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.
I’m in the throes of such exhaustion At all of this deception This shameless commandeering Of the resources of our nation This unbridalled corruption This lewd and shameless arrogance This swagger, this ostentation Like a monstrous pile of steaming Shit!
I feel so much frustration Such griping exasperation At this propaganda, misinformation At our barefaced prostration To the lords of subjugation. At our global commoditisation At all this brazen exploitation Like the hapless one who’s used to hearing Checkmate!
I’m looking out through my balcony door The glass gleaming - I never miss that That sheen itself is a pleasure to see The gloss, the shine makes my heart glad
Then I look outside at the city lights Some glimmering others sunny bright I look beyond at the skyline that now Boasts a few high rises above the eighth floor
My mind telescopes into some homes But please hold that thought, don’t let it roam! It’s not a voyeuristic enterprise of the mind It’s reading the drive behind the grind
What makes that man who lives alone In a one room apartment on the third floor Wake up day after day after day? What makes him go out his front door?
What special dreams has he woven with time? Which ones has he decided to leave behind? Is the light in his eyes still glowing bright Or is he just stolidly marking time?
That woman who is holding down Two jobs in two different parts of town What is she hurrying and scouring for? What makes her oblivious to her aches and her sores?
That young boy barely into his teens His moustache is yet to take place of state On his young, adolescent face What is he doing out on the steets so late?
The young girl who sits up late by herself Stitching joras* that must go on the shelf Of an elite boutique. Do her dreams still speak? Or are they now mute wraiths of themselves?
In the pit of my stomach lies a spot of guilt The quickening of my heart tells me the truth Of the relentless grind, the killer odds But I tell myself - what can you possibly do …
The gleaming door now to my back I look over my balcony railing this time Beyond is a world that is dusty and raw My own pleasure wanes in the shadows of night-time
* Jora: In Urdu, a set of clothes, usually shalwar kameeze.
I am the quintessential introvert There was a time I had my social spurts But all that seems like a lifetime ago The Corona has given our spacetime a blow.
I absolutely love my solitude When I say ‘Leave me be’ I’m not being rude It’s just the way I’m internally wired Too much nodding and smiling just makes me tired
That’s not to say that I spurn the cliche Of the Island that No Man Is I’m just more prone to proverbs that sweep Through Still Waters that tend to Run Deep.
And now I’m on the back foot yet again By that adage I didn’t mean I’m a Brain An Einstein, a Galileo or an Edison (Well .. maybe a tad like A. Tennyson).
Dear reader I’m the embodiment of reserve I don’t seek adulation that is undeserved But even as I spin this meter and rhyme I think every enterprising poet doth have her time
In the shining confluence of our universe Of writers, and scribblers, masters of verse But since I’m the quintessential introvert I’ll tell my tales from my quiet corner on earth
Still, if by some providential twist of fate Some of you think that my writing’s first rate Know that I still love my solitude I’ll thank ye kindly and then I’ll respectfully brood.
Following from “Creatures of the Park” (link attached below), this piece is inspired by my varied experiences at the 2 or 3 cafes I frequent in Colombo city. As with my regular evening walk, I am also a devout tea and latte aficionado. And as a creature of habit, I do tend to absorb the full gamut of gastronomic, service and atmospheric experiences at the handful of places I go to. So here is my affable ode to the characters who, like me, are also found at the oft-frequented coffee places around town.
Angst, amusement and even downright vexation Are some sentiments that have inspired this particular narration. Because when my adrenaline is not racing haphazardly around, Yours truly can’t weave verse or prose that is suitably profound. So here’s a bit of a congenial ramble About coffee shop folks and their queer, quirky angles.
The first of this set that I chanced to espy, Was the gaggle of ladies who meet over coffee and pie. They are genteel and smiling and conversing lightly Of Ruwani’s boyfriend and Andrew’s new-found sobriety. Of weddings and parties and stand-out memorial services; Of yoga class affairs and other sexagenarian caprices.
Following sharply on the last set’s heels, Is the would-be Romeo who’s eternally spinning his wheels. While on his regular tarriance through the cafe, He’ll go through the motions, happily epitomising the cliche-Sauntering gait, wandering eyes, and obnoxiously loud! Because how else would this Adonis be noticed by the crowd? This one engenders both frustration and pity, Deluded sense of self; diddly squat in the mental kitty.
This next one (my favourite) is quite off the charts, The 93 year old with tremendous love in his heart! He’s delicate and fragile and yet undauntingly sure Of his libidinous vigor and marvellous allure. He speaks in faint tones, each gossamer vein outlined; “I want to make love to you”, he solemnly opines. [True story!]
There is also the resident troop of servers, With personas as varied as their gelato flavours. There’s the hero who averts a gastronomic disaster; And the shrinking violet who couldn’t have disappeared faster. You’ll also see “Lurch” on his tropical vacation Waiting tables, no doubt, for some fiscal augmentation. (Who’d have believed the fiendish frugality Of the profusely gilded Addams Family!) There’s also Happy and Dopey and Sneezy and Bashful- Each cafe with its own quirky take on the fairytale.
The likes of me, of course, continue to be, The nose-in-the-book kind, with the-tail-on-the-seat. Looking up only to rest remonstrating muscles, Perennially ensnared in the Introvert’s social tussle: Latte on standby, with napkins and spoon, I’m in a world of my own in the bustling tea room.
The rest of the coffee shop throng is assorted The foodies, the guzzlers, the loners, the courted. The suited and booted, the flip-flopped, the Collared* A theatrical cycle of life streaming onward. This gamut of movement, that with spirit is rife Is what makes modest coffee shops larger than life. And so I continue to frequent the tea rooms and cafes To reclusively delight in the milieu and lacteous lattes.
* Collared: priests, monks and other caffeine-relishing clergymen.
Mahvash Mohtadullah - The Roaming Desi 