I stand on my balcony

I stand on my balcony on one of those languid summer afternoons. The sun is bare and bright. The city is in slumber. The house is still and the roads are quiet. From the summers spent in this city, I know that the puling taxi drivers are whining about the narrow bumpy roads and the scorching Mumbai Sun, toweling their foreheads sucking the beads of sweat with a rug. Chains of cars are lined at the zebra for the signal to turn from a red to a dotted arrow. I can hear the low hums of the engines. Men and women, cabined in cars, toss from side to side and cuss the reckless motorcycles, which careen carelessly over the giant hunch of the Opera House flyover. It stands slouched, blocking the view of the magnificent Arabian Sea, until one begins to descend the slope.

The spread of lustrous water sends a warm greeting. Ambling to its mouth, the pair of shoes is cushioned under the torrid sands. The billowing waves clothe the stretch of uneven rocks. The sunbeams penetrate the shallow rim of the sea, unveiling the sunken city grime. The shore is conspicuously clear of the trail of footprints; couples are sheathed under the trees across the road. Lovely leggy ladies dressed in lingerie fail to lure eyeballs. The billboards overcrowd this dimly trafficked Marine Drive.

My mind saunters like the unhurried wind, and even as I stand under the lee of the roof, the sun pricks my skin, and I feel the heat in my head as I let my palm plunge into the puff of my hair.

I’m done with reading crime thrillers, which otherwise occupy the most of these slow summer afternoons, when I would nestle on my bed and envelope myself with the softness of quilt, and set the air-conditioning at its high. I’m done with these incessant readings; the stories with similar layers and sub-layers of plots. I’m tired of Grisham’s courtrooms and Baldacci’s Camel Club and Brown’s codes. And I wish Jhumpa Lahiri had written one more book. I’m done with tapping fingers on the television remote, and playing with neioghbour’s kid. I’m done with watching my sister let her hand run flawlessly on a sheet of white paper and bring it to life, and I am done with wishing for more hobbies.

And so when the low tuned dhinchak radio songs have blended into the stillness of the room and when my mum has stopped hovering over the maids: washing utensils and cleaning the kitchen floor and clipping the clothes to the clothesline, and when she is done with asking for her Divya Bhaskar and Chitralekha, she recedes to her bed; and when nothing is left to be done at all, boredom creeps into my spine, and I walk unto the open of my portico and thoughts come automatically, waywardly.

Lies

Mamma’s belly no more pops out like a flower pot. Daddy says she can do the horse rides from room to room again, carrying me on her back.

Sitting at the dining table I am colouring a painting when guests arrive, brining gifts wrapped in shiny papers. They hand me the presents kissing me on both cheeks. Matching suits, stockings, plastic toys for teething, napkin sets, bedding… I pile them all under the bed.

Mum sits on the garden bench talking to aunties. The Peepal tree is huge. I try to fit myself under the shadow of giant leaves. Ashutosh digs the soil near its roots to hide marbles. He throws the marble from out of the puddle, looks at me, and cries. Mamma comes running towards us.

Dad puts his ears to Mummy’s tummy. It kicks, he says, putting my hand on the bulge. “You will have a sister to play with Ashu,” Mamma says, smiling at me.

Geeta masi has come from London. Sitting on the bed, she chit-chats with mama while I stitch my handkerchief, tucked in a sewing ring. “Ah, he has such butter cheeks. Isn’t your brother beautiful, Ashana?” asks Geeta Masi. I stop my stitching and look up. Geeta masi plays with Ashu, cupping his chin with her thumb and forefinger. Mum looks at me fixedly, until my mouth cracks into a smile and whispers an approving yes.

Once in a while

Don't you feel flamed or vexed, while unable to produce the exact words to befit your emotions or to let out the feeling suppressed within yourself to release this urgency of explaining the inexplicable or the clamour of thoughts. To render words which would form into to perfectly coherent sentences, its edges rounded and trimmed. Words which would support each other, assembling itself to frame a sentence which sounds distinct to ears and its syntax and grammar. Do you not crave for the seldom alliteration and anaphora to be innate in your writing.

Does not your sentence leave you with a feeling of sitting on a couch, uncomfortable; or donning a gown that you can't carry. Such are the times when I feel like diving into a fat book and swim in its content to understand the mechanics of writing, and to dissect the content words and the function. To say aloud the sound of each consonant and understand its altered effect and meaning to the sentence. To merry the mechanics of writing and satiating the outburst of letting the quill rundown its path flawlessly without rummaging the vocabulary to its every pocket.

Do you like the sodden bread crumbs in your soup. Insipid and unpalatable.

January 14

The sky is conspicuously clear
Taller buildings
Busier lives
Filled coffe shops...

Here's your kite
and here's your spool
gift thy pal
and mak him drool

Take some solace in the kiteflying application,
if you will.

blah

Put on those silencers please
To cease

This incessant burbling,
Irrepressible grumbling

This chitter chattery,
Foolish flattery.

It ain't a bout
O loose-lipped mouth -

Gift thy dental braces Jack
and quiet this quack.