Sunday, January 13, 2008

The eternal peace!

The eternal peace
Through the half broken window panel he was gazing at the pile of waste disposed haphazardly in the nearby backyard. The pungent smell has become the part and parcel of his existence and every day he used to gaze in to the shambles of this waste pile as if it is reminding him of something important- his own life. For last one month the hospital and this bed has been his world. Nobody around him and neither does he himself is expecting to get out of the bed alive and healthy. It was only a matter of when and how he will crumble to the uncompromising hands of fate.
Throughout the day he would stare at the backyard filled with the hospital wastes. He would watch how the crows, cats and dogs share and fight for their part out of the pile. He would watch how mothers with sunburned skin and scaphoid bellies would come along with their emaciated potbellied children to explore the remains and find their earnings. He would also watch the municipal workers coming once in few days to carry away the left over. In night the whole place would be engulfed by the darkness leaving only the starry skies for him to stare and that is the time when he sometimes used to let loose his self imposed benignity. The tears would roll over his cheeks before millions of glittering eyes in the dark sky.
Last few days he has been increasingly sick. His already bony body was giving away to bedsores and his appetite has failed him completely. Severe headache was tearing him apart and the nauseating bunch of drugs he needs to swallow was a hell in itself. Over the course of the month attention he drew in the passing by eyes has drastically come down. The common disgusted looks and rare empathetic looks have both given way to the benign passive gaze. As if everybody was wondering about when will this suffering end, for him and for them.
When did it all begin? He was now much disoriented with the past events that he found it difficult to arrange them in order of the timeline. May be everything began in that night-how will he describe it dreadful or sensuous. Or maybe, when he was told by the councillor about his disease across that unusually large table at the ART centre. He does remember the face of the councillor when he uttered the word HIV. He was highly interested in knowing about the details of his sex life- a thing that never really existed except for that one night. He will never blame her for the successive events as she was just a prostitute and it was him who had gone to her on that night. Also somewhere in the corner of his heart now he had developed an unusual love for her as they seems to be bonded to each other by several means. She was the one who had given him his first and last immersion in the pool of lust. She was the one who had with all her heart loved him once even if it may be for some irrevocable spastic moments. They are bound by love, lust and now by disease. He could never hate her. Instead he hated him selves immensely. He hated his family for letting him leave his home to a far off land to endure his professional aspirations. He hated his dream girl for not accepting his unbiased love. Ultimately he hated everything the world seemed to be for him before.
The hate was aroused from anger, which aroused from frustration, which in turn aroused from the love of life he had deep seated in him selves. But the hate is now fading off. He now has a quiet peace coming in him selves. The peace that is bestowed upon him by the disease and through it by the impending death. AIDS has opened a gateway to numerous diseases that he hears regularly uttered by each passing by doctor and medical staff- disseminated Tuberculosis, candidiasis, toxoplasmosis. Aloof from all these medical jargon his eyes are now always fixed on the waste pile in the backyard and sky above it.
Today he is feeling severe tearing pain in his head. It is more than ever. But he didn’t ask for help, he didn’t even show any signs of distress. The municipal workers have come and cleansed the backyard as never before. The sky has hid all its stars behind the clouds as never before. He was expecting something great, something he had been preparing him selves for a while now-he was expecting the arrival of his eternal peace.
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Friday, January 11, 2008

Vilaapam


വിലാപം
പ്രിയേ, നിന്നെയൊരു മഞ്ഞുതുള്ളിയായ്
എന് ഹൃദയത്തില് കരുതി വെക്കാം.
പക്ഷെയീ അറ്ക്കശോഭയില് ഒരു
മുത്തായ് കുരുത്തെടുക്കാനെനിക്കാവതില്ല.

നിന്റെ മൃദുസ്നേഹം, കിളിക്കൊഞ്ചല്,
ചെറുപരിഭവം, എല്ലാമെന് ഹൃദന്തത്തില്
ഒരു തൂവല് സ്പറ്ശമായ് ലയിക്കും....
എങ്കിലുമീ ഉലകസമക്ഷം
നിന് കരം പിടിച്ചുയരാന്
ഞാന് അശക്തന്, തീറ്ത്തും പരാജിതന്...

പ്രിയേ,നിന്നോടെനിക്കുള്ള ഹൃദയബന്ധം
അതു തികച്ചും വാക്കുകള്ക്കപ്പുറം
വികാരതിന്റെ നനുത്ത നൂല്പാലം.
അവയ്ക്ക് ഞാന് പേരു നല്കി തളക്കുന്നില്ല

ഒരു പക്ഷെ അതെന്റെ ഭീരുത്വത്തിന്
ബഹിറ്സ്പുരണമാവാം.
എന് ഗാഢമല്ലാത്തവിചാരങ്ങള് തന്
വെളിപ്പെടുത്തലുകളാവാം.

പക്ഷെ പനിനീരു പോല്
കിനിഞ്ഞിറങ്ങുന്ന നിന് സ്നേഹം
ഹൃദയത്തില് കനലുകള് വാരിയെറിയുമ്പോള്
നിന് ഗഗനസമാനം നിഗൂഢമാം നയനങ്ങള്
എന്നില് നിന്നും വാക്കുകള് തിരയുമ്പോള്
പ്രിയേ, ഞാന് വിലപിക്കുന്നു
തീറ്ത്തും അശക്തനായ്, പരാജിതനായ്

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The paradise on earth



The sun has already receded into the womb of earth, but much of its grandeur is left behind in the darkening horizon as unlimited shades and colours spread all across it. Sitting on one of the rocks in the ponmudi peak starring at the deep valley below is an outstanding experience. The breeze from the west is chilling the skin below my cloth and the steep valley is inducing a bizarre longing for me to jump into its lap all free. A stream is flowing along the valley making mild sizzling music adding to the symphony of breeze in this otherwise silent atmosphere. The solitude, picturesque heavens, the dark illusive valley, everything falls in perfect place out here for a tantalising spiritual experience.

Western Ghats as always pulls you into this mind calming moments, makes you feel one with nature or God as some might like to put. It makes you feel the energy of nature flowing inside you, the same which is restlessly hurrying in each blow of wind, the same which is spreading all over in the cool dancing stream , the same which is proudly filling the huge mountains and steep valleys. The ultimate spiritual experience, which will stand one step ahead of all the posturing of our religious establishment.

Every time I visit the Western Ghats, take my glances through its thick ‘shola’ forests, immerse my body in its cool sweet water I would feel like going back to my origins, dissolving into myself. Trekking through its mountains may be tiring but certainly satisfying. Cruising along its trees creates an everlasting feeling of well being. Its fauna fills you with towering curiousity. The clicks of our cameras will capture some of the glitter but never in the whole world can it transfer the feel that it creates in our mind and soul.

Oh! My dear Western Ghats, I am longing to get back to you. For redeeming my selves from this world of stress. For embracing the peace that you will deliver to me. For retrieving my soul deeply buried in me. ...............................................................................................................................