RamGanapathy.com

Author: Ram

  • Shadow

    Right when the tip

    of the pen hits the paper

    Before the ink ploughs on

    To a stroke, to a shape, a something

    To dry and to die

    To be the shadow of my thought

    Right at this tip

    I …

  • In Her Touch

    She grips and grasps and holds

    my hand

    In her hand

    both shaken


    Her fragile palm

    freaky, feathery

    For me


    Her veins,

    popped and purple

    run through hers

    and mine

     

    Years of

    gripping, grasping and holding me

    In her arms


    The monster me

    softened, slowed and sober

    In her touch

  • Form

    Fit inside, bouncing off

    the ceiling and the surface

    My lines go along and across

    these dotted tunnels

     

    My words build on

    My thoughts overflow

    A hundred-storey building

    flown horizontal

     

    Shapes of my mind revealed

    on the blank page with

    a fence-work of

    tiny black dots

     

    His designs,

    the unknown maker,

    his thoughts unknown

    Shapeless and vacant, for

     

    My words,

    scrambled and sullied,

    in slots within dots,

    in my search for a form

  • Whine and Dine

    They drift away in their whining bubbles

    My feet tap unsettled, food getting cold

    My passive eyes unfurl those greying bonds

     

    Once common threads,

    Once frizzle, now free

    We branched apart

    from the common tree

     

    Their blatant views on the many,

    “cringy”, “stingy”, “reckless”, “unfair”

    They hate in a rush, judge in a hurry,

    “The others” they loathe,

    still boxed in the old

     

    Torn, untethered in quiet,

    adrift far they leave

    The taste of a fine spring,

    A table and the wind.

  • Along the Bridge

    I feel I am trying to paint a large white blank canvas using an unsharp pencil. I need sharp focus, a sharper language, maybe a blunt intellect. I overthink and ramble.

    I am ambling across a variety of fronts – from rabbit holes to ecstasies, from fantasies to fallacies, with a fuck-all focus. How do I wrestle this lazy ass hummus out of the soaking shit-bed I am in? How do I climb up the foggy steps on the Ladder of Literature?

    If I were to write a story, and bring in a slush of thisness, I only have to look through the window:

    He cycled along the bridge, wet as a wiener, the cranky cars evading a crash-laden rainy afternoon, the cranky girlfriend expecting a promised evening, all in the hopes of singing the blues at the fifty-dollar-ticket-concert, all in the hopes of surviving the cranky and crash-laden relationship. He cancelled his gym membership to find the time for their walking routine, for their favourite momos from the Tibetan couple on Saturdays. He was introduced to them by Tracey – his customer Tracey, who lived across the street from the Tibetans known for their mouth-watering momos at the Eumundi markets. Tracey once left her wallet atop the car, too focussed on the hot momos on her lap, drove around for a good forty-five minutes, settling into the car park, to then glimpse the strange thing on the car roof. This became Tracey’s crazy ‘what-am-i-like’ story during introductions. She relished telling and retelling this to her colleagues and customers and to any new acquaintance like me – only for me to promptly and shamelessly weave it into this clumsy cluster of a chronicle.

  • Half-a-Truth or a Lie

    Wait! I hear them talking again. They stop whenever I go downstairs, which I do rarely these days, especially after the recent trip.

    Hang on. I can’t even hear myself talk. How can I tell you my story?

    They are yelling now. If you hear them over my voice – I have shut the door against any sound seeping upstairs into the room, but if you do understand what they say, I beg you, ignore them. Please. Please, don’t listen to them.

    As I was saying…

    “No, Ma. I am not talking to anyone. What do you want?”. See, my mum is trying to be as loud as my grandma used to be. She can try all she wants, but she can never be the grand old lady.

    About my grandma? She was some lady. I have so many tales to tell you. She gave me this box. Wait. She first took me into her room, closed the door behind us and whispered to me, “Vinita, my dear, this box is precious. My grandma gave this to me, and now, this is yours. There is a mirror inside, but only those with a pure heart can see it, see anything in it. Only the chosen ones. No one in our family is good enough to see the mirror, I am sorry but that’s the truth.”

    If you are wondering, I brought the box to Australia! Yes, I wrapped my jeans around it. During the whole time in the flight, I kept thinking of the box and the magic mirror.

    I am feeling a bit sleepy. I promise I will finish the story when I am up, don’t panic. Ok?

    Meanwhile, if you hear the whispers from the stairways, or the loud calls of my name, ignore and ignore, while I try to lie down a little.

     

    Oopsie-daisy. Did I keep you for long? Are you still with me? At any rate, I hope you didn’t pay attention to the voices. I am telling you the story. Stay with me.

    As I was saying, when the customs lady asked us why we didn’t tick the box for wooden articles, I worried about my little wooden box – the one with the mirror inside. I told her, I had brought this box as a gift from my grandma. I didn’t tell her about the magical mirror. Not telling the truth – is that a lie or half-a-truth? You decide. The best part? The lady believed it! I was nervous. What if she spotted the mirror inside, especially with my parents watching. I saw her open the box right in front of me. She acted as if she didn’t see anything inside. Wow! She does not have a good soul. As soon as she placed the box at the counter, I grabbed it open to check. There it was. Our precious mirror. I saw my grandma’s face blinking and smiling as I blinked and smiled.

    I feel embarrassed. Tell me the truth. No half-truths or lies. While I was asleep, did you hear anything? Did you hear my dad repeat those big words I heard at the hospital? What’s going on? They are not telling me anything.

    As I was saying…

  • Lost

    Lost,
    in the deep
    in your ocean,
    in your search, while

    Invisible,
    to those who tread the surface
    who judge, who plan,
    who are lost in search of maps and compass
    taunted by skies and sharks, while 

    Lost,
    in search of the unknown
    to touch the elusive,
    in your own depths,

    lost.

  • Omer’s Odyssey

    Omer found himself all over social media ever since ABC beamed, “A Turkish engineer unearths rare Islamic mosaic in Brisbane”. The mad frenzy didn’t abate even after weeks. It happened on a typical day at Odyssey Constructions when Omer got ready to dig tunnels, drill pipes and drive machinery around the CBD site. The site to be cleared up to rise a fifty-storey building after demolishing a hundred year old house.

    He rang Nate, the ABC journalist, who had by then become a friend. “Did you need to call me a ‘Turkish Engineer’? I feel like I have been in Australia forever”.

    “Nah, Omer, I get it. But you know how it works.”

    “Madness. Ever since I grabbed that crooked old stone plate out of a rusted old trunk. I hope it is worth something. Anyways, they snatched it from me. And you guys keep pestering me for more information. Madness”.

    “Omer, there is something about the art work – the colour patterns you see in Turkish lamps. They are saying it must be a few centuries-old. But how did it travel all the way to Australia. Also, why was it buried under the backyard of this particular house. Do you know who lived there ? Back in the day, the grandfather of Mr. Rob Satter, the notorious Queensland MP who can’t shut up about immigration. Yeah, mate. the same Mr. Satter. And would he prefer any connection with a Mediterranean relic – he almost punched me last month when I gently probed him of his ancestry”.

    “Is he Turkish?”

    “Not sure, Omer. Well, he claims to be a 100% Aussie.”

    “I am sure there is a Turkish connection. To the stone, I mean. I remember similar tiles with patterns from my childhood in my grandmother’s village. She told me stories – mostly she made up stories out of images painted in the tiles. Moral tiles. Moral tales, I mean. I miss her”.

    “Wait. Maybe you can guess the story of this mosaic. I took a high resolution picture. It is broken of course, but you can see the painting clearly. A tall old man standing up, a cat stretching up in two legs, watching him, and several mice surrounding them. What does it mean, Omer?”

    “Nate, mate. Im not a historian. I drill holes. You are the journalist. You said some researchers are onto it”. They chatted for a while.

    Omer saw no point. He got back to his routine of drilling and draught beer. But his sleep was broken. The other night he felt he heard something. A tall man stood in the doorway, holding a crushed hat under his arm, combing his long, black hair. He took out something from a bag that appeared heavy for his hands. He carried it to Omer, walking with majesty. Grandfather?

    No, this is not real. Omer reminded himself he had fought away those childhood nightmares. “Close your eyes and imagine walking into the cave I told you about, Omer”, his grandmother used to say. For a while he grew up around such imagined rivers and caves. And then she was gone one day, and he grew up to be a serious person.

    When he woke up he saw a few missed calls from Nate.

    “Omer, its gone mate. The mosaic was reported stolen yesterday. DIdn’t you say it was heavy?”

    Nate went on without waiting for an answer. “It is as if the stone never existed. Mr. Satter should be relieved”.

    That was a year ago. While Nate kept digging for a connection to Mr. Satter’s ancestors, Omer quietly returned to his family in Istanbul and joined a construction company.

    Once in a while, the image of the mural would flash in his mind. Perhaps his grandmother would have cracked the puzzle. She would have weaved a nice story connecting the old man and the cat and mice. After all, isn’t that what grand mothers do?

    Omer was surprised when Nate called.

    “How did you get my number?”

    “Omer, I found something!”

    “The stone thingy, what you call that? Mural mosaic?”

    “No, mate.”

    “The connection to Mr. Satter’s ancestory?”

    “Yeah, no. not yet. I’m close. One day, I will. “

    “Oh. what did you find then?”

    “The puzzle. The story in the painting. This might sound like what your grandmother would narrate. Yesterday I walked into this cafe in Eagle street, and this wooden sculpture greeted me. The exact same shape of the mural art work. The Indian guy who runs the cafe was intrigued by my curiosity. He said this depicts an ancient tale. The old man, eyes closed, is praying hard, the cat is mimicking and mocking the old man, the mice. And they are laughing at the cat which is no longer a threat. He then gave me a philosophy lesson too. That, life is a joke.

    Omer chuckled to himself. Closed his eyes, said a quiet prayer, as if whispering to his long gone grandmother, and dissolved into an unbroken sleep.

    Papers on his desk bristled in the morning gust. The long ray gleamed on the words of the first page of his manuscript. “Omer’s Odyssey”

    “This is the story of Omer, the persecuted 18th century artist who belonged to the people of Istanbul, yet rebelled against kings and religious leaders and fanatical followers. Evicted from his village, imprisoned in a cave, he kept making art, fusing broken pebbles with lime, painting with his blood. He cried out a curse: The great river Bosporus will flood one day, flushing this mural out, the stone and the story will swim about for a while. It will lay buried in the depths, until one day, it will be discovered by a boy named Omer, and he will carry it to the far ends of the world. It will belong to the world, it will capture people’s hearts, only for it will be hidden and buried again, to be discovered again, only to be lost and hidden and buried again, and to be found again by boy named Omer…..”

  • Double Rainbow

    Monday finally arrived and Vikalp reviewed the events of the last week: the school gate closed on him, the new cycle deserted him, and the exams defeated him. The most upsetting thing was his parents blamed him for the bad turn of events. It was as if he agreed to be transferred to this all-boys school for the eleventh standard, to be in this non-descript place all day with these unknowns who write unmentionables on the wooden beams under which the bald and bespectacled chief of staff Charles Rangaraj sir announced last week of a new Physics teacher replacing Ms. Sheetal.

    Ms. Sheetal, this graceful lady amongst a gang of pot-bellied sirs. Who famously began her very first class with a greeting, “The future doctors and engineers of Coimbatore!”, as if she was certain of their destiny. Suddenly, Vikalp’s world was newborn. The way she described Young’s double-slit experiment was like watching a mystery movie. The day she explained Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle he went home dazzled. He swam along with variables of equations flying narrowly through the slits of a panel in a dark room and emerged as a rainbow on a wide screen. A double rainbow. He whispered things in his sleep. His grandmother recited her prayers. 

    Mostly, it all went over and around his tiny head. He would nag Mugil to explain what Ms. Sheetal taught. He stepped into the school library for the first time. “I don’t want to do engineering. I want to be teacher”, he promised Mugil. He was mesmerised by the wild trips Ms. Sheetal took the class, from the quantum to the infinite. How could she suddenly vanish?

    The school assembly had started when he entered. Shooed away by the watchman again, he climbed the gate to peep into the parking area. No sign of Ms. Sheetal’s lady-bird. A large cycle with a red seat resembling his own leaned against the wall. The assembly went into a hush and the choir boys sang their blues celebrating Hope and Grace and the Love of the Lord. Vikalp turned around and walked home.

    He went to Mugil’s house in the evening. “How’s the new teacher?”. Mugil peered into his eyes, smiled.

    The next day he arrived at school early and went to the toilet. Adjusting his hair, tucking in his shirt, he asked himself, “Teaching Physics, eh?” Charles Sir entered the mirror. “Come and see me in my office”.

    Vikalp knew he was in trouble. He took a detour via the staff room to see if there is a new face. The physics teacher’s desk was empty. On the book shelf across, he spotted a photo of an old woman’s face. Is that…?

    He ran towards the staff parking lane. The red-seated cycle stood straight.

    Vikalp hated standing outside Charles sir’s room. The peon scanned him face to bottom. My shoes dirty? My shirt tucked out? He scorned the rules and rituals of the school and its men.

    Vikalp hated standing inside even more. “So, you like Physics all of a sudden? Your father tells me. Your marks don’t tell me. Take Commerce. Easier for you”.

    “No sir. I will study harder, sir”. He evaded further questions, except for the probing words on a blue banner behind Charles sir: “Are You Smart?” 

    He returned to the staff corridor, browsing the shelves with a quick glance, and still catching the red-seated cycle in the corner of his eyes. The bell rang. He saw the Maths sir walking past, staring at him.

    Late. The class was silent, which meant the new Physics teacher should be in. He imagined all possible excuses. Or he could go home. Something urged him to try.

    “Sir, may I come in?”, he threw his request at the back of the new teacher’s head.

    “Yes, you may”, the man turned around. “Sit down”.

    Adjusting his hair, tucking in his already well-tucked-in shirt, the new sir addressed the class proper. “The future doctors and engineers of Coimbatore! My name is Vikalp. I too studied in his school, in this very room. The carvings are still up there.” The class giggled. “We had this wonderful teacher, Ms…”

    Vikalp sat gazing at the man, the blackboard behind him blurring into a dark room with equations dancing along and getting sucked into a narrow slit and emerging as a double-arch rainbow.

  • Poem: River Face

    To the bird, the river smiles,

    like a thousand leaves fluttering,

    shimmering and shaking,

    each claiming

    a piece of sun,

    each claiming

    to be a piece of sun.

     

    To the bird, the leaf rebels,

    scorns the metaphor.

    A thousand voices thunder:

    I suck in the sun.

    I am the sun!