mottled

The Roof

Anil — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:24:34 +0000

I sat by the railing as rain water dripped from the roof that was shaped like a shroud and remembered that night when I woke up suddenly to feel the ground beneath my body tremble like a torn piece of paper. —– I sat by the railing as rain water dripped from the roof that was shaped like a sundial and remembered those days of half digested dreams that began with [...]

Coffee

Anil — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:36:20 +0000

There rose a red cloud of dust upon her second parting as she walked away towards the horizon streaked with gilt edged clouds. The wind came in that midnight and settled into the corners of the water logged dream drowning in my eyes. It spoke of lilac colored farewells and machiato flavored mornings when her voice carried over the sound of coffee beans roasting. The rustle of the [...]

Autopsy

Anil — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:25:44 +0000

There I lay open, on the examination table, all my parts jumbled like a bad biology puzzle. My separated eyes leaking blood into my upturned palms. My grey and white matter mingling with the filtered contents of my drooping kidneys. My shriveled testicles in the company of my jaundiced tongue. My constricted anus ignoring the abuse of my screaming lips. My enlarged liver and my enraged pancreas creating an identity crisis for my [...]

Where

Anil — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:16:59 +0000

Where did the ends of our worlds meet? In the shallow landscapes of our palms? In the hardened furrows of our foreheads? Where did our conversations go? Into the shifting winds of our swollen egos? Into the languid spaces of our memories? Where did the lights of that night disappear? Into the moonlight shivering on the edge of your spine? Into the allergic [...]

Instant

Anil — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:21:06 +0000

In an instant I’m plunged into the old roaring of words that fell from the soaring heights of our eyes to land like rainbow colored mist between our toes.

Diverging Lines

Anil — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:30:17 +0000

So we looked and found each other again, our respective fate lines tied in a knot. ——– I miss you still, kissing our memories on quiet evenings. —— My hands crave you, moving through the air of their own accord drawing your diagram. ——– Your absence gives shape to my loneliness. —– Our lives keep diverging like the lines on my palm.

Arc

Anil — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:19:29 +0000

Leave this hour behind inside me like a signature of your smile on the blind tips of my fingers. —— The fog is thick between the dust colored sunshine and the fading smell of last night’s jasmine. —— Waiting across the hall is anger accumulated against the unchanged arc of intimate history. —– Memories are rust colored in the hour glass harmony of moments flowing across the gaps in remembrance. —— I’m here at the [...]

From Corbett To Keoladeo

Anil — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:03:07 +0000

(Note: This trip report was first published in the April 2009 edition of Bird watchers’ Society of Andhra Pradesh’s newsletter-Pitta) They say that you can never forget your first tiger sighting in the wild. The majestic walk, the earth shattering roar and the easy but arrogant confidence apparently imprint him in your mind forever. With [...]

Silverline

Anil — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:39:59 +0000

Walking one afternoon on a path that led into thick bushes I came upon him, fully formed and bright. Wings tucked in on the edge of a jagged leaf he sat contemplating perhaps the great drop below. I approached quietly with my viewing box and held it up to my eye. He swam into detail like a boat nearing the shore. Off white wings divided by bright orange lines flecked with silver. Two thin tails parallel like the latitudes pointed away from his [...]

Inside Corners

Anil — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:50:13 +0000

The beast rose within to smash the mirror of memory that hung on the low wall of self loathing. —– Watermelon dreams stain the skin of summer as she smothers the city in her blazing yellow shamiana. —– A gap in the stars A full stop out of place The twisted sky falls apart The world sleeps. —– A sudden hush descends on the neon painted night scape washing the empty gullies [...]

In These Arms

Anil — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:00:24 +0000

In these arms I gather the loneliness of your dreams as you curl into my corners lost in a shapeless geography. In these arms I gather the trembling lips of dawn as she awakens you from night’s deep dark abandon. In these arms I gather the wet whispers of your hair as they slither between sunshine and shade. In these arms I gather the invitations of intimacy that traverse [...]

Dev.D

Anil — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:13:01 +0000

Ever since the growth of the so called ‘multiplex cinema’ it has been fashionable among some quarters to keep stating at regular intervals that the Hindi film industry has finally come of age. In other words, the Hindi film industry has finally shed its insane plots and acquired a global persona that everyone from San [...]

No Man’s Land

Anil — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:43:04 +0000

Between uncertain unhappiness and the smells of sunset and sorrow there was a space. A no man’s land of abandoned heartbeats. A no woman’s land without a horizon to kiss. No sunshine ever smiled there. No sounds ever laughed there. It was my space; most private and most precious. Into that space, she came riding in like an unexpected answer. The hidden horizon [...]

First Voyage

Anil — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:02:40 +0000

(Note: Something written in the autumn of 2000.) This one had, when we started, the omen of being a good smooth one. I sat on the platform of the abandoned railway station with my friend. The rusted rails ran to the horizon on either side of us. The area around us was wild, every inch clogged [...]

Fragments

Anil — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:00:15 +0000

he moved through the shadows like death…fiddling with his dark coat…blending in here…shape shifting there. he woke up slowly…almost gently like from a vivid early morning dream…his breath was cold and his senses clouded…he felt like he was in some immense space, all alone…so totally alone like it was the end of the world…there was [...]

Mumbai

Anil — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:23:50 +0000

(Cross posted here.) The guns have finally fallen silent. The staccato bursts of gunfire have died down. The intermittent explosions have stopped. The pigeons which flew away after every explosion have settled down. But something does not feel right. This was not like one of those bomb blasts we have been seeing with such regularity in [...]

Peace

Anil — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:21:57 +0000

In these teeming billions I’m just another tear drop flowing down the cheek of mortality. —– Inside you the dust has spread like a common rumor. —– In these woods, between birds and butterflies, between music and motion. —– Away from the frigid wastes. Away from the loudness of longing. The slow turning of time. The warmth of familiar water. Peace at last.

The Wall

Anil — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:52:53 +0000

Yesterday night I talked to a wall, a brick red barrier off which bounced my monologue like a bad mystery. The words were stale, like bad breath before a beautiful morning kiss. They had been festering far too long in closed confines. They talked about desperate, unsatisfying sex, about violence weakened by desire, about the arc of answers that dug into my dull [...]

Diwali

Anil — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:04:45 +0000

The sudden fiery outburst of a flowerpot next door sharpens the evening with the smell of sulphur. Rockets rise like resurrected gods and explode between the wispy clouds into red, yellow and green showers. I remember lights from the past, one time father was sitting in the balcony and a rocket came through from under his chair and burst upon our bedroom wall. Old friends [...]

One Word

Anil — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:29:12 +0000

That one word fell between us like a raindrop, smudging the intimacy inside our eyes. That one word fell between us like a punishment, stifling the laughter in our love. It was not harsh, no; harshness was still a distant stranger yet to make our acquaintance. It was like a hailstone hurled across a street onto a windshield. Our world cracked [...]

Poets and Poetry

Anil — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:56:18 +0000

Yesterday, I went to a poetry reading where a forgotten poet was resurrected. His history made human. His work made familiar. Srinivas, Sridala and Jeet put words and images in my head, putting the feeling of creation but not the tools to create in that empty space. This urge to create, to write great poetry is tempered by an inability to choose, to [...]

Neon Nights

Anil — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:30:28 +0000

Vacant stares populate the empty night around me. The warm neon folds into me like a whisper. Solitude can be a strange companion in an urban setting where you are never truly alone. The buildings lean onto you like old friends. The roads slither under your wheels. The traffic seems to part beneath your defocussed [...]

The Case of the Missing Bag

Anil — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:30:49 +0000

(The following is a true story. It really happened. Names have been changed to protect identities. Most of the conversations that form part of the narrative are based upon that most unreliable of friends-memory or from conversations after the fact so some literary license has been taken in narrating the precise sequence of events.) A fancy [...]

Former Glory

Anil — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:34:26 +0000

In between these lines you can read all the meanings you want because you have peeled off the paint from our world of possibilities. —– All those evenings, when the winter sun slowly sank into your eyes, I waited for your fingers to curl around mine. —– Dusk seeps into your eyes like ink into paper and in that gathering gloom I search for our former glory. —– As [...]

Gone Ganga Gone!

Anil — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:06:42 +0000

They came armed with bulldozers and bulletins onto our verdant fields and into our modest homes. The government wanted to build a big dam, arrest the mighty river and submerge our sunshine beneath placid dark green water. We protested, tore our hair and hearts but the babus did not listen. Progress is not pollution they advised. The sounds of industry echoed between the [...]