BLIND

And so it returned.

Like a chuckle on an infant's face.
Like the Sunrays on a dead sky.
Like the flicker in the realm of dark desires.
Like the blink in her stony eyes.

Now that it had come back, its return only seemed inevitable. The symphony of joy played on and on somewhere in the backdrop of a Faded Dusk. Something had dawned back in time, somebody was dead. There was no funeral.
There was laughter all around. Like the sunrays glittering on a tranquil ocean, with the certainity of a Storm breathing far far away. There was time. Now she had all the time in the world. "We'll miss you," they had told her. She didnt respond, for, she never missed anything. She was beautiful. "And dont drink too much coffee, it aint good for your health" they added.

But little did they know that the harm had already been done. She had departed.
She reached. He laughed at the people she'd left behind. She smiled in return, "See where you were leaving me."

"I knew you wouldnt stay there, lady," he replied simply.

The colors felt alive. Black was not a color, anymore.

The lush green was being lent the hue of a golden sunshine by their laughter.
The wave of laughter spread across the fields, and the flowers bloomed with a freshness that was alien to the Earth.

He whispered, "I never knew....."

He looked at the black in the sky fading away into a prussian blue. Had he blinked, he'd never had seen how a single ray of light could bring the shades of Sunshine in a Dark Sky. How easily should it touch life in a never ending night sky. He could never blink now. He was alive. He could not afford to miss out life now.
He was happy leaving his future in the hands of a present drop of sunshine. He questioned the Ray about the stars. He loved them. She shook her head and the smile came from within her eyes, "I know....They will always be there", It seemed as if there were two stars in her eyes. And he thought if he could just keep looking in her eyes he wouldn't need the stars.

The sky kept on changing colors- like a life.

Black. Blue. Pink. Orange. Golden. Yellow.

Then it turned so bright that it was difficult to imagine the existence of darkness. Night had no meaning now. He studied the sky. He heard some voices. She strengthened her grip on his hand. He turned to look at her, see if she was scared. But her eyes showed something else. The excitement of being airborne for the first time in a lifetime. She laughed with him.

From where they both stood, they saw that there was life, after all. They cherished this life as a blind would cherish a new found pair of white and black so that he could see the colors.

This wasnt hope.
This was reality of a beautiful dream.

A MAN AND A WOMAN

This is not a love story.
Only true.

A Man. There was a man who walked the thin line of "had been" and "will be".
He didn't belong to any of the elements. He mocked Water and Air. Earth and Sky. He played with the Ball of Fire as it transcended different worlds and different time zones. Come Dusk, come Night, I could always find him there. The undeniable Master of Puzzles. The irresistible Quizzer of Riddles and Rhymes.

As he spoke, the meaning of his words became more emphasized with the chords and the scales of the piano lending his words the audacity of a soothsayer. Haunting.
A Woman. The woman shuttled in between different worlds, trying to make two ends meet and never meeting the end, never once belonging to any world.

She was too intrepid for her sex. And too atheist for her religion. She was an element that was not yet discovered. She teased the storms, she made the tension grow deeper with her every leap and slide on the waves and winds.

She was warned many times by the rage of gods and devils alike, that her acts of temerity and insolent heedlessness will be punished. She laughed. "Take this heart, and break it," they had said to the world. But the world looked on helplessly at the heavens and hells. Enigma.

A Man and a Woman. She had fallen here and risen to unmatched impertinence.
The world was His playground.

The spirits has risen when he'd summoned them, mesmerized by the extent of his pertness.

Many dismissed him as imaginary, unreal. They had argued with me: after all, I couldn't see him. But then, I wondered, even a horizon by definition, is an imaginary line. Unreal. Yet, one could see it. Unreal, but your sight could zero in on that line running far far away, with a beginning and continuity, with no grasping end. Infinity. If a so called "unreal" thing could be seen by a mortal eye, imagine what else can be seen if one opened the doors where the power of imaginations lay unsummoned in our cores.

So the horizon, though termed as imaginary, did exist. The only frustrating factor was that it could never be reached! It was there, mocking all of us.
And then who set the parameters of imagination? The extent to which we could let loose, and hold something back? Parameters of dreams and practicality and time? Two hands that dictated all our lives. Mortality.

No, spare the woman these boundaries. She won’t stay here. She set her own imaginations, waltzing in between her Dreams, with the chords of a soft and a violent guitar electrifying her presence. You could see her, but you could never touch her. Her presence and existence similied with that of the horizon.
Visible, but untouched, and unattainable.

And when the world argued with me about his existence and non existence, I told them, "No thanks," and walked away. It was in the maze of all these countless silent defenses that he mocked me, "So, you'll defend me, now?"
I granted him that pleasure.

The woman kept walking on the line, he made it.
He was the ground beneath her feet- she stood tall, unquestionable, and he was the pride.

She smiled and he was the dimple in her cheek, and the twinkle in her eye.
He was nowhere, he was everywhere. In the shadows. In the dark forbidden room of desires. Never together, never apart. Their realization of being inseparable leaving them as they shuttled in the mortal world, only to come back again to both of them: stronger and more violent in their transparency.

They were new instances of inhibition. Naked. Transparent.

He had known what it was to color a rainbow, and she had counted all the colors that could possibly exist here.
They both had refused the crumbs off the world's table. Hunger was such a big issue with them.
The sky struggled to cover both of them. The man moved with the Earth. Fast. Slow. Fast. Slow.
And the woman flirted with the orbit of the planet. Rising. Descending. Up. Down.
Anti- stationary.
From the stillness of a heartbeat comes alive a deep violence. It was this violence that had confirmed both of them the remotest possibility of their sync of heartbeats. Soundless, but alive with a shocking violence. Dangerous. Natural.
There was a thread that connected the Man and the Woman. A certain degree of stillness, and music. The beats of chords, strums and scales mixing together. Subtle, at the beginning, and rising as a tension filled climax.

He defied Death. She defined Life.

He breathed. Her bosom made a movement.

They were the original of the species. And they carried the weight of the concept very well:
It is they who decide/
Whether they live or if they Die/
From each other they mysteriously hide....
The mysterious distance between a Man and a Woman.
And I wake up from a sleepless bed to write their story.

Taste

It had begun.

And it was here to stay. At least I am not letting it go.
Silence. Silence of a storm brings more violence to the act itself. This, I thought, is the point when the fears depart only to let the void of a lifetime to set in. A vacuuming act.

A ray passes through it occasionally. It reminds me the taste of the coldness in a frozen strawberry. Ripe. Luscious.

It reminds me of my first-ever flight. Adrenaline. The thrill of being alive, and not being seen.

A golden field with the orange sun teaching me the meaning of freedom.
The vertical horizon that I discovered aboard a Kolkata-bound flight.
The first kiss and the joy of knowing how insatiable "insatiable" can really be.
It reminds me of a beautiful thorn on a Black Rose.
Promises beautifully kept and more beautifully broken.
It reminds me the silent answers of the Hunter pointing towards a more silent horizon in a faded blue sky, telling me that I wasn’t a hopeless case.

A funeral wherein I laughed and laughed. The birth of someone wherein I cried and cried.

Was there anything in this world that defined happiness and sadness? Events were events. How you faced them was entirely up to you. If you cried, or if you smiled.
Happiness, like life and death, is so relative.
The softest zephyr and an evening song of the most melodious symphony.
The most grateful blink.

The most shiny glitter in my eye. The loudest clap of red thunder on the black horizon. And how fast I ran, as I saw the rain approaching. I knew I would be wet, but I wanted the thrill of escape. A battle I wanted to fight for its thrill though I knew I'd submit blissfully.
Snap shots of life.

A ray fills the void and brings back a slide show of events.
Fears evaporated and only detachment settled in. On the greenest leaves of my eyes. Dew Drops. A sunrise would make them evaporate. Evanesce. Detachment. Indifference. Loss of sense. There was no sense of loss. Or gains, for that matter. Let the judge decide. My defense rests. The verdict of silence was accepted by me. The judge's pronunciation would not matter anymore. Noise.
And the silence was taking unbelievable forms now. I was amazed at this faceless entity. May be I was seeing myself. Bare. The tattoo was engraved. Happy Birthday to me.

A new beginning. A subsiding twilight, and the dawn of a starry night. The skies cleared. The hunter was there to welcome me. My sole companion in the midst of the most important journey of my life. I'd found this night in the treasure vaults of my dreams. I'd resurrected it. I shot up, and I felt the speed. I had begun. I was flying at the speed of thought. Airborne. And I beckoned the life to catch up with me. I teased the meteorites and the comets to catch me if they could. But the meteorites swung in between heavenly bodies and comets were married to the sun. A dimple surfaced on my cheeks. It felt so warm here.
I understood gravity now: I was defying it.

One day I looked back and I saw the metamorphosis in the world: as per the seasons- rain, winter, and summer. I was above this now.
I was flying, teasing the heavenly bodies, and the gods (whom the people never resurrected anymore). I blew up stardust in my wake as I covered my dangerous descent. I was lost forever.

I had to keep this secret. Was I ever coming back again?
And if, at this point, you could taste me, you'd know what rapture tastes like.

Magic

Here it comes again.
The smile never ceases to stop dancing my face.

I tell it to go somewhere deeper where the world shouldn’t be able to find it, somewhere in the core. Like in my eyes. But it says that my heart's full, so is my soul. My eyes too sparkled, betraying the fact that I am flirting with the Sea. Romancing the horizon. Laughing with the Hunter. So it has to reflect on my face. In the mischievous dimples, in the lips that never part but speak volumes. The spirit moves. Like the flashes of lightening. A promise of a Storm. A smile that continues to flirt my face.

In the past 54 hours I was glued to my passion. My work. I worked non-stop, thanks to the season of announcements, which the entire country is waiting for. I could not have cared less. But it was passion that governs my life, and so it was. Working and never for once tiring. There was no time, yet every second counted. I was here in the mortal world, racing and defeating time, with a dangerous calm of indifference of existence. I had a home now. I was like an old lady, aged ninety eight years, who had the wisdom pearls firmly in place, reminding myself with a cold detachment that I'd seen this before. Déjà vu. At the same time I felt alive, with a brand new heart beat. His words and my heart beat. Ecstasy. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.

The Hunter had gone out last night. But there was a shiny red light shimmering on its bow, atop his proud head. I had come out of my workplace, to straighten my frame. Perhaps it was to look at the Hunter - both in the sky, better known as the Orion, and atop the tall building (the sharer of my dreams and déjà vu), the Horizon, and the Sea.

My best friends. I asked them if they had heard of him.

Everyone responded to my question. The Hunter sparkled in the night sky, smiling at my inquisitiveness as a star fell from his belt, somewhere in another world, but I could see it so clearly. The Zephyr played little too intimately with my bare hands and the made way through my skin, right into my soul, telling me that the summer is here. The Sea sparkled with the radiance of a thousand lights. The red light atop the Hunter's proud head shimmered too, with a never-before mischief.
I smiled.

He was here. There was silence; there was the brewing storm, and a strong déjà vu pressing on to my senses, as I saw the sea through the strands of my hair pleasantly blocking my sight.

The Zephyr touched my bare shoulder, and as I turned back, the smile never for once leaving my eyes and lips, the warmth never leaving the contours of my soul, I felt the magic within. There was so much magic around us. There was so much life. There were so many nights ahead of me and my eyes waiting to dream. My heart waiting to create a symphony everytime I blinked. The music of lonliness. The Ecstasy of living a Life. The Freedom.

I returned back, settling in my chair, and continuing to ensure my work that it still was the cynosure of all the passion and energy that I was capable of. It complained to me that I looked at it differently. I was here, but alive in a faraway world. The coffee complained that my tongue tasted differently. It asked me who else had tasted me. What energized me, besides it. I laughed, and said that there was no one else that I could ever share that passion with. The night swiftly gave into day; people came here and asked me if I was alright. I told them I was. They asked me if had slept properly last night- my eyes were so alive. The lights of the day asked me what was I concealing beneath my black shirt, clinging to my skin as if it didnt want to share the sacred evidence of being trespassed.

They asked me why was the metallic wrist watch - a little too large for my wrist- dangling as if I didnt acknowledge the concept of time. Was it a heartbeat, or a mark deeper than the shade of my shirt? From where was the music coming? Or may be it was my black shirt and the metallic wrist watch that endlessly intrigued them. Too many questions. I smiled. I told them that it was a heartbeat, a sound that affirms life.Coffee was great, and so was my work. I was a deadline machine, after all. What I didnt tell them was the fact that time never mattered to me. The hide and seek of the dimples in my smile told them that they had every reason to believe that I was alright.

But then the flickering of the Night sky and the memory of the falling star in my eyes, that I had seen , gave away the secret. Only I knew the secret and the meaning of its betrayal.

[February 2006]

The Human Touch v/s Supernatural

Heart break. Tears. Pain. Love.

Was this a chain? Or were they really co-related to each other, mutually exclusive of each other, stressing each other's existence? Like leech? Or was it an analogy that was above questioning?

She never really understood why there was so much pain and hurt in the mortal world. But then, there were many things she didn't follow that were rampant here. Yes, she did unbelong.

A broken heart. Infinite stories recited time and again by individuals. Some succumbed to the pleasures of the bed over the sacred bleeding heart. While some clinged on to their meanderings letting the world coronate them as "weird" and "outcast" from the social circle. The Human Touch.

The white coats of the world examined in the laboratories of the world and concluded that it was no more than a pounding organ, responsible for receiving and supplying blood to the arteries and veins, much less the fact that it was red and "heart" shaped. The black coats of the world pacifying couples and buying them divorce. It just depended on how much money you had to offer. But the mortals did not care. Nor did it refrain the advertising agencies from publishing countless cards with romantic nothings scribbled over and over them, glorifying the manifests of the pounding organ. The cupid sure looks cute. And sells, too. The creative beasts were out, after all. Unleashed. Unchecked.
I wonder haven't they discovered the human brain yet??? The human mind is oft given less credit.

People always needed some entity to "love". Breathing. Flesh. Teeth. Hair. Skin. This was all that love is. The most photogenic face. The most dazzling smile. The most fair skin. A perception of the eye sight. "What I see is what I believe," they say. Sight, and belief, locked out the power of imagination. Dreams. Dreams came only in the night, and 't was best to forget them. Not consequential, they told her. And they also asked her how come a "practical" person like her dreamt, and remembered them too? They had every reason to be surprised. Sight and belief, they chanted. She could not decipher the meaning, nor the language and they wanted her to become the interpreter. But instead, she became a story teller. Intrepid, voicing the tales of a far away world. Unheard. And uncalled. Sight and belief, they tried to voice her down. She smiled. How she scared them!

They argued that theirs was an immaculate world. Crafted and moulded by the saints of their cultures. What was one man against a majority, they challenged me. Numbers were important. People were important, an individual was not. Majority mattered. Democracy had illustrated this. And please don't ask about the crimes that it entailed. They even said that a deviants was a criminal. Unforgivable sinner, for the fact that he lived in world of his own. Dreaming. Laughing at the mortality of the world. Isolated. My immaculate Hunter.

There was something called as collective strength. There was a security in being "supported" by others. Do not remind them of rarists who had left their footprints on a muddy river bank, still visible in the transparent water. Someone had really been to the so-called forbidden land. But they had were ensuring they had the last laugh as the river became flooded with dirt and brown water. So that the footprints cannot be seen. Naked eyes like hers, were dangerous. Supernatural.

They cried and celebrated the virtues of "love", as they reveled in the glory of photogenic lovers. The fading purple irises were in the background, which the camera could not see. This was what they called "happiness", and "beauty". Their eyes were so open. Blind. They tried to wake her up, too. But she was dreaming. They left her.

They had left her only to come back again, crying, telling her that these were the tears of sadness- the latter term she knew not- and they were slipping into the abyss of depression. She remained silent, unsure of what they wanted. They cried, save us. She was a powerful with words. Both written and spoken. They wanted to cling to her, and draw their energy from. Benefit of guilt. To be shouldered on her persona. Like leech. She remained silent, staring in their eyes. For a sign. A single vibrancy of life. She searched and searched. Please don't let my hope die, she was saying. Then she saw it. In abundance. And it wasn't life that she saw.

Every time you were depressed and you cried foul on the temple of your soul, your eyes, you were facing a death. You came close to being cemented in a breathing grave. Locked. Only you yourself had the key. Awesome, is it not, that you had a heart of your own and someone else to blame? And just in case if there wasn't a human entity to carry weight of the blame then, you always had a "god". There was a destiny, too, that could be burdened. Great backup plans. And the backups never failed.
Whatever it was, in the end, you needed an external source of sympathy but never once did you want to be alone. "Self" was a non-entity, after all. And this was a social world, where people always were there to share the laughter, drink the champagne, and party till sunrise. But when you cried, they miraculously disappeared. And then you went to Art of Living classes, indulged in some soul searching, and did some charity. Feel-good factors that still didn't feel that good, after all. Traveled the world, but never came home. Your own soul. But people were important.
Unfortunately, the concept of having people around, never diminished or nullified the perennial fear of being woken up one day only to find that you were all alone. No one to compliment you on that fantastic hair cut or the figure that you'd slogged hard for them to gape at. There was only silence. Loneliness. Such a forbidden dream. Loneliness could be so maddening, after all. Therefore the preference for noise. Justified? They'd asked her, in a desperate attempt for her approval. But cold that she'd always been, she disappointed them. She was always amused by them.

Wasn't shocking then, was the fact that people wanted love from others. Love. Marriage. Kids. A settled life. A perfect conclusion of love. The yearning for human touch. It was so natural. If you never loved yourself, how could you expect love from any other being save your own? Was the one pronunciation of the three words from a photogenic person enough to live your life? The best love story. A member of the world with a hot body, and a red heart, whom the world gapes at, coming to you and saying the words. Holding your hands, a pledge taken. A plunge taken. You leaped, but never looked. And when the tears- not of joy- brimmed in the eyes, you wondered where did it all go wrong. Let's leave the sight factor. Some people say, it is the mental attributes that matter. But sad, the appeal of the mental gifts don't last long enough for your lifetime. Or at least till your hair turned from black to grey, and told you that time was passing by. You'd always wanted to hold this world in your hands. A feast. A marriage card. People chomping away to glory. People around you. You were safe. And your soul that was never satisfied. Mysterious. A tragedy.

And is that person went away, out of your mortal reach, you'd be cemented in the breathing grave. But people never want to think about a grave. It is an epitome of melancholy. Sadness and grief. Why were people so scared, after being surrounded by people? Why did that one man who carried his pride as comfortably as his skin seem so dangerous? Love was reduced to a means of feeding your body a crumb off the desires.

Ever thought of a man sans the sight that's trained to look at the color of the highlights in his hair, the idle calculation as to how expensive his wristwatch must be, or did he enjoy smoke or drinks or women? For, when you were in bed with him, you would not be enjoying his six-pack body, but the manifest of his own soul. His deepest person. Ever thought of a man with brains? A man with pride? A man just himself? A man with whom your body could be safe just as your mind would be. A man that you could look up to, or even equally in the eye, for you were tired of being looked up on at?

What is it the "human touch" yearns for? A mere mortal. Wasn't there an equal passion to be explored in a non-entity? Your work. Your car. A house that you earned, and made a home. On your own. Ownership gave an immense pleasure. A non-entity that was capable of giving you pleasure, and that pure joy, untouched, unspoken. A passion that could never utter those three words but make you feel as if your existence here would not go unnoticed. A passion that was above words and betrayal. A passion that never asked you questions, and never made you ask any. A silent prayer. A thankful existence. A thread connecting two entities. A feeling that was to be enjoyed, and lived for, it would not ask you to die for it, as there was no death a human being could ever face, save the fact of being locked in a breathing grave all by yourself, with folded hands and open eyes, where you held the key. A feeling that never once left your mind or your soul. It was just there. Its presence could not be affirmed. It could not be denied. It was there. Naked. Transparent. There is more than just what meets the eye. Even if there was no human to touch or to say you those words, there still is meaning to life. There is more than love in life. Life. To be taken to greatness and beyond. The toughest person to please is you yourself.

"And Love/ Is not the Easy thing/ The only baggage that you can bring/ Is all that you cant leave behind..."

If the baggage could not be left behind, stay.
She was silent now.
But I didn't answer.
She was looking at someone else.

[February 2006]