymore, I was getting bored to death. I was also mighty pissed with them for leaving me alone and disappearing all at the same time.

That’s when I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and try and make friends with others in class. They seemed to like me, but did not persist much in conversation. I was beginning to feel loneliness tightening its grip upon me day by day. That’s when, out of the blue, I bumped into Mary from school one fine day. She had been one of my closest pals, but living at two ends of the city had afforded us fewer opportunities of meeting in these past three years. Now as we saw each other unexpectedly across the opposite ends of the road, we ran towards each other with a prolonged and boisterously unending “Hiiiiiiii!!!!!” But the moment we came into each other’s arms’ length, to enter into a hug, her genuine and blissful greeting suddenly cut short, the smile and cheerfulness completely wiped off from her face, and her mouth shut tight. The hug did happen naturally, but something seemed to have dulled her immediately.  The unexpected meeting, which should have lasted at least a half hour, as it used to earlier whenever such surprise encounters between us occurred, was cut short to a matter of few minutes this time. I was really puzzled as to what abrupt transformation had appeared for such a close friend of mine to behave in such an unnatural manner.

The days that followed plunged me into an abyss of forlorn dispiritedness. I felt everybody abandoning me, and little interested in talking to me. Even the landlady Gabriella aunty who chatted hours with me seemed to have become busy like everyone else. I became increasingly despondent. Nobody wanted to talk to me anymore or hangout with me. Why God, what had I done?? I lost sleep thinking over my actions for the past several weeks, even months, and the year gone by. Hours passed into days of introspection and self-questioning. Existential questions began to grow its ugly and dangerous roots inside me. I lost all interest in everything. Stopped talking and meeting others. Don’t really remember when I lost my appetite, was it when I started developing distaste, or did the distastefulness come into my mouth later. My mouth had become so dry by not talking, that the saliva had started thickening when I woke up in the morning. Now my mouth used to open only to release the innumerable burps that kept emanating from me throughout the day.

Finally the holidays arrived and I packed my bags for home. I had been waiting for the vacation so I could just get away from this hell-hole of despair. I found elation overcoming me as I neared home. Slowly the gloomy thoughts were draining away and joyful expectations were clouding my mind. Finally I rang the bell and waited in uncontrollable jubilation. A click sounded and I saw mom’s beaming face arising like the sun from behind the door. “Maaaaaaaa!!!” My delighted call was arrested in its trail, as my mother took a doubleback, eyes squirming and face contorted. The only match to such a dramatic reaction was my own response of popping eyes and stunned face. I wondered what blaze had I brought that threw mom back in such a histrionic fashion. The next sight of my welcome was mom clutching her nose and giving a sheepish smile.

Later that evening, as I reclined in that comfortable chair, I recalled the horrors of the weeks gone by. The turning of faces, the stopping short of smiles, the aborted meetings, the distastefulness of mouth and life. Just when I had started doubting myself, Dentist uncle saved my life.

Confessions of a Slothful Mind

 “For me, working is the equivalent of taking a break!” I was surprised to find concurrence to this belief of mine in a friend, during a deep insightful conversation over the ruminations of creative minds. The difference being, my creative mind is burdened by an immense languour, while he is far more active generally.

Freshly out of college, while the norm is to hunt for a means of livelihood if one does not belong to the blessed and fortunate category of those who have found their calling; here I was quitting my first job merely five months after having joined. Belonging to the former category I have mentioned above, unsure of my ‘career calling’, a plum paycheque was what I had prioritised. Everything else could be tolerated. Yet in five months, I realised the basic human need of job satisfaction. Having concluded with the only certainty that ‘routine’ is not my cup of tea; I decided to pack my bags. But for what next, I am yet to discover.

 Routine, schedules, deadlines, punctuality: cross. Freedom, one’s own time, diversity, change: check. This is the inference I gained out of meetings with like minds regarding creative behaviour. And I am happy in the reassurance that I am not the lone such specimen. How then is one supposed to channel all that creativity and bring it to fruition and optimal capability? For me personally, I require time…plenty of it, and without multi-tasking. Yet, a boon turning out to be a bane proves completely true in my case.

 Being ungrateful for something which I finally get after desiring for long surely makes me a monster. Particularly when it is ‘time’ – a luxury granted rarely to a chosen few. It is said that you often don’t get that which you chase. In my case I am often left wondering what to do now that I have finally got what I wanted. For, when time is all I have, instead of swimming and splashing in its waters atop a boat of creative pursuits; I soon find myself drowning in the mire of how best to make use of it. So that then gives way to mystic epiphanies of renunciation and the futility of achievements. And this leads on to existential plunges that the idle mind takes to reach an abyss of frustration.

 I don’t know whether to laugh it off or capitulate upon it, but nevertheless I find it a mischievous prank of fate; for, the creative muses seem to delight in favouring me only when I try to keep them at bay. This can probably be put as getting something when you don’t want it! One consistent pattern I have noticed since childhood is that all my creative energies peak exactly when I am supposed to devote my time to ‘constructive’ causes such as studies and exams. At such times the ink in my pen flows unstoppably and a sheet of paper turns into reams…the same sheet that remains blank when I try to put concerted efforts into filling it when I take out time for writing per se.

 You need to write daily in order to write well, or even become a great writer. For an externally motivated person like me, I often face droughts of inspiration. Yet, inspiration chooses to strike at the most inopportune moments, like the eve of an exam, or just when I am stepping out without pen or paper. At other times, procrastination is my constant companion.

 Friends and well-wishers have always encouraged me to sit with pen and paper, or the laptop in present times, and conjure up the creative potions. However, the roots of inertia grow just too deep and strong in me, that others mistake it for obstinacy.

 I am not wont to either dedicating or carving out time on a daily basis to fulfill my creative endeavours. I also look disdainfully upon those prolific writers who tear, crush and litter the surroundings of their writing table with imperfect attempts of their eventually perfect creations. The last one to agree to any inherent stubbornness, I however do concede to a particular idiosyncrasy of mine, which is to wait for things to happen; rather than making things happen, as is attributed to achievers and successful people according to manuals  and current self-help best-sellers. I’d rather write a perfect (or less-than-perfect) piece at a go when the mood strikes, than scratch and tear reams in the name of practice-makes-perfect. Till then I don’t mind waiting for Calliope, Erato, Thalia and their company….for I have all the time in the world!