chimes of a forgotten melody

Planning to post memoirs of a few journeys which I made, many of which deeply moved me and perhaps influenced a personal transformation into who I am today. These may not be a travelogue in the ideal sense of the word but is a human story that I experienced when traveling. I also confess that many of these accounts will be corrupted by memory and some will be made dramatic to suit my poetic heart. These are also not chronologically ordered as you may expect and would often involve cases where one journey is split up into fragments as each fragment is equally important. Let me not waste my words on introductions, go on have a read... *** Dedicated to the wonderful people who I lived these journeys with *** For a long long time, Mumbai has been a dream city for me. This was primarily because of the fables, fragrance, colors, and people of this dynamic city which when put together always formed a sophisticated and overwhelming human story. Moreover, it was always a city t

* To Nijil * It has been a long time since I wrote anything worthwhile here. While I apologise to the reader (if at all anyone follows this shit anymore), I am also at odds as to what to write. Writer's block? Maybe. Am I even a writer? Maybe. Most likely, it is just a lack of any genuine experience which can inspire words to gush out of my mind. Perhaps, it is where we all end up - a gradual walk onto fields of deterioration and nothingness. Sometimes, it is amidst these moments of monotonous melancholy that sparks of memories fills up our insides and makes us remember who we were and what we've become.While it probably won't be much so as to pull us back onto roads we loved walking, it may be enough to slow down our pace as we move into oblivion. *** I remember this journey we made from Dehra Dun back to Delhi. Looking back, I hold fondness for that time - just out of college, nothing to hold me back and a world full of opportunities in front of me. I was wi

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