THE BLACK COLOURS

I was born this way. It was the same for me before and after opening my eyes. I remember the sounds of my mother crying while she rocked me to sleep when I was little. The blackness engulfs every pore in my body. It has become a part of me.

Although I cannot see the wild nature and the vast skies but I sense everything around me. I feel the wind on my back and the dusty earth under my toes. I hear the roar of water and the crackling of fire. I smell the people moving about me, so lost in their worlds that they don’t pay attention to this magical being called the earth. I cannot see but I see so much more than all the other populace. But it is not just the beauty I see, I hear the screams of people, smell the innocent blood being spilled in wars. I feel the pain and the suffering around me. I, sometimes, feel a deep bond between myself and the earth. It too is neglected and mistreated.

Ever since I was born, it has always been the same for me. I am a blind girl in a society of “normal” people. I am always treated differently than the others. My mother wants to see me fit in the society. Since childhood, I have been trained to be sent to an ordinary school so I could mingle with other kids my age. My parents have always wanted me to have the best of everything. But in school, I always sit alone on the corner bench. I don’t have any friend in my class. Sometimes some kids come and talk to me out of pity. I don’t really like being treated in that manner. In the evenings, all the children go out and play. I know as I can hear the noises like it is some melodious music. But sadly my life hasn’t yet been filled by this song. My parents and my dolls are my only companions. My evenings are dedicated entirely to my only friends, my dolls. At night I have dinner with my family and we discuss everything from the world news to my studies. This is the greatest part of my entire day. This is the time when I feel alive.

One day, out of the blue, my class teacher changes my seat. She has made me sit with a girl named Subah. Her name means morning and my life is filled with darkness. What an irony. She seems like a lovely girl. She too has no friend in the class even though she can see. We start talking and we become instant friends. Two lonely souls calling out to each other....

We have become good friends. We are walking down a narrow street and are completely engrossed in our conversation. I am walking almost in the middle of the road. That is when it happens. A speeding out of control motorbike comes racing down towards us. She sees it before I can hear its sound. She pushes me away from the bike and gets hit by it herself. I wish I can help her. But all I can do is shout for help. I am feeling worthless.  Thankfully she does not have extreme bruises. She has saved my life by trying to give up her own.

She has become really special to me after this incident. We walk hand in hand wherever we go. She is my ‘eyes’ now. She sees what I cannot and leads me ahead in life. Subah, the morning has become my guiding light. The sadness and loneliness in my heart has vanished into thin air. She has filled my black life with colour. She has become the song I have been craving for. She completes me.

It has been years now. I have not made any more friends. Subah is the only friend I have. Sometimes I think why was it that no one was friends with her? She is an absolutely incredible human being. She is kind and thoughtful. Ever since we have become friends, she has never left my side even for once. We have been inseparable all throughout these years like twins that were lost somewhere in the sands of time and have been reunited in this life. 

I miss her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was my saviour. But little did I anticipate that she would leave me so soon. My eyes have not been dry since she’s gone away. I have lost my only companion, my only confidant, the only soul who has touched my heart, my spirit. Things that were special now seem pointless without her in my life. . I can no longer hear the wind and smell the earth. My world is discoloured again. 

IF TRAFFIC LIGHTS COULD MOVE...THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE...

Sitting in my car with my mom driving, I was waiting for the doctor’s clinic to arrive. Everything was moving at a snail’s pace and not just because I was very sleepy or was under a hypnotic drug but because there were hundreds of traffic lights between our destination and us. The sun was
scorching hot. As drowsy as I was, I quietly drifted into deep slumber. As I opened my eyes, I saw myself somewhere else.

I blinked my eyes and saw myself at an absolute alien place, as if I was casted into an animation movie. I was standing on the edge of a road, had no idea how I had come here and most importantly where was mom? There was no one around me.
No soul to be seen. While I was pondering over these questions, I heard some sound. The babble was coming from some distance. My feet started pulling me towards the sound. The noise was happy noise, very cheerful, of people playing and hooting. As I drew near to the sound and looked around, I could not digest what I saw. They were not people playing but some traffic light poles drifting their way on the basketball court, beautiful lights cheerleading and spectator old fused ones watching the game (probably remembering their good-o-days!). TRAFFIC LIGHT POLES..!!!  I was very much taken aback by those moving things. They had  two skinny metallic legs, a less than size zero body and were playing basketball with their two hands (metallic again!). Very intrigued, I continued to watch and observe their game. It was nothing like I’d ever seen, not even in my wildest of dreams.

As very customary of their traits, they were showing their three patent colours, some of the playing poles were showing red, some were green and the ones sitting on the bench, observing the game like me, were showing the yellow colour. So I took up the courage to go and talk to the yellow ones. They were sitting very quietly with their long legs spread all over the bench so that no one else could come closer. I guess they were reluctant to talking. I asked one of them “Hey fella how are you doing, who are you, and what place is this?”

The one showing yellow turned more yellow with my questions, as if shirking away from me, but gathering up some nerve he answered, “I am Mr. yell. And you are in Bijli city, the city of lights. Are you new here? Never seen you before around the crossroads”

I wonder if they required a tri-colour card (just like the green cards in US to be staying here). I replied “Yes I am new...but it has been quite some time, aren’t you on duty? Don’t you have to turn green? “

He then told me that they were the idle ones and only occasionally changed their colour to green to hoot for the teams playing. This was all very baffling for me. They were very shy
initially but started to open up soon. From them I gathered that everybody(every traffic light) here was free today as there was very going to be very less traffic in their area today as predicted by the great
Maya , The fortune teller pole. They told me why they were showing different colours. Apparently the colours on the traffic lights represented their moods.

He pointed out to a fellow light with red head and said “Red usually stands for anger and aggression.
So, the ones who were losing in the game were showing red due to extreme anger. And the ones in red just on their metal cheeks are the ones in love!! They have a very different pole language (synonymous with body language) from the angry ones. They seem drunk, and are blushing most of the time. You can even find some lights in love carrying a red car light in their hand. That’s what a rose is here.”

He then pointed to a green one dancing on the other side of the road. He said, “She’s extremely cheerful as her marriage has been fixed.”  Usually the green ones represent a happy and peaceful nature. I was told that green also stood for jealousy but again the jealous ones were easily distinguishable from the happy ones.

I asked them, “Why are you yellow then?” I was so absorbed in their world that I was almost being rude. But they said that it was okay with them to share the details of their world. No human talked to them that much as they went about their work. Then they told me that the yellow stood for shyness (as I had half-expected). They were sitting and not playing the game as they were too shy to approach the leader.

“How does it feel to move about so freely?“ I asked them. We’ve always been like this,
they answered. “How is that possible!! You were always static till someone injected me into this bijili city and electrified you!! “

They were shocked to hear that in my world the traffic lights poles were fixed at one place, could not move and did not even have a life. They said that they couldn’t even imagine a life with out mobility, let alone imagine a lifeless life. How would they be able to control the traffic then? I told them we had traffic police for that. They had not heard of such an alien concept. They had police in their world but for solving real crimes. They told me that they controlled the traffic in their world. They had defined a set of rules which every human had to follow. If any person would try to jump a light or exceed the defined speed limit, they run after the vehicle and suitably punish the crook. No one wanted the wrath of a traffic light. But all in all, theirs was a much peaceful place as far as the as traffic accidents were concerned. If at all there was an accident, there was no need for an ambulance as the traffic light would themselves pick up the injured and run them to the nearest hospital. It was almost a perfect setup.

The basketball game was coming to an end and so was our conversation. The ones I was talking to started to get up too. One of them had an appointment with her electrician as she had some loose connections in her circuits. As I was bidding farewell to her, I suddenly heard a screeching sound.

BEEP BEEP BEEEPPPPP  !!!!!

When I opened my eyes, I found myself back in my car. The sound had come from a speeding car in front of us. An accident had taken place just ahead of us. There were two casualties and the ambulance was one hour away. And the thought crossed into my mind that if the traffic lights could move, the world would definitely be a better place. An easy hassle free traffic drifts....our traffic needs that for sure!!

An Indian love song

He
Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon
of thy glory and grace,
Withhold not, O love, from the night
of my longing the joy of thy luminous face,
Give me a spear of the scented keora
guarding thy pinioned curls,
Or a silken thread from the fringes
that trouble the dream of thy glimmering pearls;
Faint grows my soul with thy tresses' perfume
and the song of thy anklets' caprice,
Revive me, I pray, with the magical nectar
that dwells in the flower of thy kiss.

She
How shall I yield to the voice of thy pleading,
how shall I grant thy prayer,
Or give thee a rose-red silken tassel,
a scented leaf from my hair?
Or fling in the flame of thy heart's desire the veils that cover my face,
Profane the law of my father's creed for a foe
of my father's race?
Thy kinsmen have broken our sacred altars and slaughtered our sacred kine,
The feud of old faiths and the blood of old battles sever thy people and mine.

He
What are the sins of my race, Beloved,
what are my people to thee?
And what are thy shrines, and kine and kindred,
what are thy gods to me?
Love recks not of feuds and bitter follies,
of stranger, comrade or kin,
Alike in his ear sound the temple bells
and the cry of the muezzin.
For Love shall cancel the ancient wrong
and conquer the ancient rage,
Redeem with his tears the memoried sorrow
that sullied a bygone age.


-- Sarojini Naidu

Life in a metro

LIFE IN A METRO

I was born there and so was my mom

And being born in a metro

Had its charms.

The fun, the frolic

The fast paced life

I stood out just like the other one lakh sixty five.

Showered with all the necessities and more

All my demands were fulfilled

And life was so, not a bore.

As I grew up

I caught the party bug

Discos and DJs

Became the thing for the year.
But being born in a metro city
That too one like Delhi
Had its pros and its cons.
There was fun
And there was freedom
But so was pollution
And abduction.
So many crimes
So much hatred
No patience
Was I made to see all of this?
People fought
And people killed
For things I considered petty
This part of city life
You can say is not pretty.
Amongst all this chaos
I had to preserve my identity
Have the values
That were meant to be.
Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore and Chennai,
And so many more
The metro cities in India
Are to die for.
But certainly the debate is still on
Is it the good life or the bad?
But here I can safely say
Being born in a metro
Has its charms.

SHADES OF GREY

She is a friend, I have no doubts

Not only to me, but others as well.

Seems kind of perfect

The nice girl, the cute girl

The girl who helps everyone.

Bubbly pink and fiery red

She has all the colours in her.

But every coin has two sides

So good is not her only attribute.

She also has grey in her

Shades of it, I guess.

A little posey, a little pretending

But still caring, is she?

I wonder what her true self is

Is she the angel or the opposite?

Everyone seems to think highly of her

But I want to break the pattern

Show her true colours

To the people, her friends.

She is not what she seems to be

Atleast that’s what I think.

This goes out to you my dear

The mask’s off

I know who you are

I know what you’re

And i exactly know what you’re pretending to be

You may have fooled everyone else

But alas! Not me.

MAH FRIENDDDD

Even if he’s not the perfect guy

Neither very good looking

Nor the smartest of the lot.

He has no special powers

Also he never does plot

Does not have the cutest hairstyle

Or the most loveliest of eyes.

But ask me

N I’ll tell you, he’s the most amazing of the lot.

I’ve cried on his shoulder

And bitched with him

I’ve cursed him and loved him

And all this on a ‘phone’y whim.

He is my support

The power to keep me alive

He is no one special

But still almost my life.

I can share everything with him

Even my deepest thoughts

He listens to everything I blabber

Without a single flinch.

Let me tell you one more thing

He’s a friend

A friend in true terms

I’ve longed for one all my life

Never knew I already had one.

Thank you my friend for being there

Hope we’ll stay together

You’ll keep making me smile

For a long time to come.

LOVE..overrated...!!

It’s the most overrated word
Everyone writes about it
You watch movies
And wish ur life was like it.
You read novels
And then, want true love
And again here I am
Talking bout love.
Well ive read and watched
Understood what its like
But no1s ever come
To make me feel hw its like.
Ive been waiting
And it seems years
When I am only nineteen now
How many more years.
I am waiting for my mr. right
So as they say
But I want to have my set of wrongs
Before that day.
It may sound offensive
And unlike what you see(in the movies)
But I wanna have fun
Before I settle down for thee.
Every1s dreaming of their prince charming
On a horse he’s riding
But I think want him to come late
When im done experiencing.