Empty epiphanies

Suddenly, as if it were a giant bird eye temporarily gauzed by a nictating membrane, the sun's searching ardour dims and the light turns soft, still retaining the yellow warmth that shows the grass all around me as a precious wilderness -- of subdued golden hues, the stems heavy with ripening seeds, nodding to each other or tangled together with a nonchalance that only grass growing wild can know -- of tones and shadows that belong in a painting, like scapes born from soft brush strokes.

I am large, I have multitudes.

I have walked something like 3-4 kilometres (over the dusty roads of my colony and then, Cross-country across as-of-now empty plots) to get to where the grass starts, and then maybe another...circumventing clumps of Lantana, walking doglegs around thorn trees, muscling my way through -- with the lens held high over my head -- where a barely seen trail is overgrown with wild basil and other brush, shoulder high, like a stockade.

My footfalls aren't as light as I would like them to be. Juvenile baya weaver birds out on feeding sorties gather together and watch me pass; prinias and zitting cisticolas clamber up to vantage points and keep me in sight, repeatedly darting glances at me and as repeatedly looking away; a long-tailed shrike imagines I am some bird of prey out to steal its kill and gobbles down a fat grasshopper with unseemly haste; grey francolins burst into flight, in a heart-stopping explosion of wings, one after the other.

But then, I have been here before, and because the grey francolins keep outsmarting me, I can say I have known these defeats before...

I walk some more through grass that's a mid-thigh high, skirting a patch of nettles, all that is there -- this year when the rains failed -- of a seasonal puddle where I have seen munias feed in many, very hundreds.

I am here for the Booted Eagle. And I know (in the way a Birdman knows), I am on time; but no bird takes off into the skies out of the broken treeline in front of me, even as I wait -- shifting my weight from leg to leg, in turns standing tiptoe and rocking back on the balls of my feet to relax the muscles there -- what seems like an eternity or an hour.

As oft before, my thoughts stray and I wonder again, if this is the pinnacle of my existence, that I can be footloose and fancy free to indulge in the pursuit of birds; or my nadir in monetary and career (aren't they the same thing?) terms -- that I, an articulate, educated and experienced professional while my way away thus, in a lonely wait, for a bird that doesn't come.

Then, peripheral to the gaze of my mind,out of the side of my right eye, I see movement.

Its the grass, I see. Its moving. A breeze has sprung and even as I watch, in wave after wave, the whole meadow dances in unison as if each stem and blade of grass has picked up some tune that stays unheard by me.

That's all the answer I will ever get from a meadow of wild grass -- I chuckle to myself; as I turn around, to walk some more kilometres, and search for some more birds.

In Time

Where do the days go?
Do they know the anguish,
the incompleteness of being.
Can they slow, as another year ends?

Then I see, how can it be
or does it matter, really
for some of us will lie and find love,
some will succeed to gather wealth

And some will be spent, searching
for newer ways and measures
to tell of simpler struggles
of the in-drawn hiss, the muted scream

At yet another night's
touch of tincture iodine
on a self raw with
the sutures of loneliness.

September 2012

As the days dry out, 

birdless, I remember the sight 

of your closed eyes,

your repose as you slept,

a dream I dared not wake.

Now I curse my cowardice

and the past, now distant beyond a bird's flight. 

Two years away, the wells of your eyes 

are depths I can't sound 

with my deaf gaze.

I should have

awakened you, after I had awakened to

the poems fluttering under your eyelids.

As the days dry out,

birdless, I regret

Your love, your lies, fool me...

and the skin crawl of your memory 

still writing poems such as these

Vinayaka Chavithi, 2014

As I type this, sitting in the penthouse (rather -- my bare, uncluttered, minimalist writing shack) on the terrace, the sun is peeking out and shining in a haze through the clouds.

The terrace itself is still wet with the last of the rain that has fallen, mostly in a steady trickle, sometimes in a din...for almost a day now -- starting as it did yesterday evening when Naana and I got Vinayaka home, along with the fruits, flowers and other offerings that he relishes.

All in all, thanks to the clouds and the rain, it has been a perfect Ganeshotsav at home for me.

What with the overcast skies almost the exactly same colour as the three lines on my brow (and arms) it seemed as if the heavens were also wearing Tripundra, the mark of Shiva -- in obeisance to his son, Guru Ganesha.  

To fit the sanctity of the occasion, I wore a Panchi and Tripundra and as Amma recited the Mantras that I couldn't hear, I could still concentrate on the Puja apart from a thought occasionally straying away -- like an unfettered bird; where would I have been today if I was in Delhi?

Would I have managed to make it to the Garhwal Himalayas (or Bharatpur) over the weekend? Or someplace closer by -- like Basai or Yamuna Biodiversity Park?

After all, technically (at least for all those who are securely and gainfully employed) this is yet another long weekend.

But then, I realize that I am not in Delhi any more.

My thoughts stray again...is it equally cloudy (and raining) at Vizag now? If I was there at Vizag now -- probably on Thotlakonda or Pavuralakonda, would the light conditions have permitted me to shoot landscapes worthy of catching Ansel Adams eye?

But then, I realize that I am not at Vizag either, that the trip I was to set out on was canceled...

As some poet said, the best laid plans of men and mice (and, the best intentions too) sometimes come to just nought...

Maybe such is life, maybe I am destined to be home and circumabulate the Buffalo Wallow (the Great Cormorants are now in breeding plumage, and the Pied Kingfishers are pairing up, looking for sites to build nests; there are also a flock of Streaked Weavers now more or less established in the reeds that flank the wallow).

Whatever Guru Ganesha wishes. Om Ganeshaya Namaha.

P.S. -- Blame it on the intense pleasure of being at home on Vinayaka Chavithi or the magical atmosphere today -- I did something that I have rarely done after my growing up (in Orissa) years. Left my pens at Guru Ganesha's feet for his blessings. And yes, seeing how I rarely write with them any more, seeing how a lens that is as long as a baby elephant's trunk is now my stock "tool of trade", I naturally asked him to bless it too.

Om Namaha Shivaya :-)            

An old woman begging in a train

Her footwear were oversize 
for her old and shrunken feet.

Her Sari looked like its silk;
her hair was a confusion 

Of odds and ends, with the dull sheen
of old silver. Also enough black

Drawn back in a decrepit bun
a little above her nape. Almost like

Another eye. In the crook
of one scrawny, twig-thin hand

She carried a faded yellow cloth bag.
What's in there? A blanket?

Two more Saris? Her remaining years?
Into the wizened palm of the other hand

I pressed down some money,
after touching it to my eyes.

Those eyes are wet now
As I cry this poem on

The tragedy that is
an old woman begging in a train.

Defeat

Four years, or are they five,
or even some more? My own
mirror of time, they make 

Gummed and then red-backed
with the dried crimson bleed of
two ears and the disquiet 

Of all the words they never hear.
There are so many riddles
I see in my face. Gathering,

The crow's feet around my eyes
seem to ask -- does loneliness age?
And how can I be both,

That silent, stolen, upraised glance
into changeless skies of lies,
(when no one's watching,)

That ritual cursing of an empty grimace;
the bird-like gaze, from up above
in my bumbling defeats,

Seeing grace?

Hey you, you are not Intense any more...

Well, I am not Intense any more it seems.

(Not that this is very recent either, I mean one month will pass soon.)

This wasn't exactly a verdict of course, nothing on e-mails, nothing that could be tracked back otherwise also, but you can't be a fugitive when you are someone who doesn't have phone skills, can you? Besides, you cannot be a fugitive when you are Intense, can you?  

Dunno what exactly happened; I mean what exactly was new (apart from a 5 day week -- Oh Golly! -- and an epidemic of  we-know-it-all-marketing-branding-business development-social media-eff all because we know Excel / Google types); last time around I was told, all I do is put a semicolon here, a colon there, a comma wherever; this time some Grand Panjadrum who is arguably everything you can imagine (and cannot) under the marketing / analyst (shit!) relations / PR / advertising / whatever-else-you-want-to-think-of  set me up even better (or should I say, worse?).

Usually, when you are forty (plus?) and recruited directly by management, you probably count for more; maybe a generous severance allowance, if not...at least a decent notice period.

Ha ha.

Anyway, I am not Intense any more.

In a way it is good, I don't feel like a fugitive (me?, the very idea!) and I don't glare at myself in the mirror in the morning when I shave either.

That summer is on me is also fine; my ears have been no better or worse for more than a summer now, anyway.

You want to know about my eyes?

Ha ha.

The lens is very VERY visible.
      

Another Rider Mania, another ride...

Last time around Rider Mania was in Shillong. While I had any amount of leaves (read that as "not employed anywhere") and the urge to take a road trip was stronger than ever, I couldn't make it.

Why?

Let's not get into that :-)

This time around, luck was a lot favourable (so to say) and I registered much in advance and thereafter also managed to get leave etc, etc.

So, come the 16th of January, I was on the road again (without any preparations whatsoever, on a borrowed, spanking new, Classic Chrome 500) and surprisingly enough had a pack of Bullets riding along too.

The agenda was simple. Get intimate with the road again, rediscover it for the pure thrill of motorcycling, connect with the basics of biking again. Naturally then, I chose my painful motorcycling boots (if not for which I would have lost a toe or more when I had fallen and broken my collar bone en-route Kolkatta for another Rider Mania) over my birding shoes (and lenses and cameras).

The agenda was also to rough it out (I had carried along my tent -- I did not need to pitch it because a fellow rider -- who also snores -- invited me to join him in his tent) and have fun in "life is a beach" terms.

Must say I managed to do all that and more.

And though I do regret on not being able to photograph a Marsh Harrier, any number of Common Kestrels and countless Black Shouldered Kites and White-breasted Kingfishers; I don't regret not having to lug the heavy backpack with me, for all of approximately 800 kms each way.

More importantly, I do regret not being able to do justice to the landscapes on offer with my puny camera phone, but then at one level motorcycling is all about framing and freezing those vistas in your being -- with no camera involved!

Yes, it was  good ride. I had company both ways; tucked into some amazing food all over the ride, connected with a lot of biker buddies and made quite a few new friends too.

But the icing on the cake was the fact that I started my birthday with a 200 kms odd trip (from the place where we had called it a night, at a seedy lodge somewhere after Pidiguralle on the absolutely hypnotic SH-2) to reach home for have the privilege of touching  my parents' feet.

That this ride was through inchoate early morning fog, under a drowsily weak winter sun added to the magical quality of the whole experience. Having the Classic Chrome 500 to stride and the challenge of maintaining a fast clip (while weaving in through the occasional truck traffic) gifted it a very special edge.

So you could say I gifted myself a grand present for my birthday. Because, as someone known to me said -- If you don't celebrate your own birthday, who will?

Most importantly, now I have the contextual depth to compare two different birthday rides. On the ride to Rider Mania, Kolkatta, I was riding all through my birthday and intent on getting the ride over and "partying". That's when (though I was not speeding) I fell and broke my collar bone. As such I spent the night of my birthday in a decrepit Kolkatta hospital, wracked with pain and surrounded by ghoulish looking, post middle-age, matronly ayah type nurses firing Bengali phrases at me.

This time, I was more sensible and had 4 hours of sleep behind me and the mental focus -- "I will not fall, come whatever." As it turned out, I neither partied (came to work right from the ride in fact and got a nice talking to, as well) nor wore any new clothes, nor cut a cake (that way, someone has to celebrate our birthdays, no?) and spent most of the evening in a sleep-deprived vigil waiting for some biker friends to come and shack up at my place. But heck, I did manage to enjoy a "Beer and Biryani" before the night was over. And, I slept under my own roof, without any painkillers in me :-)

I am not comparing, but its nice to survive all of life's vicissitudes, if only to celebrate small joys like a birthday ride.

Om Namaha Shivaya (oh yes, I prayed a lot on the ride!)             

In praise of the little man :-)

The little man celebrated his birthday on the 20th of this month. Sadly though, I wasn't there to see him play host to his "best friends" from the apartment building where he lives and from his class at school. Nor was I there to feel his special "smack", oh-so-wet kisses.  

Because I was on the road, getting back home from a motorcyclists event at Mahabalipuram.

I will be catching up with the little man and making up for missing his birthday. And if I know him, he wouldn't sulk or throw a tantrum about the fact that I wasn't there. Still, missing his birthday does rankle me a lot!

****

What exactly is the little man to me?

Well, he is a lot of things most children are -- lovable, petulant, demanding and so on...

And also, in a very peculiar way, an yardstick of how bad my ears are :-)

Some 4 years ago, on a train trip with my family to Tirumala, while we were in the upper berths and indulging in horseplay in the rattling and clackety clack din...the little man tried his level best -- for something like two / three minutes to tell me that he was sleepy and wanted to sleep. Then, being the smart fellow he is, he just mimed it.

Around that time and much before the train journey, most of my motorcycling and wandering in the open spaces around my place were also driven by the need to satisfy his walkabout nature.

It wouldn't be much of a revelation then -- if I own up to the fact that I discovered the buffalo wallow purely due to the little man's interest in going to "waters", since he liked throwing pebbles into the deeps.

(It was on one such trip that I saw a lot of birds at the wallow -- black winged stilts to be exact -- and got around to getting more "reach" to photograph them; so the credit for my being a birdman goes to him too!)

It wouldn't also be much of a revelation then that I miss spending time with him and chafe at the bindings of an idiotic adult world that ensures that little men (and women) are so burdened by school and outside-of-school tuition that they have no time to play, monkey around and generally be just children.

(Also, its not that he wasn't coming to my place enough. Rather he would be mostly disinterested in anything as real as a walk or a motorcycle ride. Then again, at the very mention of the quarry or the buffalo wallow, my mother would become murderous as she did not want her grandson to be exposed to "bad air" and "germs", etc. Lastly, there were always various other virtual attractions -- the desktop and the laptop(s) and his tablet and my cellphone and of course the TV...)

But then, if you wait enough, everything in life turns full circle, does it not?

So, one fine afternoon around a week ago (the day before Sankranti, in fact), when as usual with my hearing aids not doing much, I invited the little man for birding, he surprised me by agreeing. And then, when my mother turned protested, the little man quelled her objections adroitly (I did not hear what was being said, I just noted that he probably said one or two sentences in all).

And, thus history was made!

But that's not all. The little man also took recourse to a notebook and a pen -- to write down instructions for me, more or less to say that :

1.) He will be carrying along the notebook and the pen, just in case I cannot hear when he says something to me.

2.) I should carry some money with me, because if we stay out too long and he gets hungry then we may need to buy something for him.

As it turned out, he bought his favorite biscuits and some bubble gum (one for him and one for me -- according to him) and we made it to the wallow and I put up the tripod (with him offering to help carry the tripod on the way) and set up the lens too.

But then, his snacks got over, he got bored (and progressively tired) of standing, and we did not do any photography as such.

Oh well, there would be another time again, I am sure.