Taking a step forward I see lightning as ‘the fast’ meets ‘the slow’. I am not injured; I can endure the lightning but not the confusion.
A beautiful path lights up as far as the mind can reach. Back and forth between a one-way; crashing becomes a certainty.
Quietly, I sit alive in the present.
I am understandably forgetful. Myriad revelations slip away like a childhood memory, leaving behind a warm aftertaste. The warmth turns into a glow and the rest I forget.
Infinity captured in a cage seeps away slowly. It is destined to do so. The two worlds are pulsating with this thought and I, in both.
But there is only one reality in me. The cube burns into a cylinder and the cylinder burns into a sphere.
The shapes finally unite and the two worlds are annihilated.
First there came a yellow flower, flowing like silk on a surface. The stream turned into silk. It told me a short story about the silk thread that draped the yellow flower. They swayed together with the wind. Then someone came and took the silk thread and threw the yellow flower in the stream. ‘A happy ending’, were the last words of the yellow flower.
Then a green leaf floated by and said, ‘I always thought where the stream goes… I’ll get to know it now.’ It danced away with the flowing water.
The stones quietly listened to the stream and stayed there for a long time. Now each stone, of every shape and size, carries a story with it. If heard sincerely, the stones narrate the stories beautifully.
A paper boat rushed quickly and embraced the whirlpool. It then lowered the anchor forever.
The stream is musical; I have been sitting here for a long time now and enjoying the melodies. I dipped my feet in the cool, clear water. Then, suddenly, the stream started talking about the flow of time. I got up immediately.
I am walking along the stream. Twists and turns welcome me here and there, but we are walking.
A foggy day paints the forest in white bloom. [Image by Ieva from Pixabay]
*
Gone are the days when a foggy day reminded of a short story that my Grandma read to me. It becomes just too awkward to step out for a walk and too dull to stay in. The wooden floor creaks when I don’t want it to. The stairs quietly sit there, only talking to me if I stop in between and wonder about something.
Gone are the days when I wasn’t acquainted with the ceaseless and fleeting nature of time; when I didn’t understand what the wall clock was saying to me; when I thought of going through the mirror and meet Alice and her friends.
Gone are the days when the bed side table light’s friendly glow helped me to make last minute changes in the Mothers’ Day card. I always picked colours in pairs and tried my best to keep the card neat. This tradition is now forgotten though whenever I buy a card, I look for myself in the printed words.
Gone are the days when that old song transported me to my dream world. Now, my mind always takes me to a vacuum and when I suddenly come out of it I realise that that old song is over.
Gone are the days when I wrote with an ink pen, confident about what I am expressing. My letters looked as if I had scribbled throughout, but the response showed that the love always got conveyed successfully.
Gone are the days when the grass, the weeds, the flowers and I counted the clouds together. Some clouds changed the shape quickly and some remained the same – thick, heavy, floating nonetheless. The floor and the walls in the house are cold though accurately warm for me but not for the grass, the weeds and the flowers.
I try to take care of a plant. It lives in a small teacup, sitting shyly near the window. The curtains know the plant better than I do.
Gone are the days when I wished and believed that it will come true. To see the plant in bloom just the next day after planting it is a silly wish wasted as a child but I am not silly anymore and so I don’t wish.
I am going to see how the plant is enjoying the weather. It’s foggy – I’ll say to start the conversation. Come along, if you want to.
I say the clouds by nature are very funky and awe-inspiring. I enjoy watching them pass; just a simple hello or a nod is appreciated. They swirl and sway, move in waves and dance every single time, yet they maintain their uniqueness. I mean something which can be counted as a routine, an unchanging event, is actually a very grand and beautiful journey.
Only time might be able to answer how many eyes have dreamt and seen their secret mysteries getting a platform on the clouds – a bunch of flowers, a giraffe eating tree leaves, a cute rabbit, a candy bar, a bicycle, a boat, a pretty face, a simple smile – everything floating silently, invisible to others but clear to those happy eyes.
I say the clouds are a blessing in disguise. They are what freedom might look if given a form. I often try to paint them, to capture them, to be like them… a far-fetched dream. I am trying and I’ll continue.
I tell you there is some sort of sublime never-ending party that is going on up there. I have a proof… I didn’t believe it until I shared it and got to know that many, many, many people know about it too. Some of them have, like me, heard the clouds laugh… not just giggle but burst into laughter.
Others talk about the clouds as singers, dancers, good listeners, painters; a well-known scientist had said once that the clouds have the coolest particles, meaning that by nature they are funny and calm. Clouds also like to play. But more than anything, they are profound… I mean they have depth.
Wise people say that all the answers become clear in the end… it is now believed that ‘all the answers become clear’ because they are hidden in the clear looking clouds. So I guess one should not wait till the end and just keep looking. I am going on the hill top today… let’s see if I get any answers… nevertheless, I’ll have a good reason to burst into laughter.
I was coming back. In the bus, people sitting attuned in silence, hypnotised to the bone, were no different from me until I looked outside the window with sleepy eyes, swaying without a reason. I wasn’t asleep. Whatever was passing was in a rush and I was in a deep slow-motion, so nothing matched.
A thought came to me and I started pondering over it. Gauged a bit about the thought and would have done more, written a few lines, but I forgot; whether I just forgot the thought or to pen down the thought or both, I don’t know.
It is really funny, the party lights seem to be dancing just because they are in a party. But in that sullen room where a solitary sullen bulb glows, no one dances. Rich place for getting scolded and for discussing the future. Who listens when the elders talk? Who listens when anyone talks?
My mind keeps running a never ending tape that I have to adhere to. Yet another thought that I wanted to work on, but I didn’t because of two reasons – I couldn’t find a pen and then I simply forgot to. Hah!
Could it be that while you are walking all alone, nothing changes in you, you are naively, accidentally, mistakenly moving with tranquility and when you are a part of a loud ‘what’s up-oh that-like really?’ crowd everything changes in you, you are then surrounded by absolute confusion and fear?
Changes that crawl and form a labyrinth inside, of which you stay completely unaware.
It can happen. I completely forgot that it can.
What I remember though is that I should make a card for my uncle and auntie. There is no occasion, but then cards aren’t meant only for some special, grand celebrations alone.
“Where are my colours?” Yes, I remember that and so one day I began. I half did it; learnt a good lesson though. Here it is in parts – 1) even if you are not a 10 year old, you can still spill water and make a fabulous mess and 2) (the best one) the comfort of your bed and using water colours is not at all a good combination.
Soon million tiny things around wage a war against you without even moving and you are certainly helpless. You’ll then not find the scissors, the only clean brush, pencil or eraser and as soon as you get up to take a stand, things fall and laugh at you.
My hands… they are muddy green and bluish… am I an alien?
Using water colours mean getting your hands dirty. Oh! This didn’t bother me when I was a kid. I very often made cards for all my friends, getting my hands dirty was never a problem. I guess, I just forgot this.
Butterflies can fly so very high, up the giant trees with two-three light hiccups on the way, sitting on the top of the tree or sweetly enjoying the descent. And they always fly in a rhythm, they are always playing a tune.
Some also say that butterflies carry messages; imagine a fluorescent yellow, bluish-black with a tinge of orange message flying towards you… definitely worth feeling amazed.
And what can I say about the birds? The group that chirps all the time, the pairs that keep singing lengthy songs, the sets flying one after the other and the sole bird sitting somewhere preoccupied with a thought.
While the sun in April looks exactly like we painted it in our drawing notebooks with an orange crayon, bright and glaring, the moon, on the other hand, looks different every night.
One night the moon is attended by starry twinkles, the next it is all alone talking directly to you, expecting a face to face chit chat.
Then one night, I stared at the circle the moon had drawn around itself… as if that night it didn’t want to be disturbed. Funny!
A few days later it was crescent-shaped, clearly asking me to come up with the help of a rope.
So after I watched Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou I went for an evening walk with a question in my mind.
Why did Marianne call him Pierrot? I left without an answer.
The Poster of Pierrot Le Fou, a film by Jean-Luc Godard
It was getting dark as slowly the fog from the mountains was covering the valley from all the sides. The clouds made a thundering noise at some distance. It was surely going to rain and I still didn’t take any umbrella.
The two dogs with me were extremely excited, they rarely worry. Rain or not, they are always up for a walk.
I have a habit of calling them not by their names. Funny, they always wag their tails. I guess I call them so because of what their personalities reflect as a dog.
So happy!
So excited!
Anyway, Pierrot Le Fou…what a ride! From eccentricity to understanding it, from the society to clashing with it, from love to killing it, from life to getting killed. It was about Pierrot…a single individual and the incidents that occur one after the other in his life.
Criss-cross, criss-cross we climbed down the mountain. My mind was quietly dealing with the same question – why Pierrot?
Was it because of his personality, did Marianne know him more than he knew himself?
It seems so, in fact, he was aware about it but was reluctant to accept this fact and that’s why he reminded her each time she called him Pierrot that his name is Ferdinand not Pierrot.
Suddenly, as I was busy thinking and talking at the same time, it started drizzling. We decided to go back. The dogs were as happy to return as they were when we left the house.
I started running and so did the dogs, it was raining heavily now. Climbing a mountain is tough. I was short of air soon and I stopped to get some.
The dogs also stopped, we were getting wet. Breathe, breathe, I told myself and started walking briskly. And then when the cool fog was all around and my nose felt very icy, the question in my mind escaped.
Panting heavily, trying to catch up with the two dogs, I felt truly in the moment…I was in the present.
As if someone was behind me with a gun, I ran so fast. The dogs were running next to me. It was downhill now and we increased our speed. ‘Thundering typhoons, run, run, run!’
I am sure about one thing, Marianne didn’t lie when she called him Pierrot. She was being honest with him.
But I don’t blame Pierrot either. After all, he was busy reading and contemplating all the time. Someone’s philosophy ruled him.
Pierrot, busy reading.
This is what he was reading.
We reached home, wet. I was smiling. I sat on the chair and looked at the view. The young tree in front, with green leaves, was playing ‘raindrops’ tune. I listened.
Then I felt that I know the answer to the question, finally, but couldn’t put it in words.
Oh! I remember one word though – emotions.
Haiku
I am joy running free/
freely flying, fluttering, soaring in a valley/
Of joy am running free.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
