Ashksymphony

18 June 1988 Was it sandalwood or Rose? The smell of incense sticks – a lazy Sunday morning One where I woke up before 1 PM; a rarity The days of youth come with their own little jar of idiosyncrasies Its own set of preformed notions about rules… Just like my grandson frowns at me for being such a pain, as he says Nagging him to wake up early, to do his bed, to not leave food on his plate I always wondered why the flavor of the incense sticks always was sandalwood in the writings And never Rose or Jasmine…or Mogra for that matter Was it because it sounds more imperial or royal Or was it because I read selectively Picked up authors who would never write about Mogra incense stick spreading its scent in the backdrop of an Indian student living in an English household But the ideas was not about the incense stick Or the ideosyncracies of the aged Or the preformed notion of rules in the mind of my young mind I intended to write about my f

07 March 1949   Sitting on the patiya on the tea stall corner of the Jamnabai street cigarette smoke having a duel with mental fumes Anger - a newly discovered emotion it felt The blacksmith pounding hammer on red hot iron inside his head explosions of hatred intermingled with fear The sound of the passing train Like the wheels of revenge running in my head 'Why did I never embrace this feeling before, Is there any emotion as vivid as this?' Drop of hot chai fell on my feet bringing him back to the moment sweat drenched face of Golu, the chai wala's son running around dodging people, balancing 5 tea glasses in his tiny hands If only he had known how angry I was Like the simmering heat of the Sahara desert shaking with rage my hands were a rebellious soul The sound of shattered glasses echo in my head even today Poor lad didn't know where did the stars strike from Looking with innocent eyes for explanation Fear finally winning the duel

The lamp flickered rather ominously, threatening to burn out any instant.. two hours and forty minutes, that is how long he had sat there... Just waiting for some inspiration to dawn, some sensible flow of rhythm in his words to draft them into what he would vaingloriously call Poesy... Winter rains, he was told were a writer's paradise, Did he need to be told? He had reminded himself so umpteen times... Mist for mystique, The patter of rains for music, The algid breeze for thrill, The shiver at its touch for concupiscent arousal, The morning sunlight through the fog for the gentle love... Yet all in vain, there was no cadence, words were as jumbled an expression within him, as were the random spread of vibrant rainbows on the morning dew, each holding multitudinous reflexion, withal lacking speech... 'A slave you would become to verses', he was often told, 'what crime?' , he would argue... only to be