Variability

This is the exact sequence of events of an evening a few weeks back.

I was on board the college bus that plies to the city (of Hyderabad) every evening at around 5.00pm from my campus. I looked out of the window, it was getting dark and the wind was chilly. I tried to decipher the tiny print of the crossword puzzle that I was trying to solve only to realize I shouldn’t be straining my eyes any further. I folded the newspaper neatly and lied back for a much-deserved nap. I looked at my cell phone timer: it was 5.39pm.

I was fidgeting my cell phone when my eyes caught the time again. It was 6.39pm, exactly. I couldn’t believe the evening was turning into an almost disaster in just an hour’s time. By normal standards, I should have been in the city forty minutes back; but here I was, seated in my college bus stuck in a traffic jam in the least expected spot in the city. My mood was livid although I knew it was not helping the situation in any way. I tried to look around if I could find a way out of the traffic myself, by walking a few meters to-fro maybe. Feeling too restless and angry sitting there, I got down from the bus to fight the traffic on foot.

Something had happened to the auto-walas in the city that evening. I agree it was Bakrid and everyone was out celebrating in the hub of the city leaving Old City and the Charminar area quite deserted. But the auto-walas disagreeing to go towards Old City with the fear of returning empty sounded rather pretentious to me. I had finally managed to find an auto for half the distance and was now wading through the other half of the distance in another shared-auto. I was to meet some family friends in the city. With the anticipation that this ordeal would finally get over, I took out my cell phone and informed that I would be arriving shortly.

Time flies quickly right when you least expect it, worse when you don’t want it to. The time spent at our family friend’s was great. I got to see all the wedding-shopping (which I had hoped to be a part of when I started from my college) – gold jewelry, junk jewelry, and lot many beautiful sarees. I gorged on a few Besan ke Laddus as we chatted, and got a packet full of bakery biscuits for myself to carry back. And although, I couldn’t wait for dinner, I was feeling happy now. I had done what I had come to do. As I was hurrying up to leave, I checked on my cell phone again for the time. It was 8.39pm on the dot!

I reached Punjagutta after another auto-ordeal. There were about fifteen minutes for my college bus to leave for campus. I was feeling hungry now. Thinking of Plain Maggi at Bingers, I calmed my growling stomach. I bought a few magazines to empty my wallet of some heavy notes. Right outside the book store, I spotted Nishant near the crossing. Felt glad I had found some company for my journey back, I was already too weary of the traffic in the city. Upon listening to my entire tale of the evening, his only reaction was to move in quick steps towards a small fast-food joint and get me an egg-roll! It was 9.39pm, he claimed he had 6 whole leisure minutes to get the roll and get back. Quite pleasantly surprised and a bit worried for his hurriedness, I walked towards the area where our buses were lined up…

Human emotions make for an interesting observation. I recalled all my own emotions and varying moods at those hourly intervals late that night. They formed an entire spectrum. And I, was left smiling at the ceiling.

Hope

The leaf lay there
Waiting for its rain drop
At the edge
Of a window sill.


Parched,
It swallowed hard
The stillness;
Stillness of air
Of silence
Of motion
Of Life.

The leaf lay there
Crouched,
Waiting for its rain drop
At the edge
Of the window, now sealed.

The Debutantes

It was my first year of engineering at BITS. Shruti and I were sitting in my room reflecting and fiddling with a pen and paper. We had a few classes that we very conveniently gussed to enjoy the part-winter part-summer afternoon gorging on Lays potato chips and a few five-stars, chatting about how much our lives had changed since we stepped into this isolated yet truly magical town of Pilani.

The exciting topic of our discussion those days was this new Poetry Club that two of our friends were very keen on starting on campus - with the mission of - "bringing all poetry lovers under one roof"! Enthused that we definitely were every time we talked about it, that day, we both would clearly remember, also unleashed our innocent creativity out of us, as we laughed and penned together this 'cute' and absolutely close-to-heart poem. Dedicated to both of us, from the both of us.

Dated: Sometime in Feb, 2004.

The Sky and The Ocean

The sky and the ocean
Share much more than just friendly affection,
Each being other’s reflection
Complemented one another with utmost perfection.

At the horizon when they meet
Their beauty makes hearts skip a beat,
The ardent line of smile they spread around
Leaves everyone spellbound.

Every cloud in the sky
The ocean appraises,
Every wave in the ocean
The sky apprises.

What lies beneath the ocean and above the sky
Deep secrets they share and light moments that fly by,
What makes them laugh, what makes them cry
No one knows, though many try.

And they share a love so eternal
Which is beyond praises so lexical,
They fill everyone’s life with glee
Oh! yes dear, it’s you and me!

Well, what we did after writing this was even more childish! We cycled out of our hostel to show "our" poem to a poet-friend and garner his compliments. His smile said it all, and we beamed with joy! Later that evening we rushed to others too with the poem in our hands like kids running with their pastel-sketches or first paper-planes! Gosh, we really did that, didn't we!

It marked the beginning of something new - a new feeling, a new outlet to emotions, a new perspective, and a new perception of each other. It still brings back fond memories of our 'young' days when all that really mattered was to have extended lunch hours in the mess till the mess-bhaiyas asked us, politely enough, to leave; to cycle around the campus touching every single road; to control that irresistible-talking-phenomenon the night before a test; to sit under our tree till wee hours chatting; to misplacing cycles in Meera Bhawan for the greater good. And ahh, so many more! Kiddish that we really were back then, it nevertheless gave us the adrenaline to go crazy and keep that crazy side of ours alive even now!

Conversations

Some conversations leave you with thoughts haywire. It happens once in a while; perhaps when you least expect it and yet by the end of it, along with the feeling of being befuddled suddenly you also have a longing to get back and finish the unfinished business. Say what hadn’t been said. Listen to the missing parts. Understand what you couldn’t. And, come out of the conversation crystal clear.

These conversations blow the winds of change. These are also the conversations that as you try to reflect on, present to you some interesting insights into life around us. Listening to a conversation, I personally think, is one of the most enriching experiences one can have. Not just any conversation, but especially these conversations. I remember a dear friend of mine had written a blog post mentioning a ‘dangling conversation’ (famous song of SnG). And, dangling as these maybe, such conversations make sense only with a passage of time.

Three of us found ourselves entangled (fine! engaged… okay?) in the dangling conversations; perhaps trying to connect the dots by looking back. Some dots did join, some others couldn’t. It almost seemed impossible to get some dots onto the same plane – but then that’s Life. You hardly expect it to be the way it is now. I am not saying we remain unsatisfied always. But, there is always a greener picture in our minds, and we find ourselves blaming our limitations for it. I remember reading in a book, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.” So true!

As the night unfolded in front of the three of us, we became more aware of each other’s resistances, of each other’s helplessness towards reasons – the want of it, the absence of it and the want for the absence of it, of each other’s perceptions and perspectives. As the end neared, each one of us imagined the conversation beautiful, just and perfect; yet as we walked away from each other, the feeling that the conversation in itself was quite a bit better than what we made out of it lingered on.

The fact remains, though, that the conversation is etched in our memories, and nothing that we do affects the conversation – its emotion, its irregularities and its comprehension. One could raise a question on our ability to choose to change our minds and hence choose different futures (interpretations) from a different past (experiences), the grander idea here though is to drive home the point that each experience in itself is a creation of life in its fuller meaning, and not a mere discovery.

Untitled

The light beckoned her
It had always beckoned her


Today she walked into it
She walked a path laden with leaves
Dark black leaves,
And some broken twigs
Cold-withered or maybe just old
So they said, she thought


But she knew not what was thought
She knew not what was cold
She knew not what was old;
She simply walked
With her hands folded
And crossed around her


She walked towards the light
She walked with dusty feet
Crushing the leaves
Breaking he twigs
One by one
Or too many at once


She heard the voice again
The noise again
It was piercing into her mind
Like oars dipping deep into the waters
She ignored it wilfully, and walked on
On the path towards her light


And now, it was all around her
The light of darkness
The light of blackness
She swallowed it with grace
The light swallowed her
And left no trace