you walk on a cloud of innocence. auto rickshaws don't touch the ground.
the bed is a water bed. where you float. your husband is a velvet blanket.
your child a priceless doll. the best job in the world, less than 6 hours of
teaching per week. misty, green campus. faceless colleaugues, whom
you dont even have to meet. the song playing is "yellow".
your mood feels so mellow, you want to scream:
-look i have come through!
-i have made it!
-at last!
-cured!
and even as you speak, you notice the first tremor.
the first stab of the first knife of the month. the pain that begins
somewhere beneath your rib bones and breast. in the place
they call the heart, and you call hell.
coz now its burning, its squeezing tight, its beating loud,
red wings, flapping hard, like a trapped bird, in a closed lift..
soon your fingers will start to shake. your eyes will not focus.
you will try to read, but the words wont make no sense.
they would be so wordless, moving about, all over the page.
you will try to blog, and it will not work.. phone calls & emails
will make you cry, and when you open the door,
you will see the stairway, strewn with the shadows of all your
friends.
black is the only lollipop left for the dead child.
she wants to savor it, till she dies.
she loves it so much, she sees it everywhere.
and everywhere there are ceiling fans looking good in
turquoise duppattas, razor blades so sexy inside
silver tank-tops, gaudy terraces with their long trains
zooming down to granite earth.cocktails that mock
sleep and all those dreams, hallucinations and
visions of the unknown, the metro, rash
buses on the road, path-breaking,
epoch-making accidents.....
you may say i am a dreamer, but i am really
waiting for that moment, when nothing can stop me,
and i give in to all my fantasies to celebrate
myself..
coz i am tired of struggling against this violet
of whirlpools that scatter everything you have..
stopping by road side stalls that sell wisdom...
taking the time off to drink from the cup of my
wine-red tears..
looking for a cure and being asked to hold on,
how long can a balloon bear a safety pin,
and how can you still expect it to bubble
and swell..?
and that is the most magical thing - to add a dash
of white, to this blue blue post ...
slowly i will, this balloon will float again
the clouds will start feeling light again, instead of
hanging heavy on my head, and my baby will
be a song that i love to sing ...
but for the time being, let me give in to The Monster.
let me forget and then learn to do it all over again...
how to make tea, tie my shoelaces, how to breathe..
but this time i promise
when i get better, i will come here and
write about blessed things.
i really do promise.
