The Widow

She sat by the window

And seemed to watch everything go past.

One would think she was drinking the divinity of the dying sun;

Sinking lower every minute, it wouldn’t quite last.

Or listening to the rhythmic jingle of tired bullocks

Unsettling the dust to amuse their languorous lives.

Or feeling the odourless wind reach out for her dry cheeks

Trying to console the inconsolably naïve.

Not once did the young widow shift in that poignant white sari.

Her glassy eyes were blind to the sinking sun, her rigid eardrums deaf to the

bells of the bullocks.

Did her gelid skin feel the wind that yet blew, but in vain?

That tried to blow gently through her soft, black locks?

He’d died for the country

He’d do it a hundred times over, he’d declared.

She’d be widowed a hundred times over then, she told herself;

Not with the struggling throes of apprehension, but with the passionate

determination of a patriot who dared.

Something gripped her from within the labyrinths of her heart.

It swelled uncontrollably

And grew insidiously.

Nothing quelled it.

Nothing would.

Nothing could.

It grew unchecked.

Till all of a sudden, it dwarfed the brim – position

And came rolling down her cheeks as tears.

What was it that enveloped her being so?

Was it:

Pain – that she couldn’t bear?

Sorrow – that had grown uncontrollable?

Or Pride – that she couldn’t speak of?

M.R Radhika Pai

Not My Shadow

You hear me, 
but it is not my voice you hear. 
You see me, 
but it is not me that you see. 
I have stopped 'being' 
for a long time now. 
There are so many voices 
there is so much light. 
The 'enlightenment' blurs my eyes, 
confuses me, abandons me mid-way. 
My thoughts are not mine. 
Everything I am is... 
someone else's. 
I don't have shadows to call my own. 
It is no longer me, 
it is no longer my shadow.

Annifred Solomon

Untitled

Renu Abraham
Medium: Poster Colour, Finger Painting

Important Announcement: Two important competitions for Artists at EFLU. Please Participate.

Solomon and Miriam

Suleiman spread a fresh mattress on the semen-stained floor and wore a skull cap over his mussed hair.

As he knelt down for the prayer and bowed low towards the west he could not concentrate, as usual.

All he could think of was Mary, and her sad face. He had decided, in spite of the anticipated troubles, to defend their love against the zealots. He remembered this particular verse from the Quran—

“This day are all things good and pure made lawful to you…. Lawful to you in marriage are not only chaste women who are believers, but chaste women among the People of the Book, revealed before your time, when you give them their due dowers, and desire chastity not lewdness.(Quran 5:5).”*

—which seemed to suggest the possibility of a marriage between a Christian woman and  a Muslim man. Their love had taken an idealistic undertone which had transformed them in ways which they could not immedietly comprehend—Mary lovingly called him Solomon and he called her Miriam.

Suleiman couldn’t complete his namaz and his heart welled up with an image of her which seemed to tell him a verse which she texted him from The Song of Solomon two days back: “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.”

James Michael

Notes: 

The Arabic rendering of the verse given above

*الْيَوْمَ أُحِلَّ لَكُمُ الطَّيِّبَاتُ ۖ وَطَعَامُ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ حِلٌّ لَّكُمْ وَطَعَامُكُمْ حِلٌّ لَّهُمْ ۖ وَالْمُحْصَنَاتُ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنَاتِ وَالْمُحْصَنَاتُ مِنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ إِذَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ أُجُورَهُنَّ مُحْصِنِينَ غَيْرَ مُسَافِحِينَ وَلَا مُتَّخِذِي أَخْدَانٍ ۗ وَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِالْإِيمَانِ فَقَدْ حَبِطَ عَمَلُهُ وَهُوَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ

 

A Man Called P

P was a great guy. The care he showed to his grandmother, made me think that he must be a loving guy. The girl who marries him was a lucky one, I thought to myself. "Jesus Christ", he would say every now and then, I carried that habit with me to India, and curse myself upon saying it.

P's parents were separated. I looked closely at him, to see if it had scarred him. Nah, he said. And you? He asked. "I too was like you for many many years, until it got to me" I said. He shook his head in dissapproval.

I spoke of my research and told him it was about enlightenment. We began to say something about Meditation together. He then gave me what was the most cynical expression his face could ever conjure up, and said "it leads nowhere". I smiled. I wished some Buddhist or Zen techniques helped us connect things and take off from Patanjali Yoga. That would do so many people good

Six years or so ago, my brother and I would have given that same cynical look to anyone seeming to be championing Meditation. We had read, we had tried. The path did not take us anywhere. We had then believed more in ourselves, in hard work and in carrying ourselves gracefully. But its time to read up and try all over again, I think.P thought of his work, was strong, kept time, and tried hard to work in a relaxed way. Alas, dear innocent P, there are lots of short-spanned things on this earth: we could have definitely talked more over those couple of weeks.

Sushumna Kannan

One Evening, Suhra

As she tried swinging in her grandfather’s rocking chair, Suhra scattered into hallucinations where her grandfather’s snores from the next room turned into words, and the words into bullock carts and contorted faces; a world which she ever often visited but could barely reconstruct even when the contortions of the real world with its unintelligible language, the unpredictable fists of laughter, rage and numbness and the confusion of ages her uncles succumbed to yearned for a story that she could say to herself. This was Suhra’s own world, and she couldn’t bear it. Everyday she wished for an intruder, for someone to penetrate her secret world, secret not by any jealous intentions but by the cruel coincidence of being torn apart from the rest by a language which was abnormal, unshared.

Her uncles defied the generations by their laughter, by their howls. They scratched on all things wooden in the house, fought with each other and their invisible enemies, chatted with the djinns, plotted with Satan. They were for Suhra caught in their own long mono-act, and each one presented all the moods. They were for Suhra inscribed in every setting sun and every shrieking cricket, in every drop of fresh rain of every-year tidings of an end and promises of a future and always caught in roles nullifying each other and themselves. Others say they are mad and she couldn’t decide if mixing up of ages, places and characters was insanity or just a game that just went too long because her grandfather forgot to terrorise them of the creatures of the night that haunts every child who plays in the courtyard at the dusk.

Bullock carts frequented her hallucinations. There was a bullock cart everywhere in that house—when her uncles would go, in their varied timings, into the crawling years of their childhood; in each coconut that were thrown to the coconut room every time the plucker was benevolent by his presence; when her grandfather, dead except for his snores at the siesta time and his demands for black tea at the waking hours, would then narrate the story of a long journey which was the beginning of it all.

Neighbours avoided visiting that house. The few times she overheard them, “God” punctuated the few sounds that were spoken as frequently as their sighs. But they all did utter “the bullock-cart driver”.
“a driver’s luck, what God wishes…”
“the luck to run a long way, God alone the giver of all the good and the bad”
“the driver who travelled a long way”
“Marakkar doesn’t actually deserve so much…God’s test I tell you.”

She was not out of their conversation either. “God protect her, it’s a girl”
“Heir to a treasure, but what to do, whatever God wishes, happens.” She had heard enough of the treasure already. What intrigued her was its location. It can’t be in this house, she knows every nook and corner of it. She has upturned the hearth, dipped the sandbag in the chimney an extra time each time she had to clean it off its smoke with the hope that a bag, a yellow silk bundle of gold and diamonds, might come to sight by an extra push. She emptied the overflowing coconut room but all she could find was snake skin peels. She even made Kanaran dig a few more pits in the pretence of planting a few extra plantains. ‘But it’s not the season’ he reasoned, but soon succumbed to the girl’s wish. He too knew of lanes beyond the reason’s beat.

But what did she need the treasure for? What will it fetch her which she is in dearth of? No one was going to accept her—the figment of sanity waiting to be flooded by the madness around her, the focus of many a story of djinns and seas and bullock carts, the magic word that evoked piety at the tea stalls and the women-quarters. She was just too painfully sane, realizing all of it by herself. She was beautiful, the bedroom mirror said so; she was sweet, or how else could she be loving the rains; and she was fourteen, and was as good since she was nine.

As she swung herself into the multitude of her hallucinations, she relived the story of the bullock cart. Marakkar’s bullock cart, the trader from Hadramaut, the long journey to the plains, the trader’s daughter, what does her face look like, the fists she got, the healer, the green curtain at the entrance, marriage…
No, the healer, the green curtain at the entrance, fists again, lashes, marriage…
No, fists again, lashes, instructions for immediate wedding, consultation with the cart driver, marriage….
No, consultations, refusal, lure, marriage…
A bullock cart, wheels of gold, piles of gold blocks, a girl, a goldsmith…
Suhra was there, her grandfather Marakkar, he was also a boy.
A long journey to the plains, green plains, yellow plains, the bullock cart, no one to drive, passers by shouting…Suhra was not there. A yellow bag falling off from the cart...
Suhra was the yellow bag…
Shouting, howling…

TEA. That was her grandfather. Suhra jumped up from the chair. It was forbidden to her except for the siesta time when her grandfather would sleep and wait for a dream and she would tread the memories that ever were. “Tea”, the voice was unmistakably louder. As she ran to the kitchen, she noticed there was life behind her. He grandfather, after years of being content with the one window and half-a-room view his rocking chair offered, was slowly limping his way to the kitchen. “Fronds,” he shouted, “bundle up some fronds fast, make me a torch of it.” His voice was feverish. Casting aside tea plans for the moment, she rolled up a torch immediately, and lighted it by the kerosene lamp at the kitchen sill. Her grandfather grabbed it from her, ran to the tallest coconut tree, pulled himself up to the tip of the coconut tree though the raindrops dragged him down a few times, grabbed the crown of the tree by his left and waved the torch-bearing right violently, “here, here, here”.

And then, he came down, limping than ever, showing signs of fainting, and signalling Suhra to help him to his bed. As she rested him on his bed, he told her in her ears, “I had the dream; they are ready to return it. They are on their way.”

Suhra hasn’t seen her uncles after that. In her hallucinations, her dead mother has taken the place of the trader’s daughter. The yellow bundle was taken by the two Arabs on the way. That evening they dropped by their house to give it back to her. They have been staying there ever since. Grandfather talked to them as if he knew them forever. Two Arabs dressed in white tunics and chequered lungis. At times she felt they closely resembled her uncles, but they talked in her tongue, and talked of her past.

And Suhra is yet to open the yellow bundle.

Shafeeq Valanchery

ദൂരം/Distance (Malayalam Poem)

ഒരു പ്രണയത്തിനും
പ്രളയത്തിനുമിടയില്‍
ഒരു ചിരിക്കും
കണ്ണീരിനുമിടയില്‍

ഒരു ചോദ്യത്തിനും 
അതിനുത്തരത്തിനുമിടയില്‍
എത്ര ദൂരം?
അറിയില്ല...
പക്ഷെ...
ആ ദൂരമാണിന്നെന്റെ
മൗനം...

Transliteration
Oru pranayathinum
pralayathinumidayil
Oru chirikkum
kaneerinumidayil
Oru chodhyathinum
Athinuththrathinumidayil
Ethra dooram?
Ariyilla...
Pakshe...
Aa dooramaninnente
Mounam...

Translation
Between a love
And a deluge
Between a smile
And a drop of tear
Between a question
And its answer
How long will be the distance?
Not sure...
Yet...
This restraint is my response!

Sindhu Jose
(Translated by the author)

Notes:
1, The word "Mounam" in the last line of the poem cannot be exactly translated as restraint. The word conveys a certain sense of silence, but does not exactly mean lack of sound. In excercising "mounam" the person also excersises his or her own will. The word can also connote a sense of an unwillingness to "act" and is much more pregnant in meaning than silence.

Two Poems by Shardool

Of Elusive Birds

This one is extraordinarily elusive!
Often it takes ages to spot it.
And Yes. One has to be patient to do so.
(And lucky too!)

Yesterday was one such rare sighting.
At noon silently the bird descended,
To capture an image in its eye.
(and immortalize it by its golden touch)

One moment it was visible,
Another, it was gone!!!
Was it for real?
Or a mirage in red?

The enigma that it is
it always leaves behind more questions than answers…

Paheli

Isn’t it so strange that at times
Some persons exert
a magnetic pull
Without even saying a word?!!!

They affect you in myriad different ways:
At times by just being around,
At times by appearing out of the blue
And by disappearing as quickly as they come!!!

One cannot but speculate about the intensity of their emotions
and the felicity of their silent expressions.
Reading between the lines/images does tell you a lot,
Yet, the enigmatic aura continues to perplex…

Perhaps it’s an unsaid code
Waiting to be deciphered?

Shardool Thakur

Lighting Lamps

I was going to light lamps
But it did not feel like that.

The cotton wicks clung like lovers.
It pained me to tear them apart.

They came in threes or fives;
and they were not couples.

I had to choose two,
reshape them a little, soak and drown them in oil
and light them.

Sushumna Kannan

Prolonged Existences

I have looked in the mirror
And found you
I have felt disgusted.
Can I change this smile,
this grin, this tear…
If only I could…

You pervade my life
In spite of my conscious rejections.
Your prolonged existence is choking me,
It stagnates my efforts, and stunts my movements.

You cry at all this,
But you don't realize that the male,
malicious contents prolongedly exist
in your and my relations,
in your and my bodies
coaxing us both,

into looking into the mirror often
and crying.

And so often have I lost you thus.

Sushumna Kannan

The Shaman

In an eastern land, far away, up in the mountains, where the clouds sway low over the peaks, the forests dance to the gusts of wind, men dwelt among the bamboo groves in clusters like stars in the night-sky, with an agreement of oneness among them. The spirits of the dead gathered every night near the caves, where no man of the living ever dared to tread, unless he was one who was in-between—like the shaman.
This shaman spoke to the spirits in chants, through songs, dances, sacrifices of animals, offerings of fowls, in a bid to bestow blessings and protection from the enemy and to keep away evil. Everyday, he taught a new song and a dance to those who dwelt among the bamboo groves, and it pleased the spirits greatly. The shaman almost always knew everything and he was held in great regard by the bamboo-dwellers, the naked folk as they were often called—at least they thought he knew everything. Not until the white man came along. The white man arrived from the North wielding a glorious musketry, bringing down all that stood in his path—grass, bushes, trees. The curious naked folk emerged from their dwellings with their gifts of carnelian beads to greet this new stranger. The white man saw them and said, "They are naked! Let's clothe them", and so he did. In no time, one...two, three, four, five, and so on...bamboo-dweller, no longer naked, was taught to speak, write, walk, behave, live. With every passing day, a bamboo-dweller disappeared into oblivion, a song forgotten and a dance left out, while the white man watched, pleased with his work. We all thought that the shaman knew everything, but realizing that he actually did not foresee the arrival of the white man, in a frenzy of sadness the shaman danced and sang near the caves until his last breath. Legend has it that the shaman crossed-over to dwell among the spirits of the dead, but they don't gather near the caves anymore. The gathering is elsewhere and no one knows where.

Elika Sumi

Market

Hustle, bustle, sweat, shouts and screams
some try to entice, some plead
some pissed with what you quote
unending deliberations, persuasions, accusations
that create the hum of market
Where the meats of the goats and fish were sold
and the stealing cows chased
only after they have changed the day’s fate of few traders
where the aatana* did matter
as the child could have got a palice-cream**
for the lady some jasmines to creep into her snake like plait
to fill the gentleman’s lungs with a puff of contentment
The hum of the market
with which everyone had an affair
some daily, some weekly and some occasionally
often pleasant, even at times you cursed some cheater
or the blazing sun and the onion flakes that
made your nose run
away from the market only to return
love hate relationships continued
The market had a place for everyone
the sheep, cows, dogs, sellers, buyers, beggars, cheaters
you could smell it, see it, feel it and be part of it
even if you liked it or not
Those few saved rupees had magical happiness
and Marx was there to give solace from the market
it was a closed space open for all
That market has metamorphosised
with all the financial steroids
The hum of the market
replaced by the ticking beeps in a quiet room
akin to the ICU, clean, serene and constantly monitored
metamorphosis split the market wide and open
open market beeping 24/7
it has changed to an open space
only you need to enter it
You market going fool
when will you master entering open markets
Need of bearing the hustle, bustle and somebody’s sweat has gone
as no more you go to the market but
can enter it from the serenity
of the air conditioned room and
a broadband with a thin wire
Don’t you dare tell you have grown so prosperously thin
that you can’t enter the market
Atleast ‘U’LIP and SIP the market
or bid from your bedroom
Relationship and affair-less market
where you chase dreams and not cows
no cheaters to curse only your dreams
everything, everyone is part of it
opened markets, open for all
you don’t smell, see, feel the onion
yet it makes you cry
water has become a commodity
and the commodity an imaginary
Imaginary profits, symbolic losses
Imagination is the market
A neo-modern painting
avoids perspective, meaning and allows entry and imagination
Dirty, smelling flesh and blood market
has metamorphosised into the market
ubiquitous yet invisible and imaginary
vastly open but prejudicially narrow
and liberally hegemonical
just like God, whether you believe or not
The market where even Marx sells

T. Vishnu Vardhan

*fifty paise
**milk-ice-cream

Some Really Short Poems

Hope
Insane world...
A gentle ripple
Wets my toe

Stranger
New landscape
Unknown portraits
Unheard scents

Reflection
Winter nights
Your eyes
My mirror

Longing
A little sea
A tear drop
And a smile

Prabha Zacharias

Cry

Meshed together
Dragging along the stained floor
To the seductive rhythm of the violin…

Dress rides up as leg presses inwards
Fingers shape the white clay of her back
Releasing a hushed cry of sweat, love and beast

There are no eyes to watch them
Tense muscles guide them
Taut in each turn
Wrapped in the coil of thigh, hip and glance
Extended limbs return to caress and consume
The dark hollow

Heart to heart they pose
Hands comb his neck; arms slide down her skin
Burning their names in with every touch
A turn of the hand and
He leads her hip into his
Leads her hip into the pool of the damned

There are no voices to listen to
No agitated strumming to move to
The center stands
Undisturbed
Bathed in water

Only a soothing trickle runs down the map of their bodies

Like volcanic breath the silence explodes
Shoots off fire finger to feet
In agony she twists away
Sliding like a serpent from one moment of heat to another

He does not release his hold
Pulling her in to graze her strained flesh
Tight in each turn
Pointed toes, sensual kicks
Head poised to strike, feet quick

Till he drops her down
Knees gliding along the stained floor
In circles of nine
Arms apart and stretched
Her legs—a split of heart and divide of soul—come to rest

The tears dye the violin's cry.

Apeksha Harsh

Refugee...

There is a worm in my heart,
some told it is a tubifex,
sucking the blood,
making me feel a pleasure,
a pleasure pricking the heart.
Taking my lymph out
Keeping my virginity,
Swallowing my cells
it still moves in me
wuthering heights...
Up above the brain down to the fallopian it gushed...


No seedlings it left to grow to a sapling,
I played a black magic on it, it shrinked,
Spitting out the blood it died…
I never stopped
being rhetorical,
I questioned its origin.

The squeezed blood from it remarked—it’s from a decayed mortality,
Alas! I found its origin in your soul,
Struggling from an unbearable thirst,
And found refugee as a worm in my ventricle,
Without knowing, it is also a glacier, failing to see my body too making a way near its tomb…very near, still near at a hand’s distance…

Mahima Sabari

Me and My Generation

It is terribly funny to watch my generation
I try not to laugh but fail dismally
It’s a tech-savvy, pub-hopping and
Materialistic generation
That has married science and technology
That has given birth to new forms of disorders
That is least preoccupied with the existence
That is full of problems and complexities
That is replete with scoundrels and hooligans
That has smashed values into pieces
I feel I am falling into a pit
So deep and bottomless

Hamid Hussain

The Animatedness of Inanimation

I guess life has been opened and closed simultaneously for me. There are new things everyday along with the old things. There is nothing happening on some days, while a lot, though nothing particularly significant (usually) happens.

It is nice to think about someone all the time, miss him, miss his touch, his smile, but also miss a lot of inanimate-animate things like a missed call, a message or a scrap. Sometimes I think it’s so worthless to be in this state that I am in right now. This over invasion of inanimate things in my life. But then, there is no other animation that happens. Then again, if not for these inanimations, I am at a loss as to where I’d be and what I’d be doing.

It seems perfectly natural to miss one person constantly, think about what he would be doing, which side of the bed he sleeps on, how much tooth paste he puts on his tooth brush, the amount of stubble he might be growing now etc. It also seems incredulous that I spend my time on this. But again, to come back to what I was saying, it all seems so natural.

Even if I’d chose to do something other than the ones that I’ve mentioned, it shocks me that there would be nothing. True, I might write, I might paint, but there is this constant thought process going on somewhere, almost involuntarily about just one person.

Sometimes I think obsession is bad, but then again, it’s not so bad at all. Is it?

I enjoy the state of my mind usually, and I just don’t mean the “good” state of mind. I also mean the not so good, and the worse. But, what happens is that the thoughts which I enjoy in these frames of mind differ. The whole missing-him part which seemed so romantic a short while ago seems all so wrong and so melodramatic and oppressive. And I get into animated discussions with myself, which however ends in a lot of inanimation.

So, there is my life, and the “animatedness of inanimation” in it.

Vrinda Varma

I for Eye

I sold my eye
for twenty pence
and thirty
dreamless nights

He paid
fifteen pence
and left,
kisses goodbye

My eye, two eyes
for ten pence each
if not now
will you pay?

He came, now
fifteen dreamless nights
to pay, I thought
five pence's peace

Two eyes, he said
half an eye each
take them back but
please,
place me in my dreams.

Benny Yanthan

Two Stories and a Narrator

To be compared with Joseph Heller or his fictitious character in “The Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man” should not leave one with burns in heart. But to be called as a onetime wonder is not so heartening.

So I have decided to work on a story.

The first confusion is the setting of the story:
Setting 1: anywhere, but in a room with a newspaper
Setting 2: the house of a local spiritual healer

Then the build up:
Build up 1: the man is about to commit suicide, out of compulsion, because he knows his destiny is divinely fixed.
Build up 2: the spiritual healer is out of business. Rationalists have found out that the spirits that jump off from his fire torches in the rituals by the pond are actually tied-up frogs.

Following build up 1: The man works in a newspaper, is in love with a girl.
Following build up 2: And then, to his waiting hall, which used to be full in his glorious days, comes a young man

Plot 1: They met in the archives, first a smile, then nothing. Absence. More smiles. Exchanges. Palmistry—predicting past, present, future, number of children, number of rooms in the house-to-be etc.
Plot 2: The young man wants to meet the healer (called Thangal). His problem: This is the twenty fourth healer he is going to. He will have a deprived future, no girls, no money, and no dreams.

Plot 1: They get together; meet everyday—flats, TV, washing machine, microwave ovens, decided. Number of servants not yet fixed—should the same person wash clothes and dishes? Everything is just in his mind though!
Plot 2: He wants a past. Who can give a past?
Thangal cannot; he has been treating people to erase their pasts. In the process, the possessed shed away their too-protective-oh-sleep-in-my-bed-I-am-so-worried-of-you uncles by the ponds, and resurrected “Jesus-es” drowned into drowsy narrations of the spirits they saw as they breached the holy spaces of the ancestors and memories evaporated through the hums of their throats.

Plot 1: The girl doesn’t want a chain. She doesn’t want a flat with servants but would rather see more kitchens. No, she would rather be on TV, meet up a washing machine company boss, and doesn’t care about junk food anyways.
Plot 2: The past should not just be invented. It should explain his tragedy too. It should be a great story and should begin from the farthest end of the world. But where is the farthest end of the world?

Plot 1: Heartbreak. No more sex, but hanging out. No more hanging out but phone calls. No more phone calls, but memories.
Plot 2: Thangal doesn’t know about the farthest end of the world. Nor does the young man.

“America? Infidel! America can’t be. No such credits to a nation of the whites…Barbarians...barbarians, barbarians…”

That sound rings a bell.
A wall to keep away the barbarians, the wall of Dul Qarnain. The double-horned warrior.

“Young man, do you know about the Holy Book? You pray on Fridays? Let’s start from the Dul Qarnain—the one who travelled till the farthest end of the world, mounted on a horse; the one who travelled till he reached where the sun sets in murky waters. There he erected a wall to save the natives from the dangers outside, the giants of yajooj and majooj.”

The wall…the wall. Where is the great wall?

Plot 1: This plot needs more detailing about his belief in astrology, his jealousy, obsessions, insecurity and the acorn in his pants.
Plot 2: Should I start my past from a wall?

“No, you sleepy-eyed wayward, you begin it from the place.”
“The great wall. The wall in the land of the flat-nosed. China?!”
“Yes, China.”
“You been to school, you young ill-bred imbecile? Sold to Satan for fashion, you dragger-of-your -clothes on streets!”
“Yes, been to school.”
“Why did they build the wall?”
“Wall? The China wall?”
“Yes, you blockhead, the wall at the farthest end of the world.”
“China is at the end of the world?”
“Yes, you ignorant. Didn’t Prophet say, seek education even if it is from China. Yes, China, China is at the end of the world.”
“Now tell me, why did they build the wall?”
“For defence, that is what the teacher told us.”
“Defend whom?”
“Themselves.”
“No. You fool. You read history books written by those who slander me and the holy business of the Sacred Names. You revere the ones with Jewish beards; you deserve no future! The wall was built to defend us FROM the Chinese. They were the Barbarians and soon they will be conquered.”
“By the Americans?...Indians?”
“No, they will be conquered by warriors on horses, and a great eunuch.”
“Horses? Thangal, they don’t use horses in battles anymore.”
“My son-of-a-void, flag-bearer of dajjal the antichrist, you are in your past.”

May be I should just write the second story. That would explain why I don't have a past. The story of the wall is interesting. In a short time I will start writing it. I flung away the Heller novel. This artist will not have a portrait as an old man. The noose is tightened. All the stories have been told, the present as well as the past.

Shafeeq Valanchery

Notes:

1) Why does the story start from China?
This story is not stand-alone. It will be the prologue to a long piece which will climax with the arrival of the Mongols in China.
2) “The great eunuch”
The eunuch referred to is Zheng He, the admiral of the Chinese imperial navy. The story should end in the Thangal’s quarters in Kerala, and will take a route from Mongolia through China to Calicut.
3) The Dul Qarnain
The incident of the sun setting in what appeared to him as murky waters and the incident of the wall are both related to Dul Qarnain, but are temporally and geographically separate. According to historical erudition, Dul Qarnain’s wall is not connected to the Chinese wall at all (Dul Qarnain is now more or less accepted to be Cyrus the Persian warrior, by historians), but is a wall in Caucasia. However, popular memories do trace it to the Chinese wall.
4) Yajooj and Majooj
Gog and Magog. Popular narratives have them as giants tied deep beneath the Chinese wall. They are supposed to rise from there heralding the Final Day. In the context of Dul Qarnain, historians opine them to be the wild tribes of Central Asia who were known by different names: Scythians, Parthians, Tartars, Mongols, and Huns.

Biker

Leather makes him
And weather strengthens:
He is seasoned by the earth.

Ever free, the quadrilateral isn't home:
He dwells amid the hills
And the rain and green thrills,
Though posterity misses by inches,
Pity him not an ounce.

Analysing each isolation,
Not a cheetah, he wouldn't pounce.

Priyanca Vaishnav

Afternoon Adventures with Ato

It's the summer and the monsoon has arrived early. Pitter, patter, drip, drop...the rain fell on the ground, making it slushy. On this particular afternoon, Ato sat by the window looking out at the rain, a twinkle in his eyes, and his mouth curved into a mischievous smile. Ah! He knew exactly what he’s going to do when the rain stops, but sadly, the rain refused to work in his favor. Whatever his ingenious bulb of a plan was, it was starting to fuse out in the never-ending pitter-patter of raindrops. All he could do was wait for the Wind to blow away the rain clouds and hope that the Sun would show his face again.

Somehow, he always felt that the Wind is female and the Sun is male...he wondered where he ever got that idea, though that's not important here. It is possible that when the Wind and the Sun have a fight, all she has to do is let the dark clouds glide in the manifestation of her power, and make the rain fall...while the Sun hid behind the dark clouds, just like Dad would when Mom is in a bad mood! “Hee, hee, poor Dad! Oh well, no time now to think of my parents’ petty affairs, I’ve got better things to take care of!" Like this morning, he woke up with a purpose. He always knew he had a talent, a gift from the Almighty as Dad would say it, although he wasn't sure if his father would qualify this particular talent in the 'gift' category—the art to roll mud into a perfect round ball, just the right size and shape to fit snugly in the leather of his slingshot, finding it's target at all times. The only objective of this mud ball was to make sure that it hits the bunch of ripe hazelnuts hanging high up in the tree, and felling it right into the bag below which Alomi would be holding. Of course, the slingshot provides the leverage to the mud ball, while Alomi makes sure that she catches the falling 'treasure from the sky.' Oh yes, and Alomi also happens to be Ato's best friend and respected fellow adventurer. Sadly, she's got the measles, so, her mother has snuggled her in bed for the rest of the day.

However, for now, we come back to the rain who was making it impossible for our dear Ato to live his mission for the day. Finally, bored of working out all the details in his head while being stuck indoors, Ato decides that it's best for him to..."hmm...make paper boats!" There! He knew he is 'gifted', all right!

Thus, fixed with a smug smile, Ato went about around the house looking for old paper, as if he just found a purpose in life. Mom was knitting in the parlor. If he remembered correctly, she mentioned something about a sweater for Dad, or maybe it was a muffler, though that's not important here. “Ato, don’t tear the pages from the magazines, I haven’t finished reading most of it, and I need the recipe pages. You can use the old newspapers if you want to make paper boats.” “OK, Mom!” How did she even know of his plan, mothers are strange creatures, they seem to know everything and they’re mostly always right. “Nagaland Post—State Law & Order in T-u-r-m-o-i-l...gee, how do you pronounce that...this should work!” Riiip, teeeaaar, and so began Ato’s engineering mission to create, (mind you, with his own ten-year old hands), the perfect paper boat. He sat down on the carpet floor, next to his mother, folding the paper with the full intention to bring it to life. When the boat was ready, Ato held up the masterpiece against the light from the window. He could have sworn he saw the heavens open up, a spotlight shine down on it, and a chorus of haloed Angels sing in exultation of his creation...something like "Ooooh, aaaaah! Glooooooryyyy!"—actually, maybe that's a tune from the church choir, though that's not important here.

Elika Sumi

Spring 2006

It is spring
The birds are back
Flowers—purple and yellow
By the stream
And the sun is bright

I know you're tired, still

Get up!
Go to the garden of yellow flowers
Forget the artificial cock's crowing
The chapel bells
The crowded streets
Beating in your heart
The dating kids
Their fashion, their hair, and flesh
Forget the noise for noise's sake:
The addendum, the acquirendum,
And the damnendum

Take a book if you want
Pack a sandwich
And rest, on the grass
As long as you want

Jobin Mathew

The Rain

She plays hide and seek
Where trees lie mobbed together:
A veil of shower
Or just peek-a-boo.

Her games are an open secret,
Like a burqua that covers beauty
And intrigues the onlooker too.

She dances on the ledge
And climbs in through the window.
When the winds chase her elusive arrival,
She gushes through tiny bylanes
And beckons all on the way—
The myna to sing,
The grass to beam,
The puddles to splash,
And lovers to dream.

The dreams shatter as she lashes about,
The puddles meander into streams,
The grass sinks, stamped upon,
But the myna remains on the brink—

On the brink of madness,
She wades through the fog
Climbs each branch higher
Forks further, flits farther,
The friend catches up, at last.

Priyanca Vaishnav

വട്ടത്തിലെളേമ്മ/Grandaunt Roundabouts (Malayalam Poem)

വിണ്ടു വരണ്ടു
ഒരു തുകല് ചിരി.
കുണുക്കിന് കൊമ്പത്ത്
രണ്ടൂഞ്ഞാലുകള്‍
ഇടിഞ്ഞു ഞാന്നു
രണ്ടു പഞ്ഞിക്കെട്ടുകള്‍.
ക്ടാവിന്റെ കയറും
കയിലിന്റെ കണയും
വാഴെലേം ചാരവും
അരമിട്ട കൈപ്പാടം.
ഇടിഞ്ഞമ്മന്തീടെ പുളി.
ചക്ക വരട്ടി വിയര്‍ത്ത ഉപ്പ്.
നീലം പടര്‍ന്ന കരിമ്പന ചട്ട.
മല്‍മല്‍ മുണ്ട് അടുക്കിട്ടത്.
എളേപ്പന് മാറ്റി വെച്ച
മുഴുത്ത മീന്‍ കഷണം.
ശബ്ദമില്ലാത്തൊരു വായ.
പൊക്കമില്ലാതൊരു വട്ടം.
പെറ്റു പെരുത്തൊരു വയറ്.
കണ്ചാറ്റ്ല് പൊള്ളിച്ച മുഖം.
ഓര്‍മയിലെന്നും നീയൊ-
രടുപ്പ് പാതകത്തിന്റെ ചൂട്.

Transliteration
vindu varandu
oru thukalchiri.
kunukkin kombathu
randoonjaalukal.
idinju njaannu
randu panjikkettukal.
kdaavinte kayarum
kayilinte kanayum
vazhelem charavum
aramitta kaippaadam.
idinjammandeede puli.
chakka varatti viyartha uppu.
neelam padarnna karimban chatta.
mal mal mundu adukkittathu.
eleyppanu maatti vecha
muzhutha meen kashanam.
shabdamillathoru vaaya.
pokkamillaathoru vattam.
pettu peruthoru vayaru.
kanchaattal pollicha mukham.
ormayil ennum neeyo-
raduppu pathakathinte choodu.

Translation
Dry, fissured,
a leather smile.
Two swings in
kunukku branches.
Swinging swaying,
two shapeless cotton sacks.
Two palms roughwith the calf's rope,
the wooden spoon,
the plantain leaf,
ash and coal.
The sourness of the chutney powder.
The salty sweat for chakka halwas.
The old chatta with robin blue patches.
Fan folded malmal mundu.
The biggest piece of fish,
reserved for elayappan.
A voiceless mouth.
A very short round.
A big breeding tummy.
A tear burnt face.
In memory dissections,
you, the warmth of a hearth.

Prabha Zacharias
(Translated by the author)

Notes:
1, kunukku- the traditional ear ornament worn by christian women in kerala, some decades back. years of wearing the heavy ornament creates two swinging holes in the ear lobe eventually. every christian 'ammachi'(grand mother) has it.
2, chakka- jackfruit
3, chatta- the traditional syrian christian white blouse.
4, mal mal mundu- the dhothi which christian women wears with a peculiar fan fold at the rear.
5, elayappan- uncle, her husband.

Eschew Nostalgia

The sound of waves, as they crash against the shore and recede, fills my eardrums. My thoughts lie elsewhere…. I think of the bitter winter somewhere up north that is to come. I can almost feel the mercury dipping down my spine. I shiver, unconsciously.
I am well prepared, or so I think, for my mind continues to wander, unable to focus on the present. Everything that has taken place in the last two decades remains a haze, like pieces of a dream long forgotten that I am struggling to put it back in place. I crave to go back in time to the good "old" days. My body lives in the present, my soul in the past and the mind drifts between these and the future that beckons. It is this state of the three essentials that make the "me" that, I am that confuses me the most.

Asha Verghese

It wasn't You

Yes, it happened. It is over. But it is the past. Cannot change it. Thinking back, feel that I should have read the signs better. I should have known better.

That is always the problem; always the case. We understand, realize, and believe—yes, believe, that we would have done things differently. But...? That is not the actuality; frankly not real.

But then, we are human, aren’t we?

How can we be sure that we would have done things differently if given a second chance?

That is a question that has no easy answers.

Easy answers? I guess that this particular one does not even have an answer. Talk of rhetorical questions!

Life does not give us a second chance, does it? As the Bond title proclaims “You Only Live Once”. NO, am wrong. It actually says “You Only Live Twice”. But you don’t. It is as simple as that. That is a stupid and fictitious title. A marketing gimmick!

Am I angry? Abusive? Bitter?

Guess I am.

I apologize to all Bondies; but somehow am a bit worked up.

No! Strike that off!

I am not really worked up. But am tired. Yes, very tired. And I don’t have much time left. Someone is waiting, and cannot for once say “Let Them”. How I wish I could?!

I just want to speak out about what had happened. It is not my version. After all, this is not a software program to have versions.

God! Am I jittery?

Anyway, let me tell what had happened. Unlike Alice, however, I cannot begin at the beginning. I do not know, or probably know, but do not want to acknowledge it.

Yes, I am jittery.

***********

“Ready?”

“Just a minute”. ‘Oh! You are eager’ I think. ‘That is nice’.

“See, the show starts in an hour, and we have a fair way to go.” Your voice is complaining, almost a grumble. I wonder; very much wonder ‘Why?’

“Just give me a couple of minutes, will you? Need to sort out a few things. OK?”

“Ok”, you breathe out, and add, “Will just get the car out of the garage”.

“Yeah, do that. And yeah, thank you”. I smile.

You do not smile back. You go out mumbling under your breath, “Hope the car starts”.

‘What’s bothering you?’ I realize that you are thinking about the cold. ‘Yes, the battery. Why don’t you change it? Or call in the mechanic? Fiddling with it, day in and day out?’

I smile wickedly. ‘But that is a good thing. Not calling in the mechanic. Wonder what he would make of it? He would notice. Immediately. He would. That is his job!’ I break into a grin. I cannot help it. ‘Or was it a snicker?’

The car stops outside the door. ‘Oh! So it is working. Good.’

I make to the car, shutting the door carefully after me. You look preoccupied.

“A penny for your thoughts!”

“Eh?”

“I said, ‘A penny for your thoughts!’”

“Oh!” you laugh. It is a nice ringing laugh; but it sounds forced.

I give up. You do not seem to want to have a conversation.

It is a windy day. ‘Perfect’, I think. ‘Just Perfect!’

You start the car. I notice that you are more pensive today than usual. You are lost in your thoughts, whatever they are. ‘Wonder what they are?’

You too seem to be thinking about something – something important. ‘Are you also planning something?’

I take a CD from the glove box, and put it in. It is an album that you love.

“Don’t do that!”

“Eh? What?” I ask, startled, as I switch on the play button.

“No, don’t switch it on. The battery is weak”. You switch it off.

“It is ok. Nothing will happen”. I switch it back on.

As if on cue, the engine splutters and grinds to a halt. You give me a glare.

“Sorry” I mumble.

“We will miss the show.”

“Hey, Come on! I said ‘sorry’. Didn’t realize that the damn battery was so low.”

“I told you.”

“Give me a break!” I shrug. “Anyway, we aren’t too far off. Just a couple of blocks away. We can just walk it”.

“Yeah”. You do not sound enthusiastic. I can understand. ‘You aren’t much of a walker, are you?’ I think heartlessly.

The wind is steadily on the increase; and as we are on a dusty path, billowing sand gets in our eyes. ‘Hope it gets into your nose as well’. I check myself from smiling. ‘Not a good idea to get you angry. Though guess you already are, aren’t you? Yes, you can never bear a minor hiccup. Wonder how I put up with you for so long. Yes, it is a wonder!’

We keep walking. It is not exactly two blocks.

“Sure you know where it is?”

I look at you. You are already tiring. “Yeah, of course. Just a bit further, now”.

You try to catch up with me, but am walking too quickly for you. I know it, and get a kick out of it. ‘Perfect!’ I cannot help thinking again.

The sweat stands on your brow, and you are gasping. I love it; and keep walking—quicker than ever.

You call out. I act deaf, and keep going. ‘Yeah, you are almost out. Just a block more, and…’

I almost burst into hysterical laughter thinking of that.

“Ho…How far?”

I do not deign to reply.

We walk on. I walk faster than I ever walked before, and you follow, gasping and coughing.

As I turn a block, I notice out of the corner of my eye that you are down on your knees, and calling out. I do not have to act deaf anymore; as though you are calling out, the words hardly reach me.

I turn around and smile. As I see the horror on your face, I finally burst into hysterical laughter.

************

“What happened?”

“You…you were screaming in your sleep…laughing. Had to wake you.” He paused, and then asked the question that I had put: “I mean…what happened?”

He sounded worried. But somehow, I did not like it. I do not know why, but I could not bring myself to tell him.

“Eh? Nothing. Just…just a dream”.

“You sound rattled”, he pointed out.

“No, it is ok”, I insisted, and added rather unnecessarily, “I am fine”.

“Sure?”

“Stop acting like my nanny”, I blurted out. I was irritated. He turned away, and I felt his wan look.

“I am sorry”, I said in a low voice. “I did not mean to be…I guess that was…I… I am sorry”.

“It is okay”, he mumbled, and then called over his shoulder, “If you still want to go for the show, better get ready. It is getting late, you know”.

“Yeah. Did not realize that I slept for that long. Will be ready in a jiffy”, I said, and wondered vaguely, ‘Wasn’t it a little afternoon nap. Must have been very tired.’

I did not like it. ‘Why does he have to make me feel guilty? I said am sorry. Did he need to be so nasty?’ I thought. At that moment I hated him. ‘God, if he goes on like this, wouldn’t mind killing him!’

I dropped the soap. I remembered the dream. ‘How could I? What a dream!’ I involuntarily shuddered. ‘Why did I have that dream? It isn’t as if I wish to murder my husband. Do I? Am I a killer? Am I sure that I don’t want to? What a question?!! Of course, yes. Yes, I don’t want to. I don’t have any reason to kill him. I love him. Yes, I love him. I do. It isn’t a subconscious desire or whatever.’

But then, why?

I do not know.

Somehow the dream troubled me more than I was willing to acknowledge. It troubled me more than dreams generally do. Probably due to remembering it more clearly than usual. ‘How come I remember it so clearly?’

I shook myself up. This is morbid. ‘Morbid—what a word!’

But that was how I felt.

As I dressed up, I again started thinking about the dream, and wondered if something had happened that day, ‘or the previous day for that matter’, to get me this weird dream. That is how Freud explains dreams. I was surprised to realize that I was thinking of Freud; but now realize that we generally go for either religion or psychoanalysis when we cannot understand something. I am too much of an atheist; though occasionally do take the god’s name—for cursing!

So, science.

I remembered from my college days that Freud calls it the day’s residue, or something that sounded like that. ‘But then what happened for me to have that dream?’

I cannot think of anything, except that I did see my husband fiddling with the car today. ‘Or was it yesterday?’

Everything is muddled.

He said that he was “sprucing it up”, as if it is a Christmas tree. I laughed as I thought of it. But he does that every month, as it allegedly relaxed him. Washing it, dusting the floormats, changing the engine oil…‘Wonder what relaxation it gives?!! Sprucing, indeed!’

I could not make anything of this weird dream, however much I tried. I just came away with the conviction that I did not want to murder him, as I did not have any reason to. He was not adulterous, and loved me as much as I loved him, ‘if not more’. I was not going to gain anything by killing him. I was not jealous or possessive. ‘Who am I kidding?’

I guess I would hit the roof if he told me that he was in love with someone else.

But he was not.

‘Or was he? What was it that his drunken colleague was saying the other day at the party? That he was interested in one of his students. Was that guy speaking the truth?? Is my husband in love with…’

I brushed my hair vigorously. ‘That is ridiculous,’ I thought. ‘Thinking all weird stuff because of a weird dream’. I laughed nervously. ‘The dream anyway doesn’t make sense. He isn’t asthmatic or a heart patient.’

“Ready?”

I looked up, startled.

“Didn’t mean to surprise you,” he smiled. “But you were taking such a hell of a long time that I…”

“Yeah….yeah. Of course. Let’s go.”

It was a stormy night. I could not shake off the dream, and kept going over it again and again. But he too was thinking of something, and did not seem to notice that I was not my usual bubbly self, talking nineteen to the dozen.

“A penny for your thoughts!”

I turned around, slightly shaken by the words, and wondering if I had heard correctly. “Eh?”

“I said, ‘A penny for your thoughts!’”

The phrase, though a favorite of his, seemed almost ominous to me, because of the dream. ‘But that is idiotic! Can’t keep jumping at everything, because of a dream!’

I decided to put on a playful CD, inspite of, or probably because of, what had happened in the dream.

I opened the glove box, and selected one of them. He saw what I was doing, and nodded appreciatively, “Yeah! Thank you. That is a good idea. Was thinking of suggesting it. You still seem sleepy”.

We were in a mountainous road, which we needed to pass through to get to the next city, where the show was. It was then that the car started acting funny. There was apparently something wrong with the engine. It spluttered, and finally gave up the moment we reached the top of the cliff. The rain, meanwhile, was coming steadily down.

He swore under his breath. “The battery. Had to give up now!”

I winced. “What shall we do?”

He looked at me appraisingly, and said, “Lock the car and walk”.

I choked visibly.

He grinned boyishly, and said, “No, was just joking. Of course, can’t walk in this rain. Come! You take over the driving. Will give it a push, and hope the engine catches. Thankfully, it stopped here. Just think if it had stopped while we were going up the mountain!”

He got off the car, and as I moved into the driver’s seat, I could not help pointing out “But you’ll get drenched”.

He did not reply, but just leaned in, and took out his raincoat, which was in the back seat. He pulled it on.

‘Why did he bring that along? Was he prepared for this?’ I thought.

I shrugged. He started pushing the car, just as I turned the ignition key.

A couple of paces, and the engine roared to life, and the car jumped forward uncontrollably. I stamped on the brakes. Nothing happened. I pressed it down again and again. ‘Oh! Will just pull it off the road’

It was then that I realized that there was something wrong about the steering wheel. It did not move. The car had gained considerable speed.

I panicked.

“HELP!!” I cried out, and glanced at the rear view mirror. I saw him standing with a satisfied smile, and realized with a shock, as the car went off the cliff, the truth about the dream. ‘I was You’.

K.B.S.Krishna

Short Fiction

It wasn't a premonition.
I knew for sure that she would do that, but wasn't sure where, when, at what fatalist hour etc.
The rouge in her lips had disappeared long time ago; she wasn't wearing my favorite chinos any longer.
Unconsciously I would have surely noticed these changes and was getting prepared.
I wasn't looking at her face when she ordered a cold coffee for her and a coke for me.
Rather I kept looking at the pink tissue kept on the table to avoid her glassy gaze.

"Let's part ways." She said.

As if waiting for this moment a bead of tear slowly darted its course from my eyes towards the pink towel and made it all ruddy for a second.
I couldn't say anything. Even if I wanted to, I didn't have anything to say.
The echo of her words—let's part ways—kept ringing in my ears and made me flush.
This was the worst moment in my life; from tomorrow I am alone.
Nobody will share the carton of juice that I drink in the mornings.
I will be free to do whatever I want; there will be no more routine walks with her in the evenings.

Why can't I say no?
Why am I not protesting or throwing the coke can on her face?
Why do I feel as if I am pushed to a corner where the only expression that I can muster up is exasperation, writ large on my face?
Why am I not reveling in the fact that from tomorrow she wouldn’t boss me around or that I can get back home whenever I want after a night of intense male bonding?

Basheer had talked about the paradoxical situation of the new freedom of a lover, especially after a breakup, in his novel Mathilukal.
In the novel the hero is imprisoned due to his involvement in the freedom movement. There he develops a relationship with a woman in the adjoining woman’s jail.
Although they cannot see each other, they talk and find infinite solace in each other’s voice.
When the time came for the release from the prison due to India’s independence—everybody waited for this moment to escape from the tortuous conditions—the hero asks in a state of shock—

“Why should I be free…who wants freedom?”—unable to accept his and the country’s new found freedom after almost 200 years of British rule.

My situation wasn’t far different from that of Basheer’s. I wanted to be bossed around. I wanted to find freedom by surrendering to her.
But she might have found my unconditional surrender a sign of my weakness; an inability to live up to ideal masculine expectations.
I was in a deadlock; I had to either surrender my masculinity or play it out with full affront. Either way this was going to be a disaster.
I threw away my coke can out of the window, and finding solace in my new found freedom, walked back to my room.
For, I knew that by keeping away from me she is letting me cling to her with my dear life. For ever.

James Michael