The real and the fantasy

Discussing the poems over a couple of drinks, my friend asked - 'Bala, this estranged wife thing, what is it?' I said we had a tiff. 'I would never write that and show it to my wife', he said. 'And that about strangling a lover and all. You shouldn't write such things.' I explain to him that all that is not necessarily real and true, I stretch my imagination, add a dash of this and a dash of that, some may be partially true, some a figment of imagination, what i fantasize. Like in my teens, I had this huge crush on Hema Malini, then the reigning super star. I am talking about the early seventies. My books were neatly covered with her pictures, my walls filled with her posters, I would look oh-so-longingly at Hema Malini's eyes and lips ( her torso was always so modestly draped with clothes - I suspect whether she had an oomph figure) for hours. She is still a looker, now in her sixties. But my everlasting devotion was totally for Waheeda Rehman. Even now, I can watch the song sequences of those old 50s & 60s movies of Waheeda and get into a mood. Just see the 'Choudvin ka chand' scene! Can there be a woman with a face more beautiful than Waheeda? There is such sensuality, senstivity and spirituality about her face and expressions!

Fantasies are escape routes. You very well know you are never going to get anywhere near Hemamalini or Waheeda Rehman. And the fact is that Waheeda is now a sweet old lady in her early seventies. So what? I have the time and the inclination, friend! In between moments of the monotonous drudgery of my mundane life, I take a break into the fantasyland. I am not going to live there forever, though. Because the real stuff isn't that bad either.

The problem is with the reader who knows me in person. He/she would try to link this word to that incident and this phrase to that memory. The reader should delink the writer from his write. ( many people are using 'write' as a noun. Have to check if this is correct.)

I remember the days long ago, when, after watching a Western at Sree Kumar Theatre, guys would come out of the hall, swaggering, their arms loosened and hanging slightly curved as if they will come out blazing with their .45s.

These pages, my friendly reader, is my fantasy land. The internet is my magic mirror; I have been passing through its gates so many times, for so long, that I don't know which is real and which is fantasy. Frankly, I don't care. I am happy, whatever it is, where ever I am. Just let me be. Don't judge me on the basis of what I write. I could be a brilliant con artist, a Jack-the-ripper, child molester, or an embodiment, a paragon, of virtues. Read, if you like. And then leave it. Make me happy by leaving a comment...
***************** Balachandran, 25.4.09, Trivandrum

Mornings, at Six

If you had a good night’s sleep,

There is nothing welcomer

Than the break of the dawn.

To lie on bed, watching

Eyes half-open, at the darkness

Paling, leaves of the Jack

And further away the Mango

Filtering just enough light

So that your eyes do not hurt.

There are always the birds.

Sweet tweet of the Robin

Sunbirds chirping, peering at flowers

Cuckoos always so flustered,

Plaintive, like mothers in kitchen

Scurrying about in the morning

And the omnipresent caws

Of the crows –

One will love even the crows

On such a morning.

Mornings are always so cool.

Bitterness of yesterdays,

Burdens to carry today

Bleakness of the future –

For a gentle moment, all pains are gone

As curtains flutter in the breeze

And the strains of hymns waft in.

I hear the soft taps

Of his nails

As Tommy comes up

And then the door is rudely pushed open

As Sancho comes barging in,

Ahead of his father.

The wet slurps, soft whines

And then the nuzzling on the ears -

What could be a better way

To begin a day?

The telephone rings –

My love, to say hello.

************** Balachandran, Trivandrum 25.04.2009

Sentiment and Reason

Sentiment n. Mental feeling; emotion;tendency to be moved by feeling rather than by reason; verbal expression of feeling. Sentimental a. given to indulgence in sentiment and its expression; weak, sloppy.

In its forty- first year in possession, my Collins New Gem Dictionary, still spells out facts of life to me in the same dispassionate tone that it has, when as a young boy I would scurry through its pages for smutty words and meanings. 41 years it has been with me, my father's little present. Grappling with Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Niggers'; unbearable suspense frustrated by unintelligible words - father would say - you skip the words you don't know the meaning of, you will get the hang of the story. Later, after finishing the book you can look them up in the Dictionary.

Later, as a hot-blooded adolescent madly in love, I would flip through my Collins to make sure that I have written what I really wanted to say. Didn't have a Thesaurus in those days.
Many dictionaries and thesauruses and later Wordweb in the PC and so many other tools of the language, I still rummage through the mess in front of me on the table, for my little Collins.

Then there was the hilarious day long ago when I was unmarried and unwilling to be castled, when my mother oh-so-tactfully asked me if I were in love again and that too with a Christian girl. I was flummoxed and asked her what she meant. Nothing, nothing, she said, only that you are reading the Bible all the time - my Collins, with its leather binding could be easily mistaken for a Bible... In a way, it is my Bible. I have carried him where ever I have been stationed. There has been not better gift from my father - in the first page he has written - To V Balachandran - no 'dear son' or such affectionate phrases - he must have meant me to take it with all formal gravity, seriousness of a dictionary.

The other day, a close friend of mine quoted to me - 'Sentiment distorts'. I retorted - 'No, it doesn't, it only makes things human'.

I have often been amused at the many instances in my life when people advised me not to be sentimental. Like what I have said above about my dictionary, I would be said to be being 'sentimental' about it. In the days of committed environmentalism, again this caution - ' act with reason, don't be sentimental'. In the days when I was in love with a girl - ' you are being stupid wasting time and sentiments over her'. I go off on a long trek to Himalayas, i am so so passionate about Himalayas, again these smart people would say - ' you are wasting money and energy and risking your life - be reasonable - save up money and buy a car or something'.

They were right too, in most cases. Yet, what I am, what I had been and what I would like to be, is to be sentimental about everything. Let reason come after it. In sentiments lie the awakening, in passion lies the seed of thought and action. Without sentiments, I would be like a salted, dried mango. Sentiments rush through like blood, giving life and meaning of life to me, I want to live and not just survive...Sentiment is feeling, feeling for the animate and inanimate, for the tangible and the intangible, for a dog and for the universe. Sentiment is, to be. Broken down I am, yet I will rise my head and my spirit to my last breath.

Maybe later a day will come when I am detached, detached as J Krishnamurti behoves us to be. Even in such a detached stage, we are sentimental, because it is such feelings that decides for us to be attached or to be detached. I cannot look at a waterfalls and think of it as such and such cubic feet of H2O rushing down at such and such velocity, and producable of so much of Megawatts of electricity. I cannot look at a tree and think of it in terms of tons of firewood. I cannot look at my dog and think of him as a security utility. I cannot marvel at the magnificence of nature and think in terms of the survival value that it gives. I have to love them all and feel for them all and wallow in sentiments and in the rush of emotions that sweep over me, be grateful and then act, with reason, to protect and preserve all that I love in whatever little way I can.
************** Balachandran, 09.04.2009 Trivandrum

Remembering railroads...

Remembering railroads... (Originally written in 2001)

In the early seventies I lived in Mavelikkara, a small town in central Kerala. Our ancestral home was by the side of the main railway line that runs through the small state in the southern most part of India, like a nerve-end. Though a good 75 mts. away from the tracks, one could feel the house shuddering when a train rattled by. Ammu, my pet goat, never got used to the trains. She would jump and strain at the rope and try to run up the low, slanting coconut palm she was tied to. Karumbi, our black cow, who didn't care for me much, would give a low moo.

Motion is one sure sign of life. The fluttering of a leaf in the breeze, water dripping in drops, a new-born baby shaking its limbs - movement is life!

As a little boy in the sixties, when I came to Mavelikkara for the holidays, one of my main pastimes were to place pieces of mettle on the iron rails and watch the train pass over them, crushing it to a fine dust. John, my friend and a few years my senior, told me about the night when he kept a big boulder on the rail track and the 1230 Express that overturned and fell right into the paddy fields on the other side......

In front of our house the tracks curved to the left. And John said of the countless young women who jumped before the 1230. Every friday night, all the maruthas(ghosts) meet right under the little culvert and dance with lights on their heads. Want to see them? Come to my house at 1230 sharp. And then one friday night, my mother, who then was in her thirties, walked all the 3 kms. from the railway station to our house. Couldn't get a taxi. All alone. Horrified, I asked her if she saw the Maruthas. Frowning, she said, 'you mean the frog catchers with their Petromax lights? There were a couple of nasty dogs, though'. In her mid-seventies now, mother confuses me for her husband and my sister for her mother.... And John died last year to the bullets of Kashmiri terrorists...

***************** Balachandran.V, 30.09.2001

Friend

Dictionaries are books of revelation.

You never knew what words really meant

You took them for granted

You assumed

You had always thought so

You thought that’s what people meant

Until told otherwise by the dictionary.

Shall we look up the word, ‘friend’?

The word, in my hitherto life I have used

So wantonly.

I assumed it meant what I thought I felt

For certain individuals I liked more than others.

Certain individuals who were in my thoughts

More often than not.

Those for whom I felt affection

Those for whom I ached

For whom I would relegate my personal priorities

From whom I wanted respect, love and care

To whom I could say anything (mostly) I wanted

With whom I could be what I wanted ( I thought) to be.

Memories of camaraderie, of shared moments of life

Your happiness mine

Your sorrows mine -

Yet, dismaying – I realise I, have to be there

Separable from you -

Always, there are you and I...

Disheartening - that I, am there

In everything I think of you...

The I with you, my friend, you see

Is the friend that you want me to be

Not me, not me, not me in my entirety.

The bottom line, my friend,

Is never to take each other for granted,

Though, in moments rare, be grateful -

Nothing more, but be grateful

That we are there in our times of need

Or even, just that we are there...

Somewhere reachable

Just like the dictionaries

When you grope for the meaning

Not of words, but of life...

*************** Balachandran, Trivandrum 03.03.2009

Loving you

'How do I love thee?' she asked

and proceeded to count the ways.

'How silly!', said I, 

There is only one way -

Seamless, boundless, like sunshine.

Sunlight, streaming through the leaves -

Or like this dewdrop perching

On the tip of a leaf, so precious!

********* Balachandran, 02.04.2009, Trivandrum

Her name is Happiness

You never know from where a breeze would waltz in 

And when.

In the sultry heat,

When trees bend their heads, looking so forlorn

And leaves curl

(There is such sorrow in watching them)

When street dogs scramble beneath shade

And lie panting

When clothes in the clothesline hang limp

Like mourners of the dead -

 I -

In the centre of the crossroads

That extends to barren emptiness all around…

I hear the flutter of fallen leaves at my feet

And turn to look –

The breeze comes up, smoking.

It is raining somewhere far away.

She comes, enwraps me in her shawl

Smothers me with passion.

She comes,

Bringing me memories of innocence and irrepressible joy. 

She wears the fragrance of my forgotten youth.

 

Flickering their tongues

Snakes sneak out from their holes, savouring the air.

 

The rain is coming nearer, nearer, it is almost here -

I wait –

With great love and tenderness in my heart

I wait to see the flowers bloom. 

********Balachandran, Trivandrum, 23.03.2009

 

 

 

Through the window

No longer have I settled down on my seat

The wailing would ensue.

Some would be urgent, short and rapid

Some long-drawn, slow, as if it knows

It wouldn’t make any difference anymore.

 

In the beginning, I used to get up

And look out through the window.

 The white vehicles with the mirror image

Of AMBULANCE would flash past

Offering me glimpses

Of faces dark with misery.

 

There were then other kinds;

Cars, with lights blazing, horn blaring

Squeezing out, weaving through the oncoming rush.

Three-wheeled autorickshaws offered the best view.

There would invariably be one, head leaning on

To another’s shoulder

Blood-spattered dress, blood-streaked face

Closed eyes – I was fascinated by the expression

Of the others – vacant, sometimes anxious,

Of flickering fear, of untold sorrow and submission to fate.

 

I have seen them too, the ambulances with a wreath or two

Stuck in the front, solemn, slow –

Everything has to come to a pass.

 

In the beginning, I used to sit back

With a heavy heart, and then 

Reminded of my own mortality

Would strain my ears

For that wailing at my doors.

*************** Balachandran V, Trivandrum 21.03.2009

 

Cleansing

The forest stream grumbles as the big rock

Makes it swerve sharply to the right

But is relieved that around the bend

It can flow freely again.

It swirls; over the sand bed the stream made

Where I lie in total stupor

The stream gurgles happily over the little stones and rocks

That cradles me like a foetus in its womb.

I lie, floating, watching my toes peeking out of the water

And my nose, like a periscope

This bloated corpulence slapped

Gently by the ripples of the water.

 

The sun is clouded out for the moment

I close my eyes in bliss

All I hear are the chuckle of the stream

And the chirping of the Wagtail.

 

It was the time of goodbyes to the past

And all the pain is taken away by the stream.

I realize I will never again write poems

On love and the pain of losing it

Because the current has taken all that away

As little fish nibble at my heart

Cleansing it of pus and blood.

 

The sun turns up again

I turn over, and holding breath

Look at the pebbles beneath.

Though the water is clear

The river bed is blurred

I am unable to see

But I will, I will

I will see it sharply, clearly, one day.

*******************  Balachandran, Kallar, 10.03.2009

Points and Counterpoints

Sitting here, alone in the night in a lodge

At the foot of the hills

Drinking whisky and smoking,

Sitting like a fat Buddha with glasses

The liquor- flushed cheeks rubbing its frame

The bloated belly like an over-filled sack

Slumping over hiding my nudity

The fleshy thighs spreading over the chair

Like over-watered dough

And the smell of fried beef in my nose

Its spices still tingling my tongue

And its shreds snuggling

Between the yellowing teeth –

 

I am trying to take a fresh look at myself.

 

Overweight, smoking, sluggish

Muscles long forgotten to stretch

I fit the bill for a cardiac case.

All that remains to be known is when.

It jerks me out of my drunken reverie

That it could be in the next moment

Or the one after the next.

 

While my estranged wife would be

Busying herself with religious rituals

That will bring her blessings and good fortune

Benefactions of the Goddess

Like the thousands of her sex

Who pollute the city for a day

And while my son would be busying himself

With an enactment of preoccupation

With his studies

While actually listening to Rock

Or to the intermittent telephone calls

Of his friends

And while my dogs would be

Lying panting, exhausted with barking

At all those passing our gates

And I believe, wondering where I have gone-

 

I sit here, an escapee from that din outside

Though helpless, having to listen to that from inside

And as ever, pursing my lips and repeating

That I have to cut down my eating and drinking

And smoking and shouting and later wallowing

In self-pity

And walking every day morning

And working it out at the gym

Or swimming in the pool

And to be sharp and assertive

And write poems and write what all

And go for long rides on the bike –

 

And wondering, what the hell,

What is the point in postponing

The inevitable

But then wishing I would be free of this guilt

This guilt for living the way I want to

Wishing I could live the way I want to

Without wrestling with this guilt

But then again at the back of my mind

This constant ticking that

I am a potential candidate for myocardial infarction

And then thinking, Hell! Everyone is,

Everyone eventually will be, that or something else

But the question, I realize

Is not about the hundred ways of dying

And having no choice in that matter

But on living –

Which brings us to an examination

On the quality of life

If somebody would provide a standard

So much measure of happiness and sorrow

So much of richness and depravity

So much pleasure and so much pain –

And I am getting confused

But have to put an end to it

The best way, I know

Is to remind myself again

To reduce weight

To stop smoking

To stop drinking

To be happy

Be happy

Be happy

And never never to look deeper into oneself

Or ruminate over the past –

And –

Perhaps at the moment

Of the inevitable

Tell oneself – now I am puzzled-

What or wonder if there is

Any point at all in talking

To oneself as one lie dying.

***************** Balachandran, Kallar, 09.03.2009

 

 

 

Concave conversations

See, I am practicing a secret art

The guiles of which I am going to let you into.

Its like communicating with the dead,

The seemingly non-existent

The apparent void

Laughing, loving,

Crying and screaming

In total silence.

 

I do not use Tarot cards

Not for me the crystal globe

The stuttering stove

The fluttering candle

Or the elevating table.

 

My medium - please do not laugh

Or give me that piteous contempt –

You see, I write poems in the internet.

My blog, ghostly pale,

Floats in the ether like a jellyfish

Stinging those who are curious,

With gentle stabs of love.

 

In silence, stultifying my soul,

Words stumble onto the white screen

Rearrange themselves like soldiers shuffling,

Stiff, in a parade before the march to death.

Immutable, impassive, they stare at me –

They are staring at me –

Soon, they will be gone –

 

Like untraceable bubbles

Into that ocean of words,

Of thoughts…

Friend, I submit

My words, unread, into the void

Writing for you,

I stare into the blank white screen

Where your reply will never appear…

******** Balachandran, Trivandrum, 09.03.2009

Words

Like fireflies they come,
Out of  the darkness around me
And I realize I am not blind.

Like dewdrops they fall,
From the canopy above
And I realize I am thirsty.

Unchained melodies, they rise 
Like white clouds from the chasm,
And I realize I am on the edge.

They chatter like leaves of the Banyan,
Laughing children running home from school,
And I realize I am alive.

Like flamingoes they lift,
Sunrays tinting feathers gold
And I realize I have a soul.

They come scampering,
Like my dogs after a bath
Shaking, spraying droplets,
Big arcs of love,
Crying, ‘Wake up! Wakeup!
Play with us!’ –

Happily, I take up the pen.
*************
Balachandran, Trivandrum, 16.02.2009

Flowers, squashed

 

Please watch your step.

You may be stepping on lives.

That is, if you consider

An ant, a frog, a cockroach or me

Lives worth your consideration.

These flowers? Ah, never mind,

They were my offerings to you.

*********  Balachandran, Trivandrum, 11.02.2009

Blue Moon

                                                                                                                                                

Blue Moon!

How would thee be?

Blue, like the skies over the mountains

Or the sea a hundred fathoms deep?

Would thee be a lavender blue

Or a fragrance from Satchmo’s jazz?

 

Nights –

I do not remember days anymore –

Nights –

Rattle of toddy cats on the roof

Rustle of the mango tree in the breeze

The howl of my dogs

Pining for love.

Through the window

A moon, waxing and waning

Clouded out.

 

She said she would glance at my words

Once in a blue moon.

I seek thee, Blue Moon!

How would thee come?

On the fourteenth night

Thy anklets tittering,

Lifting thy veil

And -

Looking at me with love?

******  Balachandran V, Trivandrum, 06-02-2009

 

 

 

 

Chronographics

Behind the rectangular glass case

A bent head, lit sideways by a lamp

A lens, stuck into the socket of the right eye

A forceps in hand, drawing out

The innards of a dead watch.

 

Tickers tick loud

Tolling, the impending doom.

Watches lie about

In various states of disembowelment.

Old, huge clocks hang in the walls

Like Capuchin monks in the catacombs.

 

How precise! His fingers wield the tiny tool

And stab it into the underbelly of my watch.

I stand still -  

My time is at his mercy.

*************** 

 Balachandran V, Trivandrum, 06-02-2009

What we do not want

(for Sumi Mathai)

We keep our eyes shut
in fear
of what we might see
of ourselves...

we keep our ears closed
for fear
of what we might hear

our heart says...

when our hands shiver
when our mind hesitates -
we know
we know
what we do not want to know...

***************** Balachandran, Trivandrum 03-02-2009

Aquarium

( for Sumi Mathai) 

A fish's life isn't easy.
Look at me.
I cannot close my eyes
I cannot stop moving
I cannot help hearing
All that I never wanted to.

I do not sleep
I do not dream
All I know
That a few strokes ahead
I will kiss the cold reflection
of my own self. 

Thank you, Lord, for this glass cage...

*********************  Balachandran, Trivandrum, 03.02.2009