mottled

The Wall

Anil — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:52:53 +0000

Yesterday night I talked to a wall, a brick red barrier off which bounced my monologue like a bad mystery. The words were stale, like bad breath before a beautiful morning kiss. They had been festering far too long in closed confines. They talked about desperate, unsatisfying sex, about violence weakened by desire, about the arc of answers that dug into my dull [...]

Diwali

Anil — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:04:45 +0000

The sudden fiery outburst of a flowerpot next door sharpens the evening with the smell of sulphur. Rockets rise like resurrected gods and explode between the wispy clouds into red, yellow and green showers. I remember lights from the past, one time father was sitting in the balcony and a rocket came through from under his chair and burst upon our bedroom wall. Old friends [...]

One Word

Anil — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:29:12 +0000

That one word fell between us like a raindrop, smudging the intimacy inside our eyes. That one word fell between us like a punishment, stifling the laughter in our love. It was not harsh, no; harshness was still a distant stranger yet to make our acquaintance. It was like a hailstone hurled across a street onto a windshield. Our world cracked [...]

Poets and Poetry

Anil — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:56:18 +0000

Yesterday, I went to a poetry reading where a forgotten poet was resurrected. His history made human. His work made familiar. Srinivas, Sridala and Jeet put words and images in my head, putting the feeling of creation but not the tools to create in that empty space. This urge to create, to write great poetry is tempered by an inability to choose, to [...]

Neon Nights

Anil — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:30:28 +0000

Vacant stares populate the empty night around me. The warm neon folds into me like a whisper. Solitude can be a strange companion in an urban setting where you are never truly alone. The buildings lean onto you like old friends. The roads slither under your wheels. The traffic seems to part beneath your defocussed [...]

The Case of the Missing Bag

Anil — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:30:49 +0000

(The following is a true story. It really happened. Names have been changed to protect identities. Most of the conversations that form part of the narrative are based upon that most unreliable of friends-memory or from conversations after the fact so some literary license has been taken in narrating the precise sequence of events.) A fancy [...]

Former Glory

Anil — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:34:26 +0000

In between these lines you can read all the meanings you want because you have peeled off the paint from our world of possibilities. —– All those evenings, when the winter sun slowly sank into your eyes, I waited for your fingers to curl around mine. —– Dusk seeps into your eyes like ink into paper and in that gathering gloom I search for our former glory. —– As [...]

Gone Ganga Gone!

Anil — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:06:42 +0000

They came armed with bulldozers and bulletins onto our verdant fields and into our modest homes. The government wanted to build a big dam, arrest the mighty river and submerge our sunshine beneath placid dark green water. We protested, tore our hair and hearts but the babus did not listen. Progress is not pollution they advised. The sounds of industry echoed between the [...]

Hyderabad Blues

Anil — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:43:55 +0000

Five years is a long time. The city has changed so much. In fact, it would only be a slight exaggeration on my part to say that Hyderabad has changed more in the past five years than it ever did in the first twenty-three years of my life that I spent growing up here. That [...]

Vignettes

Anil — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:51:54 +0000

Their fingers touched briefly like two flowers brought together by the wind. The distance was bridged if only for a few seconds. She held her head against the window and slowly broke contact. He watched as she closed her eyes. He wanted to say many things but it was not the moment for dredging up [...]

Lost Reply

Anil — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:53:38 +0000

A Song For Someone II: 24 Hours

Anil — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:04:25 +0000

Twenty four hours. That is what you asked for as the sun set behind the tree without any leaves. A day to decide the fate of a lifetime. You wrapped your hands around your knees and started rocking as if some clock had already started ticking. Within us sentences skipped scenarios in search of that perfect paragraph. I leaned against the [...]

A Song For Someone

Anil — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:27:42 +0000

Every day that passes behind the calender strikes a different chord in the long chapter of remembrance, the winter that never became our season, the kisses that never crossed our lips. It is 6 am and I am sitting here by the window and wondering about all the steps that we walked away from when the time came to hold onto our [...]

Trier Troubles

Anil — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:19:21 +0000

We needed alcohol. Due to the lack of time and poor planning we had not picked up any before we started traveling. So we hit the streets of sleepy Trier in search of a shop that sold alcohol. But try as we might we could not find one. We drove through deserted neighborhoods and leafy [...]

Breakfast In Bed

Anil — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:06:08 +0000

For some reason I remembered that morning without a name again today. A morning that was a template for other such similar mornings. I woke up first like I always did but with one of those involuntary dawn erections. We were naked under the blanket as the night had been warm. I lay awake and [...]

Spring Revival

Anil — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:51:03 +0000

Outside my house the lone tree is smiling with her crown of fresh green leaves. It was only a month ago that she stood there, bare like a curtain less window, looking forlorn as the cold hacked at her naked limbs. Today, the sun is out and the rising heat is enough for her to unfurl her withdrawn limbs and embrace the benign warmth. Birds hide [...]

Bare Neck, Broken Glass

Anil — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:00:34 +0000

There are certain moments that you remember even years later with a terrible clarity, reliving every second of what happened as if it were happening again around you. The details are like needles poking your mind and sharpening your memory. You remember the slant of the sunlight that fell on his forehead. You remember the [...]

Year of the TV 2

Anil — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:10:02 +0000

Mad Men: A sedate and unbiased look at the American advertising world of the early 60s when sexism was open and casual and sexual mores were just beginning to change. It is a world of well dressed and groomed men who live the good life and treat women as objects to adorn their bedrooms and [...]

Moonbeams

Anil — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:20:42 +0000

One day soon this heart will burst and in the midst of flying flesh you will discover all the words that troubled my tongue but never crossed my lips. —– I wish I could string a necklace made of moonbeams for the sinuous emptiness that is your neck. —- The waiting in winter still continues but beneath the frozen exterior a faint heart beat glows. —– One more minute and I could have [...]

Words

Anil — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:19:27 +0000

The words are caught at the back of my throat like phlegm after a bad cold. I wish they could roll out like marbles and spread across the slate to give meaning to emptiness. But this instant of darkness rises within and smothers their meaning and the benefit of sharing. To choke their cowardly presence I watch the world through the window and marvel at the [...]

Fragments From Forgotten Letters

Anil — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:08:00 +0000

[See post to listen to audio] Aimee Mann - Video …the bell tolls and i can hear it even though i exist in a land between shadow and sunshine. the sound is muted but the meaning behind it is not. time marches on it seems to intone in ponderous tones. neither mortal nor immortal will wait for [...]

Seminal Rock Albums

Anil — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:32:46 +0000

It is oft repeated but really rock music is well and truly dead these days. It can be argued that most of the truly great rock music was made between the 1950s and 70s. I’ve always wondered how it would have been to have lived through the 60s when there was a palpable excitement in [...]

Making Sense

Anil — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:56:20 +0000

Hold that thought between your lips. Let me trace its edges with my tongue and tease out its intentions. —– In the hope of making sense of your words left behind the toaster and under the eraser I try to remember the gestures your fingers made while your breath slid down along my neck. —– Will it matter now that the Eastern sky is your new home [...]

Face Blind

Anil — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:02:56 +0000

I have not slept for 36 hours. While your brain has been chewing on sleep I’ve been wide awake watching TV shows and forgetting my face. Yeah, now, I finally come to the point. I don’t recognize my face. What do you mean I don’t recognize my face? I mean exactly that dumbo. Right now, I’m [...]

World Cinema Wonderland 3

Anil — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:16:02 +0000

Once Upon a Time In America: Forget the spaghetti westerns for which Sergio Leone is famous. This (along with his Once Upon a Time in the West - see below) is his masterpiece. A big flop when it was first released as the studio had chopped up the film into an incoherent mess the film’s [...]