Sunday, August 16, 2009

A Window on the Pointless

It happens sometimes. When the grey sky with droopy eyes makes the sun go to sleep… it happens. When you look out at the window pane and see one droplet collecting the other and the two knock on the next door brother…till they have gathered enough to roll down the pane and seep through the window sill into the lane…

In those uncertain moments I flicker like the last flash from a candle, before disappearing round the corner of my old street and stand right before my childhood. Those were the days when even a little rock-salt with green mango were laced with the most daring thrills of life. The run-downs to catch that yellow school bus… the wait-for-hours for the old ‘ektara’ seller to come to my lane on Sundays… the radio…Don McLean, Carpenters, ABBA, BoneyM…. Those old tunes… On lazy afternoons like this when the world goes past like a gushing pool of water and you stand at the doorstep not knowing which way the tide of life will take you….you think of these things sometimes.

I have creeper on my terrace…it has certainly grown a few inches in the last two weeks of rain…the fresh green leaves are filled with life…I touched and felt them like a parasite trying to feed off it…and then saw a quivering, withered yellow one hiding below the fresh tuft… my eyes welled up…pointless I know… but it happens sometimes.

A distant song filled the balmy air making it heavier. I know this song… When I hear this, I usually feel like humming it for sometime for it makes me happy, but today I looked up into the sky and slowly recited W H Auden…

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Pointless I know… but it happens sometimes on lazy afternoons.

5 comments:

MamuShine said...

This is called irritation or random thoughts of wandering mind. Really nice.

taposova said...

Wandering mind indeed. just loved the way u said.."dismantle the sun". sometimes u really wonder, what exactly your mind wants, cling to the past or just embrace the present and welcome the future..!!! its tough to decipher, really...atleast i never got any solution.I live in my own utopia with my own happiness and sorrows and pains and tears.I get a strange solace.Im sure even u do...People think, im weird...but did they (who claimed being normal) ever peeped inside their mind like you and me...Strange world we live in...

Sudeshna Hazra said...

The day, the music died! ;)

Sanjukta said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sanjukta said...

"but it happens sometimes"... true...