It’s snowing outside,
But you don’t look
The embers give warmth
But you don’t feel.
Inside of this side,
It feels cold
It’s not the snow
It’s because you don’t look.
Stray words dissipate ,
You don’t hear them.
A strident voice speaks on
I wish you’d reprove.
You suddenly smile,
But you’re turned the other way.
Again I look,
And you’re not there.
This is my retreat
Into a gamut of colours,
Where circles are drawn
And no pillars stand.
Lurking outside the circles
are little stars
I reach out to them
And gradually they lose light.
In a spurt of wakening
They are suddenly closer
Lighting up a new world
That I’m scared to enter.
Stumbling and fumbling
My world does a crazy dance
A torrent of thoughts
Are whirling with the wind.
Eventually, it’s only you and me
In ecstasy.
He felt impelled to talk. His thoughts followed a labyrinthine path, confusion marring even the crystal clear parts of his mind. He was bad at articulating although people told him all the time that he was a great speaker. He wondered why.
Outside the room, in one corner where the lighter rays of the evening sun filtered in, a twenty- something man sat eating his food, facing a blank wall against which an almost empty bottle of water stood supported.
He felt oddly privileged- not something he experienced very often. The injustices of life were being dug up involuntarily with the urgency of having to ebb smarting tears. He knew he could not do anything to help.
He stepped out of the room, carefully squeezing through the gap between the satin sofa and the man eating his food. At a sub-conscious level, it suddenly occurred to him that he was supposed to meet Rana at the club. He hated to admit it but gradually even Rana was becoming an excuse for a frosty glass of Kingfisher beer.
Could he go up to the man and talk perhaps?
The man having finished his food was fiddling with his yellowing lungi as he irritatedly wiped beads of sweat off his temples. Not just while doing household chores but also when eating, he was never sweat-free. Sometimes the overwhelming saltiness reminded of the sea. Only the sea was so much more welcoming.
He felt thankful that at least his Malyalam could not be interpreted in the house. He clung to the language with a sense of fervor while at the same time being thrilled by a sense of voyeurism at being able to decode the language in the house. He made his long distance calls once a week to his wife and daughter back in Kolaadi when often the tearful goodbyes would leave him momentarily angered, in angst and yearning. He loved words. He missed them too.
But he was a man and he let it die. The vegetable vendor who came over once a week but talked on the phone thrice a week was in worse plight. His wife at home was ill.
He felt a fleeting sense of sadistic pleasure. Ignorance is bliss.
However, the weekly not-so-clandestine phone calls and the weekly clandestine meetings with the vegetable vendor did aggravate the desire to talk.
The Thakur Po at home seemed fairly kind. Often he could locate in him a sense of sympathy or even empathy perhaps. But they did not talk.
Down the street was the betel shop run by Mahato. The man went there to buy beedis. He went there to buy Marlboro Lights. At different times. Sometimes the man was allowed to buy the cigarettes and at times allowed to keep the change.
The religiosity of smoking took on an all-new sanctity for both men who though on the surface led dissimilar lives, deposited their ashes in the same river.
Mahato and his betel shop had acquired an all-new meaning.
Pockets of colour,
Dancing in the dark
Like splattered paint.
Red saris clinging,
Eyes devoid of sleep
With arms wide open.
Temporary paper boats and flowers
Traversing unknown lands
On a voyage to somewhere.
Neon lights in stark darkness,
Lighting up a familiar nothingness…
Together in utopian land.
The fragrance of rain;
Pockets of colour
Dancing in the dark.
For some people, almost an unbelievably ludicrous blue octopus while for some others (and I belong to this category), easily the most affectionate and warm person, ever deserving to be raised above the hierarchy of animals.
It is rather uncanny that for a person who usually hates cartoons of every kind, the first episode of ‘Oswald’ would have drawn my attention. I loved his easygoing nature (something that I admit I don’t relate to anymore) , the spontaneous generosity, and the alacrity with which he helps others. No doubt it has some definite utopian elements- there’s never a shortage of silver coins in ‘
One of the best things about the character of Oswald is the fact that he does not seem to let go of his childlike ways- important things that we somehow seem to shrug off as we grow older. The question that arises then is that- Is Oswald an adult?
I would say he is. I think he is empowered with the faculty of rationality, one of the main premises for why I believe he is an adult. Even the world that he inhabits, the world that comprises characters like the Sunflower, Daisy, the fastidious Penguin, Henry or even his pet Winnie are all miniature adult figures.
While some may think that Oswald’s mannerisms are painfully exaggerated, for instance, his constant ”my pleasure” or even opening and closing doors for people (which might have been borrowed from the chivalric code of conduct) I do believe it’s something that adults and children can both learn much from. The creator unabashedly showcases his characters as aware, polite and clean (24x7) to probably drill in his viewers a moral conscience. Oswald must look around exactly three times before he crosses the road, Winnie must have a bath everyday, and favourites must never fluctuate- always, “one ‘swizzleberry swirl’ please….or cocoa with ‘three marshmallows- no less, no more’.
Even if the part about the didacticism of the show puts you off, I do think that no one can help but appreciate his ingenuity. It is not an unjust portrayal- characters are not forced to behave in a certain way, they genuinely feel for each other, and even more importantly it is how they ARE. It makes one want to reach their level- one wishes he could make a birdhouse for helpless birds, bake a cake that sinks into the water and NOT complain about it or even feed worms that eat up tomatoes planted by you. The show also reiterates in all its episodes the dominant theme of ‘good always triumphs’. If Oswald privileges others over himself it is still him who gets the best in the end. For example- one of my favourite episodes, ‘The Sammy Starfish Show’ highlights Oswald’s good nature (that is to be euphemistic) as he saves a place for his friends in the queue to buy tickets for the Sammy Starfish show. Eventually while his turn comes, the tickets are predictably sold out. Oswald is torn and upset. Even then, he helps out a ‘bunny’ take a heavy piano onto the stage and what happens? He ends up sharing the stage with his favourite Sammy by accompanying him on the piano (yay!).
However viewers may find another element in the show highly utopian and also unreal. Some of the episodes seem to negate the idea of competition. In ‘The Go-Kart Race’ Oswald’s morality is again privileged over the participants’ potential. Oswald ultimately wins the race not necessarily because of his skilled driving but also because he helps out competitors during the race. ‘The sand sculpture contest’ again shows Oswald’s inability to choose a clear winner lest he hurt the feelings of people. Such inadequacies though noticeable are only negligible in the face of the strengths I have mentioned earlier (and here, I allow my readers to be critical of me).
Although I don’t wish to be a creature with eight feet and blue in colour, I do wish for a heart as large as Oswald’s.
Note- The author highly recommends the show.
(Author-Rashi Tiwary)
He watched her retreating figure. There were emotions he was trying to keep in check. He knew he should be strong, at least for her sake. She was sceptical and sorrowful at having to leave and the world wouldn’t know but he was her ally in grief.
It was she who was going to enter an alien land and yet, the nervousness struck him deep. He couldn’t explain that he was sick with worry not at the thought of her apprehensions and fears rather at how lonely he’d be without her. International calls were sure to cost him a fortune and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of not talking to her as often as he did then. It’s not as if he loved her, they just happened to be the best of friends.
It was hateful how life demanded so many compromises out of them. That when he wanted to eat his favourite mutton korma and she was willing to make it for him, the distance would shame their plans, laugh at its elaborateness and incongruousness….
He wondered how he would fill in the gaps created by endless phone conversations, by constant words of encouragement and advice when he was in the pits of gloom. He started at the realization that he couldn’t wholly succumb to a person without inhibitions. She’d be too far away for that- to hear winding descriptions of his day at work or to hear how he ruined his coffee by adding the extra spoonful of sugar. And it was harder still to know that the memories wouldn’t go off in a hurry.
For the next couple of days, he made sure he reached work on time. There were no issues. And his coffee was just right.
At home he was the only child….he still wore clothes bought by his mother and watched TV for most part of the day. He was not an athlete at all; he detested sports. Often, late in the night, he’d be fiddling with his fondest possession-the Rubik’s cube. Not that he was a genius of sorts; he was just genuinely interested in these things. At the breakfast table when his mum would keep a bowl of cornflakes and milk in front of him, he ate it willingly. Even at that age of sixteen, he rarely rebelled, unlike his school mates who had already become carful enough to start sporting Levi’s and Nike sweatshirts. When they got free periods in school, they hung out in clusters; some playing football or flocking the cafeteria while he preferred to get some work done in the library.
The first time he did it was when the guys in class teased him about being ‘pansy’….he didn’t even know what the word meant way back then. For the first time he realized there was something different about him. He felt as if he wasn’t one of them.
And therefore, even without having to resort to blue movies he fell into the habit of shagging. He was only aware of a wonderfully different sensation when his hands wandered down to his groin. He waited with a new desperation for his parents to leave home and fell back on the bed moaning and sighing with pleasure while his hands moved swiftly on his penis. For the first time he experienced a completely different kind of pleasure, an erotic charm.
While that phase of addiction was on he even resorted to it in school- in the library or even under trees in the open. He made sure he maneuvered his hands in a way that no one could spot him.
Surprisingly enough, when someone did see, he was labeled a man. And he wished he’d known earlier.
