Gayatri, and the blank canvas

Art is different from literature and music. Says Michael. And what makes Art, the only place where people inquire for reality? “Art is everything a man goes through.. It is his life, his mind, his thoughts…” Gayatri’s remark takes Michael into a realisation that she’s someone who’s adroit at the same passion that he possess. And this dialogue presentation is one of the many instances where I could really adore Ann Augustine as an actress, a deserving state award winner for her Gayatri.

‘Artist’ is one such movie, that unveils Shyamaprasad’s prowess as a film maker. I have always been fascinated by indepth movies. Commercial or feel good movies do entertain for that watch time. But there are movies that leaves an unsolved question, or that tries to say something indirectly, such that it would pierce down into your intellect as well as your mind, your heart, out of which you would finally ignite puzzles of joy, that lasts forever. And this movie takes a special place among my favorite movies of all time.

Here, as my title hints, the movie is all about paints, people and canvas. If gayatri could ever look at her life as a canvas, as quick as a flash i can say that it would seem all blank. All her love, all her efforts, and all the pain that she carried on and through her young veins, are seen falling off at a moment, at a single moment in the movie.

As I said in the beginning, another instance where Anne magnificently melts down into the character of gayatri, is in the climax scene, where she walks away, but towards the audience, saying to us that there would come such a moment in your lives, where you would have to leave the place, without saying a word, because you finally realise that it won’t make any change.

Fahad Fasil as Michael becomes the perfect antihero, that he could well bring out in us all the disgust and abhorrence for his character as the plot necessitates. There is this character of Roy, played by Siddarth Siva, whom we come across at the start of the movie, waiting for Michael to discuss on an art exhibition, that Gayatri somehow managed to get going. Anne portrays the very staunch wife of Michael, who is struggling with her dissenting husband who in no way supports her to make both the ends meet. Roy leaves the place as Michael fails to reach at time, and here we can watch the shivering hands with an old nokia phone and teary eyes, those with a hopeless glint, blinking in dismal as Roy passes.

Michael’s relationship with many girls, that lasted in no time, has been divulged through the character Abhi, a close friend of Michael. Gayatri couldn’t give up her passion on art as well as Michael, that she deliberately unheard all the single grumbles that came towards her, in her way of choosing Michael. Amidst a song sequence there comes a second of time, when gayatri is made to ask Michael that why do he love her. And his answer was that she was young and untouched. Gayatri is seen arguing with her parents on her relationship with Michael, and besides of being a single daughter raised up in a conservative Brahmin family, she doesn’t stop herself in leaving her parents, to move into Michael’s life. Being in an live in relationship, Michael puts on the breadwinner role to gayatri, and entails in his world of paintings.

Michael’s character reminds me of the painter in Edgar Allen poe’s short story, ‘The Oval Portrait’. The man who is in endless love with art kills his wife, letting her starve inorder to complete his work. Similarly gayatri is here letting herself tear down out of her love for Michael. And love alone stands on ahead of her, in her arduous journey. “Art is a jealous mistress.” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote sum up both the plots.

The husband, a painter, in poe’s’ short story, requests his wife to let him paint her portrait, and in obeying him, she meets her grim. As the painting matured, her health and energy declined and yet she remained and, without objection, she continued to sit for him. His passion for the portrait increased and as the painting nears completion, each stroke of the brush strips her of her beauty, and finally, upon the conclusion of the painting, it robs her of her life.

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Beyond art, Shyamaprasad sways our thoughts to the bitter reality of life, where man in no way can take command of his own life. But he is just a glove puppet in fate’s hands. Unpredictable is human life and the sournesss can’t be neglected but to accept is the very thing that man can do.

In the movie, Michael mets with an accident, and there begins gayatri’s real tussle. He loses his vision, but still has his power of sight at art. In an earlier scene, we are shown Michael and Gayatri sitting on the sea shore, where Michael convinces her, his wish to conduct a huge art exhibition with lots of canvases suffused with psychedelic paints. There Gayatri, lamely asks him how can a man live with art alone. Michael smiles, what else does he have?

As the director wins over in his talent to prompt us to understand even a single silent moment, connecting to art, man and life, there attains the perfection of the movie.

Now the most stirring part of the movie for me personally, lies in the name of Michael’s art exhibition, as suggested by Gayatri. Dreams in Prussian Blue it is.. “Why Prussian Blue? It can be cobalt blue, serolin blue.. why is it even blue?” For Michael’s wonder, Gayatri hold on a second, imbibing pain, and says.. ” simply, blue sky, dreams, in the blues, moody blues.. such a way.. blue is beautiful, as your painting”. She couldn’t stop her repentance by seeing the canvas filled with only blue colour, tinted with Abhi’s old collection of blue paints. Abhi, as if lending an helping hand, asks her to stop ravaging herself in a cafe, working overload to get extra money for household matters after buying paints and brushes for Michael. Getting up all of his old stocks of paints would help her lessen the burden, and in passively obeying the only one who atleast stands beside herself and Michael, she even forgot the potency of deceive that that are doing to Michael, only because he’s blind. Gayatri gradually becomes aware that Abhi is trying to mishandle his otherwise friendly relationship with her. He even blackmails that Michael would get to know the truth about the paints if she wouldn’t please his sensual needs. Reluctantly she runs away from the till then ‘good’ person. By cheating on his pregnant wife, here the character of Abhi takes an entirely different dimension from the beginning of the movie, where all we could see was a smiling innocent young man with heart full of friendliness.

“Why is the proportion not being right as before?” Gayatri has no answer. As a lunatic one, Michael roams around the room holding the canvas, blaming the changed company of paints, unrecognising that his canvas is not filled with colours of his mind, but are simply blue.. Prussian Blue.

It’s the day of Michael’s art exhibition. Gayatri in a profound blue saree welcomes the art lovers, flooding to watch the blind man’s Magnum opus. Siddharth is now pleased to organise the exhibition, and praises the indepth meanings that the colour blue unrolls in the eyes of the spectators.

Michael’s dream was her too. And it’s that rare day in the span of the movie that we can glimpse at the happy face of Gayatri. And in no time all her happiness seems to fade away when she finally got to see Abhi’s wife with Michael, in a desperate mood, while Abhi is standing abreast with a smile of revenge. She is trying, trying hard not to knock down the vigour of the day, the vitality of Michael’s art. But she stood stagnant before them as the only wrongdoer . In no way could she prove her innocence. How to? Or was she really innocent? All the fingers pointed towards her, the whole blue sky showered drops of agony, its tip striking off her heart, shattering it into pieces that nobody could ever rejoin into an image or an art of love. “The exhibition is mine, mine only. You can leave. Blue is the colour of deceive. Of lie”. And now, no more words, no more tears would get back her heart at the art which she lived for. She has to leave. Leave to nowhere. And Gayatri is nearing to us, looking at us, her eyes being an ocean of thunderous waves, her lips shivering with numbness of sorrow, her monologue goes like this.. ” In all lives, there is a point of no coming back. If we reach at that endpoint, the only way is to accept the truth in silence. we can only live such a way then. So goodbye, goodbye Michael. Remember that I too got hurt. Love alone isn’t enough to live this life. No sincerity can evade the pain in any relationship. And when time comes, those who are destined to get hurt, should end up in hurting itself. That’s life.”

And that’s it . It was all for Michael, all for her love. It was the story of a young girl in her late teenage, leaving everything behind for her love, working day and night to earn the livelihood, to look after her narcissist partner, to look after her own dignity, amidst those vulturous men over there. And.. it was Gayatri’s story of her blank canvas, that had no single drop of paint to be tinted, that it all eroded in her love and in her pain.

Image Credits: Google

The Prayer of Aalaha

After reading Sarah Joseph’s award winning novel “Aalahayude Penmakkal”, I’ve been haunted by the hidden fact behind the prayer of Aalaha. The writer has artfully employed two powerful symbols of ‘Amara panthal’ and ‘Aalahayude namaskaram’, in the novel. And among these two symbols, I got more enlivened in reading with this prayer alluded by Sarah Joseph. This symbol is powerful in such a deep way, that it evokes a sought of puzzle in every situation, guiding the reader to connect this situation with the symbol.

Diving into the core of the novel, the reader is drawn towards a mystical land named ‘Kokkanjira’, situated above ‘Gosayikkunnu’, where a low standard of living can be seen. The land is pervaded by scavengers, sluts, butchers and all those considered to be equal to a corpse. It’s the history told by Ammaama to Annie, an eight year old, through whose thoughts, the plot develops. Annie has also been primed with the actuality of spirits wandering all the way through ‘Gosayikkunnu’.

‘Kokkanjira’ is a cursed land, and Annie is being jinxed with the name of her place, by which she’s being humiliated by her friends and teachers. In this cursed land, each of the characters are suffering to their death, and the only relief that any reader could find in the whole book is the prayer of Aalaha, declaimed by Ammaama, the only one who knows it. It has been passed on by her ancestors, considering only a single person in the family being disclosed by the sacred prayer, near to the former’s death. Annie is in the hope that she shall also become the one who knows it. Being her son’s only daughter, and the youngest in the family, Ammaama has a special care for her. Annie doesn’t know who made the prayer of Aalaaha, but she got to know that the prayer works against satan. In unpropitious instances, Ammaama do render this prayer, which flares a streak of hope in the reader.

Amara panthal , as I mentioned in the beginning becomes an influential instrument in the novel. Annie believes that above it, there exists a life, where she and the people of that cursed land will never know any bitterness. The crest and abyss of Annie’s life is depicted through this symbol. Whenever Kuttipappan’s (Annie’s uncle) tuberculosis gets intensified, the amara dries off and it gets flourished when Chiyyamma’s marriage is fixed. Also, when urbanization begins to devour Kokkanchira, a portion of the amara panthal is rolled over by a road roller. And near to the finish, the amara panthal is getting quashed by the wild wind.

Sarah Joseph has thoroughly unfolded a fragment of society, where civilization makes it rotten, also manifesting a group of forsaken people, whose lives becomes execrable with the exertion of building up a civilized society.

The idea of schism has also been delineated in chapter one, named ‘Romakkarum Surayikalum’, through an incessant squabble between Ammaama, a Surayi, and Annie’s mother, a Roman Catholic. The writer then, adeptly elucidates the idiocy behind the notion of religious chasms, by the sudden change in Kochurothu’s (Annie’s mother) attitude, when it comes to family distresses, that she forgets the other is a surayi, and gives a helping hand. One such instance is when Cherichi ammaayi comes home long years after her marriage. When Ammaama cries out of happiness, Kochurothu too begins to cry, forgetting those two are Surayis.

” എന്തോരം കാലായമ്മേ അമ്മേനെ കണ്ടിട്ട്?”

അമ്മാമ ആനി കരയുംപോലെ ഉറക്കയാണ് കരഞ്ഞത്. അപ്പോൾ അവർ രണ്ടു സുറായികളാണെന്ന കാര്യം മറന്ന് അമ്മയും കരഞ്ഞു.

Towards the end of the novel, through the character of Ammaama, the writer again entrenches the certitude of inanity behind religious conflicts. It is when Kokkanjira is nearing to its demolition by flood, where Ammaama, who has turned amnesiac then, thinks of carrying her son Kuttippappan to Ollur Malakha. The old son of her is a TB patient, and in her mind, he’s still a two year old. Annie knew that Surayis doesn’t have a belief in Ollur Malakha, wherein the writer makes it clear through Ammaama herself, by her saying “ബോദാ പോയാ എന്തൂട്ട് സുറായി എന്തൂട്ട് റോമ?”.

Being the spearhead of feminist movement in Kerala, Sarah Joseph has fabricated characters of women who are physically vigorous and mentally potent. The character of Ammaama has astonishingly driven the engrossement of my reading of the text. She is definitely the strongest of all. Ammaama doesn’t even fear the spirits roaming around in Gosayikkunnu. Her words are not merely entwined of letters, but of great command and greater credence. Kochurothu too is presented before us as a determined Roman Catholic, who doesn’t allow herself to bend her knees before a Surayi, or anyone who tries to prevail over her. It is Kochurothu’s voice, that remains louder in the rallies, her tenacity being used as a weapon to combat with the dominating society. Kunjila, Annie’s Vallyammayi, who turned to be a widow at the age of fourteen is destined to become a midwife later. She has to take up on travelling with strangers day and night, which spells the freedom, a woman in the writers mind be need of. People couldn’t shut their mouth up for the ‘ugliness’ in her job. Even her own family couldn’t. She develops an affair with Kunjan compounder, which oust the order of his marital life, that leads him into committing suicide. Through the innocence of Annie, the writer contemplates in the mistake of two persons falling in love. She is here tearing off all the conventions, and embarks the need of forward-looking.

Aalaha’s daughters are evidently these women characters in the novel. The strongest they are, the toughest they suffer. And the prayer of Aalaha is used as a medium to picturise these miserable people’s yearnings and hope for a better tomorrow. The prayer, towards the end, seems to become more like a devil’s bargain rather than a God’s gift, for she receives tuberculosis from her uncle, the moment she learns the prayer from Ammaama.

The prayer has actually camouflaged before me, as a blessing for the people of Kokkanjira, but disappointed as it became tangible that it was indeed a symbol for their thrashing. Still, Aalaha’s prayer remains to be an enigma for me. Some distant land is waggling her arm, echoing the prayer of Aalaha, in Ammaama’s voice.

Image Credits: Instagram,@aliakbarvk

Life and Donuts

So I was into this thought of writing down something other than poetry, for about a few months now. Currently obsessed with the absurd drama, I have watched ‘Waiting for Godot’ three times as per now (This is so true even though it is beyond belief). So all I was about to say is that, life is becoming so absurd in my eyes, that I’m not even equipped in bringing up some topics to write about. So should I be engulfed in this absurdity? Is the world truly absurd?

Now see the irony. Even though engrossed by the absurd drama, I don’t truly hold up the idea. To see the world vibrant, and relish the finite life to the hilt, is the unerring choice that we should take up. It isn’t that tough to find everything absurd, and prone to become unhappy. But it is really hard in finding happiness in the little things. But that very arduous task is gonna bring you full of the joys of spring. I’m no one here to refute the very philosophical stance of absurdism. But, how can the finding of life as meaniningless, be in anyway reasonable? And how can one lead a happy life without being reasonable? And without happiness what is life for?

I have wrote poems on dejection and sorrow, myself through downcast eyes. It is okay to be not okay sometimes, but to become the sufferer prolong your life is where the trouble lies. Carrying the dismal belief, that the very existence is meaningless throughout your life is itself meaningless. To enjoy an art with its profuse fluctuations, and to have a blind adherence to it are different. It is important to have the possession of that wit, in sensing the reasonability of circumstances we encounter.

My forever favourite quote goes like this: “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final”. Rilk has beautifully said it!!!

Its been a day or two, since I came across an amazing comic by Pablo Stanley, named ‘Life and Donuts’. The comic gives us the picture of a girl asking a kid is everything okay for him, after noticing his sullen look. And now, from the kid we understand that he is depressed on his very existence, that he couldn’t cognize the point of his existence if he’s gonna die some day. The girl suddenly raises a question to the kid, that whether he likes donut or not. The kid says “yeah… so what?”. For this question, the girl retorts that no one is gonna stop having donuts because of the very fact that its gonna end with a few bites. May be its a bit hard, realizing its going to finish, but at the same time we would try to enjoy it even more at that point. Here, the kid refuses to hear the ‘stupid’ story of donuts as if he’s a kid, he says. He’s grown up, and all he wanted to know is the meaning of life. “You wanna know the truth”? The kid looks at her curiously to get an answer, and the girl says: “There is no meaning at all”. She further adds that our life is just one of many tiny accidents, which doesn’t mean that we have to end up the whole thing. “Life is tough”, and the donut is not forever. We are given chance to savor ever bit of the donut in our hand until it finishes. The girl asks the kid whether he would like to take a donut then, and the kid wants chocolates instead. The comic ends with the kid asking the girl if she was that very obsessed with donuts. She says yes🍩

The donut here is a metaphor for life, and the girl being obsessed with life already knows the truth that life has no meaning, and it is of no use in digging deep for the meaning of life. Happiness is in our own hands, life as donuts, delectable if we are ready not just to have it, but to cherish each of the bites. I liked how Stanley depicted the clever question that would anyone denies to have a donut unless it was a never ending donut. And its a big ‘NO’.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I found it exciting to watch ‘Waiting for Godot’, understanding that absurdity is not my kinda thing, still enjoying the ‘nothingness’ in the play. A numbness enter into me just after watching it, but still I won’t give too much of my thoughts into it. And that’s it. Relishing everything around us without surrendering to it, is the valiant act that we should start practicing. What if Vladimir and Estragon could see life as a donut, and start savoring every bit of it? They could have stopped waiting for the happening of their elusive hopes, and instead could have start doing their part to attain the attainable.

‘Nothing happens, Nobody comes, Nobody goes’. But does it really matter?👀 We got our donut with us, not to spade all those meanings, questions and answers😬 Keep relishing it to lose nothing, but to grow happier. Remember to keep going, revering both beauty and terror. Life is afterall meaningless… Big Whoop😉

P.S. I just mixed up Beckett’s play with Stanley’s Comic and Rilke’s quote, just to interpret my idea on how are we supposed to perceive the nature of our existence, and how I feel absurdism is not the precise notion to have for a happy life. Afterall everything depends on individualistic perceptions, and I just attempted to depict my own inference on the above matter.

cya!🤗

Smithereens of Memory

It is winter in the month of May here.

And the flowerets have dropped their sweaters

to souse their sweetness to the unsound season.

The wobbly armchair has been drooling out

age old anecdotes, out-of-order, since last May.

I have been called to watch the blue May flower

drowsing tenderly in my grandma’s upended palms.

I see it red. I wanted to say.

But whispered to her ear: “It’s beautifully blue.”

The red toy car of my nephew is her new aid.

And I was not allowed to touch it, nor my nephew.

When he cries for it, she cried more louder.

The toy car is all her then,

for its easier to calm down the five year old.

The ripened Malgovas in the backyard

has lost all its redolence, now a trifling thing

fallen uncared, open to chipmunks.

I have seen Sobha akka, the maid-of-all-work

wailing before grandma, cursing the God of ‘memory’.

She used to oil grandma’s long curly greyish hair,

which has passed from sight over a year now.

From a distant temple, the broken hymns

chanted by the true-blue saints glutted my ears,

shattered from inside, dissolved to the ache in blood.

In hopeless nights, out of all the pain,

I sings for her, the beauty of moon.

The moon, dribbling starry lights of laughter, as her.

The summer sun of grandma’s winter

goes wide every morning.

The massive rays waggles her armchair,

all-embracing smashed memory.

Image Credits: Pinterest

വിഷാദം

വയലറ്റ് പൂക്കളോട് എനിക്ക് പണ്ടേ പ്രണയമാണ്. വിഷാദത്തിൻ്റെ നിറത്തെ പ്രണയിക്കാൻ പഠിച്ചത് എന്നാണെന്ന് ഓർമയില്ല. ഏറെ നാളായി എൻ്റെ മുറിക്കുള്ളിൽ, പകുതിയുടഞ്ഞ മൺചട്ടിയിൽ ഒരു വയലറ്റ് തൈ നട്ടിട്ട്. ഇരുട്ടു നിറച്ച് കണ്ണീർ തൂകി ഞാനാ ചെടിയെ നന്നായി പരിപാലിക്കുന്നതാണ്. എന്നിട്ടും ഇതുവരെയായും ഒരു വയലറ്റ് പൂ പോലും മൊട്ടിട്ടില്ല. എൻ്റെ മുറിയിലെ കർട്ടനുകളുടെ നിറവും വയലറ്റ് തന്നെ ആണ്. വയലറ്റ് കർട്ടനുകൾ എൻ്റെ മുറിക്കുള്ളിലെ ഇരുട്ടിനെ കൂടുതൽ മനോഹരമാക്കുന്നതിനാൽ ഞാനവ ഒരിക്കലും നീക്കാറില്ല. സിൽവിയ പ്ലാത്തിൻ്റെ ഒരു ബ്ലാക്ക് ആൻ്റ് വൈറ്റ് ചിത്രം അലസനായ ചുമരിന്മേൽ ചാരി നിൽപ്പുണ്ട്. “Intoxicated with madness I’m in love with my sadness” എന്ന വാചകങ്ങൾ ആ ചിത്രത്തിന് താഴെയായി ചിതറി വീണു കിടക്കുന്നത് കാണാം. ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് സാഹിത്യം പഠിക്കാൻ തുടങ്ങിയ അന്നു മുതൽ രാത്രിയിൽ ഉണർന്നിരുന്ന് പ്ലാത്തിൻ്റെ കവിതകൾ വായിച്ചു കരയുന്ന ശീലം ഇന്നും തുടരുന്നു. ചില രാത്രികളിൽ ഞാനെഴുതിയ കവിതകൾ കേൾക്കാനായി ഒരു നത്ത് വരാറുണ്ട്. പരന്ന മുഖവും വലിയ കണ്ണുകളും കൂർത്ത ചുണ്ടുകളും ഉള്ള ഇരുട്ടിൻ്റെ പക്ഷി. കറുത്ത കടലാസു തുണ്ടിൽ ഞാൻ പകർത്തുന്ന കറുത്ത അക്ഷരങ്ങൾ എനിക്ക് മാത്രം വായിക്കാൻ കഴിയുന്നവയാണ്. കേൾക്കാൻ ആളില്ലാത്ത അക്ഷരങ്ങൾ അന്തർമുഖയായ എഴുത്തുകാരിയിൽ തന്നെ മരിച്ചുവീഴാറാണ് പതിവ്. അങ്ങനെ മരിച്ചുവീണ അക്ഷരങ്ങൾ ഇരുട്ടിൽ ചേർത്താണ് ഞാനെൻ്റെ വയലറ്റ് ചെടിയുള്ള മൺചട്ടി നിറച്ചത്. ഒരു മേഘം മാത്രം പെയ്തിരുന്ന രാത്രിയിലെ സ്വപ്നത്തിൽ ആ വയലറ്റ് ചെടി പൂവിട്ടതും പടർന്നു പന്തലിച്ച വയലറ്റ് പൂക്കൾ എൻ്റെ നഗ്നമായ ശരീരമാകെ ചുറ്റിപ്പിണഞ്ഞു കിടന്നതും കണ്ടു. എന്നെ വരിഞ്ഞുമുറുക്കിയ വയലറ്റ് പൂക്കളുടെ ഗന്ധം മരണത്തിൻ്റേതായിരുന്നു. മൗനം മാത്രം സംസാരിച്ചിരുന്ന എൻ്റെ അക്ഷരങ്ങൾ, ഇരുട്ടു നിറച്ച മൺചട്ടിയിൽ നിന്നും താഴെ വീണ് ഇല്ലാതായിരുന്നു. പ്ലാത്തിൻ്റെ ചിത്രം മാത്രം, അപ്പോഴും മാറ്റമില്ലാതെ ആ ഭിത്തിക്കുമേൽ നിൽപുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.

Image Credits: Google

Paper Boat

I was six,

when I made a paper boat

with the broken wings of

a preprint newspaper,

that was bearing

a thousand unspoken words

in an agonised italicized print.

Some of the words were deaf by birth,

Crying out from the restrained throat,

fading away from the splintered pinion.

Some flew away,

while I was fashioning

the paper boat of imprinted assorted words.

I was fourteen,

when I made it float

on a rainy day, in a nearby brook

where peril pebbles were marking time

for the comer, free of sin.

With an apprehension of a novice,

it floated and glided and then hovered

at a place where a nugget wrangled

with the loony rain drops.

I had to go home then,

leaving the paper boat forlorn,

run away from the sternness of weather,

getaway to my comfy asylum.

Today,

I am twenty one,

to see the still stuck paper boat

in a corner of the sluggish, timid brook.

Many of the words sank down

to the depths of evocation

for no one to forage the hazy gist.

Not sunk, not eluded,

the paper boat still lay in hope,

for a sail so facile, so far.

A puff of wind blew out hope,

that swung on the bow back and forth,

reminiscing all my undone goals,

awaiting for a sail so hard, so close.

Image Credits: Unsplash @Mltodru Ghosh

വേഷം മാറി വന്ന രാജകുമാരൻ

വേഷം മാറി വന്ന രാജകുമാരന് ഇരുട്ടിൻ്റെ നിറമായിരുന്നു. കണ്ണുകളിൽ പടർന്ന മങ്ങിയ ഛായാചിത്രങ്ങൾ കരയുന്നുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. അവ എന്നെ തന്നെ തുറിച്ചു നോക്കയായിരുന്നു. സന്ധ്യ രാത്രിയിൽ ഇല്ലാതായിട്ട് നേരം ഒരുപാടായി.ഇമ വെട്ടാതെയുള്ള ആ നോട്ടത്തിൽ ഞാനും ഇല്ലാതായി തുടങ്ങിയിരുന്നു. നേരമിത്രയും മൗനത്തെ കാർന്നു തിന്നാൻ വാചാലനായിരുന്ന ഒരാൾക്ക് എങ്ങനെ സാധിക്കുന്നു എന്നായിരുന്നു ഞാൻ ചിന്തിച്ചിരുന്നത്. മുറിയുടെ അങ്ങേ കോണിൽ ചിലന്തിവലകൾ അറ്റം മുറിഞ്ഞ് വീഴുന്നത് ഞാൻ നോക്കിനിന്നു. എന്തിനാണ് ഈ വഴി വന്നതെന്ന് പല തവണ ചോദിച്ചതാണ്. തിളക്കമാർന്ന മുഖംമൂടിയിൽ ആ ചോദ്യങ്ങൾ നിഴലിച്ചത് പോലുമുണ്ടായിരുന്നില്ല. ഇന്ന് വീണ്ടും ചോദിച്ചു. നിറമില്ലാത്ത മുഖം വിളറിയത് ഞാൻ ശ്രദ്ധിച്ചു. വിറയാർന്ന ചുണ്ടുകൾക്ക് എന്നോടെന്തോ പറയണമെന്നുണ്ട്. സമയം ഞങ്ങൾക്ക് മുമ്പിൽ തല കുമ്പിട്ട് ഓടി മറയുന്നത് കാണാമായിരുന്നു. നിശ്ചലമായിരുന്ന എൻ്റെ കൈകളിൽ നിന്നും രക്ത തുള്ളികൾ താഴെ വീണ് മരിച്ചുകൊണ്ടിരുന്നു. ദൃഷ്ടിയിലെങ്ങും കാണാത്ത മുറിവുകൾ ശരീരത്തിലാകമാനം രക്തം പൊടിച്ചു വെച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു. എൻ്റെയും അവൻ്റെയും ഇടയിൽ മരിച്ചവരുടെ തേങ്ങൽ പ്രതിധ്വനിച്ചു കൊണ്ടേയിരുന്നു. ഭീതി എങ്ങു നിന്നോ എൻ്റെ കൺപീലികളിൽ വന്ന് ഒളിച്ചിരുന്നു. ഒടുവിൽ കണ്ണീരിൽ കലർന്ന് സ്വയം ജീവനൊടുക്കി. രക്തതുള്ളികൾക്ക് മുകളിൽ എൻ്റെ കണ്ണീർ വീണത് ഞാൻ അറിഞ്ഞിരുന്നില്ല. അവ ലയിച്ച് ചേർന്ന് മൊസൈക്കിൻ്റെ ആ പഴക്കമേറിയ നിലത്ത് പരസ്പരം ഇല്ലാതായി. വാക്കുകളെ തിരയാൻ ഞാൻ പതുക്കെ മുറിയിൽ നിന്നും വരാന്തയിലേക്ക് നീങ്ങി. രാത്രിയുടെ മൗനത്തിന് നടുവിലൂടെ ആരോ നടന്നകലുന്നത് കാണാമായിരുന്നു. തിരിച്ചറിയാൻ ഒരു തിരിഞ്ഞുനോട്ടത്തിൻ്റെ ആവശ്യം ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നില്ല. അതു വരെ മുഖത്ത് കൊളുത്തി വെച്ച ദു:ഖത്തിൻ്റെ തിരി, പതുക്കെ ഞാൻ തന്നെ കെടുത്തി. മുറ്റത്തെ വാടിയ മുല്ലകളെ നോക്കി പുലരുവോളം ചിരിച്ചു. കാരണം, മുഖംമൂടിയണിയാൻ ഞാനും പതുക്കെ പഠിച്ചു തുടങ്ങിയിരുന്നു.

Image Credits: Google

P.S. This title has been Inspired from the Malayalam movie ‘Aaranyakam’ , which has got this character named ‘Amminikutty’ who scribbles down everything that comes into her mind. Ever since my childhood, I got attached to this character, may be because we resemble each other when it comes to our names( Amminikutty is what everyone calls me and I began loving this name from the moment I came across this character), act of writing unsend letters to poets, the compassionate mind and moreover the ardent love for books and words. There’s a scene in the movie where she writes down her thoughts on a particular person whom she met accidentally on a bewildering occasion. She writes down her guesses upon who the person might be – “വേഷം മാറി നടക്കുന്ന രാജകുമാരൻ? , തേനീച്ച വളർത്തുകാരനായി നടിക്കുന്ന കൊള്ളക്കാരൻ? , എന്നെ പോലെ ഏകാന്തത ഇഷ്ടപ്പെടുന്ന മറ്റൊരാൾ?” And this short story began from one of her guesses on the stranger whom she met.

Breathe

The gray clouds of foggy mind

swished around its corners,

where I tied up all the messes

to an unbending pendulum

that which tends to lose

all its rigour now, today.

From the murky mind,

the messes bounced in

through an unseen byway

to get crushed among

the frenzied breathe I take.

And now, my breathe,

like the slowest turn of Venus,

spinned around an axis

of futile tranquility.

I can see the darkest clouds,

suffocating from the throat of sky,

sharing my selfsame state.

Neither of us could breathe,

that breathe has been prisoned

by the hurdles of life.

Somewhere from an edge

my still sanguine heart kept

on saying…. Breathe..

Image Credits: Unsplash@Fabian Moller

വസന്തം

നിറങ്ങൾ പെയ്ത മഴയിൽ

കുതിർന്ന നന്ത്യാർവട്ടവും

ഇരുട്ടിൻ്റെ കണ്ണുകളെ

ചുംബിച്ച അരിമുല്ലയും

തിരഞ്ഞത് വസന്തത്തെയാണ്.

മറ്റ് ഋതുക്കൾ ഒളിപ്പിച്ച

സ്നേഹത്തിൻ്റെ ചുമന്ന പൂവ്,

വസന്തം കൈവെള്ളയിൽ ഒതുക്കി,

ഒരിതൾ പോലും നോവിക്കാതെ

വെച്ചുനീട്ടുന്നതുകൊണ്ടായിരിക്കാം.

മൗനം വിഴുങ്ങിയ രാത്രിമഴ

ഒരു സൂചിമുനപോൽ

ദേഹത്തേക്കാഴ്‌ന്നിറങ്ങി വേദനിപ്പിക്കുമ്പോഴും

വരാനിരിക്കുന്ന വസന്തത്തെയോർത്ത്

നീറുന്ന മനസ്സിനെ പാകപ്പെടുത്തുകയാണ് ഞാനിന്ന്.

അതെ.

ഞാനും തിരയുന്നത് വസന്തത്തെയാണ്.

കർക്കിടകത്തിലെ പേമാരി

തോരുന്നിടത്ത് വസന്തം

ഉണരാനായ് ഉറങ്ങാതെ

തള്ളിനീക്കുന്ന ജന്മാന്തരങ്ങളുടെ

ദൈർഘ്യമുള്ള രാവുകൾ.

വാചാലനായ രാത്രിമഴയോട്

ഞാനിനി വിടചൊല്ലട്ടെ.

നിൻ്റെ വാക്ചാതുര്യം

എന്നിൽ സൃഷ്ടിക്കുന്നത് മൂകതയാണ്.

വിഷാദമെന്ന പേരിൽ

നീ അപഹസിക്കുന്ന മൂകത.

വിഷാദത്തെ മായ്ക്കാൻ

പേമാരിയേക്കാൾ നല്ലത്

വസന്തം തന്നെയല്ലേ?

എനിക്ക് വേണ്ടത് സ്നേഹത്തിൻ്റെ

ചുമന്ന പൂവ് മാത്രമാണ്.

മൗനത്തെ പോലും വർണ്ണത്തിലാഴ്ത്തുന്ന

സ്നേഹത്തിൻ്റെ ചുമന്ന പൂവിനായ്

ഞാൻ തിരയട്ടെ……..

Image Credits: Unsplash, @Monica Galentino

Amid

In between the vast solicitous sea

and the great promiscuous sky,

I stood as an addled loner,

brooding over whom should I go with.

As a little child, I have always

been pampered by the loving wavelets.

Showed me the whole seashore

and taught me how to swipe away

the messy cobbles of life.

And the enchantment of singing waves

cheered up the baby girl in me.

Now, I am away from the sea,

looking at the doting sky

who showed me the colours

that no one have ever unveiled for me.

I could hear his voice

in the thunderclap

and his kisses drizzled

on my coying cheeks.

But there stands the sea,

with her arms calling for me

to have her love at the depths.

And afar, my cloudy sky

calls for me with all his heartbeats.

Today, I see only dusks before me

Where I am standing amid

the vast sea and the great sky.

Let me ask you..

Whom should I go with?

Image Credits: Google