what appeared like a day labourer sitting at the window of a cargo van kept looking at me and then said something to his two colleagues without completely removing his eyes from me. there was an odd smile on his face and this same disconcerting smile was replicated on the faces of his mates after he had passed his comment. they all looked at me, and then drove off. i was leaning on the kerb railing smoking a cigarette and drinking a cola. i dont know if its relevant but i was wearing a black t shirt and dark denim pants. and although it really didnt go with the attire, brown shoes. i was wondering what it could be; but then they went away and i finished my smoke and the drink and left too. turning into p street where office is i saw a few kids, toddlers by standard reckoning but being of the streets they are old beyond their years for sure. here in bengal they go to tarapith with this cane strip on either end of which hang urns filled with water. bhole baba paar karega. i always wonder whether the practice is peculiar to the coast because the chant is from the cow belt. be that as it may, the children, two of them had this bamboo strip on their shoulders and on either end they had hung marigold bunches and with their mates in tow unmindful of the heat or of the sun they were chanting bhole baba... but not too loudly. i was distracted by them hurrying as i was on to work. i too am a child inside only that ive forgotten, but that is not relevant.

while coming here i was thinking how i struggle with words.things make sense only vaguely and i want to paint these vague impressions into a dictionary, they must mean something, appear lively and articulate, like a belly dancer, or a motorcycle, or a travelling salesman pleading his wares; to myself at least if to nobody else. and on a different note, to add to it, im going deaf i think. i cant seem to follow without things being repeated for my edification. and people are kindness, and im sometimes the shylock of charity. these contradictions are not really so. they are like tracks at a junction. they overlap with the car moving. so i chug along too as if pulled by this great force that draws me effortlessly. i am far away from the machine, but it has a gravitational field i cannot escape. i think it roars and growls and crashes and hammers, but as it turns out, she mumbles.

post modern quixote is what i think he said his name was. hmmmmm. he had a gold tooth and told me how he had almost been mugged once for it. therefore he said he no longer trusts strangers. i didn't think he had a great smile. but he offered me a cigarette or did he ask me for one. we got to talking and he said he felt all people were errant knights lunatic charging at him with their hmmmm. spears? okay i don't know either what that means was what i said when asked by him what those spears are actually called. i too feel they aren't called spears. oh lances maybe i remembered and he agreed instantly that yeah its lances is what they are. a silence followed and he broke it saying we'll meet and packed his bags to leave. he was suddenly restless i perceived. he had a bag well worn from use. he took it on his back and produced from his pocket keys. he had a bike. much like the bag. he turned the corner and entered his fairy tale.

i thought drunk
a man with a limp
how faaked in the head am i
i saw her eyes swollen
with love for me
now i suspect its a sty
rainbow there will be as there is must
across the impassive limpid sky
inside i see it in my mind
oh how god is kind
how nature is graceful
like a goat ruminating chewing

the antipodes of coming and going were seen by charles darwin from aboard hms beagle when far from the galapagos calculus of evolution and incarnation he was turning a placid sea down under.
i take it to mean some come and some go and there are the antipodes because when you are not here then you could be wherever the faak who knows.upside down or inside out.
but really i have no clue what goes on at farewells and unions.all i know sweeting is journeys end in lovers' meeting.
on this subject the fictitious bhagat singh walking to the gallows says a very poignant line and i quote
yeh unth kahan hai mr.mckinley...
yeah i could do with that.cause where the earth seems to be spooned out by the ocean there is land.
there will be time then to put powder on your face
and twirl your skirts and press your curls
and spend hours choosing the linen and the lace
there the time stops at spring and, makes boys like girls

Nocturnal inanities no.1

at a quarter to 1 at night if the phone's ringing and the tring echoes sinister through the corridor and rattles the small square boxes then dont panic.just answer it.maybe the newsdesks wondering if redressal is a word.

the millenium man can plainly say there will be blood,and the bombs that burst over his head will light up the dark grey sky overhead like kohl lights up in the morning the eyes of a girl that has stayed up all night.the anti-hero comes over the horizon in a helicopter whose blades seem like an ogre waving a sword over his head.the exchange is brief and the destruction lasting,the explosion hangs in the air with the smell of powder and the dust of the rubble like the moist smell of leaves in a rainforest.in that rainforest lives a girl that had once loved our hero but that was in the past.when the anti-christ drops down there are vultures in the sky and they swoop at the carcass with a raucous hunger and ravage the body of the evildoer with an ungodly relish.the girl looks up and sees the brown smoke rising in the distance like a snake along a wall.it gives her the creeps and she feels uncomfortable.her eyes are capable of mirroring the most breathtaking sadness but there is no one to look into them.and there is no one to watch our villain die and there is no one to watch the vultures at their meal and theres no one absolutely anywhere close by whom you could ask for directions or for water.the battle fought, a death mourned and the day drawn to its close all seem to rush straight into this tiny opening in the girls eye and disappear.as if nothing happened, no one died and no day finished and no vultures fed but only a small spec appeared on her lips or under her eyes and she wiped it off.

what will chairs on wheels do.move away.that happens a lot.you rise from one and come back from peeing to sit on another one.the elves have either removed it or have raised the elevation.there are benevolent and impish forces at work.

the engine room of my office is deafening at night.it roars with all the news that the machines are rolling with night after night throughout the night.i stifle a yawn and escape to my soundproof conservatory of paper and print.the machine bellows now with almost the agony and the excitement of all the stories it is going to throw at an unsuspecting public tomorrow.all the scandal and the denials.but on my floor it is just a drone as all the sounds of the night are.drones.a buzz that comes like a wave to the shore and recedes pulling away sand from under the feet.