Thursday 13 June 2013

The ghosts of lives lived: The trains which forever wait




“The world was hers for the reading.” 
― Betty Smith, 
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn





I used to read classics - the Bronte sisters, Jack London, Mark Twain, Stevenson and Dickens.
I used to read  Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, Enid Blyton and Lucy Maud Montgomery.
I used to read about cricket and baseball matches from old books, of yellow creased pages and hard-bound covers.
You had to be careful about them- they were fragile, old beings, signs of their well-spent lives evident on their lineaments.

The books used to smell of all the old fingers that turned the pages around, all the old minds that owned the book for days, only to return it to where it rightfully belonged
                                                            -- the childhood library.




The library with that musty, welcoming smell - book-lovers are familiar with, some like me are addicted to.


There were Classics - old books in older covers- blue bound.
The borders had the title scribbled on a piece of paper, yellowish - pasted - crayons brushed lightly over the name tag to denote the genre they represented.

Red for Classics, green for Sports, blue for Science and purple for Biographies.

Books on quizzes too - yellow for them.




The door to the clustered, damp room that was the library, opened with a rusty, round key from a bunch of old keys.




You turn the key, the lock clicks.
And then the smell, that smell hits you,
before light enters into the dark corners of the cluttered room.


The smell of thousand lives alive and breathing on the bookshelves. 
The gente thunping of the heart inside a heaving chest as you strain your arches and tiptoe, inching forward into the semi-darkness.



The curtains heavily breath, in and out, like some wild, unyielding beast, watching.


You lunge forward, digging your hands into a shelf of old hardcovers, and run your fingers along the half-tattered spine of ancient books.

Your nostrils twitch at the odour of wilted paper and words in fountain ink crawling across them.


Towering almirahs and shelves (cupboards, really) of overwhelming height and stature (overwhelming for a mere 7-years old, wide-eyed, and tiptoeing enthusiast) greet the occasional visit and embrace her with arms of inadvertently seeping rays of sun.



You stop running your probing fingers and pull out a book, scanning through the hardly legible scrawls in red and blue, bending over the pages, now and then, to smell them absent-mindedly - almost a custom with you.


You drum your fingers along the spine while you check the faded illustration inside the hard cover.


You set it down on the round tea-table, across the window, flanked by a lone chiar.


You turn back to the other shelves.


Through the cracked glass you try to peep inside and read the titles of books from their dusty yellow tags.


You pull out  one red, one green.



You walk back to the lone chair, waiting for an occupant since you left, eight years ago.



Sitting down, you open the red tagged book.
                                                 -- Jane Eyre

and then the green
                   -- In Lane Three, Alex Archer




Your life recedes from your present, fades out of focus.
Your life reduces to a point on the chair.
You live on, in the robes of Eyre,
and spandex suits of Alex.



You live lifetimes in hours, inhabit a thousand lives at once.




Meanwhile,
the real world leaves your station, a train merely passing you by, as you sit by the window looking out and waving.


You smile.




You smile. 
      As you watch out
           the window that opens to
               the unseen, unknown, unimagined.






You live lifetimes.
Through Eyre and Archer.









Almost through with the last pages,
You hear a knock.


A woman enters.
Looks curiously at you.

"Who are you?" 





You smile.

      Hand her the red and the green tagged books.

                And walk outside.





You do have a train to catch, right?






Epilogue:
But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence. 
(Alberto Manguel, 
The Library at Night)





[This is strictly an account from whatever's left of this incident in my memory.
I hope I was not a bore.
Or got too overbearing. ]

She's alone, never and always.




Prologue:
"Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one"
                                                                      ( John Berger)





I could start this with a "Once upon a time there lived a twin, a pair of Siamese souls.." but I won't.
For this story is of then and now.Of the past and present merged imperceptibly.
This ain't a singular story.
This is the story of a universe, untold, hence forgotten.




It rains hard.
The lone, broken pillar shivers in the estranged silence of an empty churchyard.
Given company by the skeletons of a bygone era.


A lone figure sits by the epitaph. 
Nails trace a name over the freshly dug soil.

Centipedes crawl over the cold, wet marble.

Dandelions peep from behind shrubs.
Daffodils tiptoe towards the lake, and stare in silent admiration at their own faces.





Kiki loved Daffodils, thought Coco, as she observed the pattern she traced before her.





Ants scurry hither and thither, their trail washed down by the shower.
Ants don't mind the sister and she doesn't figure in their conversations.

An Earthworm nudges her head out of her hole and retreats back.

It's raining very hard indeed.






Coco loved the rains.
Kiki made her paper-boats using old scrap-book papers.
Coco labelled them and scribbled tiny messages on the sides.
The boats traversed towards unseen shores.
Leaving behind pairs of intent  eyes, naked anticipation and excitement written all over.






A Thrush sits on the white, bare scaffolding.
Turning around his neck, he assesses the situation.
Satisfied, he rests, preening his feathers, idly.


It drizzles silently. Cold wind walks by.






Kiki loved the cold.
Kiki loved everything cold.
Cold storms. Cold furniture.
Cold sundae on Sundays.
Cold metal bedframe.
Cold frappe in summers.


On Sundays, they rode to the ice cream parlour across the streets and had their favourite fudges.
Always, a peppermint for Coco and a blackforest for Kiki.
Only after that came the treat of pretzels.







The Pimpernel laugh, with eyes that watch what lay within as what lay ahead.
The heavy branches slowly waver in the low breeze, as life changes pace around the churchyard.
A Sparrow flies in low and pick at pips of pears and cherries.






Pears~that which Coco so dearly loved.
Sparrows, too.
Reminding of how Kiki used to feed them prunes over their patio, in the afternoon.
Only after their grammar.

Coco fell behind as Kiki rushed towards the sparrow, steady on her feet, calling out loudly.


"Over here, birdie!"

Sweat glistening over her brow, she chased all around the patio in an improptu jig, trying to scatter prunes around.








The happy face of Dahlia beams at the sight of the lone sister.
The twins have stopped by to say "hello".
The twins, she loves. The twins care about her.


The Ivy creeps into the yard through the old, wrought metal gate. 
The Ivy asks her of her sister.



"Really, why are you alone, Coco?
Where is your sister?"







Coco sighs.
The Centipedes and Ants stop their movements.
The Earthworm peeps out of the tunnel.
The Dandelions, the Daffodils and Pimpernel bends towards her, trying to listen.
The Thrush and Sparrow flock together and sit down by her feet.

The Dahlia looks down on her, her eyes empathetic, brimming with tears.







"I didn't wanna let her go.
But the four winds blew her away.
I didn't wanna leave her so.
But the four winds stole her away."





The Cold Wind rattled the wrought iron gates to the graveyard, his brittle teeth cackling in interrupted sounds of laughter.





It rains hard over the stones. That lie over bare bones.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Where the sun smelt loud.





He chased the sound of wind chimes.
  He ran against the wind.
    He rode past clouds of fog, ringing the bell on his adult-sized cycle.
      He caught butterflies, feeling life go limp between his fingers.
        He stood beneath early April showers, arms outstretched, the warm rain scalding his skin, searing his insides.
          He collected quaint little wild flowers in red and yellow growing by the shrubbery in school.
            He counted stars stars in the night, and when there were none, he always had fireflies.



Rio inhabited a world of his own.
Where the sun smiled upon him, the rain cleansed him.
  Where the stars, quivering in the dark, were where fairies resided.
    Where light dispersed in red and blue and green on the surface of soap bubbles against the frosted glass
      (the warm bubble bath Ma prepares before school).
        Where distant bells ringing from up the valley brought the news of advent travellers.
          Where flights of birds flying towards north showed him his way homewards, when the sun went down.


A house built of stone.
Wooden floors, wooden table-tops and fireplace.
An old armchair.
A bare window-sill essentially unadorned.
But for an old flower-vase, a few wild flowers clumsily tossed into it with prying hands.

A gigantic tree as ancient as Dadai, lonesome, 
Stands in a nook,
It's bare arms outstretched towards heaven.





                                              -------------------------------------------------





"What's this, Rio?" the little girl in red asked, bent over the queer shaped kite.

"A dragon, Tatin. That's a red dragon. A red, angry dragon." the little man in blue smiled through a gaping hole in front of his mouth.

"Can i help you draw the eyes out?" Tatin grins innocently, revealing her missing buck tooth.

She sat beside him.

"I  want to help you. For i think you are my friend". 

"Your friend?"  Rio's quetion drifted across the clouds which had stayed behind to eavesdrop on  their conversation.

"Why, Mum told me anyone who has been visited by the Tooth fairy is my friend!"  her eyes danced in glee.

"Come, hold my crayons for me.
Hand me the ones I ask for."  Rio shifted to make place for her.





Red stacked against the blue.
The blind spot conquered the red.
Two beady eyes gazed at hands clapsed over laughing mouths.
Prying fingers pull open the red ribbons and laugh out in amazement.
Little fingers flung out the blue cap out of reach, laughing out in glee, starlight in her eyes.

Red and blue crayons, sprained and bent, rolled out of their way.
Pink and yellow, lay still, cold, their hues fading fast into a powdery nothingness.
Colours curled around where they sat, losing their colour.





                                          -------------------------------------------------------






Sweat gathered on his eyebrows. 
This was not how it was meant to be.




The string, he intertwined around his finger, before drifting of to the land of his Dreams.
The red kite soar high against the blue expanse.
Crayons ringa-ringa-rosed around them, red and blue, staring wide-eyed at their kite.




The string felt taut. The white turned red against his fingers. 
He frowned.




The red against the blue. Free. Light. The negation of gravity.
He moves in his sleep. Turns around.
Little fingers tighten it's grip around the string.
He evenly breathes against the pillow.




Bird fly across the sunlit vista. 
It's almost dusk.
Time for Rio to pack up.

Time for Ma to call him in.
But Ma is late today.




The dew brushes against the pairs of feet. 
The red frock dragged itself along the bushel of edelweiss.
The little toes followed the sky, now adorned in a bit of red.
The pairs of eager eyes looked up at their creation, together, as it floathed by a flock of birds.
The little man in blue sighed in his sleep as little hands clasped each other in elation.




No, it just won't fly. I made it wrong, thought Rio. 

"Rio, run down, kid!" Ma call out.


Evening settles down on hills like dust on an old, creaking armchair.

Two beady eyes watched through hapless tears.
Eyelashes flickered. Nostril twitched to stop it from running.

"Rio, won't you say your goodbyes?
Where are your manners?"   Ma rebukes.



Feet scurry down the valley, breathless, and stop before the red car.


Two prying hands pass down the beady eyed dragon to the girl in red in the big, red car.


Mist invades their space.
Eyes red, watch watching eyes.
Big hands arrest the little man in blue.



Prying fingers wave behind the dust left back.






                                            -------------------------------------------------------







At supper, Ma tells Baba, "Tatin was a quite kid. Good company to our Rio, right?
The only one of his age in the neighbouhood."

Baba absent-mindedly replies "Yeah, but you know how it is with the Army. You keep getting transferred all over the country. Quite the rolling stone, you have to become, that way."



Rio turned quiet too.






He retreated back to his world.
He resorted to his counting stars.
Teary eyes complained to the starlight people.

Little eyes looked down at the prying fingers under the moonlight.



Crushed red powder stared back at drooping eyelids from between broken nails.





                                        -----------------------------------------------------------







Epilogue: 
In every aircraft
In every camera
There's a wish that
Wasn't granted

What was that for?
What was that for?

[ "Take me somewhere nice" by Mogwai ]