Subatomic Tales III

Imposter!
Photo: Vinay

Ransack the rumbling stomach of my brother over there,
Over there,
Foothills of the Himalayas,
Find his greasy belly, stooping shoulders, rumbling stomach,
Ransack his toolbox,
Steal acrylic from his
Overcrowded underdigitalised dormitory of dogs.


Over here, at the knee of a Deccan lake, the sun shines too bright, and never rocks me to sleep. Over here, there are no frangipanis to call my own, my most intimate friend. Sure, there are imposters outside the campus with their puny little pink nuclei, their pungent attempts at mimicking the now-eroded temple-fronting fragrance of our old frangipani tree at the village center. But that is all they can aspire to be. Imposters. Sure, they can claim to be on under-appreciated Instagram posts by earnest university students, their tint enhanced in popular photo editing software, the nuclei made pinker, the white made whiter, but that is all they can ever hope to be. Imposters.

Over here, frangipanis do not smell the same, and always keep me up at night.

No irrelevant person will find their mention in this text. No act of betrayal shall be misrepresented as an act of innocent desperation. If her shadow lurks underneath these sentences, that is only because once upon a time she too shared this obsession with frangipanis. But god knows not enough was divulged, god knows the coordinates of the now-eroded temple-fronting frangipani tree at our village center were not disclosed, bared to a point of vulgarity, sold like a common relationship stake, to be discarded after lovers fall out.

Over here, under a kind southern moon, dusk winds are underappreciated, stray dogs are underfed, earnest pink frangipanis are dissed for not being yellow, and I just carry on. I carry on like I care not.

Comments

  1. If only I could describe how I feel when I read your stuff. Perhaps you know yourself since you are the one who weaves your stories like the way you do, filling it with such ingredients that one feels a connection of some sort. A overwhelming sense of belongingness prevails and urge to long for a world not seen and felt before makes it almost impossible for me to come face to face with my reality - the reality of not being able to do all of that and the reality of never been there. And yet they satiate my soul that can not wander but wants to, dearly. Was I not traveling that bus in the poem "Twilight on a Windy Road" when I read it? Yes I was. And that's a testament to your prowess as a writer.
    In other words, Acha likhta h tu behenchod.

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