Time Tickles

Posted on by paridhij

Immersed in the song of my groove,

picking fruits of slender green plants

blooming in the well soaked soil,

sifting flour for lively little treats,

I caught my silken hair brushing my elbows.

They lean against my back until

I wrap them up along with the

ho – hum chores at night

in a velvety, maroon band

and find them longer, friskier the next day.

Me and my short hair swayed freely

before the world froze of bizarre, deadly events

that lived only in my imagination till

today when my long hair tickle me

in these abrupt, ghoulish times.

I can see the Ursa minor

anchored to the sky above my head,

I can see the small seeds turn to old plants,

I can see my hair grow till

my arms and palms and fingertips.

How long has it been?

Just in time

Posted on by paridhij

( I woke up at 3:20 am, wrote this poem and went back to bed. My dreams were too discomforting to dream till sunrise.)


In my sleep, I travel
This muddled world.
In loud rain under moonlight,
All drenched in memories;
Of how it was.
Narrow lanes and wide energy
That swept through them, like
Vanilla on your choicest cake;
Vanilla slipping through your fingers,
That you wipe away the next morning
From, places never reached by you.
Breathing heavily at
every curve on the lane.
I stretch, roll over
To hide, from the light that
Marks the end of my travel.

Summer died.

Posted on by paridhij
  • A photograph taken by me. (Dehradun, India. May 7, 2020)

( I wrote this two weeks back. It has now begun to get warmer but it doesn’t take away the evident climate change.)

My entire family walks around as caricatures with bare legs and pullovers . All wardrobes are in transition and left open with clothes falling out.Some mischievous furry, heavy ones being locked up in bed boxes and distant cupboards.

The mornings are breezy with cool air around and a difficult choice between hot coffee and buttermilk for breakfast. The older minds too are perplexed by such choices as if it were happening for the first time. It is indeed happening for the first time that it is pouring rain and thunderstorm at the end of April like monsoons, continuing into May. Never have i ever been so pensive before switching on a fan at its slowest speed. I end up teary eyed due to cold air by the time evening sets in. Don’t take me as a lover of torrid, sultry weather. It is always winter in my heart.

Some days one can see the sun which turns out to be a mirage in this thunder land. I am considerate and scared of such bizarre changes that i know have sprouted from selfish human deeds. Continuous, erratic thunderstorms everyday make my skies black.They are the spectators to our family badminton games and hover over our heads like megaphones sent from heaven above, only to announce what echoes in my ears everyday:

“Summer has died! “

Nature mourns along with us, it cries in heavy rains. The screeching thunder sends us home. Every evening is our time to mourn the death of summer this year, to mourn the death of thousands of lives all over the world. The sun and its warmth is missing.

Seasons can be replaced only at a frightening cost.

POTS AND PLANTS

Posted on by paridhij

If you are tired and lost,

Hunting for a motive at all cost;

Come here, stay and read

Enjoy a garden tomorrow

Today, plant your seed.

Create your own little garden with the minimum resources and if you are one of those who love green then bingo! Following are the steps to successfully prepare your pots of veges.

  • 1- If you have a kitchen garden space that you never used then you are luckier than most. However, if you don’t all you need is a small corner in an airy, sunny space in your house. ( A balcony, some corner on the outside doorstep).

Try and arrange for a few small pots. In case you don’t find any, use old storage containers or cardboard boxes (You will have to line it with a synthetic paper from the inside to prevent the water from seeping in it). For making it look more beautiful and to add to your cheer you can paint your pot or in case of cardboard boxes cover the outside with colored paper.

  • 2- Tomato- Take a tomato and slice it into very thin pieces so that you say see the seeds clearly. Lay 5-6 slices on the soil and cover it with more soil. 
  • 3- Mint – Take a few (2-3) plants of mint with roots (The ones we buy from the grocery store). Lay them deep in the soil and cover with some more soil. The roots of mint plants spread wide and soon you will have your entire pot full of fresh mint.                   
  1. 4- Kidney beans-The plant of kidney beans grows as creepers therefore, it is important to keep a check on the growing plant and as soon as it grows taller,place sticks in the pot for support. Keep this pot close to the wall or edge ( to make way for the creeper to grow without breaking.)  Take 3-4 pieces of everyday kidney beans and lay them deep in the soil.
  • 5- Capsicum (chilies) – Take a capsicum and cut it in a manner so that you can take out the seeds from the core. Dry these seeds under the sun for two days and they are ready to be planted in one of your pots in a manner mentioned above.

Lastly wait but hey, water these plants at regular intervals and make sure they stay safe under sunlight.

              Enjoy the fruit of your effort!

Twist

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Wearing eyes laden with scintillation

Of dreams, hope and thrill

I was always a lover of life,

Of the stormy, untamed sky

Roaring from my ear to ear,

Of the chilly breezes squeezing through

Cracks in my blue windows,

Of the snow smothering my doorstep

At every snug eventide.

Wearing eyes laden with scintillation

Of dreams, hope and thrill

I am dripping with this life,

Still a lover of this magnanimity,

The zephyr, mountains and the green.

Take The Road

Posted on by paridhij

For the gust of wind

Bringing exalted fortunes to you,

For the prospect of meeting,

Greeting and devouring new.

For swathing your days

In a warm, halcyon heart,

In the anticipated relish

Once captured in your dreams.

For liberating the crack head energy,

That runs your life in jaded circles.

For your silence that none questions

And the gratifying prattles of the wildlife,

Far from the myriad counsels and

Futile kinship of the world.

 For unforeseeable landscapes

Sewn into an endless trip;

Take the road.

A Cold Shower

Posted on by paridhij

I am at the center of paradise. This place so close is immense and bracing. It suffices for all; the moon, the sun, the stars, love and everyone. So, I neither feel the absence of anything nor do I long for more. This is a whirlwind of revelation, of the possibly attainable contentment.

The hills of Mussoorie, freshly bathed in lights and grace are a result of the communion of man and nature. The sky covered in thick rain filled clouds forms a shiny roof over these mountains. It is a silver lining for my heart which makes me endless; so far so bright it is only me. The countless lights twinkle like rain touching the ground and to contain this idyll, my eyes are wildly rolling in their sockets.

This is certainly a dream that slipped out from eyes and now seeps into my skin like an early morning cold shower, where the water first drowns my organs in it, touching and refreshing my core and then washes away the warmth of the previous day. It is filling my body with cold water like Dionysus filling my mortal glass and giving me the resilience to enliven the day. I wish to be here until the end of my time.

I walked in here with open eyes. I wonder where a prayer with closed eyes would lead me.

A pocket full of soil

Posted on by paridhij

I have lived in a metro for a few years now and some segments of this experience haven’t changed with time. Life in the city is fast. In order to keep up with the pace, most people without any realization drop a lot and leave it on the course. Everyone is striving to move along and therefore, what is fallen is never picked up. My state of transition throughout the year gives me different outlooks for this pell-mell city life.

Coming from the other extreme of the spectrum, where proximity to nature and fresh, pure air comes as naturally as pollution and feigned lives in the city; for me the contrast between the two ends is striking. As I walk around the city or my hometown, I never fail to catch up on the prejudices that people on both extremes have for each other. Amidst all this speculation, I am certain of the idea: experiences of nature keep sanity and authenticity intact in us. They give us a reason to stop running madly to the point where we tire the life in us and become jiggered, indignant souls. They are our fleecy mink blankets that we wrap ourselves with, for calm and comfort.

I am neither against living in a concrete jungle nor do I promote residing in a densely covered deodar forest. However, I believe in keeping one’s immediate environment a little brown with soil and fulgent green with dangling plants. This idea is not to be solely propagated because the world is dying and it is our duty to be concerned. I suggest this practice so that one can look at the world with kind eyes. The viridescent and brown surroundings are not an experience to be jotted down in one’s journal. It is a lifestyle to be adopted. The compassion it brings to the heart along with patience and politeness is priceless.

Every time I leave my hometown, I wish to load my pockets with soil which I can sprinkle over the city like some magical powder that will seep into the roots of the cemented, never ending buildings and make them thrive in the wind. I also hope for a little bit of the soil to fall on people and find place in their pockets. Soil is humble; it goes with the wind, softens in the rain to fill your homes with petrichor, fills every hand equally without any damage and greets you with pristine life if you nurture it. It is giving all the way. And as long as the mountains are, I will refill my pockets with all kinds of soil and carry it with me to every city I go.

The city inhabitants shouldn’t consider this an invitation to the mountains for I am scared they might bring concrete with them.

Aces

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Two sixes placed with trembling fingers, three are in my hand.
‘I caught you!’
Mastering bluff since our dawn,
There is still much to learn.

Eight is the face
Of, the fresh Trump card.
Bodies still, as paranoid minds
Read fingers and eyes,
Liars and honed lies.

They orient their worlds through,
The cards in their hands.
Spades and clubs,
Their diamonds and their hearts
All wrestled in a sequence.

The quest lies in fifty-two layers,
Outspread among countless players.
Each, winning and losing its head
In the one Game of
The four aces.

Patterns

Posted on by paridhij

Let me wipe away this tear. My eyes are sensitive to wind, cool air and to staring- very sensitive. I am resting on my bed and there is no wind, this hot city has no cool air but most rooms have ceilings. Childhood home, classroom, dorm room, train station, offices, libraries; the pattern follows.

When I first looked at this ceiling that I am still looking at for an hour now, my mind was full of praises of how well it is painted. No mark, no landmark as far as I can scan it. No bumps on the road. Very clean ! Twenty – five seconds in and I saw a dent, the paint looked thicker there. Ah, found it ! I held on to it and now I am floating in patterns that begin at all three corners. The fourth corner is too far to see. The patterns here, take me back to the first ones that I ever saw. Are all patterns same?  Maybe in their nature if not in their design: engaging, fanciful, daunting, dynamic, and puissant.

Patterns are never lost, they get replaced. Looking at them is like looking at clouds. You take your eyes off and you lose it, but the sky still has it, maybe a little differently. They are funny, sometimes mysterious and appalling too. Indulging with them can make you a creator. It can also remind you of what was long forgotten by you. It reminded me of my ‘leisure’, when staring at ceilings and walls, was the most engrossing pass time.

Patterns are man- made; unconsciously made by man for most times. You don’t spot a pattern until, your second encounter with it. You might not know it even then if you aren’t attentive. Everything constitutes a pattern, sometimes your very own and the one colossal pattern for all other times. Patterns caught the eye of great philosophers and thinkers like Aristotle and Plato .They searched for their origin in science and sometimes described them as an imitation of nature.

Whatever the history be, the present is challenging and questioning. The ceiling patterns have flushed me with nostalgia. They remind me of simpler days when neither I recognized patterns as ‘patterns’ nor did I know that people around the world had earnestly thought about it. The only reason I was penchant for them was that they invariably existed and I wasn’t wrong. I need to open my eyes wide and they are there, in every wall, in every ceiling, within me and everywhere around the word.

Paridhi