Three crows to caw.
Sometimes, that sweet singing of a koel is not sweet but annoying. So much so that I want three crows to caw right in her face.
Not the koel’s fault perhaps. I am here living in a city and dreaming of waking up in a village. I am here and yet not here.
[Originally written on 17 June, 2019 in the morning in Pune, India]
I know it won’t.
Riding in the monsoon, I dream of the bike slipping and sliding and I with it—
Fucked-up bones, lacerated face, blood, flesh, pain, and all that jazz.
I know it won’t.
[Originally written on 11 July, 2019 past noon in Pune, India]
Certain overheard grievances.
I know a lot of dogs who would strongly disagree with making roads and pavements in every nook and corner with concrete, tiles, and asphalt, leaving hardly any patch of earth visible, only the disgusting sight of concrete, tiles, asphalt, concrete, tiles, and asphalt.
They’d much rather rest or sleep on pure, rich soil of this planet — unfortunately no one pays them any attention.
[Originally written on 21 August, 2019 past midnight in Pune, India]
Folding a shirt on a windy day.
As I was trying to fold clothes, against gusts of wind blowing through the window, struggling to lay the shirt flat on the bed, I thought:
It’s wonderful to have this struggle, it’s all here only on earth, thus far: the gusts of wind, this shirt struggle, a sunny day in India.
And so here I am, on this side, struggling to fold a shirt dancing in the wind, while there is an airless vacuum of space on the other side, where I could fold it in a snap. For the ghostly creature giving trouble to shirts lives around my house, not on the other side.
[Originally written on 15 December, 2019 in the afternoon in Pune, India]
A paradox in my chest.
There are days when I can hear my heart clear as crickets past midnight when I place my hand over it. And days when there is no sound.
[Originally written on 15 November, 2021 at 5 am in Vashisht, Himachal Pradesh, India]
About a black bird at noon.
A black bird flies parallel to the still waters of the river Tapi, its shadow swims in the river in a perfect jugalbandhi.
[Originally written on 8 December, 2020 at noon in Surat, India]
A pandemic memory.
In a so-called pandemic of the unvaccinated where even the vaccinated get the disease and spread it, I am cool with being the Other for not getting vaccinated, which was due to a well-functioning brain reading stuff from non-legacy media and and reaching the conclusion that I have natural immunity from catching the virus back in July of 2020, when there was no vaccine, no proper information on early treatment, and I was maybe dying, so that the idiots who cancelled and tried hard to ruin lives of those who refused the vax would have perhaps had one man less to cancel had I died, I got the virus in those days when we were forced to sit inside our houses and wear The Mask made of tablecloth, but only when outside, inside the house was fine without it because the air outside and inside the house is different, right? 😂
And while the vaccine booster shots sound cool, I simply do not have the money to buy yet another subscription.
[Originally written on 23 November, 2021 near midnight in Vashisht, Himachal Pradesh, India]
A SpaceX memory from 2020.
I have seen this countless times and I am still almost as amazed as seeing it the first time.
Who knew we’d see a booster rocket in the sky, breathing fire in its tail, and as it falls down, the rocket is on its own but not to crash and burn in the ocean. It has learned how to steady itself, it knows how to spit out a ball of fire to apply breaks, and it lands back on earth straight like a pine tree, facing the sky — as if it never left.
Who knew we’d see a rocket fired to the edge of the earth returning to us with only trivial scratches. Even synchronised returns of two at once.
It used to fall down. Now it does a reentry. A return to the starting point, a return to home.
[Originally written on 31 August, 2020 near midnight in Pune, India]
Silence of the wind.
One of the most noticeable absences in Surat ever since I came down from the Himalaya?
The wind. It’s gone missing. What’s already absent by form (cannot be seen) is rendered more absent here (cannot be felt).
Arrested by the winding buildings of the city, it barely meets the ground. So it appears quiet outside — there are no secret streams of air trying to take me here and there.
I notice this more than anyone else for I have become an expert on optimal weather. Windy atmosphere makes life pleasant and inspires creativity. Its spectral presence is something to marvel at. If you can set aside how something works, if you can sometimes leave intelligence to rest, you can easily marvel at things. If you know how to see, a gust of wind is a fine act of magic.