Scribblings

Tears rolled down the cheeks of the little boy. His mother had just beaten him up mercilessly. He cried desperately. The metal collars around his knees might have hurt him when he tried to walk. Along with that came beatings from the mother. His tears melted her. She hugged him and wiped his eyes. She was about to cry but held on. There is a kind of loneliness that poliomyelitis gifts its victims. A feeling of abandonment by the creator. As a child, he would easily surrender to that pain unless somebody took up the fight for him. His mother was a woman who wouldn’t give up so easily. She held his hands and helped him walk. Then she would release him to his path. But, the moment she released her hold he would fall. Everybody around was walking. Cows and dogs were walking. There was a river nearby which was flowing gently. Even sand on the river bank was moving in the wind. Other children were leaping into the water and playing. There was movement everywhere; a movement without pain. Tha

"Nothing in the net, birds are eating all small fishes."  A man was complaining to another man. "Birds are eating only small fishes. There are big fishes outside the water."   I wanted to tell him. 

  What was it that I added to the memory box yesterday? Something I don't want to forget... Something I want to take out after so many years, And remember and cherish. A precious pearl from the ocean's depths. What if I don't find it in the box when I open it after a long time? I may or may not. It doesn't matter. It is not my memory alone.                                                                           

On the long mud path to high mountains, An old man was painting on scrap. Grey hair and wrinkles, His sweat and bright blue paint dripped to the ground. There was only the sound of the wind And the strokes of an old wooden brush. Seeing my curious gaze  He said, "This is for when I come again."                                 

On the last page of that empty notebook,  only one word was written, "I".  Handbook of a man who called himself a poet. But below, there was a footnote. "If my words were my poetry... If my love was my poetry... If my silence could be my poetry..." I closed that book. He was not a poet,   He was the poem.