February 15, 2014

Next to the enormous sea

Finally the sun shone on us for two full days. After two full days. Foggy eyes rubbed open, cleaned winter discharge from its corners and caught the sun gaping through the freshly painted grill. Yellow rays fell softly through the magical bougainvillaea, gracefully warming the brown veranda.

Akira. The black beauty, with lustful nocturnal eyes, purred purposelessly around the the room and settled comfortably adjacent the sofa chair where the sun, shaped by the small window pane, fell squared on the floor. She yawned, stared at nothing peculiar and warmly gave in to slumber. Only the fan moved. Quietly. Perhaps by the wind passing by.

The silence of the slumberous afternoon lasted the whole day.

Unaware of who entered and exited through paranoid double locked doors, the flat allowed the lightest steps to thump a little louder than the ticking clock of the night. The dead smiled from old photographs. Silver cutlery spoke at dinner table. The slightest, shortest, softest word traveled effortlessly through closed wooden doors. Failed signals of deafening hearing aids.
 
In the building plotted in the tiny lane next to the enormous sea, gigantic drilling sounds started to wake dead bodies alive and ferociously disrupted quite conversations. The creatures of the house hid within half opened suitcases - peeping toms with closed ears - perhaps hoping to be taken away by the weekly travelers.

Outside. Bricks were banged and broken. The flat below was being made bigger with the hope of swallowing the flat above and one on the right and left. The fat armed sleeveless neighbor, it was cautioned, had once inquired about the last rites and the property rights of the newly dead.

Further Outside. The building reeked of the anger of the frustrated mad dog. He had been tied for years. No children played in the parking lot. Parks were undreamt. Only guards stood saluting all passerby. The need for a lift man continued to be a mystery.

A window, out of the many lifeless ones, smelt like love in the lemon grass planted in the tiny kitched garden of the old christian lady. She who cooked with all her heart humming to old film songs.

1 comment:

Anirudh 'Lallan' Choudhry said...

such a picture when painted with words, makes one go expressionless yet moved with something that words can not define.