Me, AJ, and a slice of our chronicles

--- A memo from my diary dated on 31/03/2022, when I was stuck in life.

It’s 2.30 am, I stand beholding the vast, dark blue sky, constantly caressed by the moist, feather-touch, seductive breeze of Coimbatore. I couldn't rest my mind, repose, and surrender it to sleep. The one thing that keeps on itching in my mind at this time is that I miss my travel buddy AJ. Every film and novel featuring a travel freak protagonist showcases extroverts as hippie travelers. But we were extreme introverts, both of us, and we were just 17 then. Just 2 of us geared up to encounter the whole world(there was another girl, but she left us as she couldn't tolerate us). We would walk from one village to another on the outskirts of Kumbakonam under the scorching sun of May, and you wouldn't believe it, without a single penny at times. And even when we had bounty cash at hand, we preferred to walk under the piercing sun for kilometers, and when it's not hot, we’d love to walk barefooted. Barefoot gives us a natural connection with the Earth. We have astonished our peers while trekking up and down a hill barefoot. We have sat for hours gazing at the empty, wide sky. And we have discussed how a fall of a leaf is significantly interesting and about energy, vibrations, DNA memory, mystic forces, evolution, and hours on Shelley, Shakespeare, Byron, Bharathi, Kambar & Kalki, and history and geography. We had our eyes swollen when we had our hands on the samadi of Adithakarikalan’s right hand. We've amused people by gazing at one statue for an hour long. We have witnessed sheer magic both in travel and life together.

How did we catch up?  I had planned a trip to cover almost all the places mentioned in Ponniyin Selvan, with a crew of 11 girls. 11 tickets were booked prior and I was ready to veil out the places with historic elucidation references to them. At the last minute, all the 11 tickets got canceled, leaving us all in disdain. The train would depart at 12.30 at night, and it was already evening, too late to book Tatkal as well. However, I was determined to travel alone in the unreserved coach all through the night. And that's when she turned in, with the same guts and determination to catch Vandhiyathevan’s trail. We stood in the queue and always liked to be one of the commoners. We never liked by-passes, cabs, and luxury. Despite both our families insisting on being so, we were minimalists trying to be transcendentalists.

We learned bird-watching together. We fell in love with iconography at the same moment, at the same spark. We researched and found a legend whom we randomly saw from afar, approached him, and finally stayed at his home for a couple of months. Thanjavur, Kumbakonam Darasuram, Thirunageswaram, Pazhayarai, Thiruvarur, Thiruvaiyaru, Chidambaram, Mayavaram, Poombuhar, Gangai Konda Cholopurom, and outskirts of these towns, we walked together in quest of intellect and with all the comfortable snug of love and humanity from the society.

We sit on the entry-exit way in the trains, sleepover in temples, eat at random strangers’ houses, and walk in the streets day & night. When tired of walking, we knock at a random house and ask for water. Surprisingly, we have always been offered more than water every time. We have knocked on a lot of doors like these and what happened inside each door were epic stories each, by themselves.

One afternoon a couple of miles away from Thirunageswaram we knocked on a door. It was a typical Chettinad house with mutram & all ancient, extinct things like ural, ammikal, aapai, mutram, thinnai, kenaru, and much more. Surprisingly, the old man in the house was manually weaving silk thread into the cloth with the manual mill. We were astonished to witness those. They first offered us some water and then a pail full of nannari sarbath, then they toured us the whole house, and explained how the silk thread is woven, and offered us lunch. I'm always excited to look around but always too hesitant to take things from them. But AJ is super-cool with that and she already sat down at a plate. She felt the whole world was organic and all people as one, everyone was our kith and kin. And after lunch, we talked for a bit and the TV featured a black & white film, Kalyana Parisu. We, along with the whole family and a neighboring little boy were immersed in the film. After a while, I turned to her and was surprised at what she did. She stretched out on the floor with legs straight and a hand at the back of her neck and gently drifted off to sleep like the lord Ranganathar. She has always been lively, spirit-brimmed, and so full of humanity. 

Nothing was ever complicated to her. I was often amused and rather shocked by her incredible art of simplifying things. It didn’t startle her when we were 40km away from the place where we lived and didn’t have more than Rs. 7 at hand. It didn’t startle her when we decided to spend the night, without speaking a word, until sunrise on the beach, watching the Pourmani with binoculars. She got married to a man, without seeing his picture or any preconceptions. 

And once we walked down into an abandoned, ancient subway trying to follow the path of Vanthiyathevan, violating the barricades. After a few meters, we were muffled by crude darkness. We went blind and moved forward, groping and probing with hands and legs. We steer cleared the spider web veils and proceeded. At one point, we were shell-shocked by the screeching sound of bats gushing out of the cave, bashing each other. It was extremely spooky and we ran out of the subway cave in terror.

One night, a random girl came to the room where we stayed asking if we saw something. We talked to her for like 15 minutes and 4 hours later, in the early morning, she was in front of our room and wanted to join us to find trails of Marudhanayagam, all with our ruggedness and spirit to explore. It takes immense courage to hang out with hippie freaks not knowing where we were going, also by walking. We taught her how to decode icons at temples and brushed her up with some history. We crossed the Khan Sahib canal walking and traversing it with live crocodiles in the marshy land.

We were the luckiest creatures in the universe as we have savored all the humanity and love this society has ever got. There were hundreds of stories in each village we visited.

The task assigned to us was the most interesting thing I've ever done in my life. We'll be given some clues in Thanjavoor about a piece of history or a particular historic figure. The answer will be in another town or village, mostly in deep interiors, (no one in that residing locality will know that there’s historic evidence and its significance). We we'll not know where it is and have to find out the right iconography and historic evidence and report it back at Thanjavur. That's what we did in all these towns & villages. Each iconography that we decoded tickled our senses and levitated us. And we'll be rewarded with literature lectures for our chronicles. Life was at its best!

 

It was the time when everything was fascinating and incredible. We owe all these to Dr.G. Deivanayagam, the discoverer of Chola temples at Bhujang Valley, Malaysia, and a phenomenal historic contributor with more such discoveries and authoring more than 80 books on art and history. His father Dr.Govindarajanar was the discoverer of Kannagi Temple.

 

Travel was never a mere journey for us, it was like going back home. The wide-open Earth and society were our home. We never talk about these things to people because most people won't even believe what I've written so far (what If I write all the miracles that happened in my life), and to the majority of the crowd, these are not interesting.

Looking back and forward, those explorations were the best part of my life as I've learned what life is, what people are, what people can be, the art of simplicity & minimalism, along with humanity, history, iconography, comparative literature - all in one stretch.

I don't know what kept you occupied in your 17, 18s. But in my 17-18, I was in paradise, determined to walk in every street of Tamil Nadu. The sand, the plants, rats & lizards, wells & canals, people, food, barren lands, even the difference in the greens of leaves matter to us, we loved it all and owned everything. These were the foundation and best parts of my life, and AJ is a great contributor to it. She's married and now a mother. After her, I never found a good companion to travel with. Hope to travel with her again and her grown-up baby. 

 

 

Lit grads and engineers live in two different universes

As a content writer working in an IT-based company, I have never met a colleague in the same stream. I will always have to sail alone in the boat. I am packed inside a horde of engineers – even SEO analysts and marketing leads are usually underlying engineers.

After popping out of college, I have never met a literature guy. Other school buddies, cousins and acquaintances will also be some sort of engineers.

The discrepancy arises right from the basics. While languages are Tamil, French, Latin, Sanskrit and a form of art to us, languages are Java, Bootstrap, PHP, Python and form of code scripts to you.

Someday, you casually ask what I did over my literature course and how things work there. When I try to fill you in, think of my situation when trying to explain the metaphorical stances, oxymoron, metaphysics and Zeugma (oru potut pannmozhi, if you know Tamil).

And engineers never, ever, ever, read between the lines. The concept of reading between the lines makes them excited when explained, but they never sense a spark reading between the lines. Lit grads, don’t try to be poetic with them, spit it out in plain terms.

And most engineers think we read and write stories academically. Nope, that’s not it. We read a story, get into it, cry and laugh with characters, spot them out in the real world, dissect the novel into bits and make a thesis on what happens in a character’s mind when he leaves a pause, why he thinks so, how destiny plays role, the metaphysics and all those decoding stuff, at times even more than what the writer had thought.

Well, cinema is a visual form of literature. I am happy that engineers do enjoy cult films and gold-rated films, but they always turn down the classics. It is always the innovation, exuberance and conceptualization that stun them in films, but never the characterization, metaphors and catharsis.

We gleam in the sight of engineers at least once along the way – mostly when they need to write an e-mail. Mails, profiles, birthday quotes, invitation content and notifications – that’s what we do with all the brilliance earned from the masterpieces of Byron, Shakespeare and Milton. And at this, they feel like they have leveraged our skills efficiently. However, I am really happy to help you, but these are not even close to literature!

Literature is far more than language. We don’t read grammar and alphabets. We dive into deep literature (like Kambaramayanam and Silapadhigaram, if you know Tamil).

Each person we see, even you, we have a relatable character from Britain, Russian or Tamil fiction. We can better understand the pulse of your emotional and behavioural patterns. We mostly seem insensitive, because we have seen it all, already.

When you look at how the instrument works, we look at how the music works. Every perception, comprehension and expectation from life differ for literature dwellers and engineers. We know how to slow down and penetrate through time, you know how to time travel. We walk on the roads you build and work on the software you design, and you need us for bed time stories to read to your kids. You become us when only you fall in love!

It is fairly acceptable that you miss out on the mild music of life and literature, when you run the design, implement, test and deploy marathon. Like how you can’t get into our world, codes are also far from reach to us and need experts to get the world up and running. But, we are here to document everything, put your excellence and its impact into paper, with all the aesthetic essences, as intellectual and artistic resource for the readers of the next 100 years.

 

So, if you are a hard core engineer, yet inclined on books and literature, let me know that you exist. (I know some exist, I’m not a literature stereotype)

x

Why I Want to Quit My Job

I don’t want to wake up with the alarm, run hurriedly to the office, write something, and get back to sleep to run the same tale tomorrow. Adoring the beauty of the moon for a couple of minutes while waiting for green in the traffic is not sufficient for me. I want to watch it, nightlong, watch it crawl from the east to west, tell it all my tales, and wake up watching it with the baby blue background in the morning. I could tell time by looking at the position of the moon. Life was beautiful with that.

I don’t want to ride past a new poster, a new building, a new set of people begging on the streets, in the rush of not getting too late to the office or in the tiredness of getting back home. I want to realize the new happenings in the city, I want to know where the people are from, where the tree on the roadside disappeared, and where the sparrow built its nest after the rain shattered its house. What is life without minding anything around you, and discussing national and international politics?

Taking a shower in the river every morning and basking alongside the paddy fields can be too much of desire, but bathing and drinking salty water and eating flavoured shit have become ordinary today. The restaurants and food houses offer special packages of zero nutrition. And the insta feeds and youtube reels are sheer stupidity that lack the sense of humour and wit. It is pathetic to see people who admired Nagesh and Crazy Mohan laughing at cheap memes and senseless comedy. 

The professional life ties me with the mobile and laptop all the time, right from the alarm, diet schedule, notifications, entertainment, education and what not. I am exhausted with these. I have been alone all my life, but I feel alone only when I started using my mobile.

And every errand of the day is networked to work life. Too much physical activity during weekends affects my weekdays in the office. Too much cinema on the weekends incinerates my eyes, which again affects my work cycle. Too much reading on the weekends affects my weekend cleaning and sleeping orders that again affect my work life. Plus, reading has a major disadvantage – it always gives you the steroid to unfetter yourself from the mundane life and get into real life, too much philosophies affect your mundanity and persuade you to quit your job.

If you are a working professional, you need to sacrifice your life, all of it, to fulfil your financial and professional needs. You will go far from reality and run a never-ending marathon. But what’s the point in it? You only live once, why waste it unknowingly living someone else’s life? How happy are you at work? Or are you waiting for the weekend every Monday morning?

If it is that tiring, it is time you reconsider your life-flow. You don’t have to do it, just because everybody is doing it. You don’t have to postpone your vacation just because you have some pending bills or not to miss your savings scheme. It’s okay to postpone a bill, it’s okay to save a little less. But it is not okay to miss your life. We only live once. 

People and their faces

Can you really describe how your face looks? Your jaw line, eyes, lips, ears? Well, I can’t. I can’t get a picture of myself in mind. I never stare at the mirror, only a matter of a second or two to check if my hair sets presentable when I go out. If I am asked to find my face out of three to four slightly morphed faces of mine, I might not be able to do that.

I know that my eye lashes are longer than the usual, it bashes against my specs often. I had pierced my nose and so I could tell that I have a slightly sharp nose. I really have no idea on how the other elements that constitutes my face looks like.

I can’t clearly define my granny’s face, neither my dad’s, nor my friends’ faces. May be I haven’t been with people for a long time, really. I have been with an incredible mix of people at unimaginable and impractical situations.

A woman had helped me as I got stuck alone when the rain raised up to my knees in an abandoned bus stand at 12pm. A random guy who gave me his shirt when our vehicles collided in an accident. The family that boarded me home just because I was curious to look around. A fellow passenger who cared if I had food. The auto man who let me drive his auto, even if we can’t speak each other’s language. The old lady who took me home and offered food when I lost my way. The sea diver that I held hands with on the base floor of the sea and back to the ship. The uncle who gave me his binoculars and taught me how to identify birds for the first time. The ladies who dropped me to the room just because it was 2am. The guy who rescued me from the dogs and paid for my bus ticket. The bhaiya who accommodated me in the lorry down the hill. And a lot more than you could imagine and too personal to publish.

People are priceless. And kindness is abundant. I never asked a word in all these situations. All of these kindness was rendered unasked, unconditionally and without expecting a penny or an opportunity back.

I just don’t remember their faces at all. I am not sure if I had thanked them all. Even if I stand in front of them, even if I am pleading to thank them if we meet again, I could not even recognize their faces. But all their faces are the same. It is the face of kindness, compassion and humanity. It is the face of God, the essence of humanity, even a pinch of it interred underneath your busy life.

I see them again when I see someone rendering love to random people. I see them in the girl who stands up in the bus leaving a seat for a granny. I see them in the man who buys things from road side vendors roaming around under the piercing sun. I see them in the mirror when I find myself brimmed with unconditional love towards the society.

So, how do you see yourself? We always live in someone else’s kindness. It’s our turn to give it back. Act now.

 Am I myoclonic?

**I am writing this out not just because I’m more articulate while writing than speaking, but that people don’t usually give time and space to hear tales of others more than a minute. So, here is to the ones that are comprehensive and compassionate enough to listen.**

I freaked out a guy at office as I startled, jumping off the chair, when he called out my name amidst the silent air.

I had screamed out loud on my dad’s footstep when I was reading a book.

The click of the switch had made me jump. Chirp of a lizard, door knocks, zips, sudden sound of TV after the power cut – I have sprang off screaming for all these.

I experience shock and spasm on hearing mild sounds in solid silence. These are completely involuntary, before I realize the sound in my brain I am already shocked.

Would you believe that I brutally scream in the nights when the door hinge makes noise? We have am imbalanced door that can’t be shut. It freaks me out so much that I would raise up from the bed screaming on the jerk whenever I hear that sound.

That puts off my friends’ sleep and I get complaints every morning on my creepy behavior at night. The sad part is that, I would be too asleep that I could not even realize myself screamingly sitting up on my bed.

The twitch is usually quick and brief when I am awake; brief but with amplified heartbeat when I am asleep.

But I am generally very normal with sounds, I can tolerate higher range sounds, crowd noise, whispers, murmuring, yelling, I am absolutely normal with everything.

Temple festivals, parties, waterfalls, movie theatres, ambulances – I’m not startled. Any type of noise in a moving environment is fine to me.

But a drip of water, a footstep (not a thunderous one, rather a hazing one) or even a sigh – that’s all it takes to startle me, when it breaks the silence.

When I ask Google it says that I am myoclonic and this is a symptom of an underlying disorder.

But am I really that??

Well, it’s there for everyone. I am just a bit more sensitive than you all. You are more sensitive than other creatures, may be.

Crackers induce an involuntary jerk in some people, a wild scream startles some, transformer explosion, sudden high pitch tones in thriller films, sudden barking of a dog when you walk in the streets – have you ever experienced involuntary jerk upon these in your body?

You don’t do it intentionally, it happens to you – just like the hiccup.

Otherwise, I love natural sounds.

I relish the mustards sputtering, ticking of the clock, water dripping in the tub, keyboard taps, flip of the paper, the sound that a pencil makes sliding across the paper. I even presented myself a black slate for my birthday, just to enjoy the friction that the slate pencil makes against the slate. Whenever you start a new stroke and the first letter of any sentence on the slate would make a thud, and the adjoining letters would ride with a kara mura. The sounds are exquisite with a fresh slate and a slate pencil is always better than a chalk.

You wouldn’t believe that I would hear my heart beat without having hands on it, not just during meditation, but whenever I have my mind steady. I could listen my heart thumping, in the traffics when I wait for the green. It’s louder when I sit alone.

 

Well, not that everyone should have a condition to deserve your kindness. Let us not wait to pour out our empathy until the condition compounds to the stake.

When you see someone in depression, let’s not wait to go talk to him until he gets serious and takes pills.

If you see someone falling, do not wait for her to fall to render your suggestions.

You are not going to lose your wealth when you give a Rs.10 to a co-passenger who lost his purse.

Don’t feel bad to buy one more food parcel for the granny who’s starving in your street. Don’t wait for her to ask you. See if she has a blanket in winters and umbrella in rain.

Don’t hesitate to offer the boy who lifted 15kg gas cylinder all the way to your kitchen a glass of water.

It is okay to sit and share a cup of tea with the one that cleans your drainage.

It is okay to have a friend with disorders. Understand if he’s allergic to something. Don’t judge them. Just because you are fine with somethings, it doesn’t mean the other person should also be comfortable with that.

We are all kind-hearted enough to caution a fellow passenger to take off the bike stand that he forgot to, kind enough to mourn for Sushant Singh who you have never seen. Let us not hesitate to evoke and express the kindness that’s in you. It costs you nothing, but love.

Remember, we always live in someone else’s kindness. It is our turn to give it back. Act now.

The Slip

Every one of us has a werewolf inside, grappling to gush out of a leaky hole, dripping its flesh and scent at intervals. There is always a moment when you are utterly captivated and harnessed by your werewolf. The pull from the werewolf would feel like gravity, it seems like an inescapable one. But there is a pause, a very mild yet deep, at the brink of every transformation. 

The decision you stride on at the pinnacle of the pull defines you. But all these would happen in a snap, lesser time than it takes for a lightening, a blink of your eye, before you live a whole second in it, when you’re half way out of that one whole second. It just took a second at Hiroshima to shatter Japan forever. If that Little Boy had some conscience, would it have had second thoughts at the time of blasting? But sure that there would be no guilt.

Howsoever, guilt may seem like a sin, but there is no point in it because it is futile in the aftermath. It is furthermore destructive. It cannot bleach the sinner white. The sinner becomes the victim forever. Can’t there be a place where there is no sinner and victim?

 

1

She had something. She was a seasoned young woman, very formal and professional at work. She had a lot of privacy policies and never unveiled her personal life. Nobody knew if she could ever cry or slouch depressed. She was a perfect blend of valour and delicacy. She appeared dauntless at times and tender at another. People who saw her dauntless would never believe that she could be tender, and those who witnessed the tender in her thought that she was meek. But she was both, knew clearly when to show what and how much to show. 

He had known both of her, but she always opened the tender side for him. And he was a hero to her. He was a great ball of candy for her to assimilate as an ant. She had worthy takeaways each day from him. Things uttered by him gleamed in her memory. He was the one she liked to listen, follow and explore. She was escalating her productivity and the content she produced were all hits. She was using up all her potential. She was living at the best she could ever live. He opened new vistas of knowledge to her. She brought in an influential progress in life and career. She became the best version of human. She owed all these to him. He was pivotal and influential at all these.

He was really all of these.

He was an influence to a considerable crowd. A patriot, social worker, monetary benefiter for many – a hero, the one people around would love to come and talk to. The organization was built from scratch by him. He was a one man army.

He could draw aesthetic criticisms on a fall of a leaf, stretch hours on literature, society and political themes. The way he loved nature was inspiring. He hung with a local crowd to observe the societal and environmental happenings.

The relationship was that of a boss and an employee between them. But the way she handled things, the extremes that she could toggle between, the compassion she had in her tone, the energy she reverberated on some topics and the choice of words that she made gained his attention. He was rather inclined to her. She could incredibly sprout out on everything that he sowed. The organization was on the zenith of productivity.

It was a business trip. Just the two of them. Once exhausted with the business talk, they had a whole gamut of things to talk about – literature, music, history, society. The clock ticked 11, the night air muffled the hotel room with silence.

They were on Fur Elise. She had Beethoven brimming her mind as she recounted his confession to Therese with his masterpiece. There was music spilled over the entire room. She was rather clad and infused by the musical air.

His intentions were already contented. The way she ecstasizes Fur Elise steered him, it was like a paradise to him. He was gauging the length of her fingers while she swayed her hands, the ecstasy glimmering in her eyes, the long eye lashes that were gently thrashing and else of feminine beauty. She had an elegance, in the way she spoke, walked, dressed and even the way she kept mum.

An idea of consumption, oozed out from within. The idea escalated in energy as she kept on talking. A dilemma bashed the walls of his mind, throbbing and breaching with each bash. She was genuinely innocent and was trying to transport him to a musical universe. But he was transported with something else of her.­

She kept on talking. The swing kept on thriving in speed, sparking due to friction. He could hear neither her nor Fur Elise. All that he could hear was the groan of the werewolf and the sound of the pendulum inside him. She locked her eyes with his, asking him something. The pendulum stood still. The next swing had ardent potential to fire flood the whole place.

The brim- that’s when the werewolf exercises the whole lot of magnet on you. At the brink, you will be in the empire of trance. But there is a vent, minute and almost invisible. You will never know that this pause is going to be the game-changer, whatever way you choose. He had the feel that Dr Faustus had when he blooded his signature to Lucifer – the idea of consumption.

The idea overtook him, plagued his conscience, plaited his whims and fancies together and urged him from inside. She had a pause. He had the next swing. The werewolf is out of the cask.

 

2

It was not the first time the werewolf coming out. The werewolf had met many such enticing girls and women. His wife never knew these, or acted like she never knew these.

A staunch thrush – she ran off to the balcony from his clutch.

It ached her. Not because of the mess that happened, but for the folly that she had been bearing all these days. It was an acute ache.

His mind changed its robe on a sharp note. His colours started to change. He grew into a rustic creature, his mind with a scent of shit. The desire was overshadowed by anger, aggressiveness, and vicious-ness. He was raging. Something suddenly bashed his thoughts. He had seen her fierce face. What if she pulled him to the streets and buzzed this to people. She had the valour to do it and had capabilities to rouse people. He suddenly developed a sense of disgust upon her, he saw her like a wretched and repulsive woman. He was planning on stuff to escape from the sentences she would portray against him. He was rather planning on points to accuse her with. He was tightly packed with fury and blind revenge. He started to cast detest upon her. He could not take up the insult imposed on him by a girl half his age.

She was standing in the balcony. 

It had been an hour after the ordeal. He forwarded to coax her, sooth down her rage, just to escape from the acquisitions. He laid aside all his rage and aggression and said, “It is quite natural that a fragrant flower attracts the one who smells it. And there are times when things go beyond our hands. Come on, be a sport”.

He had been treated in many ways in such ordeals. Women have yelled “Are you not ashamed?”, thrown curse words upon him and his family, enjoyed him and his services, called him back at intervals. But she gave him a plain and ambiguous look. He could not discern what stays underneath it. The most important part is that he could not ignore it as well. And he felt rather insulted by the look she threw at him.

Time was pecking at him, it had been an hour since his coax. The plain look had been grinding his mind, rattling his peace. A sense of guilt gradually started oozing out. The tender essence of her slowly started to crowd his mind. He realised the monstrous phase of him and his brutal endeavour with the tender girl. How brutal it was trying to efface the tender elegance? How easy it was to scratch her faith? He felt like an arrow-stricken animal, he was guilt-stricken indeed.

He walked back to the balcony. She was with a pen and paper, scribbling something.

He was anticipating either a frail and glimmering look or a fierce spillage of wrath in her eyes. But what he encountered were a pair of pristine eyes still gleaming with absolute radiance. There were no strains of tears. She seemed celestially pristine and stood as if nothing happened.

This stammered him. The damsel’s eyes this time pushed him into valleys of bafflement and rather choked him with guilt, more than he could bear.

He wanted to retreat his aggression on her and patch up the mess. His eyes were brimmed with guilt and too fragile to meet hers. She extended him the paper she had been writing on.

It read, “I regret for everything from my side that contaminated you. It is quite natural that the scent of a flower prompts the one who smells it. But the same entice ditched Eve when she tasted the apple. It is after all the human instinct. Everyone arrives to this place at some point of time. It is how soon you get out of it that defines you. But you are not an ordinary human. You are someone to influence people, push them for a better self. You are a super human. Please don’t ground yourself with ordinary matters.

Lots are things that I owe to you, learned from you, not just from what you taught, but also from what you are. Now, it is my turn. Let’s work together to help you get out of it. Such ill-thoughts hinder you from savouring a big piece in your life. Let me show you how it feels being platonic with a woman, how having a true friend feels like. Let us add a new tint to your palette.”

It further read “It was just your monster out of your cask. You are not the werewolf that changes in the full moon.”

He was indeed waiting for “Are you not ashamed?” or a slap from her that would redeem him from the sins. For the first time, he staggered, like a child that’s concealing the weep.

She saw a gasping child in the grappling werewolf and she had the whip to tame it down. The werewolf melted down, like the casting iron, onto her arms. There was only fumes, no fire.

#Jaye

Child Abuse

     She splatters the pool of rain waters with her feeble gait, dragging herself forward. She is a ten year old girl, alone in a dark street, with parched feet and meek eyes. Before she knows what life is, she is well acquainted with the deep valley of despair. Her eyes shine as she has reminiscence of despicable memories she has ventured, oozing out a frantic look of disgust in her.  The poor little kid does not even apprehend what happened to her. She was scrapped, bashed, smashed, crushed and thrown out in the street. She could not stand the fervent mental trauma and it was like millions of worms swarming and creeping on her mind. She has been hurled by a vicious carnivore. 
     It does not stop just there. The feather shaved bird is easily pent up. Her juvenility is the invitation and key to the smutty carnivorous interest. Her baby hand is brutally pulled into a car. Her cheeks turn pink on a tight blow on it; her voice comes up with shrieking, yet dimming bleat. The vehicle transports her to a metropolitan city, damps her in the herd of other such adolescents. These girls are breeding there with saturated misery and cheeks with dirt of dried up tears, quietly musing erroneous melodies of their lives.
     The girls are then royally adored, labelled products of lure that are on high demand when they are sold abroad. They are the capital investment, products, sellers and the profit by themselves. They are the red carom coins, who are bashed to the edges of life, staggering, floundering and stalked by blacks and whites. They are splinters reducing in size each time. All the game is for business. Pornographic and lascivious malignity governs the entire network of it for the gluttony of money.
     All of these (them-the girls and boys; boys are not out of his coverage) belong to a vicious Satan who has a parasitic livelihood at the cost of nascent flesh and bones of innocents; who peacefully slumbers in the melody of agonizing moans and bleats of babies when chocked by the giant foot and ripping apart their heads; who relishes the sharp thunderous peck of the eagle on a half dead rat, gasping for life. He is a living corpse, a zombie that haunts and hunts for the fucking dead penny.
       Not just girls it is intricate to delve the evolution of an abused boy into a drastic target of doom and its footprints on the collapse of societal well-being. The celestial maternal relationship of the offspring is broiled into fumes once the umbilical cord is untied for those who are born victims out of unlicensed salacious urge. The cruelty of not spouting out the fetus ditches the child into the infernal abyss of life. This is the most compact and monstrous mode of child abuse. A lofty proportion of such babies are children who abode in the streets. They swarm themselves with multifarious children who are pulled down to streets for hunger, shelter and livelihood. They suckle the milk of desolation and torment impelled to them by birth and brought up as a product of it. A part of this cluster entourage to a stinky corpse-eater who leeches and stouts with the alms of this poverty-stricken pack, harnessing them as a ring master and sometime handicaps them for sympathy that steers productivity. These famish children endeavor selling petty goods and play toys in traffics and are constrained to sell themselves as play toys at times.
On lighting up the other part of the cluster we ascertain something vaguer. The anchovy that endures the aforementioned business and is capable of absconding from it turns up into an efficient shark. The novice kid will initially be bruised in local food stalls and tea stations, knocks the windows of cars to sell or beg, or bleed their feet fishing plastic in the trash of each street to dull hunger. They fade out of care and are excreted into neglect and solitude. Solitude is the ultimate game changer. It is powerful enough to grace Sid to Buddha or perish one to the base.
     Violence is their tool for safety. They are adulterated in the hands of vile guys. Kids imprint what they see around them and trust it to follow. Profanity spouting out of their mouths is the commencement. They are scrambled by cops and illegal agents. The adolescents become play coins of their malignity and greed for money. They bask in the smoke of tobacco, bathe in the alcoholic empire, have a cozy laze in the cloud of drug and chill up with call girls when they grow up. He is transformed into an agent for bootlegging drugs and girls. He develops into a rusty machine that betakes and annihilates anything for money. Once they are cozy enough with the money they easily get out of it, relishing profit out of sweat pearls is tiresome and irking.  
As years roll on, he is the one to abduct the girl, in our earlier encounter, for money, later accomplishes the field fast and becomes alpha monster. When a rich guy undergoes the same scenario he is the one who plays the business we saw earlier. The one who abuses the other are victims of abuse. They barely realize it wrong, even if they know they have ardent reason and justification for it.
     An idea is more robust and vigorous for destruction than a nuclear bomb, hard to sow yet integrates into massive interest and actions. This aids the corporates and media to quench their malignity. They are being hunter magnets that penetrate the minds and thoughts inculcating venom in them. People who unlock this trick and knack of deception are business fellows and hot shots, the rest are consumers and the intermediate are agents. And this is why and how we chase and roam around insane with so called trends and fashion, sports, lustrous products promoted by glib advertisements and even politics. Internet is one of the fervent media through which the flu is transferred. There is always a pop-up link with pornography every third page we surf on, models in bikinis for motorcycle advertisements every 10 minutes intervening shows, a glamour girl crawls in every fifth page of a magazine.
Experts term it ‘embedded journalism’, the method of injecting desired virus (idea) into the thoughts of multitude via media. None of us has escaped clicking on it at least in the ninety-eighth time it popped up; sometime it happens accidentally, thus we justify ourselves. This is the way of kindling up, thus securely promoting and provoking to procure it. As a corollary of it, no girl flits away denying that she has not come across menial abuse in buses, neither a boy can declare him unabused. Children are vulnerable in heterogeneous pack of society comprising of vile colleagues, shelter home guards, street rogues, even doctors and teachers, kith and kin, adored friends and acquaintance hiding in decent blankets until caught by an abused child. A child grapples and struggles to get through the torment when exposed to such fraught circumstance. So parents must be the amiable host to receive child’s hesitations, queries and complaints, rather than putting off them. Parents should feed children with confidence and valor enough on how to react against fraught situations and to overcome them. Let us make sure that orphans we see have a proper guide to mould their lives and souls. We of course have tons and tons of gentle folks. Predators are degraded plums in the cake of society that ruins the whole cake. Also, people change at times accordingly.
No animal hinders its private parts with cloth or leaves. They do not wear up civilizations and fashions. They are not shameless, but we. They do not have lustful appeal on one another 24/7, even when their private parts and hot zones are exposed. Because they do not see those only as an organ of sex. Five is greater than six in all spheres. Let us learn from our predecessors (animals) how to be civilized in manners.
     Let us teach our sons, brothers and friends how clumsiness, rage, torment, perplexity, meekness and inability captivate the tender mind of the innocent girl/boy when her/his hot zones surpass other’s attention and become points of lure. Let us preach that sex is a segment of life and is not the bitter or dark part of it. It is a physical urge just like hunger, thirst, breath and rest. Let us not inter it deep so that the child tends to delve and apprehend it in a wrong sense. Keep it casual and light. Tell them that the hot zones are not merely meant for lechery, but for a more noble purpose. Make them relish the miracles of nature through it. Let them know those parts as organs of miracle, rather than concealing it as a matter of mystery.  Money and sex are the weapons for life. We are dead and off the game without weapons. The trick is to procure regulation. When we greed and amass them in loads we become vile monster with destructive weapons.

#Jaye

Jaye's Love Letter

Darling,

I thought of addressing to you for a long time. I'm doing it now. I don't think these words could articulate everything that I feel for you, neither can I ever completely even know how much I feel upon you. Because it is extremely immense and intriguingly the flavour of heaven where there is no scale or sense of consciousness. 

People say that everything that happens to you is already destined. Maybe it is one of the few things believed by people that is true. We were, I believe, destined, even before I was born. The fetus could actually apprehend to what it hears inside the womb. I have no idea how I felt dwelling and sprouting inside that dark pouch. But maybe I've known you from then to which I would have relished the essence of delight. I heard you. 

There wasn't any day ever in my life that I had spent without you. There was no chance available for me to escape from you. And I unknowingly fed you in me, gradually. As days rolled on, I grew an intense sense of liking on you. 

Every time I saw you, every word that you uttered gleamed in me and still is. I started eavesdropping on your conversation with others too. I imitated your accent. I acted like you. I was trying to fit in you. I never stopped stalking you. Even if I did, you fluttered in front of me. I relished you. I thawed every time I relished you.

You were a majestic creature swallowing me. I took you as I did breathing. You muffled me like the air. You soothed me like warmth. You escalated me like a breeze. You were my comfortable darkness. I was desperately, madly and irrevocably mushed with you. 

I've felt paralyzed, fragile and captivated upon your touch. Ironical are moments with you, conceiving a fullness in me that infuses me to die and inducing the lust to live to fall for you again and again. 

I've never told you. But we both knew. Needless to say, I love you, my dear English! 

We are made for each other and will live on each other's love.

Jaye

Yema is Bhramma

A single globule of tear oozes apart
With the last glimmering hop of the heart
Severance ruptures and gnashes the mesh
Rips out and withdraws soul from the flesh
Veins through which the reds penetrate
Every cells bound as organs disintegrate
It's a rhythm as in the leaf's fall
Alchemy that happens in a ball
Feast to pluming fire at the pyre forth
Left for dissection and digestion of Earth
Greatest discovery of life as whole
Is to delve out the fuel for our soul
Let us live and not survive
Until the fire exhausts and deprive
Death is not a monster, neither a tragedy
It is a transition and heal from malady
Everything changes from something to anything
But energy prevails from nothing to nothing

#Jaye

LOST AND FOUND

Her baby feet sprang up and down across the veranda of a local hospital. Young Kuyili never knew why she was there. She circled, leaped and fumbled up there. Her mother had gone into a room and did not return for a few minutes. She was much piqued by the idea of solitude as she found nothing entertaining there. She could not restrain the transient idleness and the wait persuaded her to slowing creak the edge of the door. Her tiny eyes sneaked in and wandered around the room and eventually the cast was on the cadaverous person she had ever seen, hidden in a tattered saree. She was the only soul to love Kuyili and she dwelt in the comfortable shadow of her love. She had been her nest for seven years, and the chicken paid the hen with furious love on her.

“We’ve already aborted the first baby, then had a pre-term infant, and I have to check if I am pregnant again?” mom consulted the doctor.

Kuyili moved back in consternation, thoughts roughly bashed in the walls of her mind, with fervent iteration. She was captivated by the idea of having a little brother, whom she can adore and play with. She constructed loads of further happening memories, anticipating good times with him. She exclaimed at the bulging of her mom’s belly and caressed it. She celebrated her mother for having a baby inside of her. She cherished her with strings of flowers bought from savings. The exhilaration on the climax was escalating in her each day when mom was hospitalized a week ago.

Kuyili treaded home pondering over her baby brother, when her step-grandmother hindered her by the way.

“Your mother has delivered a female infant” she admitted and drove her to the hospital. Those words oozed out the grimaced face in Kuyili, though she kept mum with her. All her fragile desires were hammered into rubbles, and implanted frustration in her heart that later jeopardized herself. She was petrified and transfixed at the conclusion that her beloved brother never existed.  She had a frantic gait rushing into the hospital ward and paused quiet near her mom’s bed. She never wanted to meet her so called sister. All the frustration of not having a brother exploded into fierce rage on her sister.

She crept along the rim of the crib like a worm and struck at the cradle in which her sister was kept. She leaned up to the cradle to peep in the baby. It had a deep, sound slumber by the gentle rock of the cradle. It was the moment when the mismatch faces with infernal repine and tender innocence met. She loathed her charm.

“You like your little sister, don’t you?” the mother enquired.

“Very much” was Kuyili’s mild response with concealed frustration, flames of fury interred and gulped in.  

“See how beautifully she resembles your mother. You’ve got a rival, Kuyili” the step-granny continued “for everything”.

“Shut the hell up, you’re not my granny at all” Kuyili unfurled the fettered emotions hurling on her.

Right from the next day, Kuyili was given the bowl of rice to eat it by herself, while the mother’s lap was the delicate domicile of the new baby, solicitously fed in intervals.  People gathered in their home for the infant, she was cherished and celebrated. The corollary of accenting the infant was that the dwindle of Kuyli’s authoritative tone. The dictatorship castle was demolished at the inception of a little alienate creature. She could not conceive her defeat to her. Negligence of her own mother piloted her to the jag of solitude, fed up with envy rains. The spot light on the infant made Kuyili a dark shadow.

“Why do you stick with a blue face, Kuyili? Why is your hair tousled? Where are your ribbons?” the class teacher enquired when she was raised up in class for inattentiveness.

“My mother doesn’t want me anymore, for she has a new baby and busy with her. I was sent out to neighbor to dress up. All because of a new person in my home, ask her if you want anything!” shrieked staggered Kuyili with tears raining over her cheeks, shuddering and gasping.

Though Kuyili had fanatic rage, the remotest part of her heart was the provision of love on her sister. She was supposed to take care of her sister, at least for her mother’s sake. She never articulated her rage physically on her. She looked after the baby when mom went to work. The baby was with her almost all the time. She squeezed the milk out from the baby’s nibbles, fed her, dressed her up, clasped her on her chest and walked gently patting her, bedded her, guarded her all the night.

Kuyili was somehow inspirited by the presence of her, as days passed by. The little baby loved her sister. She spread her love with silent charming chuckles. She was so enchanted with Kuyili and waited for her to return from school each day. The giggle of the baby was resonating in the small room whenever she touched the docile baby. The radiance of the baby’s love breezed Kuyili. She grew inside her an acute sense of love on the baby, which she never realized until the climax.

The baby was often taken to the hospital for checkup. She was too feeble as a pre-mature infant. Her head was gradually bulging and she shivered sometime. Father, mother and Kuyili sat around the sleeping baby in a night. Kuyili was sweeping the air with hand fan for the baby when the parents discussed the illness of the baby. Doctors concluded that the baby was prone to jaundice. Kuyili did not make out exactly what they were talking, but somehow figured that the baby was sick. She was melted, and gazed at the baby. The knuckles and bodily crags glowed pinkish even in the pale yellow brightness of the lantern, lips leaked out a dreamily smile of satiety.

The next afternoon, Kuyili was in full-fledged consideration on the baby. Her pity on her illness revealed the pent up mercy and love in her. She was really excited to go to home to see her back, but with gallons of love this time. She purchased her a little orange frock and played in her mind again and again how pretty she would look in that frock. The evening sky seemed graciously beautiful for her that day. She inculcated tons of mirth in her and bashed into the home to adore her little sister.

She was puzzled to find no one at home. Hours later mom entered and told her that the baby was hospitalized and would be back in a few days. But her step-grandmother conveyed when she was drunk “Your sister is thrown to the hospital! She will not come back; she will be dead by now”. Kuyili went to her mother and wailed brutally. The love that had been ignited in her fumed out in the form of tears.  It was truly tough to realize that they had spent just fifteen days with the baby.

The condition of the baby had been worse and the doctor had terminated that the baby would die for sure and had suggested them to give the baby to the hospital so that they would not face her death in live, as it would affect the little girl at home.

Two days rolled on, the mother could not stand the loss of her child and ran to the hospital to get her baby back. But it was too late that they had rendered the baby for adoption to someone from Chennai.

Mom called Kuyili through phone, twelve years later, and hissed “You’ve got a sister, my child”; Kuyili had a reminiscent smile.  The mother was actually now taking about the new born nanny (infant goat) at their home.

#Jaye