A DIFFERENT BEAT

  As I sit and sip my milk coffee in a hotel somewhere in the centre of mainland India, I switch on my thinking self. Yeah, I often do that, maybe I even overwork on that mode. But it is unusually working at this hour. Today is February 14th. Oh I know what your expression must have been (Ohhh is it???? We didn t know!!!). Hmm...that day of the year to flaunt your lover, declare your love and what not. Valentine's Day for me in all its glory has always disappointed. No lover, no roses, no gifts, nothing. Thanks to the person I am. Maybe I put across myself as a very boring person. Sighs apart, I don't know if I am one. The truth stares at me from the cream walls. I have never celebrated a Valentine's Day not because my ideology considers it anti national but for the simple truth that I never had one. I ask myself, So? I don't know what is biting me at the moment. Is it that today is Valentine's day or I have nobody to wish one or something else. I know, I have to w...

The Gulmohars bloom When love flowers in the heart of a chaste lass, forlorn in a dream of her own. Her passion intensifies the shade of crimson red. Her innocence contrasts the near green and far blue. The pastel of colour mix reflects her dreams. Love, passion and pangs nourishes the flame! As she looks at the tree, they both sigh in a hushed tone; a love story begins. A never- ending connivance A secret bond A myth to live for ages. When the Gulmohars bloom Love has blossomed its first shower in a heart that beats in a rhythm that only she knows how to hide, and not to seek. The Gulmohars have bloomed The horizon turns red And she smiles beneath its branches.

Pic Courtesy: Sukirti Madhav As rains of hope Stream into my life, I look upon the mountains, and see them green. Near, far and scattered there in unending curves,  they spread a mat. I bounce like a ball,  carefree in and out. Swinging from one tree top to another, the monkey in me is uncontrollable. The leaves listen to me and whisper back. I m elated in heavenly euphoria. Why was I late to bask in this chilling warmth, that the mountain mist hugs me with, I know not. It washes away my doubts and aches, and leaves me pure like never before. Green and white in blessed hue fills me from my head to toe. I look above. He smiled and my world had lit up. In this dawn, I feel the bliss as his smile spreads its rays on the mountain's bosom. I realized, I was not alone; Shaded with a veil, Heaven had kissed his earth.

The smile on her face was still the same, as I had seen her on my 7 th birthday.   But the red lipstick had lost its glow and the fair skin looked a bit tanned. It was not the red glowing sun that had baked her brown as she had been indoors for more than a dozen years. It was the dust and years of negligence. I had once shared my childhood with her. The red saree with its golden spots carefully spun had given bright colours to my dreams I had woven on yarns of childhood games. She looked like a bride in her bright red saree celebrating life with golden bangles, tingling the bell of festivity. She smelt of jasmine.           Now, her beauty is a blurred reflection of the past. The bangles are broken and red saree has faded. She now smells of kerosene that I had once accidentally spilled on her. Her smile did not elicit a smile from me. But I was tempted to pick her up from my closet. There she lay for seventeen years, uncared and...

I switched on the O Watt bulb in our room and sat up from a distant dream snapped abruptly by the whining I heard. She was sitting there on her bed with her legs neatly folded under her pillow. She had her elbows on the pillow and her face was cusped in her tender fingers that had played with mine many a time in the past. Her hair fell loose on either side of her cheeks and she was staring at the light blue pillow cover. I got up from my bed and went and sat next to her. Her pillow had a wet drop of her tear. The drop got larger as I looked at it. But my daughter never looked back at me. “Munna” I waited for her to look at me. She was lost in her realm of I don’t know what. “Munna,” I tried once again. She did not respond. That moment I realized my daughter, sitting near me was far away from me. Far far away where my helplessness was measured in her indifference to the world around. When your dear ones do not respond to your call or sound, you are like a man caught in a whirlpo...

    I stared into the distant fields of patchy green and dusty brown. The weather was hot and I was sweating. I pulled out my handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my face. It was stinking as I had not washed it for the last three days. I stuffed it back into the pocket and rested my head on the bars of the window. The hot sun spat on my face and I moved back in reflex. Warm air blew in and made me more uncomfortable. I looked around and counted seven others in the transport bus. It was half an hour past eleven and I was heading home after a week of competitive exams.     The driver stopped the bus at the next bus stop where an old woman and her grandchild boarded the bus. The child eagerly jumped into the side seat in front of me. His grandmother swaying with the bus’s movement held on to the rods as she struggled to sit along with her grandchild. I closed my eyes for some time and slept in between. When I woke up, the bus had occupants in all the seats...