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Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium

0 posted 2003-12-31 10:00 AM


Tentative title: Timeless Boundaries


in time we place our trust
in darkness and in light;        
in space we mark our steps    
mostly soft, rare-times loud:  
      footprints on shoreline sands
      that retrace years gone by


In the ever-lengthening shadows from the winter sunset, the man walked in slow steps. His steps were measured. The days are far too short. So he thought. He said that aloud too. He felt safe to talk aloud. He was surrounded by emptiness of cold skin-hugging frosty air. There was no one in his sight. No one followed him either. He could draw a circle of a hundred metres radius around him and still there would be no one. Of course, no one could then hear him. He felt safe. He was alone. But, he didn’t feel alone. There were voices. Around him, over him, under him, beside him. Surround-sound voices. Voices that asked him to help. Voices that asked him to go away. Voices that shouted at him blaming him for their lack of privacy. Voices that were beginning to haunt him. So much that he started talking out loud, so that the voices would leave him alone possibly assuming that there were other people with him.

The voices were far too smart. They mellowed down a bit, but never stopped interrupting. They seem to be programmed as if they were intelligent signals from within a third or fourth generation microprocessor. They could organise themselves under various equaliser effects like rock, pop, grunge, even mute. But they couldn’t order washing machines to do the ironing. Not yet anyway. They were trying to do that though via smart text messages; much unlike the stupid youngsters that kept imagining scenes from books they read and movies they watched to invent new catch phrases to text to their friends and lovers. Their messages often caused much grief and supersonic disturbances to the communication channels of the voices. The voices kept thinking: those youngsters didn’t need mobile technology anyway. Agreed, without mobile technology, they would never know where they stood. But, even with mobile technology, they don’t know where they stand, do they?

The voices seemed to be programmed to argue against each other and they found it strange that humans actually needed to do that as well. Their point of view was if humans were quiet, they, the voices, could sort out all the problems that they, the humans, felt they had. They, the voices, would converse, exchange thoughts, share their doubts and debate the arguable matters before finally settling into what’s agreeable to all the parties that voiced concerns. No more wars, no crimes and even no poverty anymore. Yet, humans never valued the voices much. Here was another example of prime time human being. He just seemed to be talking to the air around him and corrupting the clean and fresh winter air with his foul breaths and ill-advised thoughts. The days are far too short, he says. Is he crazy? After all these years of debating and humans finally accepting that a day is about 23 human hours and 56 human minutes, why is this nitwit talking of days being far too short. If he wished to insist on that he could possibly try to fight the world and make a day’s length grow; make it 50 hours long perhaps, thereby making it a round figure.

The cobble-stoned sidewalk was glistening in crimson afterthoughts of the red sun. They appeared to be dressed up with sparkles; much like the young girl from his neighbourhood whose sparkles shone almost as much as her rosy cheeks flushed with wide unverse-stretching smiles on the day after christmas. She loved Santa so much. Only the sweat on daddy’s brows gave away any notion of how Santa got in their chimney-less house. Daddy must have opened his door for Santa to come with a credit card validation machine wearing a telemarketer’s secret smile to success.

The sidewalk was tipped with slight coating of wet slushy snow and was making it slightly difficult to walk. But he had not much of an issue with it. There was still some light in the horizon and he still had all the time to reach the other side of the city. Hence he walked slowly.

His right hand held a plastic bag that came right out of a production unit intended to produce carry-bags for the supermarket. His bag contained a pack of Marlboro, a bottle of moderately priced vodka and a few packets of nuts. The girl behind the counter at the supermarket was kind to him, he thought. He was actually surprised by how cheerful she seemed. Her set of pearly whites shone in quiet radiance. She probably had a handsome date for that evening and maybe there were some naughty thoughts or two of an all-embracing dance and a swirl and a twirl – as if romancing wild orchids or something vaguely similar.

Thoughts. What power they have! They can wander about anywhere and about anyone without invading anyone’s privacy, without having to fight wars and there was no fear of an invading army of killer tomatoes, ants or earth-scorching bombers, for that matter.

“A very happy new year to you, Mister”, she had said while smiling brightly at the next one in the queue, when I already had turned my back on her, forcing me to do a full rotation of the hips and say “The same to you, young girl and enjoy the fireworks if you can make it to the waterfront”. She murmured a soft ‘thanks’ and that was that.

The fireworks on the water front.

That was where he was headed to. He needed to be there much before midnight. So he had started early. In fact, he started with a clear eight hours to go. He wanted to walk the length and breadth of the town before he reached his chosen destination. He wanted to breathe the winter frost in. He wanted to feel his cold breaths hitting his lungs in that special way before he would feel warm and satisfied with the fireworks, the vodka and dreams from long gone yesteryears. He had particularly charted his course all around the town to walk along all those sidewalks that he knew won’t be crowded. He avoided market areas and all bus and tram routes. He avoided park areas as well. He walked in what appeared to be the backlanes of many ugly buildings that seemed to be constructed as if to hide the sins of government officials caught stealing from public funds, built as if to cover the loss of heritage during the man-made disasters, the wars, the arsoning, looting, rioting and the gang-fighting. But he felt safe. He was a single person in an empty crowd and he talked aloud to disperse the annoying voices.

Years ago, these streets used to be filled with laughter. Also years ago, black, white and grey were still a major force in motion pictures and hats were in vogue and so was the act of gentlemen raising their hats to salute ladies, particularly young. Men still salute young ladies. But they don’t make gentlemen anymore neither are ladies much too genteel. The lads are rough and the girls are sexy and modern. The lads whistle and pose while the svelte girls giggle and sway their young bottoms filled in short designer skirts as they treat life as a ramp to be walked on with coloured floodlights shining synchronised with Disco beats wearing sharp high heels that would do a stiletto assassin proud.

It maybe said that times have changed. That is not really a clever thing to say. It should be rather said that people have changed. Fashion has changed. Designs have changed. Time has actually just moved along at its own steady pace. Perceptions have changed. Manners have changed. Seasons have just come along one after another as they always do. Driving a car faster might take you to your desitnation earlier, but the number of kilometers that have been covered remains the same, unless a shorter route has also been chosen. All the same, life has no shortcuts. One has to go the distance.

He heard someone saying, ‘now you are making sense’. He turned around, saw no one in visibility’s range and smiled at his whimsical choice of hearing. He continued to walk.


life is
            amber

            it deserves nothing but the best

to be hand-crafted
in the iris of
a visionary eye

like furniture
            amber

            articles
lushly placed in neat angles
lapping up light
teasing shadows

rounding off
            perceptions
and bouncing

life's a
            carving

            and it deserves
craving

too


He has to go the distance. He has to reach the waterfront. He remembered something from a few years earlier and started singing the ‘down to the waterline song. Suddenly, Mark Knopfler was the best musician of all time. After all, there was no guitarist in his time who could play such melodies on a lead guitar using both upward and downward strokes on his six-string, was there? Not to his mind. Up there, there was no room to argue.

He walked. In small unhurried steps. Covering peaceful quiet grounds. Stepping over glistening sparkles on cobble-stoned pathways. The shadows had grown longer. Dimness was taking control. Strange he thought that darkness is bearing itself upon the town when actually it is the light who is saying, “I am in control and am leaving you bunch of ignoramuses to give some others a chance of enjoying my presence. Meanwhile good luck to you to survive another period of the day without me.” This slowly led to an argument in the inner chambers of his skull. Are darkness and light really two entities who keep fighting for supremacy or are they willing companions who do timesharing on this supercomputer called Earth created for an unknown, undocumented yet specific purpose or three? Or is there a further twist that darkness and light are but two faces of one single entity, much like Gollum and Smeagol?

From a distance of a few inches he heard a scream which sounded like ‘stop that head hunting’. It was time to start speaking loud again, he declared. He started reading the signs on the ugly commercial buildings faraway.

“Buy now pay later with MC”

“Duke before you sleep”

“Niagara. Nothing stands taller and falls stronger. See now, pay later with V”

“Beer, helping ugly people have …” and he stopped in his tracks. What has this world come too?

He screamed. He screamed abuses. He screamed them left, right and centre. Filthy ones. Angry ones. Long ones, short ones. Even odd ones.

Nobody replied. The humans were all out shopping on ShopTilUDrop Street Their pets were either being looked after or they had gone along as well. Even the annoying voices deserted him for a long moment or five. There was a cloud of cottonlike white breath in front of his face. How did that happen, he wondered. They were a result of his opening his mouth and lavish sprinkling of explosive expletives. He calmed down a bit. Apparently, he needed the space around him to let off some steam. That's what the empty alley was for. So what if there was an artificial cloud created! It couldn’t be more artificial than whatever nonsensical lines that those nitwits came up to sell anything and everything!

Years ago, things were different. Marketing was just one of the several departments, much like cleaning, housekeeping and even human resources.

Years ago.

~~~ started dec 31, 2003, hopefully, to be continued, expanded, edited, scratched, enriched, spell-checked ...    



[This message has been edited by Sudhir Iyer (12-31-2003 02:05 PM).]

© Copyright 2003 Sudhir Iyer - All Rights Reserved
Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
1 posted 2003-12-31 10:14 AM


Oh boy!  
A New Year's Day LONG read.  
I'll be back!

Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
2 posted 2003-12-31 10:21 AM


Thanks Karilea... hear from you..

Regards
Sudhir

Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296
Purgatorial Incarceration
3 posted 2003-12-31 12:36 PM


I too, Sudhir, will be back. I'm very interested to see what you've done here.

Peace,

C

Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
4 posted 2004-01-07 05:08 AM


Thanks Chris, I shall be waiting

Regards
Sudhir

Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296
Purgatorial Incarceration
5 posted 2004-01-07 10:27 AM


Still working on it - trying to find enough time.
Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
6 posted 2004-01-07 11:10 AM


I haven't forgotten, Sudhir!  Perhaps tonight?  [please, Lord...I need a good break!]
Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
7 posted 2004-01-16 07:29 AM


So 16 days AFTER New Year's I get here.  Finally!

Now, where are you going with this?  I love the imagery.  So many lines made me smile with the intelligence behind them.  Where DID these thoughts come from, Sudhir?  Voices?  [I have my own, y'know, so that doesn't surprise me in the least!]

Work in Progress.  Keep the promise.


Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
8 posted 2004-03-05 03:19 PM


Thanks Karilea...

Foolishly, I managed to let my thoughts waver ... the lack of time to recollect them meant that I lost the plot, I feel... but maybe once again when I am sitting around twiddling fingers, the work in progress might continue...

sorry to disappoint

regards
sudhir

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