Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Happy Birthday to me

I just didn’t feel it. Birthday came, birthday went. No bang, boom, blast in my heart. This is a first. Back in school, two days before my birthday it was difficult for my teacher to keep me still in my seat, for my mother to retain my attention during homework time and for me to focus on games. Closer than that, even last year, I felt it.
This year I am numb. Numbed by age? Numbed by the fact that my life has so recently undergone a massive change? Numbed by the lack of feeling within, a proud outcome of broken bonds? I search but I’m not getting lucky. “What’s up?” I ask myself. My mum understood exactly what I meant when I confided in her, careful to not let her feel that she is to blame. She instantly went on this guilt trip, “I know beta, maybe I haven’t done enough to make it fun for you.” No ma!! Nobody is responsible for this feeling that has hopped beside me for 23 years before and during my big day. It’s something very internal and involuntary. And she knew. Wow!

Am I becoming into one of those cynical, prosaic, moaning grown ups who crib about birthdays and feel no joy in celebrating one more year of life gone by? No! No! No! Not that! I won’t be able to take the dulling of my character. I’ll hate myself then. What happened to the defender of childlike, instinctive, happy, lollipop/ice cream- loving behaviour? Where’s that child who was wont to hop about excitedly when her birthday approached and couldn’t stop grinning the whole day? Where’s the fun? Where will I find it again?

I feel like my life is grey. Reasons, I don’t want to think about. Just a huge blob of grey paint plopped on my canvas and rubbed, smeared, stroked, spread in all directions. It’s not even pretty like an exciting and hopeful overcast sky. It’s an industrial grey, like in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. Maybe I’m a character from it, born in the future to represent that dullness never ends.

There was a cake, friends, presents, phone calls, fabulous food, love, wishes and prayers. But something was absent. Perhaps it was me.

Going Away – 2

Tore away from those magnetic arms,
More soothing than all the balms,
Stuffed my little world in pouches and bags,
Picked my toothbrush, photographs and tags.

Sad eyes watch me as I run to gather,
Signs of me which they’d rather,
Keep now under our leaking roof,
Sorry for those days of acting aloof.

Tough to work with a heavy heart,
In spite of a busy mind quick as a dart,
Gobbling up the memories of all that was familiar,
Music, guitars, jamun tree, shoe rack and beer.

The coconut tree, my unfailing friend,
Tall and comforting till the end,
The parapet wall that held my weight,
While lazy Sunday lunches in a steel plate.

My “football field” where I danced and laughed,
Giving way to beliefs that I was daft,
The orange wall, the wall of art,
The images of all back home I’ll cart.

The hands that shirked now gloomily hold me,
The eyes that were casual moistly behold me,
The times our laughter touched the ceiling,
Our words reverberate with shaky feeling.

Goodybye my friends, I have to go now,
Dragging my heart away with a straight face somehow,
These times will never return that’s for sure,
But when I do, please open the door.


Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Going Away

The night was very silent. So was the day.
I laughed a lot, forgetting that I'm going away.
I smiled when the sun shone and my locks fell down.
Did I know that later tears would escape with a frown?
To hell with poetry and rhymne!!
I know you wanted me to cry!
Which is why you stabbed me and left me to die.
A gradual death, the taste of which you can taste.
Delicious it must be as you lick in haste.
Go away! All you masked serpents!
I know who you are, what you are!
Been hurt enough. No more.
Go!