Dogs

I have always been afraid of dogs. People say it's because I'm a girl, but I don't believe that's true. I remember a few drunk friends of mine, female, ferociously attacking dogs when barked at, so I don't think that stereotype holds for most girls. Anyway, it does hold for me. I am almost paralysed when dogs come running to me. They might be called cute, but in my eyes they are ferocious creatures which have no shred of mercy in them. If you've ever experienced a dog running towards at full gallop, mouth open, teeth bared, barking a blood-curling howl, eyes fixed on you, ready to tear you to pieces; you know what I'm talking about. I've had a few encounters with dogs in my day. It usually involves a bunch of hungry dogs sensing my fear, and surrounding me, ready to strike. A passerby, or a bystander usually comes to my rescue, as I'd be frozen in place. For this reason, I never walk alone in isolated places.

I have this friend, one of those people who gets lost from time to time. He is usually quite coherent, but there are phases where he seems to get off the sane train, and talk in abstract ciphers. They do seem to make some kind of sense, but I cannot guess the context, or his meaning. He is a nature person, and I've often felt like he's better off with nature than with us. Anyway, our interactions are somewhat sporadic, since he doesn't like to talk using modern implements. He prefers face to face. So whenever he'd come around, we'd meet, and talk. He lived in Mumbai, and I in Bangalore, which is a huge distance. But he'd usually visit about once every two months, so we'd meet up to have a drink. He was one of those people who was always calm, so I always felt safe around him. I've never seen him so angry that he'd lose his wits. He's handled every situation I've seen him in, in a composed manner, much like a conductor gracefully handling his orchestra.

He had come to visit this September, and as usual we met up for drinks. We like to try new places, and this time, we went to a bar in a somewhat remote area of Bangalore. He was happy as I had never seen him before, for he was getting married to the love of his life. He was particularly outspoken in his joy, and we spent a lot of time in the bar. I had never seen him open up like that day. In his infectious zest, we both ended up drinking a lot. It was quite late, and the server ushered us out saying that it was closing time. The sky was pitch black, with no moon in sight. There were flickering street lights at long intervals, and in the distance they looked like an airplane landing strip. The whole sight was eerie, and I had a strong sense of foreboding. We started walking along the winding path, following the lights. It was a kaccha road, a mixture of mud and asphalt which threaded the line between making you feel like you were walking in slush, and yet it was solid enough to be called a road. We were too drunk to care anyway, and we started walking. It was a few kilometres to my place, and we decided to just walk, for it didn't look like we would be getting any transport anytime soon. I was scared, but he had this reassuring aura about him, so I felt safe. We walked, chattering about trivialities, and remembering past times.

We had reached a wide spot of road, just under a street light, when I sensed movement around me. I don't know what it was, but there was definitely something moving around me. There was not a soul all around us, and it was deserted as far as the eye could see. I got scared. The first indication of what it was, was a growl rising in a crescendo. The sound brought the world around me into sudden focus, and I could now make out the outlines of several dogs in the fringes of the light. The single growl was joined by more, each more wicked than the last. I felt the pangs of paralysis rising up within me. They gained complete control of me once the dogs started barking. I froze in place, my eyes locked on the dangerous creatures in front of me. There were six dogs which I could see, and they were poised to strike. Their jaws split wide, teeth sparkling in the light, saliva dripping to the road in large dollops. Their eyes were trained on us, as if waiting for us to make the next move. Standing in a loose circle, they seemed to be closing in. I felt trapped from all sides, and unable to move. This was the end.

I felt a warm hand around me, and looked to the side to see him holding me. He whispered slowly, "Don't worry. You're with me. I'll take care of this." I should have been relieved, but I was in survival mode, and in no mood to trust him. I don't remember what exactly happened next. He raised his hand slowly, like politicians in India do to quiet crowds. Slowly murmuring "Sshhh...", he turned to each dog, as if pacifying them. His voice was mesmerising somehow, and in my muddled state, it was inviting. He was firm and strict. I don't know how it worked, but the dogs were starting to shut up. The ones who were first addressed stopped barking, and the effect spread to the rest of the pack. They all looked just as ferocious and blood-thirsty, but they weren't barking. He pulled me forward, holding me tight, and we walked out of the circle while all the dogs were watching us. I did not comprehend what had just happened, just that we were out of the circle. We kept walking. I felt exhausted, and in no mood to talk. Holding me, he dropped me home, where I instantly fell asleep.

I sometimes still get flashes of what happened that night, but those dogs never barked at me again.

The moonlight field

I was on another one of my moonlight strolls through the asphalt streets of the city. My companion walked beside me in absolute silence. Words were but a hindrance in the absolute oneness of our companionship, and we were silent. The roads were completely deserted but for us, making us feel like gods. We walked along, our breaths misting in the cold air, our bodies walking parallel.

An empty field crept up alongside the path, making it seem like the world ended on that side. It had a wall along it's border, one of those dilapidated things which have become one with nature. They have no sense of beginning or end, simply rising up off the ground. The trees are intertwined with the large stones forming it, as if the architect had planned it all along. Even their shapes, formed by the ruthless tides of nature, seem to be their destiny. It felt like we were meant to be gazing on it at this moment. We took a seat on the wall, huddled together, blowing warm breath onto our hands.

Staring back at us from the light mists was a dark foreboding of not being alone. It was almost pitch black, with only the eerie light of the moon lighting up the field. The wind slowly shook the fog like a puppet master tuning his strings. We could see a few plants large enough to be seen on the field. Apart from that, the field seemed entirely empty, with the uneven floor like waves frozen mid-motion. The mists seemed to crystallize, and shapes formed before our eyes. I blinked a few times, just to make sure, but it wasn't a trick of the eyes. The shapes seemed to be moving around without any apparent pattern, just flitting from one place to the next. Some of them collided, and wisps seemed to emanate from them. The longer I looked, the sharper their features became, till I realized with a start that they looked like children. Little children lost in some game they were playing. Sounds wafted in our direction; inhuman high-pitched shrieks which would have otherwise worried me, seemed perfectly fine tonight. Unaware of our existence, they continued their rambunctious play, sounding like the joyous wail of a new-born on his birth. They looked like little puffs of clouds, but on closer inspection, one could see how unnaturally they bent the light, and how they stood out from the mists in the background. They were translucent, their bodies shaped like ghosts from the kids' show on television. I couldn't make out their faces, but there was definitely a human face there.

Floating around each other, one chased another, to the point where they collided, and then started chasing another. The collision broke the form of the ghost, like a smoker's smoke disrupting the existing flow temporarily. A trail formed, like the ghost had just dived in water, and drove the water apart. The form combined again out of the smoke, and the game continued. There were those standing on the edge of the playing field, who moved but little, and inside, who were running like ants toward food. The shrieks came from those inside, as if they were the only ones having fun. The outer ghosts were quiet, standing protectively in a circle, guarding the ones inside. The children made sure not to break this line. The outers made no sound, but silently hovered in a large circumference. They seemed like guards protecting the innocent play. Silent spectres, they gave off the scent of danger which so easily scares me. I don't know what it was; whether it was the cold in the air, the sense of danger instilled by the outers, or my disbelief at the sight before me, I started shivering. My companion held me tenderly, patting my back to stop the shivers. Our arms entwined, we went back to the sight before us, mesmerized by the strange game in front of us.

The sound of tires on asphalt came rumbling along the road, followed by headlights from a car making a turn. We turned towards the light and were temporarily blinded. Accustomed to the darkness, the light seemed bizarre, like a bad cherry in a perfectly baked cake. It went by as soon as it had come, but the effects lasted longer. We turned back to our playground, but it was empty.

The mists had become bare again. The sounds had been muted. Where ghosts were twittering about earlier, there was only silence. The scene was as drab as a cemetery from an old black and white film. A crushing sense of loss filled me. Those forms had been my life for a few moments before, and now they were gone. Where they had being playing in gay abandon, there were now depressing mists idling by. I didn't understand why beings who were separated from me by an unconquerable abyss affected me so much. Beings who were so different, formless, and shapeless, so deeply affected me. I didn't have a connection to them before this night. They had not influenced me in any way before this. This would possibly just be another memory which would fade away as time passed by and life went on. It could have just been my mind hallucinating at night. And then it came to me.

I was closer to them.

The fisherwoman

The stars shone above,
Echoing the world she lost;
Bringing back the time she would bow,
If she had not kept her trust.

She thought of the toil she had done today,
And her net so full of fish,
She felt content, keeping hunger at bay,
And was ready for tomorrow's dish.

The smell of the earth and sea,
And the fragrances playing with the falling dusk,
Lulled her into reminiscing sleep,
Calling upon her story of strife and lust.

She went back to the day,
When she was set free,
Splendidly wrapped, fresh and gay.
Twas the day when she would go to he.

But in the craze of celebration,
Nobody saw the ominous clouds gathering,
The prince who appeared full of contemplation,
Was the harbinger of death come aridin'.

The night, eerily silent and long,
He made her a woman full grown;
But with the mornings' first dong,
Her world had grown horribly wrong.

The madness of power ran strong in him,
While her eyes were full of love.
But in the cocoon, amidst her own whim,
She forgot she wasn't a dove.

Stepping outside, her ground shattered,
The rapine left her dazed,
And her heart grew ridged, hard and rigid,
Forever closed to his gaze.

She had lost her father,
Her mother was slain;
And the loss of life she could not gather,
For carrion had eaten all like grain.

Her head grew hot,
Arms found a strength of their own;
Vengeance for what had been wrought:
The decimation of her own home.

Plucking the dagger she had got,
She marched to her chamber,
Emanating the laugh begetting the carnage wrought,
She charged forgetting all danger.

Death stood her in all his glory,
Laughing at her plight,
Feeding of her misery,
And thus began the fight.

The sounds shook the land;
Twas the fight between death,
And last hope against being damned:
The challenge had been met.

Lights flashed across the battleground,
This battle of light and  dark;
But the darkness surged onward,
Unstoppable against her mere spark.

Hope had been lost,
The sith forces rejoiced;
For all had been host,
To this parasite voiced.

None saw the flickering speck,
Still burn like an ember.
And an angel rose to the deck,
Even he felt a shiver.

The white light blinded all.
The spark birthing the resurgence of
All good, uplifting the pall,
And putting his advance to a stop.

He who was Death fled the scene,
Never wounded before,
Repelled by a single sheen,
Of she who trusted in her own bore.

And thus twas that a single girl,
Repelled all death and destruction.
Saving her entire world,
With the sheer force of determination.

But the engagement had not left her alone,
She became recessed in herself.
For display of purity she did atone,
And now only her eyes betray herself.

Now run along, leave this old man be.
Your moms beckon,
This is the end of this story.
You might think i'm senile,
But when she wrote history,
I was witness.

And if you all are joyful today,
'Tis because of this lonely fisher woman.

Thoughts penned

A little context: I had just started feeling like I could write again for myself, and the first thing I felt like writing was what I was thinking about right then.

"Bind me not before you know what I can create, but if after having set me free, the wonders I bring forth are not worth my freedom."

"I love drawing fires, because a fire has no form. It has been as definite as a drop of water, and as scattered as embers in the wind. No matter how you draw a fire, you aren't wrong, because when you draw a fire, you are mirroring yourself back in it; and who you are cannot be wrong!"

Finally defeated

He stared away, as the world moved around him,
And he rotted inside as he could not bear,

The needles boring into his soul,

The pricks of a mind desolate.

 

He tried and tried, to get away,

But the ghosts haunted him all day,

And when the voices finally stopped,

His walls broken, himself uncorked.

 

He was bare to the world,

Open to pain, and all hurt,

And the reapers came and slashed across,

The darkening core this man had got.

 

And the fatal miscarriage inside him,

His sheared black soul, wearing thin,

Was pulled apart and torn away,

To leave a hollow shell astray.

 

His hopes and dreams all crushed and strewn,

On the field along with wounded soul hewn,

His withering figure shrunk to his bones,

Eyes losing their spark, enervated.

 

Nowhere to go, he knew what this was, 

His final failure, his disgrace sparked,

And in his final wheezing breaths,

A horrid smile lit up his face.

 

For he, who had been king of kings,

Come where his enemies vanquished had been,

The last defeat on that battlefield,

Was the defeat of his conquering soul.

Musings on a bus

Warning: I wrote this while on a bus on a trip with friends to Coorg, amongst a busy cacophony, so it might not upto the mark, but eh, here goes.

Sitting in a bus riding along, my thoughts travel alongside. Racing ahead, they seem to always come back to where I am. Even after piercing through the veil of time, they move forward back to where I am.

My friends and I revel in the simple joy of companionship. No one speaks, because there is no need to. The songs in the background permeate us, taking deeper into ourselves, barely touching the moment. And in the end, it comes down to this.

The moment.

Where else will you find joy? Happiness is an abstract concept that I have not identified with, but joy we have all experienced. Be it after a long, tiring day when you get some good tidings, or when you meet someone after a long time. Winning a competition, or achieving something, all those experiences give you joy. And that is something found only in the moment. I seem at a loss to describe it, but suffice to say that I am, at the moment, joyous.

Speaking about things in the moment, there another feeling that fits the description. It is something so rare today, that you find it only in the fleeting breaks in between our mangles lives. It is peace. The contentment of just being. Another feeling I see around me right now. The world has been reduced to the confines of our bus, and the scenery rapidly falling behind. And it all seems peaceful, like it was meant to be. Ah, which reminds me, let me get out of this reverie, and into my moment ;).

The madness of men

"You are mad",
It has been said,
When times are bad,
and great plans are being laid.

Scoffed by all,
Even the common folk,
The madman is,
When he uses his yolk.

For in their own small homes,
Unthinking beyond,
They do now see the mind flown,
The genius spawned.

For the madman is unlimited, unbound,
By the bonds of the lot,
And once those concerns deleted,
The madman hatches his prodigious plot.

Such outrageousness, shocks many,
But in the end,
After the death of cacophony,
The madman has made the world bend.

Such are the geniuses,
Who are labelled mad,
Changing the pretenses,
The dull proletariat had.

Unimaginable feats are always done,
By men who are mocked all around,
Because a true man all alone,
Is by the feckless always frowned upon.

But in their hands is the true power,
The power of change,
An evolution they must deliver,
With as little as they can maim.

This madness is in all my friends,
The faculty, this freedom within,
Why try to be one who simply blends,
When you can a revolution bring!