THE BURDEN OF MEMORY

Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say-“I find no pleasure in them”—Ecclesiastes 12:1

Were my days like a river, I would have drowned. I don’t quite know, nor do I pretend to understand, why… I might have drowned in the Yamuna in 1876, or the Yariapo in 1567, or did I die crossing the Rubicone-my memory fails but I do remember the Jordan, but I might not have drowned there. In fact, I may be dead.... But then..and since, I am still typing on my birthday- here, this day- on the 23^rd of November 2013, I think I have somehow escaped the flood waters. I must then be in my own Gilgamesh epic, perhaps, I am a Noah in my own flood haunted story. I might have drowned in the tide of memory or will do so shortly. In any event, apparently, I am still alive…and thankful..to the one, the triumphant one on Calvary.I am most certainly human and breathing, that is all I know- and that is enough.

TIME

Like all living things/I age/ I am older/In the register of life/I open, older by one order/Older the second-the seconds that scorn all life- the day begins/But dear grandma time, dear prodigal time, where are you taking me/ Soon, you will melt me to star dust again/Before I have mended, bended, kneaded this time- this time I was gifted- you will kill, grab, accost, accuse, be jury, judge, executioner/ In the name of immortality/ You will kill me and call me immortal/ Time you are cruel- LT

DEATH

DEATH
..Separate the plastron from the carapace, slide the cold metal in, down, down, down, to the beating center, inward, there, there's your reward, there!..to where my heart beats. Turn the blade, steel against flesh-win,win, win, win- you have the wins. You win, you win, you win, now push it in, deep, deep deep, let the steel bite, kill me, kill me, I am dead, I will die, I am dead, I will die...- LT.

I REMEMBER A DAY IN JUNE

I remember her laughter and then, I remember…

…I remember a day in June and the way the river looked as we came down to it, a brown serpent surging between the hills. It flowed cool and hurried amid the green lushness; a creature born of water, silt, and time. I remember the smell of wet mud that clung to everything and above us; clouds crowded the sky from rim to rim, ready to flail at the earth.

We walked barefoot, on the banks of the river, on pebbly silt flecked with the shells of clams, because there was nowhere else to be in town and nothing to do except to be with each other. I remember her eyes, shining like silver almonds through the veil of rain and how her girlish banter rose like a song above the sounds of the river, and that we had the time, to talk of everything and nothing. I remember the taste of her lips; the scent of her cheap Burmese perfume, the warmth in her tongue, the tautness of her body against mine; and how; her breasts rebelled in my palms.

I remember her laughter, a lost melody of my youth, how it bound me to her like an enchantment, on the road back to town. I remember the easy purr of the Vespa on the slick roads, how the sound of the engine and her voice melded in my ears. I remember too well, those other sounds, as we slid past the shuttered houses in the village, past the soldiers, on the road crossing the cemetery.

The years have passed like a staccato of rifle fire, and those other sounds grow louder and threaten to drown out the memory of that June day. It is at such times that I hear the sound of that lost melody of my youth. That laughter that was also an enchantment and I am bound once more to her, and I can remember that I am a creature born of memory, blood, and time.

Then....I remember a day in June…

Lalsiemdik Tusing, 23/10/13.

FAQ’s ABOUT LIFE-PART 1

ON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Growing up with unanswered questions.

I am filled with questions. I am overwhelmed, bushwhacked and waylaid by the need to know and the necessity of finding out about things. The need to know and the endless questions it brings forth is not a mere artifact of mental infancy- clearly- but something primal and inborn. It seems to me that the older I get, the more questions I have. At this age, with university a couple of years behind me and my days well ensconced in my working life, I thought I would have run out of questions to ask and found answers for the more important questions in my life. That hasn’t happened. But was it supposed to? I don’t really know. That itself brings on another question that requires an answer.

I now believe- I have no certainty of it- that the majority of adults start ignoring most of the questions they had asked themselves growing up and tend to “settle down” into the routine of daily life, because they fear they will not find the answers to the questions buzzing in the back of their minds. That we keep innate curiosity and our sense of wonder locked up in the basement drawer of our minds, so that we can live responsible adult lives is a necessity for most of us, I suppose.  Questions like “Who am I? Why am I here on this planet? What is love? What is the meaning of life? What is life? Etcetera, tend to dissipate like smoke when we are faced with the tyranny and the immediacy of a tax payment or the menacing regularity of credit card bills. My point in all this is that some of us still ask endless questions even as adults and needed the answers “like” yesterday! I am one of these irresponsible adults. Let’s call them- The askers.    

I am certain about one difference between my childhood and adulthood. When I was a child, the world seemed bigger, people were taller, buildings were huge, trains were monstrous, Ice cream tasted better, monsters stayed in the shadows and one lurked under the bed and all my questions were simpler. As an adult, the world seems more manageable, people are shorter or taller than me and I don’t care anymore, buildings aren’t that impressive anymore, trains look like trains, Ice cream taste like shit, and it takes much more imagination to “see” monsters in the shadows or hear one of them breathing under your bed. It is easier to get the proportions right, measure the relative sizes of things and find out about the world through observation. Yet! Though the nature of the questions have changed, perhaps because I have changed, the endless questions remain and the greatest difference between my questions then and the ones now is that I don’t have answers anymore- Just questions.