Moraes- Letter To My Mother

"You sit alone with your Church
And the memory of the son
You have scarcely ever seen.
You pray he may be spared
From the arms of the blue wife
God raped in an orchard.
You do not understand me.

I am tidying my life
In this cold, tidy country.
I am filling a small shelf
With my books. If you should find me crying
As often as I was a child
You will know I have reason to.
I am ashamed of myself
Since I was ashamed of you."

-Dom Moraes (Letter to My Mother- I)

Nights of Silence

I told you I would return to you, with

your books, and notes, and

the fragments of life I stole. That was

twenty years ago.

I sometimes, open those pages and

return to that angled writing, I

have a limp now, and I look into

the floor when I remember your perfect beauty, that

white smile, the glow in your face, those mischievous

eyes that had just risen from

a thousand pillow fights.

There is solace to be had, when lonely,

there is silence, and

the lights of the city- winter is

perfect for observing streetlights-they are almost

fragile. And, as you walk, the dew settles on you, so that

after a few hours, your sweater is as wet as the guilt

you are wrapped in. There was no one to speak to, you exclaim!

and, there was silence you chose to walk into,

the silence whispers back.

Nights of pestilence, soliloquy,

unheard screams, and death. But there are

bigger things than silent poems.

Sportsmen, role models, and belief

(I wrote a longer version of this as a comment on @sidvee's blog, and lost it trying to log in. Don't think can recreate the entire comment, so here goes a paraphrased version.)

The other day I was part of a twitter discussion about why the minor misdemeanors of sportsmen get the most stringent scrutiny, while even the wildest acts of other celebrities do not seem to affect the barometer of public affection. Case in point: the Lance Armstrong issue. The claim is doping, and I do maintain that in a vicious world which has a so much injustice strewn around should you care to look, the breaking of a few million people's faith should not really matter all that much (it does not to, me- I think there are maybe a few billion people who have never heard of Armstrong). And there
are guys like Salman Khan who was accused of running over actual, physical people (an act that usually results in death, unlike hurt emotions), or a Sanjay Dutt (accused and convicted of worse- naivete or not), and still their movies run to full houses and nobody seems to make any noise about their histories. It is a cynical world.

I used to believe in sportsmen once, I have been chewed out and spat back in an interview for saying that if I had to look at one person for inspiration in the world, I would look at Steve Waugh (which, given my background, the interviewer thought, was a stupid choice). But I believe that when we are choosing our role models, the context plays as big as role in the choice of the person and the strength of attachment we feel towards him. So, when we are looking at an SRT play in an India/Mumbai jersey, we are not just looking at him as a sportsman, we are looking him as a manifestation of what we stand for (the belief of how the country should be, how the city should be)- sublime, resilient, able to come back from behind, able to be heroic in defeat...choose your faff. Same, I feel, would apply for sportsmen who do not play for countries, but play for clubs, or teams like footballers or F1 racers- all of these entities stand for something- we like the team, we associate values to it, and when the favored child shifts, he still carries some values attached to the team (does not have to be real, can as well be perceived).

By comparison, when I watch the white shirt tear itself of Salman's body in a Dabangg almost as if it hates being wrapped around it, I do enjoy it; but neither I, not most of us imagine being locked in a battle to death with goons on a vengeance trip in an obscure place. (The context thing applies here too, remember how AB of Zanjeer or Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan or Deewar was expected to live to higher standards- his context was closer to the real world-does that sound funny?).

And that is the long and short of it, I guess, we pick heroes based on how we attach to them, and that, in turn, is based on context. So, I would say we are doomed to gaze on those stars and pick out 'our' heroes among them for so long as we live, because we identify with them- if we didn't, we wouldn't patronize what they did. Think about it, at its crudest, cricket is just one man throwing a ball hoping to hit a stick while another hopes to hit it with another stick, and ten other guys wait to chase that ball. Not the most urgent problem facing us, is it? But we need metaphors to live, and that is as good a metaphor as any.

As far as as Karl Malone's article about the responsibility of sportsmen is concerned, in an ideal world, everyone would be like that. In the real world, we have people like Charles Berkley who don't have any obligation to 'raise our kids'. To these guys, I only have one thing to say: you had talent, but that talent did not make you famous. You could always chosen not to be famous- so top taking it as a freebie and start seeing it as a responsibility, because like it or not, people are going to look at you. (I grew up in a world where being a grown up was a responsibility- where grown ups tried to behave properly in front of kids, or at least as properly as they would expect kids to behave- where the ability to behave as you could: to live life as you could, was not a responsibility, not a privilege).

I know my idols do not have to feel the same way, but they do have the choice to. And as far as I am concerned, I will always believe, simply because not believing is far more easier, but that much uglier.

PS: Any articles I refer to are all linked to in @sidvee's post, and I am being just lazy, but you must read that post and chase the links.

Depression

Some of these evenings, there is just too much brown around, almost like a dirty slush which is a composite of the shambles of conscience and an electric righteousness: a mixture of your bright white hope, and bleak disappointment and the sandy shades of your ennui mixed with the sunshiny bright laughter of your past and the golden shades of the promised future that looms on your horizon like very bright smily clouds that promise a cold, sterile, formica clean comfort...those evenings when you look into a mirror and try to sell the idea of smiling to yourself and all that stares back is your own ugly, flyblown, inconspicuous face which seems vaguely familiar-those eyes carry shades of something you trample on, everyday. You try to remember when you last saw green, when your feet last felt the sensation of walking on grass and not smoking it, when you actually ran through the golden reluctance of a field of ripe wheat, when you last stared sun in the face as it was sinking and your horizon was brighter and more alive than the coming night- when you met hope, and could promise yourself that she would be going home with you.

Look at yourself, what you were, are and will be; look at your bright future, and weep for what you do not even know you have lost.

Stories End

I should have gone home, last December, when

the cold was like a living object, breathing white

in your living room, and an imaginary frost

worked on the threads that tied us together.

It is easy to let go; dreams, people- the

act never reflects the consequences- you

never called me and asked if I retained any letters, I

never lied and said, ‘No, I didn’t.’ Pride

seeks preserves, ego- and, hell, I read them

over and over, scanning for hints that are not there.

 The night we fought, it

was a full moon, like tonight- only with clouds that

are stepping up to battle- galloping warriors who have said

farewell.

As have I- I wrote a poem for you, and

tomorrow, I will be gone, and the moon will start shrinking. But

only for another two weeks.

Most stories end.

May you forever blossom.

A Thousand Empty Roads

He spoke in beautiful sentences. She replied in non-committal monosyllables. His words had no coherence from one pause to another. Her silences told a thousand stories. They lived together, and they drifted apart. And then the silences brought them back. Again and again, he spoke in words which were like the refraction of white light; again and again, her silences the beauty of the infinite darkness.  

The world wore the white of a fogged out windscreen, the silence of a thousand nights populated by silent blinking traffic lights signalling no traffic whatsoever. Did you ever realize there are very few things as lonely as walking a brightly lit, empty road late in the night? Bright lights are not built for silences, when coupled with empty roads; they bring your worst monsters out and threaten to eat your soul. He walked those roads alone. 

And then one day, she asked to come with him. And all the squalid little affairs of the day- the brain freezes, the ego-fights, the petty squabbles- everything was forgotten. He was complete. The empty roads wore the brilliance of a satisfied soul.

Being Un-Grown Up

Every evening, I take a look at the beer-bottle-forest that has been accumulating under the sink ever since the lady-who-cooks took a leave; every evening I come home and think, shit, I am almost thirty years old, I do not need any of this immature living crap, I am not that young anymore. Every evening, I come home and tell me- hell! from tomorrow!