TO DROWN THE REMINISCENCES OF YOUR WOODEN VOICE AND SWOLLEN FACE

From the pen APN

I thought and thought but could not get a conclusion on how I will express my feelings to you. I thought I will write a poem. Then I thought writing a story would be better........I was in a fix.  I silenced my mind. And my mind constructed your smiling gracious figure that flashed upon the mental eyes. Soon my heart started responding to that magical figure. Waves of love and strong feelings rose in my heart. And I enjoyed the joy of being washed away by the unknown waves of love........

In deep longing I phoned you. I wished to forget my existence in the melody of your sweet voice but you answered me most crudely. You spoke with checks and balances. And you killed the poet in me and you killed the writer in me........

Suddenly, the waves of love subsided and the songs of my tender thoughts receded. But I knew that they would appear once again with more maturity and beauty when the moon would shine and a lovely heart would come behind closed doors to hold my hands with closed eyes and inviting lips.

This time the waves would be bigger and the thoughts deeper to drown the reminiscences of your wooden voice and swollen face.     

An Old Bike

From the pen APN

Berhampur otherwise known as the silk city is now assuming a new shape which is dominated by concrete flyovers and the roads that are divided by iron railings implanted into cemented base. The roads, flyovers and such ancillary structures are constructed to accommodate the speed of the burgeoning town. It is indicative of the restless run of the modern man in a commercialized town.......

While driving a car through the roads I remembered my olden days when I used to ride a 1978 model Yezdi Roadking on the undivided roads in the late nights. The absence of traffic and my solitary journey on the roads at those nights still lingers in my mind. I was a student at that time......

In these 14 years many things have changed. The roads are no more as they used to be. Now riding an old modeled bike in the silence of night won’t fetch the same charm because things have changed a lot. Push-start bikes with four-stroke energy efficient engines, disk-brakes and ergonomic designs have changed the taste of people. Riding an antique bike with its high thumping sound is a lost sight. It causes now many onlookers to raise their eyebrows in surprise and confusion because the Gen-Next hardly knows the brand. Although Royal Enfield bikes continue a tradition in the same line, they come with a lot of improvisations and advancement. So, strictly speaking, the brand Yezdi is a dying cadre. However, it has enough strength and resilience to defy time. To bring the memories back I remodeled my old bike. It was a herculean task to arrange the spare parts of an obsolete bike.
Now the bike looks new and I have grown old but still my heart dances when I see the old friend standing before me in unparalleled beauty.

I told my wife to sit at the back so that we would go on a round together. But she turned her face and walked into the house. I could hear that she was muttering angrily, “I do not know in whose memory you renovated the ramshackle bike paying so exorbitantly.” She walked away peevishly. I could not stop my smile at her fury because her fury and her turning back were directed at some imaginary girl friend which I might have in my past.

Only I and my bike knew whether my wife was correct in her assumptions or not........

A mother goat’s last prayer

From the pen APN

“Now the sky is unclear. The air is dusty. The water is tasteless and the soil is barren. And this is so because man who walks upon earth is now hollow like scare crow.” said the mother goat to the kids. The kids could not understand what the word ‘HOLLOW’ really meant. Whether man is SELFISH or UNPRINCIPLED-The kids could not make out anything.

On the contrary, the kids were very happy with man because every day he would feed them on soft leaves of cabbage and fresh long green grass. Every day he would put the little goats on the weighing machine and then he would leave them again on the ground. The little goats would jump and play with gay abandon. They would bleat and then they would go near little plants to nibble young soft shoots. Man was more than a friend to them.  

One day, after weighing the goats, the man spotted the healthiest one and took that one with him. In the afternoon when the man returned, he was no more accompanied by the goat. But a blood soaked goat skin was visible in one hand and big bundles of green shoots were seen in the other hand. The man dumped those leafy shoots on the ground and the little goats happily started devouring the leaves.  

The mother goat knew that she and her family are meant for the hungry jaws of men. They are reared and raised so that they can be killed. Her eyes became teary but she knew that she had no stand before the mighty man who knows how to kill like a machine and who knows how to rob the nature of her resources and beauty.

One of the kids asked the doe (mother goat), “Why do you say that man is hollow?” The mother goat looked into the innocent eyes of her kid and told, “The man of this age carries in him the unfathomable emptiness of greed and selfishness. He is empty and hollow inside.”

The kid was confused and a little bit panicked at the appalling state of man. The kid asked anxiously, “Why has man become so empty inside?”

The mother goat explained to the little one that man has forgotten to live in harmony with Nature. Because of his greed the man is empty and the joy of his life is missing. She said, “Man cuts millions of trees, runs millions of industries, digs mines, pollutes water, kills many animals and sucks all the resources of nature, yet he is not happy. It is because his emptiness and greed grow every day.”

Blinking his eyes the kid asked, “Mother, what is Greed?”

The mother goat replied, “Greed may feed the senses but eats away the soul. Life on earth is a celebration of joy through sharing and caring but greed dries up the springs of life. ”

The sun was about to set in the west horizon. The sky was splattered in red with the last rays of the sinking sun. The goat skin, red in blood, was hanging on the walls of the man’s house. The mother goat was deeply hurt and shut her eyes in anguish. She was tearfully praying to God for her turn when she will also be thrown into the unquenchable flare of man’s greed. But she had a last wish that she should be taken to the abattoir before any of her kids.