Stories without endings

Some stories find their eternity in their incompleteness 

The moral of such stories hides often behind their abruptness 

Happily-ever-after endings were never meant to be theirs 

Befitting closures present themselves by remaining scarce 

You invest a lifetime chasing these stories 

Only to realise the one who got spent was you. 

I feel like I am living one such fabled story 

And lost while chasing what lies at the end of it - glory!

Meandering to Stay the Course

I wish I could hang up these ambitious boots
Give it up for a while, go back to the roots.
All this running; years and many a mile
Kept wearing me out, unnoticed, all this while.

A few nights, I’d like to just lust at the moon
Entertain lazy thoughts every noon
Wake up to workout with the sun
Lie on the dewy grass, exhausted and undone.
Feast my eyes on acres of green tree tops
Bring home a few clouds from the hilltop shops
Wearing the wind, would be pleasant change
In my own little paradise, atop a mountain range.
A few evenings, watch the rush hour of bird flock traffic
Which to the ear is nothing short of music.

Yet, wishes after all aren’t horses
The river of life needs to stay its courses.
Every now and then, it can playfully meander a bit
But as life would have it, meandering is just a part not the gist of it.

- ABR
13th March 2017

The Traveller and the Girl in the Red Ivory Tower

Some encounters aren’t exactly commonplace

Devoid of reason, they leave you in a daze!

One such story is about our Traveller

Who’d been a vagabond, since he could remember.

In an otherwise cacophonous world,

Not much sense prevailed and everything seemed dafter

His undoing was an unfettered laughter!

The laughter had to be traced

The thought of just letting it pass couldn’t be embraced.

The search led our Traveller

Down innocuous by lanes of déjà vu,

In the hope of an electric rendezvous

To the fabled Red Ivory Tower

Perched among tall palms, in the midst of a breezy shower.

What a magical oasis-like place it was!

The climb up the spiraling stairs was over sans a pause.

A peek inside the ancient window

Revealed a secret, which very few know.

There was a little brown Girl inside

A shade surprising, but not very difficult to decide

Her smile was freer within it, confined

The Red Ivory Tower was her entire world defined.

Here she roamed free, reigned supreme

Conjured up her own magic and lived her own dream.

She’s lived a lifetime in the Red Ivory Tower

And now the Tower smells of her, tastes of her

Almost resembles an extension of her.

The clothes strewn around

Packed boxes in uncanny corners abound

Just like her head, which too many ideas surround.

Things you need are difficult to reach

Yet extremely inviting, almost to beseech

As much as her fervent spirit.

The Traveller is enthralled by what he sees

Contrary to acquired nature, he actually feels!

Against the grain of habit,

Of journeying far and wide

This one night he wants to spend by her side

And play with thoughts inane

Hoping the night would never wane.

That’s when the Girl in the Red Ivory Tower shuts the window!!!

Note to the Wife

Every morning waking up to your smile

Your smell in the pillow next to mine

The generous warmth of your caress

When you are not around all of it seems amiss.

The familiar ring of the goodbye, as I head for work

The smile on my face, whenever thoughts of you lurk.

The fights about me wearing your slippers

Without you, my inability to find the nail clippers

The routine of asking me if I finished my lunch

The times when I lie to you about it, yet you have a hunch.

The thrill of watching television together

And the invariability of the bodily contact, forever.

The tenderness of your lips

The familiarity of my arms around your hips

The same musky smell of your clothes in the wardrobe

Your ticklishness around the earlobe

My occasional tears and the comfort of your embrace

Your admonishments and the naughty-eyed look on my face

My misadventures and yet your unfailing rock-solid faith

Your predictable rigidity, that makes me hold my breath

All of this and so much more, make life worth living

It doesn’t go unnoticed, all this while everything that you have been giving.

Dear wife, come back soon to this home that we’ve made

There’s a lot that still remains unsaid.

Forever the Gentleman

He’s been missed, every now and then, for nearly the last 4 years now!

I am the unlikely child of my parents. For a long time now I have wondered which of my parents have I taken after? For an equally long time I have been at odds with the answers that kept cropping up. None of them were convincing enough when stacked up against empirical evidence. Strangely, through some quirk of coincidence and maybe because of the circumstances that I have been in lately, I seem to have my answers.

The last one year has not been the easiest one in my life so far. Beginning of this year, I took the tougher path in search of some larger goals in life. I am still wondering where I got the courage or the confidence to do that, considering that there isn’t much demonstrated evidence of either of these virtues in the family. My decision involved letting go off a certain predictable growth path in favour of the unknown, yet promising future. At a certain level, it was the first time when I was aspiring for a way of life, which wasn't necessarily the accepted norm - as extolled by society around. Up until this point I had spent most of my life trying to fit in, with the ways of the world. For the first time, I was trying to break away from the mould and was confident enough to win while being me.  

Now when the going has been tougher than I imagined, I have also surprised myself with my perseverance. In the absence of results or even any distinct visibility of the same, I have refused to get bogged down and have endured. Time shall tell, if this is sheer stubbornness or gut. But the bottom line – I have surprised myself and uncovered aspects about myself which I was unaware of.

More than that I think I know who I have taken after – in ways more than one – it is my grandfather!

My memories of my grandfather are some of the most vivid ones from my childhood. I have always had a photographic memory and somehow in my album titled ‘Childhood’ most of the pictures are with him in it. A lot of them in which he doesn't figure himself, his stories do. I have never been to his village in Bangladesh, but I am sure I would recognize every tree and every pond there if I were ever to get there. Some of those pictures have a certain audio graphic element to them, in the form of his constant humming – as if life was a song.

I remember spending winter afternoons in his arms, walking by his side holding his hand on Delhi roads. I owe my first drink to him – bitter whiskey, every evening, one peg, while watching the news on television. He never visited our place without a gift for me in his bag. The ritual of rummaging through his suitcase to discover it, was something we both enjoyed. He was also my favourite surprise visitor. Nothing else ever made me run down 5 flights of stairs with such glee.  

He was the one who taught me that a man is known not by the brand of shoes he wears but how well he keeps them. A man of the mountains, which he always was, showed me how the headgear could be man’s best accessory. His himachali topis, hats and woollen caps all of them epitomized the gentleman he always was. In spite of the being the man of limited means he was, it was difficult to spot him in anything but absolutely dapper and freshly ironed clothes. A distinct sense of colour and style is something he always had. I would like to believe I inherit some of it from him.

My grandfather spent most his youth nurturing the singular dream of making men out of my father and uncle. He wanted one son to be a doctor and the other an engineer – ambitious dreams both, given their circumstances then. But he endured and kept moving towards this dream of his without giving in. His sons and destiny both didn't deny him his dreams.

I remember having fared badly in mathematics exams once in school and the couple of months I spent under his tutelage after that. His belief was so infectious, from being the average maths-hating kid in class I transformed into somebody who began cribbing about scoring 99/100 in mathematics thereafter. That was one of my first lessons in self-belief.

I still go to his house and my grandmother lives there alone. But everything there is just the way he left it. Not a single photo frame has moved off the mantelpiece, not a single painting has been taken off the walls, even the vernier calliper he had in his desk remains where it was. Just that I keep looking for his spectacles, his half read newspaper, his slippers in the shoe rack, his Nehru jackets on the hangers and his constant humming while getting dressed. None of that is there any more.

I cannot forget the excitement in his voice every time I called him. I am glad he could see me getting married and bless my wife. A proud head-of-the-family he was seeing his entire clan getting together at my wedding. He left us a few months after that. But not before he had finished the task of getting his house whitewashed and repaired – a house he loved and cherished so much.   

Today as I look back, I think I inherit a lot from him. His stubbornness, disregard for convention, belief in making things happen and not letting them happen unto him, the penchant for style and the finer things in life all keep making appearances in my life as well. I wish he were around today to see where his journey has brought all of us today – a journey he started with a few rupees and a broken pair of slippers in Kolkata.

Did I tell you...

Did I tell you that you were missed all these days

As if somebody just stole the warmth from the morning sun rays

I waited and looked afar for you,

As far into the distance I could gaze.

Did I tell you that your laughter had left a void

Like child’s sleep had its fairyland dreams, denied.

I tried to fill it with memories of you

But even those seemed to be so far and few.

Did I tell you that I desperately look forward to seeing you

Talking to you, walking with you, hold hands once again with you.

I promise not to let it go this time

Let it ring long and soft, dangling in the constant breeze, like a wind chime. 

THE VILLAGE AND THE STORM

From across the horizon a tempest broke

On the village, where peace hitherto ruled

At first what sounded more like a joke

Uprooted the village, unprepared and fooled.

The dark clouds ushered and veiled the sun

The wind picked up and issued the warning

The village paid little heed and like an unintended pun

The storm broke with vengeance,

Left behind just a few embers burning.

And now the village doesn’t know what to do

Where to pick up its life from,

All this while, it always knew the storm would one day come

Never expecting it as soon as it did, with such aplomb.

And now the village is just left to ask,

Why not some other day, why not some other one???

Have we met before...

Together, on that first evening
When we fell in love with the same song
We hadn't even known each other too long
It was too early to believe
That it was in my arms, you truly belong.
Yet that evening, left me wanting more
With an uncanny thought, have we met before?

Several evenings later
As we walked on the night grass, barefoot
Talking about everything that we possibly could
Time clearly seemed to fleet past
Through the unending hours that we spoke for
Yet caught in this whirlwind, I wondered, have we met before?

On an evening yet another
As we shared our passions for travel
I realized, unknowingly
Our own clandestine world had begun to unravel
Where our evenings began to wait
For the seemingly unending days to abate.
We were drawn to each other evermore...
While i wondered, helplessly, have we met before?

And today as I lay awake at night
It dawns upon me, alright
It wasn't  ever about the shared song
The barefoot walk or wanderlust abound
Of course, you've always been around
The teenage imagination, hitherto unfound
Ironical, how I have known you all along
And yet wondered, have I met you before?