INSCAPE

  The heat of the day knocks me over. I feel tired with words With actions and of being. Hours later, The night birds resume  Their trumpets of merriment. The return of the night Fills my home with peace. Now, a freshness knocks me over. The sun's light is what the world loves. The day fills people with joy. Nevertheless, the night birds Cheer up and so does me At the declaration of night By the setting sun When the moon bounces in And throws a smiling glance. Tranquility takes a fresh shower To live, to love the night. When the day collides with me Something pricks me over Whispering muses of reluctance  Wanting to run away from  Humiliating human spaces  Clothed in humble coats of sanity. I find sanity at home Where I could be me, the real me. Yesterday evening, when I woke up suddenly from an evening nap, I could sense the night slowly beginning to embrace the sky. The sky that was fed up with the sun's heat. I mused about how much I love the moon. And how I'...

  A chapter in my life which I couldn't learn in clarity. A human being who caressed me, of whom I've only heard about. Mariyamma chedathi . I've never seen her (not in the sea of my conscious memory) in my life hitherto. All I know is that she looked after me, cuddled me and held me safe like a mother bird, when my mom was away from home. Years ago. After my birth. When my parents went to work. When my mom had to cover eighteen kms, hiring three buses each day to go to the school where she taught. She had a lot of stress at work, so Mariyamma chedathi (along with my grandma) took good care of me whenever she was away, all through the initial phase of my life when I was just a little bud preparing to bloom. She stayed with us meanwhile. She then left, and for so long, we couldn't keep any contact with her. Years later, we got to know that she was suffering from cancer. We tried to reach out to her, but all in vain. I thought I would never be able to see her. But today, ...

It was a cold night, 8 years ago. We had arrived at the Lilabari Airport Quarters (in fact, it felt like a small home) after long hours of smooth and skiddy journey in a taxi all the way from Guwahati. Being tired, we slept off soon, without waiting for the strangeness of the place to take hold of our senses. The next thing I could sense was a chitter-chatter from the room nearby. It was already morning! I couldn't decipher the meaning of the talk as I opened my eyes, and suddenly my brain just reminded me of where I was. It was the brief noise of my mother talking to a woman in Hindi that had reached my ears. The woman sounded so talkative. The 12 year old me jumped off from my bed and waited for my sister to accompany me to the living room. We were quite enthusiastic, eagerly in anticipation about what lay ahead of the room we slept in, ahead of the little home where we stayed and beyond the enclosures of the airport (my father worked in the airport). Our ignorance in Hindi made...