I am connected to you
In ways I do not understand
In the deep heart of a gigantic electrical body
How would wires be connected?
Twisted, Twisted?
Or neatly folded in groups
And flowing smoothly like a comb river?
A river on an artist's canvas
A river in a cartoon - like Hiedi
If I am to dive into it
How would I hit the surface?
Would I splash and descend?
Or would I swish and part material
Like a chunk thrown in Tom-Yum soup?
When inside if I were to consider the question again
Philosophically this time
Would, as it happens in Alice's Wonderland,
A Western, soft-cushioned arm-chair appear for me?
The quiet-lipped diplomat of me would smile at it
Who knows she might even sit on it!
But the Tuljapur girl would look askance
She would dive (again) from her eye-corners
She would swim in the material
She will look for your lobe
She will look for evidence of me extending to you
She may bump against stuff
She may be caught by cross-currents
Why, she may even get so entangled in the noodles
They might affix her
Or strangulate her
My arm-chair friends might chuckle
Call her naive and stupid
I will call her nothing
I will only see the distinction between both -
My arm-chair self and the Tuljapur girl
The chairy is a survivor,
A recent entry to the comfort class
Like a house cat evolved from the bhow-bhow mongrel
She entered through the front door, mind you!
The swimmer is a pure seeker
The artist, the scientist, the child
The swimmer could also be the purpose loyalist
Her goal once fixed, her momentum unquestionable
Like, say, the suicide bomber
...
...
...
The pattering rain is loud
It makes you forget things
So are thoughts
So are sophisticated queries
Tell me, now,
What was the question?
I have forgotten, Saare!
The question is inconsequential though
What's phenomenal
Is that the chairy and the swimmer coexist in such close quarters!!
In ways I do not understand
In the deep heart of a gigantic electrical body
How would wires be connected?
Twisted, Twisted?
Or neatly folded in groups
And flowing smoothly like a comb river?
A river on an artist's canvas
A river in a cartoon - like Hiedi
If I am to dive into it
How would I hit the surface?
Would I splash and descend?
Or would I swish and part material
Like a chunk thrown in Tom-Yum soup?
When inside if I were to consider the question again
Philosophically this time
Would, as it happens in Alice's Wonderland,
A Western, soft-cushioned arm-chair appear for me?
The quiet-lipped diplomat of me would smile at it
Who knows she might even sit on it!
But the Tuljapur girl would look askance
She would dive (again) from her eye-corners
She would swim in the material
She will look for your lobe
She will look for evidence of me extending to you
She may bump against stuff
She may be caught by cross-currents
Why, she may even get so entangled in the noodles
They might affix her
Or strangulate her
My arm-chair friends might chuckle
Call her naive and stupid
I will call her nothing
I will only see the distinction between both -
My arm-chair self and the Tuljapur girl
The chairy is a survivor,
A recent entry to the comfort class
Like a house cat evolved from the bhow-bhow mongrel
She entered through the front door, mind you!
The swimmer is a pure seeker
The artist, the scientist, the child
The swimmer could also be the purpose loyalist
Her goal once fixed, her momentum unquestionable
Like, say, the suicide bomber
...
...
...
The pattering rain is loud
It makes you forget things
So are thoughts
So are sophisticated queries
Tell me, now,
What was the question?
I have forgotten, Saare!
The question is inconsequential though
What's phenomenal
Is that the chairy and the swimmer coexist in such close quarters!!
- Chandni Girija
18-07-18
Resurfaced on FB memories
