How I love the act of lovemaking. Watching the sea caress the sands into an evenness and leaving in its belly some shells wrapped in the covers of foam that had once breathed in its divine lymph. If I classify it as a smooth union, there are the times when I see them in a violent act. Whatever it is, the sea always leaves gifts for the sands and takes with it anything the sand has to give. I look into the Arabian Sea in the darkness of a moonless night and see nothing. The sound of the waves hitting the shore and the muffled song of the wind is all that my senses can detect. In the distance the horizon ceases to exist and for once the sea and the skies are one. I wonder if the stars feel close to the sea during one such spectacle. I have been told by a painter that there are three basic colors: red, yellow and blue and all the others are just derivatives of it. From the east to the west, from the morning to the night, from the skies to the sole of my shoes, I see colors that are neither red, nor green or yellow. In their lovemaking of different intensities, these colors have lost their identities.
I make love to my beloved on the sands of a stranded beach, wearing colors that are none of red, green or yellow, at a time in the night when our horizon of infinity concurs with the horizon in the distance. I am belittled by the thought that we are still not a part of the homogeneity of the existence around us. What convergence do we lack that forestalls our entry through the gates? I lie on the sands on my back and look at a star. My beloved sprinkles some sands on my chest and I kiss her lipstick laden strawberry lips. I am still not the sand, and I cannot see any stars in her hair. We make love, and yet it is not lovemaking. We are still two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears, a pair of nose, eight distinct limbs trying to cocoon into a single heartbeat.
That stride towards a “WE” needs the dissolution of two “I”s. The irony is not our reluctance to let go of that “I” but the verity that we are yet to discover it fully. But doesn’t the sea get to know itself better because of the shore? Doesn’t the sky whisper to its stars to look at it’s reflection in the mirror of the sea?
While we enjoy these sights and sounds of the togetherness of the universe around us, we are caught up as a solitary spec of white in a tissue paper blotted with an ink. The water touches our feet; she smiles at the receding wave and draws a pattern with her toe in the sand. The waves come again to take the pattern in its foamy ride. She draws an arc on my chest with her finger, much like the pattern in the sand. The cold sensation of her wet finger slowly sinks into my skin and with it the feeling of her presence.
Suleiman-Ki-Biwi: An Introduction
Posted in
Laughing Gas Station,
Short Stories,
Suleiman-ki-Biwi
Posted by
Sigrid Rahn
on Jan 20, 2010
Think of something that can bring out different colors of your mood, something which isn’t a byproduct of your girlfriend’s or your wife’s actions. Well, forget about the road traffics or the picture of your oh-that-bastard boss – they are hardly going to make your mood better. If you are lucky, you might be blessed with a sexy maid, making it difficult to hold back the Shiney Ahuja in you. A small grin on your face might just turn into a deplorable expression the moment she opens her mouth to ask for a hike. Well, in that case, the maid surely turns out to be one element in your life that can color your mood in different shades.
I looked about in my life to find some of such elements, the most catastrophic and yet benign of which turned out to be Suleiman-ki-Biwi (wife of Suleiman). This soft pawed, mostly sleepy, always ravenous, wet nosed warm creature, as I’d call it, brought out the best and also the worst in me.
The name Suleiman-ki-Biwi, must have prompted you to think (guys with an envious look ofcourse) who this Suleiman is and what does his wife look like. Suleiman-ki-Biwi was actually my pet cat! Don’t ask me who this Suleiman is, because that would not be humanly possible to find considering the remarkable tendency of a female cat to get pregnant and the tremendous potential of a male cat to screw around. If I go on to find Suleiman, I might just encounter more suitors than the Rakhi ka Swayambhar participants. So how did the name come? Well, it was not related to anything at all. On a day when it was raining heavily, I and my sister found a small kitten stranded under a park bench. We took the shivering thing with us to our home. My sister dried the kitten and that was when the first catastrophe belted me. She pulled out a blue sweater, MY BLUE SWEATER, from the closet and wrapped the kitten in it. I straightaway started hating the kitten.
In my anger, I was thinking of christening it with a peculiar name. I remembered the story of one of my friend, Siddharth. His family had two dogs and they adopted a third one, a small Labrador pup from someone named Tiwari. As the days passed, and since no one had named the pup, they started calling it Tiwari, just to distinguish it from the other dogs. In no time, the neighborhood kids started calling the pup as Tiwari and so the name remained and Siddharth’s family didn’t bother much to find a better name. Then one day, Mr. Tiwari visited Siddharth’s home. You can imagine the scene when Mr. Tiwari is having tea and Siddharth’s eight year old sister comes to the living room with a biscuit in her hand, shouting, “Tiwari…come here boy… take it… take it”
In my revengeful attempt to christen the cat, I looked around. The TV was on where a guy by the name Suleiman was doing some strange antics. I just took it from there and with one pronouncement I baptized the shivering creature who had just encroached into my closet, as Suleiman-Ki-Biwi. That was my victory
It was only after a week we’d realize that the kitten is male.
I looked about in my life to find some of such elements, the most catastrophic and yet benign of which turned out to be Suleiman-ki-Biwi (wife of Suleiman). This soft pawed, mostly sleepy, always ravenous, wet nosed warm creature, as I’d call it, brought out the best and also the worst in me.
The name Suleiman-ki-Biwi, must have prompted you to think (guys with an envious look ofcourse) who this Suleiman is and what does his wife look like. Suleiman-ki-Biwi was actually my pet cat! Don’t ask me who this Suleiman is, because that would not be humanly possible to find considering the remarkable tendency of a female cat to get pregnant and the tremendous potential of a male cat to screw around. If I go on to find Suleiman, I might just encounter more suitors than the Rakhi ka Swayambhar participants. So how did the name come? Well, it was not related to anything at all. On a day when it was raining heavily, I and my sister found a small kitten stranded under a park bench. We took the shivering thing with us to our home. My sister dried the kitten and that was when the first catastrophe belted me. She pulled out a blue sweater, MY BLUE SWEATER, from the closet and wrapped the kitten in it. I straightaway started hating the kitten.
In my anger, I was thinking of christening it with a peculiar name. I remembered the story of one of my friend, Siddharth. His family had two dogs and they adopted a third one, a small Labrador pup from someone named Tiwari. As the days passed, and since no one had named the pup, they started calling it Tiwari, just to distinguish it from the other dogs. In no time, the neighborhood kids started calling the pup as Tiwari and so the name remained and Siddharth’s family didn’t bother much to find a better name. Then one day, Mr. Tiwari visited Siddharth’s home. You can imagine the scene when Mr. Tiwari is having tea and Siddharth’s eight year old sister comes to the living room with a biscuit in her hand, shouting, “Tiwari…come here boy… take it… take it”
In my revengeful attempt to christen the cat, I looked around. The TV was on where a guy by the name Suleiman was doing some strange antics. I just took it from there and with one pronouncement I baptized the shivering creature who had just encroached into my closet, as Suleiman-Ki-Biwi. That was my victory
It was only after a week we’d realize that the kitten is male.
Distorted Thoughts: Episode I
I sang the Gypsy song, and yet found myself banking on a compass for fear of losing my direction.
* * *
Abundance
Never gift your love a rose too often, it’s just like gifting a man with many wives. God has gifted us with only two eyes because we tend to lose our way in abundance and forget to appreciate the significance and beauty of each in many. That’s why a single rose stands out while it is lost when we put it in a bouquet. It sheds its splendor for a bigger beauty.
* * *
I opened the windows. I opened the doors. Lit an earthen lamp and placed it on the porch. Like every evening, the wait lasted the entire night. In the morning, I collected the leftovers of her love, the jasmines which she left scattered in her mad dance with the wind. The flowers would last with me till they would be replaced by new ones. But the fragrance would stay the same, much like her chimerical presence.
* * *
Don’t dwell in the past. Use it like a holiday resort. Go there, fall in love with it and when you come back to the present, feel its infection in the way you smile.
* * *
Deformities in existence comes
Not without the feel of acceptance
In others
* * *
An effort for some words,
The filtering of thoughts before expression
Is a walk away from self,
Or a stride towards purification?
* * *
* * *
Abundance
Never gift your love a rose too often, it’s just like gifting a man with many wives. God has gifted us with only two eyes because we tend to lose our way in abundance and forget to appreciate the significance and beauty of each in many. That’s why a single rose stands out while it is lost when we put it in a bouquet. It sheds its splendor for a bigger beauty.
* * *
I opened the windows. I opened the doors. Lit an earthen lamp and placed it on the porch. Like every evening, the wait lasted the entire night. In the morning, I collected the leftovers of her love, the jasmines which she left scattered in her mad dance with the wind. The flowers would last with me till they would be replaced by new ones. But the fragrance would stay the same, much like her chimerical presence.
* * *
Don’t dwell in the past. Use it like a holiday resort. Go there, fall in love with it and when you come back to the present, feel its infection in the way you smile.
* * *
Deformities in existence comes
Not without the feel of acceptance
In others
* * *
An effort for some words,
The filtering of thoughts before expression
Is a walk away from self,
Or a stride towards purification?
* * *
My Beloved
My beloved knitted me words of the choosiest colors,
With a ply of wool that let the air marinate into us in a warmth
That neither boiled like the pleasant morning sun growing into the day
Nor cooled down like some coffee left in the window sill over pensive thoughts.
My beloved left me a blank note beside our smiling photograph
With the weight of the photo-frame’s shadow holding the message
From the call of flight of the sleep-disturbing wind of a Sunday morning.
I read the words which her three-page letters would otherwise never talk about.
My beloved left her painting palette and a begging-to-get-wet canvas
And stepped into the picture she wanted to portray.
The colors have dried up,
But even in the deep smell of cobalt blue I find her attentive hand’s fresh prints.
My beloved, why do I see you through your creations,
And never through the compass that you had gifted me once?
You keep an intrigue element in this game of yours
That you have no intention to teach me and yet ask me to play.
I just keep on playing for you to win me
And for me to understand your unstated rules of the game.
With a ply of wool that let the air marinate into us in a warmth
That neither boiled like the pleasant morning sun growing into the day
Nor cooled down like some coffee left in the window sill over pensive thoughts.
My beloved left me a blank note beside our smiling photograph
With the weight of the photo-frame’s shadow holding the message
From the call of flight of the sleep-disturbing wind of a Sunday morning.
I read the words which her three-page letters would otherwise never talk about.
My beloved left her painting palette and a begging-to-get-wet canvas
And stepped into the picture she wanted to portray.
The colors have dried up,
But even in the deep smell of cobalt blue I find her attentive hand’s fresh prints.
My beloved, why do I see you through your creations,
And never through the compass that you had gifted me once?
You keep an intrigue element in this game of yours
That you have no intention to teach me and yet ask me to play.
I just keep on playing for you to win me
And for me to understand your unstated rules of the game.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
