Celebrating her day!

Often have I been questioned, “Why this Independence Day?”

Often on my overzealous expressions, many have confronted me, “Just standing up for the tricolour today won’t make a difference.”

Often for my sharp criticism of youngistaan’s coolness, “Standing up for the Anthem today, won’t take her forward,” is all I receive.

And often have I thought an answer for this.

Never did I stop romancing my lover,

But Valentine’s my annual visit to the jeweler;

Love her I, throughout the year,

But the 14^th is the day I remember – I love her.

Ups and downs throughout the days,

And I kick start all again in fresh ways.

That’s not the only newness and the Hope’s ray;

But 31^st December, I celebrate new beginnings throughout everyday.

I’d as always given him a shoulder to cry, his love’s life did we pry.

We rode into the jungle, chewed a crab he sought to fry.

Vodka on the terrace, Whisky in the car do we remember the exams’ syllabi?

But the first Aug. Sunday, my friends, take an occasion to give merry yet again a try.

Oh! That cracker did you see? It lighted up the moonless night.

My pious aunt commands weeklong, “are the sweets and flowers set right?”

Ram, Ganesh and Lakshmi have their perpetual nivaas here, she sights;

Yet on Diwali, she commemorates the inexorable Gods, who otherwise too are bright.

Father Mathew and Ali bhai are no different I suppose;

For Ali’s mother religiously sits five times in that pose.

Then why does Fr. Mathew on 25^th, put the Rum cakes on the stove?

For Jesus and Allah bless us always; their hand forever on our brows.

I start with a yawny good morning, and the night she hugs me to sleep,

I obey and disobey her relentlessly, but she continues in my welfare to peep.

This June 4^th, I gave her a leather bag for all her kisses and love to keep.

I love my Ma as every child, but on her B’day I tell her I love her deep.

My parents, my brother, my friends and the lover;

Not forgetting the Lords above; there’s day to each, to show our love.

There’s a prayer or a gift or a toast rose,

Then why such ado about us, before the tricolour, to rise?

My singing the anthem won’t aggrandize Her.

By not singing even won’t bind her pace.

But toiling for her daily differs from singing on her B’day.

Remembering her daughters and sons, cheering her in the race!

mute ecstasy

It was the evening of August 6, a dusty, humid and an unwelcome evening. Unwelcome all the more as I had trudged one kilometre and half uphill for a class and found the door shut on my face. Grumbling and stumbling down I waited for the bad public conveyance at the bus stop. The filth troubled me. The squalid odour was making me dizzy. And the beaten legs had already fatigued me and my head together. Panting, I frowned as each bus passed by with men dangling out of it. “What the hell! There is not even ample number of buses or autos,” I barked. Inhaling heavily, trying to regain my breath I scanned the place for a vacant spot to settle and ease my lazy legs. “Can’t even breathe before running to the class? What a pathetic schedule,” was my everyday caterwaul as I raced from college to attend the class.

I was scanning that vacant spot for my poor lazy legs, my eyes caught the attention of a young man of early twenties, dark, healthy with a paunch struggling out in an off white, overused polo t-shirt. He was furiously gesturing something and a group of five girls, ages ranging from 15 to mid twenties, clad in some sort of a blue uniform, glared at him. Wincing! I suddenly realized something and wondered whether he was making fun of someone? No! Was that a group of friends making merry by playing some ‘who remains mute the longest’ game? I stared, unable to understand. My eyes swayed a little and there was a young boy, winding up his teens, giggling and… again? He too was gesturing. I scanned the whole place again and that little bus stand was overcrowded with these blue uniformed boys and girls, grouped in small numbers, all gesturing, furiously as I thought. My lazy brain woke up to remind me of a Deaf and Dumb School nearby.

Suddenly all my exhaustion and enraged frustration vanished away. I was zealously engrossed in them. There was that first group of five lasses and a lad. They now were smiling as if pleased by some satisfactory outcome of the power packed story the boy had been narrating. One of the elder girls was now in brisk conversation with him. There was another… behold! She’d been signalling somewhere else. And behold again! She got up and darted towards another group of boys. And again all I saw was brisk hand movements- curling and twisting, fingers numbering, touched the head now, patted the other hand and clicked at the chin then.

My friend who accompanied me was still busy on the look out for the bus. The road traffic decibel ebbed to zero for me. It was all quiet. No sound; absolutely. Oh! The girl I forget. So she and a handsome young boy were discussing over something, I guess, as she excused herself to grab a notebook from her bag. Flicked pages and they resumed their talk. They study? I thought in bewilderment. My lazy brain was turning foolish now. They studied indeed. I was compelled to ask them “what subject?” but couldn’t muster the courage. Yet another circle of girls gossiped, yes I’m sure for I couldn’t get their gestures but their expressions. Girls are girls.

Returning back to the notebook group, a couple of them giggled, I noticed. And a scene from my day at the college flashed as I observed another blue apparelled. He smirked as he rubbed his fist on the left side of the chest. And I had hummed a nineties love song teasing my friends earlier in the day. I smiled. And it was earnest. It was bliss! It was so silent; yet there was so much of conversation, so much was being said.

How I, vouched with all my needs, still suffer of my greed.

How I, with all the gifts, still suffer of meaningless fits.

They were a mute living. But they were truly living.

I’d been all chattering, but all was just cribbing.

All my heaviness of the day had evaporated. Their ecstasy and tranquillity was taking over me. My heart craved, and tempted to join their fun, join their normalcy, away from my agonies. Handicapped, and spoilt for life, they had no qualms and lived their fullest; Lived the normal-est. What troubles are mine? I ponder. What troubles are mine? I still am pondering.