Category: Emotions

VERSE | OUR HUMANITY-FREE DIET

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, poetry, verse, writing5 Comments

I’m in Karachi after two and a half years of Pandemic gridlocks, and it’s been a whirlwind of a homecoming. Besides grappling with the major and minor curveballs that my micro and macro environments tend to throw at me off and on, I have also been able to indulge in some nostalgia: found my little book in which I’ve put down a few poems that I’d written in my teens. Even at that tender age, external stimuli hit hard! 😅 Below is one of my verses from my adolescent days.

I was walking through the woods one day
With my thoughts in a turmoil 
Oblivious to nature was I -
To the trees and the grass and the soil

I was attempting to decipher 
The meaning of strife and war
Was it political agitation
For the enforcement of a law?

Or was it as I believed the cause
Of a moment’s disarray
Of a value old as age itself - 
The simple Human Way

Where was the compassion that
Bespoke the worth of one?
Had the shield of dignity and love
Been replaced by the gun?

Where was the pride in good deeds
Where was the humility?
Was everything really shrouded by
The veil of frailty?

Frailty of causes
And frailty of sense
Had the once true noble values 
Become a mere pretence?

I was looking for the answers
I was seeking a refuge
From the grief and the confusion that
Had overcome me like a deluge

It was then that I heard whispering
The soil, the grass, the trees
“You already have the answers
Now you only have to see

When man was made a brother 
Unto the other one
The moulding of a sacred 
Tradition had begun

So when war threatens to break this bond
Their spirit shall hold them fast
For that was always meant to be
Unto the very last”.

VERSE | HEARTBREAK

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, poetry, verse, writing2 Comments 
I feel a rage 
It’s not the flaming, blazing kind 
Nor is it the hating kind 
It’s disappointment mixed with hurt
A betrayal mixed with cheerlessness   
It’s a whipping, bruising buffeting 
It’s a faded, jaded trustfulness
It’s a crashing and a burning 
Without smoke, without fire 
It’s the turning into ash
Of something held so close 
Of something tender and so dear
Of a precious, precious thing 
Of a pearl old as the years. 

I feel a rage 
But in its manifestation
There is no acid hotness 
Only a painful heaviness 
That sits mostly in my throat 
Huddled there, straining to emerge 
In tears or in words 
I’m capable of neither.
Even as it squeezes me
Choking, asphyxiating me
In its throttling stranglehold
I’m hoping for some peace and grace
Hoping even in the throes 
Of this weary, bleary rage.

VERSE | A SWEET MOMENT IN TIME

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, Joy, poetry, verse, writingLeave a comment 
Sometimes while I sit, engrossed in life
My brow lightly furrowed, concentrating
On getting the task at hand done
Running my five miles in the circle of creation

I hear a rustle, a little whisper
Of someone on the periphery of my thoughts
I glance up, as if to see the vision
Of that someone that always flits across
My mind on busy days like these
Resting otherwise in my heart;
I glance as if that heavenly soul has 
Bridged our realms that are so far apart.

I look up, afraid to lose the thread
Of that feeling, that gentle touch
Of someone nestling in my core
Someone beloved, someone missed so much.
I look beyond into the blurry depths
Of my vision, desperately holding on 
To that fleeting caress upon my cheek
Gifted, bestowed by a precious one.

The atoms of day, ricochet and I blink
Once, twice. I am back in the circle of life
I grope twice, three times for that lucid moment 
When i was in the same space, alongside
Someone who most days quietly rests
In the warmest nooks of my being
A cherished one who on special days like this
Takes my hand, eyes twinkling as she beams!

I glance up, my soul surging with joy
For that precious moment, filling the void.
Sometimes while I sit, engrossed in life
I am touched by a beloved for a sweet moment in time.

VERSE | JOY STORY

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, poetry, verse, writingLeave a comment 
I woke up this morning, what a fabulous day!
I glanced in the mirror, smiling away.
I made my bed, brushed my teeth, did my hair
I got myself ready, humming away.
I picked up my bag, looked out at the world
It was glimmering and dancing, shining away
I walked down the street towards my cafe
The Magnolia and Bougainville were blooming away.
I sat at a table in the veranda outside
All the feathered creatures were chirping away.
I wrapped my hands around my latte 
As the mid morning breeze whispered away 
I then went about my usual day 
The hours peacefully ticking away 
Then came evening as I sat in my lounge 
The shadows of dusk lightly stretching away
I woke up this morning, with hope in my heart
The universe too gently embraced me today.

VERSE | THE IMPERMANENCE OF BEING

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, hope, Humanity, poetry, verse, writingLeave a comment 
I wake up, my mind numb, my legs feeling
Like 10 kg bags of wet cement 
Have been tied to my ankles; weighting 
Me down, ripping a dent
With my name in the fabric of the universe.
I think briefly of yesterday, it was the reverse
Of the state of my mind, as it ties and it binds
Me today as if to remind
Me that nothing ever is permanent - No.
Nothing stays forever, it isn’t meant to.
Charmed luck, joy, good health and peace
Hardship, tragedy, anxiety and disease
They come, they take their turns at the wheel
Some lasting longer, some just touch you and flee.
I wake up, my mind numb, my body feeling like lead
But tomorrow I’m hoping I won’t feel so dead.
Featured

SHORT STORY | LOVE IN RAWALPINDI – Part One

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, Fiction, Shortstory, writingLeave a comment 
LISTEN TO AN EXCERPT BEING READ AT: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSdRVkkeJ/?k=1

Nighat pumped the accelerator and the clutch in frustration. The traffic on Murree road at this time was absolutely crazy. The end-of-school rush was upon everyone and it was mostly the hapless parents or their designated drivers who were on the road at this time. The only other people who dared to brave the snaking snags of congestion were responding to some emergency which only the Murree road route could resolve or, like herself, had been struck by temporary insanity. Her mother had even told her not to venture out at 1.30 in the afternoon, but she was on the adrenaline high of new clothes.

Nighat lived in Rawalpindi but much preferred availing herself of a handful of essential services from its twin city, included among which was her Darzi*. And so, when her tailor had called to say that her latest batch of shalwar kameezes* was ready, she just had to get to him, despite the snarly perils of the mid afternoon journey on Murree road. Her enthusiasm was now as wilted and droopy as was her hair in the August humidity. She touched the inky black mop on her head, patting it gingerly. She really needed to fix the airconditioner in her car – the fault-finding thought clipped up to her smugly as so many others had over the last thirty minutes – like censorial mother superiors.

An hour and a half later, she was at the Abpara market in sector G-6 in Islamabad, ensconced in the cool interior of Alamdar Tailor shop – Specialist in Alteration of Ladies and Gents. The proprietor, a portly man in his 60s was observant, agile and practical like most of his fellow dressmakers tended to be. When you’re a women’s outfitter in an Islamic Republic, you either need to be overtly homosexual or a man who is very obviously living a fairy tale perfect family life – in either case and for all to see, not having any need for minor titillations obtained at the expense of his female customer base. Master Alamdar was a happy hybrid of the two avatars. He wore pristinely stitched, bright coloured kurtas accentuated with antimony filled eyes, and his person surrounded by the heady bouquet of Ajmal Black Rose (unisex) attar. He also had a picture of his children (when they were all four of them, under eight years old), sitting on a shelf right behind him and in plain sight of all his customers. That same picture had been prominently displayed for at least the last twenty years, for the visual reassurance of all who sought his services. And so, both Master sahib and his motely brigade of begums happily played along with the ageless, faithful family harmony that emanated from his place of business.

Nighat however always liked to go just a little further in all her interactions with the opposite gender. At sixty one years old she was still a teenager at heart, abetted in equal measure by her own excitable nature as by the ironhandedness of her mother, the inimitable matriarch of their home. She now smiled coyly at Master Alamdar who smiled genially back while they both sipped on ice cold fantas. Nighat’s clothes were ready but after her hair raising, brake and accelerator fury of the last two hours on the road, she was inclined to sit back a little and enjoy a cold drink in the attar-redolent company of her tailor.

Master Alamdar was also an expert at deciphering which of his clients he could be extra chatty with and Nighat baji* was one of them. The two would wax eloquent on everything from the state of the weather to the weight lost or gained by Nighat. He had a talent for gauging and dressing the yo-yoing proportions of many of his lady customers. Tailors in Islamic republics are trained to observe from afar and can get a lady’s measurements pitch perfect from a handful of wary, discreet glances at her dupatta clad body.

Nighat was a burly woman, built more for the wrestling ring than for the more delicate shenhanigns of the catwalk. But her heart was bound in ribbons of old world romance that fluttered around her ample stature at all times. She was fond of imagining herself as a damsel in distress or a damsel in copious demand or a damsel on the fashion ramp; always a damsel of dainty things. This delicate demeanour exuding from her big frame was oddly endearing and so she had had a couple of brushes with real life romance too. Both times, the men had been retired army captains with twirly moustaches and receding hairlines that were assiduously cloaked in the inkiness of Bigen BB1, Blue-black hair dye. Both times too, she had been in her 40s and had considered herself “too young and impressionable” to have furthered the love interests: Those two opportunities to settle down had come and gone, and she had wisely put down her failure to romantically launch into either, as a late blooming on her part. Now in her 60s she felt readier than ever to become someone’s doting better half and a stay-at-home wife.

Nighat came from a family of modest businessmen and redoubtable matriarchs. Once in a while however, the one-off daughter with delicate sensibilities who was in constant need of protection, was born into the family. And so it was, that after four generations of formidable women, Nighat had come along as that dubious exception; the providential balancer of the Amazonian equation of their household

For all her social guilelessness, Nighat was a good teacher and had risen slowly but steadily in the academic ranks of her school system. She had started out as a Social Studies teacher twenty years ago. At sixty one, she had officially retired a year ago and was currently on an extendable three year contract as the vice principal of one of the flagship branches of the school in Rawalpindi. In her current senior capacity, she also conducted Teacher Training sessions for new entrants into the teaching system of the franchise. This meant frequent travel in and around the smaller cities and towns in Punjab and KPK*. She relished these week long trips away from home, even though she was accompanied most times by her eternal chaperon, her mother. She didn’t mind having her along: Her days were busy at work and the evenings were devoted to relishing rich pulaos* and mutton karahis* from the bazaar and watching movies from the limited repertoire of the guest house television cable service. She always found some park or walking area in town where she went for her early morning constitutional: a 45 minute ramble. Her mother was usually fast asleep at that time and she enjoyed the solitude and serenity of her sunrise circuit around the track in the city she was visiting. 

* Shalwar Kameez: The traditional dress of women and men in the Punjab region of northwestern India and in Pakistan. The outfit comprises a pair of trousers (shalwar) and a tunic (kameez) that is usually paired with a scarf (dupatta).

* Darzi: Urdu for Tailor/ dress maker

* Attar: A fragrant essential oil, typically made from rose petals.

* Baji: In Urdu, term of respect used for older sister or an older woman.  

* KPK: Abbreviation for Khyber Pukhtun Khwa - the northwestern province of Pakistan.

* Pulao: pilaf or pulao is a dish originating from the East, consisting of rice flavoured with spices and cooked in stock, to which meat, poultry, or fish may be added.

* Karahi: A Karahi is a tomato, ginger and garlic heavy curry cooked with various types of meat. 

Read Part Two here: https://theroamingdesi.org/2021/08/08/love-in-rawalpindi-part-two/

VERSE | THE SHADES OF LONELINESS

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, poetry, truth, verse, writing3 Comments 
I’ve seen the colours of loneliness
I’ve seen their moldering faces
I’ve seen them fill the keening voids 
Of our broken, scattered places.
It’s the grey of the sky just before it descends
In blinding cascades 
Of granite and slate 
While waiting for that one special friend of the heart 
Who’s gone an infinite distance apart.
Gone forever; not coming back.
It’s the darkening shades of smoke and ash
Stifling and choking.  It’s emotional whiplash.

It’s the curdled russet and clotted yellow 
Of dying leaves
Still on the trees.
It’s the hope that once blossomed,
Now just a vanishing dream;
Like fading delusions;
And fractured illusions.
Like wasting ivy, still clinging  tightly 
To the mottled, purple-bruised spaces within.

It’s the decayed red of old blood 
That has flowed and then congealed 
From scarred old wounds 
In the fallow fields 
Of the innermost corners of your being.
It’s the throbbing new cuts of remembrance-pain 
That sear you with their scarlet heat
Scorching your insides until there remain
Only the rust-dripping embers of defeat.

It’s these mottled hues and grainy textures 
Of mangled hearts and hurting souls 
Its the piercing, stinging, strangling tightness 
In the pit of the stomach; in the back of the throat.
In the end, it is all of this 
That make up the tinctures of loneliness 
That fill up all our sad and desolate spaces.

VERSE| RAVAGED

On By Mahvash K. M.In DawnNews, Emotions, Faith, Pakistan, theGuardian, TheNews, TheNewYorkTimes, truth, verseLeave a comment

A tribute (brutal and raw so we don’t forget) to all those courageous girls who have stood up to their tormentors/ violators and even their protectors to stop the abuse. And to those brave, brave girls who continue to fight to survive another day. 

It is my wedding day today; I am 17 years old
It is also the 6th anniversary of the 28th time “It” happened
And the 3rd anniversary of the 153rd time
I have this terrible memory - my teachers call it a photographic memory
I remember everything. I can’t forget even when i want to
My mind is a notebook, each page blazing with the clarity of vulgar recall
I have tried to be good, to remember only what I should
But I have this terrible memory...

Today I’m to wed my uncle - My father’s cousin
For him, it is also the 6th anniversary of the 28th time “It” happened
And all the anniversaries in between
I wonder if he remembers the 28th time... the 10th time ....
The First time...
I wonder if his memory is as unforgiving as mine
My notebook has no entries on conjectures, or pain or anguish
Not mine, not anyone else’s
It is only the sum total of the number of times “It” happened
Each page pristine, detailed, crystal clear, with edges as sharp as knives
Bestowing countless paper cuts as they stir secretly in my head
Those blessed paper cuts ... mental cuts .... numberless abrasions, innumerably inflicted to forget a page
To forget one instance.
That never happens.
But i find some peace as the physical pain temporarily cloaks me in its tenderly piercing grasp

Today I will become the wife of Harris lala* .... Harris.... 
No, I can’t bring myself to drop the suffix
Maybe he will finally become nameless
Tranquilizingly, numbingly, mercifully nameless
My mother is relieved... she has been a silent witness (his co-conspirator?) to the last five anniversaries of when “It” first happened
My father hasn’t really spoken to me in three years (his Protector?) .... not since the day I tried to tell him that his cousin … his brother has ... has been ... 
My mind still refuses to name “It”
Today I also learned that I’d stood first in the Board matriculation exam
I resent that accolade, that worldly consummation of my terrible memory
My terrifyingly acute, my savage, unrelenting memory.

Today, my tormenter (my violator?) will become my partner for life
Today, I’m going to finally close the Notebook in my mind
Today, I’m going to be respectable once again
Today will be the First day of the consummation of my marriage 

(Today will be the 389th time that i will be ravaged).

*—-*—*—*—*

Lala: term of respect for older male relative, mainly denoting “big brother”. Used commonly across most communities in Pakistan and the northern parts of India.

SHORT STORY|SOILANT GREEN* – Part 2

On By Mahvash K. M.In creativity, DawnNews, Emotions, Fiction, fictionlog, mustread, pandemic, pandemicdreams, plants, wildlifeLeave a comment

COLOMBO; SRI LANKA:

December 20th, 2021:

“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree

Have a happy holiday!

Everyone dancin’ merrily

In the new old-fashioned way!”

Deen sang aloud, with the crazed optimism of the generally reduced and the beaten down. He had dragged the unwieldy box of christmas decorations to the lobby entrance and had dived into its depths – hoping for a short, carnivalesque reprieve from the outside perhaps.

I was sitting in the lotus position, trying to meditate; the tongue-twisting words “stepping space” skipping, jumping, cavorting in my mind like so many wildly uncorralled horses; or was it more like the pernicious tendrils of the Cats Claw vine – its bright yellow flowers ironic little suns in our now shadowed world – that grew an inch every couple of hours creeping over obstacles, slithering through its own green tentacles as it forged ahead and spread and enmeshed….

It was no use. I couldn’t grasp at any semblance of inner peace or quietude. I lay back looking at the ceiling, at the skylight that had once let in sunlight, and that was now covered in thick green foliage – a veritable fortress of flora that continued to multiply horizonantally along the roof; it’s vertical endeavours having been (s)nipped in the bud by us, the tenacious denizens of number 77, Galle Road, Colombo 3.

We had lost the roof. But we had maintained our dominion over the ground floor of our shelter. We were surviving and even thriving if you can call two hot meals a day, running water and a “safe” strip of garden outside, that.

We were now 60 strong in our shelter. There was strength in numbers. We exercised every day; we had daily doses of magnesium, zinc and vitamins; and we took turns, morning noon and night, to stave off the perpetually advancing, malevolent verdure. There was definitely strength in numbers. For now.

The Neo Flora – constituted as it was of the human and the plant species, was now replicating with a sense of purpose. There was now a method to the chaotic green madness of the first few months. The first thing to go was the electricity supply as Covid Vaxers by the dozens, embraced the girths of trees growing near the overhead and subterranean power lines. Shelters were now dependent on generators mainly. Solar panels had long been abandoned as they were decimated again and again by the capricious new branches of an old, now all-seeing shrub, or by the pliant young stem of a whole new plant growing right through it. There was definitely a cerebral coming-together of the Nature around us as it plotted and planned new conquests, just as we the survivors, endlessly fortified our defences.

Blue Decorations on our Christmas Tree

Deen had got shimmery blue bunting up at the top of the entrance door. The floor was covered in silver, red and gold. The trees had stayed inside as had all the other green decor. I picked up a string of silver baubles and handed it to him. I noticed my hands – they looked rough and calloused and … reassuring. They looked like the kind of hands that could do their part in keeping us safe. I looked up at the sudden burst of festivity on the wall and felt a strange mix of sensations: Nostalgia and incongruity; joy and sadness; love and antipathy.

Christmas was coming …. and so was Nature, empowered, emboldened and unremitting.

The Sojourn to Save

Yesterday i had met someone who had come to Colombo from Rajagiriya. She knew Aunty Christine and Shehani – that quirky, lovable duo, as vestigial and unchanging in spirit as the colonial architecture of the island. They had been trying to get to the city for the past month and, like so many others, had been unable to. But they were alive… they were … still themselves! I began to plan my sojourn to bring the ladies to our version of safety such as it was.

Deen said he’d come with me. Deen and I had an odd camaraderie that is born of a natural introversion now complicatedly mixed with the tenacity to be at the front and centre of everything. For “everything” now was about survival and we, with a handful of others, had begun to lead the not-so-reticent charge on that front.

We got ready, armed with machetes and axes and a backpack of victuals. We were going to walk the 7 kms, and then deal with the return journey squiring our charges, once we got there.

We set out along the main Galle road, the dual carriage way now a slender path overgrown by thickets of young Ironwood trees and an especially rugged, spiny variant of the bougainvillea. It was like walking through a tortuously overgrown nature reserve rather than the heart of the metropolis. We hacked at overhanging branches that laboured unceasingly to form a meticulous canopy before advancing groundwards to create opaque, impenetrable neo-forests every few metres. And the smell! It was like death mingled with the torrid redolence of tropical flowers. Nature had conquered the road to Galle face green; while the road towards Galle town remained a constant battle front where the humans had the barest of edges. We proceeded down that bolt hole for a couple of kilometres before we encountered the bamboo forest. Tall sinewy stems had taken root inches from one another. I had, at this point, lost all sense of direction. Deen kept us on course with a solar compass – that North Star of daytime voyagers in the post pandemic world.

About 2 kms from Nawala Road, we came across the Slumbering Palms as the place was now called. Orderly bosks of coconut palms grew from and around the median strip that had once divided the incoming and outgoing city traffic; their sturdy trunks almost horizontal with the ground, blocking the road but creating inadvertent, unconventional bridges to and between the rooftops of once bustling stores. We were finally able to attain elevation as we scrabbled 10 feet above the ground in fantastical sun dappled terrain. It was almost fun.

Invitation to a Turning

We arrived on the exposed rafters of 210/5 Nawala road at about 1pm. There was a perfect palm tree ramp from the roof to the garden. The garden itself, although much abbreviated with its new fringe of palmyra palms, was still clear of the ineludible, inevitable thickets and coppices of green. The universe seemed kind so far. We walked into the house which looked like the inside of The Magic Faraway Tree*. Trunks and branches grew in meandering, traversable collages from roof to ground. It was a quaint, almost gentle subjugation of the domain by an empathetic conquerer. I walked ahead to Aunty Christine’s room and stopped in my tracks at the door. The sight within was a surreal interfusion of beauty and absurdity. The bed was surrounded by 5 magnolia trees some of which had grown right through the roof, letting in mottled sunlight in little patches. Aunty Christine lay motionless on the bed.

“My God! It’s you!” I jumped at the voice just behind me. Shehani stood there, looking pale but ready to strike with a large butcher’s knife. There had obviously been intruders during their course of Nature’s lockdown, and the women had prevailed. I hugged her close, feeling the energy drain out of me suddenly. Emotions that had been locked away when our lives changed, threatened to overwhelm, overcome and dissolve me. I sat down on the bed fighting for control.

“M, we can’t now….don’t give in now” Deen said in a low voice.

I swallowed hard and looked at Aunty Christine.

“Is she alright?” Deen asked the question looking at the prostate, gently breathing form that lay in almost majestic repose on the bed.

“She’s been sleeping a lot lately…. but she’s ok” Shehani responded as she walked around to the bed and gently shook her friend of 40 years.

The older woman opened her eyes and took in everything calmly. She smiled and i grinned, choking again.

She got up, more sprightly and energetic in her movements than i had seen of her in years.

“It’s good to see you. You look thin. You must eat properly. And don’t worry darling, it will be alright”, she said giving me a little hug. She walked around the room, gently touching a vase of wilted flowers, caressing a picture frame, fixing a drooping cushion, all while looking around her as if for the first time…. or the last time.

“Take care of this one” she finally said to me, smiling towards Shehani, “she’s a fighter and will see this through just like you will”.

And with that, she lightly touched the largest of the Magnolia trees in a gentle caress. Even as I watched, i knew….

And then she was gone….one with the beautiful, tall tree that now rustled softly in the quietness of the room. I looked on, my mind devoid of all thoughts and feelings – a merciful fleeting benumbing. I looked at Shehani. She was immersed in a private communion of her own with the murmuring copse around us. She finally looked back at me and in that glance, we shared a moment of surreal clarity on the new nature of our timeworn world. I then whispered my little farewell to Aunty Christine, to our own Steel Magnolia.

A New Religion

I was feeling overwhelmingly contemplative, disembodied almost in a strangely unemotional way as we headed back. A new spirituality around our neoteric/ augmented End of Times was taking root. And i think i was experiencing the first glimmerings of a new metaphysical awakening; an acceptance of an alternate end to our human forms; a consciousness of the very real cosmic thread that binds all living creatures in a dignified whole.

No, it was not all bad. It was new, it was counter intuitive (for now), and so it elicited fear and aggression. But it was also the closest we had come to finally reckoning with our inter-species relationships; to understanding our absolute mutualism with Mother Nature.

I knew it then; I could it feel it in my bones; this was not a blight that would someday go away or be vanquished by the force of the Human collective.

This was the start of a new Epoch of Consciousness, and we would accept and we would learn this new Faith for all.

De Khudai pe aman

Read SOILENT GREEN-Part 1 here: FICTION| SOILENT GREEN* – Part 1

*Soilent Green title inspiration from a 1973 American ecological dystopian thriller – “Soylent Green”, starring Charlton Heston.

*The Magic Faraway Tree: A 1943 children’s novel by Enid Blyton

SHORT STORY| SOILENT GREEN* – Part 1

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Covid19outbreak, creativity, DawnNews, Emotions, Fiction, fictionlog, pandemic, pandemicdreams, plants, theGuardian, TheNews, TheNewYorkTimes, thereset, urbanfantasy, wildlife, writing1 Comment

COLOMBO; SRI LANKA:

September 21st, 2021; 10pm:

I breathed in deeply. I had to reduce my heart rate, get rid of all the disquieting thoughts ricocheting in my head and get my Calm back. I closed my eyes and focused on my chakras….each one visible, glowing, holding me safe….

There was a loud clamour from somewhere in the sprawling Sleeping area. I heard it but I ignored it. I kept my eyes closed and concentrated. Ten minutes later, I lay down and fled, thankfully, into a dreamless sleep.

September 29th, 2021; 8am:

I ate the bread and butter ravenously. Hungry as I’d been, I had skipped last night’s dinner of rice and fish curry. There was still enough food around to enable me to maintain the urban quirks of my palate. That meant no seafood and no pork; not even curries spiced with fish paste. I had been primarily subsisting on carbohydrates and sugar for the past 3 weeks.

We were almost into week 4 of The Turning as it had begun to be called; the Purge as i believed it was. That word; that thought for the ‘greater good’ helped me reason and compartmentalise the entire happening into serene, halcyon boxes in my mind even if it was for short periods of time. It helped me step back into the macrocosm of our very existence and to relieve to some extent, the enormity of our collective helplessness and anguish. And that was important to remain …. normal.

I got up to do the first of my 4 times daily, 20 minute ‘Corridor Walk’. A throw-back to my normal days and one which I held onto with the tenacity of a bulldog.

It had begun very soon after the Covid-19 vaccine went global.

At first, there were unexplained disappearances; mostly of middle aged men and women in the cities. They went to work and simply never came back. Then there were inexplicable instances of whole new patches of vibrant vegetation coming up in the meticulously preserved pristine spaces in and around concrete structures: A shrub appearing overnight, rising from a craggy cleft in the footpath where the earth sat between two imperfect flagstones; a vibrant, young bougainvillea suddenly sharing a fastidiously tamed flowerbed alongside its longtime botanical residents; groves of young Mara/ Rain trees appearing overnight parallel to the railways tracks creating a cool, shadowy pall over the carriages that still chugged back and forth carrying their human burdens.

Then there was the first sighting.

A woman walking along the Galle road had wrapped her arms around one of the Araliya* trees on the walkway and had simply… “melted”. She had disappeared; just ceased to exist anymore – like in a scene out of a real-life time travel thriller. And in the middle of that still tropical afternoon, the leaves on the tree had visibly rustled, almost like a joyous little victory dance after imbibing new life into its ancient architecture. Someone had got the episode on video….mid-disappearance.

It had gone viral with 30 billion views in 3 weeks.

It had also struck horror in the hearts of men.

First, there were slews of wild conjectures ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous; followed by extraterrestrial conspiracy theories; giving way finally to ceaseless terrified anticipation – who was next?

In the rush to get back to ‘normal’ post the Covid 19 outbreak, and under the dubious auspices of the current world leadership, the vaccine had been churned out in record time. But there was something not quite right with the Ac19-nCoV vaccine. It was causing a gross genetic mutation in at least one out of every 3 people who had it. It was metamorphosing them into Green Carbon; devolving complex human biological structures into the simpler compounds that we collectively called Mother Nature. It was terrifying; it was shocking; it was bizarre and it had led to the Great Chain of Being upending itself – Nature was God was Nature. And this Neo-vegetation grew thick around concrete structures, obliterating almost overnight, the greatest industrial revolution triumphs of man.

No Man is an Island.

People realised quite early on that their chances of survival multiplied manifold if they banded together in large numbers as close to the ground as possible. High rise buildings were abandoned, and the built-up ground floor areas were turned into mass shelters.

Endurance was easier in the city than in the thriving green environs of the suburbs. This allowed the Saw and Machete battles against the ever-advancing fury of Nature to be fought with some degree of success. For now.

Our group is tenanted at the local 5 star hotel, for a price. We still have the rare luxury of venturing out into the sunshine. Into the “great outdoors” – (what a morbid oddity that now sounds like!) – where a thick canopy of rustling leaves has not yet taken over every inch of the earth and the sky; always growing, always advancing, always darkening, before ultimately enfolding everything in its suffocating, chlorophyllic embrace.

I walk around the perimeter of our lobby-shelter, completing one 360 degree perambulation in a minute. Twenty such laps undertaken to think… think… make some sense of it all. To wrap my head around yet another new post pandemic Reality…. Ultimatum… Finality. To learn to accept….to ACCEPT. To rationalise and accept.

T + 28 Days Later

I hear the alarm go off. It is my turn to help clear the new vegetation outside. I pick up the machete (it’s a handy, lightweight version that I have become quite proficient at using) and go outside. I look at the luscious palm that has come up in the corner overnight – probably a hapless Covid-Vaxer* who had fled the suburban wilds and been vanquished instead by the insidious city-slicking verdancy. I have this strange urge to wrap my arms around it; to take a deep breath at last; to close my eyes and let what will be, just be….

I take up my machete and hit the stem once, twice, three times, until the sap oozes out thickly, flowing to the ground, feeding the greenness of the earth. I bring my foot down as hard as i can on the spot…the grass flattens momentarily and then bounces up defiantly. I choke back a sob as fury mixes with the hopelessness of it all.

The palm yields on the 5th stroke of my machete and falls to the ground.

It is not over yet.

De Khudai pe aman

*Soilent Green title inspiration from a 1973 American ecological dystopian thriller – “Soylent Green”, starring Charlton Heston.

*Araliya tree: the local name for the Plumeria or Frangipani.

*Covid Vaxer: Any of the 3 billion people who were administered the Covid 19 vaccination

Read SOILENT GREEN – Part 2 here: FICTION|SOILANT GREEN* – Part 2

VERSE|The Lady with the Mona Lisa Smile

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Covid19outbreak, DawnNews, Emotions, Faith, Humanity, Kindness, pandemic, poetry, serenity, theGuardian, TheNews, TheNewYorkTimes, verse, writing1 Comment

For the gracious Padmini Pelpola – the lady who lit up the porch every evening at number 12 Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha.

We were in the throes of the affliction, all lives tossed quite asunder,
Everyone struggling with their own version of their worlds-turned-upside-down.
I too was grappling with the changes
In a curfew-riddled cocoon of my own.
There was a painful psychosis that had swept over the city
And it was all we could do to hold on to little glimmers of patience, resilience and hope.

It was in this atmosphere, saturated as I was with pandemic fatigue
Holding onto the one thing i knew that helped me to center
To fight off the depression for one more day - my evening walk;
It was then that I saw her sitting in that little porch near the car park of the apartment building.
A vision of serenity, grace and beauty, borne of a life well-lived.

She was holding court as I came to see she would, every evening
Equally at ease with her solitude, as with the conversational company of those that sought her out;
She was scintillating, she was vibrant, she was calm and she was kind.
I watched in awe and then through occasional glances.
For i was mesmerised and yet I was aware that I might spook her - 
Spook the perfection of those two blissfully normal hours of which she was the gracious alchemist.

So I looked forward to my evening walk in the apartment parking lot,
For that was the extent of our locked-down freedom.
And i looked forward to saying hello to her and to receiving in return, her lovely smile every time.
I fed off the revitalizing energy of that precious little exchange for the next six weeks.
And then things returned to normal and I didn’t see her for a while.
But the memory of those heart-warming little interactions stayed with me like the glow of a just-settled sunset.

And then I heard that she’d passed on. Suddenly. Just like that.
And the news hit me in a strange, inexplicably sad manner.
And I realised that I didn’t know her at all, and yet, for me and a handful of others,
She had been the unwavering harbinger of a wonderful, uplifting calmness at a time of great disquietude.

And so I write this little eulogy, a remembrance if you will
Of a life well-lived, and I am sure, a soul well-loved;
Of the lady with the Mona Lisa Smile.

De Khudai pe aman

VERSE| I Need To Find You Again

On By Mahvash K. M.In creativity, Emotions, hope, poetry, verse, writing1 Comment

I wrote this dedication 8 years ago for my mother who passed away in October 2012 after a very brave, very arduous battle with cancer. She’s missed everyday, but now also celebrated every day. She remains the Queen of our Hearts. 

My heart’s shattered into little pieces.
My mind struggles to synthesise reality.
I find myself suspended in painful limbo - i look for you; catch glimpses of you in everything around me - and then you’re gone.
I’m left staring at vestiges - a vase of flowers you fixed; a shirt you hemmed; a text you wrote.

Your courage, your grace, your love and your compassion;
These are such dauntingly enormous qualities.
With you around, i gave myself false courage: I had your DNA; i was bound to be in some small measure, the Woman of Substance that you were.
Now I can’t find the courage nor the grace.  And my love and my compassion seem spent.
I need to know you’re still around.....

Even as I write this, I see your beautiful, smiling face looking right at me - vibrant, loving, comforting, happy.

I need to synchronise my heart with yours again, Mama.
I need to find my “Woman of Substance” that you have bequeathed to the three of us.
I need to find you again.

And as in birth, so in adulthood, I WILL find you again.

I love you.