Works of RK

Over the years Across thunderstorms I have grown to fall in love With all the lightnings  That lit my broody skies And fear the thunder  That reminds Constantly Of what I survived.

Why do roots stay alive long after the tree is gone?  When the little one asked this to me, I was busy clawing and pulling and hacking at an old stump in the garden. I looked around and sighed. All the hard weeds all around the garden were fathered by this one tree.  Wherever its roots went, it spawned stories that entrenched itself like fables and myths.  Looking back,  I think it would have been easier living with her Than dying everyday,  fighting her memories  Spawning all over Like weeds in an eternally damaged garden.

The stories that my mind weaves  For me to hold on to memories of you Are finely spun silken strands of time Crisscrossing through the ups and the downs Of our tumultuous universe. Here I find a wormhole and claw back to where we first met and there the gravity from a distant star Bounces me off the make believe ride And I lose you again It is not unlike a revolving door That opens And closes Into a room full of you.

It was her idea to visit the seashore. She rarely asks anything of me. At the break of dawn we were near the Jetty. Not many peop le around at this time. I looked at her closely as she looked at the waves splashing on to the wooden decks. There was the smell of dead and drying fish, and barnacles, and burnt diesel from the boats. I looked at her for a long while, expecting that she would say something to bridge the divide. Nothing. An hour later, when the crowd of morning walkers started increasing, I asked her: Shall we go? . A nod from her and we were back on the road. As I dropped her home, I looked at the house, the street, the gate with the postbox and the hedges and the weeds once more. I knew that if there is a next time, it will be a long time later.   You don't fall in love with the sea There is nothing from these shores That can fill her longing for the Oceans      

20 Indian Soldiers martyred in border skirmish China reports casualties too (Big relief) For our Sons who died We killed too Cameras to be fitted in Covid Hospital Wards Says the Home Minister Now we can record the dying Sleeping with the dead Migrants should be transported back home Within 15 days Rules the Hon' Supreme Court, (Only) 75 days after the lockdown Was first imposed Sushant Singh Rajput hangs himself He was 34 Who are you to call us lunatics Asks Kangna in her Whatsapp post Chennai count of deaths double Clerical error blamed Maharashtra deaths may double A clerk is being identified So that he or she may be blamed Why is Telangana not testing Asks a bewildered High Court Bodies of two dead persons missing Family seeking answers And the State Home Minister says These are difficult times Such things happen Next time, we will paste photos over the dead bodies That way you can take a selfie And pray that the one inside Is your dad Or your brother Or the beggar Who died of ...

The day is getting shorter  The nights, longer.  Tired from all the shining All season long The Sun slowly gives way To the waiting Stars in the sky.  I can see so many more of them  The new ones Of the old ones Who did not have time enough  For their final goodbyes.  ----- In memory of the elderly who passed away during these pandemic times. Image © Jonathan McHugh 2020

I look around and I see all my known acquaintances busy as an ant. I think they live in a different dimension. I think I am plugged into the wrong nodes of the universe. The blind beggar woman who lived in Bolaram Bazaar is probably dead. It was only the other day that I picked her up from the middle of the road and gave her some water. There were so many people around her. No one came. I asked a bystander who was cuddling his dog what had happened? She just fell down, she is probably dead, he said. I was on my morning walk that day, and on the way to the park I had seen the woman begging into thin air. On my return, as if by some invisible force, I was driven to the bazaar road. Like all the educated crowd, I absolutely stay away from busy places for the fear of catching the Virus (Covid19). But it was almost as if I knew that something had happened to her. And there she was, lying bang in the middle of the road, with scores of people simply looking at her still body. As if it w...