18 July, 2009

A Farmer's Tale

As I sit and watch the street, I am engulfed by a heaviness. It is so thick and it penetrates my limbs. My eyes, they watch, listlessly. They watch the people hurrying by, hurrying to which end I wonder. I know they are hurrying to get to somewhere. To work perhaps, some hurrying home, some just, hurrying. They walk over the filth, breathe the filth, touch it and taste it as well. Yet they don't feel it? Or maybe they do. But I see it. I can feel it with my senses, it has entered me now... it has claimed my mind? Perhaps not yet. I look up at the grey skies and I know, they are grey not from rain. The smoke from my beedi rises up and mingles into the grey. I track the smoke with my eyes till it has disappeared. The faded smoke has turned into the grey skies. As I stare above, I cannot help remembering the blue skies under which I was once. I once was, someone. A farmer.

The sky it is not mine. But it is blue. The fields that surround me are green. It is true that they are mine, but are they really mine? Could they have ever been or remain mine? The fields belong to my, my earth. All that I could call mine, is first hers. I plough, I sow, I water and I tend. But I also reap, and I share. I am happy because I am blessed by my earth. She has given me her best, her all. I try not to want too much, but sometimes I think I do keep wanting. Mother will forgive me, wont she? Here come my children now, they seem happy. I see my little Lila, my little one, chasing the butterfly. She runs playfully, full of joy. She is as fresh as the farms themselves. The life that runs within her seems to penetrate every tree, every animal, and every stone and every inch of soil. I lift her softly and look into her bright eyes and I see in them, myself. I see the fields, the skies in her eyes as she playfully tugs at my beard. I leave her and watch her run around the open field. I see her now, running away from me, further and further away. It is getting hazy now and I cannot see clearly anymore. The green of the fields blurring and merging into the blue sky. The colours swirl and mix into an ugly grey.

I realised I am back on the street, in the city. The grey skies looking back at me, cheerlessly. I ask myself why I am here? Why this filth? Where are these people going? Why do they want to live here? Why would anybody want to live in these crowds? This place is filled with filth, corruption, and evil. It is filled with desires that can never be satisfied. What are they looking for? Why do they pray and steal? Why do they laugh and kill? Why must progress be punctuated by violence and sorrow? Once again I asked, why must I build this road?

There was never an answer. I looked down at my still glowing beedi stub and I saw once again, a glimpse. A memory of the red sun as it set over the fields while Lila and I watched. Slowly the light went out. The sun had set. All I could see now were my soiled feel, in torn slippers. I dragged myself out of my dreams and stood up. The road had to be built, it was not mine but its theirs. The people of the city.

Sensations

Close your eyes they said
Feel, they said
The blackness
Swiveling lights
Darkness again
Cells, the nucleus, the web...
Before my eyes it all floated

On the nose they said
Concentrate, they said
Upper lip
Breath goes in
Breath goes out
Breath goes in
Breath goes out
Now cold, now hot
I feel it in my nose

I am diving now
Into the abyss
Dark
Falling
Hold me!
No one...
I fell down till I reached a bed
A bed of vibrations

Vibrations bursting out of my finger tips
My palms, don't touch them!
Or may be I will touch you
I will heal you
Come
Come to me now
Not yet perhaps...

It is moving now
Engulfing me
Vibrations are filling me up
I tremble at this new experience
I tremble and it hurts
Oh the pain!
Its not mine, or is it?

Images, my life, I gaze astonished
The pains
Sorrows
Sadness
All mine...
My body aches with my pains
'My' pains?
'The' pains...yes.

Gone
They are all gone I cannot believe
I looked for them
Now I feel
A density I have never felt
Am I hollow?
Or am I full?

Here they are again
Oh the vibrations!
Filling the emptiness, the denseness
Bursting out of my skin
I am rising
Boundaries are blurred
Is this me? Or that?
Sensations
Is all