The wrinkles of my grandmother

Yesterday, my grandmother turned 78. As I sat beside her, listening to her animated recollections of her earlier birthdays, I could not help noticing her silver hair strands that danced to the tunes of the ceiling fan. But more than her hair strands, her wrinkled skin captivated me. I ran my fingers through those layers of life. As I passed wrinkle after wrinkle, I wondered if there lay a story behind each one. Stories that could not be shared. Stories that would not be heard.
Maybe the wrinkles signified moments that could not be gotten back. Moments that engulfed joy. Moments that contained tears. Could wrinkles be categorized as happy wrinkles and sad wrinkles? Could joy create a wrinkle? Perhaps joy that is always followed by a feeling of separation could.
Maybe the wrinkles signified places that could not be revisited. Places with walls and doors and shelves made out of memories. Places without walls and doors and shelves that opened out as an ode to nature.
Maybe the wrinkles signified people who could not be gotten back. People who are loved as if they had been a part of our past lives. People who are not-so-loved as if they had come about as a result of our past lives.
I ran my fingers through those layers of life. What did those wrinkles hide? I paid attention to her face and looking at the wrinkles that adorned her cheeks, originating below her dreamy eyes, I caught hold of an answer.
Maybe the wrinkles signified unfulfilled desires that could not be divorced.

Happy New Year!

The coconut tree outside the balcony coughed. The air it inhaled smelled different. The television set in the hall begged to be switched on. It preferred projecting images to the continuous colors that were bouncing off its black screen from the disco light. The Bluetooth speaker screamed in pain as its belly button (strangely named 'volume') was twisted in random directions. The glass mugs, that had been playful inside the cupboard, now experienced a dizzying feeling. A rumor spread among them that the feeling was because of the golden liquid. The thermocol balls inside the bean bags hugged their loved ones. They were nearing their final moments, experiencing more pressure than ever before. The garbage bin let out an exasperated sigh as it noticed the empty chips packets and half-empty pizza boxes that lay before it. The walls of the house were silent witnesses to the chaos happening before them, holding colorful ribbons and a rectangular board that read 'Happy New Year'.

Pens and a few pennies

Below is a story my friend narrated to me over a few WhatsApp messages. As I reached the end of the story, an appalling realization dawned upon me.
I am sharing the story, in my words, with a similar hope for you:

Owing to a holiday in the United States, my friend had left his Chennai office early one evening. As he had exited his IT park, he had come across a stunted man selling pens. "Sir! Madam! 2 Pens for 10 rupees!" - the man had continued shouting at the top of his voice to a crowd that had cared more about the life inside mobile phones. My friend had passed the pen-seller, feeling bad for the attention he could not get. After some distance, my friend had come across a handicapped man asking for alms. The crowd that had sleep-walked while passing the pen-seller had woken up when it had reached the beggar. Many members had dropped 1 rupee, 2 rupee and 5 rupee coins in the cloth that lay spread before the beggar. Noticing this, my friend had experienced a mix of joy and sadness. Joy that compassion had won over consumerism. Sadness that a man selling pens had lost to a man selling pity.
A month later, my friend had chanced upon the pen-seller again. Overcome by a feeling of justice, he had walked to the pen-seller and had handed him the entire cash that had rested in his wallet - 120 rupees. The pen-seller had looked at my friend with a grateful smile and then, he had handed him 24 pens. My friend had received them and had walked home with a mix of joy and sadness. Joy that he had tilted the natural balance towards a hardworking man. Sadness that he too had always preferred pity over a purchase.

A melody of melancholy

A beautiful brown sparrow rests on my balcony wall
It informs me about the weather across Bangalore
I look at the sky with an eagerness for my namesake
But dark gray clouds loom large
A grateful gesture to all travelers about to tear up
As my cup of coffee turns a companion to the puddles below
The sparrow departs, waving goodbye with its wings...
I think about an old, battered story book and its torn pages
About an unused, armless action figure and its owner's childhood
A rusted, punctured bicycle and the neighboring roads
An untouched school uniform and a regularly used school bag
A non-functional FM radio and homeless radio waves
A box of broken plastic crayons and a father's locked-away accounts ledger
A forgotten wedding album and one of its lucky photos framed on the living room wall
A lonely mango tree, inside a gated community, and its regular visits from the slum kids
A childless mother and an uncared for orphan
I think about all these and I wonder
Which is more melancholic - To miss or to be missed?

The questions children ask

Two weeks ago, I had travelled to Chennai and was returning to Bangalore with my mother on a train. Opposite to us, were seated a mother and her ~5-year-old son. The mother's father had come to the railway station to send off his daughter and grandson. The train was scheduled to leave at 3:35 PM and about 2 minutes before the scheduled time, the grandfather got off the train. He walked back on the platform to reach our compartment and confirmed with his daughter that she had water bottles, biscuit packets, sufficient cash, napkins, her government ID card, and lord Murugan's picture with her. She nodded for every item he mentioned and when asked about sufficient cash, she took out her purse to hand him a thousand rupee note. "Even if not for you, keep this for mom's sake" she said, forcing the thousand rupee note into her father's hand. He accepted it with the guilt of a father and the need of a family man.
"Why are you giving money to grandpa? Does he not have money?" the kid asked his mother, curiously. An awkward silence prevailed in the compartment for a few seconds.
The mother finally broke the silence, answering her kid, "Grandpa had given me a lot of money when I was in school and college. I am just repaying it now. It is always good to return what you borrowed, right?" The grandfather's face put on a forced smile. But the kid seemed convinced with his mother's answer.
"How much money did grandpa give you?" the kid asked his mom, after a minute. The mother's face expressed the helplessness of not being able to give her son a mathematical answer.
Before the mother or grandfather could come up with an answer that would satisfy the kid, he looked at his plastic watch that had spider-man casting his web from the center. He then turned to his mother and asked her with a serious face, "It is already 3:45 PM. Why hasn't the train started yet?" The passengers present in the compartment could not help smiling.

The train started its journey 15 minutes after the scheduled time. The kid's face remained pressed against the window rails for the next hour. And occasionally, he also turned to his mother to pose an interesting question.
"Why do people build houses amid rain water?", "Why don't people become happy when they see a train passing by?", "Why aren't farms and fields seen in cities?", "Why are there so many hotels? Don't all mothers cook food at home?", "Why do people feed crows but not dogs?" were some of the questions I remember now with a smile. As much as I fell in love with the kid's questions, I also felt sad for his mother. How do you explain to a kid that an adult's world is far removed from a child's world? Still, the mother responded to the kid's questions smartly, giving out answers that would not let the kid lose hope on humanity.
"The people who stay in houses amid rain water like to play with paper boats", "The people who see trains passing by are sad because they are not able to travel in trains", "There are people who stay far away from their mothers. These people go to hotels. And sometimes, mothers also need rest, right?" were some of her answers. Science shows that smart parents pave way for smart kids but this interaction between the mother and the kid made me wonder if the opposite also holds true - smart kids pave way for smarter parents.

Half an hour later, an old man stopped at our compartment asking for alms. The mother did not mind the old man and looked out the window. The kid could not understand this. "Why are you not giving money to him?", he asked his mother. An awkward silence prevailed in the compartment for a few seconds. The mother then took a ten rupee note from her purse and handed it over to the old man. "Why isn't anyone else giving money to him?" the kid raised a question, looking at us. An awkward silence, again. Slowly, the passengers fetched 2 rupee and 5 rupee coins from their wallets and handed it over to the old man. The old man looked at the kid and joined his hands in worship, shouting, "Live long, my lord". The kid smiled and waved goodbye to him. "Why did he call me a lord?" the kid asked his mother after the old man had left. The mother smiled and replied, "Maybe because he knew your name is Ishwar."
After ten minutes, an old lady stopped at our compartment asking for alms. All the passengers turned to look at the kid. He was looking at the old lady with a widespread smile on his face. A few minutes later, the old lady passed our compartment, shouting, "Live long, my lords".

For the remainder of the train journey, the kid continued his questions and a few of us continued our compassionate acts. Like how Carl Sagan had said, "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers", our compartment grew significant through the journey by the kid's questions.

I fall into a coma.

Money times money is money squared
Money times data too is money squared
I am terrified of the square in squared
It is a prison for passion
When it should be imprisoning poverty
The walls are windowless
Not different from our cars that honk away beggars
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Faces in plight are like houseflies
Poor housefly! It has 360 degree vision
Amazing humans! Our vision is focused
Money times money is money squared.

Math and meth keep some men happy, according to the statistics
And the trend line goes on a rapid rise
The target just got taller
What beverage does the corporate brain drink?
Smarter and smarter it gets
Without satisfaction
'Enough' and 'equality' are endangered species
Can somebody tell me the population of white tigers?
I just boarded the statistics bandwagon
Does the white tiger treat the white peacock as its equal?
Which is more beautiful? Which puts a smile on others faces?
Oh you dangerous Darwin! Look at what you have done
Dystopia's day is around though survival of the fittest keeps surviving its end
The pie chart has just two categories
Oh you sad storyteller! They are not good and bad
The small chunk is bad and the larger chunk is worse
Am I talking about the earth?
But isn't the earth flat? 
Just wait for a 100 memes and 1000 re-tweets - the earth will become flat
Science stands no chance before social media
Please! Do 'Like' this poem!

"May I help you?"
Who's that quoting Shakespeare?
"Dude! You don't know even this?! (Sara)Haha"
Now, that's my boy
Let me introduce him, or rather his opinions
Introversion - Inability
Compassion and care - Cut the crap
Humility - Head back to your hometown
Love - LOL
My boy is a proud programmer!
Who pines for poets anymore?
For (i=1; i++; i > Poets)
My boy loves his machine
It is very obedient
Unlike some people who have to be understood
Try {relationships} - Catch {reasoning}
Isn't man-machine interaction easier?
Can somebody tell me the rise in percentage 
Of man-machine interactions over the last 5 years?
The statistical evidence is arriving in a blood-red Mercedes Benz
I love the logo, and even the car
I decide to buy it for my boy, and I begin my computer code
If ( desire = Mercedes Benz )
My fingers continue birthing variables
And invariably, I fall into a coma. 

A writer's voice

More often than not, I find talks by writers to be interesting. Be it the can-potentially-change-an-artist's-approach-towards-creativity TED talk 1 and TED talk 2 by Elizabeth Gilbert, or the can-potentially-prepare-an-artist-for-an-unexpected-future talks by JK Rowling and Neil Gaiman. 
An important reason for this can be attributed to the choice of words by the writers. And also the choice of their thoughts. 
Unlike in many professions, a writer is required to think for a living. A single social issue or a single historical fact is subjected to multiple arguments and counter-arguments inside a writer's head. From this trove of diverse thoughts, a writer gets to comfortably choose a viewpoint to present to the audience. As a result of which, my beginning statement. 

I experienced this last weekend when I attended the 6th edition of the Bangalore Literature festival. One of the talks I was looking forward to - 'The writer's role in speaking out' by Paul Zacharia - offered me more than I had expected. 
Paul began his talk by pointing out the characteristics of a good writer. The most important characteristic, according to Paul, was that a writer remained a reformed man inside himself, free from the forces trying to control his thoughts. He then listed and elaborated on some of the thought-control devices prevalent in our society. Religion. Caste. Political parties. Media. 
"I fear the media more than a politician today. We can hold the politician accountable at least once in five years but not the media", he said. And he made a brief mention about a short story he had written earlier, about a robot that could identify the truth and lies in a newspaper. I imagined the state of some newspapers and news channels if they were to be scrutinized by a similarly designed supercomputer, and I could not help feeling sorry. 

As a parallel thought, I recall the TED talk by renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour. When asked the question - What would be the one idea she would want to plant in the minds of the audience gathered - she replied, "..really be careful where you get your information from; really take responsibility for what you read, listen to and watch..."
This seems to be of utmost importance now, especially after 'fake news' has been declared as the 'Word of the year' for 2017.

****

My visit to the Bangalore Literature festival, after Paul's talk, only turned happier owing to the wide range of books that were on display. One of the books I purchased from the extremely-harmful-to-your-wallet collection was Perumal Murugan's Songs of a Coward. The book is a collection of poems written by the writer, during the difficult period in his life, following the ban on his book Madhorubhagan/One Part Woman. 
As I traveled across the different poems in his book, it saddened me that a writer had to be silenced because the society had not matured enough to agree to disagree. 

It is as imperative to stand up for the right voice as much as it is to suppress the noise. Else, we might reach a future where many writers are forced to command their pens, as Perumal Murugan does in one of his poems. 

I have commanded my pen
that the ink-drip from its ball-tip
shall happen henceforth
only for signatures
accounts and 
journal entries.