Showing posts with label graveyard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graveyard. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Like Rust Soaked in the 'Iron'ies of Life...
Geography changes...History doesn't
History remains buried like a corpse in the graveyard of time...
Waiting for reawakening...
Waiting for rejuvenation...
History breathes through recollections...
The Past is an old friend...
Decomposing like rust...
Soaked in the 'iron'ies of life...
Talking about the past...
An old woman used to sit along the sidewalk selling red roses...
now only withered flowers is what one finds there...
Abandoned hospitals, abandoned asylums, abandoned cities, abandoned people, abandoned memories...A place which once existed as reality now lies on the fringes of decay...
A celebrated actress fettered in the shackles of her own image and consciousness gives in to abnormality and finally invites her death...
A hospital which once served as the birthplace of some... now celebrates its doomsday
An asylum where mentally unstable people found stability in one another... no longer exists...
Decaying floor, the ceiling falls apart...
just like the minds of those that once inhabited the place...
A whore-house once celebrated for its revelries... now stinks of rotten semen slithering through its polychromatic chambers
A city once flourishing with music and dance... now lies in the ruins of memories and the dearth of unfulfilled desire...
Hostels, hotel rooms, restaurants, movie theaters, trains...
every bit of this earth we dwell upon...
has been traversed sometime or another by another person...
every place you might stay in might have been infested with the soul of another...
a part of us remains in the depths of places...in the depths of time...
Cities have mushroomed over the debris of the dead
Monuments have been erected on time's ashes...
History remains unfettered...
People die...
Past lives on...
Camouflaged in the history of time...
Time...
That can never be relived...
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
The Realm of Innocence
In the depths of this virgin forest germinates the embryo of human existence. Raped and molested is the soil, soiled over and over again through its copulation with man. I recline in tranquility, unaccompanied and unperturbed, under the thick shade of deodar tress. The last rays of daylight flitting through the leaves form psychedelic patterns on my hands. I look at the crimson sun fading behind the lofty Dhauladhar mountain range and close my eyes.
In idle thoughtlessness I carelessly brush my fingers against a pile of mossy stones - as smooth as velvet,as green as emerald...I inhale the musty, dank smell of the surroundings and slowly open my eyes. A few feet away I spot two little kids walking hand in hand. As they toddle towards me, I notice that they are no more than five years old. The little girl leads the boy towards a mound of soil a few feet away from where I am seated. Their pale white skin and skinny bodies seem to be juxtaposed with their rosy pink cheeks. The girl is wearing a floral print red dress, and the boy is attired in a blue shirt tucked in under his breeches. I muse over their ethnicity and decide that they must surely be British.I look at them for a while...they seem to be waiting for someone. I slowly get up and walk towards them greeting them with a ''Hello''. They instantly look at me and smile but say nothing. I sit down beside them and ask, ''Hello, What are your names?'' The little boy, as if overjoyed at being questioned, perches himself upon my lap and without even facing me replies coyly, ''My name is Charles and she's my sister Annie''. I ask Annie, ''Where are your parents?'', to which I get no reply. She seems very reserved and shy. I notice her playing with a beautiful red flower in her hand. I try drawing her attention,but she seems completely lost in her flower. Charles gives me a smile as he hops down from my lap and squats beside his sister. They both settle down together and keep staring at the tall trees.
I decide to look for their parents. As I stand up, they both hold my hand and smile...Their hands are extremely cold...A shiver runs down my spine at the touch.I notice their transparent, blue-grey eyes which I find quite intense and intriguing. I smile back and tell them that I'll be back in a moment. I look around the place but do not find anyone. I go inside the Church to look for them but find nobody there except a caretaker dusting the floor. The Church is about to close I realize... I ask the man if he has seen an English couple anywhere... He nods his head and says he hasn't.
As I move towards the doorway, a chipping and fractured white marble tablet catches my eye. I move towards it and read, ''To the memory of Annie Elizabeth who died at Dhurmsala, on the 24th of September 1863, Aged 5 Years and 9 Months and Charles McLeod who died at the same place on the 27th of September 1863, Aged 4 Years and 7 Months. The beloved children...''
Flabbergasted, I rush outside the Church and run towards the place where I was seated before... The children are gone... The red flower lies there, fresh and fragrant...as if kept there just a moment ago...The mound I realize is not just a dune of earth but indeed a grave...I feel dazed...In the distance, birds keep twittering. 
I run towards the Church and ask the caretaker, ''Does this graveyard, behind this Church have the dead bodies of two little children Charles and Annie?'' He looks at me and replies as if amused, ''Two children? Madamji, don't you know this graveyard is filled with the dead bodies of babies and children?...Hundreds of them were killed in a disastrous plague which occured decades back...''After that I couldn't comprehend anything he said...I simply stood there...benumbed, dumbstruck and stoned to the ground!
I decide to look for their parents. As I stand up, they both hold my hand and smile...Their hands are extremely cold...A shiver runs down my spine at the touch.I notice their transparent, blue-grey eyes which I find quite intense and intriguing. I smile back and tell them that I'll be back in a moment. I look around the place but do not find anyone. I go inside the Church to look for them but find nobody there except a caretaker dusting the floor. The Church is about to close I realize... I ask the man if he has seen an English couple anywhere... He nods his head and says he hasn't.As I move towards the doorway, a chipping and fractured white marble tablet catches my eye. I move towards it and read, ''To the memory of Annie Elizabeth who died at Dhurmsala, on the 24th of September 1863, Aged 5 Years and 9 Months and Charles McLeod who died at the same place on the 27th of September 1863, Aged 4 Years and 7 Months. The beloved children...''
Flabbergasted, I rush outside the Church and run towards the place where I was seated before... The children are gone... The red flower lies there, fresh and fragrant...as if kept there just a moment ago...The mound I realize is not just a dune of earth but indeed a grave...I feel dazed...In the distance, birds keep twittering. I run towards the Church and ask the caretaker, ''Does this graveyard, behind this Church have the dead bodies of two little children Charles and Annie?'' He looks at me and replies as if amused, ''Two children? Madamji, don't you know this graveyard is filled with the dead bodies of babies and children?...Hundreds of them were killed in a disastrous plague which occured decades back...''After that I couldn't comprehend anything he said...I simply stood there...benumbed, dumbstruck and stoned to the ground![Part fiction/part reality... Story based in Mcleodganj, Himachal Pradesh, India]
