Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Her

All the times I get into a relatively uncongested bus, I try to quickly find my way to a seat. And whenever, I find myself on any of the seats that comes right over the wheels, I think of her... Even today I did.
Now, all she had wanted to do was to keep out the creature that crept in from here and there everyday after her husband left for office. Especially after that day when she had slept off in the warm afternoon only to wake up with its legs sticking right near her face.
From a reclining position it seemed particularly scary. All she could see was its eyes that seemed like bottomless rooms. The creature did not do any harm. It just sat there and made her feel like itself -- empty.
It was that day that she decided that if keeping the creature out was not possible, she would have to get out herself. It was three'o'clock and her husband would be back only at seven. So there was no way he would know she had been out.
That must be how, she decided to take a bus ride on that yellow day in Chennai.
And that is not how I think of her everytime I am in a bus. I just make up new things each time.
What I do know of her for sure is that she was sitting on the seat over where the wheels are and the floor of the bus gave way. Her legs got trapped in the wheels and she was hospitalised.
This I know because it was in the papers the next day. I cannot tell you if she got okay, because I did not follow up.
And that because, the only times I think of her are when I get into a bus, and get a place to sit. The seat over the wheels.

Monday, January 01, 2007

New Year's eve

The stories of the day were talking inside my head when I left office.
The Sardar Sarovar dam was finally fully constructed. Against all the voices which had been long stashed away into the worthless 'rabid activist' category.
Missing children of Nithari were finally found. Only, as skeletons in some psychopath landlord's backyard. And police admits there was 'some laxity'
And the big story.
After a tyrant became a martyr, after a ego maniacal super power decides to leave the leave the final decision to the country it had help liberate comes a story on the human face of Saddam.
So with all this, no wonder the air was heavy. There was lot of activity. The mass/public/common man was on the streets. They were everywhere, scurrying, speeding, just somehow wanting to be there when things actually change.
Sitting on the side of MG road and Brigade road, was the famous New Year's eve celebration.
It reminded me of all the times I sat, waiting for things to happen.
Waiting for some invisible push that would suddenly propel me into doing what I have always claimed I wanted to do.
And so I reach home, raise a toast with my friends to money.
The push that will take me away from the class that waits to the class that could not care enough to wait?

Women,

Ma

They say she refused to wear jewellry
and to comb her hair
And when there were rumours of a ghost in the neighbourhood
they called her to keep it away

I could not meet her then
And though I look for her --
inside the cracks of non-stop conversations,
under the silence she leaves at the other end of the phone --
I know its too late


When now she asks me to comb my hair
and wear some jewellry.


Si

The other day when I heard her voice
I mistook it for mine
But when she smiles I know its her
Because her smile is prettier