In Limbo 2

And, here is a tree and its gnarled surface. The cat seeks out its dappled spots, quickly lapping up the fat globules of light. The scent of burgeoning cashew blossoms lingers around the feline creature, the sheared bits of deep blue sky wells up in its eyes.  The avian life, nervous by the paw-still presence of the new arrival, is suddenly on tenterhooks, issuing forth many a cacophonous conversations, aimed at strategic action or change of plans, who can tell? But the noise is unbearable. Moreover, I am completely excluded from the decision-making process. Conversations give way to heated arguments. Rufus treepie and cuckoo are the most vociferous, their size give them the leverage. But the tiny sunbirds with hooked beaks tutting away in loud metallic chirps would not be left behind...their little nest swinging from one of the upper branches is at stake and so is the future of their brood.  Trying to read Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, I find myself going over the same senten...

Why wake up? What for? Unwillingly, the comatose body rolls off the bed and hauls itself down the stairs, just because... The first stirrings of slow dissolution. The waning fragrance of  cestrum nocturnum, raat ki raani,  has sensuously wrapped itself around the morning.  "Happy Holi", my ever-zealous 82-year-old mom greets with a shower of flaming red hibiscus petals. A shower of flowers is the new, preferred, civilized way of playing Holi in our family, a far cry from the customary hurling of water balloons or bucketful of colored chemical solution the way I remember it from my childhood. I can't help but smile. The babblers start their cacophonous chant. I too get some bougainvillea blossoms and color her bright smile with them. My whatsApp is overflowing with Happy Holi messages. I have never been crazy about this particular festival, even though it represents the best of spring, the victory of truth over evil and the Lila of Divine Love. My recollection of Holi...

  swirling silence  of a moonless night: a heart wrenched out of its orbit and  hurled to feed the immortals: like vultures they feast upon it  delighting in the  ambrosial juices of its passion and pain.  then it shuts; the seas slide back 2. from the bottom of a pool, stillness of the  reeling stars stare back: grasses lean closer  grazing past infinite  spaces: swishing sibilance in silence  stoops 3. that long long path who has trodden it? may be an animal following the scent nosing out a trail... a path that runs through  no man's land: rough-hewn scarred, in a fight with itself  with shadows that trespass it endanger its solitude... A path that runs over  moors and into the woods,  towards disentangling spaces  it meanders all day, at night,  over a creek it dips, listens... reposing at last on the woof and  warp of unraveling silence