Nothing new

lonely road
wandered for miles
sunlight winking
through tousled lanes
Saw nothing
wondrous
or breathtaking
Same ol' mountains
trees
green fields
shivering, sighing in the breeze
Same tiny birds
flowers
people
clattering, clawing, cutting their way
But,
nothing new
Growing weary
unhappy
at ocean's edge
squinting,
glinting
thinking...
perhaps
delights await,
the other side
It stood
still
thrilled
in rapturous thought
At long. last
something new
had happened

Waiting

I can't make anything
when you stand there
staring at me
waiting
for me to fail

Such condescension
make it over
quick!

I know you need this victory.
It's ok.
I can wait too.
For you to succeed.

My muse

Oh my muse, my muse
You are so terribly tied to a ruse
that it matters what you think
that anyone cares

You are but a tiny droplet
without a will nor a way
your force is known
not even to you

What delights may you bring
to the world?
Does it matter?

You are here.
Alive.
You are loved.
And deeply cherished.

Don't go.
Stay.

Learning how to moo while travelling cattle class

I am cheap; a shameless spend thrift who gets chills down her spine when faced with the prospect of landing a deal, preferably involving little or no effort (or resources) on my part. I can be more resourceful with a 'dollar a day' than the daily wage labourer, probably why I find myself in their company most of the time. I have traveled by public transport ever since I could be trusted to tie my own shoelaces without assistance and have always wondered how I developed the stomach for it.

My existence is characterised by a curious dichotomy. Half my time is spent attending wine and cheese events in an effort to convince millionaires to spend their spare change on supporting projects in the arts and the other half of my time is spent jostling for space on buses with middle-aged, belligerent women, just rearing for a fight, and boy do I give them occasion to fight.

All my finer emotions fly out the bus window the minute I find myself forcefully nestled against the armpit of a fellow traveler. My resolve to be the bigger person, to be deferential to the elderly, to resist the urge to step on everyone's toes, to resist the urge to cluck disapprovingly every time someone nudges me or messes up my hair, everything begins to crumble. Like a cornered mongrel I see red every time someone muscles into a seat I have set my sights on, or when someone leans so far into my space that my head rests against their bosom like an errant (and rather saucy) groundnut freed from the terrors of death by mastication only to be trapped in a valley of darkness from which there is no escape. I use the peanut metaphor because EVERYONE who travels by bus seems to love 'em.

So why do I persist in using a mode of transport that clearly gives me high blood pressure? Well that's because deep down, under all the snobbery and vanity, I know that I am a foul-mouthed cow, who's one nudge away from a brawl.

So I guess in coming to terms with my love affair with public transport I have realised that my dilemma did not concern learning how to moo. My dilemma was to find my voice as the proud Indian, desi cow that I am.     

Old soul

It's his time to go
But does it have to be so hard?
His struggle to live is frightening to watch.
Hasn't he struggled enough?
Can't you just let him go?


Small, wrinkled, white heap of fur,
lying by the side of the road,
I will remember your noble life
when you strutted the streets.
You were a king, weren't you?
Your thin snout looks aristocratic.
Were you a bit of a snob?
You look up when you see me coming
your eyes focus with recognition
There's still some fight in there
In those sparkling, wise eyes



People walk by,
They have seen an old dog die before.
What's new about death?
What's special about the death of a dog?
But I see you.

You are not alone.

 

A cat sized hole in my soul

Small feet make big impressions
they taught me life's hardest lessons
to risk loving when nothing's certain
not even permanence or a return of affection

seeking him out in the night's shadows
searching corners for his noisy presence
crying over things he left behind
his favourite toy, a footprint on the wall

My cat my hero my soul companion
you are and will be missed forever...

I will never be able to explain or put in words

just how and how much I loved you

i wonder why i make this mistake again
of loving fleeting images of security
when in truth none exists
except the knowledge that I am here and I love

Pig!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm feeling a bit fluey at the moment and I'm hoping that I haven't caught the exotic variety of flu doing the rounds at the moment. My earlier post which was supposed to be an ode to pigs turned out to be a rant about the insensitivity of Indian society (how do I do that?), so I decided to write about pigs in a separate post.
The city I'm living in at the moment has quite a few of them. Sludge grey porkers with their snouts constantly buried in a garbage heap. They're quite intelligent actually! If only they took their snouts out of their food troughs we could get a glimpse of this famous intelligence of theirs.
I watched a TV show a long time ago that sought to demonstrate how intelligent pigs were by getting them to move cursors across computer screens in exchange for treats. After performing several tests on them, researchers deduced that pigs were the most intelligent domesticated animal in the world. Don't believe me? Read this: http://mammals.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_intelligent_pig. This flu must be their way of "trying to take over the world" Narf!
They may be intelligent but I doubt they're intelligent enough to discern good food from bad. Thats pretty basic stuff which even my cat knows. Randomly shovelling junk into your mouth is not the behaviour of an intelligent, discerning animal (said the 'higher mammal' while stuffing herself with haldiram's aloo bujia). But seriously, no wonder they have tapeworms and god knows what else. They're not too bright otherwise either. I recently saw a pig with a bottle cap stuck to its foot. It walked miles without making the slightest effort to remove the cap whereas it doesnt take my dog more than a second to remove the sweater I put on her in winter.
Whats my point?... Good question. I don't have a point. Just thought that I might as well cash into swine hysteria. The internets abuzz with talk of the dreaded and deadly swine flu. No harm in my itty bitty blog getting a bit of publicity. Muhahahahaha! I honestly believe pigs are alright. Their shenanigans add a bit of interest to an otherwise boring sidewalk (especially how they do the most disgusting things without any morally upright person being able to stop them. Ha!). In a sense pigs are a really cool metaphor for human hypocrisy (I'm not stealing from Charles Manson). We do the same things they do ( haldiram's being a case in point), we just hide it better.