Carlos Santana has covered rock classics in his latest album Guitar Heaven. Here, along with India.Arie and Yo-Yo Ma, he covers, what in my opinion is the greatest song of them all.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Arrival
The first word is written with great trepidation, as if a wrong word might sicken the paper. Despite innumerous tries, you never are sure. The paper registers whatever you write - an axiom you fail to grasp. Sometimes the words blot, causing the ink to drift towards an untraceable drain.
The second word is written with greater composure. The assurance that the mute paper provides - Thou shall not be spit at - spurs you to write more.
The third and the fourth words are written with an ease that causes you to pause and review the words. Something is wrong. You stop now and ponder. The pen is no more held by the fingers of your left hand. The paper looks at you in askance. Write more, it seems to implore. But all you do is to crumple it and fling it over your head.
---
Walk.
Puddles perceptibly dot the streets and hold the light from the lamps along the road. They are almost in a straight line, a discipline that seems alien yet local to the surroundings. Slush of the brown non snow variety; the cloth bits heaped outside the tailor's; the stink from the just emptied green bins, the refuse gorged by the bin truck moving away, its sides dripping liquid waste; the flower stalls, their owners spinning and readying garlands of rose, jevanthi and jasmine, flowers whose fragrance are a great antidote to the stink of the aforementioned truck, flowers which seem bathed and fresh and willing to be woven over a string, at such a feverish pace that you feel invigorated, despite the odd hours, despite the fact that you are returning from work; the curvy bits of tomatoes and onions that seem to stream from the chop worked by the steady hand of the bakery help; the watchman outside the ATM whose snore is as content as that of a man disdainful of the money held within the machine; the attendant asleep on the bench under the awning of a 24 hour clinic, the green curtain outside the doctor's cabin buffeted by the air from the table fan beside the empty chair of the doctor.
You turn left, clamber up the stairs of a house you often hesitate to call your home, change to your night clothes and try and fall asleep as the sun is dutifully awakened by the rooster's call.
---
She threatens to slip from your dreams onto your reality through the tiny sliver that memories and hope tear open.
---
The second word is written with greater composure. The assurance that the mute paper provides - Thou shall not be spit at - spurs you to write more.
The third and the fourth words are written with an ease that causes you to pause and review the words. Something is wrong. You stop now and ponder. The pen is no more held by the fingers of your left hand. The paper looks at you in askance. Write more, it seems to implore. But all you do is to crumple it and fling it over your head.
---
Walk.
Puddles perceptibly dot the streets and hold the light from the lamps along the road. They are almost in a straight line, a discipline that seems alien yet local to the surroundings. Slush of the brown non snow variety; the cloth bits heaped outside the tailor's; the stink from the just emptied green bins, the refuse gorged by the bin truck moving away, its sides dripping liquid waste; the flower stalls, their owners spinning and readying garlands of rose, jevanthi and jasmine, flowers whose fragrance are a great antidote to the stink of the aforementioned truck, flowers which seem bathed and fresh and willing to be woven over a string, at such a feverish pace that you feel invigorated, despite the odd hours, despite the fact that you are returning from work; the curvy bits of tomatoes and onions that seem to stream from the chop worked by the steady hand of the bakery help; the watchman outside the ATM whose snore is as content as that of a man disdainful of the money held within the machine; the attendant asleep on the bench under the awning of a 24 hour clinic, the green curtain outside the doctor's cabin buffeted by the air from the table fan beside the empty chair of the doctor.
You turn left, clamber up the stairs of a house you often hesitate to call your home, change to your night clothes and try and fall asleep as the sun is dutifully awakened by the rooster's call.
---
She threatens to slip from your dreams onto your reality through the tiny sliver that memories and hope tear open.
---
Friday, August 20, 2010
Irresolution
[The entry for this week's 3WW prompt. Thanks to Teal for helping out with the editing]
---
Everywhere, I see shapes grimace
into punctuation marks.
Tear shaped pauses I spot here:
raised ones curving along the spines of dogs asleep on the road;
inverted ones drifting along the cheeks of
a four year old.
Full, solid stops a few are - fraying at the edges,
disintegrating;
wrinkling, white surfaces console
me on a bright night;
singed ones,
letting out phantasmal shapes in the dark,
offer quick fixes.
Sidebar legend:
lemon green marks strangers;
ashen ones hide those we seek.
---
Today, I misread the print:
'the universe likes to grow forever';
grow into what I ask ?
---
Here, we await a punctuation
at the corners,
stumbling towards it
in the made up darkness of our streets,
ready to believe tombstones will
hold us up to light,
phase out the wrecks in us at last,
and relieve us of our monochromatic breath.
But surprised we are, when our
souls boomerang to life after death.
---
---
Everywhere, I see shapes grimace
into punctuation marks.
Tear shaped pauses I spot here:
raised ones curving along the spines of dogs asleep on the road;
inverted ones drifting along the cheeks of
a four year old.
Full, solid stops a few are - fraying at the edges,
disintegrating;
wrinkling, white surfaces console
me on a bright night;
singed ones,
letting out phantasmal shapes in the dark,
offer quick fixes.
Sidebar legend:
lemon green marks strangers;
ashen ones hide those we seek.
---
Today, I misread the print:
'the universe likes to grow forever';
grow into what I ask ?
---
Here, we await a punctuation
at the corners,
stumbling towards it
in the made up darkness of our streets,
ready to believe tombstones will
hold us up to light,
phase out the wrecks in us at last,
and relieve us of our monochromatic breath.
But surprised we are, when our
souls boomerang to life after death.
---
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Ka
Your name is Ka. Literature abounds with your namesakes. You are named by your father in his only ever moment of inspiration . We all came out of Gogol's overcoat- a sedate Irfan Khan explains to a baffled Kal Penn the rationale behind his name in that movie. Your father doesn't bother you with an explanation. You find that out yourself.
You step into a school just as the first shower of June sweeps the city. Your rain coat forgotten, you are drenched when you step into your class. My name is Ka, you introduce yourself to your fellow classmates. They laugh at you as only your classmates ever can. You are not adroit enough to handle it and break down. More laughter booms through the class. Even the rain stops and greets you with a hearty roar of its own.
Why is he named Ka?
He is such a bore that his parents forgot to name him fully.
Why is he named Ka?
One of his ancestors is a crow.
And so on.
Their cruelty doesn't deter you from being cruel to Vidya.
Vidya is fat. Takes after her mother. A shade fatter that is all. But fat nonetheless.
You taunt her. Call her a cylinder. She never breaks down. She fusses over you. You have too chubby cheeks to be taken seriously, she says. You do not understand. You stand in front of the mirror and try and pinch your cheeks but the pair never come off.
She has chubby cheeks too. Ever frozen ice cubes lodged at the far corner of your cheeks, you remark to her one day. She doesn't like them and asks you to help. You think of melting them. Eureka! She obliges. You drink your glass of milk and go through the plan with your mother during breakfast. Your mother stops you from proceeding further. A few terse words and slaps do the trick.
Vidya is sad.
She has curly hair. A pair flank her forehead, undulating along her temples. She wants them removed or straightened. You suggest creasing them. You spot the electric iron unattended to at a corner of your father's room. She obliges. You plug it in and fiddle with the panel on it. Cotton, Linen, Wool. There is no mention of hair. You ask her. The two of you decide on linen. Line-n, you pronounce it. The light on the iron blinks on even as your mother rushes into the room and grabs the iron from you. Slaps. She cries because she is sad.
Your father predicts you will be a writer. A writer of lofty ideals and immense ability. You do not understand the words. You impress your English teacher and very soon, you become her favourite. You do not bother to learn other subjects and sneer at them. The rest of your class learn to ignore you. You survive class only because Vidya is your bench mate. You like her. She likes you. 1=1. 2=2. Your class 5 life is filled with such simple equations.
You learn to love English. Shakespeare greets you in the morning, Tagore walks with you to school and at night, Twain reads as you drift to sleep. You talk in aphorisms and wonder why sonnets cannot have more than fourteen lines. You learn to be spare with words. Your teachers concede that you have talent. Your father is happy. You too are. Vidya jumps with joy.
Not so far in the future, you walk home alone one day, your school bag slung over your shoulders and your shoes held in your left hand by the pair of laces. Your mother waits outside your house. You shove the shoes under the shoe stand by the door and drop the bag on the sofa.
You lock the front door as your mother kick starts the scooter.
Your mother paces a ground floor corridor as you try to resolve the meaning of the giant red cross staring at you from the wall opposite. There is a door next to it, opaque glass save for a transparent perforation right in the middle; a view hole you try hard to jump and look through. Cold air greets you from the underside of the door. Does it contain the breath of someone dying?
Your mother leads you into the room. Vidya is lain on the bed. White tubes run across her, dipping in and out of her body. You spot a bag filled with a yellow liquid strapped to the side of her bed. You run out and retch into the basin outside the room. Your mother is crying. So is her father. She beckons you to come nearer to her. Your mother prods you to hold her hand. You are too shaken to react. You run your frigid, feeble fingers over her forehead and start to bawl. She smiles. She points at the curls alongside her temples. You hold and try to straighten them. She winks at you. You smile through your tears.
You walk out of the room along with your mother. The door is closed behind you. You jump to look at her through the view hole. Your mother wipes her tears and lifts you so that you can look at her.
You spot each other and grin.
You do not write a word after that.
You step into a school just as the first shower of June sweeps the city. Your rain coat forgotten, you are drenched when you step into your class. My name is Ka, you introduce yourself to your fellow classmates. They laugh at you as only your classmates ever can. You are not adroit enough to handle it and break down. More laughter booms through the class. Even the rain stops and greets you with a hearty roar of its own.
Why is he named Ka?
He is such a bore that his parents forgot to name him fully.
Why is he named Ka?
One of his ancestors is a crow.
And so on.
Their cruelty doesn't deter you from being cruel to Vidya.
Vidya is fat. Takes after her mother. A shade fatter that is all. But fat nonetheless.
You taunt her. Call her a cylinder. She never breaks down. She fusses over you. You have too chubby cheeks to be taken seriously, she says. You do not understand. You stand in front of the mirror and try and pinch your cheeks but the pair never come off.
She has chubby cheeks too. Ever frozen ice cubes lodged at the far corner of your cheeks, you remark to her one day. She doesn't like them and asks you to help. You think of melting them. Eureka! She obliges. You drink your glass of milk and go through the plan with your mother during breakfast. Your mother stops you from proceeding further. A few terse words and slaps do the trick.
Vidya is sad.
She has curly hair. A pair flank her forehead, undulating along her temples. She wants them removed or straightened. You suggest creasing them. You spot the electric iron unattended to at a corner of your father's room. She obliges. You plug it in and fiddle with the panel on it. Cotton, Linen, Wool. There is no mention of hair. You ask her. The two of you decide on linen. Line-n, you pronounce it. The light on the iron blinks on even as your mother rushes into the room and grabs the iron from you. Slaps. She cries because she is sad.
Your father predicts you will be a writer. A writer of lofty ideals and immense ability. You do not understand the words. You impress your English teacher and very soon, you become her favourite. You do not bother to learn other subjects and sneer at them. The rest of your class learn to ignore you. You survive class only because Vidya is your bench mate. You like her. She likes you. 1=1. 2=2. Your class 5 life is filled with such simple equations.
You learn to love English. Shakespeare greets you in the morning, Tagore walks with you to school and at night, Twain reads as you drift to sleep. You talk in aphorisms and wonder why sonnets cannot have more than fourteen lines. You learn to be spare with words. Your teachers concede that you have talent. Your father is happy. You too are. Vidya jumps with joy.
Not so far in the future, you walk home alone one day, your school bag slung over your shoulders and your shoes held in your left hand by the pair of laces. Your mother waits outside your house. You shove the shoes under the shoe stand by the door and drop the bag on the sofa.
You lock the front door as your mother kick starts the scooter.
Your mother paces a ground floor corridor as you try to resolve the meaning of the giant red cross staring at you from the wall opposite. There is a door next to it, opaque glass save for a transparent perforation right in the middle; a view hole you try hard to jump and look through. Cold air greets you from the underside of the door. Does it contain the breath of someone dying?
Your mother leads you into the room. Vidya is lain on the bed. White tubes run across her, dipping in and out of her body. You spot a bag filled with a yellow liquid strapped to the side of her bed. You run out and retch into the basin outside the room. Your mother is crying. So is her father. She beckons you to come nearer to her. Your mother prods you to hold her hand. You are too shaken to react. You run your frigid, feeble fingers over her forehead and start to bawl. She smiles. She points at the curls alongside her temples. You hold and try to straighten them. She winks at you. You smile through your tears.
You walk out of the room along with your mother. The door is closed behind you. You jump to look at her through the view hole. Your mother wipes her tears and lifts you so that you can look at her.
You spot each other and grin.
You do not write a word after that.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Prelude
[My entry for this week's 3WW prompt]
---
What could arise out of a simple question asked of a stranger, a question fielded about an address on a rumpled piece of paper, a question put forward by a woman while walking along a footpath covered with leaves led dither by the busy wind? A revelation? Or a bait?
The man walked around the bin capsized just to his right, its content strewn out of its mouth and out across the sand, the stench unbearable but forgettable by habit. He jumped over the plastic bag that had flown the farthest, the few paper packets of stale food contained within interesting the limp and rabid dog presently hopping over milk crates - upturned and blue in colour, the blue of vivacity- the crates equidistant, consecutives just far enough for a human leg to stretch and reach, an arrangement necessitated by the pool of water left behind by the previous night's half an hour rain.
They met.
He was asked the address. Turn left and the fourth shop from the... There lay the dilemma. She mustn't be told.
Friday dressing for him consisted of a pair of jean torn at the right ankle, only there and an yellow t-shirt hurriedly washed the previous night and left to face the heat of an early morning sun. He didn't bother to press them. He was to wear the work overalls at the factory and for the journey on the footboard of the bus, with one leg of his hovering over the road and the fingers of his right hand barely grasping the cold rails of the window nearest to the door, this worked.
She knew the days but their occurrence had lost their significance long ago. Only one thing mattered: the recurrence of the date on which the most singular event of her life had taken place. 72 hours separated her from that day.
There goes an educated man. One who would bother to pause and answer. Surely!
He did.
He read the address on the sheet of paper, its letters black and all in capital, shy, spaced out far enough to indicate a writer unsure of her own literacy, blurred by the sweat that had leaked from the afore held hand. The address was familiar to him. He held the paper with his left hand as his right hand unconvincingly drew a map of the route from their station to the place quested after as he explained the same to her. She wasn't to understand.
The statue at the centre of the square...whose statue was it? He had forgotten. Shiny. Silver? Bald. A true leader. No spectacles worn. Was there a beard? The pose and poise of a masterly orator perfectly captured. A hand fused to the hip and the other grasping the sides of an invisible lectern. His pose in his final photo? Just before the bullet had silenced him. But who was he and why, despite passing by it twice every day, did his name escape him at this moment? Why did it seem so important?
As the route was being explained, time stood by her for a moment, allowing her thoughts to take over and tangle themselves up as she appraised the person standing before her. An apparition of her seemed to queue up beside time and appraise him too, as if the distance and relative solitude mattered and could offer a different perspective. The past of a stranger-how much could be deduced from the first meeting? It mattered, the accuracy of this deduction, for she knew that the future with him could either be spent happily affirming positives or whining about the negatives.
The statue and its name were temporarily forgotten. Instead, he asked her to take a left, a right and then the third right and then...
She shook her head and made to grasp the paper.
The fourth store from the...
the?
...the liquor store.
A sense of propriety had prevented him from land-marking the liquor store. Poor man!
She smiled and thanked him.
He would be there. The man to whom she was tethered. The dog was busy with the stale food.
He hesitated before returning the smile.
Next moment, one of them moved away. The victim was left behind with the dog.
---
---
What could arise out of a simple question asked of a stranger, a question fielded about an address on a rumpled piece of paper, a question put forward by a woman while walking along a footpath covered with leaves led dither by the busy wind? A revelation? Or a bait?
The man walked around the bin capsized just to his right, its content strewn out of its mouth and out across the sand, the stench unbearable but forgettable by habit. He jumped over the plastic bag that had flown the farthest, the few paper packets of stale food contained within interesting the limp and rabid dog presently hopping over milk crates - upturned and blue in colour, the blue of vivacity- the crates equidistant, consecutives just far enough for a human leg to stretch and reach, an arrangement necessitated by the pool of water left behind by the previous night's half an hour rain.
They met.
He was asked the address. Turn left and the fourth shop from the... There lay the dilemma. She mustn't be told.
Friday dressing for him consisted of a pair of jean torn at the right ankle, only there and an yellow t-shirt hurriedly washed the previous night and left to face the heat of an early morning sun. He didn't bother to press them. He was to wear the work overalls at the factory and for the journey on the footboard of the bus, with one leg of his hovering over the road and the fingers of his right hand barely grasping the cold rails of the window nearest to the door, this worked.
She knew the days but their occurrence had lost their significance long ago. Only one thing mattered: the recurrence of the date on which the most singular event of her life had taken place. 72 hours separated her from that day.
There goes an educated man. One who would bother to pause and answer. Surely!
He did.
He read the address on the sheet of paper, its letters black and all in capital, shy, spaced out far enough to indicate a writer unsure of her own literacy, blurred by the sweat that had leaked from the afore held hand. The address was familiar to him. He held the paper with his left hand as his right hand unconvincingly drew a map of the route from their station to the place quested after as he explained the same to her. She wasn't to understand.
The statue at the centre of the square...whose statue was it? He had forgotten. Shiny. Silver? Bald. A true leader. No spectacles worn. Was there a beard? The pose and poise of a masterly orator perfectly captured. A hand fused to the hip and the other grasping the sides of an invisible lectern. His pose in his final photo? Just before the bullet had silenced him. But who was he and why, despite passing by it twice every day, did his name escape him at this moment? Why did it seem so important?
As the route was being explained, time stood by her for a moment, allowing her thoughts to take over and tangle themselves up as she appraised the person standing before her. An apparition of her seemed to queue up beside time and appraise him too, as if the distance and relative solitude mattered and could offer a different perspective. The past of a stranger-how much could be deduced from the first meeting? It mattered, the accuracy of this deduction, for she knew that the future with him could either be spent happily affirming positives or whining about the negatives.
The statue and its name were temporarily forgotten. Instead, he asked her to take a left, a right and then the third right and then...
She shook her head and made to grasp the paper.
The fourth store from the...
the?
...the liquor store.
A sense of propriety had prevented him from land-marking the liquor store. Poor man!
She smiled and thanked him.
He would be there. The man to whom she was tethered. The dog was busy with the stale food.
He hesitated before returning the smile.
Next moment, one of them moved away. The victim was left behind with the dog.
---
Saturday, July 10, 2010
War
A bit of a delay. This is the 3WW entry for the previous week's prompt.
Forsaken limbs' trial
in the infernal;sculpted
praise-gentle or vulgar?
Forsaken limbs' trial
in the infernal;sculpted
praise-gentle or vulgar?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Let them be
From the footsteps of a bus,
the polymath proclaims:
Never erase those flashes of thoughts
that flicker in your mind.
Come rain or sun, like
hays from the meadows,
spread them out to shine.
Let them be and foment.
Free the reins and let loose the anarchy of chance.
In time, the traces left will coalesce
and ideas will arise from the subliminal trance.
the polymath proclaims:
Never erase those flashes of thoughts
that flicker in your mind.
Come rain or sun, like
hays from the meadows,
spread them out to shine.
Let them be and foment.
Free the reins and let loose the anarchy of chance.
In time, the traces left will coalesce
and ideas will arise from the subliminal trance.
