Not to Human Scale!

Can a mere blog-writer comment on one of the most momentous events of human history? An event that left a mammoth blot on a nation, smaller than a mole on the world map?
What must she have thought in those very last moments? That this is it? Or that she was gonna be ok? That she will fight those kafirs, those who broke the very tenets of the religion they profess to protect by aiming at a woman? Of her kids? Of her dead father? Of all the dreams she had for herself and her country? Of the vengeance she must have felt for her detractors? Or her isolation in a world full of manipulators? Or of the Heavens above?
Whodunit? Whocares? It’s not going to bring her back. The woman who was destined to die violently among faceless crowds, but on her soil, the soil that she kissed in gratification when she finally came home. Gutsy, spirited, brave, hardened, vociferous, feminine, regal, sophisticated, earthy, shrewd, lonely, homesick – a hundred words spring to mind.
Politician, leader, prime minister, campaigner, dreamer, manipulator, conspirator, woman, wife, daughter, mother – whatever she was, she is a persona who slowly descended into my consciousness through the million frames seen and words heard and read about her. So much so that when I saw her in person in New Delhi years back, all I could do was stare. So much so that the purported pic of her in a short skirt circulated in recent times offended me.

For the journo in me, she is a name often uttered, analysed and thought about. For the people-watcher in me, she was a suave woman of the world. For the human being in me, a skeletal shell that lost some parts of her flesh and life blood every time she lost a parent, a brother; when she lost precious years of her eventful life in an uneventful prison and the power that came to her as an inheritance of turmoil. And, now her life for a cause that seems like seeking Eden in a desert.

Benazir Bhutto was just one of her kind. Like Rajiv Gandhi, whose beautiful face was smashed into an unrecognizable void, they chose to hit her handsome face. So that, nothing of her remains. Not even the shell. How mean can they get!

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

..And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's

My Neverfoundland

Steam from chai mingling with fog. The result a damp swirl that dances before the eyes before floating away into the neem tree. Silence trudges to and fro on the deserted road, carrying the heavy load that the fog has put on its back. Gulp down the first chai so that another hot cup can keep the cord of the warmth from breaking down. Birds are numb, leaves motionless, sky lost somewhere. The chai fellow, simultaneously happy and irritated, with the merry chai drinker of the unearthly hour.

Just then a razor-sharp noise slashes through the white curtain. Wheels trundling on the gravel and even as the clatter cuts through the chill and the chai to reach the ears, something flashes before the eyes. Men, all wrapped up, with their profiles barely visible, huddled over bicycles, furiously pedaling. Bicycles laden with huge bunches of flowers. Roses, gladioli, gerberas, orchids, birds of paradise, anthuriums, angel spray, nestling in green leaves, tied up in ash-coloured fabric. Each cycle slices through the fog and vanishes as a second one replaces the frame. In the monotone of the fog, the splashes of colour coagulate mid-air and stay there as the black outlines of the dozen or so cyclists melt into the fog.

The chai freezes, the hand holding the cup stunned into an askew angle. And, silence shoos away the remnants of the wheel-talk. Was it for real? Or just a chemical explosion in the brain?

Early morning. January fog. Parliament Street, New Delhi. Flower-sellers on their way to Baba Kharak Singh Marg for the early-morning wholesale vending in the bay.

Delhi winters are made up of cameos like this. Trees that drip dew in Amrita Shergill Marg even when it is not raining. Hot Moong ka Halwa at Kaleva’s. Langar at Gurudwara Rikabganj. Rosy apples piled up at Central Secretariat. Planes descending like smoky mountains at the mouth of the runway on Jaipur highway. Chrysanthemums in Defence Colony market. Adrak Chai flavours mingling with the fragrance of mattri outside Metro station, Chandni Chowk. The occasional flash of feminine colour among the grey/black/blue/brown masses of sweaters that walk on ITO road. Women knitting away furiously everywhere – on buses, in offices, on India Gate lawns and in balconies. And steaming Aaloo paranthas in road-side bunks.

It is a winter that haunts and terrifies the spiritless. It kills the cowards. It chases the weak-hearted into their blankets. It tip-toes through sealed windows, from under doors and nibbles at the toes of those who hide. It burns scrunched up skin, rattles chattering teeth.

It is a winter that loves those who let go. Those who run through the leafy streets of delhi like hot blood coursing through veins.

‘Before the stars have left the skies,

At morning in the dark I rise’
I watch the sharp, crystal-clear air
turn into milky fog in a trice

I am indefatigable, I seek romance.
On deserted streets, I do a snowman dance
Chilly air, breaths verbose
I shoo away the stealthy sunrays

If winter be always
If fog never goes away
Over the wintry days and nights
when I hold merry sway

My life’s one-act drama
unfolds amidst curtains hushed
Alone, lost and content
Angst frozen and desires unleashed

Winter!!