Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Radhika's place

Radhika and Rohini became the best of buddies in the 10th standard. They were both uncertain, insecure, a little crack and utterly devoid of common sense. In any case Radhika was a wee bit more mature perhaps owing to the fact that she came from a family of an eminent freedom fighter and a very respected politician who was unfortunately consumed by Tuberculosis. Not that it made any sense but thats the way Rohini liked to think. Radhika would often talk about her family and ancestral home where she lived. And Rohini would listen in awe. She had a strange inclination towards things that belonged to the past and Radhika had a treasure back at home.

After Pre Boards Radhe (as she was called) invited Rohu over for lunch. Nothing could be more delightful. But Rohini's mother was very skeptical. The purohits kept reiterating the same thing. She had a "pret badha yog" and this could itself turn out to be fatal. It had already happened in the family once, or at least everybody said so. Radhika had often mentioned a strange presence in her house. It was more than a hundred years old now and had witnessed a lot. Rohini did not really believe in para-normal. Although she had herself seen too much not to, but then it never really convinced her. She tried to think logically and was almost always successful in finding a valid reasons. This time she was determined to visit Radhika. At any cost. She fought, cried, fought, cried, fought, cried until mother surrendered.

The first look at the house took her breath away. It was gigantic and hauntingly majestic. Though the century had marred the beauty of the building, but there still was an odd charm about it. In a trance, she walked towards the gate, where Radhika was standing with a welcoming warm smile.

Together they went inside. The architecture was typically twentieth century Indian. With rooms built around a central courtyard. Rohini, who was completely hypnotized by now was introduced to the amiable family. Radhika showed her around the house. Rohini then inquired about the room that Radhika had told her about. Her Great grandparent's room and the legendary library. Radhika hesitated. She said she wasnt really comfortable going there, but then she lightened up and agreed. She'll have to take the key to those rooms from the study. After almost half and hour of searching they were found in her father's desk drawer. While Rohini was visibly excited, something troubled Radhika. That drawer was almost invariably always locked. She wondered why her father had left it open.

The library and the room were adjacent to each other. They decided to visit the library first. The doors were intimidatingly huge and at the same time they strangely beckoned one towards them. The rooms was laden with dust. Not typically with spider webs and stuff but still there was a strange eerie feeling. It soon disappeared when she came to realize the treasure that lay in front of her. Books and letters, all of them almost a century old. There was a letter from the English Queen, one from Sardar Patel, some bits of correspondence with Mountbatten and a marvelous collection of books. Rohini was driven mad with joy. Even Radhika was delighted. She took out a very old book and handed it over to Rohini. "This was one of bade dada's favourites.' It was Antony and Cleopatra. "No wonder", Rohini thought. "Its a masterpiece". As she carefully sifted through the pages, she found a picture.
"Is this him?" she asked Radhika.
Radhika was visibly surprised but nodded. "yes, its him. Where did you find it? In the book? Thats funny.I have seen it so many times, how did this skip me. I am seeing it for the first time."

Suddenly, there heard a door open and then a man coughed. Clearly. Both of them heard it.
They stared at each other almost frozen . Rohini looked questioningly at her friend.
Then Radhika tried appearing calm and said, 'It must be Tauji, he must have come to visit Dadi'. But it was more like she was trying to convince herself.

"Lets go" she said after a little while and they left in silence. When they came out, the air was different. Warmer, calmer and easy. Rohini felt a strange throbbing in her temples. There was a slight tremor in her right hand but she ignored it in the excitement. "Can we just once see Bade Dada's room? Bas ek baar?"
Radhika looked at her in surprise. "Moron" she thought. But then she was equally curious. She thought for a moment and then hesitantly agreed.

When the door was opened, Rohini felt as if she had entered another age. It was as if the clock had reversed itself back into a bygone era. She now belonged to a different world and there was an overwhelming sense of Deja vu. The tremor in her hand and the throbbing in her head intensified. For a few moments she was completely oblivious to Radhika's presence in the room.
Her voice jolted her back. "I've come here after years you know.This is Bade dada" she said pointing at his portrait. Rohini felt her breath had been snatched away and her heart had been shut. He was there in the portrait but alive. He looked straight into her with a strange light in his eyes and a ghost of a smile on his lips. She shut her eyes and turned away.

Suddenly she heard Radhika calling her name in what sounded like absolute horror.
"Whats this?!"she said pointing shakily on the floor.

All over the floor which must be having fifty layers of dust, were footprints. Wet footprints. They began from nowhere and ended nowhere.

Nobody could have entered before them. They had the keys and there was only one to each room. By this time Radhika was crying and Rohini felt she was sinking into cold waters. She was barely able to breath. She did not remember how and when Radhika dragged her out of the room. Radhika's father was furious. The desk drawer was locked as it had always been. It had not been touched since years. The sight of the keys made every face sickly and pale.
Tauji had not come, and when they had heard the man while in the library, there was no man in the house.
Bade dada had not died of consumption. He was poisoned by his servant.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

When you are happy and you know it..

Well.. A generous acknowledgement of your humble efforts certainly makes you very happy. This was a very pleasant thing to begin my day with. My sincere and heartfelt thanks to Devan, who considered me worth it. Don't forget to check out his awesome blogness.

Accepting this award requires me to:
1. Paste this award on my blog
2.Thank the good soul who bestowed it upon me
3.Pass on this award to 15 versatile bloggers
4.Share seven random facts about myself. :D

 For now the awesome ones that I chose to nominate are:

1. Random Jotting (because its straight from a beautiful heart)
2.Heiress in Training (because she speaks straight to the heart)
3.Quixotic Quagmires (because its awe inspiring! ALWAYS)
4.Sustainable Sphere (because its a wonderful and extremely imperative initiative)
5.Aesthetic Blasphemy (because it is wonderfully profound and breathtaking)
6.Life Unlimited (because it simply blew me away)
7.Malignant humor in my head (because its pure and simple HATS OFF! )
8.Khanabadosh (because his soul speaks through his captures)
9.My "Experiments" with Truth (because the award describes him best)
10.Crash and Burn... (Because you'll love his easygoing style and his unconventional take on things)
11.A beautiful mind!! (Because there is "something for everybody" and its totally worth it)


Congratulations to all of you! :) You deserve it much more than I will ever do.

Coming to the seven deadly things...

One, I am an absolute lunatic. In the unlikely event of you being a regular reader of this blog, you would have probably got mad at reading this for the umpteenth time. Nevertheless I am positive you will agree. :D

Two, I have an absolute irrevocable crush on Amartya Sen, Clint Eastwood, Gregory Peck, William Wordsworth, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Nat King Cole, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Clark Gables, Hugh Jackman, P.B Shelley, Winston Churchill, Balraj Sahni, Sunil Dutt, Samuel Beckett, Al Pacino, Pablo Picasso, G. K Pillai, Fitzwilliam Darcy and a few more.

Three, I have a unique habit of staring things from where they are supposed to finish and advancing backwards. Its the only way that really works for me.

Four, put me in any situation, I'll find a way to be happy. Laughter and Smiles are the most crucial aspect of my existence. And my glory lies entirely in the unbelievably beautiful creatures who encompass my humble little being.

Five, I have a serious doubt that I am born a few hundred hundred years after I was actually supposed to.

Six, I believe in everything, yet almost nothing.

Seven,  The Rohu that is me

Thanks a ton again! This made my day!! :)

Monday, February 20, 2012

Bhoot Badha

My Kundli suggests i have a "pret badha yog".. which implies that i have a special affinity to GHOSTS and that they find me alluring and intriguing as well. Which of course does not come as a surprise. Most of the living creatures whose light cones i have entered have gone mad. I am that sort of a specimen which the museum of Human Wonders would like to keep in its "Fatal to mankind" sections.
Coming back to the para normal activity, I accept there is no dearth of it. If I start recalling incidents since my childhood, the next 200 posts or so will be exclusively haunted. Though there are a few that I would like to share, its a pity that I will not be able to tell it to in person because the real essence of telling ghost stories lies in switched off lights, changing pitch, variety of noises, moving furniture, screams of the dear terrified lady and then ofcourse the Expression. But still in the next few post whatever I share, I'll try my best to make you feel at home, as in, my home. which parents and pandits have declared to be haunted. Yet again.
The posts will essentially be a mix of the amusing and the terrifying. Sometimes, the not so terrifying. Things which have happened in my presence and those lovely ones, all mirch masala added from the preceeding generations. Bhoots love the Singh Parivar I tell ya.

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Slap me if you can

My Bua had been married to a businessman in Mysore. When she had newly arrived in the city, their family, which consisted of the benevolent (honestly!) mother-in-law, the always amused brother-in-law, the more or less surprise resistant husband and herself, moved into an apartment in some lesser known locality. Since the husband would often be away on business trips and the bro-in-law amused himself at the seas (he was in merchant navy), so the ladies in law would generally be alone in the house. They got along well since gossip was available in plenty. Rather it was so much in excess that they had to borrow hours from their nap time to finish the daily quota.

On one such moony loony night, Bua and sasu ma gossiped their way into slumber. She was comfortably snoring when something surprisingly louder than her snores woke her up. Her partial consciousness evolved into complete horror when she realized that the sound is coming from the kitchen and felt like somebody was throwing all the utensils around. She glanced at the clock "hey prabhu!! Its three in the morning!". The Devil's hour!!

Of whatever sense she could gather, she woke up the mother-in-law. When they both sneaked out slowly and silently and peeped into the kitchen. They could both not believe what they saw as much as I cant still believe what they said. The utensils were flying about in the kitchen. SUO MOTO.

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It will take another decade to go through the details of that night. Just that everyone was alive and well and that the coverage was better than that of Al Jazeera. Calls and visitors kept them busy that day. Sasu Ma, though visibly traumatized, soaked all the attention. Remedies were suggeted, Jyotshis were called. Flat was declared contaminated and unfit for residence until the twenty grand bhoot bhagao pooja was done.
By the time, the final agreements were reached, the moon was up again.

So then saas bahu yet again talked their way into snores. Bua who is famous as the "Tabela bech ke soti hai" sleeper, perhaps did not wake up to the routine endeavors of the ghost. Poor Fellow! I am positive he must have tried. But then when nothing else seemed to work, there was only one option left.

Phattaaackkk!!! Bua sitting on the bed wide awake, open mouthed, hand on her cheek. Clock declared 'ten minutes past' three (I told you he must have tried).
Next morning the not so amused Brother in law called to relate a frightful incidence of being slapped hard by no one around ten past three in the morning.

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Drama repeated. The now vindictive Bua and Sasu ma refused to sleep that night. They furiously chatted through it.
At three in the morning they heard a painful howl.
Shhhh.... Its nothing... okay ya... So as I was saying...................................................................
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Thousand miles away....














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Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Accident

Hurt and bruised and blue and black
With angry neck and swearing back
Walking stick and medicine rack
Funny bone without caprice crack! ;)

Half a dozen worried chairs
Maternal cries, paternal cares
Bandages in three hundred layers
We hope nothing happened to the stairs! :/

Good that there are fractures few
Good that she can happily chew
Arthropod with purple hue?
Wonders the bewildered nephew (3 YRS OLD)

Plaster adorns the best wishes now
Cousins at incredible clumsiness bow
They still cant really make out how
With "Holy Christ!" and "Holy Cow!"

Brandy thinks I should die soon
"One way to get rid of the buffoon!
In disguise let this be a boon
By Dog! she is such a loon!"

Pa thinks I hit my head too hard
Besides then, there is too much lard
Hence the madness of the Bard
Chases all phantoms in the graveyard













(source-Google)

Purpose was the mindless rhyme
Sincere apologies for wasting your time
I know this is a serious crime
but then is most of Solitude Sublime!

:D (EVIL LAUGHTER)



Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Ghost

The question she never asked
Hovers in the dark with me
While she sleeps on our bed
Beside a crease less left
I play with velvet curtains
Before the hours of morning
She wakes up to grey dreams
Stares at the bewildered hour
Lies back into the void
I play the chimes for her
Beseech the winds to sing
Blinded by salty sorrow
She calls my name again
I touch her lonely breath
Kiss her bruises away
Weave myself into her quilt
Seep into her pillow
Spread onto the sheets
Cradle her tired soul
Brush every pain away
And gently on her lips
Crawl back the pieces of her smile
"You're here" she whispers "with me"
The silence whispers back
"Always".


Saturday, February 11, 2012

Unreal


Between the lands of you and me
There lies forgotten the road
The steps you take no footprints leave
How then shall I find your abode?

  Night descends frowning and complains
Of the promise I did not keep
My heavens in grey of silent pains
On my grass the ceaseless weep

The numbness of my lonely palms
Prays for the warmth of you
To you reach all my longing psalms
Before the heavens in blue

Letters I did not write and send
Yet every word resounds
Tales began but had no end
Of graves on velvet grounds

Memory haunts the wreck of my ship
You embrace the cracks of my soul
The Sadhu takes the holy dip
To release himself from the Whole

Your tower sits beyond my reach
They clipped my wings last spring
And then to fly come who will teach
No winds to thee can bring

On hope of you, the dream I weave
And Oblivion writes the Ode
The steps you take no footprints leave
How then shall I find your abode?



Monday, February 06, 2012

By the child...

When balming all my hundred pains
When mending quilts of warmth
When writing tales of unlit lanes
When winters play in North.

When trying to boon the haughty banes
When lighting young candles aloud
When thunder sings in dancing drains
When waters wash me proud.

When birds bring home the golden grains
When squirrels sketch delight
When meaning ceases to embrace the chains
When solitary walks the night.

When in love the happy rains
With the tall grey lofty clouds
When thunder sings in dancing drains
When waters wash me proud.