Tag: #paperdreams

The Road Was A Rainbow

~ binusivan ~ 4 Comments

I am writing my note at the start of my post instead of at the end as usual. This is a slightly longer missive than usual. This short story is nearly 3,000 words long, but hopefully a breeze to read. Hope you like it.

On other fronts – I am on book number 12 in the Wheel of Time series (Update – I finished the series:)). In one of my earlier posts, I cribbed about the story being let down by the writing at times. But I was thinking about this later – how I am constantly pursuing this ‘perfect’ piece of writing and am petrified to share something for fear of it not measuring up to my inner writer/reader-police. Sometimes a writer just has to let go off the piece, so that the story can be shared, find a voice and a reader. Having thought that, I felt like an idiot my earlier criticism of Robert Jordan’s writing. He was a far braver writer, and I should learn from that.

Writing regularly is still a struggle as I try to balance our innumerable hospital visits with the time and space required for me to write. My mind needs to write and at the same time, it cannot sit still enough (physically, emotionally, or mentally) to write. But I am glad that I am able to send this one out. Do let me know what you think.

The road was strewn with rainbows in every direction. Pink, blue, and white stars glittered and danced on the tarred highway half-melting under the afternoon sun.

“Come fast!” Anjali shouted as she ran ahead. At eight-almost-nine she was the oldest. Anila, her younger sister, Mita and I, aged six, were the minions. But with my birthday around the corner, I considered myself more seven than six. A point I rubbed into Mita and Anila’s face at every opportunity.

The way to school from our working-class homes in the Woollen Mill Colony crossed a couple of groundnut fields, along a highway and ended at the gate and the stern guard at the Air Force TACDE compound. It was a walk that no self-respecting modern parent would have let their young child go on alone; but the world was safer then or maybe we were just ignorant. We were all defence kids, our fathers serving in various roles with the Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment of the Indian Air Force. Every few years, the air force men and their families had to move out of the safe confines of the defence quarters and slum it in civilian zones. I didn’t mind.

The Woollen Mill Colony had once been home to mill workers and supervisors when the cotton mills had hummed with life. Now the mill loomed abandoned in the background, and defence personnel and farmers occupied the houses. Someone had even painted Lal Bahadur Shastri’s slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ across the mill’s walls, trying to justify the death of a way of life, and challenging fate and time that had crept into the mill’s deserted walls.

With its tired, working class, stand-alone houses, a gaggle of kids my age and huge backyards swollen with plantains, drumstick and mango trees, thorny shrubs that savagely grabbed us as we tried to rescue our makeshift cricket balls, the colony was magical. The heart of the colony was the sprawling banyan tree that had stepped out of the Jataka Tales, and which would be a haunted tree, or the magical Faraway Tree or a ship according to what took our fancy that day. If we did not create adventure, it came seeking us in the form of the beautiful grass green flying snake that we disturbed when we trampled a bush searching for a ball, or an angry neighbour driven to distraction by our loud, raucous games.

Every morning at 7.30 the four of us would step out of our homes for the half hour trudge to the Kendriya Vidyalaya Air Force School, located in the TACDE compound. The highlight of the otherwise boring, drudge of a walk was the stretch that hugged the farm’s edges as the approach road from our homes turned right into the highway. Hedges peeked through the fences, acting as an additional barrier against stray goats. Hedges laden with luscious blackberries that we plucked and feasted on as we walked to school. We felt wild, our hearts pounding, terrified that the farmer would cotton on to our thievery and chase us, or worse, tell our mothers. He never did notice.

On our way back home, with the farmer and his wife working closer to the hedges, the farm ceased to be something to look forward to. Despite our boastful goading of ‘today I am going to pluck one,’ none of us built up the courage to swipe even a single berry with him lurking a couple of meters away bent over his groundnut crop.

In the afternoons it was the road that was magical. The road itself was an ordinary road stretching into the horizon, bordered by groundnut farms, thorny scrub trees and the dusty barren plots that dotted the flatlands of Jamnagar. At times it would be a river in full spate that we rowed down battling crazed crocodiles, or a forest path overhung with creepers and with wild animals that tried to eat us up. The crocodiles and wild animals were soundly defeated by our ingenuity every single time. Once every couple of days, in a nod to reality, one of us would have to die. The dead person carried everyone’s water-bottles. Anjali, the oldest and smartest never died. Mita and Anila died quite often. If the dead person was lucky, the bottles would be empty, as we raced back home for some hot snack and the freedom of playtime. We had walked, trudged, dragged our feet, swum, climbed and trekked down this road, six days a week for the last nine months, and in all this time it had been a plain old road, never a field of tiny rainbows.

Photo by Ikaia Pal on Unsplash

The day we saw the rainbow field on the road, we were headed home, the farm another five minutes-walk away. Initial awe gave way to a mad scramble to the spot. And there they lay, on our side of the road. Hundreds and thousands, maybe millions of diamonds, twinkling gaily at us as they caught the sunlight. For a moment, the four of us stood and stared at the treasure lying in front of us. We looked at each other, the road and then the farm. The highway stretched lonely in both directions. In the distance we could see the TACDE gate in the direction we had come from and the farm to our left lay quiet in the swollen afternoon heat.

I squinted up at the sky. I had wanted a talking doll just like Mita’s, but my mother had forbidden me from asking my father for it. “He has enough to worry about, without having to find the money for talking dolls,” she had said. That night I had lain awake negotiating with God. I promise to be a good girl. I promise to study hard and get good marks. I promise… Sleep overtook me in the middle of my promises, and I slipped into a dream of Kapil Dev playing cricket with the colony kids, talking dolls and a flouncy Pomeranian.

Were these diamonds God’s answer to my prayers?

The stunned pause that had descended on the four of us was replaced by a sense of urgency. Following an unspoken accord, Anjali, Anila and I crouched to collect the diamonds. It was a moment before we realised that Mita was standing by, looking first at the road, and then the farm. A jittery bird poised to take flight even as it edged towards the breadcrumbs on the porch. She had never been any good with picking berries and she was no good with the diamonds either. But we had always shared our berries with her.

It was Anjali who let her know how things stood.

“Mita, we will not give you our diamonds, okay? You better collect your own.”

Hearing this Anila and I doubled down and renewed our efforts at collecting all the diamonds we could. We were stuffing them into our empty lunch boxes. At the back of my mind was the sour awareness that Anjali and Anila would have a lot more diamonds, because they are sisters, and they were going to combine their haul, whether they liked it or not. Their mother will make them. Most of me was okay with that, though I did wish my brother were old enough to be collecting diamonds with me.

Mita continued to stand to the side, looking rather forlorn. Maybe her family didn’t need diamonds. The memory of Mita’s mother swaying into Parul’s house for the Ganesh pooja came unbidden to my mind as I scrambled around for the precious stones. I had heard my mother and some other aunties sniff derisively and say something about necklaces and peacocks, and I remembered getting excited and looking around for one and being sorely disappointed. Sitting there, counting down to when the pooja would get over, the dots had connected. Mita’s mother was the peacock… the peacock with a shiny necklace. It must have been a diamond necklace. Her father, who owned two of the local businesses (Vasudev General Stores and Vasudev Flour Mill), was after all the only one in the colony with a car. An Ambassador that he unveiled every Sunday, when Mita’s family would drive away for a picnic on the palace grounds or a visit to the Bala Hanuman temple. Yet I couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for Mita as she stood aside with her lower lip trembling. Fool! Why can’t she collect some anyway?

It took us about 15 minutes to pick the diamonds strewn on the road. Stuffing the lunch boxes back into our bags, and dusting our hands, we half ran home, wanting to reach home before our mothers began to worry; because once they got over the worrying, there would be scolding for sure. We didn’t even look at the blackberries beckoning us as we rushed home. As I neared home, doubt began to set in, and the questions rushed in. Whose diamonds were these? Are diamonds like berries? Will anyone notice that they are no longer there on the road? Will they know we took them?

I didn’t have time to discuss these new worries with the much wiser Anjali, as I had reached home, and I could see my mother standing at the door. I waved bye and rushed in, sliding past my mother avoiding her questioning glare.

“Ma, I am hungry!” I said as I ran into the room I shared with my two-years-old brother.

“Wash up and come out. I have made upma.”

I grimaced. Upma. When will she learn that I couldn’t stand upma. I could not conceive a more boring dish than the clumpy, roasted semolina and vegetable porridge that my mother insisted on whipping up on a regular basis.

I stood for a minute, undecided about my next move. I heard the noise of the steel plate being taken out of the kitchen drawer. I pulled open the Godrej steel almirah and grabbed a top, poured my diamonds into it and tying it up into a potli, shoved it under my bed, into the dark recesses behind the rolled-up extra mattress. I was no longer sure about telling my mother about the diamonds. Seeing her waiting for me at the door had brought home the realisation that she would not see eye-to-eye with my ‘finders keepers’ ideology. She had after all walked all the way back to the pharmacy with my brother and me, when she had belatedly realised that they had given her back three rupees extra. “We don’t keep what doesn’t belong to us. We are not beggars or thieves,” she had told me as I had moaned about all the walking I had to do.

I sat down on the steps leading into the backyard from the kitchen with my plate of upma, feeling increasingly like a criminal. Diamonds were not the same as berries. What was I thinking! A part of me was now certain that I was going to end up in prison. Maybe I could throw the diamonds back on the road on my way to school tomorrow. Not throw. Scatter them, real natural like. I made my mind up to ask Anjali and Anila to do the same when we met in the evening to play. I didn’t want to be the one without any diamonds… though there was Mita. Smart girl. At least she was not a wanted criminal.

I was almost done with the upma when someone knocked at the front door. I heard my mother open the door.

“Sakshi!”

I sat frozen. How did they find us so quickly! Do they put handcuffs on children? I shot up and ran to the front door when my mother snapped my name out again. Mita stood at the door with her mother. For a moment I stood nonplussed. Why was my mother annoyed? These two were not cops. My relief did not last long as my mother fixed me with a glare.

“What is going on? Mita’s mother says that you are refusing to share…” and here my mother lost steam. She looked at me and then at Mita and then slowly back at Mita’s mother, “Did you say diamonds?”

I swallowed the upma still in my mouth. I looked at Mita and her mother, hating both with a clarity that stunned me. I was too young to have a word to describe what I saw in Mita’s mother’s eyes, but I could recognise the covetousness. I had felt the same ugly, grabby feeling for a moment when I had realised that Anjali and Anila could gather double the diamonds I could.

“Sakshi?”

She was tired. I could see that. It had been a long day of housework and taking care of a toddler who had no sense of self-preservation. And now here was this woman she did not like yapping about sharing diamonds.

“What diamonds is she talking about?”

I toyed with the idea of saying ‘I don’t know’ all innocent like; but remembered in time that Mita was standing right there. And what if they decided to drag Anjali and Anila into it! Anyway, there was no point lying to my mother. She always knew.

I ran to my room, pulled the potli out. It lay heavy in my hand as I dragged myself back to the front door and handed it over to my mother. My mother opened the knots and looked at the contents, lying flatly in the makeshift bag. They were no longer twinkling and glimmering. She then looked at Mita’s mother.

“Here, you can have them all if you want,” she said stretching her hand with the potli in it towards them.

Mita’s mother had also had a glimpse of my treasure trove. She spanked Mita on the back of her head and turned and walked away without a word, avoiding my mother’s eye, Mita trailing behind her.

My mother closed the door after them, handed me my potli, and took my plate of upma from me.

“Do you want some more?”

I shook my head – no. I stood there unsure as to what had happened. My mother didn’t look as mad as I had expected her to. In fact, I could have sworn that she was pleased. Did this mean that I got to keep the diamonds! She just shook her head in mild exasperation and turned back into the house to pull my brother away from the full plastic barrel of water stored in the kitchen that he was trying to climb into.

“Throw those glass pieces away. It is a wonder you did not get cut.”

Glass pieces!

I looked at the potli’s contents. They no longer glimmered, but lay flat, ugly, and shorn of life staring back at me. I tied the potli up again and walked to my room and pushed it back under the bed. Glass pieces. I did not want to go out to play that evening but staying back would have meant answering my mother’s questions.

Playtime was a shadow of its usual self. The sisters’ mother had made them throw the glass pieces away and given them an earful for bringing junk home. Mita did not even join us. When some of the kids decided to play hide-and-seek, my bad luck continued and I was the seeker and I could not find a single one, and then I lost interest and yelled that I was going back home. What a useless day! I wanted to cry but was too angry to. So many talking dolls.

Dinner was torture, as I had to sit through my mother’s retelling of the events.

“Can you imagine? She thought they were diamonds and she collected them all!”

“Not all,” I grumbled. “Anjali and Anila also collected the diamonds.”

“Most probably a truck’s broken window pieces!”

“Do you think we should take her to the clinic for a tetanus?”

My parent’s voice droned on in the background. A truck’s broken window. A hundred million pieces of rainbow! Who knew truck windows break into a million beautiful pieces!

The next day, the four of us walked to school as usual. We plucked a few berries more out of habit than any desire to eat them. Anila did not even bother; just slapped the prickly leaves away. None of us shared with Mita. As we reached the spot, we saw a few diamonds, that had escaped our eagle eyes, glimmering. I could not stop thinking of them as diamonds. But none of us stopped to pick them. Anila kicked one away into the bushes on the side of the road, as we walked on towards school.

It was another full day before we spoke to Mita. It was not her fault that the field of rainbows turned out to be a lie, but we needed to blame someone. Her unwillingness to be a part of our little clique and join in our games even as she craved the undeserved berries and glass pieces, made it easy to blame her. She also ended up dying in every single adventure we had on the road and carrying our water bottles for the next couple of weeks. But she never complained, and then one day we decided it was Anjali’s turn to die, and after a moment’s shock she agreed and carried our bottles. And just like that an unrecognised bitterness dissolved into laughter as we ran home.

Motherhood – And You Are Angry

~ binusivan ~ 2 Comments

And you are angry at her for being careless and silly

You are angry because you wanted to write

and now… and now,

after a whole day spent being mum,

when you desperately wanted to write,

you have to be mum for another half an hour.

You are angry because you feel this way.

You are angry because you had shut the door

that hurt her finger.

All the logical explanations about

she should not have kept her finger there don’t cut ice.

She’s old enough to know better doesn’t cut ice.

You are angry because you were so tired

that you scolded her for placing her finger near the door.

You are angry as you watch those tears stream down

because of all the things you can handle on earth

her tears are not one of them.

You are angry because you are tired.

You are angry because she doesn’t blame you.

You are angry because she agrees with you

– she was being careless.

Damn it! You are angry.

Motherhood is one bloody ride

You are angry because you can’t forgive yourself.

Picture by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash

This is a poem I had written a few years ago. I love being a mom. It is a full time job. I love writing. It too is a full time job. There are only 24 hours in a day. Final result – I was often left feeling frayed and irritable trying to just hang on to some sense of identity.

Now as my daughter battles a rare sarcoma and recovers from a surgery, I am left amazed at how much we take for granted and how ridiculously small and unimportant everything else looks when we are brought up hard against mortality. I can’t relive those years again, but I have promised myself that going forward I will slow down enough to enjoy the moments – with my family and by my own self. To hell with what the world thinks a successful life should look like.

My Father’s Daughter

~ binusivan ~ 2 Comments

I am in my room, plucking photographs from an album and putting them in an envelope. Randomly picked out photographs that remind me of the good times – Appa, amma and I. Appa and I.

Neither Appa, nor I are the kind to smile into a camera, but Amma had an obsession with recording events and non-events. Most of the photographs of the three of us would have Amma grinning broadly, and Appa and I trying hard to not squint or shut our eyes when the flash all but blinded us.

Sifting through memories, I smile, until the tears start rolling down my cheeks. The tears take me unawares. This is an unexpected reaction for me. My normal gear is stuck at calm… no, strike that out. My normal gear is stuck at controlled. The only emotion that comes easily to me is anger, an emotion that I know how to handle and use.

My basics have already been packed into an overnight bag. I don’t need much. I am not going away for ever. I am sure I will be back. He can’t live without me.

Another 15 minutes before I have to leave. I had not planned on taking the photographs. But then I had changed my mind. What if my mobile crashed and I lost everything!? What if… what if I don’t come back? I needed the photographs.

There is a knock on the door.

No, no, no please don’t let it be him. I can’t face another argument. Not now. I have to leave soon.

But it was him, standing at the door, not entering, waiting for permission.

“Amu…”

There is something odd about him today. Something that is new and at odds with who he really is. Even as I wonder what is different, the answer shocks me into silence. Diffidence. He is diffident today!

He is a short man, but you’d never notice it thanks to his larger-than-life personality. But today his awkward nervousness fills the space between us and he is not looking as tall as he usually does. He sort of stumbles in along with a rush of words, as though he had been practising these lines in front of the mirror for the last few hours.

“Amu, you are right. I am quite rigid in my own way. I know that! I think I … I think… I did understand you. Now… I am trying, but I don’t think I have… I don’t think I have understood you.”

He has never backed down from his point of view. Ever. Shock extends my silence.

***

It has been lucky for both of us that all these years we had been on the same page, about pretty much everything – music, architecture, friends, aikido. He has always understood me and backed me.

Picture by Artur Aldyrkhanov on Unsplash

I had seen what he could do when he disagrees with you. He used his razor-sharp intelligence and rational mind as a weapon, and there was no way, I or anyone else could argue with logic and win.

Amma used to just throw down whatever she was holding in frustration and walk out of the room. I could never understand how she put up with losing every single argument or how he managed to make it up to her after. But the next morning or even a few hours after the argument, she would be smiling at him and laughing at his anecdotes. He adored her. She was the centre of his universe… maybe because she let him rule hers.

When she dropped down dead of a stroke in the middle of the living room, his entire world was sucked into a black hole. The only thing that kept him alive was me.

And we never argued. Ever. Funny when you think about it.

Maybe all the disagreements, complaints and grouses were being set aside, over the years, on a shelf for later, when I would need them .

***

And then I met Mithun. Carefree, hardworking, loving Mithun. Mithun of the average intelligence, who had no time to read plays, tomes on philosophy, politics and finance, or biographies. Mithun who hated to debate or argue. Mithun who treated me with respect. He calls me masterni because I have an explanation for everything. Mithun, who my appa thinks is sweet and harmless and utterly unworthy of me.

He never let an opportunity slip to let me know how wrong I was to consider Mithun a potential life partner. Initially I laughed it off. But after a while, my laughter sounded hollow, and I began to snap back. Argue. Explain.

However, nothing prepared me for when he turned around one day and said, “I think you will be better off getting a dog.”

It had felt like a punch, and I gasped, “A dog! Better off?”

“Yes, yes. You will be better off getting a dog than marrying that silly fellow. You will not get bored of the dog.”

That had been the final straw and we had set civility aside and the argument had raged on for weeks. Neither one of us willing to give in. I had not known it. I had always considered myself to be more like my mother – acquiescent. Turns out I was actually my appa’s daughter.

I don’t think that he had realised it either. Every single verbal parry of his, I encountered. We, the lovers of logic and analysis, passionate worshippers of poems and prose, philosophy and psychology, met as equals in a battlefield that shifted from the dining table to the kitchen, to the muted lulls during the ad breaks as we watched TV.

The last argument had begun quietly enough among the leftovers of dinner. Mithun had come over for dinner. Appa didn’t mind that. You see, he likes Mithun. He looked him in the eye and said, “Son, I like you. Which is why I am advising you against marrying my daughter. She will eat you alive. And you will bore her to death. Yours will be a match made for burning.”

I hated that Appa could pun at a time like this. I hated it even more that Mithun didn’t get it. We sat at the dining table and argued while Mithun cleared the table and left for his home. I did not even hear him go.

As he was going to his room that night, Appa turned around and again told me that I would be better off having a pet dog. I will not have too many expectations then, and it too will do my bidding. Tears stung my eyes and I stood there wondering what kind of a woman my father thought I was?

***

That night I called Mithun and told him that we were going to get married – a court wedding.

He was happy yet concerned.

“What will your father say?”

A lot. But that is nothing new. I can handle it.

Mithun agreed to give the notice of intended marriage. It would be another 30 days before we could tie the knot. I was willing to wait. Now that the decision was taken, I could deal with Appa’s constant snarky comments about Mithun and my future.

But the wait was not peaceful. Appa continued with his sarcastic needling. But now instead of losing my temper and arguing, I responded with cool, off-hand retorts that would drive him insane with anger. Now it was his turn to bang things and walk out of the room.

Oh God! I wish amma had been there. She would have laughed to death at the sight of Appa losing an argument and his cool.

The massive arguments would be followed by a few days of tense peace. The last big argument was yesterday. A day before the court appointed date for my wedding.

We had both, in the last three strained months, forgotten how to talk to each other. This was the man that I could sit and dissect a movie or book with for hours. This was the man with whom I had shared my every single thought and idea to solve the problems of the world! When I had felt hurt, angry or left out at school or college, when I had trouble with friends or teachers, I turned to Appa. How could we now not talk! How did he bear it? How could I?

I think he must have been haunted by the same thoughts! When I got back from work, he was waiting for me with a peace offering of a cup of tea. Unfortunately, the tea which was much needed was accompanied by advice that I didn’t want to hear repeated. The tea was left half-drunk as I stormed out of the room, but not before snarling that I can’t imagine how I ever thought that he understood me!

***

And now here he was, standing at my door. Telling me, for the first time, that maybe he was wrong.

The sun may have as well set in the east.

“Amu you are right. I am quite rigid in my own way. I know that! I think I … I think… I did understand you. Now… I am trying, but I don’t think I have… I don’t think I have understood you.

To me, you have always been my mirror image. While other fathers talked about not understanding their kids, I stood proud and even laughed at them. We were so alike that I forgot that you and I are two different people.”

Mithun would be waiting near the Café Coffee Day around the corner. He had decided to come by auto instead of bringing his bike, because of my bag. I had agreed to be there on time. I didn’t want to start our new life on a tardy note. I sneaked a look at my watch. I have to be there in 10 minutes… but I will have to leave now.

Appa was running his hand over my table and my files. He did not seem to notice that the photo frame with the photograph of the three of us smiling and squinting into the camera was missing.

“Do you remember the time amma and I had had that big argument about attending your second cousin’s wedding?”

Yes, I did! Amma wanted all of us to go to Chennai for it. I did not want to go to Chennai and deal with all the “yeppo kalyanam panna pore?” (“When are you going to get married?”) Appa didn’t want to go and have his routine disturbed. That was the one time that amma and he had not made up easily. The argument and the suppressed anger had simmered for nearly three days.

Appa had kept trying to convince her over and over again as to why it was not necessary for all of us to attend every single wedding in the extended family. But Amma wanted us in Chennai. She was sick and tired of making excuses for Appa’s absence. Or maybe she had just had enough of giving in to Appa.

She had given him and me the cold shoulder for the next couple of days. Appa was amused. This was a new Amma, and he was intrigued. But even he was not prepared for her announcement at dinner on the third day that she had booked her train ticket to Chennai. Before Appa could protest that he did not want to go, she said firmly that she had booked only one ticket. For herself. And she would be back in 5 days.

Appa had accepted defeat though not too gracefully, but he didn’t push it. Even he could see that something was different this time.

Amma returned after five days, full of laughter, happy memories and a lot of photographs. She had even posed in some of them. The smile was there. But she had looked old and frail and alone in them.

Two weeks later she lay dead on the living room rug.

Yes… I remembered that fight.

***

He was looking out of the window… at nothing in particular.

He turned and walked away. I nearly sighed in relief. He was leaving.

I watched him as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath, readying to take my bag and jump out of the window and make a dash to the café.

“I have always believed that if I had gone with her to Chennai, she would still be alive.”

The words sliced me. To hear him form words that brought to life my own greatest shame and regret numbed me.

“I still feel I was right. There was no need to go to Chennai. But I did not go. I could have. Five days are a small price to pay in the larger scheme of things. But I let my pride and ego get in the way. I didn’t want to lose or give in.

I don’t want to lose you either Amu. I know what I know. I know he is a nice boy, but you need something more. I know this because I know you. But you are right. I could be wrong too.”

My mind stopped tracking the time. In that moment I also lost all my reasons for wanting to marry Mithun. Appa never allowed himself to lose an argument because of his ego. I was going to marry someone for the same reason… to prove Appa wrong.

What was it? Was it that a lifetime of being in agreement had resulted in a need for a tectonic shift in our relationship? Was this my way of drawing new boundaries and building a few essential walls? Or did I just want to confound him and make him wonder who the hell I was?

Why did I think marrying Mithun was a good idea? Did I just want a third person in my little life to ease the intensity of living with an intellectual giant? Maybe I just wanted a break from Appa or maybe we need to be a threesome as opposed to an intense twosome.

I was alone in the room again. I got up, opened the window and jumped out on the pavement. Mithun would wait for me at the cafe no matter how late I was. My packed bag lay on the bed.

The Wheel of Time proceeds strongly. I am on book number seven, The Crown of Swords.

Regarding this short story, this was not how I had ended it in the initial drafts. Do let me know what you think of the story and the characters.

White Lies

~ binusivan ~ 3 Comments

Picture by Tania Malrechauffe on Unsplash
It started with a lie… a tiny white lie.
I console myself, ‘no one else is hurt.’
Anyway, never again, I tell myself.
The lie resides in my yesteryears.
Now, I am in the future.
My tomorrows have morphed to the present.
Time turning slowly to dust.
I have made peace with truth withheld,
or so I think.
For even now when the light is turned off,
as I lie, naked in my own thoughts
the lying scar tissue niggles and squirms.
‘Shut up!’ I mutter and turn. But sometimes
the guilty scab writhes and crawls off,
revealing the lie. The tiny white lie.
Faded like an old scar
No longer so little… or white.

It is so damn hard to write at times. Life, and if I am absolutely honest, all those TWOT books, overwhelm, but thanks to this newsletter, I am writing something at the least.

A theme I like to explore through my poems, and a novel I hope to serialize soon, is guilt. As part of my exploration of the theme, I wrote about white lies – those we utter, and those we sometimes commit by staying silent. White lies are always accompanied by justifications – often valid ones. But what if truth is absolute and ruthless in its purity? Whether you believe in absolute truth or consider truth to be relative, sometimes our defences and justifications for our half-truths and truths withheld crumble and we are left staring at what we have become.

Anyways… do let me know what you think of the poem.

And Then, There Is Grief

~ binusivan ~ 2 Comments
As a writer, I wondered…
Can I create poetry that tore?
What after all, did I know
about pain too pure to bear,
or grief too deep to share?
What did I know?
Indeed!
I looked up the meaning
of words that stood in
for grief.
Distressed, in agony,
desolate, in purgatory, or
drowning in sadness.
Why, one could even be melancholic!
But all mere words that did not…
could not
sum up heart-breaking misery.
Picture by Michael Held on Unsplash
Now, I know better.
The words aren’t just on paper.
Tattooed into life,
they flutter on my every breath.
As always, I put pen to paper,
to seize the naked rawness of it all.
And, hit a wall.
Bearing witness to a pain
beyond the reach of medicines.
Words fail to capture
the silent darkness
of private anguish.
All the ink in the world
cannot pen the wretched misery
of this unrelenting story.
Everything is at a standstill
inside of me.
Poised to start living,
Once… Once this happens or that.
Once I wrestle the pain
down on to the page.
Fool!
There is grief
Beyond the reach of meaning.

This poem was written in response to a prompt on my writing group. Walt Witman wrote, ‘I contain multitudes.’ And now our grief is reflecting it too. Layers of grieving. Even as we all struggle with the pandemic, some of us are also fighting parallel, personal battles in our own little pandemic induced bubbles. Nothing will ever be the same again – a cliché but true. We have all lost our innocence, and every day I mourn for what could have been, even as I am grateful for what is. This poem is my attempt at depicting my grief for that loss, because I can begin to manage things, feelings and vague notions only, and only when I write it out.

Melancholia

~ binusivan ~ 4 Comments

… of a writerly kind

A half-remembered tune melts into me.

I rise up trying to meet it… grab it

make it fully mine.

But the very acting of reaching

rips the melody out of my mind.

Just the ghost of it stays behind

to tease me with its unformed lines.

Haunted by a feeling, almost physical,

I hang on to sanity by slender threads.

There is a foreboding in my chest 

vague in detail, precise in visceral sentiments.

Picture by Andreas Kretschmer on Unsplash

Like waking from a nightmare,

heart pounding, drenched in sweat,

half-remembering details.

The very act of waking,

pulling veils over specifics

as they brush by teasing… warning,

all in the same heartbeat.

If only I could capture

the wretched poignancy,

the bleak terrain of my mind,

and pin it on paper.

Other poets do it with ease; but I struggle.

The very act of putting pen to paper

robs the emotion of its very feeling.

‘It’s alright,’ I soothe myself.

All I need is a good night’s sleep.

Not too long to sunrise, now.

I will bid the dark goodbye.

Banana Time…

I am what you call a 2 a.m writer. My best ideas for stories and dialogues come to me when I am slipping from one sleep cycle into the next. I groggily reach for my mobile and open OneNote to type in the idea. Sometimes it is just a sentence and sometimes a para.

Earlier I’d not get up and pin the idea down, certain that there is no way I could forget this gem. Come morning, all I could recall is that I had had a good, maybe even a brilliant idea, but I have no clue what it is. After the first two times of not being able to recall the ideas, and the resultant kick-your-own-ass anguish, I would just wake up and write the damn idea down. At least, I could now go back to sleep peacefully and wake up to something interesting.

Most of my 2 a.m ideas have done me good, except for this one time, when I had an idea to solve, and I mean SOLVE, the problems facing the world. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. I got up and typed in my solution and went back to sleep relieved that when I wake up the idea to solve all our problems will be there in my OneNote. Waking up, I opened the note, and my solution was just one word – Bananas.

I am sure it is a code. Or maybe we are all supposed to eat bananas. Go figure!

Would love it if you’d share your ‘Bananas’ idea :).

The Statue

~ binusivan ~ 2 Comments

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

Walking had become a pleasure again. The sun was gentler,  and the breeze cooler. My hip did not feel tight anymore and I could swing my right leg without that twinge and ache in my bones. It also took less effort each morning to talk myself into getting ready to head out for the walk, mentally preparing myself for the exercise, and the fear.

The last few weeks as I had walked my usual stretch in the park, I had had to fight multiple demons – pain, weariness, and the gut clenching dread that had been my constant companion these last few months. Initially, after my recovery from the surgery, it had taken more energy and will power than I had thought I’d need to complete my walk. But it had got easier with each passing day.

I could have walked around the city blocks instead of the park, but I like trees. And the stubborn mulish part in me is not yet defeated. I believe that if I stop walking in the park, if the few of us who still venture out there for our dose of exercise and fresh air, were to quit, then we’d lose the park completely. It will no longer be ours… but his.

The first few times, after my return to the park, it was not muscle weakness and tightness or pain, but the thought of that statue lurking ahead, unseen, that had terrorised me. Waiting in the gloam with the left half of its head and shoulder missing, as though someone had taken a go at it with a sledgehammer, bits of rusty wire mesh sticking out of the jagged edges of concrete, the statue of the young boy did not cut a very impressive figure. It stood on a concrete pedestal, raised a foot and a half above the ground and was about four feet tall from the soles of its shoes to the top of its disfigured head. It may not have been remotely imposing, yet it had radiated an strange eerie almost mocking power. So out of place, I had thought the first time I saw it, not sure exactly what was out of place – the statue or the malevolence it exuded.

˷ ˷ ˷ ˷

I had been overjoyed to discover this park in my new neighbourhood. It helped me get over the concrete jungle blues that assailed me after I moved to the city from my small town. Every morning, I would be at the park by 5ish. The sun still a blush on the horizon, I loved this time of the day, with its reverential silence in the air, broken only by the nattering birds. But in the park, even the birds were quieter. And then there was the added advantage of avoiding my fellow park and fitness enthusiasts, who descended on the park by 6, by when the sun would be out, no longer shy.

It was a nameless park. My kind of park, overgrown with trees and shrubs that bordered the outer walls and the inner paths that criss-crossed the park. There was a banyan tree that held pride of place as being the oldest, with its widespread canopy, housing a mini universe of its own. Then there were the peepals, sals and the gulmohars. All of them lush, richly green, somehow more tropical than the world outside the park’s single, high, rusty, wrought iron gate. Even on the hottest summer day, at mid-noon, the sun only peaked in through the protective green canopy. I fell in love with the park at first sight.

Photo by Guillaume Lorain on Unsplash

My first day at the park, I arrived around 6, and seeing the handful of others already there laying claim to different jogging paths and patches of sunlight, I promised myself that I would arrive at 5 the next day onwards. I looked around and decided to stroll down along the only path stretching long and empty ahead of me. It was a beautiful one – trees arching overhead creating a lovely tunnel effect, with the sun sneaking in here and there.

As I walked down the path, I realised that this path, stretching five kilometres, offered the only complete circuit around the park and would lead me right back to the gate, the only gate into the park, that I had entered from. Strange it should be so deserted then, I thought. Or maybe, people don’t opt for the complete circuit in the mornings because it takes longer to complete, and everyone has to rush back to whatever work awaits them. Maybe there are more people in the evening, because come to think of it, I had seen only four others when I came in. Why can’t I hear the birds at all out here?

Questions and thoughts flowed through my head as I walked on. Before I knew it, I had reached the three-quarter mark. The last stretch extended dark with the trees completely blocking the light over the path. I stopped and took a deep swig of water from my bottle. And then for reasons I did not fully understand, turned around and walked back down the stretch I had already covered towards the gate.The first week I only walked three quarters of the circuit before returning, as the last stretch extended gloomily ahead with the trees arching over the path.

Retracing my steps meant it took me longer to reach the gate than if I had just walked on. But I could not explain why I did not walk on. Was it that the complete absence of another soul had finally got to me or the fact that the birds had fallen completely silent in that stretch. All that week and the next, I would walk down the path, reach the three-quarters mark, and then turn back. I rarely saw anyone else venture into that section. With each passing day of that first week, my reluctance to complete the circuit increased.

Every single day, I would tell myself, today I am going to complete the circuit. And every single day, I would return home irritated with myself but unable to take a step beyond the self-set barrier. This inability to complete the circuit became a secret shameful burden. I could imagine the peepal and the sal bending their leaves towards each other and laughing at my weakness. Even the friendly gulmohar had stopped acknowledging me. Her fiery red flowers would have nothing to do with a coward like me, she seemed to say. I began to fancy that if I completed the circuit the birds on the trees along that path may start to sing again.

The third week, I decided to confront the irrational fear growing in me that had cast its shadow over my morning walk and my life in general. When I reached the three-quarters point, I stopped, and then taking a deep breath and ignoring the panicked alarm bells ringing in my head I stepped forward, and took another step. Just one step and I wished heartily that I hadn’t. Just one step, and I was in a different world. I wished I had worn a jacket, which was silly, because it was a balmy summer morning. It was darker. I turned to look back down the path I had already covered. It too was bordered by trees arching over the path; however, it was somehow lighter… less feral there. Don’t be silly.

Photo by Tom Morel on Unsplash

I carried on, fighting the desire to turn back, and run. Each step was an effort as I pushed against an invisible wall of hostility. Walking on would mean that I would be able to reach the gate in a mere 10 minutes instead of the 40 it would take me to if I retraced my steps. Walking on would mean, I would be able to set aside this shameful fear for ever.

As I walked on, trying to tamp down this strange sense of unease rising from my stomach to my heart and compressing my chest, I came across the boy’s statue for the first time. Disfigured and lonely, it stood out starkly against the dense foliage. A broken young boy, dominating the surrounding wildness despite his smashed head and shoulder.  

As I kept walking, I realized that I had unconsciously crossed to the other side of the path, away from the boy. Coward. But I could see the gate ahead. And then the warning bells jangled loud again. Don’t look back. Don’t. Look. Back. I don’t know why that thought came into my head, but I knew, just knew that it was a matter of life and death that I did not turn back. I could feel his stare at the back of my neck willing me to turn. I half-walked, half-jogged the last few metres to the gate. As I neared the gate, the air cleared, and I could breathe easily again. My t-shirt stuck to me as though I had walked through a downpour.

As I blindly walked to my apartment, I promised myself that I would never walk through that stretch ever again. But half an hour later as I showered, I began to feel silly. I remembered reading somewhere about paintings where the eyes of the subject seemed to follow you, no matter which part of the room you were in. Perhaps this could happen with statues too. That would explain what had happened in the park. Inanimate eyes following one in a gloomy part of a park can freak anyone out.

By afternoon as I sat with my new friends at work enjoying a break from our project, I was ready to laugh at my over-active imagination. If my brothers back home heard about this, they would rag me about it for the rest of my life. This is why we never took you along, you shrimp, I could hear them jeer. You are always scared of every damn thing.

The next morning, I was back at the park gate, armed with renewed courage… courage that seeped out of me with each step. By the time I reached the three-quarters mark, my heart was trying to jump out of my body. What if I had not imagined it? What am I trying to prove? Don’t be a fucking wimp. You can do this. Three steps in, I knew I had not imagined it. It was darker, wilder and somehow bitterly malevolent here. The air hung damp and evil over this place. But I kept on. Second guessing my instincts, praying to every god that ever existed, I walked on. Just before I reached the statue… the boy, I crossed to the other side. And I looked ahead. I promised myself that no matter what, no bloody matter what, I was not going to turn back. By the time I reached the gate, I was drenched in sweat and my heart was pounding as though I had run a marathon.

Photo by Kevin Jackson on Unsplash

That day I did not feel like laughing at my imagination. I was beginning to think that it was not my imagination that was the problem, after all. Perhaps I was suffering from some strange form of mental illness. I was subdued the whole day, feeling as though I had been touched by evil.

The next day I was at the park again. I knew I had to return. If I did not confront whatever it was that was challenging me on that stretch of the path, I would forever be afraid. The first three-quarters of the way was covered in the blink of an eye, even though I tried to linger. At the three-quarters mark, I stopped and re-tied my shoelaces as I looked ahead into the murky shadows. The trees and the breeze waited for my decision. Maybe I should just turn back and go home. Even as I thought it, I knew that I had to go on. There was no other way. I could not live like this. I stood up, took a deep breathe and took a step forward.

Again, the vileness of the place filled the air around me. The place knew. He knew. He knew I was challenging him. I tried to control my galloping fear, but my thoughts sped ahead direction-less giving shape to vague ideas and terrors. I forced myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s all in my head. It’s all in my imagination. I kept walking. You can do this. Suddenly I breathed a sigh of relief. I could see someone else running down the path from where the gate was towards me. See, all in your head, you silly goose.

That was the last sane thought I had for a while, for even as I thought it, I noticed that the pedestal on which the boy stood was empty. Even as this fact began to impress itself on me, I realised that half of the jogger’s head was missing. The other man was no man. He… it was the boy, and he was headed straight towards me with a malicious glint in its one eyes. I think I screamed.

˷ ˷ ˷ ˷

When I came to, I was in the hospital surrounded by my family, and my right leg in a cast. It had been broken clean as though someone had hit my leg with a hammer – the orthopaedics’ words. The cops asked me who did it, and I said, I can’t recall his face and that all I remembered was that he was jogging in from the gate. How could I tell the cops and my family that the person who had come running towards me was the statue with half its face and shoulder missing!

As though he sensed my thoughts, my brother mentioned that after my surgery to fix my leg, I had kept muttering something about a statue.

I blanched. What else did I say?

Maybe someone was hiding near a statue in the park, the other brother offered.

The constable shook his head and said, “It’s a strange place. No one goes to that side of the park.”

The other cop nodded.

I had to know. “Whose statue is that there?”

“Who knows? I have never been to that part of the park,” the man admitted.

“I have heard that a man went mad there about 20 years ago and took a hammer to a statue there. But I don’t know. No one really goes there.”

It was months before I built up the strength and the courage to return to the park. I can now walk without too much discomfort, the pain in my leg hardly there. But not even for a million dollars will I ever walk even a step beyond the three-quarter mark. At that point, I stop, turn back and retrace my steps back to the gate. That broken boy can keep his vile part of the park.

*The End*