i won’t start singing but hoisting that umbrella over my head and dashing out onto the glittering rain lashed zebra crossing i did feel like mary poppins the other day. remember ms poppins? she who sits on a cloud and pulls lamp stands out of her carpetbag? and sings a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine…? and flies off with you to who knows where? whenever i think umbrella, i see her sitting on a cloud, powdering her nose, then…
this morning, twitter took me to an article in the washington post, which in turn hauled me straight back to school. 1976… or was it ’77? grade ten or eleven. we all had to do a national cadet corps (ncc) certificate course. tt was compulsory. that’s when we heard “dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit dit” for the first time. our instructor was teaching us morse code. the dit was a short sound, the dah a long one,…
who reaches through the shredding the dreadful denuding who thrusts away the demon embedded entrenching who catches the sun and brings it to the cave tell me, girl, who who holds you when light has gone who touches you when nothing remains who sings to you when the hour breaks faith who, tell me, girl, who who will cleave you as they deceive you who will cover you as they unclothe you who will raise you as they inter you…
my heart was in a battlefield today defeat had touched my dreams truth as i had always known it to be writhed torn and begged to breathe demons came raging from hidden caves demolishing my faith, denouncing my dawn mortal wound crushed my land as it lay twined in my ambushed heart then a sound came near from far away so far it exceeds all my reach and yet it was here, carried on another sound whose decibel…
i keep thinking of her face. the naked helplessness. her expressions are almost gone, the suffering robbing her of that too perhaps. she’s saying something in telegu. i don’t understand what she’s saying but her vulnerability is making my heart hammer in a strange way. that’s real, that’s so real, no fudging in it. once in a way her voice shakes and she trembles a little as a sob escapes silently, a tear drops from a vacant tired eye and…
you charged out and grabbed someone and covered their face, head, neck, whatever you could get hold of, in bright, powdery, bursting out of you fist, flying abeer. the coloured powder was vermilion red or marigold orange or wild mean yellow or deadly green, there was this deep cobaltish blue too. and a deeper purple. how can i forget the chutney pink. the point was to put that colour on someone first before they did the same to you. of…
sorry but i find the international women’s day one of the most patronising notions ever. read up a bit on its genesis, saw why women back in the early 1900s way before we had the right to vote and, of course, when women were working hard and not being paid as much as men (still the case in many/most places) thought of the idea… and i fully empathise. but in the form it exists today, set in place by institutions…
this morning, a friend who had tracked me down after years, thanks to writersbrew (that thought makes me so happy i listened to a young girl and started writing here), sent me a lovely little video on whatsapp. it was an edited version of the one here. do take a look, bound to touch you. video credit uploader i saw the short video and grinned. so many memories, delightful tastes traipsing in my head, making me hungry. i have always…
This one might have been called, “how to ruin a perfect morning by insisting on seeing what one should have turned a blind eye to”, or “what do you mean the doormat won’t budge?”, or “who needs a gym when you have a doormat?” the options are many but they all come down to one thing: a doormat. one with its heels firmly dug in, into the marble at that. This would not be a good moment to remind me…
it’s a beautiful song. her voice is mellow and smooth and has a reach in it. it calls without being maudlin. i don’t understand a word of it, but this morning i heard it in a loop. a story of love, of the sycamore and the rose and na na nay. a young and lovely turkish actress called fahriye evcen sings the song. i get the feeling, it’s an old lyric, a love song that’s close to the heart. there…