In the land of rain
Monsoons in the North-Eastern part of India can be extremely cumbersome with nothing but endless stretches of rainy days and nights for months and months. Moist, mouldy rooms and the ubiquitous smell of half wet clothes, are what greets you in every household in the hills during monsoons. Imagine, having to live under incessant showers of rain for most part of the year? We did. We laughed and we lived and we played under outspread umbrellas and duck-back raincoats and heavy black gumboots. Were we happy? I think we were partly oblivious to the future and partly vague about our short pasts, but then we lived in the present. The present was all that mattered to us, and what a glorious present it was! Yes we were happy! We were the happiest that anybody could be.

What do you want to become when you grow up?
We were oblivious to the future in the sense that we did not care much about tomorrow as we did about today, except for the fact that it was compulsory for all of us to know what we wanted to become when we grew up. Thus like parrots we would recite and re-recite words ingrained into our delicate brains after having the vividest of ideas of what we wanted to become when we grew up. Doctor, Lawyer, Police, Businessman, Princess, Teacher, Singer, Actor were scores of ambitions presented by eager piping voices.

It’s Friday the 13th today, again. This occurrence is observed to have cropped up thrice a year at the most. Am I convinced by the overall pall that is cast over by Friday the 13th? The answer is a simple no. First of all, my favourite day of the week is a Friday. Good things happen to me generally on Fridays. I am usually happy, energetic and positive on Fridays, like I am today. Friday dinners are special, elaborate and meticulously laid out, because my family and I see it as the beginning of a quiet weekend of repose and rejuvenation. On Fridays we watch films together, drink some nice wine and stay up as late as we possibly can! Friday is the best thing that can happen to my nine year old son Noah because he can favourably exercise his reward for a late night without having one of the parent hover at the door, monotonously droning about turning off the computer and getting ready for bed. So you see, Friday is the day that heralds the end of our hurry-some and tiresome week. However religion based proclamations hold an entirely different perspective.

Tumultuous smoke from the funeral pyre rose upwards, blending with grey smog that already hung over the groaning city of Kathmandu. A sharp bitter smell assailed Hari’s nostrils almost choking him, but he gulped it down like water, and his eyes stung from smoke. Only yesterday Geeta had been there with him, bright and jovial when she was at her best, foul-tempered and bickering when she was at her worst but, she had been there and her presence in his life had made a conspicuous difference.

Lewis Caroll once said, “the things most people wan t to know about are usually none of their business.” I find this quote increasingly substantial as far as its nature is concerned. It is  true indeed  that we are all interested in other people’s matters when our own matters need utmost care.

I wrote this for Roy Durham’s Blog chain  for A Poe a tree blog event. This poem can be interpreted in ways such as one seeking to break out from a dystopian world, through the perspective of a reprobate. It is a dark poem like most of my poems where darkness yet is not all about despondency, it is not all about defeat and being diminished. There is certainly an element of “the end” there, but it is characterized by intrigue, by mystery, by a promise of things beyond this world and on the periphery of another.

The Ride to Oblivion

It was not like I didn’t panic. I did. Anyone would. Once I came around my senses, I realized that I was being thrown wildly about in the back of a speeding vehicle which appeared quite roomy but I couldn’t really see the details of the vehicle. My pupils were perhaps dilated enormously and the results they gave, was something like looking through a foggy window. My hands were tied but luckily my mouth wasn’t taped. The heart within did a sudden flip and then it started knocking against my ribs with such great force that I gasped for air. It was perhaps because of the chemical I had inhaled earlier, my mind wasn’t going along with the rest of my body. While my heart somersaulted away inside, trying to warn me, my brain went into slow motion. I couldn’t really understand the crux of the situation. Sweat broke out profusely tickling my face as it ran down from the forehead. “Hello? Where are you taking me? Who are you?” was what I meant to cry out. Instead, a series of jumbled words tumbled out of my mouth and I realized that my tongue had gone into slow motion too.

The Day Before

The big old house on the extreme left  from ours was the last one on our street. It seemed like it  had been standing there in silence forever. Ever since we moved to Brick Bend, and that was five years ago, I have no recollection of ever seeing anyone enter or leave the house. It had just stood there with moss growing on its dark facade. It was a bleak brown wooden house that perhaps had too many staircases leading to too many rooms.

A Revelation on the Highway

The Beginning

Don’t do that! He snapped as I tried to roll the window down to let in some air. The inside of the vehicle was stifling but he wouldn’t let me roll the window down. He didn’t look intimidating for a kidnapper. He looked like any other average young man, and I was exceptionally calm. “What are you staring at?” he said between casting a side glance at me and keeping his eyes on the road. Outside the open fields that were fringed with trees at a distance all turned into a blur as he put pressure on the accelerator.
“Do you think I am going to jump if I roll down the window?” I murmured.

Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Published by: Random House
Year of Publication: December 9th 2003
Series: Gemma Doyle Trilogy
Pages: 403
Verdict: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis:
Gemma Doyle is an outright teenage rebel with an attitude that is unforgivable in the Victorian Era. Hating her existence in the dusty and grueling plains of India, she harbours a great deal of dislike for her mother mainly because she does not comply to Gemma’s wish of moving back to London and attending a finishing school for proper young ladies.
Under very mysterious circumstances, Gemma’s mother loses her life shunning her husband, Gemma’s father into an oblivion where his life is ruled by alcohol consumption. Thus suddenly Gemma’s wish comes true when she is transported to London where she is admitted into Spence Academy, a finishing school where proper young ladies are honed to make perfect dutiful wives to their husbands. Wracked by guilt for being ruthlessly sarcastic and intolerable towards her mother, Gemma deeply blames herself for her mother’s untimely demise and is unable to celebrate her admittance to London’s society.

I stood at the edge of the forest both enticed and reluctant. Behind me the village beckoned. Houses with chimneys from where wisps of smoke coiled upwards promised me home and hearth.  The warmth of home and hearth lulled me to take a step back. But a deathly cold air escaped the forest and fanned my hair. A deep chortling laughter rumbled somewhere in its belly. The rumbling vibrated causing the moss under my feet throw up tiny stones and tickle the roof of my feet. Of all things dark and sinister, of all things evil and mean that awaited me in darkness anywhere, this one was certainly the blackest and I took a step forward nonetheless.