TSL Pandorathon Day sixteenth Prompt and story

 TSL's Pandorathon May sixteenth with Santosh Bakaya

The Gossipy Neighbour

She, Rebecca, was alone in a big house, rented. Till her husband retired they lived in rented houses, of various shapes and sizes. This one was big and she felt happy in it initially. But she used to get lonely as in the morning her husband would go off to work to ISRO, then one son to Mar Ivanios, then one son to Art's College, then one daughter to Women's College, and the youngest to St. Joseph's HS. One day, a new neighbour moved into the next house who was from another state. Rebecca could speak the language of that state which was not Malayalam. Thinking that the new lady, Ammu, must be feeling lonely too, in a locality where no one spoke her language, she struck up a conversation with her. Ammu was surprised at how well Rebecca spoke in her mother tongue, though that was alien to her.

Rebecca had a domestic helper and after some time Ammu told her she found it hard working alone with no one to help her so Rebecca arranged for her helper, Panjami, to go to her neighbour's house too.

The neighbour Ammu offered to pay the helper Panjami double the amount Rebecca gave if she would work only for her.

Then the neighbour also told Rebecca that the helper was a big thief. She would, she said, take away rice even under her fingernails.

Rebecca started laughing. She told the gossipy neighbour, "let her take it if she does, after all if Panjami tries to steal rice under her fingernails she can only carry ten grains away at one time each day and it will take her a long time to make it amount to something."

TSL Pandorathon May 15th Prompt on Identity by Ananya Dhawan and my take on it.

 May 15th prompt by Ananya Dhawan which is on Identity.

A Prose poem.

When people ask me what my identity is I always fall silent. I define it differently from everyone I know. So.

They see me as certain things, Keralite, Malayali, South Indian, Dravidian, Syrian Christian, CSI father, Mar Thomite mother, middle class, Bangalore, NRI, professor of English, writer, born 20th century, Indian, brown, medium height, democratic and left-leaning, straight etc.

When I look in the mirror I only see that I am middle-aged, brown-skinned and a man.

When I look inside I see that the soul has no colour, and no sex or gender or age.

When I look deeper I see nothing, There is no such thing called an i/Identity, only a den (the body) and nothing inside but a flux, a beautiful ever-changing constancy of a flux that will end with my death and be no more. It has no name, time, place, space or anything else attached to its namelessness or non-beingness. This does not mean it is meaningless. This scares the hell out of people who are all so hung up on their identity/identities, defensive, protective and aggressive or passive-aggressive proud of them/it, their petty I/i, me,me, my, we, us, ours, mine trip, so they end up avoiding me totally. It doesn't matter equals energy.

TSL Pandorathon 14 and my poem on it

 TSL Pandorathon #14 – 14.05.2021- When a kitten and a baby elephant became great friends with Santosh Bakaya

A/The baby elephant and a/the kitten:

One wore a glove and one a mitten

I called the former Pelephant

And the kitten Oliphaunt

The elephant herd was moving

Out on the green grass of the savannah, marching

And unseen, under a big foot's crush

The poor lil' ginger tabby kitten would have become mush

When Pelephant saw him

And squealed loud enough to reach the sky's rim

His dad heard, the king

And withdrew his foot, by Zing!

Now who the hell is Zing?

You wonder, while fingering your bling

Zing is the Elephant God

In Africa's savannahs, you clod!

Pelephant and Oliphaunt

Became fast friends, eating raw ant

When one day a lion

Attacked Pelephant, by Dion!

Now who the hell is Dion?

You may wonder, while grimacing like a moron

Dion is the God of the cats

You'd know, if you had anything under your hats

The kitten waved his mitten

And said, you big Lion

Leave my friend alone

Bully your wife, instead, at home

Why should I? asked the Lion

Because you are my relative. Now begone!

Said the kitten, not fazed

By the mane of the Lion, who was amazed!

He slunk away, suitably chastised

Pelephant danced, her happy butt wibble-wobbled

They were quits now, but happy-happies

To be friends, and have more adventures

Under the blue skies in the savannah

In the tall green grass of Africa

Pelephant and Oliphaunt

Our famed and storied tabby kitten with a mitten and glove-wearing baby elephant.

 TSL's Pandorathon May 13- "The sky had a sullen, resentful air today." Make this part of a flash fiction of 100 words. With Santosh Bakaya

Why today? Why not yesterday? If it had been yesterday it would have been good. Yesterday everything was fine with me. A little contrast would have been welcome. Today it is like the pathetic fallacy, pathetic...When you're down, the sky should be up like the ceiling and not down. Sullen? Resentful? Like one? Black, dark, frowning. Why? Well, for instance, all this bad news, and no end in sight. It gets to you, you know, deaths of relatives and friends and many sick, fighting and you don't know if they will recover, and absence of hospitals, beds, doctors, nurses, oxymeters, vehicles, ambulances, vaccines, oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, health system collapse, no Remdesivir, no meds, wear masks, gloves, what not.... The silver lining was the recoveries but then here come new variants, carriers asymptomatic, lockdowns, breakdowns, new or rather worse diseases like muco something or the other surfacing or resurfacing, immobility, happy hypoxia, young deaths, children dying, you name it, we have it, the sky at least should be exempt, right? Why the hell is it not?!

#TSL Pandorathon May 12 and my poem on it

 #TSL Pandorathon May 12 "He looked at her, his eyes twin dots of anger. " Write on it in any form you like but use a form of some sort and specify what your form is.

with Santosh Bakaya

Nonsense verse Form used: limerick

He looked at her,

His eyes twin dots of anger.

What a horror of a prompt!

I feel I don't get it, and am rather defunct!

Before my eyes swim (twin?) dots of lunatic terror!

May 11th TSL Pandorathon Prompt by Santosh Bakaya and poem by me

 TSL's Pandorathon May 11th Prompt: A conversation between a frown and a smile given by Santosh Bakaya

The frown said: "You are anti-national"

The smile said nothing but "You are mistaken"

The frown said you are against my religion

The smile said nothing but lost none of its lustre

The frown said you are against the high castes

The smile said nothing but broke into a laugh

The frown said you a ------------- NRI

The smile smiled on by changing the narrative of the adjective

The frown said you discriminate against the rich

The smile did not hear, it was helping the poor

The silly frown said pro-Islam does not translate to anti-terrorist

The smile became wider at the patently absurd

The smile was used to facing the contradictions

in others between words, beliefs, actions, and what not

because it faced them in itself already daily, everyday

so it kept on smiling through thick and thin

through the vicissitudes of life, the bouquets, and brickbats

the plaudits and the insults, it was equable to all

The smile kept on smiling despite all the frowns

It soon became all smile and vanished in a grin

a chortle, a chuckle, a mischievous giggle

Between the smile's and the frown's wars the smile always won

Till the frown had to be found far away, flown.

TSL PANDORATHON MAY 10th PROMPT AND POEM WRITTEN ON IT

 With Santosh Bakaya TSL Padorathon May 10th on a bread slice ruing its being burnt in a toaster

In the beginning

God begat bread

And bread was the bread of life

But man

Inspired by some Satanic Brits, probably

Begat

Behold!

The Toaster

Man put slices of bread in it

To torture bread

Till out it popped

A sight to see, but not to tell!

And had toast

For breakfast and to make sandwiches

Till one day

It begat heat

Coils got burnt

And the slice of bread got blackened

No longer the bread of life

It rued

And rued

"Who will scrape me off,

Off with this carcinogenic mess?

I was so much happier

In the loaf cover

Rubbing against my fellow sufferers

On either side

Not knowing

A worse fate will befall us

Than the plastic cover!"

Ir rued and rued

Till the dog called Rover....

Reader, we can draw a parallel

Which will spoil the poetry

The bread was life before Covid

The toaster was the first wave

The getting burned is the second wave

And Rover is death itself

TSL's Pandorathon May 9th Poem by Koshy AV

 Pandorathon #9 – 09-05-2021 - When the stars found their glow being reflected in the gutter.

with Santosh Bakaya

When the stars found their glow being reflected in the gutter

A man in prison began writing from the depths

When the moon cast its shadow on lovers

Romeo and Juliet died tragic deaths

When the sun was setting over his son

A god cheated and send the latter to his end

When a flower was in the field, an iris

Blue, in the world eyes and irises were blinded

I looked for hope in a world where there was none

I found it still, but only in star-glow in a gutter

Sara's poem and its translations

 Sara 3 - A slogan

My mother was defintely a 'womanist'*. Without knowing it. Though I have titled this a slogan, in her papers this three- liner has no name.

Women arise awake

For no war is won

Without a fight

(c) Sara 2012 - 2/93

औरतों -

उठो, जागो!

कोई भी जंग

लड़े बगैर

जीती नहीं जा सकती है!

Sunita Singh's translation of my mom's war cry of a poem!

औरतें बेदार होती हैं

लड़े बागयर

कोई जंग जीती नहीं जा सकती

Aurthein bedaar hoti hain

lade baghair

koi jang jeeti nahin ja sakti

transcreated and transliterated by Bina Biswas.

സ്ത്രീകളെ, ഉണരുവിന്‍, ഉയരുവിന്‍,

ജയിക്കാനാവില്ലൊരു യുദ്ധവും,

പോരാട്ടമില്ലാതെ.

translated by Ra Sh Ravi Shanker N

sthreekale uyaruvin, unaruvin

jayikkanavilloruyudhavum

oru porattamillathe

transliteration by A.V.Koshy

নারী ওঠো, জাগো

কোনো যুদ্ধই জেতা যায় না

লডাই ছাড়া।

naree otho, jago

kono juddho-i jeta jai na

lorai chara

translated and transliterated into Bengali by Madhumita Mukherjee Ghosh

Nari jagi ja tu

sangram bina

kebe hue kichhi hasil?

Odiya, transliterated by Sudam Panigrahi.

Pengale, ezhunthirungal, unarungal,

Oru yudhdhavum vendrathillai,

Porattam illamal.

Tamil translation by Lakshmi Venkatachalam

Gauri Dixit translates my Mother's poem into Marathi

स्त्रियांनो, उठा जाग्या व्हा!

कोणतेही युध्द

लढल्याशिवाय नाही जिंकता येत.

Susma Sharma Gurumayum

Nupioibasa, mikap thok o, hougatlo

Lan da joi oidabani

Lanthengnadradi

(Manipuri)

With extreme gratefulness to the translators. The copyright of their translations etc. belongs to them.

*

wom·an·ist (wmn-st)

adj.

Having or expressing a belief in or respect for women and their talents and abilities beyond the boundaries of race and class: "Womanist ... tradition assumes, because of our experiences during slavery, that black women already are capable" (Alice Walker).

n.

One whose beliefs or actions are informed by womanist ideals.

Mother's Day Post

 Today is Mother's Day. I think.

So I want to write down this memory. The last week of my Mom's life I was working in Alwaye with my father-in-law, which is six hours from Thiruvananthapuram where my home was with her and Dad. I had my first job and would go Sunday night and stay in Alwaye in YMCA and come back on Friday. It was just two weeks I had been doing this if my memory is correct. So as I was going on Sunday the third week she asked will you come back by any chance before Friday? I said no Mom, will come back on Friday as usual, can't come mid week no? She said ok with her usual Mona Lisa smile that I could never fathom. So that week one day I was standing in class teaching Rabbi ben Ezra by Robert Browning which I had never before and it went "Grow old with me/ the best is yet to be/ the last of life/ for which the first was made."

It ended with these words: "So, take and use Thy work:

Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

My times be in Thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!"

After teaching I went to the staff room and a message came that my mother had had a heart attack and was in the ICU due to a cardiac arrest via the phone. My father-in-law and mother-in-law took the car instantly and drove me down. I knew she was gone before the next call came because of the poem. Sometimes God lets you be right there with your loved one as he or she is dying and sometimes not but my comfort was the words of the poem which is why I believe God can speak to us not only from Scripture but at opportune moments through literature by great poets. The poem is a startling parallel to my mother's life in some ways who was a deeply spiritual person.

When she asked me if I would go back midway in the week by any chance did she know or did she not? I don't know, of course, I will never know, But the fact that I was teaching Rabbi ben Ezra while she was breathing her last makes me feel she did as it was a poem I had neither read nor taught before but as if made for her and to make me know what was happening somehow. Did not seem like any coincidence, strangely enough. I am not trying to put an(y kind of an) aura around this.

You can read the poem if so inclined.

TSL's Pandorathon May 8th Prompt Conversation between a Crow and a Parakeet

 TSL's Pandorathon May 8th Given by Santosh Bakaya - a conversation between a crow and a parakeet.

Crow: I am humble kin to Raven

eulogized by God and E A Poe and Ted Hughes and the Native American Indian

Parakeet: I am a member of the parrot family

They put me in cages, in groups, some of us

The humans

They are fascinated I can imitate their speech.

Crow: In India, they make much of me

I even appeared in children's stories

Parakeet: We exist beyond all this

They may go but we remain

Crow: Yes, but doesn't it irk you

to be bred and kept behind bars for ages?

They do not think me, fortunately,

So important, thank the Great Crow in the Sky for his mercies

Parakeet: The Great Parakeet in the Sky is probably not so powerful

As the Great Crow in the Sky, I guess.

In their story in Greece and India you are intelligent though ugly

Some believe you to be their ancestor

I have no famous tales on me

Yet somehow caught their attention

As I, unfortunately, can mimic their chatter

So meaningful to them and meaning nothing to me

Their Praise God and fuck you mean the same thing to me.

Although when I repeat it they wonder if I know that!

Hehehe, "what fools these mortals be"

Something I picked up from them from a chap called Shakespeare

Crow: We are all mortal

Parakeet: But they hanker for immortality

Crow: A strange concept

Parakeet: Let us stop discussing their ways and means

Foolish tyrants

Let me sing and you caw to a beat.

TSL PANDORATHON MAY 7th PROMPT DONE AND DUSTED

 May 7th TSL Pandorathon Prompt given by Santosh Bakaya to write a story of three hundred words beginning with The next day it would happen all over again.

BeCKeTtRipoff

The next day it would happen all over again. The attempt to close the gap between who he wanted to be or wants to be and who he was or is. It was only an illusion, perhaps, that the gap could be closed or that there was one. All these ideas one gets brainwashed into believing or picks up or is passed on from the environment or one's upbringing or beliefs or ideals or just from others that there is something called perfection and someone who is perfect and one should strive to be that or become that. That one should attain to something or the other, some bullshit about sitting under a peepal tree or having an angel give you a book or being born of a virgin or twice-born or an avatar to make a fresh start. Or some such other bother about being loved, finding the ideal one to complement you and be the yin to your yang. Something that would make you fulfilled, realized, actualized, enlightened, set apart from all the rest of mankind forever as one more of the many others who had made it while the others had not so you could feel a tad superior. The waking up the, quest the journey the voyage the not finding the not reaching the sleep the dreams the waking up the attempt the sweating the swearing the nightmare that night in the sleep etc. Till you stop seeking. Or don't. Creatures of habit, dogs tied to their chain or vomit which is habit, as B had said, lost souls swimming in a fishbowl but not gold, just fish meant to die, to twist PF, afraid to stop seeking as there was no idea what would happen if one did and let go what would come to fill the vacuum of no longer trying. To not let the same thing happen the next day again, so it would happen the next day again. Torn between two lovers, wanting it not to and wanting it to, o apostrophe ah interjection and all the rest of it. No idea if it is three hundred words yet or more or less who the hell counts. Just believe you are one step away and one word closer to, no, not home, just finishing the daily prompt, then rest listen to music, go back to sleep, and one move closer to where you are supposed to reach, where they want you to reach, where you were told you had to reach though as to that no idea at all that you have to reach anywhere or that there is any place to reach or time to reach it in.

Pandorathon TSL May 6 3 poems on the prompt when bookmarks come out and talk to each other on the books they were in given by Dr Santosh Bakaya

 When book marks came out and talked of their books TSL Pandorathon 2021 May 6 with

Santosh Bakaya

His Bible is well thumbed

His thumb or forefinger is the bookmark

(Earlier old men and women would lick their fingers

and turn pages,

though that had nothing to do with bookmarks

or book marking)

His Hard Times by Dickens

Has pages the top corner of which is folded

To make it easy to find them

His dictionary is dog eared

His keyboard is dirty and dusty from overuse

Not as you may think from being not used

As for bookmarks

Well, he does not use them much

Except for one in his Dad's big letter red leather-covered Scripture that was a ribbon

And a silver one in one he got his wife

That haunts his memory

So talk of them or them talking to each other

Has to remain imaginary or non-existent

The poem anyway has been written

Bookmarks Talking 2 with

Santosh Bakaya

May 6th Pandorathon TSL

Pressed flowers and leaves

My sister would keep them

My mother too

Dried flowers

And leaves that had become

Skeletons

In poetry books, novels and other books

Even record books of chemistry and zoo-

Logy and physics

They filled me with awe

And a certainty

Not given by

The leather or the paper ones

However beautifully made

That the divine was there.

Book marks Talking 3 with

Santosh Bakaya

Pandorathon TSL

with/for

Tikulli Dogra

To write is to read what is

Written and

To rewrite to

Try to fill in the gaps.

I love bookmarks

My friends, some of them

Make them

I love and honour their effort and artwork

This has become an evolving poem

I love the idea they come out at night

And talk to each other of the books

They are kept in

I love the kookiness

My imagination is not constrained to think of

edible bookmarks

And ones that beg for more life and you not to discard them

And complain of the books that they are kept in

Or like them

If I was one I would like to

be made of a mix of ribbon

and leather and leaf and bark

Maybe a single petal of a rose

Hide of a deer sounds too cruel

But one that has its markings on paper, maybe

I would want to be kept in the Bishop's Candlesticks section

In Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables.