chimes of a forgotten melody

Let me begin with a question which keeps revisiting me every time I sit down to write - How big should a collection of words be to be called a story? Do words matter at all? Will a well-crafted, emotion-filled and deeply philosophical sentence classify as a story? *** Walking underneath sodium lamps in a city that turns yellow come nightfall, I saw them smoking cigarette and laughing over jokes in a language I could not understand. They were dressed in luminescent green to reflect any incoming motor headlight. For most of their life they were dots on top of sky-scraping construction sites or blurred with dust and cement on roadsides. Near me, with every smoke they let out piercing deep into my nostrils and further into my lungs, I felt them, strangely as it may seem, to be real. *** There are stories pouring out of homes and into streets every night – some you hear and forget, some you write down while some you step on and kill softly. In between these stories, I hea...

On Easter Day last year, most people (including me) in our town woke up to hear that Jayan had murdered a man. To begin with, it has to be said that many of us wasn't particularly shocked with the news. Maybe it was because we felt Jayan personified a man who would kill another man just for the sake of it. "Jayan, he is as dark as the hair on my armpit" Johnson chettan , my nosy neighbour pointed out. "He is a fucking Maoist" said Ravi chettan (owner, chef and waiter of 'Ravi's High Range Tea Shop') while he handed a glass of tea to Comrade Valsan. Valsan, sipping his favorite morning tea and reading the report in  Desabhimani  stated the most obvious of all reasons, "He is a low caste scum!" These conversations continued inside homes, between school benches, under bus waiting shelters and in toddy shops. Everyone who remotely knew Jayan seemed to have a very deep and thorough understanding of his motives - everyone was su...

On the first morning of her last summer, Vygha woke up to find her body covered in sweat and her mind yearning for Anees. It was not an ordinary yearning; for numerous years she fell asleep wanting his heated breaths to hit her cold face but now she wanted something more. She wanted to know, once again, how it feels to have his manhood move along her bosom and to pull it towards her and kiss it till he cried with passion. She remembered days when they laid naked in their portico, often smoking, surrounded by the sound of crickets and the twinkle of fireflies. She used to tell him about lavenders and mountain tops, he would close his eyes and listen. Anees loved her stories, he loved her journeys, and she loved him for it. They planned countless adventures after their marriage and often did none; they wanted to smoke the costliest weed, they wanted to travel the world like hippies and they wanted to grow lavenders in their portico. Vygha got out of bed, her thoughts were still ...

As his arms softened around her belly button, Maria had a deep urge to disappear. She was a prostitute; her breasts were hardened by constant violence it endured from its clients, her pubis was infected, her lips grimaced in pain every time she asked it to kiss someone. And yet, this man was tender towards her. 'She didn't deserve it' she thought. "Maria, what is it that you think about?" he asked. "I'm thoughtless." she lied. "Your face looks like Lake Kinneret in moonlit nights - blank.. white.." he said. Maria smiled. She loved this man. He had slept under the moon and traveled to Eastern lands. He was a traveler, a dreamer - she found it to be a sensual combination. But she couldn't beg him to stay, could she? His hands pulled at her skirt allowing her rotting vulva feel the coldness of his winter lips - his long beard stroked her thighs, his hair flowed peacefully along the slopes of her stomach. Maria was afraid, she fe...

* Dedicated to Amma and Achan * It was a single-roomed quarters that existed at a time far before technology, you may say it outlives other memories of home precisely because of this attribute - there was more life, more birds, more stars in the night sky than I've ever known. Along its walls my crayons traced intimacy, on its floors I urinated unperturbed. I knew nature, I grew aware for the first time, I dreamt my most artless dreams and slept with no concerns.. *** There was this story of a mahout and elephant that Amma would say to me when I was barely learning to talk. I still hear Amma's concerned voice saying how the elephant who grew restless at the way the mahout treats him kills him one day. This creates anger and fear among people around and they call a forest guard to kill the elephant, because apparently he had become 'dangerous'. The guard picks up a gun from somewhere and repetitively shoots the elephant, the elephant succumbs, crying...

Perhaps, Cosmic infinities could not have contained our purposeless love. Maybe, Galaxies around us could not have sheltered our twilight hopes. Truly, Our only misgiving was an expanding universe harboring darker halves of us all. Sadly, We are but nothingness living an enlightened accident, Moving away from each other since our birth.

This is the first of a series of stories (hopefully) which I like to call 'Flutter'. I believe you can gauge the intent of these stories once you read them. Love, Anand. *** Ameena would lie down in her balcony on days like these, wondering where she came from and what her purpose was in life.  Aluva river, in front of her, peacefully flowing onto the Arabian Sea would reflect starry ski es above. She felt intimately related to the celestial peace which descended around her; moon in the distance, lights from the airport, and the ever benevolent silence. She could imagine the farthest extents of Universe right here in this negligible point in a negligible Earth, for that she was thankful. The chicken curry her husband threw on her face still burned her eyes and nose, it was spicy alright. He used a word to describe it specifically and her existence generally, she couldn't help but think about it. How would he know what that word means to her, how would he ...

Who can gauge, The depths of human mind in thought, Effervescent streams of velvet hope, Red-shifting music that sink souls in thriving pools of celestial re-births and re-discoveries. Who can fathom, The distances a migrating bird must fly, Vagaries and silence of lives beneath, The art of a rare chemical dance and its unpronounced everyday evolutions, A story of recurring dreams, Painted with dark nostalgic loves left behind. Who can put to words, The grandeurs of extinct universes, Their sunlit banks, their wonderous cosmic evenings, Beginning of life, death of stars and a heroic force, Working upon primordial imperfections, To build home as we know it now.

I heard you say my truths are veiled lies, I heard you say my mind is crooked and high, I heard you say people detest my chronic rhymes, I heard you say what am I but my routine jibes, I heard you say nobody follows my divergent vibes, I heard you say fuck yourself, go and die. But my dear, these insecurities, they are mine, Mock me, choke me, sock me, I will live my life!

I contain multiple loves. I love how wet earth drags her alluring lips on my hardened cheeks, I love silent mountains shouting unused truths, I love my mother's milk and memories of her breasts, I love your hands when they entangled mine. It stagnates as avenues shrink, Souls to receive it reclines self-seeking, Equally alone as I maybe. My fathomless loves rot and infect, Turns malignant, Soak and wrinkle uncontainably, I dribble blood. Everything I love kills me a little more.

Let my words be flawless today, Clear as silver stream, Fresh as morning spring, Let it reach you toiling through doubts in your mind, Let it move along your turbulent vistas, Where piety had made melancholic tombs, And proceeds of war made wounds that can't be healed, Where I once made my abode severing your rueful constraints. Let my words reach there again, As an ending quote, Or maybe a wholesome resurgence, Like light following an eclipse, Like land after years of sea, Let my words make meanings, For long it was only noise - farcical moonshine, Today let it be plain and from my hardened heart, Let it leave no doubt, no points to guess, No rhyming sentences, no superficial nonsense. I want it straight, As pure as my perpetual longing, As unfettered as my resurrecting love, Evading your shallow pools of dubiety, Caressing the happiness we shared and the grief we forgot, Let it touch the nights we laid awake, Let it bring rainbows for our storms, Let it...

What good are stars my love, If I cannot talk about them to you? What good is the moon, Upon whose silver canvas the dreams we drew, If you cannot see? What good are journeys, Miles I walk, Galaxies and heat deaths, If it isn't you that I reach? What good are memories, Travels in time, Like pulsars in bleak space, If I cannot find your laughs amidst? What good are spaceships, If there are only voids that I may reach?

I remember watching her, it was a long long time back that I can't quite recollect how she looked like that day. She was waiting for bus after college, I don't remember who she was with, all I remember was that I was afraid to go near her, I don't really know why, but I was. I watched, I remember watching her, she looked beautiful. *** I don't usually carry my umbrella to places, it's not that I particularly enjoyed getting wet, it's just that I don't like carrying too many things when I'm traveling. I'd prefer getting wet to perpetually living attentive to my umbrella. It was raining that day, I don't really remember where I was. We were walking, she had her umbrella opened, it could barely fit us both. I could feel her close to me, I could feel myself all messed up. The rain was pouring down and parts of us were together and dry, while parts of us were apart and soaking. *** She was by no means the most charming, she wasn...

Can you hear me Amma? Sometimes I can't hear myself, Sights remain blurry, Voices frail, Paths I walk infect me, If I stop now, Can you survive? Do you remember Amma? The day you left me alone at school? I felt being ripped apart, From you, trees and crows, Earthworms and centipedes, I cried, You never came. Did you know when I first lied to you? "The wound in my hand was from a fall in the playground" Would you have held me close, If I said the truth then? Would you kiss me to sleep, If I say the truth now? Could you come here Amma? Will you rest me on your lap? Will you sing me a lullaby, of butterflies, flowers, and love? Will you stroke my erupting head? I need to sleep. *** For those who don't follow Malayalam, ' Amma ' is the word we use for 'mother'. I could've used 'mother' itself here, but then it wouldn't have been a poem at all.