Loneliness

LONELINESS

The ponderous grey of the day sky has begun to deepen into the blackness of night. The rain is steady, neither letting up nor becoming heavier, yet in the gathering darkness it seems to be growing louder. The trilling of bee-eaters that usually marks dusk is striking by its absence. There are few sounds other than the rain and the wind; at times it's difficult to tell them apart. It is as if all life were lying low, waiting…

There are multiple words for most emotions and states of mind – love, hate, anger, compassion. But for loneliness there is only one word. Perhaps there was no need for more.

deep dusk
the sky tied to earth
by threads of rain

(In: Simply Haiku, Vol 8 No. 1, Summer 2010)

Cycle

CYCLE

My young girl friend is about seven. I never actually asked her. Normally I initiate our conversations, while she watches me expectantly, waiting for me to make the first move. But today there is a matter too urgent to be subordinated to the demands of protocol. "Hello Uncle," she calls out from her cycle the moment she sees me. "Look at me!"

It's been a long day at work, and I'm not at my observant best. I scan her for signs of something different – new hair clips, hair band, shoes maybe? – but detect nothing unusual.

"See my cycle, no!' she urges.

Finally I notice it – she's on a spanking new cycle, the handlebars still with the polythene wrapping on them. "Whoa, that's a fine cycle! And red is my Favourite Colour. What is it, birthday present?"

She laughs at me indulgently. "Don't you know my birthday got over long ago?"

"Yes, of course, how silly of me", I say, though I have no idea when her birthday is.

"It's because my old cycle became too small", she explains. "Mummy says I'm growing so fast that she'll have to get me new clothes every month."

"Hey Sweetie, time to come ho-ome", my young friend's mother sings out from the second floor balcony.

"I have to go now, Uncle. You can try out my cycle tomorrow if you want."

"Thank you", I reply, "but I think my legs have grown too long even for your new cycle."

"Maybe if you're really careful…", she says, and runs off up the stairs.

large moon today
I fumble in my pocket
for the house key

(In: Simply Haiku, Vol 8 No. 1, Summer 2010)

The Little Emperor

The Little Emperor

The round-faced boy in tattered shorts is ten at most, but he wields his little stick-broom in an offhandedly grand manner. Squatting on the dusty kerb at the edge of the dusty road, he squints at the passing traffic. To either side of him, a patch of pavement clear of dust extends a little farther than the length of his arms. A stray dog making to venture into this dust-free realm is sternly shooed away with the little emperor’s broom sceptre. The boy’s sandals are of the cheapest kind, but their straps are coloured golden. hazy morning a truck squeezes past the camel cart (In: Haibun Today, Vol 4 No. 2, June 2010)

Jacarandas are a deep shade of blue

Jacarandas Are a Deep Shade of Blue

I was thirteen or fourteen and the jacarandas were in full bloom. I was walking along a straight tar road, the evening sunlight spraying off it like water. A football game was in progress to the right, and it being football and the men mostly young, there was a constant stream of shouts and calls for passes.

On the other side of the road the jacarandas silently bloomed and I was thirteen or fourteen.

Out of nowhere it occurred to me that some day jacarandas would be blooming and football players shouting and I would know nothing about it then or ever again and suddenly I was overwhelmed by the thought of ever again and began to run, run as fast as I could and I kept running till I got home and my lungs were bursting and the pain felt good because I could feel it and because all it was was just a burning in the chest.

evening tea
my parents talk
about their day

(In: Contemporary Haibun Online, Vol 6 No. 4, Dec 31, 2010)

Chicken

We were the city relatives, and in our honour there was going to be chicken for lunch in the ancestral village home in Goa. As a seven-year-old honoree, I was captivated by the house’s tiled roof leaking sharp narrow rays of sunlight, the blackened upright wooden beams, the cool floor with the coat of hard-packed dry cowdung. But when the time came for the chicken to be slaughtered, it all became too much for me. I leapt at our relative, pulling vainly at his arm as he tolerantly and smilingly twisted the squawking chicken’s neck. I tearfully swore that I would never touch the chicken curry.

When lunch was served, the chicken curry smelled irresistibly delicious, and I tucked in with everybody else. It was the first moral failure I clearly remember in my life.

smoke-filtered sunbeam

the proud strut

of a colourful cock

My experiment with vegetarianism

A Gandhian and vegetarian, my grandfather’s one nod to the omnivorous legacy of our species was that he ate eggs. One raw egg a day, to be precise. To keep up his health, he said. He would crack the egg against any handy edge, drop the contents into a glass and from there let them slide straight into his throat.

Inspired (and encouraged) by my grandfather, I resolved to turn vegetarian too. For months I stoically forewent the delights of pomfret curries and Bombay duck fry. At times even the rats, which had devised perfectly semicircular passages at the bottom of all the wooden doors in the old house, seemed to mock my determination as they raided the trash for fish bones, but I stuck it out.

Then my grandmother died in a faraway place. I squatted beside the kerosene stove on the kitchen floor, crying with my mother more out of sympathy with her than for my already vague memory of my grandmother. There was flurry and activity around me, and before I could grasp what was happening, I was on a plane with my mother. When the stewardess came around to ask veg or non-veg, my mother replied veg on my behalf. But I had been watching the food trays with fried sausages passing by. “No, non-veg”, I said. That marked the end of my only experiment with vegetarianism.

Passage to India

We took the ship from Marseilles, and I have no memory whatsoever of how we got there or embarked for the sea voyage. But I do remember that our first stop was Barcelona, which for me will always be a narrow cobbled road steeply descending to the sea. Aden was a place with candle-stemmed palms, and goats that were fascinatingly equipped with cloth bags around their udders to prevent the milk from being stolen. I had no difficulty seeing how red the Red Sea was, and in the Suez Canal I was convinced that I had spotted a black panther prowling the endless bleached sands. My mother listened with gratifying awe to my description of the animal.

On the last night of the voyage there was a farewell get-together, and the German contribution to this international occasion was a rendering of Unter den Linden. The next morning we were spewed out into the sticky heat of the Bombay Customs enclosure. My father, occasionally given to impish humour, had circulated among relatives demanding to know what the Missus looked like a photo of his mother-in-law in domestic disarray, energetically wielding a rugbeater on a carpet. If the members of the welcoming committee of relatives were relieved that my mother bore little resemblance to this photo, they did not show it. Food containers were opened amidst the static confusion of the Customs shed, and I had my first taste of shrikhand.

And it was good.

new world

even the buzzing of flies

sounds different