One Night's story

The heat of the summer is starting to decrease. Perhaps, because of the rains in the last few days. But the temperature is still above 40°C.

Today is Wednesday, 16^th of April 2014. The End-Semester Exam starts from 21^st, 5 days later.

Last night, I slept late. It was around 2:00. I think. After watching two movies, we went to bed. We exchanged our pillows. He got the softer one, I prefer the harder one. I tried to sleep but I couldn't. There were mosquitoes near my left ear buzzing now and then. It reminded me of the sound that comes out when you scratch on the blackboard with your nails. I grinded my teeth, got up, switched on the light and remained motionless. There it was, an unusually tiny mosquito on the wall just beside the bed. I turned the palm of my hand towards the wall and moved closer slowly. Then I slapped the wall. I felt the heat burning up on my palm.

I looked at the wall, then at my palm. Nothing. The mosquito got away. He heard the sound and woke up. I made him go back to sleep assuring him that I was just trying to kill a mosquito. I sat up for some time, looking around for that pest. But, in vain. I thought I better go to sleep. Just then, as I was about to get up to switch off the light, I saw…. Another mosquito, a much bigger one than the last, sitting on his cheek, its belly filled with blood. I knew this one couldn't get away, its body too heavy to fly or even move an inch.

I refrained myself from blinking and moved closer and closed and……tapped on his cheek. The blood burst out from its belly and smudged my fingers. Scarlet red.

Startled, he opened his eyes and looked at me in perplexity. I showed him my bloody fingers and asked him to wash his face. He got up, washed his face, came back, applied some mosquito repellent ointment and went back to sleep.

Why didn't I think of it before? I applied it on my hands and feet just like he did and lay down beside him, exhausted.

A lost Visitor

I asked my friend to drop me at the gate. She agreed and got her bike. All of a sudden, my dad called me from inside the house. I went inside the house to find out what he was telling. Just as I was about to cross the threshold, I saw my grandmother standing behind my dad. I just kept staring at her, standing there like a stature. I couldn’t properly hear what he was saying. She was twice as tall as my dad. I could see the upper half of her body. She wore her faded yellow Enafi that she used to wear whenever she went to Govindaji temple. She seemed to be wearing a garland on her neck.

There she stood, staring and smiling at me-My thin old grandmother, glowing like an angel.

I shouted, ‘Ba, Nang maningda akhoibok leire.’

He was beaming with joy when he turned back and saw her.

I ran towards her to hug her but she was already lying on her bed. My dad sat on the floor just beside the bed and held her left hand. I bent down, kept my knees on the floor and touched her fingers. It felt real. I told him, ‘Ba, Si asengkisu akhoibokne. Mai makhutse eingonda faowe.’

All this time, she kept smiling and looking at us.

Amo came in from nowhere. He also sat down and said, ‘Ba, si oithoktabane, moi nungdangda hougatpa ngamdabane!’

My dad answered calmly, ‘I know, son.’

I wondered if she can really come back. I suspected if what they burned down was not really her but only logs of wood.’

*                       *                   *                    *

My eyes are wet. I rubbed them off and stare on the ceiling. The fan continues to whirl. The room is silent except for the noisy fan.

My grandmother died last year. Her body had been burnt down to ashes on the bank of Imphal River. She was 96.

She was sick when I returned home after completing BA. We nursed her day and night. We took her twice to RIMS Hospital. Curse the doctors there! She died the second time we took her there.

She held my hands tightly, wriggling on the bed. She tried to take off the tubes on her nose a couple of times. That time, I had to hold her hands tight. I kept telling her not to take it off, that nothing is gonna happen, that she’s gonna get well and go back home. She couldn’t speak. Her feeble voice broke into silence. She only tried to look at me under her wrinkled heavy eyelids.

I felt her hands turning cold, then her body turned blue. Finally, she stopped wriggling and I could sense her heart beat slowing down. It stopped altogether, she lay on the hospital bed motionless, her eyes still looking at me.

Who is this person sleeping beside me? I know him. I stopped crying. I try to sleep again.

You are the writer, You name it.

I see you in my yellow dream
planting a bomb in my brain,
leaving a trail of smoke rings,
bereft of a burning cigarette.

I feel you by my side,
my heart just melted down.
The fan is slowing down.

My heart sank when I behold

My heart sank when I behold
The army in the streets:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am 22,
So be it not when I shall grow old.

Let me live!

The child is given a gun:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural miseries.





Here is a link to the original poem by W. Wordsworth.

My boyfriend is speedy Gonzales.

My boyfriend is speedy Gonzales.
He stole my heart;
with his charming songs,
'ai....yai yai yai yai'!
with his cute ears and
white teeth,
singing that lovely song.
'ariba riba, andale andale'!
He swipes and circles me
in a flash.
Like a fast forwarded movie,
like a free flow of memories,
like this hailstorm that passes by,
like the lucid dreams I just had
of ghost and repetition,
after reading Coleridge.
I pause and gaze and wonder
if he'd ever slow down.

The Grilled window

The windows in the library

has iron bars,

and glass panes 

that blur the distant leaves. 

The words in books

represent confusion, 

most of the time nonsense,

only a few make sense.

Professors pretend,

drag us nowhere,

far from my reality to

other's dream 

where I force and insert mine.

She irritates me to the core,

talking and preaching 

unethical lessons to the silent listeners
 who dare not disrupt her class. 

Seemingly a superior creature,

behind the podium,

she earns her living

mocking her colleague

for one hour.

Thus, the class goes on

while I damn my choice 

and scribble the damnation 

on this page

Hoping to find a purpose!

Semester 1.

     We are just one couple among many in our University. He wears blue checked shirts and I wear a blue hairband, sometimes blue skirts. We both love blue. The first guy who I dated also loves blue. But Tamo doesn't know that yet. He will, after reading this. Perhaps, he may get slightly sad to find out about this. Anyways, it is merely an insignificant affinity among us which I happen to remember. This first guy has a blog dedicated to me and writes about him and me in it. Talk about the incompatibility; we are the protagonist of two different stories which can never collide again. I am the lost character, the mysterious invisible girl in his stories. In my story, he is but a person who I first dated, who unsurprisingly changed me drastically, who I can never go back to, whose charming words I'd always avoid. He is a shadow of my past chasing me in vain.

     Everyday, we sit under the tree near the food court after lunch and talk. We talk about education, politics, society, condoms, my sisters and brother, his brothers, food etc. We also talk about Invictus, a movie we watched the night before. We secretly make fun of those random people who are unlucky enough to pass by us. They are a big time entertainment. We give them silly names and laugh casually. Sometimes it's the 'university studs', other times, it's the 'beauty queens', 'class toppers', 'meddlers' etc.

     Often the session gets interrupted in the sight of a certain professor with the phrase, 'There goes Mr. Philosopher' by either one of us, whoever sees him first. He walks briskly in the distance carrying a bag. He has sufficient white hair and a lean swift body. He is seldom accompanied by a woman of his age who has the same physique. Each time they seem to be indulging in a serious conversation as they both walk on the pavement in that same brisk pace. It looks a little fast for their age. His story goes a couple of weeks back.