Who were they?

Empty hallways, crumbled walls, cracked floors, roofless structures. They used to be homes. Libraries. Arenas. Stadiums.

All we see now is ruin and destruction. Time. Time is what went over them.

Who were they? Those men, women and children? Pets and cattle.

Which birds nested in the trees and flew over those ancient skies? What flowers bloomed in their gardens? What fruit did their trees bear? What did they grow in their fields?

These living, breathing people walked the roads. They made cities and ran governments. They had a religion and a deity they worshipped. They had festivals and celebrations.

They lived just like us. In those houses which are now bereft of warmth and shelter. In what tragedy did the city fall? Was it war? Earthquakes? Volcanoes? Fires? Invading armies?

How I wish I could, just for a few moments, watch their life!

Visit their homes and eat their food. Live in that era. Study their customs. Wear their garb. Read their books.

What would my house look like thousand years from today? Would it even remain standing or would it stop existing completely? Will it fall into ruin, for future generations to graffiti my walls, take pictures and selfies in my roofless living room. Grass creeping out of the floor tiles. Kitchen utensils lying broken and bent. Would future archeologists study 2020 and beyond by looking inside the ruins of our homes and offices?

When I watch the ancient ruins, am I alone there? Are the ancient people still walking the earth unseen, unheard, unknown? Watching it all with wan faces and broken hearts? Or are their Souls free from their earthly binds already?

Will someone please lift this thick veil between past and present? Will I be allowed a glimpse into the past? Will I be able to look at the future?

My present is beset with bush fires, religious and political upheavals, hate crimes, murders, a pandemic, and terrorism. How soon till we are also just another civilization destroyed by the ravages of time? The pandemic looks like an innocent child, when compared to the pure hatred that humans have shown to be capable of.

The cancel culture. The misinformation. Slandering. Rumours. One community killing another. One race killing another. One country attacking another.

How long till it is all destroyed forever? How soon till we become total chaos and anarchy?

Maybe this time - oh powers that be! - finish the human race entirely. Rout us out of existence. Let the other beings survive. Let the planet breathe a sigh of relief. Let my planet breathe, finally!

We have created this pattern of destruction around us since thousands of years. Surely, someone is watching over us! There must an entity who sees what we are doing! Someone must be in charge of this Universe! Or is it just empty space and trillions of living creatures bent on killing each other and themselves?

Surely, that can't be the be-all and end-all of Life as we know it! Please tell me it isn't so!

Gaping Silences

Tides come and go,

Sands shift, waves dance.

Leaves fall and grow

Birds fly-die-fly.

People meet

Then walk away.

That's the thing about time.

It changes.

Hearty laughs, loud parties,

Shared shoulders, long talks,

Turn, oh so quickly, into

Gaping silences.

They creep upon us unseen

Unsaid resentments

Smiley faced disdain

Unspoken jealousies.

Incommunicado.

Gaping, staring, sad silences

Yawning chasms

Bottomless pools of regrets

Happy, merry times

Torn asunder.

Pieces disintegrate

Into ashes

Which are never reborn.

A funeral unattended

A mourning done alone.

Hiding heartbreaks

Behind a mask of ego.

Feelings of neglect

Bidden away with smiles

Gnawing bitterness

Pushed back with wit.

Unshed tears

Coming undone

At inopportune moments

Squared shoulders

And straight spines

Egos petted

Hearts beaten down.

And we learn to let go.

Whatever that even means

Does anybody really know?

Reduced to guilt trips

In surreptitious visits

To the attic of memories

Tucked away in musty corners.

Gaping Silences.

Twisted

Apocalypse

Comic strips

Super heroes

Magic and fantasy

Ghosts and spirits

End of the world

Crises

Stories

Tales

Parallel worlds

Ideas.

Do you really think these come outta logical, rational, analytical and thinking minds?

Naah! These come from twisted minds. Like the rope of the hangman, beautiful to look at. That fine line between, destruction and creation.

The world conditions us to be wooden blocks. Every classroom, though, has that one lunatic who is lost in their own world. The troubadour. The doodler. The painter. The flautist. The wanderer. Refusing to become a cube. Happy to be an amoeba.

The round pegs in square holes. The ones who break frames. The disruptive minds.

We make the world bearable. We are the creators. While you are busy making calculations, we balance with emotions. We make colourful art, on a dull grey canvas.  

We are the bright, printed umbrella, surrounded by black and boring conformity.

We are not going anywhere. We are the reason you exist. We are why life is worth living. We create your music. We create your art.

We create your escape.

We are the philosophers. We are the artistes. We are the quiet existence of your conscience. We help you survive. We are the reason you breathe.

We are the makers. We are the amoebas.

Unformed Ideas

Sometimes my mind

Goes rough and tumble

Lurching into wilderness

Hurtling through expanses

Of thought and memory

Of feelings

Fleeting glimpses

Brambles entangled

Nettles and willows

Daisies aglow

Freefall of ideas

No strings, no shackles

Vast loneliness

Of unending snowscapes

Pure and pristine

Like white unwritten blanks

Rainbows in oil spills

Rainbows in soap bubbles

No rainbows in sky

Just grey droopy fog

Sliver of sunshines

Slithering away slyly

Crazy maniac meandering

Never making sense

Just let them be, let them stay

In their suspended dance

I pick them one by one

Piece them into threads

Of imaginary worlds

Like ethreal strings of pearls

To form coherence

Or to just remain insane

Damaged

There is a garden in my apartment complex. My apartment windows face this garden and I stand and gaze out many times during the day.

Early morning before sunrise, there is this one bird who talks alone before anyone else wakes up. He is the first bird, and he talks incessantly - repeating the same sounds. I am not sure if he is happily chatting or cursing us, but I love his talks.

The squirrels keep scurrying along all day. They have a tree of their own right in the center of the garden. They even visit our windows daily. The sparrows also have their own tree, so do the wild parrots. Each species claiming a tree for their community - to live, build nests, bring young ones, chirp and sing and hop around and fly - to LIVE!

It's a busy garden. So many small creatures calling it home.

Watching them is like stepping into a parallel world where there is no memory of pain and struggles of human existence. It is far removed from our ego issues, tax issues, money problems - the constant push and pull of just about making it far enough to survive.

To what end, though? What are we acheiving exactly? This garden will continue on, this apartment complex will have the residents, the road outside will remain busy, the shops will keep a constant flow of goods and humans. Nothing will change. Whether we continue to be or otherwise.

The sun will rise and set. The waves will ebb and flow. The tides will keep their schedule. The winds will blow. The rain will continue to fall.

Life goes on. People stop existing. More and more of them nowadays. Falling sick, snuffed out like so many candles. Today someone woke up in the morning and went about their routine. Tomorrow's morning will rise without them. We will look up to the stars and remember the absent. Then we will snuggle into our beds and silently cry tears of regret and pain.

There is so much loss. Loss of livelihood. Loss of homes. Loss of love. Loss of life itself. Wherever you look, it is a story of strife and struggle. Humanity just trying to cope.

Broken shards of glass, living inside each heart and constantly piercing with reminders. Millions of hearts bleeding inside living bodies, going about their mundane existence with a smile on their faces. Wounds which refuse to close. Refuse to heal.

Some rainbow emerges for a while, giving small hopes and strength to go on. It takes you a little further, only for that strength to be depleted, and then sputtering this happiness to a complete halt all over again.

The feet drag on. The day rises. We get out of bed and continue. Yet another day of waiting, anticipating - either a new hope or an end to everything once and for all. Neither arrives, and back to bed we go, spent and defeated.

Day after day after day like this, only feels better with views of our small garden. This parallel world which doesn't care about diseases and depression of human minds. This world continues its peaceful existence. Nature in miniature. This is the only constant, in the daily changes around me which I can't handle anymore. Escaping into this innocent world is the only hope I have which keeps me going. The grassy pathways, the verdant foliage, the chirping and twittering, the tiny lives which are happy in their little existence close to nature.

The various colourful flowers which swish, sway, scatter petals, attract butterflies and bees. The rain which patters away on paved paths and grassy mounds. Washing and cleansing everything in its wake.

I remain enclosed inside my home. Waiting. Anticipating. Something should turn up soon, something happy, something hopeful. Dreading to know of more loss, I unplug from society. This conflict pulls me both ways until I split into multiple pieces.

I gather the pieces and try to mend myself. A shoddy repair work. Damaged and shattered. Pieced together by mere existence. Living is long forgotten. All I now am is, I exist - and that is all.

Phoenix Flight

Vagabond

A heartless bitch

I lick my own wounds

Yes, I am a witch

You uproot me

But I need no belonging

I disown you

Nobody owns me

You hit me with your best

I have thick skin

You belittle me

I am too magnificent for your small mind

I don't need approbation

Won't be conforming

You take away my dreams

I fly away on new ones

You burn my love

You burn my innocence

You burn me in your hatred

I am the Phoenix!

I rise again

My ashes are my nest

My burns are my tattoos

I smite you to Hell

I am the Shrew

Untamed

Uncontainable

Unleashed upon my feiry wings

Powerful and strong

I am the Phoenix

I am my own swan song

I am the witch

The heartless bitch

I am the dance of wrath

I trample worlds beneath

My dancing rhythmic feet

I am the Phoenix

I burn and rise

Rise and burn

I am the witch

The heartless bitch

Gilded Days of Old

I was always a strange child. Never really fit in. For some equally strange reason, some memories keep coming back since the past few days.

School day memories. School was at around 30 minutes walk from where we lived at that time. We had tried school bus, it made me puke. We tried the good old "Indian school autowala". That overcrowded, scary commute from days of old. That was soon given up. I was around 10 years old and could walk back home on my own. Plus, there was company for around half the distance.

There were many different paths to come home. In the morning, my path was fixed for getting to school on time. Coming back was a different matter. Each day, a different route, some longer, some shorter, some roundabout. Dawdling, gaping, gawping, picking wild flowers, ferns, chasing butterflies (really, I did. It isn't a figure of speech here)...

There was one favourite path. It went cutting through a small hill. The soil was red. It was open land for most part and would be covered in green during monsoon. I feel transported there even as I write.

Standing on a little high ground, feeling the cool breeze on my face, watching the grey-white-blue clouds lazily float away. Land carpeted with green as far as the eye could go. Weeds, wild ferns, wild flowers, some plants with round shaped compound leaves, fragrance of the wet earth, distant mountains over the horizon...

Also on the way, was a bridge which passed over a stream. During rainy season this stream would flow with vigour. It was muddy, but forceful and frothing with the speed of excess water flowing away somewhere. I would wait here, watching this stream.

A little ahead, there were these unknown trees which bore miniscule red berries in clusters. A girl who used to walk home with me used to eat them but I was too scared to eat something unknown. There was a tamarind tree, some other flowering trees like jasmine and bouganvillea. In that lane was another school where my mother was a teacher for just one year.

Near our house, the road had some evergreen trees which flowered during certain season, maybe spring. The road would be sprinkled yellow and beige when they fell. That scene has stayed with me, intact over all these years. I didn't even know it was that affecting when I lived through it all.

Wonder why all this is coming back. It feels as if that strange kid is still lost in those sleepy lanes and hillocks. She hated that place and was happy to leave when the time came. But a tiny part decided to stay behind. Those places don't even exist anymore.

I never went back to that town. I don't want to go back. My memory of that place from 30 years ago is still intact inside my head. Let it be that way, I don't want to see what has changed.

It wasn't even as beautiful as my childhood mind remembers it. I am still wondering why I am wandering back in those old haunts. Dreaming about those old houses by the road. Remembering forgotten faces with no names. Remembering old names with no faces.

Hazy, misguided, gilded memories. Cloudy, like the clouds I watched. Colourful, like the butterflies, dragonflies, flowers...

Maybe it is this weird transition which is happening right now. Passing from one stage of life, into a new one.

I have changed in the past year. Good, bad, better - not sure. But changed for sure. How I perceive things, people, events around me is different now. Life has defeated me into submission and that has somehow made me into a better version of myself. More positive, more pliable, more resilient, something paradoxical yet pleasant. This is a new phase.

Maybe my heart is reaching out to something which was laid back, innocent, idealistic, dreamy - which got forgotten. Maybe it is part of some strange kind of healing from all the pain we went through in this past year.

However it may be, these are happy memories. Gilded and picture perfect. Rose-tinted. For a change, I don't mind, nor care. It is some sort of a happy place within to get lost in. A mind's retreat of sorts.

Lazy, irresponsible days of laughing summers. Palm trees, cool nimbu sharbat, playing cards, "exploring" new spots in the neighbourhood with a bunch of oddballs like me. Climbing peru trees, day dreaming in those branches, plucking half ripe fruit...

Making a makeshift puppy home from fallen red leaves of the almond tree. Giving a night's lodging to a stray kitten which followed me home. Red gum boots for monsoon. Or were they black?

Tiny rivulets of rain water. Making paper boats. Sending off a toy plastic santa claus floating in this rivulet. Don't know why.

One particular winter was severe. We used to be cloaked and gloved and wrapped from head to foot for school in the morning. We would blow in the air and pretend that we were smoking cigarettes.

Somewhere along the way, I suddenly grew up. Asked my parents to change my school as this one wasn't helping me learn. Dad arranged to get me into his old school. I loved it even though i went there only for the last 3 years of schooling. That's where I found out what I wanted to learn in college. Languages, especially English literature. My parents were also quite supportive and didn't try to force me into Commerce or Science either of which I would have gotten into easily.

That decision is the reason I am sitting here now, able to put these thoughts and abstract dreams into actual words. That was another phase. This one is a new phase.

Something wonderful is coming along. Silently, quietly, noiselessly. I am open to receive it. Calm and peaceful. Finally.

-Painting by Pascal Campion.