और उसके बच्चे
माँ माँ कहते बिखर गए आकाश में

Two

A little of yellow
As it melted from the sun
And a few brush-sticks

She announced a dawn
To my still sleeping street

For thousand years now
I can imagine
Her sounds

Smudging me
In yellow streaks
Of wakefulness

Old women
With brush sticks
Never cross my street anymore

I resign
To nauseous machinery
Of rainless sleeps

I am not in a run

In between
When she asked for more
I looked out
And there they were

Thousand nights
With a single star

The writing was clear
On the wall

Black ants overtook the red

Drunk

Antagonizing is simple, at least in thoughts. As is listening before hearing.
Comrade,
when do we learn from the river
which flows
all the time

Less than a month

Its generally this time around a year when my stars shine. Alternatively, I assume them to shine. And its an assumption with years of conviction. Its the time when I approach Holi. Not the corollary. I approach Holi with such a premeditated redundancy that its almost like enacting a dejavu.
I see the sounds we smear ourselves with over those unbridled nights. Days are more like walking as shadows through a world which immediately seems so intimate and distant. Afternoons happen, evenings lean on it, I remember I wrote years back on such a day.

Its just not the imagery I indulge myself in that called me to write. In fact, I can escape myself for now by saying that this writing happened as a part of my approach. But apart from the euphoria, there's also something cathartic I create for myself around Holi.

I keep telling myself - its almost a re-incarnation. I believe that most of my problems reach solutions around this time. Even if I have a bad stomach ache which reminds me of malignant tumors or an imminent economic crisis, I deify Holi to erase any forebodings.

Not that all along the approach, I never get depressed. I do. But somewhere behind, I sense an unquestionable security. Its just a month away, I would say to keep myself happy.

And does this work? Are my fears allayed?

That would be the last thing I would bother about.
Comrade as we said then and now, they happen and I see them happening.

Mac Pro

I managed to buy a Mac Book Pro. And I am happy for myself. Next on my cards is the 16 X manual lens for Canon XL series. And still later it has to be some portable lights & sound accessories.
Meanwhile I also need to have some registered NLEs for Mac.

Reading

Reading has been restricted to the Sports page on Hindu for half a year now. The last book I read was somewhere in last July -(dont remember the time exactly) - It was the Sea of Poppies by Amitabh Ghosh.
I enjoyed reading it for the first time. But then I have this habit of immediately re-reading a thing I like. This book didnt allow me so.
The language with Amitabh Ghosh becomes too English. And though this book has a contextual relation to Britons, still I would have relished a different flavor. When I say - English - I do not intend to mean that the language is something like how writers from England would script - but rather as something of an Indian writer who overtly owes his allegiance to all that the word ENGLISH encompasses. Ghosh's affinity to the traditional English lingo (may be academic jargon terms it more Oxfordian) is apparent throughout the book despite using a much researched vocabulary on Indian colloquials on nautical terms.

Having said that - I recommend it a 'should read' for all. Especially for the story telling and for some fortunates like me who have quite recently come out of opium addiction.