Coffee
Coffee with tears doesn’t taste bitter. It doesn’t taste at all.
Silence
Slow Motion
The heater is buzzing like the noises in the head. Wwrooommm. Things move in slow motion, and so the pain lasts longer. Contrary to the belief, there are no pain killers. They only numb the pain, not kill it. And Time is the best healer?! In slow motion, medication delayed is medication denied.
Its the Fall. The leaves fall slowly. The contours change slowly. The discovery of change itself comes slowly. The chill rises through your spine slowly. And slowly comes the numbness. And slowly comes the heaving. And the sighing. And the subdued subtle despair. And then the gradual disenchantment. The poison works slowly. But surely. The sting is potent. The poison is a poison even if its an antidote.
Oh the shiver! the heater is off. But the noises? Wwrroommm. Coffee.
To Love…
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
Diwali
Whose face was it that kept staring back at me from my mirror? So this is what represents me? Do I look like this when I smile? Hmm..so my lips stretch into my cheeks. And those crinkles at the end of my eyes. And? Ok. So this is how i look when i think i am not crying. I must be giving in easy. If only I could open my eyes a little wider and stretch my lips into a smile. Yes, this looks perfect. I am now ready for the day. Oh, happy Diwali.
The Quest
All the words in this world have been spoken sometime or the other; all the words, in a manner of speaking, have been spent already. All the stories that are to be told have already been told; there is no story that has anything new to offer. What makes anything novel, fresh, appealing? Same feelings of love have swept humanity since long. Same feelings of passion have flooded humanity always. Yet, each new wave of humanity brings in itself an ocean full of depth with its own capacity for those feelings. Humans are great suckers for the sentiment. Time and again, humans have learnt this only to refresh their memories.
What strange quest is this man after?
End of the Affair?
Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence
- Leon Bloy
If
An inspiring poem by Rudyard Kipling called IF:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son!
—Rudyard Kipling
Of this and that…
It is 4 AM. I stare out at the heavy red fluffy clouds through the iron gills in my lawn. It’s windy and trees ruffle noisily. The clouds, both heavy and light, simultaneously, flit on the skyscape.
The wind smells like it will rain. There is a kind of stillness even in the ruffling trees. I feel for my heart. Thoughts – of people here and elsewhere; Memories – of people here and elsewhere. Should I make some coffee? Is there milk? Thank god, there is. Let me kill my time making coffee. My mind’s restless. Could it be because of the full-moon? People have known to behave crazily during full-moon days. Like restless waves.
Am I breathing? How do I escape the deluge? Coffee? Why am I not moving towards the kitchen? It will rain soon. I must remember to blink my eyes. Ouph, the burdens of this body! And, is it the ant on my wrist? It’s moving towards my shoulder. Sudden frantic bursts of movements of a scared being. It feels threatened perhaps by the pulse and machinery of the body. Will it bite me? Should I do something about this ant? I think I should. Where’s my hand? Where’s my hand? In place. Smug. Unmoving.
Pitter patter rain drops. One on my hand. Other on my cheek. More drops follow. All over. Do I smell coffee? Or is it in my head? What will she be doing now? Did I just kill the ant? Is it my hand? Is this me?
By the way…
There is a story in the Heimskringla about a Norse king who married a witch. She died but her body remained warm and beautiful. The king went mad and kept vigil by her beautiful body in the belief that she was sleeping and would come back to him. After years of vigil, he awoke from his madness and the body was crawling with worms.
From the book ‘The Dark Tunnel‘ by Ross Macdonald.
