Shedding

It’s time to shed skin again

This time, not to start anew

And forget the pain

Not to pick up a different hue

And pretend to be sane

But to disappear out of view

And hide in plain

No ideals to live up to

No sympathies to gain

A renunciation long overdue

The Windtower

I’m made of earth and bound to it

You of air found it hard to commit

I gathered myself and reached high

To touch you whenever you drifted by

You’d promise to stay and then deceive

You’d breeze around a little and then leave

I cut myself open, carved a window to let you in

Still you said you were afraid I’d hold you within

So I carved a hundred more till I was hollow

And waited for you to blow

I know I can’t make you stay

But maybe you could teach me to fly

Blood - Ink

Blood If my isolated voice could drown your awful din And the abuse and your hate Your rants, I’d be ignoring But on my ideology, you constantly spit So bullets in your heart, I sink And I run hiding my face in a helmet

Ink If words could wound the skin And bullets could debate The few you asked, I’d be answering But you’d bleed when I cut and slit And while you lie dying in a puddle of ink I’d aim my quill at another of you and shoot

Captive

Was I blind or was it dark?

Was I alone or was I being watched?

Was I here before?

Was it me who left these marks on the floor?

How long has it been?

Where was I last seen?

Did someone know?

Would someone follow?

Do I hear footsteps?

Should I cry for help?

Would anyone hear...

...will I die here?

Travel Diaries : Malaysia - Chapter 3

3. Langkawi Day 1

We booked an Uber from the airport to Tanjung Rhu Resort. This is the part I like the most when I tell people about the trip. I’m like ‘Yeah! I stayed at a beach resort!’. I feel rich every time I say that. The resort looked like something straight out of a luxury travel magazine… the white sandy beach, crystal clear water, beach lounge chairs with umbrellas, beach read books, white people sun bathing, women in bikinis spreading suntan lotions on exposed skin, a woman in a burkini with hardly any exposed skin accompanied (read ‘guarded’) by her husband, PDA by newlywed couples… all of it was fascinating. As we were being showed to our rooms I saw two French guys sitting in the balcony of their room lazing away in the afternoon enjoying a smoke whilst engaged in an intellectual conversation. Maybe they were talking about something inane but the combination of the lit cigarettes and French language made it look like they were discussing something like the rise of far-right parties in European politics.

The room was pretty awesome. The décor simple and tasteful. There was a TV but it had only one familiar channel, MTV Asia. We didn’t have much time to watch TV but the couple of times that I did, I came across an acoustic version of ‘Stay together’ by Noah Cyrus… “Nothing lasts forever, But wouldn't it be nice to stay together for the night?”. In the days that followed I have caught myself singing these lines many a time in the shower. Speaking of shower, there was a fuckin bathtub in the washroom. I wanted to give it a try but the thought of my naked ass touching the cold wet porcelain surface made me cringe. So I skipped it. Also, Suman spent a suspiciously long amount of time in the bathtub which was another reason I skipped it.

We kept our bags in the room and decided to go out and explore. We were still to figure out how we were going to get around the island. We thought it better to hire motorcycles. The resort staff at the reception were very helpful and they talked to a guy who rented motorcycles. We then went to his place where he promptly handed over two bikes and four helmets.

It was late afternoon and we were all hungry. We went around searching for some place nice but there weren’t any to be found anywhere near. After 20 minutes of searching we came across a small roadside shack. We sat down at one of the tables and looked at the menu. The only thing that looked familiar on that menu was some sort of noodles. We ordered for it. What was placed on our table five minutes later wasn’t at all appetizing. It was black in colour and looked horrible. It tasted dull and flavorless. We hardly ate half of it. It rained when we were on our way back to the resort and we were all drenched. It started to worry us that the rain and bad food might spoil our vacation.

It was around 7 in the evening when we came out of our rooms after a short nap. Thankfully, it had stopped raining by then. We decided to check out the famous Night market of langkawi. We knew from our internet research that it took place at different places on different days of the week. We were not sure where it was today. As luck would have it an employee at the resort knew a little bit of Hindi and he found us discussing this. He gave us directions to the place in Kuah where it was supposed to be on that day. It took us an hour to get there but it was worth the trouble. It was pretty amazing. Local vendors had set up makeshift stalls on either side of a narrow road for as far as one could see. All sorts of things were on sale… clothes, watches, sunglasses, wallets, handbags, trinkets, toys and a whole lot of other things, most of which were imitations of famous brands. The fake Adidas originals were tempting but I walked away. I now had two women to buy gifts for… mother and the soon-to-be fiancée. It was time to start practicing thriftiness.

We walked along the many stalls selling street food following the delicious smells from grills and sizzling frying pans on which pancakes and other local delicacies made of fish meat, chicken and mutton were being cooked with aromatic spices. There were meatballs, dumplings, springrolls, burgers and stir-fried steamed rice served with spicy curry. It was a culinary paradise and I was stuffed by the time we headed back. I made a mental note to try some of the things that were left out on the next day. I did buy a bracelet for the soon-to-be fiancée but I didn’t see anything that mom would potentially be interested in, and it was quite a dilemma for me thinking how my mother would interpret it if I showed up at her door with nothing for her but something for my future wife. The turf war would begin before the partition and I didn’t want to be a Mountbatten caught between Gandhi and Jinnah.

...to be continued

Travel Diaries : Malaysia - Chapter 2

2. Touchdown

We didn’t get much sleep in the four hour flight because of turbulence. It was just before dawn when Kuala Lampur city appeared below the clouds. The lightning and thunder added to the thrill. In a few minutes during the descent, darkness gave way to the first rays of the sun painting a magnificent picture on the horizon. The plane touched down at around 6:45 AM. We waited and followed the other passengers to the immigration counters. It was when we saw the sea of people in the queue that we truly realized that we are in another country. There were separate queues for people from different places… ASEAN, western countries and such. We looked around and it was like we got stuck in a Jackie Chan movie. I don’t know the politically correct term for it but would ‘Chinese looking’ be considered racist? Well... the entitled Indian male inside me wanted to raise my hands and yell, ‘Where are Indians supposed to go?’ but to our relief we saw some Indians in a queue at the far end and we joined them. Immigration, to my surprise, was a smooth affair. I mean the woman didn’t even look at me. She took a cursory look at my papers, stamped my passport and gave it back to me.

Klia2 Airport was huge and we had 5 hours to kill. Our flight to Langkawi was at 12 noon. I walked around for a bit clicking selfies like the quintessential tourist but I desperately needed tea to wake myself up and get my body clock started. So we settled near a restaurant and studied the menu. Learning to think in terms of Malaysian Ringits instead of Indian Rupees was tricky. I had 1000 Ringits to spend for the 5 days. We had bought it at an exchange rate of Rs. 14.50. What I did was to think in terms multiples of 7 since 7 ringits roughly equals a hundred rupee. I ordered tea and waited at a table. It cost me 2.50 Ringits but it did its job of reanimating me. I logged into the Airport wifi and called my dad on whatsapp. There were open wifi networks at many places in KL and that was very helpful.

We roamed around window shopping along stores of famous brands. The most intriguing one was Victoria’s Secret. If this was on TV at home, I would’ve instinctively changed the channel to save the awkwardness in front of my parents. But this was in real life and it was fascinating. A sort of sensuous glow emanated from within the store in bold colours. We stood outside and eyed the different things on display for a few more minutes. By then it was time for the flight.

The thing I remember the most about that flight was the terrifying feeling when I looked out of the window and saw only the ocean below us. Unlike the flight from Hyderabad to KL, this was in broad daylight. It was beautiful and exciting but it was also scary. When we started to descent a spectacular vision of breathtaking beauty presented itself to us. The islands looked incredible from the sky. The mountains and the beaches were picture perfect… the pure grandeur of nature was overwhelming.

To be continued...

Travel Diaries : Malaysia - Chapter 1

      1. Hyderabad

I had put my passport in the large green file and then forgotten about it. I kept all important things in that file. ‘Important’ in the sense that it contained all things which my present and future employers would use to judge my worth… my marksheets from school and college and other certificates to show how deserving I was for the position that was on offer. It also had my Insurance policy documents and other such things. Basically, if I were to die today and you wanted a quantitative index of my 25 years of existence based on some weighted average of my academic performance and financial status… the large green file is what you should be looking for. Sorry I digressed from my original train of thought. I was talking about my passport. I had gotten it in December 2016 and I put it away because I didn’t think I’d have any use for it in the immediate future. I am not an avid traveller. But around mid march 2017, I found myself picking up the large green file from my shelf. I dusted it off and took out the passport from it. I stared at the words ‘Passport, Republic of India’ on the deep bluish-black cover of the small book and asked myself ‘Are you really going to do it?’

Twenty minutes later I was staring at the paytm invoice for the tickets I had booked for a round trip from Hyderabad to Kuala Lampur and back. Paytm had an Rs. 5000 cashback offer on flight tickets on that day and as always Suman knew about it. He would know even before Indigo CMD knows if there is an offer in Indigo! It’s like his superpower. So the four of us, Me , Suman, Venki and Anson were already in Kuala Lampur in our minds wondering ‘Fuck man!! What do we do now?’.

Every group has a leader. In ours it was Suman, though I think Venki might differ on this. And then there are the followers. That was me and Anson, the younger lot. We asked doubts and offered suggestions but left the decision making to the elders. That kinda leaves Venki’s role a little unclear doesn’t it? Well, let me put it this way… if Suman was Kohli the skipper, Venki was Kumble the coach and when it comes to turf battles, the skipper always comes out on top and the coach stays silent biding his time to say ‘I told you so!’ when the skipper fucks up. This group dynamics provided for great entertainment most of the time.

Riding that initial wave of enthusiasm Suman and Venki made all the bookings, hotels and flights, the next day. We were to leave on the night of 9^th May and return on 14^th May. We decided to split our time in Malaysia between Kuala Lampur and Langkawi Island to get a taste of both the urban life of the modern alpha city and the relaxed life of the beautiful little islands. The VISA waiver programme of the Malaysian government for Indian Nationals made planning the trip all the more easier for us. Once all the bookings were done we moved on to the research phase. Given that we had only two days at Langkawi and two days at Kuala Lampur, we had to make efficient use of time to experience all that these two places had on offer. Suman was intent on skydiving but queries to ‘Skydiving Langkawi’ didn’t prove fruitful. They were closed due to some issue.

Being the obsessive compulsive list maker that I am, I started the task of planning the itinerary to the last minute… only to be reminded a couple of days later the profoundness of what Naina said to Kabir in ‘Yej Jawaani Hain Deewani’… “Jitna bhi try karo, kuch na kuch toh chootega hi.” There were so many things to do in langkawi and not much time. On the other hand we didn’t know what to do at Kuala Lampur but we had a lot of time. Thus emerged the first setback. We took Naina’s words to our hearts and decided to make the most out the way the trip pans out.

The two month wait from march to 9^th May was confusing. We weren’t getting the usual pre-trip good vibes. I didn’t feel like telling people about my first foreign trip. It was puzzling because I’m the kind of person who cannot keep such news a secret for long. Then I reasoned that maybe it is because of the other exciting thing happening in my life. I was going to be engaged to a gorgeous girl in a couple of months. Maybe the excitement about that had repressed the excitement that should have been there about the trip. Anyways the vibes didn’t come till 9^th May. When I was about to get into the cab to go to Hyderabad Airport it struck me that I’m going to fly over a fuckin ocean… and then just like that I was in high spirits.

Venki and Suman are always joking around. At the airport sitting amidst people who seemed like frequent travelers they’d talk to each other as if they’d been to Europe a hundred times, loud enough for people to hear. They’d say bullshit like “The roads in Kuala Lampur are not that great compared to Germany… I was there last month for a conference… smooth like butter!”, or something like “Etihad is the best airline… we better make some prayers… these Malaysian airplanes are always disappearing over the ocean!”.

To be continued...

In my arm…

I always knew I’d meet a girl smart and kind

I’ve looked for her far and wide

Oh I’ve been waiting so long, so long

To sing her this song

I’ve written her lovely letters

Using the sweetest of words

And red roses, on plain white office papers

I’ll watch her read them and smile

At the jokes so juvenile, I’ll watch her smile…

I always knew I’d find you somewhere somehow

And I knew we’d fall in love

And I’ve been waiting so long, so long

To sing you this song

I’ve dreamed of how we’d hold hands

And walk on pretty beaches

By the blue waters, along the white sands

And how I’d hold you in my arm

And sleep till the morning alarm holding you in my arm...

Eden...

I know a sorcerer

He says the world is malleable

Portals, out of thin air, he can conjure

Distances, to his mind are amenable

I have asked him to build me a doorway

That opens to your garden

There we will meet and stay

As woman and man, in our little Eden.

Transit

The rough landing woke me up from slumber. The passengers around me were irate. Many were shouting at the crew. With groggy eyes I looked out the tiny glass window and saw only a white expanse. We were engulfed by thick white fog. It’s a miracle the captain managed to land with this near zero visibility. The crew were doing their best to mollify the angry passengers. It amuses me when people get angry at someone who neither is the cause of their problem nor has the solution to it. The passengers calmed down once the captain came out and apologized. It must’ve been his immaculate uniform. Anyways, thanks to him, people stopped whining and started getting off the plane.

The long immigration queue was a struggle. I don’t see the point of having swanky terminals when the transit time is so inordinately long. Our peripatetic masters are so enthusiastic when they announce e-visa and visa on arrival but there are not enough immigration staff to deal with the rush. The queue moved painfully slow. People were getting restless. I must admit I was getting a little fidgety. It was odd. I am usually a very patient person. After the painfully long wait when it was my turn, the immigration officer was indifferent to the point of being rude. He took his own sweet time to go through my immigration documents, mumbling something to himself in his language which sounded very much like racist slur. At the end he took one long hard look at me and gave a dismissive shrug before giving me back the papers. The whole thing was unpleasant. Were all the people in this place such xenophobic jerks?, I wondered. But, I mustn’t make such generalizations. Anyways, I have no right to complain. People in my homeland weren’t so welcoming towards foreigners either.

I made my way out of the terminal and called a ride. The journey here was made in such a hurry that I didn’t get time to make arrangements for my stay. Thankfully I knew some people here. Now I know it’s not proper to show up at someone’s door unannounced, but I knew this lovely couple here who wouldn’t mind. They were really nice people. So I was headed to their address.

I rang the doorbell and waited. I was excited to see them. We had really great time back in the days when we hung out together. “Door’s open… come in.”, I heard his familiar voice. I opened the door a walked into the sitting room. They were truly surprised to see me. When reality sunk in both came up to me and gave me a big warm hug.

“What!!! What are you doing here?? You’ve grown old!! And look at the mustache!!”, they were full of questions and observations. After a few minutes of excitement and hugs he put a hand on my shoulder, smiled at me and said, “It’s good to see you buddy!”. I was too. I was happy to be back with them. I missed them. “You must be tired… I’ll get you something to drink.”, she said and disappeared into the kitchen. When she was gone, he turned to me and asked the question he’d been wanting to ask.

“How did it happen? Was your journey peaceful?”. I sighed. It was better that she couldn’t hear. She didn’t have the stomach for these sort of things. “It was cancer… and it was painful.”, I paused before saying more. I saw the pain in his eyes contemplating what I told him. To put him out of it I added, “But I was happy… I got to say goodbye to my friends… the kids and the wife were there when I breathed my last. I am happy how it ended… and I am happy to meet you and mother after so long.”

She brought coffee for the three of us and we sat talking about everything that happened between their and my passing.

Imaginary enemy

I have an imaginary enemy

Everything about her I envy

Her hair long and wavy

Her frame slim and curvy

Her pretty dress and jewels dainty

Her choices are under constant scrutiny

Her achievements induce jealousy

Her having an opinion makes me angry

Length of her skirt raises cries for modesty

Her rejection incites fury

She’s always clamouring for equality

For equal opportunities and to be paid equally

To not imprison her in an outdated reality

To not transgress on her bodily autonomy

To not suppress her sexuality

I preach sermons telling her to be a proper lady

But what right do I have to assume moral superiority?

Who am I to pass judgement on her purity?

Why do I have to restrict her to overcome my insecurity?

Why can’t we both be free and live in harmony?

I have an imaginary enemy

She’s winning over me slowly

Helping me overcome my toxic masculinity

Fighting my demons and still loving me unreservedly

She’s given me a glimpse of divinity.

Oblation

I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes. I kept hearing something trickling down on the floor. Drop…. Drop… Drop… I looked around the room. There couldn’t be a leak on the roof. It hadn’t rained for months. Maybe the drinking water jar was leaking. I searched all around it for cracks. There were none. I lay back down on my bed.

Drop…. Drop… Drop… I listened. Drop…. Drop… Drop…  My breaths slowed down. I tried to focus as I listened. But I was growing tired with each drop. Each drop made my eyes feel heavier. Slowly my mind blocked out the real world and I slipped into a dream.

*****

I don’t remember if I was awake the whole time, but when I became aware of the surroundings I saw that I was naked except for a white loincloth and a woman whom I’d never seen before was applying some scented oil on my body. I tried to ask her where I was but the sounds that came out of my mouth made no sense. I was conscious but I had no control over my body. All I could do was look at her and hope that she could read my mind. She sensed the paranoia starting in me. She went away for a minute and returned with a cup. ‘Drink’. She brought it to my mouth and slowly emptied the dark liquid into me. It filled my insides with burning fire. It consumed my body. All duality faded away. The body perished freeing the mind. I saw myself lying on the floor. I saw it separate from myself… as I saw everything else. I saw the woman inking the body… marking various symbols… on the chest, on the shoulders, on the face. When she finished she bowed her head and left. Two masked men came in. They lifted the body upright, each man on either side, and they carried it outside. I followed. The door opened and a hundred masked men and women came into view. They parted to allow the two men to carry it forward. I thought I saw some of my friends in the crowd. All I could recognize were their eyes. Even in their eyes there was something unfamiliar… I couldn’t figure it out. The men carried it up some rocks and laid it down on a huge square slab. I heard the beats of a drum… in a slow and measured rhythm. A hooded figure approached… the only person not wearing a mask. But I couldn’t see his whole face. He stood over it chanting hymns looking up at the sky. The tempo of the drum beats increased. The chants became louder… almost breaching the barrier… turning into screams. He removed the hood and looked down. I saw his eyes and in them I saw… I saw reverence. All in the crowd looked at it with a reverence reserved only for the Gods. The man took out a silver dagger and the crowd marveled at its beauty. He kneeled and held the dagger above its heart. The drum beats reached a crescendo and the man plunged the dagger in.

Blood poured out and flowed over the edge of the slab and trickled down. Drop…. Drop… Drop… it painted the earth red. As the blood left the body the crowd faded away. Drop…. Drop… Drop… the corpse disappeared… the red earth receded from view… a blackness engulfed everything... the sound of the dripping blood also died down… and finally… stillness… in the realm of a timeless existence.

Home

I noticed a peculiar thing at my workstation yesterday. My keyboard has 105 keys. I’ve never used some of them… because I don’t know what they’re for. A sudden sense of déjà vu overwhelmed me. It seemed as though, in the blink of an eye I had teleported to some other place. I was sitting on a cream coloured Nilkamal chair whose smooth surface had been scratched into a hideous texture. There was a 26” Onida CRT television in front of me on whose screen was a short, pudgy, mustachioed Italian plumber trying to save Princess Peach. I was trying to figure out the brand new joystick in my hand. Okay. I got this. This button makes Mario jump. This one to make him move… and all this while my whiny little baby brother cradled in amma’s arms, screaming in his high pitched baby voice, ‘Lemme play… lemme play’. Realization hit me like a ton of bricks. This was the place I’d learned to call home… some fifteen years ago.

After five minutes or so I had to yield when amma spoke in the I-will-tell-Dad-if-you-don’t-move voice. Oh… how I hated my brother for all the baby-privileges he got. And so he played and played and played till he felt drowsy and I sulked in one corner cursing God, ‘I didn’t know it was going to be this way! Take him back!’, because they had told me it was God who gave him to amma. I just assumed God could as easily take him back. Later at night amma would call me aside in the kitchen and give me a few extra pieces of mussel fry and say, ‘Only for you. Don’t tell anyone.’, and just like that I would forget that I was sulking.

Slowly, my brother started growing up and I started hating him less… because his baby-privileges were downgraded to he-is-the-younger-one privileges. Subsequently he started hating me… because at some point his privileges were withdrawn and I started getting certain privileges. When my brother sulked, the only explanation he got was ‘because your brother is elder than you’. That is when I started to like growing up. I wanted to be an adult now. I wanted the adult-privileges. I wanted to stay out till late evening. I wanted to take a bath when I wanted to and not when amma told me to. I wanted to learn to ride my father’s Bajaj Chetak. I wanted the channel not to be changed every time two sets of lips came close to each other on TV. I wanted to know what happened during those times in the movie Titanic when amma had changed the channel. I wanted to grow up as fast as possible.

Now I know all of it was a trap. Growing up is a trap. They told me about the privileges. They didn’t mention the responsibilities. They didn’t tell me how much of a burden it is to live with the knowledge that you are responsible for certain things. They didn’t tell me that all I really needed to know about Titanic was that all of them had died in the end.

I read something yesterday, which affected me greatly. “Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.” All I want now is to go back to that Bajaj Chetak, that Nilkamal chair, that Onida TV, that Super Mario game and my whiny little brother. I want to go home.