As a hazy March sun sets

My two eyes,
skywards rise,
in that artless search
to hear unvoiced answers
why this hazy light
when the evening should golden blaze
why this wispy soft, finely spread
gossamer skein of cloud
with the rains still months away
then, the sun I see
for what it is, a third eye mortal as me
and this sky too,
is of me, my brow smudged
with thoughts and dust,
creased with the crowfeet
of all these footloose days.

The coucal traipses off, again

This isn't that great a photo. I have been lucky enough to take better ones of the Coucal (crow pheasant) incidentally the bird that is also the logo of my publishing house, Coucal Books.

But this photograph to a certain extent illustrates what makes it so tough to photography this amazingly shy, suspicious and reclusive bird.

For the rest of the mystique of the experience, there is this poem (first draft, and untitled, as of now) as well.

As if it has heard a rustle
from the laboured focus of my gaze;
the Coucal traipses off, again

In an ungainly, tail-heavy tiptoe
up through tree storeys
all russet stealth, a streaky

Rust and black shadow of light
a poem shying away, alarmed
into the wordless escape of flight,

Gone, again.

Somewhere in the lush foliage of poems that is Ink Dries, there is one that is on the Coucal's predilection to slink away. But this one has a individuality entirely of its own and a big dose of immediacy as well. 

P.S. No, I did not type it up in my cellphone (shudder shudder). And I do hope I do not end up losing this blog as well.
        

 

That familiar cycle of silence

Mine is not a very chronological way of living; I don't even wear a watch and there is a lot that is unstructured, persistently footloose and itinerant in my life. I could say it isn't exactly by choice, but then it doesn't really matter in the overall scheme of things -- does it? For it would seem that that is how my life would unravel in time -- in a not very chronological way.

Yes, all I can say is that I have been here earlier.

That this has happened to me earlier.

And that, it is stunning, bordering the nerve-wracking.

I am an ear (of course not speaking literally -- ha ha, certainly not in my case) with all my faculties, eye and very being, but the silence has settled down to roost and will not go away.

And after all the hope, the tribulations, the fears and the skating on the thin ice of fast melting dignity and self-respect, after being turned out in the cold the realization dawns, once again.

Maybe the blame lies in me after all, for being a fool -- believing in being myself and trying.

And then again, like before there isn't much to show for all the trying, apart from this familiar cycle of silence that seems to haunt me, seems to literally cloak me in it and verges on being as pervasive as a tinnitus in the head -- a silence that will not go away.

Hello again, silence -- please forgive me, I will not try to go away from your embrace again. 
   

    

On losing a phone (and probably two manuscripts worth of poetry)

I am home after a night (mostly) spent tossing and turning in a Side Upper berth in Kacheguda Express.

Mostly because I was missing the comfortable and familiar presence of my mobile phone in my pocket and because it isn't exactly easy for me to fit into a Side Upper berth along with my camera backpack (more about this later, hopefully).   

And also because I was stiff-legged from spending most of yesterday afoot on Thaverekere Road, Bengaluru, lugging along two bags (apart from my camera backpack, of course) trying to track down my lost (stolen, rather) mobile phone.

As I write this, when I try getting my number called, I am told there is a "phone switched off" message. Which means -- in all probability -- that whoever has stolen the phone has disposed off the SIM (or used up all the balance on it, or whatever) and sold the phone to someone who buys stolen goods or has mated it with another SIM or whatever...

Can't say I know much about mobile phones or that they interest me beyond a point.

That point (in this case also the reason for my day long efforts to track down my phone) was the qwerty keypad of my phone handset (incidentally, a cheap Nokia X2), which makes me a bit of a freak when it comes to sending long SMSes or typing up poetry, etc into my phone's memory using the "draft messages" feature. While birding or while walking around otherwise outdoors, or while moving on, in a train an auto and so on...

Yes, there were quite a lot of poems in there, in the Nokia X2...in all probability two manuscripts worth, even if most of them were first drafts.

And all that is now gone, poof. Life, huh?

I did try and try and try my (inadequate) level best. And yet again, I was surprised by the humane capacity of my fellow man, the kindness of strangers, as any number of auto drivers, cyber cafe owners and one mechanic and one postman called up my number on my behalf to help track it down.

(This was in addition to the friends I could reach by getting online using FB / GTalk. Thank you Vijay, Manju and Nivi, you guys were a big help indeed!)

And I did not give up hope that easily either, because (very very incongruously, in fact) whoever pinched the phone (yes, it was stolen, I did not drop it or misplace it somewhere) did not switch it off immediately and in fact even offered to give it back to me (as communicated by the nice people who called up my phone on my behalf) if I came to this auto stand or that bus stand. It was another thing entirely that, the concerned location kept on changing and 3.00 in the afternoon onwards, the phone was "switched off".

Maybe the mobile phone thieves of Bengaluru have a gameplan that is more advanced and innovative than that of the others. Or maybe they expected me to follow them up some more.

Either way, it would seem all that poetry (even if it is mostly comprised of first drafts) is lost.

All because of a moment of being mindless -- I had just finished my "first-glass-of-the-day" tea (at a tea shack on Thaverekere Road) after a sleepless night, I wasn't exactly in a great frame of mind and instead of pocketing my phone, I left it on my seat, while I went to get a refill of tea...

Oh well, it could have been worse, considering how much I have been pushing myself these last 4-5 months (incessant travel, physically grueling field trips, and the mental strain of having to again and again face up to my inadequacies).

Thank God it is only a cheap Nokia X2 that I lost... I could have forgotten my camera backpack somewhere or even lost my mind!

   

                                

On (or rather a lot after) the sober ocassion of turning 40

I am in all probability wrong about the "turning 40" bit; I mean I really don't know if I have completed 40 years on this planet and am now into my 41st or...

Well, there you go, that's as clear a confession as any that I suck at figures, dates, etc.

But then, 40 or 41, among other things, I am no longer a young poet, I have survived yet another birthday (and all the attendant loneliness) and am once again assailed by thoughts dealing with the poverty of my achievements...

But then, maybe some of us are destined to be underachievers, huh?

And as birthdays go, it wasn't one that bad.

I had the privilege of getting to touch the feet of my parents and that of a temple visit with both of them. And since I was shaved (and also looking surprisingly curly-haired and boyish), it did feel a bit like the old (rather my younger) days.

I had the privilege of "running free" to do a bit of birding (mostly in the pursuit of Lil' Blues, the Common Kingfishers who live barely half a km from my place).

I had the privilege of the deeply felt happiness of seeing Amma stop working early in the afternoon (on my strictures, entirely) and of eating Pulagam and Paravanum.

And, with the evening light turning golden, I had the privilege of company and conversations of friends who seem to surprisingly still find me interesting enough. Out of doors with a cold bottle in the hand :-)

How old would he have been, if he was around? What would he have presented me? How would he have self-deprecatingly made fun of the threadbare nature of his and my finances? What other "entrepreneurial ideas" would we have discussed and got high on?

I will never know, but yes the mind does imagine a lot of things that are utterly impossible. But I do know that I still miss him...and that the missing is one of searing, gut-wrenching pain on such days.

Happy birthday to me, Chandra, wish you were here. And I am sure you said cheers from up there.