Lost in Thoughts

II. The Monochrome Closet I find it amusing. Is ‘amusing’ the word really? We often brand the incomprehensible ‘amusing’. But that is mine to decipher.  Meet my Grandpa. A kind but grumpy old man, irritated at the slightest of changes- a retired officer used to having his way. A hundred hands always waiting upon him round the clock. The big shot of the town.  He strides in his usual haughty strides as he walks into the room today. Out swings his closet door. His monochrome closet, as I call it. White and black. A rare brown here and an occasional grey there. He stands in front of the gaping closet, scratching his chin. “Aren’t they all the same?”, I think. Dare I not say it out loud. He carefully picks a pair out, looks at it for a moment, straightens and walks out into the kitchen.   I hear my granny over the chatter of cardamom and basil leaves within her prize pot.  “Do I have to tell you everything?” Absolute silence follows. Even the sp...

I. The Solitary Sweet A single slice of sweet sits in its box. The wrapper is mangled and not one scrape has been spared except for this-one sweet, tantalizing cube. Unlike the rest that were graced with an agonizingly short life, this particular piece of forlorn sweet is on its third solitary day.  You see, my uncle and granny love this particular variety. From this one specific shop. Rumored to be made by an old man who guards the 75-year old recipe with his dear life. A rare treat. Cautious as he might be and old as she might be, every walk past the ebony table left their fingers sticky and lips smacking in satisfaction.  “It doesn’t matter!”, they say, when I point out that the poor specimen was becoming increasingly elastic with the moist breeze sneaked into the assaulted carton. “In fact,'' they say, glancing hungrily at it, “it tastes better!”  Yet, there it sits- a piece, the last. The mother saving it for her son and the son checking his growlin...

            Today this little girl ran to me, her unruly hair still rebelling the worn blue ribbons. Her little fist was tightly closed behind her back. I caught a jagged piece of paper peeping out of it. I smiled and feigned surprise as she held out her sacred present to me. It was indeed a paper, ruled and smoky with graphite, torn hurriedly from her little notebook. She bobbed on her toes as I read those words. The words of a child, clinging hard to the printed blue lines, a few slipping here and there, then arduously heading back to near-perfection. It was a poem- About a cow and a dog. How an arrogant dog disturbs a depressed cow and ends up having the lesson of his life delivered via a nice, well-aimed kick. Not too impressive? For me though, it’s something I would recall as a ripe old granny, knitting uselessly by the fire-place, and smile.             She was a girl who had poverty riding on her shoulders, withou...

When the sea looked up for the first time at the sky...he felt awed at what he saw...  There she was...spread protectively over him, serene and calm.    Was it tender generosity, he saw in her,as she let the wisps of clouds play and wander about?    Or was it sharp intellect he saw in her brilliant blue expanse, stretching limits of knowledge beyond the scale?    Or was it terribly beautiful anger he saw in her, as she darkened inky blue, trembling with streaks of lightning and shuddering with splitting thunder?    Or was it love at its purest essence, as she cooled in a jiffy, anger dissipating, kissing him affectionately with droplets of forgiveness?   Or was it enduring strength that he saw in her, as she filled him again and again with life, till he stood swelling with pride, shining,strong and rippling with energy.   He didn't know what to say or what to call her...he swayed up and down, leaping high once...