H(o)mmmmmmmm(e)!!

Home is one place which is different each time you go back to it... even though things there (or people, for that matter) do not change. Maybe it just shows you how much you have changed over the time you were away. Sigh. In that way then home is a mirror... of many things...

Last night my mind was flooded with a lot of memories of those innocent times when I loved home. (Of course, I had no other place to think of as my own, so then it is very natural, but still.)

Now, as a friend put it, this is what it does to me: H(o)mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm(e)!!

General cheerfulness: Crazy me's crazy thoughts

I start off from Ganga with a tune in my mind. It is a cheerful day, just like that, and I am embarking on my usual 'long' walk to Chandrabhaga for lunch. Three bunches of keys hung together, I have the perfect instrument to keep rhythm while I hum some tune that comes to mind. I realize I am actually doing that and wonder what Ankush would say of it... At that first music workshop of his that I had attended in the first of my MA days, he had asked each of us to bring some 'unconventional' musical instrument. Those were the first days of our acquaintance. Hmmm... It has been quite a journey with him and (his) music. After that workshop which did not reach any particular conclusion (almost like a tune sung for no one which simply trails away into the air unnoticed and unheard), we had continuously worked together in various musical ventures from the Music of Errors to White Nights II recently.

I smile. I had been looking up something on Carnatic music on the Internet since the morning, and now I recall some random kirthanam I have learnt. In Bahudhari, I think. And I wonder how Ankush would like to listen to my rendering of the kirthanam right now, in this cheerful mood of mine. It might even go on into a discussion of some similar raag in Hindustani, and as usual, about music in general. I call him, but he is not on campus. Theek hai, I tell myself. I am on the road, on my 'long' walk, soaking up the cheerful winter afternoon sun.

I realize I am thinking of an acquaintance whom I haven't met in a while and about whom I often think. I imagine how it would be if he would appear in front of me just then, and secretly wish it were so. We could have walked together, talking of pleasant and maybe some not-so-pleasant things too.

I have reached the Godavari bus-stop when I notice a dog barking. I watch another dog join him and then both bark together at a pack of dogs a short distance off the road. Oh, defence of territory. Suddenly I am distracted by the voice of someone sitting on the stone bench there looking at me. I look away. Wait a minute, are they speaking to me? Puzzled, I look at the speaker, precisely when he comments in Malayalam (to my surprise) that I didn't even listen to him. I don't recognize him. Why is he speaking to me and that too in Malayalam? He must surely know me, otherwise people generally don't understand from my features that I am a Mallu. Now both of them (I notice there are two members of that same vicious species sitting on the bench) smile at me and one of them asks me where I am coming from. That's supposed to be a greeting, but I personally think it reflects Mallus' general inquisitiveness, nay, curiosity in other people's businesses. I answer something and quickly save myself and him from the embarrassment of telling him that I don't remember him.

The stream of my thoughts broken, I resume my walk. I play with the keys in my hand, and while walking I think of a friend's blog that I had read earlier in the day. It has been a while since I have written anything on  my blog. I should write today. I could just describe this walk and its cheerfulness... But I know, if I don't go for lunch immediately after reaching my hostel I will have to miss it. And if I put off writing till after lunch surely my mood and my thoughts would have changed. What one really needs is a gadget that can just record or transcribe one's thoughts. One can always go back to the transcripts and edit out the pieces one had intended to write. Well, right now I don't have any such thing with me, so I should just make the most of whatever I have...

I have reached my hostel. I go to my room, keep my bag, and go to the mess to have lunch.

That is the end of a 'long' walk. And the end of a generally cheerful day is nearing. Let me go get some coffee to keep my awake.

Just for you...

Back then, everytime you kept away from me felt like a time for austerity and penance... I would just feel myself immersing into the river of Silence: I had nothing to say to anyone. If I did not become a hermit for the period that you were away, I would feel desolate, lonely. And each time you were away I was forced to play a more active role, precisely because you were not there. Naturally I would feel disturbed and irritated. At times I would even wish to become a burning pyre...

This time, so different from then, I am glad that you were actually coming away to me. Instead of being killed by the void created by your absence, this time a week in my life actually blossomed with your presence!

And yet, and yet, now when you have headed back home, I wish I could have blossomed in your life too....

Excerpts from an old letter... Revisited and revised :P

31 January 2010.

A mystery called love! Many things that I am in the middle of, many things that I sense and are sensed in me by those whom I love (and am loved by)... Many things that need to be said but can be understood only keeping aside the hearer's own experience.. I know I'm not being clear enough. But sometimes there remains an unfulfilled wish that a lover would also be a friend... friend in the sense someone who would just hear me out without being affected by what they hear... so that I can speak out without having to think how it would affect the person hearing it....

But most times it is just not possible. I, being what I am, cannot speak without thinking how it would affect the person listening to me. And I cannot speak out when I know that the things I say are going to be judged by the person listening to me. Even people who profess to be non-judgmental do in fact judge when it comes to their own personal matters. Perhaps I do too. But I understand. It cannot be helped.

So I'd rather keep some things to myself. Hence the blank.... That there IS something, but it is not being said. People do know intuitively that there are eloquent silences... But they sometimes do not recognize it when it stares them in their face. Maybe because it doesn't matter to them, maybe because they are just incapable of recognizing it. Its okay. I dont have complaints. But it does matter to me: the eloquence is mine, and the silence is mine. The battles that are mine have to be fought by me. No use wishing that ANYONE would understand. So I won't wish.


...


Later I found this beautifully captured in just two lines by a favourite poet of mine, which I translate below:


"Silence 
Is not the secrecy of words;
It is the eloquence of the mind."

The tale of the mynah, retold...

ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ!
സുരേഷ് മൈന്‍ഡ് ചെയ്തില്ല. മൈനക്ക് ദേഷ്യം വന്നു.
ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ- ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ!! ഇത്തവണ കുറച്ചു കൂടി ഉറക്കെയായിരുന്നു.
സുരേഷിന് അസുഖം പിടി കിട്ടി. അങ്ങനെ വിട്ടാല്‍ പറ്റില്ലല്ലോ! ഹും. സുരേഷ് മൈനയെ നോക്കാതെ നേരെ ടൌണിലേക്ക് നടന്നു.
മൈനക്ക് കൂടുതല്‍ അരിശം വന്നു. ശ്ശെടാ! ഇവനിന്ന് ഒരു പണി കൊടുത്തിട്ട് തന്നെ കാര്യം. മൈന വിടാതെ സുരേഷിന്റെ പുറകെ കൂടി. സുരേഷുണ്ടോ മൈന്‍ഡ് ആക്കുന്നു?
അവന്‍ നേരെ പോയത് മൈക്ക് സെറ്റ് വാടകയ്ക്ക് കൊടുക്കുന്ന സ്ഥലത്തേക്കാണ്‌. മൈക്ക് വാടകക്കെടുക്കും മുമ്പേ ടെസ്റ്റ്‌ ചെയ്യാന്‍ എന്നും പറഞ്ഞു മൈക്കും മേടിച്ചു പുറത്തു വന്നു.
മൈന കാത്തിരിക്കുകയല്ലേ... ഉടനെ തുടങ്ങി: ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ!
സുരേഷ് മൈക്ക് ഓണ്‍ ചെയ്തു. അതാ ഉറക്കെ കേള്‍ക്കുന്നു: ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ- ക്ലീ- ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ- ക്ലൂ!!
മൈന ഞെട്ടിപ്പോയി. സുരേഷിന് വേറൊരു മൈനയെ കൂട്ട് കിട്ടിയോ? അയ്യോ! ഇനി എനിക്കൊരു വിലയുമില്ലേ! മൈന സങ്കടപ്പെട്ടു. അത് കണ്ട് മനസലിഞ്ഞ സുരേഷ്, മൈക്ക് തിരിച്ചു കൊടുത്തിട്ട് വന്നു മൈനയെ സമാധാനിപ്പിച്ചു.

അങ്ങനെ വീണ്ടും രണ്ടാളും കൂട്ടായി.

To you: My only answer

You may shatter me as many times as you like.
But
When I shatter
There won't be
Shards of glass
To prick you
Wherever you go.