Saturday, September 13, 2008

Untitled, as yet

Note: This is just a start for a story, more is yet to come, this piece is posted early upon request from a reader, please do judge and comment upon it. :)
P.S: written in a hurry, hope it's not too bad

Sitting in the desolate corner of my luxurious room, I take a short, uninterested glimpse at the trinkets that surround me. Things which would have amazed others for hours on end, seem of no importance or significance to me. Life has taken its toll upon my being, webs of wrinkles surround my once smooth face, the glow of happiness decayed into pallor of stagnancy. It seems as if there is nothing more to life other than objective existence, survival, which has lately become my sole explanation for living. Perhaps it is just an instinct, that with which everyone is born; it is intrinsic and there is nothing that can be done about it. I despise suicide, else I would have done it as many times as would be needed to erase my marks from this world, yet I feel it is a coward’s getaway, and fate say, so be it.
Jeweled furniture, expensive wardrobe, yet what all this be worth to me, when at this age I be forsaken by all who live upon someone else’s payroll? I get up feebly, as swift as my strength may endure, and take my leave, towards the only refuge that I have now. Solitude, as I understand now, is a friend who can console you in the worst of times with the best of patience, and so I drag myself out, through the lawn pruned with finesse, out the gate of my prestigious bungalow, and onto the road. My house sits at the outskirts of Delhi, a perfect place for one to spend the last few years of her life, away from the nauseating speed of time in the city.
My feet crunch slowly on the gravel as I limp towards the nearby grove of bargad trees, my gait no longer graceful, my steps no longer quiet. And as always, halfway through, I glance back, yet again, to look at the faint marks of my passing in the dirt, already fading away under the dust blowing around with the wind. I stare at it intently for a while, I laugh at myself, and I think, what are ye, O futile creature, exist, yet be, scattered musings of thine own, and here I be, only a rich forsaken woman, treasuring that which I can think, for the feel has already gone away, o’er the wind, perhaps to a land not known to man himself.
And yet it is time to turn and trudge onwards upon my path; I slowly make my way through the little boys sitting upon the roadside playing marbles in the mud and betting their tops on it. It somehow amuses me to see how these little innocent children risk almost all they own to have a little more, another wooden top, or a chakrum or, perhaps if they are lucky, a machhar, the thin, swift kite which dives elegantly through high winds. I move unhurriedly through the little patch of road which leads me to my refuge, silently nod at the women in sarhis, cradling there babies in their arms, as I walk by their jhuggis beside the road. I look at the bent structures of their tents, with no apparent luxury but one that I yearn for, laughter, that which echoes out into the light of the day, bright, and sunny. They revere me as an elder, and as a woman of status, when ironically I ache to be young again and live life of a simple girl. What I need is what they have, and what they need is what I have become, yet this dilemma of not being able to live with or without it, is what we so happily call life. I have everything that can dazzle my eyes, and yet, nothing that can warm my heart.
The men sweat and drag themselves in the city for the whole day, for life has to go on. If there is nothing nearby for one to live upon, he must reach out to provide for his family, and yet, thinking this thought, I feel hollow. Where is my family? Who do I live for? Questions that have pinched at my heart every single day, for the last fifteen years, since my mother died soon after my father. I was the only child in the family, and somehow, we never seemed to have any relatives. And perhaps stranger still, I never felt the need or want to get married; perhaps it was just meant to be so. I feel grateful for fate, another escape from the realities of my life; whatever didn’t fit, fate was to blame for it.
And so, here I am, a shabby, yet decorated figure, treading upon the dust that has been here for centuries, seen many like me come and go, waiting for me to fall apart into it, and be a part of it, like history, which is always there, a watchful eye, the keeper of time.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Night

When there's night and there's nothing to do,
I get up from my sleep and i think of you,
In my silence and in my sorrow,
Alight a fire, of love that is true,
My eyes burn with tears i cannot shed,
My soul crippled from the ache so deep,
When silence speaks around the world,
In my heart, you, i will keep,
I claw my way through this emptiness,
This void where you should be,
So tell me, love, with hollow in me,
Broken i am, can you see?
My eyes now dry, the screams quiet,
For i let the agony flow,
Let it reach through my whole being,
Let it take me where it'll go,
My arms so empty, my soul shattered,
This o'erwhelming hurt tear through me,
I beg you, love, come take my life,
I beg you, set me free