Skip to main content

Cache

It is still too early to say what memories will crystallise around you. For now, it is the bedpan not emptied, the smell of ointments and pills in your room and your waning voice damning the world. But once my tears have dried and the puja flowers have withered, perhaps I will freeze you at an age when you looked better.

Will it be the black and white honeymoon photos taken on a boat in the lake in Matheran when you first let me down ( couldn't you find any place cheaper?), and the mundan of our first-born where your mother made such a fuss and that stupid photo from the wedding of some cousin of yours where your middle-aged, balding face and paunch made me fall out of love with you for the first time?

And yes, the shaadi-ka-video, the cassette recording of our kid reciting nursery rhymes and certainly all the unrecorded fights (you never earned enough, drank too much and never bought me enough flowers) and that ne'er-do-well son you gave me who lamented loudly at the funeral and your sisters—let us not talk about your sisters. No I will not box you into anything; for you know when I too die, I wouldn't like being framed in an 8" by 10" surrounded by withered flowers.


frogpond
—a new croak
joins the chorus
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CST Station at 7:45 PM on Sunday 21 December, 2008

winter clouds this silent scream in my eyes The loo stinks, the tap runs and can't be closed. The risk of dying of a urinary tract infection or asphyxiation is still the same. The sole policeman visible, young and unarmed, is ostensibly guarding the ladies' first class. The rather bright lights are a change though, but they seem to make the place seem a wee bit less crowded. Seem. There are people sitting on the platform, waiting for their trains. Many in their Sunday best. Popcorn-sellers, peanut-sellers, kulfi-sellers are trying to get me to shed some money towards them, even as I wait for the samosa-seller. yellow leaves the old woman sweeps up yesterday It's getting on eight (time for the Titwala Fast to leave), and last-minute boarders are jumping in. The popcorn-seller is taking his last chances before he moves to the 8:13 Khopoli Slow. I don't know how many of the guys around me are pass-holders or even bothered to buy tickets. I do know the police didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Haiku translated into... Sanskrit

 Four sets of Haiku translated into Sanskrit (not perfect!): https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/abhyagata-palika/ https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/hasteh-chayayam-in-the-elephants-shadow/ https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/18/vasanta-gandham-spring-fragrance/ https://cafehaiku.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/garjana-dhwani-the-thunder/
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Rebellion and Revolution

Cattle are important. And because cattle are important, cowherds are important. There has to be someone to milk the cattle and clean the dung. It doesn't benefit a king to kill cowherds. Which is why, when the rebellion comes, it comes from the cowherd. He may be dark-skinned and wear feathers in his hair and play bamboo flutes and spend the day far too alone to gossip and plot, but he observes. He watches the oxen drag the plough, the crack of the whip behind them. But he also looks at the same bulls in the spring, locking horns in fierce combat. He watches the cow obey the hurr-hurrs as she is led along the road, but he also sees how she becomes a tigress when her calf is in danger. The same bullocks that solemnly drag the overloaded cart, now maddened, gore the drover. The cowherd observes, and he learns that the weak can become strong. He learns that sickles can become swords, that the humble wooden stick can break a spinal cord. He may be a king's human beast; but list...
Post a Comment
Read more