Chiffonesque

Night one Of the many ways I thought to leave, a star dimmed and showed the way. Night two The moon, a raging bonfire. Stars sit around like tribal chieftains sharing stories. I read the sky. Night three I step out of the car to open the gate. White are the husky bougainvilla petals. White is the muffled moonlight and the mellifluous outlines of jasmines growing by the Sintex tank. White is the glow from the street lamp. White is the song from the moon. White, the sky that is. White, the sky that was. White is the night. Night four I enter my unlit home - that past midnight, roils with hope of a candle-wick that was snuffed out but will taste the flame soon. Night five Curtains were not fully drawn. Non-chalance of a full moon in the sky. Intricacy of the treetop that filters. Something out there always cares. Night six Five books by the bedside and a heart that can't decide. Night seven Remembered something. Twinge of pain. Some blurb that did the healin

Some nights, I drive back from work as late as one in the morning. Those nights, I feel bereft. The sun is down, I have counted the three shades of darkness that coat the world. I coast past empty roads listening to some scratchy old song on the radio, my mind elsewhere, but still returning home. I see drunk men. I see leaves swishing in the summer breeze. I see shadows passing along like whispers between lamp posts and bushes. Late nights are beautiful. Silence gets a chance.

...after listening to the stories of my dad or feeling the support of A... that when you are young, you think that the world has good and bad people. Not so. People have goodness and badness in them. Some parts of the world will bring out one. Some other parts will bring out the other. Simple. Tough.

Last night, I was talking to my father after mum had drifted off to sleep. After the crisis, my parents have been under rough weather. Tough times usually complicate matters and so the fabric of home has become a little twisted lately. I brewed some tea and in the dim light of the lamp, my father told me stories about the history of Gengis Khan and Akbar. When I listened to him, I wondered what kind of a person he was. One wouldn't think that so much crisis had befallen my father lately, or even through the course of his life. Something about the way my father tells stories or talks about distant histories of civilizations during troubled times like this...something about this anachronistic storytelling feels like walking through this rich and evergreen forest. You look around and you see that maybe some trees have been felled or some flowers have wilted and little portions may be dead for right now. But all this is just a trickle of time, a moving trace across an expanse that

Things have been rough for my parents lately. Both have been very unwell since the last two days. I had made a frantic trip to Bombay yesterday and I watched both of them slumber in states of semi-consciousness. I have seen either one of my parent unwell at a time. Not both. Watching them both that way, looking so frail and weak, was a revelation. I did not think...I know it sounds silly...but I did not think both could be so weak at the same time. I didn't think my family was designed that way. I had never imagined that. I had imagined one ill, one strong, or both strong, or even one alive and one having passed on. But I had never imagined what it would be to have both of them not respond to my voice or not hold my hand or tell me what was going on in their world. For a sharp moment, when I didn't think they were breathing, I remember sensing the room spin wildly. I wasn't having a dizzy spell or anything but I was so confused. It can't possibly happen to both my pare