.,

The phone

rannnnnnnnngggggggggg

I ran
to pickitup
pickkitpickitt

pickkit
picK.

Hello..?

huLLo!

who will you be

I will be a girl-woman
living on the fringes
with half dirty brushes
and half written verses.

.

Things are strange

er...

She said
something
tangible

ate
orange
papaya
at three
in the morn

maybe she was wrong
she
wouldn't know,
she said,
unless the silence
was
broken
by
another charmed
spell.

Sonata 9

Out on the streets today
a little boy with his toy plane crossed my way.

It reminded me to write this down
in my list of things - to - do.
It reminded me when you were cycling home the other night
and that bi-plane was chasing you.

I saw three boys walking with matched steps.
It was getting dark
the eldest must've been eight
the other two, six or seven.

Their knickers were dirty
not from a game of ball.
Dirty, from days of drape.
Their smiles were fresh,
oven fresh.

(Reminded me to ask myself
when was the last time I smiled oven fresh smiles. )

The eldest, tallest one walked in the middle.
His hands rested on the soft malleable shoulders of his mates,
the junior lambs.
They must've been walking home.


I stopped,
still staring at them.
Walked up and asked them
if they knew where shop no. 88 was.
Excited on being asked an important question,
they pranced in three different directions each.
The fourth one was left for me to fill in.

I was guided to a half lit tea shop
with blue faded walls
and yesteryear's red tarpaulin as a facade.
The old kaka looked up
pots of tea boiled
with day old tea leaves, brewing
like faded stars on the stage.

He pointed to the left
and after four minutes
told me to ask the person
sitting on the horizon.
The boys led me again.

I was a lot ping pong ball
bouncing in a narrow alley.
And they
were three flies.

They asked me more questions dressed in importance.
I answered nonchalantly, importantly.
The man on the horizon was a cobbler.
He looked at my shoes
I looked at his hands
leathery.
Brown,
tan,
golden,
ecru.



(to be continued)

Once?

It's easy to be this way, pumpkin.
Why don't you see it my way, dumpling?


Can you see
the half cynical
face in the cloud up there?
The other half is facing backwards.
Let's go further up,
turn around
and see,what the other half is.

Do you read this ode, like I do?
It's lyrical
and tells circular tales.
I'll sit and watch you
smile tomato smiles
while talking to your distant cousin on the phone.
You can watch me
dig out my old sketchbooks
and give them watermelony looks.

We could backpack to the big tree,
cycle in the dark, guided by the moon.
We could survive on juicy oranges, sweet roadside ginger tea,
stale sweet-sour biscuits in big glass jars (and maybe, oily paranthas too).

The days would begin with groggy mornings
in the pitch dark
we can express our love for daybreaks, equally.
The nights would end with you removing yours and I wearing my socks
either clean or smelly.

Do you see,
the view is taking my breath away.
The dark blue starry sky makes me think of trapeze artists swinging,
I can't tell if it's too late in the night or too early in the day.

storytime

In need to listen to fresh stories today.
So, c;mon
and write me something,
I can read while sipping on coffee.
Write anything,
an epic from last year,
a memory on a fresh loaf of bread,
tell me a travel tale,
spin me a yarn,
tell me a fantastic fib,
anything!
As long as it's not soppy.
As long as I can read it with my coffee.

S.O.S.

Mmm...
If The Police had sung 'Message in a bottle' in the present day, would it have been.." I send an SMS to you"?

Yus

So this is my revelation for the day. The earth is not an orb.
It is a hemispherical bowl.
A salad bowl, to be precise.
And we are mere fruits and vegetables diced and tossed up served with fresh dressing.
Yus, this is true.

And anyone who disagrees, is a garlic (you probably have a lot of good qualities but you still stink!).

Har har!!

Fred

I'm going to be busy for the next couple of days with Fred. As it turns out, I must spend the weekend with him, atleast four hours each day. Yes, I've done the calculations right. On Monday, I shall send him across to those people to take a look at him. They'll tell me if he looks alright or if he needs to be taken care of a bit more. Their diagnose is important although for most part, I have to rely on my own senses. That, and a whole lot of images for reference. Fred the frog, on his lily pad...I've never lived a frog's life, how else would I know about a frog's day?

The book cover got approved, I have to do fourteen hand painted illustrations by Monday.
Yikes! I can't complain about having to stare at images of frogs and toads..all gooey and eeky etc..Never had a soft corner for them folks.

I do realise how surreal things are when I talk to my friends and we discuss what we've been doing. So, while a friend sits half way across the world and works on his thesis (management science = rocket science for me), while another friend cooks a great meal with turkey for Thanksgiving, while yet another one works out some user interface dilemma, while another one does some more model tests for yet another ad film, another one takes care of his new born baby boy without a name, another one travels two days to meet her soon-to-be-groom, and yet another one does things I have no idea about, I for my part, sit here and make illustrations of Fred the Frog on his lily pad, hopping, booing, showing off his muscles.

How surreal is this?

Surreal enough to make me see the various hues of life.

While I try and see which colour works best for the lily pad....