My college mates

It’s so many years

Yet I can’t hold back my tears

Remembering my mates
My heart skips a few beats

First greetings to last meetings
Stealing loves to sharing meals

Cracking jokes to making faces

Spoken words to hushed silences

Someone please hand me a compass

For I want to journey back to campus

To those classrooms past the steps and gates
To walk hand in hand with my college mates

Today I am busy meeting deadlines
And those memories come as lifelines

Tell me who has a time machine?

No longer can I stand this separation

A memory of Onam that hasn’t wilted yet!

Not all memories are lucky to survive the test of time. Most of them wilt, fall and get trampled into oblivion. Some of them turn pale, colorless and become too insignificant to notice. There are a few that stay fresh and fragrant through the years.

There was a time when small things mattered. A time when we were little ones. Onam reminds me of such a time when simple things appeared exciting. To me, Onam was not a celebration of things new. I hardly remember wearing new clothes during Onam. Because no one gifted me anything new.

It’s in making Pookkalam that I found a kind of joy which words can’t describe. I used to make Pookkalam, along with my brother, on a platform prepared with a paste of cow dung and clay; right at the centre of our courtyard. Flowers were picked in mornings and evenings, before and after school, in a cone of leaves custom-made for the purpose. Sometimes poached from houses on the way back home.

We would get up well before sunrise. And shout “aarppo irroo irroo’’ at the top of our voices - loud enough to wake the mighty Kumbhakarnan from his sleep. Then a piece of paper, cut from yesterday’s news pape, was rolled out and Pookkalam design in it was meticulously copied onto the place marked for Pookkalam. Flowers from Thumba to Mukkutti filled in the designs with precision that would probably rival a diamond cutter.

Once it completed, a journey through the neighborhood homes would begin. If a better Pookkalam was found in any of the houses, we walked back – like warriors who had lost the war. A vow was taken to beat him the next morning.

But if our Pookkalam was the winner, we walked like heroes, head held high and hearts leaping in joy. A smile playing on our lips. The smile of the happiest beings on earth.

Gone are those days. The moments of unadultered happiness. Because Pookkalam is made with flowers now. Back then, it was made with ‘heart'. A lot of it.

Moving motionless

The bus going the other way stopped by me.

But the one I wanted to get on didn’t stop by.

I am sure gonna miss the man I set out to see.

And where no one stops, I am standing alone.

All of a sudden it stopped in the middle.

I found myself stuck in the lift for a while.

I am gonna miss the one waiting down there for me.

And where nothing moves, I am standing still.

With a beep of relief it came to life.

It’s a call from unknown number.

Before I could answer, it went dead again.

With a phone to which no one wants to call, I am standing silent.

After an hour of wait, it rang to my delight.

I rushed to open the door for my sweet heart.

Just to see a rat disappearing into the drain.

And at the door which no one knocks at, I am standing single.

Praying, I turned the key for a final try.

Thank god, the car let out a starting cry!

Only to break down in its usual way.

And on the road where no one treads, I’m standing lost.

I punched the button hard and entered the secret code,

Trusting the only ATM in a boundless stretch of sand,

Out came a bit of paper saying I was out of balance.

And where life is so far off, I’m standing for nothing.