Works of RK

As you step into a river in spate Remember The river is not angry with you But, you would never know The mountains that caught the rain The riverines that flooded over The villages that caved in Before you decided To step into A river In spate. Frank Cornfield Photography The river My dear Is not your enemy It is not your friend either It is just that An angry moment in your time.

When we were children, we would sleep in one large bed, I, my Sis, and my cousins. The house in the village was ancient. When it rained, the tiled roof would start a slow Tibetan throat song and lull us to sleep. But what stands out is not the rains on tiled roofs.  Etched in our little minds was a night when we heard a Cat Mother mourning her dead kitten. In the dark of the night, she created stories in her mind of her lost child and cried. She would sulk and wail and talk and curse and cry. I could hear her over the noise of the falling rains. I could feel her heart wrenching sadness falling like rain.  Sadness is not a Human quality. To feel pain is universal.  I think sadness is the soup upon which the reality of life floats. It is the salt in our otherwise unremarkable blip of an existence.  An appalling apology of a story! The artwork is by Ankita Swaroopa (Mystique Sunshine) titled: Self Hug.

As long stretches of empty cranes stood waiting, for the last of the Ganesha's to bid adieu, I felt my eyes welling up from a sadness that was not mine. How the stories encoded in my genes have a life of their own will forever remain a mystery to me. I do not fight it, I do not disown it, and I am not enslaved by it.  We will live in harmony, until Dussehera .  Then again, the celestial tales from ancient myths will come thundering down upon this ancient land. As electrons entangled through endless time and space, we will spin with abandon, as our creators spin within us.

A stud of hers had fallen And lost itself in some dark corner Of my other wise very clean room Raj! She screamed There is broken glass in there. She was bleeding A lustrous post office red.  I am sorry baby I am unaware  Of shards of broken glasses Hiding in my dark places And hurting Those who come searching there.  You are my light baby Shine on.

She would not love me Ever Like I loved her. There is a difference being a river And a lake. I would flow into her with a rush Often, breaching banks And she would wait for me Behind the stark tapestry Of brown buildings And soot infested skylines Behind the charade of city living And the grey hush From carpeted office floors Behind the ever grinning insta posts  And the harangue of the tweets Like a lake She would wait for me To fill her emptiness In odd seasons Of random loneliness. ----------------- maestitia stands for, among other things,  heartsore in latin. Image courtsey pinterest

If I could string together What is now broken and lies uncared I would wipe the dust off our faces And help rediscover the music That we lost Traveling Through the hinterlands of our vast Untamed minds.   The title is in memory of Kim Sowol, Korean Poet

I was sitting by my window and watching the darkening of the horizon. It was only 5 in the evening, but it looked closer to 7. I could see an ant like hurry among the poor returning home. Those who had cycles leaned into the wind and pedalled faster and those who were plodding home, hastened their steps. There was the smell of sulphur from the lightings and petrichor from the surroundings. Somewhere, it was already raining.  She called me just then. Ever since she decided to get married again, she would call me more often. As if the joy of being a missus was raging a war within her with the golden shackles that it comes with. R2 (she called me that), it’s raining here. I so absolutely love the rains. Imagine, it is raining in midsummer! I am going on a drive with Roohi (her daughter). It will be awesome na? I looked out of the window. The first few drops from large drizzles had started hitting my windowpanes. My weather wane with bells by the window had started ringing in...