Grey, Beige & Black…Life takes on monochromatic shades in office. When I spotted a patch of green amidst the dull, dreary façade, I couldn’t resist taking a shot. Clicked it sitting right in front of me Boss. Life is like that – full of surprises!!!. Grab happiness wherever and whenever you get it even at the most unlikeliest turn.
This is my entry for PADE. Today’s theme :Window
Well! I am a bit fudged tonight after the day’s hard work and grime. So when Sfurti and Ritu announced “Tools” as the theme for PADE for today I made a face thinking for a nine to five pen pusher like me what can be the tools of survival but these :
No! These files are not dust-ridden and certainly not bound by that dreaded red tape. Rather with a workaholic boss like mine I tend to be somewhat like this :
Hey! Don’t look so shocked!!! I am sure by 2020 our office shall attain that admirable status of being absolutely paperless. Until then, we have to do with the lackluster artifices of a colourless workplace. Colourless did I say? Not exactly. Is it?
And then there is that ubiquitous PC without which you just have to put your pen down and sulk because you can’t do without the key board, the mouse or the “Goddess of Small Men and Women” – the internet. Now, as I write, I simultaneously mule over the self-coined epithet. Oh! Will the PC grudge if I impose the gender feminine on her or feel more privileged with the male tag! Or will it better be androgynous – rolling over to either camp as and when it suits best. Wicked thought! Wicked thought!
But hey! Don’t miss the peeping Toms right behind the monitor. Yes , those are the 
lunch plates. That’s what we exactly do at work. Hog and sweat it out.
😀 😀 😀 😀
And then when the rotten rut becomes too overbearing on the nerves I quietly fish out my diary and steal a few couplets out of time. Shhhhhh! That’s my own little secret. Don’t you tell that to my boss!!! Pleeeeeeeeease!!!
Prestige Issue
Back home the foodie in me takes over – somewhat like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. One of my colleagues, once meanly accused me of having Multiple Personality Disorder. Character assassination I call that!!! Coming back to my culinary creativity. Inspired by my co-bloggers’ food blogs, I wanted to start one. But then I found my utensils unclickable. You know what I mean. So, I went and bought this all-purpose Prestige Pressure Pan. Since then there has been no stopping me. What with cooking and clicking!!!
Cacophony
But wait!! There’s more to come. And then there are days when I want to give a hard time to my neighbours and sing myself sore.
😀 :D. Now, enough of myself.
Pondering over the larger connotation, everyone has his or her methodical madness or method in their madness. For every madness there need be a tool. Even as I write these gibberish in my blog space I find the left margin of the screen boasts of an icon captioned “Tools”.
Imp’s Tool
For the imp in my life who bundles me up to and fro office, the four wheeler is his tool. Now, what do we exactly mean by a tool? That by which we earn our bread and butter? Or the one with which we identify ourselves?
Whenever I see her singing I am reminded of an ![Pc0160500[1]](https://panaecea.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/pc01605001.jpg)
engrossed craftsman at work. As the Nightingale of India captures and emotes every single emotion that a human heart is capable of feeling, her mesmerizing, honey coated vocals become her tool she is known by!
Every time I have been confined to bed with some serious or non-serious ailment, I have become acutely aware of my body – the ever grinding machine that we take for granted. Every cog in that machine is so well-coordinated and well orchestrated. It is this tool that enables us to breathe in life! It is this tool that makes us aware of our surrounds! It is this tool that salivates for more! It is this tool that eggs us on! It is this tool that also gives up at times!!
It is when we wonder how this tool works with such precise perfection, the limitless canvas of a Child, who loves to toy with cosmic churns, unfolds in all its glory and splendour. Aren’t we simply the tools in those Invisible Hands?
Through us He manifests. With us He plays. And in infinite boredom the mould at last He breaks….
The Cosmic Churn
Before alighting on the Earth as Mahamaya, the reincarnate of Shakti, Maa Durga was empowered by various Gods and Goddesses with chosen weaponry and tools, to facilitate her victory upon the demon king Asura. Thus, embellished Mahishasura Mardini came down upon The Evil One in her belligerent best. Thus goes the mythological lore which symbolizes the significance and interconnect between Tools and Power.
The question that now crops up naturally is : Are we using our Tools the way we should ? Or have they deprecated to being the manifests of ill-used Power?
Howsoever small or strong, the instruments of crafts and constructs may assume an annihilative format depending upon the usage they are put to. Therein perhaps lies the inherent anomaly of creation and progression. The suitability of today may pave the way to decay and disaster of the future wherefrom the ashes shall emerge a newer and more apt Order of the Day.
Along with the continuum of human civilization, tools have been devised and regenerated to suit the Purpose of Time. Thus, has moved on the Neanderthal Man, through blizzard and bliss, from scrapers and bladelets to the Wheel of the Agrarian Age charting a sometime downhill and at others uphill course, to the Armoury of the Nuclear Globe – Mankind has come a long way without a break but would do better to pause a while and ruminate whether the Tools remain in their hands or they have been transferred in the hands of the Tool. 
Remember Dr. Otto Octavius of Spiderman II?
This post is shared with PADE. Today’s theme : Tools
A Shaded Street Going Nowhere
“Yeh raah kahaan se hai, Yeh raah kahaan tak hai, Is raah ka koi raahi, samjha hai na jaanaa hai…” I love these vagabond street, alleys, bends winding through the city and leading nowhere. Remember “...Ek akela is shahar mein…“
Well, the streets are not so aimless after all and they do reach somewhere if we choose to notice. Alas! the overwhelming wanderlust which swishes us through the hurricane of life never gives so much of a chance to stand and stare.
The Chaiwallah Just By The Bend Of My Block
Most of these pics were taken through a speeding vehicle going to and fro Office. The “Shor In The City” is as deafening as is the silences accompanied sometimes by lengthening shadows.
The Leaf Strewn Street Right Outside My Dwelling
“Seeney mein jalan aankhon mein toofan sa kyun hai, Is shahar mein har shaqs pareshaan sa kyun hai” perhaps holds true for all cities and metros of the world where human hold has constrained space and peace.
Shor In The City
All said and done streets are beautiful, panoramic and personify the pulse of the city. Don’t they?
The Heritage Street
Shared with PADE. Today’s theme : Street
Shoes are worn to encase the feet in comfort. Shoes are worn to beat the roads. Shoes are also a woman’s handy weapon in distress. “A gentleman is known by his shoes” is an old English proverb. “One Two Buckle My Shoe” is the rhyme we have all learnt in nursery. Of late, shoes have come to be a part of a fashionista’s style statement. A globe trotter’s shoes, on the other hand, carry history in their heels. Whereas shoes have been the lucky mascot of a few Cinderellas, to be sure.
Dandi March Stone Sculpted – Gyarah Murti
And then there have been those who have walked bare feet on dust and debris to prove a point. And those who have smilingly renounced these encasements in their seeking spree. I have always treated shoes as shoes – nothing more nothing less – which is quite natural for a person who doesn’t seem to see or think beyond convenience till one fine morning a family of four in the Metro proved me wrong. It was the onset of winter. There was a nip in the air, pleasantly comfortable, as long as you were well covered. They belonged to the milieu that represents the heart of our diverse nation. The boy-child was adequately dressed and being constantly fussed over while the girl-child went bare feet and supremely ignored by the mother. The girl did not seem to mind. Perhaps it was an arrangement she was quite used to. But her ugly, un-encased feet danced before my eyes long after they had de-boarded the train.
While a casually flung shoe can be an engaging example of coquetry, our Parliamentarians have made many a point home by slinging many a pair at each other, while the House is in-session. I once lost my shoes, an unusual favourite, in a crowded Temple. The family astrologer had swooned over this untimely loss and gravely remarked that I was lucky to have gotten over ill-luck. Shoes, a token of disgrace, have thus proven to be harbinger of good tidings!
Poor shoes!
A necessity put under various use !
Shoes have given proxy for banished kings.
Shoes have given away culprits in crime.
Shoes have sheltered secrets in their soles.
“Am glad you’re not in my shoes,” Thus speaketh the caged soul!!
The Caged Soul
This is my entry for today’s theme “Shoes” in PADE.
Yipppppeeeeeeeeeeeeee! At last!!!
Your Wish Is My Command
Sharp is not the word that defines me. Though I agree I have those cud chewing faculties that grow with age yet quick wit is not my forte. Resultantly, jibes, jokes, snide, butts fly past like saucers till it dawns upon me to react!
In contrast, my pet Rinky aka Kishmish aka Phoebe is just too smart for words and quick on the uptake, sufficiently so, to know which side of the bread is well buttered. And like all storehouses of talent, she nurtures her own brand of idiosyncrasies, temperaments and tantrums.
Satish, her trainer, was in the Police Dog Squad before he took up the challenge of taming the shrew, you know who! Well he was proud enough not to admit that he found Rinky unmanageable. He often complained that her laziness attributed to her fondness for food. Well I absolutely disagree to that. How could wit and wisdom be sustained without a well-nutritioned physique?
It has taken four months for Rinky to grasp what it means to be lady like. She does give me that knowing look quite often and the demure demeanour is easily contrived for the pics.
These clicks were taken at BD Park near my residence. It was mid-summer afternoon. Not the best of time for canine training. But a trainer with a hectic schedule and a pet who is too willful, you are not left with much choice.
In short, I am not sharp but my pet is and she makes the most of it.
My contribution to today’s theme for PADE : Sharp !
I am listening! I understand ! I am sharp!
Naturally Disobedient
“Show me the face and I’ll show you the Rule” is a common repartee in the arms of the Government. The adage “Rule for one is Rule for all” does not always hold true in the corridors of power.
Thinkers and philosophers have, time and again stressed how the emergence of a cohesive social order out of the primordial State of Nature necessitated formulation of and adherence to man-made Rules.
History, at the same time, has witnessed many sagas and blood baths where breaking away from the stranglehold of effete, age-old Rules have paved the way for greater good of greater number.
In the present times, we have painfully observed how Rules have been distorted by the Patricians and even the law-makers themselves to suit their whims and fancies. Rules in the hands of the undeserving have rapidly degenerated into instruments of oppression. Dynamism has, more than once, considered Rules obstructive and restrictive. While the enforcers of law and order would unequivocally quip that subservience to Rules is the pathway to freedom. There will always be those rebellious of Rules , resistant to restraints, naturally disobedient. Yes, Rules denote compulsion and by virtue are prohibitory. Yet, insubordination to Rules is as suicidal to harmony as is license detrimental to liberty.
In 1700 BC when Hammurabbi, the Babylonian king, had first inscribed the code of laws on diorite stelle (clay tablets) and gifted mankind the first written laws complete with punitive action for disobedience, could he ever fathom how timed Rules were or the intrinsic unruliness by which Nature governed the sustenance of Mother Earth, or for that matter, the human civilization? Perhaps not…
Every human endeavor has the in-built mechanism of going haywire. In the spot of green, that I somehow manage to maintain, right outside my flat, despite the space constraint, I have often delightfully noticed a blatant non-subscription to any concrete body of Rules, that I or my mali, in our naivety, try to impose. The click on the top of the post is an example of the blatant defiance with which the saplings choose their lightened path bypassing embargoes and in the process illumining my little garden with their sunny blooms.
I am nobody to channelize or de-channelize or codify or de-codify set of Rules for their substantive growth because life blossoms by its own sheer wish and will. Therein lie its grandeur and undiminishing power to astonish the human spectators. And perhaps it is this inherent lack of compliance to a steady course that exemplifies divinity.
This is again an entry, a non-conventional one, to PADE, under today’s theme Rule. To know more about PADE or Picture A Day Experiment, click here.
Break Of Dawn
When Tagore wrote “Aundho janey deho aalo, mrito janey deho praan”…which literally translated means, “Give light to the blind and life to the dead”, the allusion to life and light had huger connotations than the eyes could envision or breath could enfold.
Those days when life shied away from the extravagant, sleepless nights were whiled away on the terrace gazing at the stars yonder trying to gauge the distances the twinkles traveled to tempt us.
Today our worlds have shrunk to the state-of-the-art-gear which has the power to enlighten our existence without stretching the hands or bothering the fingers.
In our microcosm of reality, an uninterrupted supply of electricity is a mandate which every ruling or aspiring Political Party would hold dear to inveigle popular support.
However, for those who have shunned the rudiments of comfort for greater gains, light is like the match struck in abysmal darkness – the Moment’s Truth, which can light life forever!
I had clicked the break of dawn with my Nokia Mobile from the balcony – an impulsive move instantly archived awaiting deletion from the folder someday. It was just one of those clicks which had included the unwanted within an un-premeditated frame – the poking steel ladder, the intruding overhead cables, the ungainly street light!
But today, as I look at it, I realize seldom do we seek that streak of light which breaks us free from the shackles of everyday chases and chores, though it may have been present all the time around us to imbibe!!!
A strip of dawn, a priceless gift, fondly handed down to us every day by Nature Divine, which we choose to either ignore or give a miss. Or foolishly endeavor to imprison in an unpretentious shot in an utterly nonchalant mood!
This post is my first entry to PADE, the Picture A Day Experiment, a 31 Day Photo Challenge, wherein each participant shall post an image as per the theme of the day under today’s theme – Light. To know more about it, click here.
Well! It looked like a shiny, slimy slip of a black string which wriggled in space in well-crafted curves. I could have gone on and on admiring the smart choreography of graceful dalliance but to my surprise it changed shape in a split of a second (and I am sure I hadn’t blinked even once). And lo dancing before my eyes was a slippery strip of a reptilian beauty its sleek tongue sticking in and out thirsty of a venomous sting. I missed the hiss, which I was so sure, had somehow got diffused in the atmosphere before my plucky ears could pick up. To hell with the hiss I said and rubbed my eyes immediately realizing the unpardonable blunder that I had committed.
It wasn’t a string or a sly poisonous charger. Oh! How could I not figure out as soon as I saw it…the imbecile that I was! It was her long, silky tresses tamed in a neat straight ponytail which oscillated like a pendulum as she leaped in air from one cloud to the other, her Ninjah pants flapping about while her lithe, well-gymned body took the speed of light. Who said fragile couldn’t lit a spark, gather lightening momentum or ignite a colossal incendiary havoc!!!
But hey! What’s the hurry? In answer I got a tumbled cart of green vegetables which she had carelessly toppled over in her hurricane tour of the narrow lane where the Saturday Bazaar was just about settling down for a weekly affair of rowdy haggle. The old man in a “latticed” gunjee and once-upon-a-time-white dhoti was cursing her loudly while trying his level best to straighten the cart. His young nephew was gathering the spread overs. But she seemed oblivious to the pandemonium she had caused behind.
The Tumbled Cart
Gosh! She did seem to be in a mighty hurry! A few strands of hair had escaped the tidy knot and was swirling around her delicate face giving her that roughed up edge which always succeeded in arousing the male frenzy. Yet even in her hurry and scurry she presented that least-made-up-look which she always effortlessly managed on-screen or on the covers of glossy, glitzy, gossipy mags. I eyed her understated, well-cut, elegant attire – a nice sky-grey with black broad borders at the end of a pair of long sleeves and the daintily overlapping lapels round her thin, bony neck. A slight twitch of envy…was I going green?
The loose shirt was tied round her size zero waist by a black belt of the same texture – soft, well-spun yet lacking the exclusivity of a bourgeoisie haute-couture. She was one amongst all yet stood apart!!
She levitated like a bird poised for a distant flight and hovered in air for some time before swooping down to take the marble steps two at a time. The energetic climb delivered her right on top of the broad landing, where the steps ended and the glass door stood wide open, ushering in the daily passengers inside the concourse. Having stood squarely for a while in the midst of the flowing crowd she prepared for her next move. But before plunging forward she looked over her shoulder as though sizing up her chasers. Oh! Now I could guess the reason behind her dashing detours….what else but the nosy paparazzi? And before I could be smug about my superior intellect she had slid through the glass door and entered the Metro in a flash of a second. Needless to say I followed but not before losing my way midst the jostling ordinariness. Of all the means of transportation she had to choose this mediocre mode meant for the milling middle class!!! I almost spluttered in disgust. Is that you speaking? I asked myself. Or the snooty snob cleverly camouflaged under a down-to-earth-façade, who’d inwardly prefer, a million times over, not to rub shoulders with the cattle class? The answer was ready on my lips but somebody nudged me hard at this point. I looked back but could not catch the miscreant. Oh! I was missing something. It was just one of those inexplicable intuitive impulses which made me spin around on the nick of time. And before I could say zebra the silver caterpillar had swished in. The doors opened noiselessly to gulp in the regular, unruly throng of daily commuters. A few seconds, and the doors were just about to close shut, and I say just about, when a streak passed me by and slipped inside the Metro like a bolt of lightning through the narrow crevice that a closing door allows before shutting up its mouth with that inexorable air of finality. And the next moment the doors did slid shut with a soft thud.
Phew that was a narrow escape…..!!!! I wondered, not for the first or last time, why she had to take those mighty risks. Was she running against time? Or that confounding escape from one’s own self which we all tend to indulge in once, no, most of the times, in life? Celebs and their idiosyncrasies I muttered audibly and could have gone on with my endless conjectures had it not been this faceless voice breathing down my neck startling me from my reverie…
“Katrina Kaif…” said she slurping on the name honouring the alphabet ‘K’.
As though I didn’t know, I snorted
“Well, they are way above the mundane….so what’s she doing amidst the rut?” I mused
“Aah!” said the voiceover, “There’s a reason…”
“What reason?” My curiosity got the better of me.
“D-I-A-M-O-N-D-Z-Z-Z” The zzzz trailed on like those fearsome echoes the intruding footfalls of the tourists leave behind within the ancient, mossy walls of abandoned, heritage tombs raising the dead from the other world.
“Diamonds? Where?” I looked about
“No! No!” She clucked, “She has it on her person…Hidingggg…” The secret was let out in such a formidable whisper I was sure the sound was loud enough to explode into the prickly ears of the SHO commanding the nearest Police Chowkee.
Oh! Diamonds on her person hidden somewhere under those well-tailored lapels! So that was the reason behind all that hair raising aerial trapeze. Now I knew. Somehow I had expected a more sartorial extravaganza for such dramatic necessities – something flamboyant and flashy with cascading folds to hold the priceless beauties within her bosom. Not the flappy Chinese coat and pant she wore perhaps out of practical considerations. Of course, you didn’t run hundred meters relay race in Will Power Gowns. But her simplicity killed my fertile imagination from going amuck. However, what came as a knock-out was the next offer from the faceless stranger.
“Do you want some?”
“What?” I was puzzled
“The Dzzzzzzzzzz”. This was let out in a long conspiratorial hush-hush tone!
“Whooaaaa….” What a question……..
But before I could lash out a whipping retort, ready on the tip of my tongue, she mimicked….”Jo biwi se karey pyaar woh diamonds se kaise Karen inkaar…..tantarra….tarra….tarra…” A most inappropriate tag-line!
It was at this inopportune moment that Beeru my sabiziwallah contrived to erupt out of the blue with his cart full of veggies secured with astronomical price tags.
“Didi ley lijiye pyaanz laal laal…kewal assi rupaye killo…”
Oh! His Allahabadi tahzeeb…I grated my teeth.
“Assi!” I had the pleasure of hearing that shrill note of horrification in my “unfound” or should I say confounded friend’s voice.
“Kya baat kardi aapne!” Now the Allahabadi had an equal match in her Lukhnawi nazaaqat.
“Arrey ! Kal hii to becha hoon nabbey ke bhaav!! Aaj assi to kam ho gaye naa!” Beeru’s irrefutable logic failed to deter her.
My ladybird sounded cheesed off and changed the topic in a jiffy (Oh! The art of it!).
“Now! Come on! Do you or do you not want those twinkly bits of glasses?” The invisible confronted me rather impatiently while a flummoxed Beeru looked on.
Glasses! Carbons! Worth a fortune! Those which were safely ensconced in Katrina Kaif’s well-maintained bosom. Did I or did I now want them? For once I really knew what it meant to be in the horns of dilemma. I hemmed. I hawed. Time was running out…and I could see a black dot in the distant horizon getting magnified by the second in bovine belligerence.
But before the black bull could charge with his crumpled horns angled purposely towards me I shouted, “Nooooooooooo! I want the onions!!!!!1”
“Whattttttttttttttt?” I was sure she’d faint any moment now but I was helpless. Onions, those tempting, shapely tops of red and mauve which adorned my kitchen basket with their invariable presence, dawdled in front of my eyes, with enviable laze and looked immensely more attractive, million times over, than those priceless shards which had somehow receded to the background.
I was about to apologize to her but at that very moment the silver caterpillar once again swished an entry waltzing on those shiny metallic tracks straight on to the platform. The doors once again slid open. And the multitude spilled out… the tireless aam junta, hackneyed in their pursuits and so very unremarkable in their depiction of life…
My eyes pained to see that unfamiliar figure of bony lass in grey and black lapels but alas the throng seemed to have swallowed her up in one monstrous gulp.
And those diamonds?
I wondered as the shrill tinkle of my alarm clock buzzed on…and on…and on…till each cell constituting my being shrieked in unison alarmed!!
***
I woke up to a heavily curtained room dominated by a huge double box bed piled with thick mattresses. Its pristine walls engulfed in shadows yet to be chased away by sunnier invasions. Yes, it was my bedroom where I had dreamed many a dreams through ages. Dreams which have perked me up, dreams which have shoved me into the vortex of melancholia, dreams which have made me understand the significance of the weird in our mediocre lives, dreams which have not left any scope for rationalization, dreams which have seemed a jumbled up knit of hocus pocus, dreams which have very infrequently soothed my jarred nerves swathing me in a cloak of embalming sleep.
But honest to God never before in a dream have I been thrown into such a tizzy compelling a choice between diamonds and onions! A parapsychologist’s delight this would be to decipher the intricate interconnection between the two objects which apparently have no, not even remote, resemblance to each other. Yet, my fertile frontal lobes had worked upon the inconceivable and entertained me with a situational caper which had the ingredients of revving up a higher form of interactive dialogues in the Socrates-ian camp.
As I mulled over the various possibilities in which the dreamscape could have culminated had it happened in reality (gotcha that’s an oxymoron) or the rationale behind the not so run-of-the-mill theatricals of the subconscious, the alarm charged up again to my utter annoyance.
I shrugged off the blanket and readied my reluctant reflexes to start singing afresh the everyday song….. no. no cloud nine for me, pal….
Yet, there remained so many questions unanswered…. And in between the clanking cutlery, wobbly washing machine, the disgruntled dust pans and innumerable household chores, my mind played a crooked game of “Bujho To Jaaney” : Who was she running away from? The goons or the guards? The law breakers or the law makers? Where did she vanish to? Amongst these the foremost : What happened to those sparkling dusts of carbon?
And last but not the least…………Did I want some…………….?
Well, let’s leave it at that…
It’s time to fry the onions….oh please!
[Foot Note : Last but not the least, this post is dedicated to my very good friend and co-blogger, one and only Jack,My Say , the awesome on-line doodler, am glad that I happen to know, who has also gone all out of his way to add immense value to this post with a ticklish teaser posted in the beginning of the article. I am greatly indebted to him for his time, patience and creativity and can’t thank him enough for the precision with which he has hit the nail, so to speak, i.e., grasped the pulse of the post in one go. I feel blessed having ‘met’ him on-line and cherish the interactions that he allows me to have with him on his blog space and also on e-mails.]
The heathen memories of darkness
Leave tilted shadows on the wall
Crucified unto permanency?
Indelibly ingrained on the retinal canvas?
Or just the salsa of fluid fingers
Denoting a passage of phase
I wonder…
What is so dreadful
Beyond death?
The eventide of life
Invokes pictures of
Cadaverous beauty
Hitherto unframed
Oh! Mirror tell me the truth
Hinged or unhinged
The madman rants
Isn’t uncertainty
Anything but an appointment
Unbidden, unconfirmed
Slot unpegged?
….And then there are those molten moments when you witness all that you have lived for, dreamed agelessly and aspired relentlessly to be at least once in your lifetime cascade down into a mirthless, vigourless fall – a sagging lava of enervated desires and wishes, that had raised spirited heads off and on in your heart of heart while you had said no, not now, again and again to them like a mother does to a restless kid to divert him off mischiefs and eventually put him off to sleep…till the entire process became almost like a ritual and you found solace in the fact that you have the final command over your reckless spirit, an undeniable control that you thought was very much right and the call of the time.
There was also this teeny-weeny belief somewhere in the back of your mind (or is it heart?) that there is still time, the sun is still vibrant in its glow and its warmth yet soothing to the brow.
And suddenly one fine point of a day of usual boredom and routine you realize that it may not be so. Life may slowly be crumbling into a dissipated coil of withered fragrance and wilted petals and the end that you presumed was afar may be surreptitiously knocking at the door quietly laughing at your florid geniality which you have habituated yourself to believe as undying optimism.
Hope, they say is panacea to all frail-hearted ambitions which have not found their identity in Bohemia or diligence. I wonder is it really so or is it just one of those illusions that you stupidly cling just to find that feeble will to foray into whatever is not in your scheme of things but have been impelled to embrace for the sake of survival.
I shall not try to seek the perfect answer like Yaksha did with Yudhishthira as all answers, I fear, may lead on to a maze of further illusions, mirages, compromises, consolations and make beliefs.
I shall not ask too many questions either because all queries are doomed to be futile and perpetuate the rigmarole of more pointless, mindless queries.
I shall just sit by this window and let moments take on moments till the roving Universe quietens in pace and zeal and settles down like I do by this sill drooling over the canopy of this endless vastness of blue which holds the mystery of all existence in its bosom like a well-guarded secret.
Be this void, this undiluted envelope of ether my medication….a soother to a tired wanderer….a remedial balm to the staggering feet of a well-worn traveller.
Oh! I lie here in wait
Perpetual
Procrastinate
Neither I
Nor should you
Pass me by
Unnoticed
Unheeded
Implore I do
A mendicant
In need
Come hold me
Take me into your arms
And hold me tight
Till I swoon in ecstasy
Poised in passion
Stilled in time
And then…
Wiki says: “A ”’candle”’ is a solid block of wax with an embedded candle wick, which is ignited to provide light, and sometimes heat, and historically was used as a method of keeping time.”
When we were small, our days were marked by long hours of unannounced load shedding. Needless to say inverters or generators were things yet to be discovered or put to common domestic use. Those dark hours (if it were night) were spent sitting around melting candles throwing weak flickers of lights in rooms domineered by shadows. Families were large and playmates were easily found in siblings and hordes of cousins. Time would pass by in a jiffy playing Antakshari/Word Building/Guessing Games and other brain twisters.
In the meanwhile, the patriarchs would find it appropriate to blast the Government or play Bridge rowdily blaming each other and their partners for the wrong moves causing defeat or spoilers while the ladies of the house amused themselves with family or neighborhood gossips – who is going around with whom and who is expecting her second or third issue and such other entertaining exchanges!
The more enterprising ones, like my elder sis, would lit the wick and try a sly hand at planchette invoking the spirits, evil or noble, hovering in the troposphere, on the lookout for gullible humans, desperate to know what lay in store for them in the immediate future. That evergreen heart thudding question: does he love me or loves me not….or that breath stopping one: when will that TDH (Tall Dark and Handsome) Gregory Peckian styled heart-robber, jump straight out of the mushy pages of Mills & Boon, gatecrash into my life and sweep me off my feet …or a more puritan query: will I pass the Half Yearlies with flying colours? …or a calculated one: which way should I present that craftily stolen red rose (from the school garden) to my favourite teacher to bring a patronizing smile on her pursed lips and a doting glaze to her stern eyes freezing the same to permanency? Innocent, innocuous, insouciant time pass!
We always had a pack of candles stacked in the store room – it was an essential item for light-less exigency. Not only for the mosquito-bite ridden nights but also for certain soporific hours of the day when Father would light one in front of the house deity and pray or meditate. My roguish cousin made it a point to frighten me with eerie noises when we gathered to play The Dark Room. The lights would be turned off and special pains taken to ward off even a flicker of ray from outside. The unfortunate one amongst us, mostly me, would be designated to find the rest of the gang in that pitch, blinding darkness. If you were lucky you would soon stumble on one of the crouching lurkers; if you were not you’d end up flailing your hands around in vain and hoping after hopes for a streak of illumination. Suddenly, a match would be struck in air, a candle contrived out of nowhere and lit to catch red-handed your bamboozled expression amidst roars of laughter!
It was a common joke, or more respectfully speaking, practice, in our family to sing along “Aayega aane wala”, unforgettably Madhubala-esque style, followed by Waheeda’s goose bumpy “kahin deep jale kahin dil” with a spooky ooooooooooooooooooo Lata-lilt trailing the number, whosoever lit the candle first during the nightly load shedding ritual.
Well, candles came in handy in other times for other purposes as well. When a pin point had to be burnt to sterilize before needling into the skin to scoop out foreign flakes irritating the fingers, toes or heels! Today, for the littlest discomfort we prefer to rush to the nearest state-of-the-art nursing home or hospital.
As a child, I would love to watch a burning candle – how the molten wax, colourless and liquefied, collected in the hollow around the wick before percolating down drip by drip, sliding along the sides of the slender, tubular block of wax, cooling and solidifying as instantly into thin strips of stalactite-stalagmite like structures while stoically clinging to the length of the candle. Later, fingers would find great fun in breaking these outgrowths off the candle stick like crunches of crisply fried chips. The wax stuck to the fingers for long softening the tips into creamy mounds.
Candles were crucial in those cursed hours of lengthy black-outs too when the sovereignty of the State was under severe jeopardy. Yes! The 1970s!! We have seen those days of hushed worried tones, brazen black marketeering and an economy tottering on cracked heels.
Those were days of plethora of inconveniences and lack of information. Yet, we enjoyed a kind of loving protection within the folds of close-knit as well as extended family and kinship. Since then times have changed with a fierce rapidity. With the easy accessibility and proliferation of modern amenities, candles have been declared outmoded and bowed out of city life except to be used peripherally for lighting a diya in the temple or a cracker during Diwali. Paying heed to the call of time, the candle-makers beat a hasty retreat. However, in remote backwaters, where the agencies of governance have not firmed their political will towards electrification, candles, I suppose, are still very much a way of life.
Candles have lit peaceful processions of protest. Candles have been lit in tribute to the Forces who secure our borders from enemy insurgents. Candles have been lit in memories of martyrs who have laid down their lives for monumental causes and safeguard of rich legacies for posterity. Yes! Candles have maintained time and historicity. Much as Civilization is on a roll-back always. The cyclic order of birth-growth-flourish-decay-death unfailingly perpetuate. There are enough chances that sooner than later, we may regress back in time to the primitive state of nature – the jungle culture – as an aftermath to a rotten end! More so, as the country is endangered by its own men – the hoodlums anchored on political backing, patricians engrossed in selfish pursuits within the enclosed insulation of their ivory towers and pedophiles on a rampage raping five year olds with candles and plastic bottles; the chandler, once thrown out of business, may again be reinstated back with unexpected preoccupation but this time with a difference. Candles, the harmless time-keeper of the past, having now replaced deadlier instruments of oppression and torture with equal ferocity and savagery!
Disturbed I fold back the newspaper. Rinky, till now lying comfortably next to my feet, look up with questioning eyes. On an impulse, I draw her in a tight hug. Eventide, the streets would soon be deserted, mothers pulling back their daughters behind filigreed curtains as in ancient ages, girl-children disallowed outside the threshold of their hearths, unsure whether the man next door pecked their daughters’ cheeks with genuine fondness or fondled bestial motives on the secret. The beast on the prowl may have layers to him – an external visage of care and concern masking the murkier mala fide intents hidden thereunder. Who knows? Thus brews and breeds an air of distrust and doubt pervading the populace – a potent destroyer of the species – more lethal than a nuclear explosive.
While innocence lies lacerated in a hospital bed battling with death what does she have to look forward to but a traumatized future? After more than six decades of independence, the light has really gone out. We have snuffed out the candles with the crook of our palms, once a pet childhood game giving way to a regrettable certitude of hopelessness and faithlessness. The clipped wick has doused the city in shame leaving behind licking flames of horrified protest And however hard the law enforcers try to slap blankets over the leaping tongs of fire, the blistering blaze may soon devour the sleepy citadels of power and bring the roof down in no time.
Hope is an undying motivator. Cynics may implore us to see reason and understand the pluralist legacy of vote bank based politics. Notwithstanding, the intense love for our motherland would like to see the candle turn into a blazing torch igniting a horizon with expandable boundaries and not get stranded in a time warp.
Till then a bud nipped at its nascence wilts on a pristine sheet of clinical umbrage.
And we mourn a loss greater than that of life!!!!
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