LM

Cloaked in orange, and without speaking 

She waited, barely moving, teasing 

This iridescent orb of light

She hid behind the shades of night  

But even through clouds as dark as ink

She shimmered, and made you stop to think 

And I, through the leafy greens and a copse of trees

I wondered if she'd heard my plea?

For an armour just as light and grand-

An armour behind which to stand

And then I thought I heard her say,

You are the most foolish girl I've met today

This armour, the colour of golden sand

This thing behind which I stand

Is nothing but reflected light

You see it only because of night.

Stars

A missing piece, gone.
The fracture, razor sharp.
Porcelain left splintered,
bereft.
Forgotten.

It is still strong,
This broken cup;
Streaked and cracked,
Containing fluid,
held together by physics.

I am not jagged,
Nor cold
By comparison.
I fill up my missing parts
With skin and cells.

If there could be
a machine to see such parts re-grown,
I might seem to some
like a patchwork in shades of brown,
warmed up from the morning sun.

My thoughts are glue,
And from the ashes I build
Pulling from that land of fragments lost,
those worthy of being up-cycled, reframed
Made back into a cup.

This cup which I hold,
My container and me,
Sustainer, maintainer.
A home, and yet fluid,
Held together by the stuff of stars.

The Bakery

Some experiences are like the simplest of perfumes. They appear unannounced, breathing gently on your shoulder, till you feel a  quiet calmness pooling in your belly, and only then, do you begin to pay attention to the subtle event that caused it. Some experiences are like simple perfumes you would like to hold captive in closed rooms, fearing that one open window, or a crack in the door, and that precious, fragrant, cloud will waft right out. It will be gone, and you will be left waiting for the same set of circumstances, the right blend of ingredients, atmospheric conditions and mental spaces for it to appear again.

***

She walked by the bakery three times before finally entering it. It had been raining all morning and she had been up since 6am. Given that several hours had passed since then, it was surprising that she hadn’t managed to have her cup of coffee or something to eat yet. She wanted to be sure that this was the right places to break her fast, that the next morsel she put in her mouth would be worth it. It would be her reward for the mornings effort.

An elderly Singaporean lady with short permed hair greeted her with a good morning as she stepped in, pausing only momentarily as she stacked an assortment of freshly baked bread on the shelf, wearing slacks and white polyester top.

Oh no, thought the early riser, it is still too early, they haven’t even stocked the shelves yet. But she was inside already, and it was raining, and there was nowhere else to go. Besides, time was of essence, there were things to do after this as well.  She sought out a plastic tray that was made to look like wood and a pair of tongs. Behind the protective cases in wicker baskets on the shelf were muffins and a few donuts. She picked a chocolate muffin for her daughter, because she had promised; and debated between a chocolate banana and a simple banana muffin for her husband. Knowing he did not care much for walnuts, she settled on a simple banana muffin for him. Now, she thought, if I can just decide what I want.

Sour Cherry. An odd flavor for a muffin, but she liked cherry. The almonds on the top were a bonus. With those three things on her tray she made her way to the cashier to pay. “Do you do take away coffee?” she asked.

“Of course,” replied the lady behind the counter, also Singaporean, nodding her head, the glasses on her nose shaking, making the crystal beads on its safety chain gently tinkle and then sparkle in the yellow shop light which was at complete odds with the grey, rain drenched day.

The order established, she let her attention wander to the back corner of the room. There were supply boxes, a cauliflower, other vegetables, some paper napkins. Three customers sat discussing business over cups of coffee. Across the cashier was the store front; a large glass window covered in ‘peblets’, her daughter's baby words from years ago. Droplets of water that look like pebbles. Enough peblets to have a change of heart. “I think I’ll have my coffee here,” she said, and encouraged by the lady, she left the tray at the cashier’s counter and took a seat in front of a window.

“Today is a day to drink tea and coffee,” said the cashier lady as she dropped off steaming coffee in a white porcelain cup. The bagged muffins were placed on the side, along with the milk and sugar. “You must relax. Sit down. Drink” she said as she walked away.

Automatically she tore open the orange packet of sugar. She added some milk and then added some more. Sipped. Waited. Sipped.

A noise to the right told her the cashier was back. Two plates, one under the other, and one knife. The top plate contained a multi-grain croissant. “I am having my breakfast,” she said, “I share with you. Today is a day to relax. I share with you, ok,” and she promptly cut the buttery croissant down the middle, slid a portion onto the second plate and walked off with the other half, saying, “Use your fingers, ok.”

She waited a bit, unsure if the cashier would come back and join her eat, unsure of what use your fingers meant, unsure if she had even said yes to the croissant, or even a thank you, once it appeared. But nothing more happened. And so she ate it, slowly, with her fingers. First the crunchy tip, next the flaky crust on top and finally the soft, moist, center. The coffee magically disappeared as well. She got up finally and settled her bill with the older aunty, who had finished stocking the bread.

On a table by the door, seated with a folder of accounts, was the cashier, whom she now knew to be the owner of the bakery. She thanked her, complimented her on the quality of her croissant and promised to relax on such a day, as she made her way outside into the rain. A strange warmth had bloomed, a hunger had been satiated, the croissant had become more than just bread, it had become a multi-grained symbol of generosity, of gratitude, and of care. Only later, when she played back the events of the day, did she realize that the second half of the croissant still lay untouched on the owner’s plate, as she poured over her own files, pen in hand, and her glasses with the crystal beads still shimmering with each movement of her head.

The Cow

The Cow

A woman crossed the road the other day
Plump, like any other woman
carrying a paper packet under her arm.

In a black skirt and cream shirt with heels, 

she clicked and clacked to the middle of the road.
Then stood and waited
Till the last car passed by.

And from the other side as I crossed her path,
I caught her eye. 

Liquid,
Almost transparent, like light tea, glistening,
encased in porcelain, reflecting the afternoon.

Soft lashes, 

Sad behind mascara. 

Eyes,like the cow that had stilled,

Entangled, in the middle of the street
with cars from all sides; 

horns, brakes jarring- screeching.

Brown cow, jangling her bell.
Plump like any other cow
Crossing the street.

Flesh

It is the middle of the afternoon, and amid the honking cars that are playing popular Bollywood music and the cry of street hawkers, I can hear the steady dirge 'Ram Nam, Satya Hai', over and over again.  Then, as I look into the narrow crowded street, past the jutting balconies on either side caked with dust and nests of electrical wires, and into the thicket of overlapping tin shop roofs and swarms of moving black heads, I see the shroud.  It is lying on a barely visible wooden stretcher, covered completely like a mummy in a white cloth surrounded by yellow and orange marigolds. The four men that carry this stretcher on their shoulders are shouting the familiar refrain of mourning over and over again. As they pass by, I can see the mass of life of the street beneath me. It moves slowly like one enormous, pulsating, snake, weaving its way through the concrete. Some people raise their hands slowly, touching their foreheads in a semi salute, asking for blessing, exhibiting respect- not to the dead body that is passing by, but to the spirit, the atman, the eternal spirit that has been liberated through this ultimate shedding of the skin, hoping that this earns them good karma, or a place in the hallowed halls of the gods.
Immediately after the body passes, their arms drop to their sides, elbows jutting out slightly as they battle their way through the crowd from the bus stop and train station across the road to their workplace, maybe at the Parsi Dairy Farm outlet or Liteolia- the light shop, where I can see the chandeliers like big crystal wedding cakes hanging in the window. For them, the somber moment is gone. Its back to clutching worn out plastic bags full of stuff, metal tiffin boxes, heavy with their lunch, and important paper folders that contain real world problems. Its time to get on with the day for these people on the outside, but for me, it is time to reflect, to quietly contemplate. 

Comfortable in my house, cooled by the large rusty fan, I sit contentedly and ruminate.  Outside on the street, each person’s atman is the eternal; and the body, only that which becomes a ‘once was’.  All those ‘once was-es’, baking in the glaring heat, slowly disintegrating, just like a tar covered Mumbai city street that starts to melt when the sun is its most cruel in the summer.

And then there is the shrouded body, just lying there with no alternative but to accept everything it is dealt.  I know being dead means not being able to feel or think.  The body is now almost the same as any lifeless object; devoid of what one might commonly refer to as essential humanness- that very quality that made all those people stop everything they were doing this morning, even if for a fleeting second, to pay their respects. 'Ram Nam Satya Hai’- Only God is true, there is nothing else. 

The body is on its way to Chandanvadi, the cremation grounds where it will be burnt to a grey soot in an electrically heated chamber.  The ashes will then be collected and sprinkled in the sea or perhaps taken all the way to Benaras, the holy city, where they will be set afloat in a pot on the Ganges.  They will be disposed of in such a way that it will not be possible to revisit them in any concrete, physical way.  There will be no tombstone or grave, no marker of the burial ground. Instead they will be dispersed by the wind and drunk by the sea; there will be no holding on. Only memory.
       I think of a hill, the tallest hill among the seven islands that now make up Bombay, where lies the formidable Parsi burial ground, the Tower of Silence.  Once it was a quiet place, surrounded by deciduous forest, far removed from the scant population of Maharashtrian fisher folk and high-class baboos.  Today, however, the Tower of Silence contends with the high rise skyscrapers that have encroached inland from the coastal beaches. And here, in these secular towers, live the newly arrived intelligentsia, who are easily shocked by the barbaric practices that still take place within the walls, behind the locked iron gates.  But they have never been inside the Tower.  Instead, what they fear is a creation of their own imagination.  The only people who know what really goes on inside are all Parsi and even they cannot see the well at the pinnacle of the hill.
The families of the dead are expected to stay within the grounds for a span of three days in a cluster of bungalows at the foot of the hill on which the actual tower is located, so that the souls of the departed can remain near them.  I have been inside a bungalow only once when I was very young.  It was the last place I saw my grandfather.  After the purification rites had taken place, I remember his body being cleansed for the last time on the evening of the third day.  After that, pallbearers carried him on an iron stretcher up the mound, as a train of people, all Parsi, followed quietly.  I was not allowed to go through those gates however, for I am not a Zoroastrian.
But it was almost not necessary to go up.  I knew the ritual; that the body would be laid naked and exposed to the harsh glare of the sun and eventual downpour of the rain, until vultures picked off the flesh and the elements had pulverised the bone into a white powdery mass that would later be washed down into the well, into the deep recesses of the earth, the secret heart of the Zoroastrian Tower. Gruesome as this knowledge is, it was never kept secret from me- even at that young age I knew what was happening to my dead grandfather.  I knew that his body; which would have felt the slightest of mosquito bites when alive; now no longer felt anything, even the vultures ripping flesh from bone.

Then at six am the morning after his body had been laid at the tower, I remember awaking from a deep, dreamless sleep.  The room was unfamiliar, but not threatening, and as I viewed it through a filter of blue morning light, I heard a shrill-pitched cry.  It was not human, and if it was animal I had never heard anything like it before. It seemed to start at the top of the hill way above our bungalow and curve and bend its way down, until, it had wrapped everything in close proximity with its sound.  Then came a steady thumping, not unlike the sound of hail hitting the ground, only louder.  Flock after flock of peacocks in florescent blue, green, and black then came streaming down the hill in an unearthly glow of iridescence, until every inch of space in front of the bungalow in which I had been staying was flooded with peacocks pecking at the ground. They lowered their strong necks to pluck all the grain from the gravel, swallowing it with a delicate contraction of their throats and a quick soft gurgle.  I do not know how long they were there, but when they left as suddenly as they came the sun was shining bright in the sky.
I was amazed and oddly happy all at once, for I remember this scene vividly, as vividly as I had seen the shrouded body being carried on the street littered with marigold flowers.  Many, many Marigold flowers. They were common enough, and seemed to be everywhere. Bright, mildly fragrant, edible. I even held one between my own fingers. My own fingers. I realise, finally, that it is no longer just somebody that they carry to the burning chambers of Chandanvadi. It is no longer someone unknown and unrelated.  And I am surprised that I do not vomit at the realisation. That motionless body, covered and shrouded, is mine.

Tide

There once was a shell,
On a moonlit beach,
In the cool, soft sand,
by the sea.

And every night,
That shell would wish,
To go home, 
where it was wild and free.

Every bump,
On its bleached white shell,
Wrote its story,
for all to see.

And its hollow curve,
Held a distant crash,
Of a stormy wave,
that played incessantly.

Then one night,
When the moon was full,
Like a glowing pearl,
in the sky.

The big waves came,
And scoured the sand,
With grooves,
and crested high.

The shell did yearn,
Till the right wave came,
picked him up, 
and rode back out on a sigh.

***

There once was a shell,
In the swirling depths,
In the dark,
at the bottom of the sea.

And every night,
It cried out in vain,
To be spat back out again-
to feel new, and calm; yet free.

To lay in the light of the moon,
On the cool, soft sand-
In a still, safe place; away from the waves-
A place where he could simply be.

Eclipse

Eclipse

I know these are not pretty hands, as I peel my skin off of my finger tips with my nails. Snowflakes, I think, as the coiled curves gently fall, adding to the existing debris on the floor, mirroring the outside where a dusting of white snow lies unmoving in the still night. These bits of me fallen off, soft skin bits becoming hard and dried in the winter air. Exuviated.

If I could peel you, just like this, from my mind, I would. I’d leave dehydrated bits of you on my floor. Would that leave you thinner, less bright? The parts of you I have with me, do you even know that they are missing? Or have I given a body to just your shadow? Are you whole and complete somewhere else, while I flay skin to forget you?

I hear a car drive down the street, a momentary beam of light makes its trajectory across the ceiling of my single room and then disappears, leaving nothing behind. Even though the heat is on, the tip of my nose is cold. The radiator clanks suddenly and then settles back down. This silence is a hollow sound, punctuated by the steady sound of my nails on skin. Punctuated, repeatedly, until punctured. I’ve drawn blood. Again. My sticky fingers tell me that. Yet, I feel no pain. These tortured hands, marked with a thousand stories, are hands that I hide from most people. Funny thing, to hide your hands. Its almost like hiding your face. Maybe I do that... hide my face, showing only some chosen parts. Do I leave gaping holes in my narrative that others have to fill in? Is that what I did to you, leave you to fill in parts of me, complete my story; feeling let down, angry, cheated when you could not. 

I know there is a tub of vaseline on the table somewhere. I should get up out of my chair. I should reach for the vaseline and coat my finger thickly with it; soothe the skin, make it better, make it so that it can be put out in public again...in public. 

The leafless trees tremble ever so slightly in front of the filament of a street light. I cannot move.