[Prose] Call me

When they say, you have lost it, remember to call me. I hold the keys to the Lost and Found world.

From the rubble, I will help you find anything that you have lost. What is lost is surely to be found. End of the rope, childhood, innocence, hope, I have everything indexed and neatly arranged. You just need to register your requirement at my Customer Service Desk.

Do remember to call me when you find something which does not belong to you. A promotion, a pay-hike, a smile, accolades or appreciations, all of which came your way, without never really belonging to you. Deposit these with me, for you never know, who might have lost it. I know its hard to part with these, but think about those who lost these. Let me help them find these.

I even collect insults, admonitions and punishments, which you were not entitled to receive, but were heaped on you. To tell you the truth, I stack the safely in the attic, for no one really has ever come looking for them.

Most sought after is Smile. Everyone seems to have lost it and no one seems to have found it either. Of course, Laughter comes a close second.

Since it was becoming extremely difficult to cope up with the heavy demand, I thought it would be better to organize a self-help workshop, where everyone could be taught. How to prevent a loss, to assess whether what you think is lost is actually lost?, not to cry over a loss, to search what is lost, to finally find what is lost and finally, not to rejoice too much when found, to evaluate what is found, whether what is found is actually a Find?, whether what is found is worth it?, whether what is found is deserved?, how to realize that what is found does not belong to you, how to bring yourself to give up what you found and do not deserve, are the broader points on which the self-help workshop proceeds.

Would you not be willing to attend?

Vijay © 28th March, 2006

[Fiction] Loan

“I am here for a loan”, I said.

He looked at me suspiciously through his pince-nez glasses. In a nanosecond he seemed to have sized me up as a wide smile blossomed on his face.

“Welcome Sir. Isn’t that why we have opened shop? Just a moment, let me get you the Brochure. By the way, what kind of a loan are you looking for?” Professionalism oozed from his words.

“I have nothing to pledge or provide as collateral. So, I guess it could only be a personal loan.” I shot back.

He handed over the Brochure and application forms to me. After hurriedly filling up the form, I pasted my photographs and handed over the form to him.

“Sir, you seem to have done a survey of the market already.” I think he winked at that, or did he? “You must also be aware that the interest rates on a personal loan are high?!”

“Yes, I am. Here, these are my tax returns and my identity proofs. I think these should suffice. I have an account in your Bank as I have said in the form. Kindly transfer the money to that account.”

“Your tax-returns are nice. These make you eligible for more. Won’t you like to take a bit more?”

“No, my friend, this should make me content.”

The clock was about to strike seven when I got up and shook hands with him. Walking out of the Bank, I felt relieved. A problem stood solved. Now I could concentrate on better things.

The market was bustling with activity. Neon lights were slowly coming to life on Billboards. Housewives shopping for groceries and vegetables, Auto mechanics winding up the day’s work, small eateries getting slowly crowded, I registered all from the corner of my eye as I walked down. How mundane!! How do people get satisfaction by going through the same motions day in and day out?

My car was parked across the road.

The pedestrian subway looked clean today. There were neither any hawkers nor too many users today. As I climbed up the staircase at the other end, I felt a small lug on my trousers. Alarmed, I turned back. He was sitting on one of the steps, a weather-beaten, bearded face. Was it a piece of sack he had improvised in order to wear? Yes. With a worn out Aluminum bowl held in his other hand, he looked at me, pleadingly. He might have said something before, but I didn’t hear.

“Please lend me Ten Rupees. I have nothing at all with me, no one, no house, nothing to wear or nothing to eat. It is cold outside. I haven’t eaten for two days. I know you can give me more, but just lend me Ten Rupees. Babu, if I ever can, I will surely pay you back. God will shower his blessings on you, Babu!”, He pleaded.

Involuntarily, my hands went into my pocket and fished out the wallet. I dropped a Ten Rupee note into his bowl. Did I see a tear or two in his eyes? Probably, yes. Unmindful of his loud thanksgivings, I hurriedly walked up the steps and reached my car. A slight drizzle had started. I got into the car, inserted the keys and switched on the wiper. Images flashed on the wind-screen. The whole last hour whizzed past my eyes in a moment, holding my attention. Was it not me, with that begging bowl in the sub-way?

Vijay © 26th March, 2006

[Translation] I, Me and Myself

This is a tribute to Kunjunni Master.
He was a "nimisha kavi" or a "spur-of-the-moment Poet" as you may call it.
He recently left for his heavenly abode.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1464675.cms

I wish to share with you one of his verses, by way of my humble attempt at translation. If my translation can imaprt even a small tip of the sarcasm and wit Kunjunni Master had laced the original verse with, I will consider myself utterly fortunate.

-----------------------------------------------------------

“nju” follows “Ku”
After “nju” comes “nni”
after “Ku” “nju” and “nni”
say “Kunjunni”
After “Kunjunni”, but what?

Perched atop one flower,
how keen my heart is
to drain the nectar off another one

Pride myself I do, of being holier
than the beads of rosary, but
smaller I am than a Gingely seed,
the truth, I forget

Mounted on my back, a mammoth Pachyderm
On the tip of my tongue, sits a goat-kid
I, but a small Ant!

I can sit
in the lap of “Myself”
or on its brim,
in front of it
or at the back
I can hover atop
or even sit at its feet
I can be as slippery as Gingely oil
Or I can even take the form of Myself.

Am I a bow-string to myself
If so, who is the arrow?

Of help to myself, I can never be
I conclude, etch it in my memory
To scratch itself,
an arm is but helpless

From where emanates this stink?

How to break the shackles of my soul?

Misplaced I have, myself somewhere!!

A poet, I am
A shrewd poet
A sarcastic poet
Yet, one who sows.

My father, I will now be
then mother
then son and then daughter
Later?
I will become the me in myself!!!

Bend I will not like a bangle
but in bangle-pieces I may sprout

They come back to me
whatever I send forth
With a sly smile he watches from up there,
the old peon, we all call God

Long journey
a dusk in monsoon
I, a loner

Am I, Kunjunni?
or is Kunjunni, me?

In my name lie my roots

My soul, my fortress

I alone am the poem for myself

I am in search of the Tiger
who gobbled me up

I have never learnt to sleep
So how do I learn, to wake up?

The one who feeds of infants,
Kunjunni.

Slight is my being
nothing much to say either
and to say what I wish to say
many words, I do not need

A watchdog fastened at the gate,
Does it have an address?

In my name, I take pride.

When I woke up, I couldn’t see myself
My luck!!!

Being dwarf makes me tall
It’s my virtue, I realize

My world
Your world
But there is nothing we could call ours.

The figment of whose imagination am I?

It is me who has borne
and given birth to myself

Am I, Kunjunni?
or is Kunjunni, me?

Conditioned to walk over me,
are my feet.

A woman’s waist, I haven’t seen yet
They say, when I do,
Shrink, I may, to be a half-poet
or even a wasted one.

I do not despise the progressives
I am not ultra-modern
neither am I modern
I am just a deep-rooted man
A deep-rooted man

I, a house on rent
Whose?
and who resides there?

Assume I live
only for me to die
For me to live,
who will then agree to die?

I am nailed
to a cross that is me
But Alas, become Christ, I still do not!

I am only a sorrow

I burn like that lamp,
the one who beckons the bee in me
looking for the nectar, that is me,
in that flower, that is me

If I were not what I am
this universe wouldn’t be the way it is!!
Aha!! I, me and myself!!

I am not tall do not praise me to heaven
I lack humility, so inflate not, my ego!

I eat when hungry
Drink when thirsty
Tired, I sleep
and write poetry while I sleep.


“Njaan” A Malayalam Poem by Kunjunni Master
Translation by Vijay © 22nd March, 2006


Malayalam Glossary
Kunju = Infant/Baby/small
Unni = Infant/Baby
Unnu = feed

[Prose] Last testament

Today, I wish to give away all that I have.

She has been there through my ordeals and achievements. When my youth bade me goodbye, she held my hand for the first time. She nurtured my seeds, which have grown into mammoth trees in their own right. She efficiently managed home and hearth and while keeping me protected from the squall, let in the gentle breeze to sooth my senses.
To my wife, my constant companion, I wish to bequeath whatever semblance of peace I have been able to gather in my life.

For my progenies, are treasures buried at the end of the road they walk on. Through their journey, to carry on their shoulders as water bags, I bequeath struggle. Their thirst for fame and fortune can only be quenched from these bags, I know. Looking at the descending sun in its eye, with firm steps, I am sure, one day, unearth these treasures, they will.

Through their eyes I will see tomorrow’s world. Their innocence will reflect the honesty of my being. Their baby steps will follow the tell-tale signs I leave behind. Getting drenched in the first downpour of the season, playing marbles beside the village well, flying kites after the fury of monsoon, building sand-castles on the beach, stealing sugarcanes and tapioca from the fields, rubbing scratch inducing luecas leaves on skins, all this and lot more. For my grandchildren, I bequeath my childhood.

They changed my life, each one of them, in a different way. They brought into me their goodness and made me what I am today. I have witnessed their trials and tribulations from close quarters and I have bared my heart before them. I have been troubled by their tears and they have soothed my feathers. To never feel my dearth, to never crib about life, to always find opportunity in adversities, for my friends, I leave my laughter.

They reflect my persona. They are the only defining elements of the person I am. Some bought long back, moth eaten, and some smelling fresh, off the shelf. Some bound into ageless volumes and some dust-ridden forgotten to obscurity. Let my books be stacked away safely, so that the chronicler of my life, if I would ever have one, could come this way and read me, my life through what I read.

I am conscious that there would only be a handful who would acknowledge my bequest and that the rest would try to read between the lines and find non-existent meanings. Yet, in my full senses I declare that nothing that I own has been excluded in this my Will, my last testament.

Witnesses, none.

(445 words)

Vijay © 18th April, 2006

[Fiction] Plantains

In the center of sprawling one hectare landscaped surroundings, a double-storied mansion. A crumpled, folded dream of a cramped city flat.

It was only last week that I shifted here. Partition had placed this bounty in my husband’s kitty. The difficult task was ahead of us. We had got the whole exterior re-done and being as stingy as one can be, my husband had personally supervised the works. Time and money constraints made us vacate our flat in the city and shift in, much before we were scheduled to. The interior works were still being completed at snail’s pace. I was told that a man would come to fix the tiles in the dining area today.

******
He was at the door with his tool bag. When I opened the door, the first thing I noticed about him was the gold chain around his neck, kissing caressing the sweat trickling down his neck. He had a strange smile on his face. He walked straight towards the dining area where tile-work was to be started and I went to the kitchen for the usual chores.

I could hear him working outside in the dining area and with some effort I could also keep a watch on him. While opening the refrigerator in the dining lobby, I unintentionally glanced at him. He had taken off his shirt and hung it on one of the windowsills, lest it gets spoiled. It was normal in this part of the world. You could see more men walking around with bare torsos as if wearing a shirt was abnormal. The more discreet and literate were always the ones who were immaculately dressed. Does education make us more circumspect?

As his hands worked on the chisel and hammer, I watched the flexing muscles on his shoulders. I was still looking at him when he turned his face towards me and smiled again. A child-like smile. I was annoyed. Is he trying to act fresh with an aging mother of two teenagers using that child-like smile? Can he not smile a bit more maturely? I asked myself. He got up and walked towards me while still wiping clean his brow off the sweat.

“I am the same old Johnny. We studied together in the same school. Have you forgotten?”

Utterly embarrassed, I just smiled and turned towards the kitchen. Yes, it was Johnny. I did not look at him again.

They reach for work at nine. It was mandatory for the employers to provide tea, a light brunch of porridge, lunch, then tea and snacks in the evening, before they leave at six. It was a military dictum of the trade unions in this part of the country. It was brunch time already.

******

In the thatched classroom, we sat on the same bench. Talkative girls were made to sit between two boys. That was the norm in our grade. With rashes spread all over his skin and white clear eyes bulging from sockets of a darkened weather beaten face, he was scary to look at. To add to this was a strange odor that emanated from his unwashed clothes. I never talked to him much and would endeavor to sit as far away from him as I could. One day, during the recess, he stretched out his hands towards me. In one he held a beautiful Plantain stem and in the other a red-leaded blue and pink striped pencil.

“This is for you.”, He said.

I accepted his gifts with some circumspection but did return a smile of gratitude. This became a regular feature. When I least expected it, he would fish from his dirty bag, a beautiful Plantain stem and present it to me. As time passed, the rashes on his skin and the odor became meaningless to me.

We all used to walk down to the village school from our homes. Winding through a small hillock and paddy fields was this pathway, which was a shorter way to reach school. Though, we seldom used it. Somewhere alongside this pathway was Johnny’s small little shack. Right in front, to the other side of the pathway, was a small pond, it’s water completely camouflaged by dark green Plantains, sprinkled with beautiful tiny violet flowers. Sometimes, on my way to the school, I took a shortcut and stopped at his doorsteps, calling out his name. He would be delighted to see me, like a clueless child in a toyshop. Then he would prance across the pathway and wade into the pond to pluck the most beautiful of those Plantains. His arms would extend towards me with his catch and I would be happy to accept his gift. Its bulbous roots were good to wipe the writing-slate and could also be used to play various games.

******

“I dropped out of school in the eighth grade when my father expired.” He informed me with a matter-of-fact giggle.

I have never seen him talk without a smile or a giggle.

“You remember? I used to come and take free tuitions from Pillai master. Once I saw you there. I frantically tried to draw your attention with a wave. You never responded to my smile or wave. I suppose you failed to notice that I was there.”

Probably, he was unaware that all my smiles and waves were pledged and mortgaged within Pillai master’s domain. He had no reason to know and I had no excuse to tell him about it either.

Late night, after my dinner, when I got out for a stroll, my eyes involuntarily settled on the artificial pond outside. Lotuses bloomed in full glory complimenting a mesmerizing and enchanting full moon night.

I should cook up an excuse that would make my husband agree to replace these lotuses with Plantains. I told myself. I should decide tonight.

******
Inspired by “Kulavaazhakal”,
a poem in Malayalam by Reshmi K.M.
Translated by Vijay © 16th April, 2006

[Fiction] Run

One fateful game of “Gulli-Danda” started it all.

When blood streamed out of Keshavan’s blinded eye after the gulli stuck his face, my friends panicked. “Run, or else the police may arrest you,” they said.

I have been on the run ever since.

I landed at a road-side eatery. I fetched water from the well, chopped tree trunks for use as firewood and cleaned utensils. One day, when I wearily closed my eyes, the eatery’s caretaker Sunny Pillai sneaked up and tugged at the cord of my pyjamas. I stabbed him with the kitchen knife, the only thing I could lay my hands on. It was the turn of the sympathetic eye-witness to shout: “Run or else the police may arrest you.”

Pulishekharan’s house was the next stop. I was assigned household chores. He made his writ clear. “Bastard! I hope you won’t steal. Do not stay if you do. And remember, I won’t pay you anything.”

The place was like home, though. Mistress Shantamma treated me like her son. One day their daughter, in the fourth grade asked me: “Hey boy, can you oil my tresses?”

This time it was my turn to warn myself. “Don’t. Now, run or else the police may arrest me.”

I breathed next when I thought I was safe, crouching beside a stinking lavatory on a train. Then, much ticket-less travel and some pick-pocketing later, I accomplished myself as a chain-snatcher.

I once laid my hands on a gold chain adorning a sleeping lady’s neck. Startled, she awoke and latched onto my shirt. I was aghast. The racket of the speeding train drowned her screams. I tugged at the gold-chain with all my strength as well as the emergency chain overhead and dissolved into the darkness enveloping Jolarpettai before people could find her lying slit-throat in a pool of blood.

Wading through the night, I slept in a railway wagon abandoned at the end of a railhead. The morning sun came with a realisation that the secluded wagon was, in fact, a courtroom in transit to try offenders traveling without tickets. Black gowns were everywhere.

Imprisonment for six months, merely for sleeping inside a courtroom? It wasn’t long before I graduated to being a lifer.

After many incarcerations, some wily escapes and nearly having felt the noose, my hair hasn’t grayed yet and bones are all in tact. I am hungry now. To douse this fire inside my belly I have to return to the prison. Who should I kill next?

[417 words]

Vijay © 15th April, 2006
Inspired by “Police Lokatthil”
A poem in Malayalam by V. Muzaffar Ahmed

P.S: I acknowledge the inputs and insights my friend Rajaraman has given to this piece

[Translation] Boxes

Mammoth boxes
crawling upon conveyor belts,
that’s how I see each day.

Moving from one box to another
in the shadows of the night.

Till the extent eyes can see,
boxes lined up, I can see

A week, a month
or it could be even a year back
I wake up one day
Was it a Sunday or a Wednesday?

With bated breath they wait
‘fore winds fill up the vacuum
‘fore silence gives way to sound
‘fore babies move in the womb
as if preparing for an impending moment

Till this moment,
whilst my left eyelid
closes for a while

When something so unforeseen,
unpredictable and unexpected
could only be a deception,
I wonder why we sing of
eternity and star-spangled skies?

I can see the day you live in,
like the bright skyline of a bustling city

Walking through corridors
infested by growling, grumbling incidents

My only hope,
to be born in the one which went away
and to die in the one which is closing in

It could be a Sunday or a Friday!

A poem in Malayalam by Mohammad Kaviraj
Translation by Vijay © 13th April, 2006

[Translation] Exorcise

Filled to its brim,
may the cauldron of alphabets
spill over, but written words,
beyond their meaning,
they would never grow.
Pour them into another
or try redefining them
conscious of their shape,
aware of their boundaries, they are.

Agendas hidden in unwritten words
Seen somewhere, heard somewhere
They tumble down the memory lane,
scratching, defacing, its surface.
Etched deeply by time
on hard exteriors of the heart

I segregate meanings and synonyms
Define shapes and boundaries at will
Narrow them down,
confine within a mustard seed, or
let them grow into eternity
for all times to come

The ugly, shapeless ones
hidden somewhere in my mind,
identifying, fishing them out,
I throw questions at them,
exorcise.

A poem in Malayalam by Jayashree
Translated by Vijay © 11th April, 2006

[Verse] Scattered thoughts

I am in thought mode today

The clouds which went past,
without crying out in grief,
where would they be, now?

The clock which got unwound,
just before the chime,
did it ever spring alive again?

What of the calf which strayed away,
never to be found again?
Did the cow’s eyes dry up finally?

Could the peasant finally redeem
the bullocks he pledged?
Did his daughter, its cause,
live happily ever after?

Is it the colorless vacuum in an empty stomach?
A jaundiced yellow or an expectant green?
or is it a blackened imminent future?
What is the colour of hunger?

Invaluable snippets
scattered mercilessly
for you to stomp upon
or painstakingly woven,
discarded shreds of trash,
hanging on your living room wall?
What price these thoughts?

Vijay © 3rd April, 2006

[Translation] Spaceless (Be.jagah)

“Forgotten for ever are they,
once they fall from their place,
Hair, Women and Nails.”
So explained our Sanskrit Teacher,
the essence of a Shloka,
and scared, we girls,
got riveted onto our seats.

Space? What is space?
Its meaning clear to us
in our first grade itself
We remember each word
of those early lessons

“Ram, go to the school!”
“Radha, prepare dinner!”
“Ram, have one more bite!”
“Radha, sweep the floor!”
“Your brother is feeling sleepy,
go, prepare his bed!”

Wow, our new house!
“Ram, this is your room!”
“And, mine?”
“Are you insane?
Girls, Winds and Sunlight are like sand,
they have no abode to call their own!”

Where, in what space, what slot, are they,
those who don’t have an abode?
Where is that space, by losing which,
I would become a woman?
Like nail-bits,
like hair strands on a comb,
to be peeled off and thrown away?

A house, left behind
An abode, left behind
left behind are the people I loved
But, some questions followed me
Now, I have left behind them too

Left behind are some spaces

But, never ever did I feel
Like being stuck in a nail-cutter
or dangling loosely in a comb

De-hors my culture, I feel
like a small couplet
extracted from a timeless Classic
and sprinkled on the question paper of B.A. Pass Course
-yet wary of anyone analyzing or answering me.

Beyond each hurdle
with much effort have I flapped my wings
So what if they read me
like Tukaram’s unfinished prose?

A poem in Hindi titled “Be.jagah” by Anamika
Translation by Vijay © 30th March, 2006