reflection of Blue

He who fills the universe
and yet remains apart,
how could I fit him inside
a mere heart?

so I became a mirror and-
His reflection I caught
within me

now however big He is outside,
will also be so, forever,
within me

but unaware I was
of laws of reflection
until the moment of revelation

what was right, is now left
truths that I knew
have become untrue
black turned white
and eyes, Blue

© Rajendra Pradhan

Untwined

these days I remember
the stories you used to weave
and would ask me to believe

they make me aware
of breaths that we take
and venom that we spew
of lives that we fake
and lies that we live
universes apart

time is fine sand
and our untwined hands
make a coarse sieve

you should have stayed
when the world was conquerable
or so, I used to believe

© Rajendra Pradhan

The Quest

on my quest for self
I embarked with zest
each resolute step
like a mistake, perfect

I began by winning
to millions' surprise
the great swimming race
and life was my prize

bagful of wants
stuffed in a skin
always some room
for one more sin

I claimed as my own
with pride profound
tiny breaths snatched
from vastness around

arriving finally to claim
my rest, my birthright
I heard a soothing voice
from behind a bright light

"welcome back my child
your efforts be blessed
a tottering step you were
in my own self's quest"


© Rajendra Pradhan

Silence (in Rictameter)

Silence



Silence

Was what I craved

So I piled up some stones

And built towers taller than dreams

Then barred their windows with my weathered bones

Leaving no escape for my screams

And here I sit alone

In this depraved

Silence

 

(c) Rajendra Pradhan

A Dog And Its Tail

A dog
that chases
its own tail
is bound to
mostly, fail

But the one
that succeeds
will live to tell
How his own
arse does smell

Republic Day in Rictameter

 

	Republic Day in Rictameter
	Mother had many names and no face, just wrinkles For her, nothing. But some twinkles, she had asked for her starry-eyed children So she got a constitution and two more names None sweeter than Mother   (c) Rajendra
	Rictameter is a form of poetry with nine lines. The format is simple. Starting your first line with a two syllable word, you then consecutively increase the number of syllables per line by two. i.e. 2,4,6,8,10 Then down again, 8,6,4,2 Making the final line the same two syllable word you began with. Link

Digital Demigods

Digital Demigods

The other night, I was watching news on the telly with my family. The reporter was droning on about some politician’s visit to a home for handicapped. Bored, I picked up the day’s newspaper and successfully shut the idiot box out of my mind. After a while, I was startled to hear my daughter call out excitedly “Dad, now I know what you are!”

I froze mid-action. What black deeds from my past have finally seen the light and camera of these television reporters? I wondered. You can’t tell these days, with so many sting operations going on! I was trying to remember something I might have done that was worthy of attention of a news channel.

Could it be my first love affair that I had so successfully hidden from my wife? I didn’t think so. Nobody knew about it except me. Not even the girl I was in love with! She didn’t even know my name, I was sure. It was love at first sight when I had seen her at the bus stop, waiting for her school bus as I was waiting for mine. Every morning I would spend few minutes looking at her and then we both would board different buses to our respective schools. And the “love affair” had lasted just for a few months, as schools change after fourth grade. Yes, we both were ten at the time. Hardly worthy an affair for prime time television, I thought.

Had they finally found out who had drawn that neatly labeled caricature of our biology teacher on the blackboard of my ninth grade classroom? Nah, that was years ago. Must be something new!

Could it be that the Income Tax department had found out about the necklace…! Can’t be that. Though my wife thinks she is wearing a real diamond necklace that I gifted her on our last wedding anniversary, I know its real worth. Income Tax officials are definitely smarter than my wife.

So what in God’s name it could be? I was still thinking hard when my daughter switched the television set off and sat next to me. “Now I know dad, what you are. You are an SMS challenged person!” she said with conviction.

Hugely relieved to hear this, I sighed deeply. Yes, I can be called that, I admitted. In today’s jargon nobody is short; they are vertically challenged! So definitely I am an SMS challenged guy. I couldn’t type an SMS if my life depended on it. For me, a phone is for talking, period. I grew up with those black bulky monsters with rotating dials and the receivers designed with weight lifters in mind; if the designers had something resembling a mind, that is. For me, a mobile phone or ‘cell’ as it is called now, is just a smaller version of those monsters, without a spiral wire attached. They let you talk to people whenever you wish. What more could one wish for?

The best way of communication is face to face, I firmly believe. You can watch the other person’s reaction to what you say. You can judge whether they are lying, or they are sincere, happy, sad, excited, bored. You can learn so much from their body language! A phone deprives us of all these opportunities. Yet, there is at least some personal touch in a voice call. If it is difficult to meet physically, then voice call is the next best thing. Voices too laugh and cry, smile and lie. But an SMS brings arctic cold to our casual communications. And the menace of unsolicited advertisements! It will give me immense pleasure to strangle the fellow who thought of putting that SMS thing in mobile phones.

Maybe because I hate them so much, but I can’t fiddle with those microscopic keys to type one straight word. Some evil fellow with a weird sense of humour has assigned the same key to three or four different letters! I start typing and the thing runs ahead of me, finishing the word before I begin! Hey wait! I didn’t mean to type this word, I shout at it. My daughter tries to teach me, but to no avail. I throw my hands up and the phone down, every time I try.

I have seen people juggle a lit cigarette, a doughnut and a pen in one hand while with the other they hold a briefcase and a cell phone, typing furiously with their thumbs on the tiny device with concentration befitting an ancient sage. Some mutant genes at work, may be. The guys must have ten fingers on each hand. Give me a full sized computer keyboard anytime. I can handle that.

But that too was not always so, I remembered with a smile.

Those were the days when computers were not so commonplace. My construction business was running all right without any need for digital diligence. One day a salesman walked into my office with brochures depicting a mightily powerful 286 machine. “Look here sir, you can do so much with a computer in your office! You can write letters, draw building plans and even play a game! Our computer has the latest chips, a whopping 120 MB hard disk and one full megabyte of RAM. Every office on the block is buying one.” He went on. The fellow wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Patiently I heard him. Finally I said, “This computer thing can do anything, it seems. It is just like God, isn’t it?” The man nodded vigorously, the broad salesman-smile firmly pasted on his face, as he anticipated a sale. “Well then, this settles it. I am an atheist you see. I don’t believe in God. And yet, I live quite happily in this world purportedly created and owned by Him. So I believe I can get by without this digital demigod of yours. Thank you.” I had said with a straight face.


© Rajendra Pradhan

Once Again [English Ghazal with Urdu Transcreation]]

Once Again

may be these fields will turn fertile once again
let us sow some seeds of dreams once again

I see the heavens bowing down at the horizon
is she drying her hair on terrace once again?

she asks me the proof of our first embrace
time to open my bleeding heart once again

I tell the same tale, with the same fervor
the crowd goes strangely silent once again

was it my question or the way that I asked?
those hands firmly back, in pockets once again!

with great rush everybody's running to bazaar
they giving away rumours, for free once again?

they tell me she is likely to visit my tomb
should I start turning in my grave once again?

night falls, I look around, but she is gone
was I holding hand of a shadow once again?

ages ago 'Raj' has stopped singing his songs
yet someone still cries, 'Encore' once again!

***

Mr. Manish Bhatt (http://www.ryze.com/view.php?who=mokshamonger) has made an Urdu Transcreation of this English Ghazal. It is given below.

Shayad ye gulistaan lehlahayen, dobara
Aa khwab ke kuch beej toh bo aayein, dobara

Phir aasman hai jhukh raha choone ko jameen ko
Kya usne chhat pe baal sukhaye, dobara

Voh mangte hai vasl ki phir hamse nishani
Phir dil ke jakhm unko dikha aayein, dobara

Lo phir suna raha hun kissa mere junoo ka
Ye log sab khamosh ho jaayein, dobara

Mera sawal tha, ya usko poochne ka saleeka
Haath kyun jeb mein apni voh chupayein, dubara

Sab dodte phirte hain kyun phir se sare-bazaar
Kya muft mein afwahein voh batwayein, dobara

Kehta hai aa raha hai voh mere majaar par
Ab kabra mein bechainiyan satayein, dobara

Andhera jab ghira, dekha toh kab ke jaa chuke the voh
Thame the hath jiske, the kya voh saye, dobara

Gujare saal kayi ‘Raaj’ ko khamosh huye par
Aaj phir kiski sada goonjti si aaye, dobara


***

This Year [Ghazal]

This Year


Gujarat had good monsoon, they said this year
bumper crop of swords, was reported this year

who says politicians, have forgotten their voters?
promise of new promises, they've made this year

Congress kisses commies, and Devegauda the BJP
everybody has a strange fellow in bed this year

Indian industry has grown up, so said the survey
bonded child labour perhaps, will be paid this year

for fifty-eight years, she has fought for euthanasia
will they let democracy, finally be dead this year?

ceasefire in Kargil now, but beware of flash floods
crocodile tears Miyan Musharraf has shed this year

Ah, the crimson sheen, on her smiling wet lips
God knows how many, she has bled this year

I promise to bring home, some butter next year
but eat for now my child, just bread this year

hungry vultures now perched atop barren houses
that in search of food, people have fled this year

Wishing your mites

The Sun that sets today will rise again tomorrow with the same glory Earth will spin on The new day will bear a different name and number But we will have changed A few more cells dead and shed, to feed the dust mites new ones born to take their place Here is wishing your mites a bon appétit and you, all the might for the fight Rajendra

The Crow

The Crow

The little hamlet of Ambala surrounded by green hills on all sides has just one source of livelihood, Lake Ambala. It is situated near Ramtek, fifty kilometers from Nagpur where I live (in India). Lord Rama is said to have stayed at Ramtek during his fourteen years of exile. A temple stands there in his honour.

Ramtek is also the place where Sanskrit poet Kalidasa wrote the epic Megha Doot. A beautiful structure has been built there, in memory of the great poet. Ramtek has other tourist attractions as well. It is an important Buddhist site. It is also a heaven for the archeologically inclined. Centuries old monasteries have been unearthed in the hills along with stone-circles that served as burial grounds in Stone Age. Nearby Nagardhan was the capital of Vakataka dynasty that ruled considerable part of India between third to sixth century AD.

However, people from surrounding districts visit Ambala not for tourism, pilgrimage or archaeological reasons. They go there to bid a final adieu to their dead. It is believed that the departed soul will attain Moksha (freedom from the cycle of rebirths); if one’s mortal remains are immersed in the holy lake. Every day, hundreds of shraaddhas (rites) are performed at the lake. It is an important part of Hindu religion.

For centuries, the lake has been accumulating ashes and bones of the dead and hair of the living. Relatives of the dead have to get their head shaved before they can perform the shraaddha! As a result, the lake started resembling a cesspool and it became a worthy cause for the conservationists. Finally, about eight years ago, the administration decided to get the lake cleaned.

They floated tenders for the job. Contractors dredged the centuries old cocktail of ashes, bones and hair from the lake and dumped it on the shore. A year passed before it was removed and the shore cleaned again, because the tender had no provision for transporting the filth.

But meanwhile, birds in the region had feasted on the poisonous thing and they all died. This posed a serious problem not just for the conservationists but also for those who sought Moksha for their dead. The shraaddha is not complete until a crow consumes the offerings. This species of birds is attributed with special powers. They can carry the offerings into the next world to the dead, it is believed.

We know how voracious crows are. Yet, when it comes to shraadha offerings, a crow can be very finicky. It is said that a crow cannot touch the offering unless the departed soul is fully satisfied. I have witnessed this on several occasions when crows gathered around the offering but did not touch it until a close relative of the dead prayed and promised to do whatever the dead person would have wanted done.

So, the relatives of the dead had to go searching for crows, after they performed the shraaddha at Amabala. Ramtek, the nearest town is about ten kilometers away. There, a few crows could be found near the butcher's shop. I too had to do this when my father died. The crow had not touched the food until I had prayed and promised my dad that I will take good care of my mom.

I had to visit Ambala in October this year once again, for the tenth day rites for my mother. Mother was a very devout lady. She had shown exceptional control over her own death. While I was performing the rites, I heard a commotion. People had gathered outside and they were talking excitedly, gesturing towards roof of the shed under which the shraddha was going on.

Once again to Ramtek in search of a crow, I thought as I finished the rites and came out of the shed, carrying the crow’s offering in my hands. Someone from the crowd now gestured at me and pointed at the roof. I looked up. A jet-black crow was perched atop the shed! He seemed quite unaffected by the commotion going on. His attention was riveted on me or rather on the plate of food in my hands.

Something gave way inside me. Could it be possible that…? I put the food down and stepped back. In one deft movement the crow descended on the food. Within seconds he had finished everything. I watched in awe as the feathered courier to the land of souls flew away with the last morsel in his beak.

When I regained composure, I heard everyone around me say just one thing. They had seen a crow at Ambala for the first time in seven years.

***

Rajendra

A Trilogy of Coincidences

A Trilogy of Coincidences

(Call them coincidences, divine interventions, willpower or whatever. These are true events. )




I had married quite young. I had fallen in love much before that. We two had vowed to be together for life, at the tender age of eighteen. Since then, we had spent enough time living apart, I reckoned as soon as I got my first pay-check. It was just after I graduated and got my first job. There was no resistance from either of the families except my parents wanted me to wait for few more years. I did not agree.

I was just twenty-two when I tied the knot with my childhood sweetheart. I remember the hard time I had had while explaining to my boss that I needed a leave of absence for my own wedding and not for that of my older sibling. The duration of leave depended on that.

Anyway, I was in seventh heaven when I boarded the bus to my hometown from my workplace, three days before the event. I was painting some beautiful pictures in my mind with my eyes closed, when the bus came to a screeching stop. Jolted from my daydreams, I looked out of the window to see a horrible scene.

A truck laden with coal had overturned on the highway and there were several mutilated bodies lying around, some still writhing. Apart from the shock, I was very worried about the bad omen though I am not particularly superstitious. ‘Please God; please let my wedding be postponed. I don’t want to arrive for the wedding with this scene on my mind.’ I prayed hard.

I knew it was impossible to postpone the wedding. All the preparations had been done. Hall booked, invitations sent, some guests already arrived. The families wouldn’t agree to postpone the wedding now, just because I saw an accident. Especially so since it was me who had thrown a tantrum to get married so early, against the wishes of my parents. When I reached home I didn’t talk about it to anyone and spent the night wide-awake. The spectacle of coal-blackened writhing bodies refused to move out of frame.

In the morning, news came in. A distant uncle had passed away. No wedding could take place in the family for at least a month for religious reasons. My parents were worried when they broke this news to me. They feared that I would rebel and insist on marrying the next day as scheduled. They were puzzled to see me relieved to hear about the postponement.

I didn’t know if it would be right to thank God for answering my prayers in this way, with death of that distant uncle!

***

After the month long wait, I finally got married in June 1982 and spent a few months in heaven. I was still there in heaven when my wife announced her pregnancy. My parents were overjoyed with this development, since it would be their first grandchild. My elder brother had been married for seven years by then but my sister-in-law had failed to conceive so far.

My only grudge was that I had to leave my wife at my parents’ place because there were no good medical facilities where I worked. A civil engineer has to work at some really odd places! I was forced to live in solitude again.

Next month I got a message from my parents that the gynecologist had suspected some problem. An X-ray was advised and done at the public hospital. But there was nothing to worry, according to my parents, because the X-ray had come out normal. Ultrasound was a rarity then, in our medium sized town.

And then much before the expected date, on September 1st 1983, I got a telegram from my father. “Congrats! You have become a father. Come soon.” I caught the first bus to my hometown and proceeded straight to the maternity hospital. When I arrived there, I found my wife alone in her bed. No sign of baby! I feared the worst.

Imagine my joy when I was told that my wife had delivered twin daughters and both of them were alive and well. The gynecologist had suspected this in the early stages of pregnancy. But a mix up of X-rays at the public hospital had prompted her to change her diagnosis. And so, when my wife had walked in for a routine check-up in her eighth month, the doctors were worried to hear the twice fast heartbeats from a supposedly single fetus. They had decided to do an emergency cesarean.

I worried about the other woman whose X-ray showed she was carrying twins, but would deliver only one baby!

***

Both the babies being prematurely born (for no fault of theirs) were in neonatal care in another hospital. When I reached there, the doctor in-charge refused to let me in. “No relatives allowed. Only parents!” said he with a stern face. I had to prove that I was the father, not a young uncle of the twins, before I was allowed to have the first look at my daughters.

At the 1200 grams each they weighed, they looked more like kittens without fur than babies. But I decided their names in that moment. Sai and Jui, I would call them. My joy knew no bounds, until I met my parents back home.

It was a full family meeting. All my uncles, aunts, sisters and the brother were there with their spouses. “Look here son. God works in mysterious ways. Your elder brother has no child and you have two! It must be God’s wish that you should give one of your twin daughters to your elder brother.” My father said. Everybody agreed, except me that is.

It was true that there was no hope for my brother to have a child of his own. All medical tests had proved that my bhabhi (sister-in-law) was incapable of conceiving. I was too young to take up fatherhood of two daughters, they all argued. But I desperately wanted to hold on to this double blessing God had bestowed upon me.

The pressure was tremendous. Finally, just to ward off the pressure, I said my piece; “I will part with one of the twins if my brother does not have a child of his own within one year from today.” They all agreed. When I told my wife about the commitment, she cursed me no end.

From then on, every time I looked at the twins, I was gripped with fear of parting with one of them on their first birthday. Which one? I shivered to think. The twins took turns in keeping us awake for whole nights. One started crying when the other stopped. True, it was hard to take care of two little ones for the young couple that we were, but it was much harder to even think of giving one away.

Jui was the weaker one. At three months, she was hospitalized for a full month for some infection. We were not sure if we would still have both of them by their first birthday. When finally Jui was discharged from the hospital, my wife said to me, "I don't want to lose Jui. She needs me more. If it comes to it, let your brother have Sai. She is healthy." I choked on my reply. I just prayed hard for a miracle.

It was when my daughters were four months old, that we got the news. My bhabhi was pregnant! “It’s unlikely that the pregnancy will last. Don’t forget your promise!” my father cautioned me. I prayed harder.

On 31st August 1984, exactly one day before my twins’ first birthday, bhabhi delivered a baby girl. “Let’s see if the baby survives. It’s hard to tell in such cases" my father still had his doubts.

This year in 2005, we jointly celebrated the birthdays. Twenty-second of my twin daughters and twenty-first of my niece.

***



Rajendra

Raindrops

is it rain
or you within,
dancing in drops
on my parched skin?

*
each drop brings
a piece of sky
each pore
becomes an eye

*
dance in rain
I still do
and the rain dances
around you...

*

Summer

The heat. Nothing but the heat wherever one can see. The heat that one can actually see, not just feel. Wafting up from the asphalt that has gone soft under the relentless sun, making those leaf-bare trees seem to shiver in this scorching summer afternoon. Dusters rising in tight columns, dancing frenziedly around trees like demented ghosts, snatching away whatever dry leaves still left hanging on their bare branches. Not a green thing in sight. In the distance, flame trees in full bloom as if set afire. Up ahead, this relentlessly straight patch of road threatening to catapult my speeding vehicle into a bright cloudless sky. The white hot sky, not content to wait for me at the horizon, stepping out on to the road and teasing me with its white flames dancing in the shimmering pools of false hope.

Trying to avoid the glare from the mirage, I roll down the windows. The air-conditioner already dead, several pothole scarred miles ago. A swig from the mineral water bottle parches my throat even more. The water has turned unbearably hot. Must stop somewhere and get a refill. But no shops, no villages in sight. Just a forlorn bus stop, its roof casting a futile piece of shadow, its walls diseased with AIDS slogans. That too soon becoming a distant past as the Safari races ahead impatiently, as if she too wants to end this travail in a hurry. While I wish not to reach there, anywhere. I wish for no end to this journey. As if to cling on to the few last pages of a book that I have grown fond of. Afraid to read ahead for fear of losing a friend that the book has become.


Once on such a bright lit summer day
I had gifted her
a full-blown bloom of flame trees
of my primal passions
and then forgot to tell her,
never to succumb
to the lure of rain-gods
and allow little green leaves
to sprout from her womb.
Now, I am afraid of reaching there
before the rains do.
And afraid to be
too late too…

(unfinished)

© Rajendra Pradhan

Seasons

Each one traverses
this path only once
I too must, but
for my own reasons
I carry on my shoulders
a bagful of seasons

When hunger calls
I pause,
take one out
and put it in my mouth
Candyfloss monsoons
Icecreamy winters
Hot chilli fried summers
Getting spicier
as I travel further

Bite by bite,
I have to finish them all
before I reach
my voyage's landfall

© Rajendra Pradhan

Sweet - a story

Aparna was against the idea of moving into this magnificent but old house. She wanted to live in the posh apartment we had purchased the year before. Her job at the art gallery would be easier that way. But the architect in me had instantly fallen in love of this bungalow. So what if it was a little away from city? A dirt road for just a mile or so, and then the highway would take me quickly to my office. Aparna need not leave the house, for now at least. She had received a scholarship from a foreign art society and her job was to paint a few landscapes for the society’s show in December this year. That was four months away. She had taken a furlough from the volunteer work at the art gallery. That actually helped me in persuading her to move to the secluded house. She would get all the time and solitude she needed for her work there.

I whistled as gravel crackled underneath my car’s tires as I swung into the dirt road. I rolled down the windows to breathe in the faint smell of damp foliage coming from the woods that lined the dirt road. Moist warm air invaded the car interior. And then the bungalow itself, coming suddenly in view as the woods cleared. Regal, imposing, though in need of some paintwork. I had already got it cleaned and repaired. The paint job will have to wait until the monsoon is over. Aparna was looking around wide eyed as I stopped the car. Her painter’s eye did not miss the hills in the background. “Liked it Appu? Go and paint this landscape. See those clouds resting on the hill tops! Wonderful, eh?” I said as I opened the trunk.

Most of our furniture had already been moved here. Picking up the two cases of clothes and such, I walked to the front doors. Aparna was still engrossed in the view. I opened the doors and called her. With a glint of mischief in my eyes, I scooped her up in my arms and entered the cool dark inside. How light she was, even after five years of marriage! “Put me down” she was screaming and laughing. I didn’t plan to, but we were startled by a sudden gasp coming from a shadow in the doorway. Putting a confused Aparna down I turned round. “Oh, this is Radhabai. She will cook and help you keep the place going. She lives in the nearby village.” I introduced Aparna to our new help.

Stifling her laughter at the spectacle she had just witnessed, Radhabai hurried inside and we joined her on a conducted tour of the house, mostly for Aparna’s benefit. A huge drawing room, store, dining, kitchen and a few large rooms on ground floor. Two bedrooms on upper floor. “I will make this one my studio” Aparna exclaimed as she marveled at the view from upstairs room. Then moving to the window she looked down and called Radhabai, “what is that?” pointing at a single storied structure at rear of the house. “Servants quarters” replied the middle aged heavyset woman. Then she went downstairs to make tea for us and I embraced Aparna and planted on her lips our first kiss in this house.

“Are there any servants living there?” Aparna asked me looking down from the window. “Not now. But soon we will have some more help. A watchman, a gardener and a nanny perhaps?” I answered mischievously as Aparna glared at me. It was our pact not to even talk about having children for another five years. Not before she achieved her own place in the art world. She never has been fond of children in our previous neighborhood and just about tolerated the way I entertained them on Sundays. ‘I am prepared to wait’, I said with my apologetic look.

Rest of the day was spent unpacking and doing the things people do upon moving into a new house. By evening, we got quite hungry and we decided to have dinner before the sunset. Radhabai served a simple dinner and went home. Aparna suggested we take a walk. The rain had stopped too. Taking an umbrella in one hand and her hand in the other, I took Aparna behind the house, to a spot I had noticed earlier. The view was great. The hills in the distance had turned dusky blue, gray clouds hanging on their tops. A small rivulet running in the valley between those hills and our house. We decided to return as it began to get dark. On our way back, Aparna had a look at the servants’ quarters. They were locked.

We had chosen the other room upstairs as our bedroom. From this room too, the hills were visible but not those servants’ quarters. We made passionate love and then fell asleep in each others’ arms. I must have slept soundly but Aparna complained in the morning that she kept hearing cries of wild animals, may be hyena for whole night. No problem though. She was not afraid. I helped her set up her studio and then went to work.

We settled into a nice routine. I spent the days at my office and returned well before sunset. She painted during the day. In the evenings we went on walks or watched the rains from our perch in her studio. Both of us hated TV and didn’t miss it. Radhabai cooked and kept the house clean. We didn’t get around to employing more help, though I told Radhabai to look for suitable candidates. Aparna said she didn’t need any more people in the house. Her first landscape was halfway done by the third week. Then she had another idea, to paint this house into one of her landscapes. On a Sunday we went on a long trek and reached a spot among those hills, from where the house was visible. Even from this distance, the house atop a small hill itself was quite picturesque. Aparna did her sketches as I clicked a few snaps and sipped beer. We had a fantastic picnic.

She started work on this new painting ignoring the one half finished. The house and the servant’s quarters began taking shape on canvas. “I will paint the hills around the house later” she said. Fine with me. She was falling back on her schedule and now started painting at nights too. I was used to her artiste’s moods and didn’t object. But I noticed her fascination with the house on canvas. She had painted the open windows on the servants quarters and even shown some human figures in those windows. Whereas we had never opened the quarters and all its windows had been closed since we arrived here.

Then one night I woke up and noticed she was not in bed. I remembered her sleeping next to me. I tiptoed to her studio and there she was. Brush in hand, but not painting. Just standing before the canvas with tears in her eyes. “Aparna, Appu!” No reaction to my calls. I went in and embraced her, “What’s the matter Appu? Why are you crying?” I asked softly. She didn’t answer. On the canvas, there was a young woman holding a baby to her breasts, standing at a window of the servants quarter. Not details. But Aparna had managed to create the scene with just a few rough brush strokes. The woman seemed to stare right at us through the canvas. I took Aparna back to bed, but she was in sort of a trance. She went back to sleep in my arms.

In the morning, I made tea for her and woke her up. She smiled brightly. No trace of last night’s trauma. She finished the tea and said excitedly, “I dreamed something strange last night. I had told you about those cries of hyena in the woods, didn’t I? Well, I dreamed that those were not hyena cries. It was a baby crying in the woods. I felt so sorry for the poor thing!” I just looked at her with unbelieving eyes. Doesn’t she remember anything from last night? Without showing the concern on my face, I took the tea cups and on my way downstairs, peeked into her studio. The painting was there alright. But the woman and the child were missing. Just a smudge in their place as if erased by thick stokes.

I didn’t mention this to Aparana. It was her painting. She could have erased it while I was asleep in early morning. On my return from work that afternoon, I found Aparna so engrossed in the painting again that she didn’t even notice me standing in the door of her studio. I tiptoed back and found Radhabai in the kitchen downstairs. She stalled and dodged my questions but my firm queries got some sketchy answers after all.

The previous land lords of this house were once far more richer and powerful than their indebted descendents, from whom I had purchased this house. As was customary in those days, the female domestic help in the house was not out of bounds for their landlord’s insatiable sexual appetite. Most matters would be literally buried in the backyard, after a forced abortion and a small sum will be paid as compensation to the family of the girl.

But one girl had resisted all attempts at extinguishing the life in her belly and given birth. She wanted not a paltry sum but the just share in property for her baby and her place in the palatial house. Radhabai didn’t know what happened to the girl, only that she had vanished suddenly. Her baby was left in the servants quarter and was alive for two days. Nobody dared feed it as they were afraid of a backlash. The baby must have died of hunger.

However sad the story was, I couldn’t tie it with Aparna’s strange behavior last night. I warned Radhabai not to say anything about this to Aparna. Must be one those moods these artistes experience. I convinced myself and went to work. But I returned early and spent the rest of the day with Aparna. She was in quite a jovial mood and we chatted while she painted the hills around our house on the canvas. We dined and had some brandy before going to bed.

The brandy must have made me thirsty. As I woke up well past midnight for a drink of water, I noticed the empty space on bed where Aparna had slept. Oh God! not again! Rubbing my eyes I walked to her studio. But she was not there. I called out loudly for her. No answer. The painting was on the stand. And instead of the smudge, now there was a baby painted on that spot. Even from the minimalist strokes, I could distinctly feel the pain, the agony of the baby’s cries.

Suddenly I broke into a cold sweat. Where was Aparna? Check the toilets. Upstairs. Downstairs. Kitchen, store. Calling her, now screaming her name I ran frantically around the house. Finally I noticed the front door ajar. I stepped outside. Where has she gone in the dead of this night? And without any apparent reason I started running to the rear of the house.

Full moon casts sharp shadows. Now why am I thinking of that? Has she jumped from her window? Look. Search the ground below her window. No. Nothing there. Further ahead, the servants quarters. Its doors and windows shrouded in pitch dark shadow. Locked they were last time I saw. She doesn’t have the keys. No use searching there. As I turn, a sob. Stifled. Very feeble. But enough to carry in this quiet night. Can’t be her. Some wild animal. Again a sound. A whimper of a child?

I feel very reluctant to turn around and look in the shadows. But must do it. Have to find her. Slowly I turn and walk in the cold air. Towards the sounds. To the servants quarters. Door still locked. But from inside. The tricks the mind plays! Assuring myself I walk around the quarters and approach a window. A moon beam probably from some missing roof tiles. Nothing in there. In my relief I almost forget to ask the question, but why the window is open? In that dazed state, I call out, “Aparna, Appu!” Softly, as if I don’t want to disturb the moon beam.

A scratching sound. Somebody sliding on the floor. A hoarse and loud whisper. “Shhhh Don’t make a sound. The baby is sleeping.” Not a human sound from the texture of it though it reminds me of her. She screams in such whispers when I reach deep within her, at the height of our passions.

Now the thing that was once her, slides into the moon beam. No clothes. Clutching a bundle in dirty cloth to her naked breasts, she signals me to silence by putting a finger to her lips. Winks and then the hoarse whisper again, “See how sweet he looks? Was so hungry! That’s why my baby was crying. I fed him and now he sleeps. Here, take a look at our baby.”

As she lifts the bundle from her breasts, I see the blood leaking from her nipples, making its way over her belly into the dark valley below and spreading in a pool on floor. I don’t want to look! But she turns the bundle around and shows me. She must have dug it up. Soil still clinging to the rags. The tiny skull smeared with blood that looked strangely dark in the moon light.

© Rajendra Pradhan

Dance bar girl : PALIMPSEST

PALIMPSEST:

1. A manuscript, usually of papyrus or parchment, on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible.

2. An object or place whose older layers or aspects are apparent beneath its surface.

Dance bar girl

She looked pretty in the flickering light
swirling ghagra, bare back, hair in flight
Gyrating suggestively on the glass floor
among whiskey fumes and cigarette smoke,
she keeps an eye on the closed door

She would wink, unmindful of the beat
and accept twenty rupee notes
from stupid drunken blokes in heat
and allow them to cop a hurried feel
Perhaps negotiating a carnal deal

For a fifty she would pick up the drink
and put it to someone’s glistening lips
A watchful mother making sure
her naughty kid doesn’t miss
the daily glass of nourishing milk

For a hundred she would giggle,
sit & wriggle on a stranger’s lap,
A loving wife gifting herself
to her loved one to unwrap

Then the show was over
lights switched on, I could see
Eyes shrewd like a fox
Caked make-up and worry lines
counting money in the box

Last night on TV she was seen
championing the cause of her sisters
With fierce words, unlike prayers
I saw the warrior she has always been
Behind all those various layers

©Rajendra Pradhan

The Trip

'I am definitely going to enjoy this trip', Jiteshbhai thought as he took the window seat. Mostly business men traveled on this train. But today he found the compartment occupied by five comely girls. He guessed from their conversation that they were going back to college in Mumbai. All doing MBA at some fancy institute, it seemed. Now Jiteshbhai didn't plan on doing anything naughty. He was no sex maniac. He rather considered himself a respectable businessman in his forties. Still, it is a pleasure having young girls around. Beats traveling with stock brokers and grain merchants, thought Jiteshbhai though he was one himself.

One of the girls, the bespectacled one, started reading a book. Her friends were chirping away, mostly in English, ignoring him. He could understand only some of it. 'I too should read. Something English. Would look good.' Thinking thus, Jiteshbhai pulled a copy of Stardust from his bag and proceeded to look at the pictures. But when he sensed the girl next to him looking at the magazine, he put it aside.

'Sleeveless tops do look good!' He thought as he stole a glance at the girl opposite him. She was looking out of window. Cupping her chin in her palm, elbow resting on her jeans-clad thigh, she leaned forward unaware of the view she was presenting to Jiteshbhai. He looked on, not wishing to look as if he was looking.

“Can I have a look at the magazine, uncle?” Jiteshbhai was startled by the question. It was the girl next to him. “Of course,” he offered her the magazine. “I am Jitesh” he added, dropping the “bhai”. The girl smiled sweetly and said “thank you Jitesh uncle”.

Now that he thought he was caught looking, Jiteshbhai closed his eyes in embarrassment and slumped in his seat. He had not been in such young girls' company for a long time. Breathing deeply, he inhaled their mingled perfumes. He was more than content to just hear their young voices, flipping the pages and laughing aloud. “See this hairstyle! Looks strange, no?” “I think it looks cute!” They went on.

Jiteshbhai remembered his youth. Seemed so distant now. He always cursed himself for not being brave enough with girls. He finally married a girl of his parents' choice and took charge of the family business, a grain shop. Jiteshbhai tried and expanded the business slowly. He had to make numerous trips to Mumbai for various permits. Once on such a trip he had chanced upon just such a girl, alone with him in their compartment. It had been a rare occasion with so few passengers. Past midnight, the girl had been sleeping blissfully under her shawl. Jiteshbhai's intentions were never bad, he now convinced himself. But the ticket checker had thought otherwise. He abhorred the memory and shut it out with some effort.

Now, growing restless in company of five attractive girls, he wanted to talk to them, impress them with his knowledge! But alas, his knowledge was limited to grains, their varieties, and prices. Even that he could not have talked about in fluent English, the language these girls seemed to prefer. He just pretended to be asleep and sat there with closed eyes.

Suddenly, Jiteshbhai was thrilled beyond his wildest imagination, as he felt the soft touch of a young female body pressing into him. Her scent from so close up sent his mind on a roller-coaster. He could feel her hair touching his shoulder. Then he heard a male voice, “show your tickets please!”

The girl had moved close to Jiteshbhai for making space for the ticket checker, who now sat beside her and asked them to show their tickets. It was the bespectacled girl who handed him five tickets and said, “he is not with us”, pointing to where Jiteshbhai had been sitting. And then she screamed.

***

The TC was very understanding. He consoled the girls, “it is not a vicious type of ghost. It has never harmed anyone. It appears on this train some times. But it fears us ticket checkers. Twenty years ago a TC found him peeking under the shawl of a girl on this train. The guy panicked and jumped out of the stationary train! But he missed the platform and just then the train started. Poor fellow, got crushed. Don't worry. He has disappeared now.”

The girl holding the magazine was crying inconsolably. But Hema Malini was smiling on the cover of the June 1985 issue of Stardust.

(c) Rajendra Pradhan

Three Short Poems

Truth &

Truth & reality
two sides
of a coin called perception

***

Life

Afraid to wake up
into another dream,
from this nightmare

***

Then n now

I must have grown up
Your soothing words,
don't hurt me anymore

***

Cosmic Dance

Cosmic Dance
(a poem with some science facts and a little fiction)


Traversing the infinitely curved
Space & Time,
emerged a ray of light
with its speed unchanged
and basked in my plight.

“On my speed are built,
all laws of your Nature.
You are nothing but
just an effaceable signature.
Just a speck of dust,
that was blown away
by the mother of all explosions.”

I pondered & smiled
and said in a mild fashion-
“An explosion my friend,
if it was without passion,
is it just by chance
that in pairs they do
the cosmic dance?
All these charged particles.
in the vortex of a black hole,
as also in my blood vessels?

And why this expanding universe
that was blown apart,
also recedes
into an infinitely dense mass
within my heart?

In life & love I rejoice
The beginning & the end,
are just a matter of choice,
from which end of time line, my friend
you look at yourself.

Whatever little time
that I am granted
in my little curved space,
let me remain planted
and one day, explode with grace


© Rajendra Pradhan