The Brave Pedestrian

And when did we meet? And when did we part? And what did you say That troubled my heart? And why did you smile? And why did you frown? And why do I feel That I have let you down? And why do I feel That a shadow now stands Between me and my God And is forcing my hands? Did a blade swiftly slash Where I stood, through my breast? Now the warmth of my blood Seeks the earth where I rest. I am mind, I am mud. I am thirst, you are flood. What have I that you seek? I am drained as I speak. Having nothing to give, Having nothing to gain, I crawl like a child. Crawling deadens the pain.

We bleed, dear ones We bleed. Bleed together Bleed apart Peripherically aware Of the pain that we cause The cuts we inflict With sword With shield Blindingly aware of The white heat of pain That we ourselves feel Struck by An adversary's sword Or an ally's shield. We knew of the pain to follow when swords were drawn. Yes, we knew. "Live by the sword Die by the sword," We sportingly said. But Pain, my friend, Is more real Than all the philosophy in the world. We bleed And pay the price for drawing first blood Or failing to. Pray that the adversary's sword was clean. Pray that the ally's shield was clean. Pray that our own blood is clean. Pray that the wound is clean. Pray that the pain that we suffer Is Clean. Pray that the tears That blind us Are clear, purifying. Pray for Cleanness Clarity Purity. But pray not for Peace. Seek not the peace that Makes the sword rust in its sheath. Wounds shall heal But rusted swords... Ah, my friends What can we do to ease th...

Make haste You're late. The sun has set And the darkness is deepening. The cry that you hear, That you keep hearing, is more distant now And you're beset with Thickets and bushes that grasp At your limbs and clothes, Slowing your every step. Break into a run now If your aching limbs, your burning lungs, Allow it. Because each yard Will seem like a mile After nightfall Each step Will sap your courage. The night is deepening. Fields and forests and rocky outcrops Are now shadows that menace The mind. What do you see? Beware, it is a lie. Each step is a stumbling block. What seems like soft grass Will shred your feet like glass. Yet make haste. You're late. The cry that you heard, that you kept hearing, is but a silence now. Search now in panic. But where? Grope in the dark bushes... but for what? Ah, but you've walked too many miles, Traveller, To hold a cold, lifeless hand And know what you've known all along: You're late.

Our greatest joy in life can leave the biggest hole in our hearts, she reflected, standing before the mirror, studying the way her saree now draped around her. It looked good. To an outsider, it would look perfect. It would look as though nothing had changed. But everything had changed. Oh God, how rapidly everything had changed! Two months? No, less! Far less. Tears welled up in her eyes. She wept for herself. And then she wept for her husband. Sobbing softly, she wept for them both. Just a few weeks had elapsed since she had felt those lumps near her armpit, while soaping herself in the bathroom. Concerned, she had called her husband in. He had stepped into the wet bathroom, grinning. "So, you want me to help you soap yourself, huh? With pleasure, darling, with pleasure!" Suppressing the anxiety that was already gnawing at the pit of her stomach, she had handed him the bar of soap, and allowed him to soap her breasts, closing her eyes. It never ceased to amaze her how mu...

1.15 PM. February 8, 1965. A boy and a girl, unmindful of the sun, Sought some private moments on A lonely pier stretching into the Arabian Sea. An entwining of limbs, heavy breathing, a cry And millions of enterprising sperms were swimming Upstream in a mixture of viscous fluids. Some minutes or hours later, A hard-working little fellow Impregnated a singularly fortunate egg And I came into existence. From being a nothing, a nobody, I became a somebody. The rest of those millions of sperms… Each of whom could equally have become A little boy or a girl Were doomed at this exalted moment To be flushed down the drains With so much urine. So were these sacred moments or profane ones? Moments of creation or destruction? Were they beautiful or ugly? Were they sublime or smelly? Did my dad talk dirty? Did mom's cries of pleasure Disturb the sea gulls Or cause an unseen fisherman to hurry To meet his own beloved? To th...

Pressing my need into yours I gaze into your eyes Searching in their depths for an answer: a look that says, "Yes... you are deeply mine. We are One." But your eyes smile, and say instead, "This moment is ours. Journey on." And our limbs and our fingers intertwine comfortingly. Heaven is within us, palpable within the rhythm of our fluid molten flesh poised like an ocean wave about to break, waiting to descend like a thunderclap, a cry of migratory birds, a foretaste of eternal sleep. I have but to close my eyes, match my rhythm, submit to its oceanic will, let it take me, crush me into myself into itself into nothingness into allness. It is a breath waiting to be drawn. But I... I will not draw that breath. I gaze into your open eyes waiting for a fleeting affirmation of Oneness. I sense the moment slipping away from us. Your lids grow heavy, breathing quickens. A sigh, gasp, shudder. Molten flesh releases its heat. You ascend to your own private heaven. I gaze...

It is like a song that is sung in the dark. Her voice, rising, falling, rising higher Like waves, like the sea And his low voice as he urges her on. He delights in her cries, And she... She delights in herself, in free-falling Away from herself Into herself Hurtling backwards in the soft darkness Towards herself, arms and legs outspread. And she cries out in longing and the Joy of meeting And he responds to her song With his rhythm, Causing the waves in her belly, In her entire being. Waves that collapse upon themselves In a froth of pleasure And a high note through clenched teeth that trails Into silence And makes itself one with the night. Naked limbs softly twine and intertwine all night Warm brown flesh caressing luxurious cool white flesh Now in sleep, now in wakefulness... Silken smoothness pressed against creamy softness Dripping pleasure slowly like a burning candle all night Melting down but not quite going out before dawn. The song continues to play in the silence And ne...

I write this tinged with sadness. I feel sorry for us... For the tragic comedy that is the essential human condition. In the midst of a carnival of plenty, Some of us are dying of thirst. In the midst of a deluge of love, Some of us feel left out and lonely. There is no dearth of emotional give-and-take in the crowd of relations that we stand amidst... Father, mother, brother, sister, son daughter, spouse, lover... And yet we suffer bouts of feeling heartsick and unloved. Yes, I feel sorry for all of us. Poor forked animal, whose overdeveloped mind afflicts him, Ambushes him with emotions that have little to do with the present. Poor forked animal, who carries a baggage of emotions from the past, And borrows some more from an imagined future. Poor forked animal, who cannot be simply happy With things as they are. We live our lives with the sour aftertaste of Yesterdays and yesteryears. We live with the bittersweet foretaste Of what the morrow will bring. We live in a world that has...

When the cold steel sliced into my belly, There was no pain, only discomfort. Gazing into her eyes from a kissing distance, I wondered Did they show betrayal, hatred Or did they continue to speak of love? Maybe both. Maybe neither. They spoke a brutal truth: “You are you and I am I... And since you question that, Let your flowing blood answer your questions.” Ah! Blackness came and went. Life ebbed with each heartbeat. Blood in spurts stained her fingers As they held the dagger firmly in place. They were the reason I was still standing. And then came the release And a gentle shove backward Dropped me to the floor, still gazing. We never lost eye-contact Even when my head struck the stair With a crack that rang deep in my nostrils. Kneeling, she took the kerchief from my pocket Deliberately wiped each finger clean And caressed my cheek. I pouted, Mmmwah. A silent flying kiss. She playfully caught it in her hand And...

Not all dogmas originate in religious mumbo-jumbo, old customs and beliefs. Some of the most injurious dogmas are invisible to us because they are woven into our social millieu -- the secular-global-careerist-consumerist culture that prevails. Let me pinpoint one such dogma IDGiSA-IDTaSA (pronounced as 'Idgeesa-Idtaasa). The full form is: "I don't give shit to anyone, I don't take shit from anyone." We have a minds-eye picture of a model citizen who lives and lets live -- a pleasant, helpful, no-nonsense person. And we each believe that we are this model citizen. And therefore, when we percieve someone as interfering in our lives, we turn indignant and say, "IDGiSA-IDTaSA!!!" It's a dogma. It is thoroughly untrue. Living is a process of giving shit and taking shit as well as gold. You exhale what I inhale, you fart what I inhale... and unless I learn to hold my breath for a verry long time, I doubt I can escape a whiff of what's in your re...

1.15 PM. February 8, 1965. A boy and a girl, unmindful of the sun, Sought some private moments on A lonely pier stretching into the Arabian Sea. An entwining of limbs, heavy breathing, a cry And millions of enterprising sperms were swimming Upstream in a mixture of viscous fluids. Some minutes or hours later, A hard-working little fellow Impregnated a singularly fortunate egg And I came into existence. From being a nothing, a nobody, I became a somebody. The rest of those millions of sperms… Each of whom could equally have become A little boy or a girl Were doomed at this exalted moment To be flushed down the drains With so much urine. So were these sacred moments or profane ones? Moments of creation or destruction? Were they beautiful or ugly? Were they sublime or smelly? Did my dad talk dirty? Did mom's cries of pleasure Disturb the sea...

[Friendship, love and trust have many meanings. This story is about one of these meanings.] He lay awake in bed, waiting for her to finish her kitchen winding-up chores and join him. By the time she came in and began undressing for bed, he was very nearly asleep. With drowsy eyes, he gazed at her taking off her saree. She had grown a bit plump of late, but it only made him love her more. "There is more of you to hug now than when I married you," he sighed, wrapping his arms and legs around her in the dim light of the bedlamp. "This is sheer luxury!" She reciprocated by kissing him, and then turned around, determined to fall asleep quickly. Tomorrow was another tough day ahead, and she would have to cook a full formal lunch, keeping in mind his guest. Not just the daal-chaval that she made on days when she was feeling tired. "Turn off the lights, please," she said sleepily. "Not yet," he breathed in her ear. "Let me enjoy looking at...

My experiences over the past couple of days, detailed in my earlier blogs, has given me an insight. The way I used to understand the saying, “To err is human, to forgive, divine”, was like this: People who err are being only human, but  those who forgive others are being more than just human, ie. divine . That’s not how I see it now. My present interpretation is: To err is second-nature to humans, but to forgive is not so easy;  it requires divine intervention and Grace . I’m not saying that people have no responsibility in the matter. One must, at some level, want to let go of all the bitterness, pain and hunger for vengeance. One must, at some level, make a conscious choice to be happy and free, as opposed to resentful and tied up to the past. However, having taken this conscious position, one cannot consciously forgive as an act of volition. One may say,  “Jao, maaf kiya”  but the heart is not cleansed by just those words. Only the rainfall of forgivene...

Like I said in an earlier post, a crucial thing that they don’t teach you at school is that being a winner in life isn’t about winning in all that you do, but about building a good relationship of give-and-take with the world around you. How do you do that? Well, mostly by trusting and being trustworthy. You set out every morning trusting that the world and its creatures will treat you right, and play fair by you. You make a habit of casting a generally benign eye at everything and everyone. Without necessarily setting out to be a do-gooder, you must generally cultivate the feeling that if the call to serve comes (whatever that may mean in that particular context), you will serve honestly without holding back for any reason. That’s the sort of vague but firm belief that we have in our key relationships — with our parents, siblings, spouses, children and close friends. In the absence of this promise to the world, your relationship with the world and all that lives in it,  including...