The Missing 24 Years

Where have the years gone? Have they tumbled into the cracks in the cuckoo clock, or leaked away through that fissure where the skies and earth meet clandestinely? Or have they died with the last echo in the vales? Did they fly south with the geese for the winter and never returned? Or have they taken off in a huff as I hadn’t paid much attention?

Time, could you not have been patient and lingered for me?

I still have Africa to wander through, to fly an aircraft, and bungee jump. I have to be on that trapeze and row that boat along the Amazon. I have to dive in the Great Barrier Reaf. I have to go to Timbuktoo and be back. I have to walk up the Pyramids of Egypt and float on the Dead Sea. I have to build a home, plant my patch of roses, see my elms grow, finish the classics, run a marathon, become wise, bathe in the Ganges, journey in a hot air balloon, elope to Pitcairn Islands, walk among the giants of Easter Island, understand Theory of Relativity, speak on the BBC World Service, eat fresh croissants in a café on the Rues of Paris, swim in the Nile, camp at the foothills of Himalayas, sleep in a hammock under my very own elm tree in my very own backyard, build a tree house, gain the trust of children, kiss. I still have to build my very own Brunel’s bridge. I still have to live. Oh, Life! Oh, Sun!

Kiss the Rain

I am an expert kisser - of rain. Today, I was out kayaking at MacRitchie reservoir. Apart from getting half of MacR dumped on me due to some very chivalrous friends, the Angels wept like crazy. So, after many eons, I went on a surreptitious kissing spree.

Not all rains trigger this madness of mine.
It rains in Singapore every other day, but it rarely is kiss worthy. My favourite is, of course, the first rain of the monsoon in The Olde Country. Now that is no major surprise - too many people have written poems about the smell of it. They should start talking about its taste, imho.

Why Do We Leave?

Why do we leave the acacia tree lined streets in which we ran with naked feet? The house that watched over us with quiet patience? Why do we walk away from that swing in the garden that carried us? The coconut tree that listened to whispered secrets on many a lazy afternoon? Why do we forget the wall we sat on to tease the boys that cycled past? Why do we forget the comforts of the cot in the backyard on moonlit nights? Why don’t we remember the dancing marigolds and the sulky rose bush in our mothers’ flowerbeds? Why don’t we see the red hibiscuses beside the West side gate? Why don’t we recall the sweet papayas from the tree in the East garden? Why have we forgotten the taste of parrot pecked pink guavas in the evening? Why do we walk away from the cool shadows of the ivy that screened the Westside balcony? Why have we forgotten the swinging black gate that took us to Paris and back within a swing? Why cant’ we remember the thrill of hide and seek around the house in the gathering dusk? Why have we forgotten the porch on which we spent many hot afternoons sipping soda with bosom buddies?

I don’t know why I left that porch, that swing, that backyard, that house, that street in Vizag. But they have not left me. I remember more - the Rajus’ dog, Whitey, the overbearingly friendly grocer across the street, the college kids who lounged under the peepal tree at the end of the street, my Sai school right across the street, the cawing of crows in the afternoon, the yarns of our servant maid, Bangaramma in the backyard, the vegetable sellers making their rounds in the hot afternoons, the drone of television, the flourish with which the milkboy delivered, the bhajans in the mandir on Thursdays and Sundays, the colony aunties who exchanged recipes across the walls, the chatter of the servant maids, the well at the bottom of the garden, the whispered secrets under the coconut trees, the Sunday afternoons spent digging for enchanted buried treasure, the milk that I threw surreptitiously into the jasmine creeper, the scaling of garden walls to visit neighbours, badminton on the terrace every morning.

This February, I went back to that house on the acacia tree lined street.
I wish I hadn’t.
There is very little of all that. What remains is an old and unloved house.
And a street in which I cannot even live in without a visa.

Faraway Lands - Part 2

I have updated my footprints.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

What Kind of a Friend Am I?

Got this from Sudha's blog! Catching on to her random personality tests fever :-) Thanks Sudha

You Are a Good Friend Because You're Fun

You are energetic, amusing, and always up for a good time. Optimistic and genuinely happy, you help people see the sunny side of life. And you're always up for a party... no matter how big or small. You're usually the first one to celebrate a friend's success. Anyone who's interesting or fun is welcome in you circle of friends. You're not the type of person to exclude or make fun of someone who's a little different. Your friends need you most when: They're down or depressed You really can't be friends with: Anyone who's stuck up or chronically unhappy Your friendship quote: "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

What Makes You a Good Friend?

Can You Sell Your Soul For A Shilling

Can you sell your soul for a shilling?

Can you give your heart away for free?

Not a shilling, not a shilling,

But for a patch of land,

and a glimpse of sky.

For a pocket of stardust and

a fistful of ocean.

For a stitch of horizon and

a bottle of morning dew

St Cross Cemetery

I was at Borders couple of nights ago. I caught sight of W H Auden’s Dyer’s Hand. His self-edited lectures, talks and criticisms – mostly delivered in Oxford when he was the Oxford Professor of Poetry.

Reading one of the essays, standing in Borders, with the smell of new books, and the faint whispers of conversations, I was no longer there. I was walking on the icy bridge over the Cherwell, by the St Cross Cemetery and finding my way to the wooden bench below the solitary crabapple tree that groaned with the weight of death’s tragedies among the graves. I heard its groan many an evening in my sojourn in that City of Dreaming Spires.

While dons cycled past home for dinners, and students scuttled to reading rooms, I sometimes, read gravestones. They hold many tales. They also hold peace that cannot be found in life.