Thursday, January 15, 2009

Time

My hands—brothers in arms—keep adding bogeys to this toy train called continuum. The hands are three: the long and short, and the frenzied. Together, they keep ticking. They keep everything running.

When early resplendence slides in through doors ajar, I am there to witness musty corners shrug off their wimpy edginess and mingle with the smooth whole. The world as a brave whole…aah…where does it begin?

When the silence of after-lunch siestas eats the day’s vigor, and activity gives in to abeyance, I stand moved. I continue my merry-go-round. Lending substance to naps and dreams that appear and vanish like meteors. When lurky servants pinch off sleazy magazines from under mattresses and spill themselves on Persian carpets, I am there. When they remember the spots of spillage and smile at having stained a rich master’s possession, I am there too.

When shadows make two of each, I am there. When old memories return with long shadows on deserted walks, I walk too. When aggrieved patriarchs rant endlessly in after-dinner outbursts, I do not pause to stop them. When the socially respected take off their contraptions and defenses for others like them before retiring, I bear testimony.

When my hands meet—seduced by coterie—I egg them on. And they start all over again. And they make you start all over again.

Mine is just a job. I don’t know why you do it.

2 comments:

shantanu said...

Excellent !! Very well written.

Loved the last line - it brings up something which we often forget to question.

Sucharita said...

this is even more beautiful when i read it the second time, so i thought i would leave a comment this time....u definitely are bettering at prose.

but, cant you write something happy, does every thing have to be sad...is everything around actually so sad, or lonely? i am dying to read something you have written that leaves me in splits...i likes the paris hilton u published long back...

or does it always have to be sad and lonely to be beautiful? and they say doctors are harbingers of gloomy and morose thoughts...