(on the way to Kochi, scribbled sitting on the window seat of the Venad Express)

A ballet of swaying shadows,

My finger tips itch to do the familiar tap dance on the keyboard, to mould lines, to paint images… I am all by myself in this strange new world, but shall I tell you a secret? I feel as powerful as a witch who can conjure spells, as influential as a princess who can stamp her feet and throw tantrums to get all she wants … I feel I am the deity, I can create and destroy, conceive and erase, love and own, get lost and still be found… and through all this craziness I feel your presence… Even as I write these lines with charcoal on the brown walls of this thatched home that I build for us. I feel you!

Remember the rain we created last night and the long walk down this narrow lane surrounded with huge willow trees and wild ferns on either sides. Untamed and liberated, the trees, mushrooms and tendrils grew thick and wild. Wildness around and within us! Hand in hand, we walked this very lane listening to the crickets crooning and the frogs croaking. And then you took leave and…  drenched in rain, soaked in love I walked a mile and fashioned this thatched hut where I slept last night. Alone!

The wooden windows flapped hard as the wind gushed around.

The room was lit by a single kerosene lamp. As I lay curled on the bare floor, the coldness traveled from the cheap red oxide floor to my skin and deep beneath… Unfurnished but inhabited by our love,

I slept last night listening to the rain, the thunder, and the occasional screeching of the weak branches that the wild wind wounded.

I slept last night watching the water that seeped in through a gap in the thatched roof. I could have fixed it but I like the imperfections like the crusty roughness of my elbow tip…

Flies danced around the flame, and I slept inhaling the smell of kerosene. Today morning when I woke up, I think my skin smelled like kerosene too.

~Akshaya Pillai

A cream coloured wall.

Streaks of rented radiance,

From the streetlight nearby.

Your faint shadow,

Shimmering on the wall.

Using a charcoal

I trace your silhouette

The lines flow as you move,

You twist, you turn,

You walk, you work

Fabricating an incoherent mess,

I sweat, I strive

I smile, I sketch

Fail to recreate, but learn your moves,

the swiftness of your body,

the jolt in your nod,

The strokes continue to surge,

Leaving my palm charred

I do not expect much from you,

It is the process, that I love.

~Akshaya Pillai

And another decade of spice and sights dissolve in the whirlpool, another wall crumbles down behind me as I reach the next crossroad. The road apparent, the journey intense and the destination, the horizon… Another dream I just woke up from or was it just another book that ended, and what awaits is an epilogue or a trance? Another touch withdraws on its own, the numbness spreads… Another conversation traces its way back to some mute picture from the past, abandoned in the wooden drawer in the eighth floor, in a strange land. Another set of chaos carefully unfolds and madness flips its shade from purple to gray… Another season fades into the arms of a newer one. Deceived. Sunshine is replaced by snow, passion by action, spontaneity by reason and; love parts ways, right and left, oops! right and wrong… Another layer is peeled away, I am more vulnerable, more prone to the cold like the touch me not plant, I cringe and shrug, awaiting another death.

~ Akshaya Pillai

New is disappointing,

Continue feeding on those stale months,

Sun stained and snow basked

They never fail to smell fresh.

Mud crusts crumble down my skin,

The sensation of your fingers remain,

Faint impressions and the rising rhythm,

They never cease to exist…

The mud has dried off your hands,

The earthenware empty.

~Akshaya Pillai

(for Shobha Aunty)

A mundane evening on the terrace of a five storied apartment surrounded by smoke rings and honking, long after sunrays submitted themselves to the soil and serenity wrapped it all… She stepped out to pursue a long held routine, to watch aeroplanes pop up and squirm, one after the other in an obedient row over the mountains and up above. There was hardly an outline of a floating cloud or a hint of the whispering wind. Lost in memories and ‘yesterdays’, she half uttered, half swallowed her agony trying hard to stumble on one statement to reveal a glimpse of her peaceful smile.

The blue and white chip tiled terrace, with coarse walls, two anonymous bricks, and a couple of pipelines running right and left enclosed late evening conversations about relatives, political figures, government policies, filmstars, family, future and strands of unstated thoughts. Her hands settled on the coarse wall which absorbed the anguish while she observed the world beyond it… the crowd, the street, the procession and the buildings with curtained windows and locked gates.

***

Evenings pass by, goldfishes continue to swim across the starless sky, conversations like aroma linger in the air but the spectator is now at the other end of oblivion and ‘today’, the interlude.

~ Akshaya Pillai

She dipped the tip of her ring finger into the coin sized kajal dabba and alternatively pressed her cheeks down to outline her eyes with the black kohl. At fifty eight, Baby was still radiant and graceful. The increasing wrinkles never bothered her, but the white strands in her thick hair was a rising concern. She applied the remaining kajal on the visible white strands. …

The calendar fluttered as the pre monsoon wind gushed in through the window. She noticed that two months had passed away since the calendar was last flipped. It was still stuck in January. Time like an expired calendar, like the clock without hands, paused in some misplaced unimportant day, gathering long forgotten conversations, stumbling over elapsed names, remembering people who lasted only for a scene or two…

She missed their old maid whose name she couldn’t recollect but whose touch had never faded. She used to oil Baby’s tresses and stroke her long hair. She always said that Baby was the only girl in the family who inherited her great grandmother’s charm. Poor thing, she always wanted to see Baby on her wedding day but died much before it happened.

Hurried footsteps shuddered the old wooden staircase that led to her room and along with it, dispersed the wisps of trivial recollections. They escaped through the open windows, they would come back when it was time, as for now it was time for Sohail to craft new ones…

“When did you come?,” Baby asked.

“Just now,” Sohail answered, his eyes searching every corner of the room until they rested on the round table by the window, on the canvas, on the bottles of poster colours, on the brush that was plunged in a tinge of grey and on other new additions in the room, from what he had last seen, which included a handful of paintings. A sparrow lifting up a twig. A flower vase with violet flowers. A house by the river. All these shared only one thing in common, a grey backdrop. Sohail knew why but dint comment.

“Can I help you with this?,” he asked pointing at the unfinished picture on the canvas.

— “Sure, but its already half way through”

With a titled yet warm smile, Sohail picked up the brush dipped it in the orange paint and swiftly moved it across the canvas.

“But it’s the grass I drew, its green in colour not orange!” she protested.

He dint listen, he was immersed in the shades of orange and blue. His hand rose with poise like waves at noon tide. Baby stared at her grandsons hand as he completed her painting. He transformed the lush to orange flames amidst grey embers and added further details which she couldn’t predict or grasp.

She had seen him scribble in a diary at times. She had seen the rough lines that seemed like the outline of some unknown woman that he had scrawled on his wall. She had seen him go out with friends. But she never knew her grandson wrote poetry, she never knew that his college notebooks contained doodles and sketches that would leave all his classmates jaw dropped. She never knew the joy he sensed when he played a game of football. She never knew that when he was away from her he could smoke a dozen cigarettes a day or undoubtedly win a game of cards with any bigshot. All she knew was he was away from her because he was in the city, in a prominent college studying to become an engineer. She never even knew that he dint want to be one.

~ Akshaya Pillai

A handcrafted fantasy,

I flutter like a firefly on its outskirts.

A footfall away from you,

You cajole the meandering curves and the valley

in my feet with creamy hands,

unlock the rusty gates, seep within

blow magic sand on the globe

and drag me inside a glass jar.

I wipe the walls, heal the cracks

And fill the vacuum with crimson rays

Of a new daybreak..

Smudge images swinging in faint lights,

Are the only recollections I seize.

As we withdraw from an ending embrace,

the flickering glow fades out.

And Yet again,

Between you and me, a footfall…

~ Akshaya Pillai

Summer rain;

Swapping between land and water

Then, Under the tawny shade of a wild mushroom

Green croaks of two toads,

As they huddle their leathery skin,

Jump higher than the other in joy

And sing duets in muffled voices

Summer rain;

Switching between truth and trance

Then, Under the warmth of a wrapped dream,

I utter words into your mouth,

You chew on them, absorb the crux

And create verses from the relics.

~ Akshaya Pillai

(for Sirisha, Happy Blooming!)

I met you in an unlikely way,

Amidst a volcanic eruption or more,

But I couldn’t help but notice your beauty,

The blooming yellow pansy,

its poise and power amidst the commotion,

To most, this bond was shocking

But for us, natural…

To care for an unseen smile,

To forfeit happiness, that claimed

to be neither yours nor mine…

You are that tendril which I knew not

You helped me climb

And then you pushed me down,

But the climb and the fall

and the bond we share

Deeper than my words shall depict,

Stranger than feelings astray

Has from a colossal jumble of emotions

diminished to untainted love..

These words shall be yours,

Even after you disown me.

~ Akshaya Pillai