Witching Hours...

Of nights

moving ever so slowly

with the temerity - unyielding,

relentless - of a persecutor.

clemency overruled;

futility stamped hard;

yet vain expectation, never fails

making a virtue of necessity

endurance at the end of tethers.

Patience yielding,

paving way.

solicitude steps in...

spare me the agony

never,never shall I stray again.

P.S. - courtesy Roget's Thesaurus

letting it go...

What were you worth?

Ah! nothing.

Just a few wet pillows,and wiles

some inconscious, other indulgent smiles.

All those fleeting hours, and late(s)

and some more of excruciating waits.

A festive season's - lone winter interlude'

and some years of endless solitude.

Some have to/wouldbetelling yous

and day's idle thoughts, facial hues.

'My' stray words without a rhyme

a passing wind's unforgettable chime.

Done.

Then she opened her fist.It wasn't tightly clutched but ever so lightly, just covered...she was wary of wrinkling the thing.She looked at it and smiled; wouldn't let wind do it(unh huh!).She took it among her fingers and blew the feather away.

"Is it easy to give away dreams?"

"Yes" said Comfort.

"Yes" said Deligence.

"Yes" said Action.

"Yes" said Convention.

A small almost inaudible "no".

Who did he listen to?

I know not.

He just hoped, hoped against all odds.

Hope being the only thing allowed to him.

“Look not thou on beauty’s charming,
Sit thou still when kings are arming,
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,
Speak not when the people listens,
Stop thine ear against the singer,
From the red gold keep thy finger,
Vacant heart, and hand, and eye,
Easy live and quiet die.”

- Lucy Ashton’s song, in the “Bride of Lammermoor”, by Sir Walter Scott

There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction:
One which simply disturbs, unsettles, and makes you uneasy,
And another that poises, retains, and fixes and holds you.
I have no doubt, for myself, in giving my voice for the latter.
I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing,
There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished.
I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action
Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious,
Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process;
We are so prone to these things, with our terrible notions of duty.

- Amours de Voyage, by Arthur Hugh Clough

Joy and sorrow - both multiply on sharing.

October smells...

Returning late that night, when the chilly wind swept past me, sending along a sudden gush of shivers and goosebumps - something seemed vaguely familiar - I instinctively hugged myself... and my mind registered the chill and the arrival of October at the same moment.

October smells of fog-its sudden onslaught-like draping a cloud of white pollen... engulfing everything coming along its way.Purifying Earth.

October smells of dew drenched grasses-short and tall-raining on ur feet and splashing minuscule droplets on your bare arms as you cross the fields.

October smells of the heavenly gangasiuli(Nyctanthes). Moon's answer to sun's parade of lovers.The flower blossoms at night and drops when the first rays of dawn touch it.Ephemeral.

And its smell-well,nature offers a treat to our olfactory senses!You take on long breaths, as if you want to take it with you.You stay there till you start feeling dizzy...till it fills ur every cell and then when you walk along, there's a sense of contentment.

October smells of lit earthen diyas mingled with magnesium phosphorous smoke.

October smells of kasatandi flower.Long stemmed with thick white inflorescence-playing along,swaying along with wind as if imploring it to take them along with.

And reigns over all,is the october moon.With Kumar Purnima round the corner,when it shines with full vigour and youth.Grandma says its the biggest moon of the year-its aura stretching and spreading itself to limits.Its beautiful.

Maybe it owes its beauty to its background to some extent.October gives us a clear sky.A painter's sky.It is sheer joy watching sunlight playing with water droplets-creating, inventing new colours.A clear nursery blue.A calm orange hue.Cloudless,unperturbed sky...

October-serene, tranquil, placid...

"The world may be full of misery and delusion, it may not give a tithe of what we ask, it may offer hatred instead of love-dissapointment, wretchedness, triviality, and heaven knows what; but there is one thing which compensates for all the rest,that takes away the merry-go-round from a sordid show, and gives it a meaning, a solemnity, and a magnificence, which makes it worthwhile to live.And for that one thing all we suffer is richly overpaid.

'And what the dickens is that?' asked Frank, smiling.

Miss Ley looked at him with laughing eyes,holding out the roses, her cheeks flushed.

'Why, beauty, you dolt!'she cried gaily. 'Beauty' "

-The merry-go-round by W.S.Maugham

lazy guilty days.
lonely guiltier nights.
need to face,need to evade.
chaos within me,created by me.
hope ebbing, and ebbing.
can't start/create from pieces-it wouldn't be perfect.
utter futility of all.
loosing integrity(or perhaps never had)
procrastination's ever-strengthening hold.
giving in to whims.
depraved.

Who's the most depraved of all?
"The man who knows everything but stops just short of acting."
Period.

of Past...

"The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar."


"The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over, they propose to continue it."

-The Picture of Dorian Gray

Why is it that we cling to the past,though its long gone.
Why is it that the dreams of future are nothing but a vague hope of reliving the past?
Maybe 'cos at least it was real...no,just a part of it was real,some characters were real.With passing time we added words,colours,emotions to it making out of it a Memory-to be relived again and again.Ah,such fools!
Maybe it makes present a bit more easier.
Maybe it's a consolation to ourselves that we were not devoid of a good time.

The past...I've added so many whatiwanted that I'm unable to distinguish now between real and imagination.what exactly had happened.How much of it was true.
At times I want to free myself of their clutches.
Yet at other,it's as if they are the only thing I have and I hold on to it possessively.

Like English ma'm always asks me,"You remember,Preema?"
And I instinctively repeat the line - the one she reminds me time and again:

"We look before and after and pine for what is not..."

-Shelley

The long wait

Then

It was past 11 at night when she entered into her bedroom.There was, at the writing table, a single rose - long stemmed,thorns removed.She never wanted the thorns removed.He always did.It was her anniversary.9 long years.

A perfunctory wish in the morning.She had gotten him a tie.
And then she was preoccupied the whole day-with her daily chores,with her classes.
Evening was as usual filled with helping manna out-her exams are going on.Excuses...

He had slipped from her mind-till now.

She felt guilty, yet angry that she should...that he made her feel guilty.She had the flower in her hand.She held it to her face...a deep breath...Her eyelids drooped on their own accord.She felt the fragrance surrounding her.She stood like that for some time. And her lips curled into a smile."love you,too".She said to herself.She squeezed open her eyelids, and then went to lie by his side.

It was dark.She never liked bed lamps/zero power bulbs.She didn't have one in her bedroom.She was lying to his right.She slipped her left palm into his and subconsciously their fingers intertwined.Her thumb was moving over his,gently.She knew he wasn't asleep.He gave her palm a squeeze...acknowledging her?

She started...aware that he would be listening to her every word.

"I'll be gone for long-a really long time.I shan't give you any reason,neither any discourse on demands of my work, my duty, cos its nothing.Maybe it's just the course of life."

She paused.It was an effort for her to continue.She was defending herself.

"I'm still the same,kshit.*sigh*.Maybe my priorities have changed-something I can't help."

She didn't want to explain...no,it was becoming too tedious a job.But she had to say him this,say it now.She owed it to him.

"I'll come back Kshit. I know this-and it's to you I'll come back.And then there won't be anyone else.We'll have time,and we'll have just each other.Till then,kshit."

"Hmm?"

He turned around,put an arm over her...

And she knew he'll be there.He always was.

Now

He put aside his dentures.And then walked outside.

She was sitting on the swing at the patio.

He knew she'd come back.He had waited all these years when she had been a daughter-to her parents and his, a teacher to all those numerous kids, a mother to his manna... and heaven knows what all relationships/duties she had assigned herself.

She was free at last.She was his.

He went and joined her.

"Watch for me by moonlight,
Wait for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight,
Though hell should bar the way."

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

Had this one in 9th class.Guess it hadn't evoked the same sentiment as it did last night when I stumbled across it.