The House in Pudukkottai That Woke Up at 5AM

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By 5AM, the house in Pudukkottai was already awake. The old tape recorder would be blaring Pithukuli Murugados songs somewhere inside, and above everything else you could hear the steady creak of the wooden swing moving back and forth. My athai paati — my grandfather’s sister — would often be on that swing, singing “Gopala Krishna Swamy Gokulathiley,” a soft Krishna lullaby . She had been widowed young and lived the rest of her life in that house, and to me she always felt like someone straight out of an RK Narayan story. For us, summer meant Pudukkottai and Gobichettipalayam. A couple of days after the final exam, we would take the overnight Trichy Express from Bangalore, then a bus onward, and by the next morning we would be inside that long, bustling house full of cousins, relatives, and noise. Athai Paati with the kids on the swing The house itself stretched from one street to another, a lon...

Into the shadows...

I was walking down the road,
That elusive figure invaded me,
I thought and thought about her,
Carrying me into the realms of restlessness

Questions surfaced and resurfaced,
Thoughts flashed across my mind,
Afloat in the corner of my heart,
Struggling to contain an unexplainable bliss

An entity I did not possess
Mightily I was surprised,
How much I thought of her,
Life wasn't too straight

She just evaded me,
Late into the night I lay,
It was clouded at the top,
Yet, I looked for the stars!

At the crack of dawn,
Sad to see the light of the day,
Countless moments lost in the awakening,
Time to put my eyelids to rest,
Atlast, she came to me
And I plunged into the shadows!

Comments

  1. Well, First I thought you were refering to CC.
    Then, ok I sleep with this every night.
    -Yadu

    ReplyDelete
  2. very creative writing you can visit my website for more :)

    ReplyDelete

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