Iraivi, the evil in good hearts

Around 8 or 9 years ago, in a cozy home in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, Vaidehi and I had a conversation about her applying for a teacher’s job in Kodaikanal, in the Sholai internation school. We spoke of her working there and me, either working as a teacher with her or just sitting and writing. I don’t recall how the conversation ended, but I think it ended with a laugh about how absurd an idea it was. At least perhaps in my head.

Why?

Because, like the director Arul says in Iraivi’s climax, “Aambalai. Nedil. AAN... pen”.

This is not a movie. It is a magic mirror that when held to the face of society, shows all the tiny disgusting warts and pustules that we’ve nurtured in the name of tradition. It doesn’t bother itself with the gross manifestations of sexism and thereby ending up male bashing, which is what happens in most movies, be they “women-centric” or otherwise. We have heroes and heroines who take up cudgels (and in the case of heroes, the cudgels are literal) against rape, trafficking, dowry harassment, female infanticide and so on.

But what about the unwarranted pain that is created in the lives of people who lead seemingly happy normal lives by this demon? What about the harm that good people with good intentions inflict upon each other just because they are expected to act out their gender, their role.

That is the first point that Iraivi scores. Every single man in the movie is a good man, who loves the woman in life and as the ironic and poignant closing remark of Arul goes, “want to be happy”. For the first time since K.Balachander (whose influence is clearly acknowledged even before the title shows up) made movies, someone has made a movie concerning sexism and female oppression showing how it affects men as well. Had Arul been a woman, he wouldn’t have lost his life in the attempt to get his movie released. Had Michael, portrayed subtly by Vijay Sethupathi, been a woman, he would have never tried getting back to his earlier lover or put his loyalty to his employer over his family. Had Jegan been a woman, he would have never tried to ruin another man in an attempt to “rescue” the woman he loved. Men’s lives revolve around themselves and women’s around their bonds. We raise them to think and act like this and Iraivi in a tragedy that mirrors the work of both K.B. and Balu Mahendra shows the disastrous results of such conditioning.

The highlight of the movie as everybody is aware of now is the revelation of S.J.Surya as an actor. Playing a role that K.B.’s Rajnikanth or Kamal would have killed for, he shines in a manner that almost obliterates all the trashy movies he himself has directed. There is a sense of deliberation in all his actions, which aptly contrasts his irrational outbursts.

But there is equal credit due to Bobby Simha as well, who portrays his brother, the apparent voice of women’s rights, who correctly recognizes and empathizes with the travails of the ladies but comes up with the wrong panacea. It is good to see both him and Vijay Sethupathi not get carried away with the “mass” image that is being created for them and turn out solid performances.

Speaking of the ladies themselves, it is interesting that in a “female-centric” movie, they are in the backdrop. Yazhini and Ponni both merely go about their lives, trying to make sense of the chaos that is wreaked upon them by their men. It is possibly the character of Meenakshi, Arul and Jegan’s mother, that actually highlights this aspect of women being tossed about in the maelstrom of male actions - she is bed ridden by and is attended to by her repentant husband, but it is all too late, as it is for the other women too.

That is the other thing that makes Iraivi stand out, very much like the K.B. movies of yore. The movie has a strong plot, wonderfully etched out characters and engaging visuals while still delivering the message it set out to deliver. The sub-plot of idols of female deities being smuggled reinforces the message in a subtle manner - the men give a noble mission to their actions, that of rescuing the deities from languishing in oblivion and raising them to the pedestal where they belong. Karthik Subbaraj, take a bow sir.

The movie excels in editing and dialogues.

*SPOILER ALERT*

We are not spared the violence of Michael’s brutal murders, but when it comes to Michael himself being murdered, we don’t see it.

*SPOILER ALERT END*

Malar’s lines when she talks to Michael’s uncle are reminiscent of Kaivtha, played by Sujatha meeting her lover’s mother in Aval Oru Thodarkathai. Did I tell you the movie is heavily inspired by K.B.? :-) The closing lines of the movie will forever be etched in the hearts of every educated man and woman who sees it. The irony of the “Aambalai” dialogue which has so often be used in movies in the past for men to inflict violence upon men...Wow! The camera is at ease whether capturing the idyllic beauty of Ponni’s home town (Thirunelveli?) or the claustrophobic alleys of Madras. The background score aptly compliments the movie, but the songs are not much to write home about.

Go watch Iraivi if you haven’t yet. It is a movie that every man and woman must watch to learn from, to realize how male privilege, patriarchy and sexism destroys lives of men and women alike. It is a movie that every man and woman must watch, as early ass they can so that they can go beyond their roles and gender and try to do what they all actually want - to perhaps eke out a simple life as teachers and poets in kodaikanal...

to be happy...

Rama! Rama!

Dawn's eyes tremble on the eastern horizon.
A few early birds stretch their wings and look skywards with expectation.

On the sea shore,
Hanuman towers in Jambavan's eyes,
one brimming with pride, the other with awe.
The monkeys all shout "Ram! Ram!" celebrating victory already.
And Sampati totters about joining them.

In a far off forest,
Lakshman carves a path through the bushes
searching for Sita
thinking of Rama.

Outside Ayodhya,
Baratha forgets his morning ablutions chanting "Ram! Ram!!"
In Ayodhya,
Kousalya's breasts heave in her sleep, "Ram! Ram!"

Across the ocean,
Vibhishana wakes up and looks into his palm "Ram! Ram!".
Ravana stirs in his sleep and sighs in a musical note that resonates with Rama.

Now,
Hanuman folds his palms and closes his eyes.
He intones "Ram! Ram! Ram!" as his right foot takes off the ground for the leap.

Below the great Asoka tree, Sita sits in penance.
The leaves in her garden prison gently rustle as Hanuman leaps.
Sita does not waver.
She breathes in and out "Ram! Ram! Ram!"

The name is taken up by the wind and carried to the sea.
All of creation reverberates with Ram!

The sun rises.

Ram opens his eyes and sighs ‘Sita’.

Another moon

I saw another moon she says.

I consider correcting her, telling her that this was the same moon we saw before the bike turned left and headed out of the layout into the clearing.

But then is there really only one moon? The same moon chasing the same sun in her sable chariot night after night in an endless hunt?

Is there not a moon that appears as a dosai and is eaten away really slowly by a distracted god kid?

Is there not a moon which is actually a coin that some kid tossed too high before starting a game of cricket?

Is there not a moon that rains down cool nectar making the thousand petalled lotus bloom in the poet's mind?

Is there not a moon that burns with the fire of a thousand suns even on a winter night because the shoulders of beloved do not meet?

Is there not a moon that drips exquisite poison maddening a nervous heart and filling it with fantastic terrors?

Is there not a moon conspicuous by its absences, telling us tales of what might have been, of a future that is now orphaned with neither a past nor a present?

Is there not a moon that glows with ethereal beauty, whispering all the secrets of the universe that nobody ever sees or hears because our timid little hearts are buried in insignificant troubles?

So yes, my daughter, you are right.

We saw anana moon and we always will.

Jackfruit preserve

How do you preserve a jackfruit?

Would you like a recipe?

It doesn't start with the jackfruit.
It starts with you.

Ready?

Note book open?

Pen on the mark?

Oil your hands. Halve the fruit. Cut along the radial lines. Scoop the fruit out. Deseed, chop, boil, stir.
Sugar, stir. Salt, stir. Lemon juice, stir.
Boil, stir. stir, stir, stir, stir.
Pot in a jar. Serve on toast.

How do you preserve a jackfruit?

How do you recall the sheen of the oil?
How do you remember the symmetry of the radial lines?
How do you store the delightful stench that hits you even before the knife pierces the fruit?
How do you embalm the tenacious hold of the tenuous fibers?
How do you pot the exultation of freeing every last imprisoned fruit?

How do you preserve a jackfruit?

How do you store the tree's penance? The wisdom of the roots? The lucidity of the leaves? The passion of the rain? The love of the soil? The empty buzzing of the bees? The summer sun that pierced the fruit open with sensuous fingers?

How do you preserve a jackfruit?

Would you like a recipe?

It doesn't start with the jackfruit.
It starts with you.

With you forgetting the recipe,

forgetting to preserve;

forgetting yourself.

How do you preserve a jackfruit?

It starts with you forgetting the jackfruit.

The vampire's call

Behold! Behold! A pallid moon!
Its limpid light hypnotic swoon.
Afar, afar, some wolf does croon.
Awake! Awake! My bloom of June!

Alive and dead I'm split in twain.
I rest in boon and roam a bane.
I sing, I pray to gods profane.
Come, come to my hunger's refrain.

You pale white flower of winter snow.
You fertile bed left fallow.
My sickle's stalk honeyed meadow,
Take, take this seed that I do bestow.

Your lilting breasts they swing and sway.
Your gauzy robes they spread and splay.
Your eager feet tiptoe ballet.
Hark, hark, my willing reluctant prey.

Behold my eyes of crimson fire!
They light the path to taboo desire!
Your pain, your pleasure they fain inspire!
Kneel, kneel, my slave I am your sire!

Now bare your soul, yes, bare your neck!
That soft and taut and white white neck!
No, don't be scared, t'is but a peck.
Yield, yield, my girl yield to my beck!

O! Writhe and moan as I drain your bloom.
I grunt and growl "Hoom hoom! Hoom hoom!"
Your dreams, your fears forsooth consume.
Feed, feed pristine and endless flume.

Alas! Alas! The deed is wrought!
Another soul to evil brought.
A sweet pure bud that spring begot,
You fade, you fade and come to naught.

Sweet, close your eyes let sleep befall.
Avast! Avast! All life's cabal.
'Twixt tomb and womb languish my thrall.
Die, die, star spark...

until I call.

Abduct my Seetha

Why do you need covert plans and sinister strategms? A golden deer, a mendicant's bowl and a plan to abduct? Do you think she is a bottle of perfume locked in a cupboard to be anointed only a limited number of times? Do you think she is a draught of nectar that can only quench a single thirst, a single time? Have you not heard? She is her father's daughter, a soul of the soil. She is her country's princess, the body-less one. She is a jasmine bloom that shall exude fragrance till she drops to her mother's lap. She is a bubbling cascade that throws up water unmindful of anybody's thirst. Come to our hermitage then. Not at the crack of the dawn, at high noon or at dusk For I shall be lost in penance and she shall be lost in my penance. Come just after the sandhya and partake of our fruit and drink. I shall then go to gather some firewood. Talk to her and know her soul. She loves strumming her vina but is still an amateur. She likes listening to stories, especially those of the magical northern lands. She doesn't like ambition, so do not talk of your battle and wealth. She doesn't like harming animals, so do not talk of your love for meat. If you must indeed abduct her, then do it with your words, your heart and your soul. The flight in your vimana will be all the more pleasant if you are not distracted by her struggling or in battling guardian birds. But bear this in mind. She is not yours, not mine. The bow was not broken to make her mine, but to gain her respect. So, come, sit, talk and gain her respect. Then carry her away if she comes. But before that O wise ten headed one teach me to sing Vasanta, for she craves that in the evenings.

Gods' death

I write a verse in bleeding red
The chaste god dies of lust
in the arms of the long nailed siren
trading principle for kisses,purity for pleasure.
Videha's princess is the forest queen
She toils in the day, dreams in the night
And at dusk strums the demon king's lyre.

I sing a song of soothing black.
The shepherd god never steps out of the sheep's pen.
He knows no battle, no stratagem, not a lie.
Herds in the morning, sings in the noon
and at dusk becomes hi beloved's footstool.
He ages, forgets and fades in oblivion.
He dies in sleep, a shepherd's son.

I sing a song of verdant green
The god of gods is but a grocer
His bounteous wife borrows to make ends meet
and loses sleep over her errant sons.
The elder is a glutton and the younger philanders.
Their home after all could be next to ours.

You, mortal, go ahead and
Worship
Build
Murder
in the name of your god.

I close my pen and put it away.
Endless gods die in its stillness.

தமிழில்

Ondhymandian, the spotted owl(et)

Ondhymandian had a big scowl
He looked unhappy and was afou(w)l
For he found it tough
To play blindman’s buff
As he was a tiny spotted owl

Note: Image sourced from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_Owlet,_Athene_brama_indica_-_Flickr_-_Lip_Kee.jpg

Winter spring

Winter afternoon
I awake suddenly
Spring's dance on tree tops

Unknowing

Why all this talk of searching, of teaching and knowing?
What matters where we come from or where we are going?
Why speak of solace, of enlightenment, of being whole?
What do we see inside and outside, of body and soul?
Does the mango tree speak of roots and shoots and many sweet fruits?
Does the spring koel speak of notes and beats and many sweet tunes?
Sing my heart, if music sings to you
Bring forth a fruit, if water you drink true.
But speak not of it, nor try to know
Seek not for it wherever you go

For,

Those who fruit, those who sing
They know not music not what they bring.

Descent into darkness

Darkness! Darkness that stretches out to infinity and eternity!

And then my eyes open to darkness of a lesser nature. Darkness of mere mortal night, of mere mortal death.

I know not what sleep, death or spell brought me here. I lay supine, my eyes open staring at a lightless emptiness, my body unwilling to stir. Sediments of stupor cling to my tattered raiment. My chest feels heavy, crushed as though some impassioned lover held me in her desire's embrace. It suddenly dawns on me that I am no longer breathing. I panic into a voiceless scream that is swallowed up by whatever succubus sits on my chest. Fear lends my body motion and I sit up in cold sweat.

I am still not breathing.

I rub my eyes and try to pierce through the darkness. With no light to ally, my eyes beat a hasty retreat to the cave of my soul. My sight broods there in silent defeat. I see vague memories of a summer sun, fair open meadows and love's sport.

My love! My love!

Where is she? My goddess with shimmering robes that could barely contain her budding charms. My verdant spring with hair of sunlight, eyes of lilies, breasts of bounty and fertile hips that welcomed the ploughshare. Joyful love seemed to me when in her keeping was my heart as she lay asleep in my arms. And now I am but alone.

I try to cry, to give voice to pain and loss. But nothing happens. It dawns on me that I can't cry because there is no pain, no loss in my heart. I am only aware of her non-presence. No feeling. Only vague mirages of memory.

Now the spring turns into an autumn night. I feel a fierce pain in my chest, as if it were rent by the tusk of a monstrous beast. I hear the gurgle of a river that I cannot see, the harsh voice of a sordid man with his eyes like the hollows furnaces on fire, a hungry monstrous worm...

Then all fades away. Like fresh rain washing away the muddy earth, I recall naught.

Then I see her. I see her eyes.

They shine like a lone evening star in the firmament of a moonless sky. From the light of her eyes mine get sight.

She stands by a window of frosted glass. Her majestic height is a striking counterpoint to the infinite langour of her poise. Her skin is the shade of an afternoon sun under an ancient tree. Her tresses are luxuriantly black rippling down in sable streams. She is robed in naught but this rayless cascade of night.

But she is not a vision of beauty that is. She is beauty that was. Her eyes shine with the light of a star that has been long dead. Her breasts are full with youth as the defy the downward pull of age, and yet the heave with sighs of unrequited desires. Her lips are luscious red flower petals, but even without kissing them I know they are cold to touch and yield no sweet nectar.

And then I see her hand.

Curled like the tremulous tendril of a creeper that holds a flower of beauty too flame-like her hand bears a pomegranate. A ripe red fruit whose every seed bears the immense allure of sadness.

I lick my lips as an immense hunger comes over me. It seems as though I have never eaten, not since I was born, not since the universe was born. Hunger now pushes me forward as I move on my knees to her.

She looks at me with infinite pity in her eyes...and yet...and yet...there is a hint of malice in them. That spark of malice travels down her supple shoulders to her lissome fingers. Her cruel nails cut the fruit open in tantalizing agony. The fruit bleeds crimson juice.

Then it dawns on me.

I breath no more...

Fierce pain...

The monstrous beast and its hunt...

And finally, the alabaster tusk ripping through like a pomegranate cut with an ivory knife...

I have no heart, I have no life. Cold is my body and wan are my thoughts. She holds my heart, my living heart, this goddess. Her cruel finger pries it open even as it nestles in her loving palm. I look on ashamed as her baleful eyes gaze into my open heart. She sees it all.

And then she turns my gaze on me. I tremble in fear for I know what is coming. But there is still hope.

For one moment she looks at me with great kindness. Her eyes cool to a moonlike pity as though she would spare me. But as her slender arm stretches out, I know it is not the pity of the tormentor that spares the victim, but pity of one victim that knows what another endures and yet inflicts it without mercy.

Her arm droops like a dying flower, the fruit hanging like a laden cloud above me from the very skies.

"I bid you eat this burning heart..." her icy command resonates off the darkness that engulfs us.

I know all that comes now. If I but refuse, I may go back to light, to spring and the summer sun. Even now, despite the aeons and leagues that separate us I see my goddess of light, her breasts leaning forward to my lips calling out to me, warning me not to taste what is offered. Fro one bite, one taste of the tiniest seed of darkness from this heart fruit would bind me to this sable goddess forever. The world shall still walk over the cool grass and drink of the living stream, but I shall remain here in eternal repose, buried deep in the cold loins of this queen who carries only memories of innocence.

A moment passes that is longer than the eternity of any god.

And then I stumble forward sinking my teeth into my own burning heart. She draws me close as I feed. I look up into her eyes and see that I am now suckling on her soft breasts. I am on her lap, her hands on my head guiding me into those ripened fruits that spew sweet bile, tears and blood into my hungry lips. Her hand ruffles my hair and her eyes shine with the pity of the Virgin Mother.

And then she cries. She doesn't shed tears for she becomes tears. She is now a river that washes over me cleaning the dregs of memory that remained. The furious screams of my spring goddess who has been cheated of her love, her prize are on longer heard. Life itself which just a while ago seemed like a nebulous dream is now erased without as much a trace of its existence.

All goes silent now as I clutch and drink of her breasts. Rest, repose and peace. Nothing stirs.

Nothing except for the faint echo of my queen's voice that is at once hateful, sad and triumphant.

"My prince... my prince..."

Krithigai worship

Of what use is it to light lamps at your home and worship?
Look at expanse!

The sky is littered with starry lamps.
In the center the moon is the beacon lamp.

Opening my eyes and drinking the light
I placed the flame in my forehead.

My beginning and end unknown
I too am a Siva.
My form too is a mountain of fire.

Go around me you poor world
My word shall grant you salvation.

Crimson Peak, macabre and malevolent

Too often do we associate evil with mere darkness and death. We fancy evil to thrive in darkness and associate it with death which is inherently stagnant. However, evil does not thrive in darkness nor does it desire death. Instead, like life itself, evil feeds on light and has a life of its own. But unlike life which reflects light in a million different ways, evil consumes it whole. And evil that lives has a hold more pertinacious on life than light will ever have. What light strives to set free, evil jealously desires to hoard.

Evil, light and life. Lucille Sharpe, Edith Cushing and Sir Thomas Sharpe. This is the unholy trinity that forms the revelation that Crimson Peak is.

We start with the little Miss Edith being warned by her mother's ghost (a ghost like only del Toro can produce) about the Crimson Peak. Years pass, the rose bud has bloomed. Young Edith is an aspiring writer who does not write ghost stories but stories with ghosts in them (Oh, how I would love to read such a story!). She is brushed aside as just a pretty little face when Sir Thomas Sharpe enters her life seeking from her father a loan for his ingenious clay mining machine. He is handsome, charming and most importantly understands and appreciates her writing. While the subtle courtship is underway, Mr. Cushing discovers dark secrets about the Lucille family. Despite his attempts to protect his child, he himself is murdered and Edith becomes Lady Sharpe. And during all of this, Lucille, Thomas' sister stays lurking in the background, merely playing the organ while her brother and the unwilling debutante waltz around the dance floor.

The story then moves to Allerdale Hall, a house that is putrefying in almost the exact way a corpse would. And it is here that Lucille, much like a certain Transylvanian Count, when her feet are on her own soil; clayey soil that when touched with the snow becomes crimson as Sir Thomas explains later (a little too late for Edith perhaps) comes to her own. From hereon, there are just two characters in the story conducting their own opera of the macabre - Lucille and the Allerdale Hall itself. What is the final act, the denouement of this opera? You will obviously find that out watching the movie, but it barely matters.

Because the plot, the dialogues, the ending are all trivial embellishments to a movie that is almost a pagan worship ritual for the Gothic. It is like watching the visions that inspired, or perhaps haunted the likes of Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Poe or Emily Bronte come alive on screen. There is perhaps only one simile that can be used to describe this movie - it is like a pomegranate cut with a knife of ivory (Elle est comme une pomme de grenade coupée par un couteau d’ivoire. - Salome, Oscar Wilde). Morbid, macabre and alluring.

I was rather disappointed with del Toro's Pacific Rim. It seemed like another director with vision had fallen prey to mundane box office revenues. But thankfully unlike Burton, del Toro seems to have survived. His ghosts are very much the fantastic and grotesque monsters of Pan's Labyrinth. But where he truly excels in creating the atmosphere. The roads are muddy, the decadent clothes all seem like they are out of the Masque of Red Death, the snow droops like dead flowers rather than falling and even daylight seems dreary and shorn of life.

And the house! My, what a house. While it might not be as horrifying a presence as say the castle Dracula (the one infested by Bela Lugosi, not Gary Oldman) or the Overlook hotel, it is definitely a presence more alive. The stairs do not creak, they groan with mortal agony. The walls do not crumble, they rot like human flesh revealing skeletons of the past. The boards on the floor do not squelch with mud, they bleed crimson. It is a living, breathing maze of death and like Edith, we too are trapped inside it. The house towers over the movie with a stature (pardon the pun) that no actor dare challenge.

And yet, Jessica Chastain does just that and I daresay almost wins. It is always too easy to get carried away when you have a character as steeped in evil as that of Lucille Sharpe. A lesser actor would have resorted to exaggerated histrionics and affected mannerisms that would have definitely reduced Lucille to a caricature. But Jessica breathes the character into life with her subtle performance. The scene where she "takes care" of a wan Edith promising to "get her out of this bed soon" will send shivers down your spine.

Tom Hiddleston and Mia Wasikowska play their parts well. Hiddleston is required to give a more nuanced performance as the enterprising brother who is torn between the two women and does so brilliantly. The confidence of his character with Edith and diffidence with Lucille are brought out perfectly. Mia plays yet another nubile damsel in distress in a Gothic horror romance. Thankfully, this time she is in a delectably dark Cumberland and not in a badly imagined Wonderland. (Mr. Burton, sir I hope you are taking notes!)

The climax of the movie was a bit of a letdown. Personally, I would have preferred a tragedy for the climax. (SPOLIER ALERT: Why not have the Allerdale Hall buried under the very clay that is the lifeblood of the house with everybody in it instead of the "happy ending as only celluloid can deliver"?) But I guess one cannot afford to get one's hopes too high as a pessimist with movies these days. :-)

To sum up, you remember the first time you read Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights or The picture of Dorian Gray as an impassioned youth? You remember all those dark desires that these works stirred in you, desires beyond love, lust, romance or even evil? Crimson Peak breathes life to all those malevolent thoughts and ends up consuming you much like how evil does.

I, for one, however could have done with a couple more bodies. ;-)

Cold zen

Riding paths of thoughts
I suddenly realize
Chilly winter night.

----

Deaf to silent night
Mind and I on different paths
A chill! We are one!

----

Empty roads and thoughts
Prickly kisses on my skin
Aha! T'is winter!

The season of lust

Hark! Ye laden clouds!
Shroud the heavens! Tarry not!
Monsoon impassions gods. 

Bhairavi

Sinuous serpent
Sways so soft, strikes swift
Behold! Bhairavi

Eternal hunger

This morning I woke up feeling a little despondent, dregs from the previous night's depression. An idle wasted day was followed by a night of dark brooding rains. I had gone to bed with anguish and anxiety as bed partners. Not the most pleasant menage-a-trois. The night's sleep had washed away most of the darkness and dawn was sucking away the last drops of depresion along with the dew drops.

However, I still felt small and helpless. I saw the morning was glorious, but I could not share the glory. As I sat down head bent over some old tome, she came to me. Or rather, her பொட்டு (bindi) came to me. Apparently, I had not gained enough intimacy to talk to her directly yet. So I talked to the dot.

Dot (spreading a warm glow across my face): Why are you unhappy my child?

Me: What else can I be? For am I not a failure? Am I not a lost cause?

Dot (amused):  Failure? Ah yes, that is something you people talk of. Why do you think so?

Me (with a tragically grand sweeping gesture) : Look around. Listen to the sound of the measly crow, the buzz of the annoying mosquito. Look at the muddy slush that is drinking up the sun, the filthy flea that sits on even filthier shit. Look at the lowliest creatures that she has made. Even they produce music, even they shine in beauty; music and beauty that I dare not even aspire to. Here I am, a man with dreams of being a poet and I barely even write.

Dot (laughing): Is that all? Silly fool. You think there are lowly creatures and lordly creatures. You think there is music, beauty in some and not in some others.

Me (puzzled): Isn't that how it is? There is good and there is bad and I must aspire and work hard to reach the good.

Dot: Tell me, what does fire eat?

Me: What?

Dot (repeating patiently): What does fire eat?

Me: I don't know...wood, fuel, ghee, paper...

Dot: And...what else burns in fire?

Me: Well, almost everything.

Dot: Everything. The fire is her mouth, one of her mouths. And it eats everything. The purpose of everything is to offer everything in sacrifice. If her mouth does not differentiate between the mosquitoes' buzz and the koel's call, the jasmine's perfume and the stench of dung why do you? She is ravenous. She cannot wait for food to be cooked, to be perfect in aroma, in taste and texture. She devours them all - cooked and uncooked, ripe and raw. Just feed her for she is eternally hungry. Do not keep her waiting.

Me: Silence.

And so...this was written.

Drizzle

Drizzle after torrent
You hug me after and place
kisses on forehead

தமிழில் - http://kaalaikkathir.blogspot.in/2015/02/blog-post.html

The sound of stillness

Parrots chatter
Doves coo
Dragonflies whir
Bees buzz
Leaves rustle
Breeze murmurs
It takes all these sounds
to make the summer afternoon still.

Dance

On the head of Nataraja
who dances on the head of muyalaka
dances scared a rat

- Written on observing a frightened mice trying to escape our girl Lulu by jumping on Nataraja's head.