Kind of quirky, a tad controversial, a little whimsical and chockfull of farce
Author: Mahvash K. M.
I consider myself somewhat of a “serial corporate rut absconder”. Only because a sabbatical that was to last a year, has turned to 6, and I still see no end in sight to the freedom I’ve now so fully embraced! I was a part of the Financial Services Industry before hanging up my professional suit and hat and harnessing the winds of high adventure.... or at least copious cups of tea watching tropical sunsets while putting some pixel energy behind the Great Emancipation! And that is where my blog was birthed and from where my first book of short stories, “The Girl with the Paisley Dupatta & Other Stories” has also come about.
When I’m not writing, I’m watching or reading science fiction and the superbly diverse literature that is constantly emerging from the larger subcontinent.
I hope you enjoy my written meanderings as much as I do creating them.
https://www.facebook.com/Mahvash.Moht/
I was lost I took the path Less trodden, I tossed Away the ease Of normalcy I walked away Off the street that carried feet Teeming, streaming busily Easily, its metalled gray Smooth and safe, predictable
I’d felt strong, invincible I walked away Aimlessly, Trail-lessly, No signs, no familiarity I walked I walked Directionless, solitary On and on I walked and walked Until doubts and insecurities Snaked hoary tendrils around me But I walked on until my feet Were bruised and cut Until they bled Until I wept
================================ Until I had forged a road ahead ==================================
It now lies cleaved and gravelly With little grooves Once stained with blood And squelching mud Filled up With wild flowers now Sun dappled through shady boughs The path ahead of me Now gleams with its own lambency
I was lost I left the path oft-trodden, I crossed Into uncharted territory Where the wilderness roamed free Accompanied by the gleam of stars And the warmth of cherished dreams There I carved my own way Hope-hewn, Grit-laden, Endlessly It now stretches out in front of me.
There’s a shop down the street Where you can buy consciences Gentle pin pricks around your heart For when you want to sense something For when you want to feel A tiny paper cut, a delicate weal Most times you buy a numbness though Cloaked in velvety greys and yellows They’re tailor-made to fit around Your never-racing, constant heart And your ever-racing, chasing mind The greater you can muster Put down on the counter The finer the swaddle To enshroud your qualms To feel the vaguest of twinges Of right and wrong When to see and when to be Sightless, without sound Unconscious, uncurious, asleep In the thick, creamy fabric Numbingly, comfortingly bound Gut-driven compass buried deep Six feet below the ice and the snow The tsunamis, the floods and the hurricanes The droughts, the disease, the misery Interred in darkness, entombed underground In the meantime there’s a shop that sells Custom-built, free-of-guilt scruples in town.
When life gets hard as it sometimes does When the weight of the world is pulling you down When you want to hide in the depths of your bed When you don’t want your feet to touch solid ground
When you want to close your eyes and just disappear And hope that in some dimensional shift You can escape the world that surrounds you here That you can find the cosmic ether that fits
When you have to part your hesitant lids And the effort is excruciating, difficult When despite your aching, your most ardent yen There’s no secret exit, no miracle
When you bring your hand up to your sleep-shrouded face When you glance accusingly at the lines When you wonder if ever they would become Prophets, purveyors of better times
When you finally rise and breathe deeply in When you feel the pulse of your blood again When the vestigial coolness of your room Brushes up familiarly against your warming skin
Then know that although the odds are stacked Up sky high, crushing, overwhelming That the universe still holds you close to her breast That there are still songs that she will sing
So when life gets hard as it sometimes does When your heavy heart has robbed you of your smile Slow down, pull back from the rush of life Dearest one, take the road less travelled for a while.
She sat there selling bangles Set up in a wicker basket Some laid down on the grass Every now and then she gently Swept off the dust that spread thinly From teeming feet that hurried past Barely slowing near the woman Sitting on her haunches hoping For someone to slow down, to pause Her concave belly almost touching The basket that was tugging The life blood from her womb Every time that she moved Spilling it in little driblets Onto its precious load
The maternal bond of glass and blood Unremitting, never enough As she sat car-caressing Sometimes fretting, sometimes fussing Rearranging, caring, loving Always loving, always loving A tender smile hov-hovering Around her tired mouth She was umbilical-corded To her treasures Resting in their bed of wicker Willing them to cleave their way Into the hearts of passersby Willing them to shine so bright That it brought tears to her eyes The boundless world of plenty In those bangles by her side
Behind her lay two little heads Heat-numbed and stupefied Little thumbs in little mouths Doing their best to pacify The endless hunger in their bellies Matured and rarefied Over lifetimes spent behind Their mother as she hummed Little songs of gentle rain On golden fields of wheat and rye Watching their little sisters Take all their mother’s time Resting in their basket They tinkled and they winked They watched their little sisters Gleaming, laughing in delight Suckling on the joyfulness That streamed from their mother’s eyes.
NB: Image is from the World Wide Web. Artist was not mentioned.
There’s a face in the shadows Downcast, serene A quiet glow drapes The rest of her As she sits cross-legged On the floor She holds the cosmos in her prayerful hands I want to see the face so full of quiet grace I want to understand Where the woman gets Her stillness from I tilt my head to see More clearly And then two shimmering orbs Rise from under their lidded veils I hold my breath I’m no longer Watching from the outside in I float I glide out of the place I’m light as a feather I rise up there’s no tether To time and space To anything I have ever known I float on And I drop The sharp edged angst that I had held In my chest and in my head And it falls Away from me I stretch out my arms As I rise and rise Into the infinity Of those glimmering eyes Through twin portals To my paradise.
I sit with my tea The silence sits with me Deafeningly Piercing my eardrums With its wordless cacophony
It has made its forever home In the lounge where I now sit alone It’s been there a while Years of rooting itself in place The air, the space Is soundless, still Like the world in night’s numbing vigil I look around for something Anything to cut through the dead air Its atoms conspiring With the silence that sits everywhere
And then I see it, a little plume Floating, dancing in the room From my mug As the tea steams up Severing the bond of silence and air The desolate, deflated, joyless pair Their essence once filled With people now gone The moist vapor wafts in Reaching into spaces Where images, reminiscences Lie inert, forsaken Loosening, thawing, warming them
I take a sip of my tea I feel my spine tingle Familiarly As I’m wrapped in the arms Of rekindled memories.
There’s a girl in the sunset Her hair is ablaze Her dupatta streams In the arid breeze I can’t see her face I catch my breath She stands there still So still I see the horizon seethe and rage Scorch her in its red-hot rampage I close my eyes I’m afraid to look Afraid to see the heavens burn Afraid to see the ashes blown Of the girl that is standing there alone
But then
My stinging eyelids fly open, I see She’s still there She looks back at me The blaze of the sun Now a shimmering red Halo around her head Like a crown She won’t go down When her world careens When her world burns all around Grey smoke rising from the sea Of charred, asphyxiated dreams She stands there serene She gathers the light around her being She smiles, she gleams She is the fire queen.
The thing with moments Is that they never stay Ethereal, chimerical They alight and fly away They come upon us On gossamer whispery wings Or rush with such force That you’re left reeling The breath knocked out of you And then they’re gone Or they cloak you silently So imperceptibly Like the lengthening shadows Of eventide That you realize That they were there Only after they have quietly Etherised into yesterday’s dawn
The thing with moments Is that they never last Always on nimble feet They are fleeting pin pricks On your skin A quick rush of warmth within The lungs for a moment collapsing A vanishing scene The stuff of dreams Always receding But not before leaving Their forever tattoos In reds, yellows and blues A kiss, a hug, a bruise Eternal imprints on the heart Emotional ink Permanent, piercing Sunk deeply in By the wraiths and ghosts Of moments past.
Be still my beating heart It’s only the setting sun With its fiery orange hues Tinged with scarlet and indigo They’re the colours of a day that’s done Be still my beating heart It’s only the setting sun
Be still my racing blood It’s only the ocean wide It’s waves unfurling liquid lace Onto my upturned, sun-warmed face As I leap into the rushing tide Be still my racing blood It’s only the ocean wide
Be still my aching breast It’s only a trail in the greenwood glade Hemmed on the edges with wild flowers Glistening in the wake of a spring shower It’s only the whispering leaf dappled shade Be still my aching breast It’s only a trail in the greenwood glade
Be still my breathless lungs It’s only the afternoon sky With a rainbow that has looped around The azure blueness like a crown A beautiful palette of pastel dyes Be still my breathless lungs It’s only the after-rain sky
Be still my quickening breath It’s only the lover’s first kiss You’ve been on that road before You’ve flown where the eagles soar And also curled up where the earthworms live Be still my quickening breath It’s only the sweetheart’s first kiss
Be still my beating heart It’s only the setting sun The mystical ocean and the greenwood glade The after-rain sky and the lover’s kiss It’s the enchantment that nostalgia has spun Be still my beating heart It’s just life in perpetual thrum.
Mahvash Mohtadullah - The Roaming Desi 