First Love

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Here is my first love- my only love-

He lies buried under the sod;

Our shared headstone, a mute testament

Of oneness, in life and in death,

Eternally twined like the rings carved in.

Is he under the sod, my heart murmurs,

Do I meet him when I visit his resting place?

Thoughts wander at the site of the sod

Under which he lies in peaceful slumber.

But, I know that he is in our house

When I try to share a  joke and

I feel the whisper of a touch.

I murmur apologies at the chaotic house

Or at the forgotten or neglected tasks.

He is with me at the delicious moments,

Twinkling at the absurd and the ludicrous

These I share with no one else!

There are tears that gush at the untimely parting

And there is laughter and chatter

At the retelling of stories that he no longer is

A player or a partner on this side of eternity.

Often, I face the lonely precipice

And climb alone, reaching fingers

Straining to touch fate’s vagaries

And trying to dictate an alternate destiny!

Grief

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Why wake up in the morning

To stare at nothing

And relive the dark moments

Just before the light went

Out of the dear life

And the paralysis

Of every fiber set in?

The might-have-beens parade

In never ending colums

To torment and point

At every little action

Or inaction of someone

Who could have

Or should have

Done something

Or other

That might have

Made the difference!

Life is sidelined

And stays in shadows,

Forgetting  routines-

Waking, sleeping, eating.

Then, the onslaught

Of torrential out-pours

That dry out tear ducts

And wring out torment

At the touch of a jacket,

The sight of a furled umbrella

And the black sandals

In the kitchen- ever ready-

Either for inclement weather

Or to be worn off carpets,

At the sight of a brochure

Of long planned trips,

Or the feel of the briefcase

Ever carrying work

For tomorrows…

Until the day awakens

When, in balmy moments,

A thought is compared,

A joke is shared,

And your hand is held,

In spirit, for ever.

The Golden Time

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The golden time is here

In all its glory and blaze;

The autumnal tints – flame hues-

The red, yellow and orange –

Crowd the nipping air in fiery leaps

Before the twigs and branches strain,

In skeletal supplication

In earthy tones of greys and browns,

Frigid in winter’s rime and frost,

Before the earthy sod grows hard

In the freezing climes

When the wintry winds howl

And shake the twigs to drop

And write cuneiform

In the pallid coverlet

That wraps the world in frost,

And before those waning moments

Lead to a numb oblivion.

          The golden time is here

          When wisdom’s kernels

          Plump up to the skin.

          Now, I stand upon my vantage –

         The tired past behind me –

         In calm, serene contentment.

         With sage and mature eyes

         I wait future’s progress

        Before the aural tints fade away

        Into silvery dullness and wrinkly grey,

        Before the rheumy eyes peer –

        Half-shuttered- at all around me

       When feeble limbs shake

       Like unsheltered aspen leaves

       And cracked voice rasps

       In listener’s ears

       Before the waning moments

       Inch towards eternal rest.

April Snow

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The most daunting was

The surprise, the shock of it,

When flakes hurried down

In a pelter of madness,

After the glimpse of warmth

When the sun coursed, already,

Into the House of Ram!

Floating and wafting,

In a swirl of tossed down

Like those from an epic battle

Of enormous pillows thwacking

In a pajama game of giants,

The snow flakes swayed

In a danse macabre ,

In a relentless fury

Of mad moves and insane steps

Of a whirling dervish

Of far away climes.

Suddenly, the quiet settled

Like a pall over the land

And the flurries gentled

To a slow stop

That ended the rage.

The Widow

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A white moth or a black crow,

East or West,

The woman goes about

In a world without brightness,

No rainbow hues to lighten

The life made barren by death,

A crippled life with broken wings

And severed limbs.

Death detaches a pair!

The Indian widow,

Dashed her bangles

And muted them for ever;

In washed out, colorless white, and

The vermilion wiped off her forehead,

She entered as the bad omen

At births and weddings.

Draped in black crepe and veiled,

The Western widow fared no better.

A daughter, wife, a mother,

And often a grandmother,

She was somebody’s someone.

In stoic silence or in muted sighs,

She yearned for security

That had forsaken her.

The funeral meats turned cold

And the widow turned

To face a changed world.

In the East or in the West,

The widow, often, faced

A life of undefined terms

And defined abandonment.

But, for the widower,

There were no strictures,

White clothes or black clothes,

The ominous reminders

Of death’s parting

And the loss of love and life!

Coal’s Life

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Is this an ember that glows in gashes?

The soot is lifted with each blow of breath

That touches the core of heat

To transform the gray lumps.

In life’s furnace, one stays cold and dull,

Never touched by outside drafts

Until the pain of loss and shock of grief

Wafts the dull coating away

And fires up heart’s core

And awakens the nerve ends.

And as bellows blow air into

The tranquil, insipid coal chunks,

The cold furnace comes alive.

Fired up, the coal gleams and shines

Into a fiery, hot, ruddy gem.

It is alive and pain lashes

In the glowing slashes.

Awakening powers

That rise from within.

A sun for the moment,

Coal gives out its life,

To those it nurtures,

Heat to sustain,

And warmth to enfold

Those who gather around.

Convictions and courage

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New York Times byline – “Whither Moral Courage?

By SALMAN RUSHDIE

Published: April 27, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/whither-moral-courage.html?pagewanted=all

COMMENT:

Growing up in Kerala in the 50’s and 60’s, one is catapulted right into the middle of political upheavals and ideological uprootings.  The Communist regime  and the popular unrest will always be part of my growing up.

The period was a time of fear in households.  Everyone has read about the Communist regime in the USSR.  A Communist government at home was met with fear and trepidation.  The awareness about Karl Marx’s stand on religion literally scared the believers of all faiths.  Rumors about secret police and and spying neighbors were rampant.  Raids on homes were fearfully expected  and,  in my family of women (grandmother, mother and the three unmarried daughters)  and one young boy, anxiety was growing each day.  My mother had iron bars installed on all doors opening out.  She even buried a fanciful knife in order not to be caught with a ‘lethal’ weapon in the forthcoming raids.  In this environment of fear, it was easy to collect all the people of varying faiths together to rebel against the government of the time.

As a twelve-year old, I probably was the youngest of the thousand and one women who picketed the Collectorate in Thrissur. This 1957 event was a headline grabber. I hung on to my sister’s coat tails and slipped in.  My sister could not be allowed go alone and I was the ‘chaperon’.  Since the event was permitted by the Church, my mother let my sister go with the proviso of my presence. It was a peaceful demonstration and only the front row picketers were picked up by the police and released.  It was  a gesture of moral indignation because a sleeping, pregnant woman named Flory was killed by the bullet fired by the police at another peaceful demonstration.  Women were deeply affected by the incident and they rose up in protest because the killing was a threat to all motherhood and womanhood.  I could feel the collective emotional response from all the women around me.  There was also fear because the armed forces of law were present and no one knew the consequences. Everything about the event was uncharted territory. One has to imagine that these women were sheltered and were not prone to public demonstrations.  The fervor of the moment is still indelibly impressed upon my psyche.  That was a time of convictions and courage.

Our schools were closed because of the new educational policies.  Only the government run schools remained open.  I had plenty of time to indulge in my favorite pastime: reading.  I like crow’s nests.  I was perched on a window sill that faced the driveway and the gate.  I had a good view of the road.  I  still do not know what prompted me to look up from my book and turn to the road.  Since it was village road, the lorry was passing at a rate slower than in the highways.  A lorry was roofless except for the cab.  This one was filled with men with corded muscles and long staffs.  The muscles were visible because the men were shirtless and appeared to be toddy-tappers.  Their Union was always Communist.  Somehow or other, the sight gave me some unease.  I ran down and told the rest of the family about it and we expected that someone was going to be hurt.  Later in the day, as news traveled like wild fire even in those days without mobile phones, we heard what transpired.  The men in the lorry were after a Congress party activist.  They knew that he had been at a jewelry store belonging to a friend.  They came with violence, but they underestimated their prey.  He was trained in martial arts.  He disappeared very quickly from the scene when he saw what was coming.  Not finding him where they expected, the attackers did what men who was looking forward to violence.  They beat up the owner of the store and returned without satisfying their wrath.

In a nostalgic moment, I decided to go through Google to check into this time in history.  I was appalled to find that history has undergone some drastic revision.  The peaceful demonstrations of my time is now pictured as violent demonstrations and the regime of the time is described as a victim.  It must have been my naivete that made me feel so shocked at this blatant disregard for truth.  The only violence was done by the government of the time.  It was the first elected Communist government of Kerala.  The sainted E. M. S. Namboothiripadu was the Chief Minister.  The education Minister Joseph Mundassery’s decisions upset the religious leaders of the day and they joined together to resist the highhanded methods of the party.  People were very much aware of the totalitarian conditions of USSR and China at the time and did not wish for the same purging methods employed in their own land.  The people were perturbed.  They went out into the streets in hordes.  But, they were peaceful.  There were occasions when the government forces used batons and rifles in dealing with the demonstrators. Fifteen people were killed when the police fired at the demonstrators.  It is a fact that Flory was killed in one of these occasions.

Those people who demonstrated against a government whose policies were repugnant to them showed their courage.  But, alas, the revisionists of today show their moral outage and make a mockery of truth.

The Solitary Walker

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Glimmering, glittering, the Pacific shimmered –

Frothing and foaming, the surging waves reached

Between the toes and sandy curves-

Leaving marine debris-

To hiss out in spent energy

To return to the vast deep,

To rev up for another onslaught.

 

The walker squished her toes into briny sand,

Drawing nonsensical squiggles and whorls.

Her thoughts wandering into yester years,

She wondered at fate’s thoughtless deeds

That left her bereft and alone,

Without a pair  and with no companion.

In solitude, she pondered life’s vagaries;

But, in loneliness, she found the unwelcome guest.

 

To the untutored, the walker seemed content,

But her roiled thoughts churned unseen

And uncontrolled in vain attempts to rein in,

The miasma of loneliness leaving her in fugue state.

 

The waves pelted at the grainy shore and fizzled.

The walker’s mind rambled into consequential

And inconsequential meanders that led nowhere.

The naked footprints led away into places

Of no dreams and no destinations!

Early Childhood and the Formative Years

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Arne Duncan: Universal preschool is a sure path to the middle class

It is agreed that the years before five are very important in the learning stages of a child.  In a natural process, the parents’ role at this time is crucial.  But, many children suffer from the lack of parental supervision and early intellectual and social stimulation.  We have a society that is failing our children.  The government and the educational pundits do no have the answers to our social malaise.  The preschool has its uses.  But, is that going to be enough if the home values and perceptions do not improve?  Are the parents and society willing to undertake to change themselves?

Why are the members of the Congress so bent on not representing the American people?

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“In blow to Obama, Senate blocks gun-control plan”

This headline indicates the tenor of our media and the politicians.  Instead of thinking about the good of the people, the interest is in scoring points.  In a democracy, the media’s role is very essential.  They are the ones to open the window into what is happening at the higher echelons of the government.  But, if the media takes sides, then how are we to  reach the truth of the realm?  The tear-jerking tales of all the gun related tragedies did not affect the law makers.  They were more concerned about their reelections or submitting to the self-interest groups.  There was no altruism in that voting.  The bill was not even very stringent in its expectations.  Yet, the callousness of the lawmakers was astounding.  the word ‘politician‘ should go back to its meaning in the Elizabethan times.