—Love is a tender emotion that gently holds the eyes and the skin above it, and turns it towards delight, that every emotion that succeeds comes as a mild surprise. An island of unsurity and beauty. The
Thud. Geeta sprang from the well, she was washing the utensils. She sees him. Gentle lonely tears fill her eyes. Misty, hurting.
—Education hurts.
Ma. Please give me some food. I am hungry. Chintu does not want much attention. He has been bestowed an eternity of attention.
Slowly she gets up. All the love that a mother feels, all of it can not be peeled: Onions leave behind tears. Be calm.
Yes. Come and sit here. Suppressing her desire to hold him in her arms. Pour me your love, and make small bites of them. Children of birds that fly in our tender mouths. Signs of love. Sug’ga—maina.
Chintu slowly came and sat by her mother. Lightly touching her sari. She pours her love on a plate. His pain is lessened.
—Hurting faces can not chew,
“So plee-ee-ee-ee-ease,
Love me do.”
He devours the food, gulps it all down.
—The Chinese believe in chewing their food properly. It prolongs life. Ancient beliefs. Is there any food for our thoughts? There are guns now. Steel chambers of cold freedom.
—The darkness behind eternal light,
Just one shot,
Then a smile,
And let’s pass on the wine.
Take some more my love. She whispers. She does not want to wake his pain. Let them sleep. Recede to your labyrinth, you hounds of pain. Wolf cries of the night, don’t you return.
No ma, I am done. Want to sleep. He says with some difficulty. A cotton sponge forms in his throat.
—How many feelings must a child feel in a day? Even a man! Negligence, hatred, fear, hurt, and then eventually love—the cure. Does love cure anything? A crying heart? Maybe a weeping heart. I have seen love cure. It cures life, once it’s gone, because then there is no death, just the absence of life. Pure and simple swarming particles of darkness. Love can not be explained.
He picks himself up and walks toward the well. The trees are shocked. There is no breeze. Dancers halt in surprise. Shock.
—The noiseless well holds in its bosom
All the tears and fears it has welcome
Over the ages of raking silence.
Chintu understands the nature of things. In his innocence he is far wiser then we are with our morbid hypocrisies. He understands that there is a cry in the wind, in the wilderness, in his heart of hearts. There is a deep anchor that holds him to life—immovable be thy destiny; only pain and agony. Reasons why melancholic poetry is far more popular then poetry that is alive. We are living lumps of pain. He does not feel any form of hatred for his Master Ji, only a sense of dumb fear with no roots, no leaves. Just a trunk of fear hanging onto the nothingness of empty spaces.
—This is where I understand why childhood and old age are the most innocent years of mans life. My book of ‘My’ revelations. It so happens that when we are children we don’t know anything and hence everything is pure in its form, devoid of acid. The mind is immaculate and does not care about trivial vanities like war and glory. We are yet to learn the meaning of vile and hatred, though Freud says that we do have the Oedipus complex even at this age, but that is a sexual tendency of the animal called mankind. And given old age, we have already understood all that corrupts the world and being. We have all the knowledge on a whole and nothing seems worth it. It’s all all-right either this way or that. We have already realized that there is nothing that can make a productive difference. We weren’t born to be productive; by nature we are destructive animals (exceptions please be left alone). There is one cause and in turn one affect—life unto death. And this is that makes us children again, because we become ignorant of all that is considered our rights and freedom: all the excuses of power.
Baba go sleep. Late your papa will come. Her voice echoes from the kitchen. She can not bear the burden of his swollen sight. It is painful. Neither can
—That wonderful mother,
Her love she conceived from her womb.
Chintu takes slow gradual steps toward his room. Fear grabs him in the throat; what if he would not wake up on time? Some more swelling—he convinces himself. He does not seem to care. Fear has a tendency to exaggerate itself, to make puny of its carrier. It feeds like a virus, finishes and leaves. Until of course: anti-virus. Exaggeration: Its still afternoon. No more swelling for today. But in the grips of the fear even
—The Greeks were children. Wise men.
The room is lit brightly by the sun, and there is an abundant amount of stuffiness and heat. His shirt wet. The neat broken shelf on the wall and the broken Matka by the side of the room speak loud about the organization of the house. About Geeta. She would not get a job in a multinational. Do you know why? Not because she is unorganized. That could never be a reason. Because she does not have enough money to lie. To fake. The gems that are made by history are fake. Look behind the glitterati. Simplicity is despised, we crave for complications. We complicate things in our consciousness to evade the sense of truth. Truth defies death and horrifies life.
The sweet dusty smell of the walls enters his nose. Casually singing a lullaby. The lullaby of nature. He is amazed. There is a surprise. Sweet sleep. Where are the curtains?
A sweet dark cloud comes in at the right time, large enough to cool off the weather, small enough to not harm the crops. It moistens the floor of the house, making the bed softer. Nature the unpredictable. It does not need to be predicted. It moves with its heart. It listens to nothing but its heart. And we strange species have not yet learnt the ways of the heart; we were too busy mastering the cunning of the mind. The irony is we faltered there as well. Flying shamans of survival: water wiser then the soul: nature, nature, nature: swoon in its name: we can swim to other horizons: love in its bosom and winter in its eyes.
—Silver petals and seven unicorns
Gliding against the sky
To greet and uphold the promise of love
Sway gaily, fly bye.
Chintu swims toward a sweet painless void. Dense and dark. Geeta comes to the door to watch him sleep. Not daring to come inside. She would have to open the door, and that could raise the screaming wolves. She can not even touch him, a slight touch on the forehead—promise of eternal love. A kiss on the forehead—promise of eternal protection. She goes back to the well, to look into that dark abyss and wait for the whisper.
—Old wise whisperer
Protector of my love
Make sweet sleepy dreams
But this time nature does not whisper.
—In times of desperation nature becomes a spectacular listener: mute but not ignorant. Not torture—patient. The answer shall arrive, when time shall arrive. Nature has witnessed enough misinterpretations of untimely whispers: all the derelict heretics white robed crazed resurrection believers and their pages filled of unearthly vengeance, unleashed upon the innocence of the poor, dying and the dead. I despise the religion that man created. Shallow, short chains of disillusional freedom. I despise all those who preach the higher being, slaves and worshipers of torture. Capturers and turners of the pure. They should be hanged so that this world shall redefine power, redefine existence, redefine itself. So that we become men again. Not martyrs sucking the divine cock to get an easy entry into the kingdoms of lies. There is no heaven and no hell, no swarg! Why is it so damn tough to understand this simple fact? Why did Buddha die? Why did all the real men die?
He turns to his left. Agony. There is a small red spot: somewhere. It is disturbing him, running from one place to another. Faster. Faster. It grows to become redder floating on a black surface. Something starts to protrude from the spot, something with a thin end. The red spot becomes a stick. Red rotten teeth all over it. Marks of bites. The stick has jaws that open up and run toward him. He runs. There are walls on his sides. They narrow the road ahead. The distance is flooded. He hurts his left hand. Red glue flows from his side; hot as lava. He is burning. The jaws close in on him. He ducks and falls into a pit the size of a dream. He swims. His left hand is about to tear from his body. He can’t breathe. Scream! He tries but fails. There is no voice. He has lost his voice. His cheeks swell and cover his eyes, he can’t see anymore. His scream echoes from a distance, bounces from mountain tops. Himalayan mountains that he has seen in his books. Beauty that even his dreams can not properly construe. The scream gets louder. Louder.
The mud wall. Looking at him. Eyes open. His. The wolves howl as he rushes outside. Screams even harder then his dream. Hush, rush.
—O mighty well, O’ protector O’ preserver
Pour me your water in this metal swell
Pour me that solution that cures death
Brings back loved ones from deaths bed.
Pours a bucketful of water. And runs. Runs as fast as he can. Slams the door behind him. Runs because there would be no tomorrow. It is decided. This evening the sun shall recede beneath the horizon, never to return. We shall hence be ruled by the moon. Smiling, vampire’s smile, werewolf’s howl, silver dust to breathe. Only darkness hence. Solid round tragedy with blue feathers. His feet are tired, they ache. His neck hurts, his chest grieves. His eyes swell, his body turns red. Vapor comes out of his eyes, white smoke from a moving train. A thin streak down his cheek, from drops of mercury falling from his eyes. He becomes the run child.
There is nothing that is present except a path that he follows. His vision is dense and smoky, radiation from snow. Toppling white. There is a song in his ear. A song with rage and screams. He has to run faster to reach. He can not be late—too late.
—No wind to help him,
Not nature even pure,
Though he runs faster,
With his heart sore.
He leaves behind soft clouds of dust: butterfly brown clouds. Those legs they carry him to the field. Late? Scream! He can’t. There is no air, a bubble has burst in his lungs. Panting. Huff! Huff! Huff! Two lonely legs decide to run instead. “Papa”
Surprise, surprise.
…
What? Screams Satis and runs. Runs. Now his turn. Father and son? Who can run? Faster? Chintu can not run anymore. He should. Being a child he can’t. Then answer the curious questions.
—Curiosity killed the cat. Why?
Ramayram Runs. Faster then the wind. He creates a wind. The butterfly effect. There could be a tornado in
Chintu tries to catch up, but cant, though from the distance he can hear the bustle of the village. The voice of the mob, the confused sounds of the many. He hears them as a single syllable full of curiosity and confusedness. A single ‘what’ of shock and surprise, a single ‘how’ of surmise.
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