In Limbo 2

K yewee...its nasal call sets the crown chakra in motion. Curtains flutter. Breath focuses on itself. But, the feet, overcome by impatience,  scuttle down the stony path...Eyes search the firmament. Wings spread, there it goes, a Brahminy kite, skimming across the faint sliver of the crescent moon. A momentary splintering of the gossamer vision, and lo, a scatter of silver, and the air is astir with glinting flecks of light. Just a bit more than a dot really,  it calls again, cruising majestically. My own auditory capabilities surprise me. "How can I hear something so far away, when often enough I am ridiculed for not being able to hear what those in close proximity are saying", I wonder. The chestnut colored legendary raptor circles the heights, dispersing the blue across the deepening layers of the celestial vault. Kyewee...another call sails in from the east. A new entrant flying at a lower altitude, makes itself palpable against the splash of cerulean in my irises. Its wi

let the burden of time be mine with its grace and its aches and pains and pardonable forgetfulness: lo i embrace the emptiness and the sound of water dripping from the bathroom tap...the buzz of a mozzy by my toes, and even the  breathless heat. i am finally here and now: the eyes take in the  leaning sky and gently  nudge the sleepy clouds stacked like pancakes: the sound of soft rains  falling on the cashew  leaves fill the ears; wet  earth and children running through the red mud: imprints of sweet laughter  2. it is the opaque silence of a passing shadow which coerces my glance skyward: lo, a flock of birds, and a leaf falling 3.  our eyes locked briefly in the early stirrings of the morn: a moment of recognition darted off in the wormhole of pale green irises: a little black cat and its  embryonic shadow.

  Namaskar, mein Ravish Kumar... Aap dekh rahe the Prime Time. Namaskar. (Greetings, I am Ravish Kumar... You Were Watching Prime Time.) 60 minutes of Prime Time Hindi news at 9 p.m. bracketed within two Namaskars held the three of us (my mother, brother and I) enthralled with its  rigorous, relatable reporting, uncluttered presentation and witty sarcasm. Here was someone who was not spitting out news at the speed of 100 items in five minutes, or reading out headlines in a couplet form, or someone who wanted to choke the audience with redundant news stories to create a fog of incomprehensibility. Instead, we found in Ravish Kumar someone who wanted his audience to wake up to reality, to learn about the actual issues, and above all to hold  the government accountable for its incompetence. Once, when asked why he seldom has a word of appreciation for the laudable work the Centre is doing, his answer was quite spontaneous, "For that, they have their own gigantic PR machine and Inform

The tug of the night carries my feet up to the hotel terrace. The sky has stooped and clings timidly to the parapet. Someone, something beckons quietly, across the expanse of eternity...Is it the flapping wings of the gulls on the nocturnal leg of their long journey ? Or is it a shooting star: quick, silent and fulfilling, a moment in the livery of lighthood? Surprise awaits me in the form of a host of flitting  fireflies, glinting and glimmering, albeit spasmically. The silence is heightened by the presence of  two women whispering to each other in a language I do not understand. Gratitude fills my being. Fireflies flicker, burnishing  the presence of two women sitting cross-legged, their voices susurrant against  the sloping sky where the  moon needles its way across  a gold-rimmed storm cloud;  the sound of ocean, and the  swaying murmurations of sea  breeze hijack the shadowy flight of the night as it slices  the darkness into luminous bits. A memory long lost hesitantly  crosses t