Works of RK

Growing up, I would throw small pebbles across placid water bodies and watch them bounce and skate over the shimmering surface. If I had competition, we would count the bounces and both the winner and loser will nurse a sore shoulder by evening. Neither the lake, nor the pebbles cared, and the universe, like a quantum experiment, was both the observer and the observed. Or maybe we were being played and they were the audience. To all the pebbles and the lakes that survive...thank you for that space... in time.

The circus came to town I could see the posters of acrobats and hippos and giant wheels On shaky ancient auto- rikshaws Driven by incorrigibly happy Poor people. For some years now, I have felt like the joker  Looking at a gallery full of fools Wanting to believe That what they see And live Is not sheer drudgery  But liquid entertainment.  I think Joaquin Phoenix fucked my world view Forever.  And before that, there was the Matrix Or even, Joseph Heller Or maybe it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez  Or even The Bhagwan who declared In his infinite wisdom That the infinity of our souls  And the divinity of our beings Are sullen By the circus  Of life.

Every now and then Through unguarded moments and glances She would give me a peak into her soul   Her panic room doors were steel And over the years Every new scar of hers was reinforced With new layers of Kevlar  And when she felt like laughing aloud  She would guard her mouth With her beautiful little hands So that I would not see That the little girl living within Could still laugh... and cry. 

I remember a moment from our childhood,  when I and my sister tried to lift papa by his arms.  We might have been really young because it felt like moving a mountain...and we were happy that our dad was like a mountain.  Unshakable and towering! Early in the morning,  before getting ready to take a fight back to town, I laid down next to him and wrapped my arms and legs around him. The flu had run him down. He was tired and barely speaking. Our lion was unwell. He ran his fingers through my arm, caressing them tenderly,  his very own skin... on me. He stopped at where I had burnt myself recently and circled the healing wound with his fingers. He drew a long sigh, as if he was singed too. A little later, he seemed to struggle with the weight of my legs on him. I gently moved my legs off him. And I could feel him breathe easier. It is just a flu,  my mind told me,  but my heart would not stop crying. I felt like all Sons and Daughters everywhere...I could see the future and I could

It has been raining for three straight days now It has something to do with the constant sound Of rain falling on the windows and ledges On drooping leaves And tin roofs That springs forth sudden bouts of existential sadness From the very dungeons of my being It is almost as if I have lived many lifetimes And yet There are seeds in me that are yet to sprout And await the causality of death To cure this cycle of inconsequential living! ---- Readers: This is not a poem on Depression. As per Indian scriptures the life that we live is an illusion and full of existential strife. Spiritual journey begins with the appreciation of existential sadness beyond temporal joys and sorrows.

I visit her chat window now and then And it feels like an ode to a Tombstone    And as I walk among the dead lines That were once alive with our love I can feel the grass of time grow  Steadily, under my very feet. Maybe next year, on her birthday  I shall scroll through here again  And until then I will leave these lines here As an elegy To what was once living And breathing But is now very dead. 

I knew an artist once She would paint through those parts in her That bled from neglect   In here frames, There would always be a woman Who will always be engulfed In flames masquerading like oysters Or tresses Or even Dresses For a decade or more She would paint me in dark colors She would scratch me with her palette knives And write on me with her pens And often, she would step back a bit And look at me like I were her Art. You smile still! And she would start all over again.

She would bat her eyelids constantly  As if they were sending morse codes Of the things she spoke about. The things that one misses of another Are everyday stuff, nothing momentous... Like how she enjoyed my food Or how she would allow me to make the bed I wish I could decipher In time The dots and the dashes of despair  Before silences fell over the valley And the fog of time Caved in. 

If you were to cry for long enough Your tears will sear through your skin And create puddles in your soul. And eventually,   You will misjudge the roundness of your edges To compassion and to growth.  Those are just scars Masquerading as Trophies. Stop crying.

Her birthday reminder popped up on my screen yesterday. It was close to two years since we had stopped talking to each other. There was a finality to it.   There were parts of her that I could never fathom. And in the easiest of times, I can muddle minds.  I knew it then, as I know now, that it will be many seasons before she would allow me to grow in her garden again. If ever.  I closed my eyes in a prayer. May I be protected from droughts and floods and lightning and fire and other evils of everyday living.... for I want to someday regain that lost patch of loving land in her garden.  Let there be sunshine and water and shade and care and flowers and love in her life. Until we catch up again, may the keepers of time run slow. ps: Written in early Feb of 23

I want you to look at me Like a passenger on a slow train Looking out of an iron window At an old man sitting on an unkempt Ancient wooden recliner  In the balcony  Of a tiled traditional kerala house And it is raining A really light drizzle  Misting Your memory  Of the time we shared

I was trying to make sense of the thousands of lines of code before me. They wanted me to figure out why it was sluggish.   Over the years, so many programmers had worked on this. There were so many patches and upgrades that the brilliance of the master coder had stopped shining through. There was only this much overwriting that it could accept before it turned into a zombie. I looked at the Client Account Manager. All she wanted was for the application to work. Make it work...she said. I looked at the lines, it were like stories of many characters crisscrossing through time. It was too complex and opaque. As if the meanings of these lines were now lost in time .  Allow it to die....I said. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Let it be, it cannot be worked upon anymore. It is asking for redemption. Tell the client it's over, I said. She started crying. I could see similar tears bleeding through the lines on my screen.  No difference!

I look back and I cannot see beyond a couple of days of the time that has passed by. A good memory here, a bad one there. A moment of shame, some moments of sorrow and many moments of love. If I were to count all the moments that I remember, It will still not fill the 48 years I have lived. Where did all that time go? Is it hiding in secret places in me. Are there memories in me that have stolen time from me and are now themselves lost to me? Time, so much time, and I cannot figure out where it all went! I now think I know more closely what Einstein meant when he said that time is a human experience. It is an illusion of our befuddled minds to make sense of the chaos of everyday life. When I stare at the crumpled paper on which the innings of my life is written, I see how the dots on the last line converge with the white spaces on the first line. All that is past and all that is yet to come is all enmeshed into one tapestry of intricate stories, mostly out of sequence, but

On a video call with Mom, I told her that I am making Sambhar, something that never really turns out the way I wish it would. I am accustomed to having Mom's version of the Sambhar since childhood. It's taste is imprinted in places where I have no access to. The tongue knows when something is off. Sambhar is a complex dish. It is not like a plum cake or a bread, or even Avial, where, eventually, the grated coconut and coconut oil evens out all the other tastes and brings them to a consensus. Sambhar is complex. The ladies fingers have to be slightly sauteed, else they disintegrate into the ocean that is Sambhar, and you can see that they existed once in the little seeds twinkling here and there. The Drum Sticks have to be just right, else they stand out. Drum sticks have to bend to the will of the greater cause that is Sambhar, but not break. Then there is the coriander powder and the Fenugreek Powder, and the asafoetida chunks that should melt entirely, else they raise hell in