from my terrace on a saturday night
As the saturday sun sank behind the dark blue line of the horizon, as the stars opened their single eyes to the dull world below, as the grey clouds became greyer still and as the night lamps started burning the remaining oil, I walked up to the skies... alone. A pleasent breeze laden with the smells of a thousand cooking oils kindled the digestive juices inside, which were frozen dry for all day long. I walked the length of the building casually looking at the evenly strewn apartment houses. Five floors in all and a million windows. Dark pigeon holes through which an innumerable variety of things join the evening breeze, some carried further and further. Pollenation, pollution.
Tangled mess of someone's oiled long hair - brown, grey, black, yellow, blue, pink polythene covers. An odd spit or two, a flash of fluorescent light glinting on a dirty mirror, fluttering shirts, pants, towels, innerwear. So varied that you almost get everything on them, the dry clothes. Little mountains, giant flowers, pink tigers, chubby blue bears, dark holes and yellow stains. A light went on on a distant window. A young couple getting ready excitedly. A scooter stuttered down below. A bald head, another full of jasmine flowers. Green movie tickets dancing the hands of a boy standing in the front portion of the scooter.
And I moved further along the building, gazing at the sprawling city of Hyderabad. Tall, thin chimneys and fat, squat pylons trying to stitch the fabric of blue space above to the brown-green skin below. A brilliant vein of the NH9 crept slowly bulging with light from the night traffic like some giant transparent hollow boa that had gulped all the light from the city behind. My cellphone rings. A friend of mine. I din't take it, let the harsh ringtone eat into my palms. And the vibrations stopped as suddenly as they started. Everything seemed more silent. A woman in her brown night overalls peeped out of her balcony. I felt the call was more for her than for me. She popped her head up at me. I stood still. I was watching her. She kept her gaze on me for a while, adjusted her dress near her neck and went inside with a huge arc of her broad hip. My eyes scanned the balcony door for nothing. But they were on it. Yellow haze spewed out the door, sound of a running tap, the pale white flicker from the next window.
I moved away. The mosquitoes following me dutifully. The west bound train track lay over there somewhere, invisible. I started humming an old telugu flick gradually moving into its tamil version at the next stanza. By now, all the colours had merged into one, but a myriad shades of that one colour. Clouds turned a surprising pink. Had been walking all this while, legs started aching, still I sang.
"Are emiti lokam, palugaakula lokam
mamatannadi votti pichchi
masannadi maro pichchi..."
and someone played yonder,
"kaavadi koyyenoi
kundalu mannenoi
kanugontae satyamintaenoyi
e vintaenoyi..."
a meaningless meander -- a wonderful description,really.( ..i cud understand it.. he he)
btw "........My cellphone rings. A friend of mine. I din't take it, let the harsh ringtone eat into my palms......" --- reason behind ur yawns, eh?