RamGanapathy.com

Author: Ram

  • The Return

    Drishti slept badly and woke before the weak winter sunlight would meander about her Heidelberg University hostel. Instead of waiting for her alarm, she got up, showered, dressed, drank a cup of black coffee she barely got used to, and packed her suitcase. She waited for the call from her travel agent.

    She had decided the previous night to do the inevitable, to return to India for the Christmas break, a decision that would mean a break in her research work, money lost on unnecessary travel, mostly of the swallowing of her pride when she goes back to her aunt. Why would you remain at this time of the year alone in that bone-chilling place. Come back home and return to German after the new year break. Drishti would bite her aunt every time she went German. But last night, she let her have it the way her tongue allowed.

    The aunt was right after all. Drishti saw how everyone at the university, anyone she knew went home for Christmas. Even Sandra Bicker, her mentor who was going to take her to the Mercedes-Benz museum for design workshops, had change of plans. That she would choose Yoga Vacations in Lakshadweep was a surprise. Everyone seemed to be following the moon, sailing eastwards, leaving her alone in this beautiful, historic city flooded with visitors from all planets. The Mannheimer strasse filled up and the Christmas market at MarktPlaz was a carnival.

    Through the window, she would watch the early morning joggers along the Neckar. She had fewer acquaintances outside the university, and she felt embarrassed about her German (the language, of course). All this while, she got as far as “bitte” and “danke schon” and a smattering of syllables wrapped with her smile.

    Through the window she also got used to watching a stranger, an old man on a torn leather jacket, smoking many times a day, gripping the cigarette with his shivering left hand. She once spotted the man at the Aldi. She smiled but immediately admonished herself. He saw through her as if in a trance.

    She was getting used to the silence. Outside of the class, she remained focussed on her research, submerged in bed and books. She went out mostly for the hot nutella-topped pancakes at the Hauptbanhof. Her taste buds lead her to the Indian restaurant near the castle and she lapped up the daal soup. She wouldn’t go again, after the lady told her, “Here we don’t serve water on the table. Order a bottle if you need. Okay?”

    She missed home, yet she was hopeful in staying put. But she was not ready when the hostel concierge reminded her about reduced services during Christmas. The petite girl handed out a card with a smile, “This is the emergency contact number in case the building is on fire. If unattended, please leave a message. Someone will call you back immediately after Christmas”.

    Any other chance of surviving the lonely winter break in Germany? Shy and inert, she had declined Shreya’s invitation to join her on a week long trip to Salzburg. She decided she would finish Papillon in one go, to get buried in more books. After the first fifty pages, she got depressed by the hero’s prospect at the solitary Columbian prison. She promised to return to the pages of his escape after the new year. Not now, not in this state of mind.

    She had one final option. She searched the bags, the shelf, the other suitcase. Profound was her relief when she stumbled upon the notebook. She glanced through the names and numbers and searched for “Shyam uncle”. Aunt had spoken highly of her cousin settled in Dresden. It would be a five-hour train journey. Drishti schemed to bribe him and his family with the last bottle of aunt’s home-made lemon pickles. Maybe they would take her in during the holidays.

    She rang him, and in the first few seconds it was clear she need not bother booking train tickets. “No problem, uncle. Happy New Year!”

    Outside, the silence was total. The stranger-smoker-man-friend arrived. As he smoked away his morning blues, she felt his presence. His company.

    The day went on. The bridge on the river was buzzing with cars. A big beast of a bird spread its wings, descending to the waters. The lights and reflections of the cars and the boats and the birds traced lines on her glass-top table, merging and blurring. A moment so pure it didn’t slide into a meaning.

    When she opened the window, the phone rang, its ignored monotones regressing to the buzz outside.

    Drishti returned to Papillon.

  • The Flash

    We roam about our own unique worlds. Every once in a while, a friend appears, a flash of lightning strikes the sky. They shine on a patch of hidden garden, spot a faint promise silenced forever, and salvage a parched, passive soul. They gleam for a mere second, whoosh! back to their world. The velvet blue sky retains the only proof of their presence, a glimmer in our eyes cast wide.

  • You walk

    8’o clock, and you walk into the bee-hive of Brisbane CBD. Your ten minute stroll to office is a full length feature film. A kaleidoscope.

    You sidestep a broken tile, almost bump into the coffee cup of the man in front. School kids cross you like a herd of sheep, jostling, screaming, joyful. A lone smoker puffing away at the corner of the Marriott, watching an animated couple arguing in Spanish. You pass him fast, your lungs still suck in a hint of blue nicotine.

    The signal turns red, twenty more seconds. You close your eyes to bring in the smell of fresh coffee from the cafe called Morning Ritual. You open your eyes to the climbers and creepers up the stone-walled 19th century church, up to the many colours of Brisbane sky, coloured by its river, textured by its people. People you don’t know, you don’t know yet. New colleagues, new customers, new neighbours, new fellow-pedestrians.

    New cafe baristas too. You made a new friend earlier today. Karpin, the cafe owner, the sole barista who opens his shop each day at 6am, even on a Sunday. He told you he never took a break, never took a single day off in all ten years. Did you believe him? The man looked calm, and his flat-white stirred you up. You liked talking to him, talk about your grandfather, how he ran a restaurant, back in the day, not so successfully. You didn’t tell that part.

    You soak it all in. The signal is still red. What’s wrong? Ah, did time stop for you to breathe-in this glorious new city?

    You see the old lady with wild hair, storming across the pavement, deranged, rambling, in pain, almost blocking you. You sense she is hurt, lost, lonely, and never in a million years going to be a threat, yet you try ignoring her, avoid her trajectory, leaping towards the signal, and hope it turns green, oh God!, rush and jump into the pedestrian crossing, all the while astonished by your flight, your fright, and your sudden descent from that self-congratulatory, priestly state of altruism into a hollow pit of apathy, worse, disgust.

    You walk.

  • Amma will move again

    Amma will move
    Amma will move again
    She moved when asked
    She moved without asking.
     
    She moved across cities, jobs, and houses
    She moved well when she had it in her
    She climbed up the parapet
    To clean, to dust, to remove
    She ran to catch the bus to office
    To earn, to support, to care
     
    She lent her limbs to grind spices
    She bent her hips to sweep corners
    She swirled those wet clothes under the sun
    She spun around like a top
     
    She held her son
    She rocked her daughter,
    She kept eyes open, 
    as they fell to slumber.
     
    She walked when needed
    She ran when needed
    She gasped for breadth
    Her legs were tired
    Her eyes were dry
    Her hips were weak
    Her hands were trembling
     
    She moved when she was young
    She moved when she was a teen
    She moved with her father
    She moved with her brothers and sisters
    She moved with her husband
    She moved with her son and
    She moved with her daughter
     
    She moved from Ramanathapuram where she was born
    She moved to Pudukkottai, and then to Coimbatore. 
    She moved briefly to Hyderabad
    She then moved with all to Bangalore.
    She moved across three houses within Bangalore.
    She moved across two floors of the same house in Bangalore.
     
    She was moved again to Coimbatore
    She has been moving for the last seventy years
    She cannot move anymore.
    She cannot be moved anymore.
     
    Amma cannot move.
    But,
    Amma will move.
    Amma will move again.

  • Alter Ego

    The alter ego wrestles out, 
    out of the quagmire,
    it sings out loud
    in simple verbs.

    Across the crawling dullness,
    against the passive nothings,
    above the soulless whispers.

    It sings from the heart,
    it sings to the heart,
    deafening all them joyless cousins.

    It sings in blue,
    the colour of day
    It sings a colour,
    I had not seen.

    It sings a shape 
    my hands conceal
    It sings a truth
    my verses obscure.

  • Silent Burn

    When I err and trigger
    her to hurt in anger,
    the "Sorry!"s burn in her silent terror,
    my stories flop down her upper lip tremor.

    Those calm eyes hide a fidgety beat within,
    a stray hair drops to her cheek's murmur.

    I plead once more,
    I plead an hour more.
    Off I go sleep in dread,
    my heavens in hell, thorns beyond.

    There! She sings, 
    a fainty old dance,
    a smile benign,
    lets me crawl up grand.

  • Fright, Flight, Fall

    You see this lady with wild hair, walking all across the pavement ahead of you, deranged, rambling in pain, almost blocking you. You sense she is hurt, lost, lonely, and never in a million lives going to be a threat, yet you try ignoring her, avoid her trajectory, leaping towards the signal, and hope it turns green oh God, rush and jump into the pedestrian crossing, all the while astonished by your flight, your fright, and the sudden descent from self-congratulatory, priestly state of altruism into the hollow pit of apathy, worse, disgust.

  • Tapping on the Floor

    Writing post-lunch, I feel the gravy drowning my gut. I am ready to write soundy words from gleeful images in my mind. The laptop is not on my lap. The monitor trembles as I punch keys. No, my fingers dance around the keys like a 80s pop star, hopping between colourful buttons on a bright floor. My fingers dance on the key floor from years and years of typewriting practice. I remember showing off at university, how good I was, how fast I was, how accurate my typing was – only to be admonished by the fellow computer-lab’ians : stop banging the keyboard. Its not a typewriter for godsake.

    It wasn’t a typewriter. I looked at the blue screen of the booby CRT as I punched a key. It blinked a hazy yellow font back at me. It taught me learnt a lesson. Typing on a computer is not to make it repeat what you say. It is to make it think about what you say. How to make the computer think? Well, that was the day I took baby steps towards programming.

  • A Word To Begin

    Who said you can’t focus after a heavy meal. My eyes roll in slow motion, the hip collapses into the sofa, while a mild breeze from the river below hits my cheek with a gentle praise, my fingers grip a dancing pen whose wild strokes fill the void of my story with a voiceless word.

    I begin.

    This is what my writing has come to. I scratch and stutter and stumble and suffer. I find it easier to stay admiring the bubble inside this fancy pen I hold. It resembles a mini fish tank, with pebbles and fluff but no fish. The dancing bubble at the top stares back. As I shake and scribble, the whole galaxy is stirred, many little planets move around.

    I play God.

  • Floating Points

    Numbers tumble, float across,

    Rows of shadows long and noisy

    On the edges of an A3 sheet lay

    licking fingers, scratching heads.