Tonight shall pass
Like yesterday and yesterday and yesterday,
Or should I say yester nights?
Eyes wide shut and mind wide open
beckoning disinterested sleep to calm me down
and lull me away to distant lands
where dreams reign supreme.
Voluntarily if possible.
Images flash by, like reels of film
I hear hushed, incoherent murmurs
Blissfully asleep beside me,
dreaming of a an ancient land
Of twisted by-lanes, and narrow streets
Chowks and Paras, Mohulla's or neighbourhoods
Different words float by too.
Different worlds too!
Some flashes of NY, some of Calcutta, some of school
A long drive in the distant, foreign lands
a wild dash to the house across,
Here in the teens, now a child, Lo! a woman.
The ever-mesmerising call of home beckons.
Sleepless myself, I feel a hand reaching out
which finds content by my mere presence.
The hands stop benignly, and nestle in,
A cycling expedition, perhaps, i think.
With brothers and sisters, to the dam
calm on a side, bursting, churning at the other.
The mild headache, turns throbbing, pulsating pain
I close my eyes again, and find myself in black,
Stuttering lines from Brecht, squeaking almost from the throat
i remind myself, it should come from the gut,
I try a baritone, picturising Belafonte.
It doesn't happen, so a friend improvises, becomes my echo
Repeating after me, to the audience in the far corner
Who couldn't hear me.
"A middle aged man was taking a walk one evening in the avenue of poplars... Nothing special had happened that day. ...As he went back to thinking about the Apfelbock case...-it struck him he could easily kill the dentist tomorrow, with a knife, say...But he could equally well not kill him.
He wanted to sit doen at the piano and play Haydn; but Apfelbock had waited seven days (after killing his parents and kept the corpses in a chest), during which time he had first moved first to the living room, and then to the balcony because of the weird smell). Haydn couldn't disguise that.
...
Suppose I did die, he thought. I'd like to have a child. Perhaps I already have one. If I die nobody will give a damn. If I stay alive nobody will give a damn either. I can do what I like nobody will give a damn.
Troubled, the man got up and put on an army greatcoat over his shirt. Thus clad, he went out to the street. It was not all that dark; clouds passed, visible, damp, compact. Stiffly the black chimney pot pierced the sky.
...He hummed: "How gently falls the bridal tear, When the bridegroom slugs her in the ear". Then he walked faster, ...singing in his shirtsleeves; for he threw off his coat; on a planet like this nobody needed a coat.
Loudly intoning, he strode through the streets, and no longer understood anything."
The Revelation-a short story by Bertolt Brecht.
The images and the installations whizzed past me
All the places we had performed at randomly.
The pain had subsided, it was back to a steady throb
I could hear sweet, rhythmic breathing from the side.
Opening my eyes, i recalled an interview
Shekhar Kapur on Phoolan Devi
When asked how he had visualised the serial gang-rape in the village
He'd said he sat alone in a room and kept switching the lights on and off!
Closing my eyes again, i now visualised the colour black
forcing myself to ignore any thought or memory, any image
The colour of peace and tranquility is Black for me. Jet Black.
Turning sideways to rest my arm over, i needed sleep i thought.
To play the same role, wear the same make up, do the same things
Lest I lose continuity.
Like yesterday and yesterday and yesterday,
Or should I say yester nights?
Eyes wide shut and mind wide open
beckoning disinterested sleep to calm me down
and lull me away to distant lands
where dreams reign supreme.
Voluntarily if possible.
Images flash by, like reels of film
I hear hushed, incoherent murmurs
Blissfully asleep beside me,
dreaming of a an ancient land
Of twisted by-lanes, and narrow streets
Chowks and Paras, Mohulla's or neighbourhoods
Different words float by too.
Different worlds too!
Some flashes of NY, some of Calcutta, some of school
A long drive in the distant, foreign lands
a wild dash to the house across,
Here in the teens, now a child, Lo! a woman.
The ever-mesmerising call of home beckons.
Sleepless myself, I feel a hand reaching out
which finds content by my mere presence.
The hands stop benignly, and nestle in,
A cycling expedition, perhaps, i think.
With brothers and sisters, to the dam
calm on a side, bursting, churning at the other.
The mild headache, turns throbbing, pulsating pain
I close my eyes again, and find myself in black,
Stuttering lines from Brecht, squeaking almost from the throat
i remind myself, it should come from the gut,
I try a baritone, picturising Belafonte.
It doesn't happen, so a friend improvises, becomes my echo
Repeating after me, to the audience in the far corner
Who couldn't hear me.
"A middle aged man was taking a walk one evening in the avenue of poplars... Nothing special had happened that day. ...As he went back to thinking about the Apfelbock case...-it struck him he could easily kill the dentist tomorrow, with a knife, say...But he could equally well not kill him.
He wanted to sit doen at the piano and play Haydn; but Apfelbock had waited seven days (after killing his parents and kept the corpses in a chest), during which time he had first moved first to the living room, and then to the balcony because of the weird smell). Haydn couldn't disguise that.
...
Suppose I did die, he thought. I'd like to have a child. Perhaps I already have one. If I die nobody will give a damn. If I stay alive nobody will give a damn either. I can do what I like nobody will give a damn.
Troubled, the man got up and put on an army greatcoat over his shirt. Thus clad, he went out to the street. It was not all that dark; clouds passed, visible, damp, compact. Stiffly the black chimney pot pierced the sky.
...He hummed: "How gently falls the bridal tear, When the bridegroom slugs her in the ear". Then he walked faster, ...singing in his shirtsleeves; for he threw off his coat; on a planet like this nobody needed a coat.
Loudly intoning, he strode through the streets, and no longer understood anything."
The Revelation-a short story by Bertolt Brecht.
The images and the installations whizzed past me
All the places we had performed at randomly.
The pain had subsided, it was back to a steady throb
I could hear sweet, rhythmic breathing from the side.
Opening my eyes, i recalled an interview
Shekhar Kapur on Phoolan Devi
When asked how he had visualised the serial gang-rape in the village
He'd said he sat alone in a room and kept switching the lights on and off!
Closing my eyes again, i now visualised the colour black
forcing myself to ignore any thought or memory, any image
The colour of peace and tranquility is Black for me. Jet Black.
Turning sideways to rest my arm over, i needed sleep i thought.
To play the same role, wear the same make up, do the same things
Lest I lose continuity.
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