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into this pleasant trance just being observing floating on the slow current of the drifting day somewhere inside me the querulous voice of my weekday self rises in familiar rhythms only to be summarily swamped by the surge of idleness which is also the voice of reason for on this day in this fairy tale moment there is nothing that i have to do nowhere that i have to go nobody i have to meet a rare backwater on the stream of my unexciting life where the absence of obligation offers placid enjoyment i m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep let the morning time drop all its petals on me p t proper in his dark blue sweater and trousers looking faintly disoriented as is his wont approaches with small measured steps he bears a tray with a cup of tea and a small bottle of mineral water which he sets down on the chair next to mine he is about to enquire what else i need but i smile and thank him and wave him away this moment this mood is not to be spoiled by speech the sun is slipping farther the birds are still loud still insistent the parakeets are the noisiest spoilt children shrieking and screeching as they zigzag between the trees a pariah kite mews and cheeps as it glides down into a nearby tree giving away the location of its nest a smell of earth and wood smoke rises behind the bungalows chulhas being lit in preparation for tea as working people find their way home there is a hint of sharpness on the breeze now as evening sidles in an edge even in these last days of a fading winter mynahs grackles finches rollers all tune up their parts against the backdrop of the parakeets a faster train approaches from the north a higher longer note indicating an electric loco and dopplers its way to the south more auto rickshaws moan their electric threnody as office goers ride homewards the long light laps against the circuit house washes the trees a warmer shade pours shadows over the grass softens the edges of my vision s frame the shadows of paired kites pass over the sunlit grass as their circles descend with the fading of the day five squirrels leap and circle and chatter in front of a cottage the dog has finished its siesta and descended from the ledge stretching luxuriously before shaking itself and trotting off on its evening rounds and now as the birdsong subsides as only the parakeets remain to perch on the top branches with loud chatter the usual evening sense of sadness settles like mist upon the vista a nightjar strikes up in a far corner i sip my tea a gentle giant bespectacled comes over to ask me to move to the eastern lawn that one is better maintained the western side is comparatively unkempt i find it more attractive but the undergrowth might provide cover for snakes surely it s still too cold for them to emerge but why take chances i hoist my day bag and cup and step forth for sunnier climes the open lawn on the other side of the house will bask in the setting sun for nearly another hour long after these trees have furled the western grounds in soft shadow and frogs have taken over duties of the orchestra pit from the birds epilogue one gap remained one sight unseen fourteen years ago i spent a month in this faux colonial edifice in the room almost under the stairs morning and evening i would walk or sit on the lawn and every time i would see a family of four indian grey hornbills large ungainly birds they would perch on the higher branches or hop about upon the thicker ones like a kindergartener who needs the loo their flight was slow and clumsy alternately flapping heavily and gliding between one tree and another they never perched on buildings or poles on this visit i looked for them but caught only a brief glimpse of one in silhouette that too on a tree outside the huge grounds of the circuit house sitting in the gathering gloaming on the eastern lawn i read up on grey hornbills their life span is thirty years or more so the same family could well be around but nary a sight of them have i had so far but wait that repeated call from the depths of the banyan tree like a large pariah kite trying to imitate a car horn surely and in a moment of joy first one and then a second hornbill bursts forth from the behind the trailing roots of the banyan and flies away to the east a sighting and a farewell patiala has fulfilled a promise posted by j alfred prufrock at 6 06 pm 15 comments monday january 02 2023 equus barrraaaa ter raaatt sardar karnail singh bellowed across the paddock and twenty sad ots officer trainees held on to the reins in quiet desperation as their lives were speeded up an unwelcome notch we had all been told to lightly spur our horses upon karnail singh s command so they would move from a sedate trot into a canter the burra trot we all took to heart the part about lightly and barely brushed our heels against our horses flanks in hopes that they would miss the memo and stick to the rather comfortable slower pace no such luck the horses were far better trained than their riders and after several seasons of karnail singh s dulcet tones echoing round their ears they understood his orders thoroughly wherefore the horses broke into a canter and several ots i am sure broke into a sweat for a brief spell i was actually exhilarated by the sensation fingers knotted in the reins knees clamped tight around the horse i fondly imagined that i cut a fine figure or at the very least a less sorry figure than u s who on the very first day of riding class had fallen off a stationary horse and broken his collar bone and as usually happens in such circumstances i became careless my grip on the reins must have slackened the first i got to know of this was when my steed suddenly harrumphed and broke into a full gallop a gallop with a rider who had mounted on his own for the first time only four days prior what the well here again i must confess the fault was largely mine there were a few horses in the stables that were earmarked for the special category of plump despairing dewy eyed lady officers who almost broke into tears when they entered the paddock these were the placid even tempered steeds usually no more than 11 to 12 hands high who seemed to maintain the same speed regardless of whether they walked trotted or cantered then there were what one might term the horses of the general pool we gentlemen officers were supposed to try our luck with these and there were three horses that were in a class of their own nobody or almost nobody wanted anything to do with these one was the strangely named budstar a white army remount who was born to lead she had impeccable manners and the general air of a tolerant regimental colonel the problem was she stood more than 16 hands at the withers and the ground seemed very very far away for a poor city boy stranded astride her i can vouch for this because eight years later i was misguided enough to mount up on her for what was meant to be a gentle walk around the suburbs of dehra doon but ended as a wild never ending gallop across ploughed fields including some cauliflower crops that caused chaos in the squadron a second unpopular horse was the aptly named touch me not this gelding combined all the loveable qualities of thomas silverstein of leavenworth and freddy krueger of elm street on the first day itself he had lashed out with a two legged kick that narrowly failed to decapitate our friend tali temjen toy but apparently even the most contrary horse can find a rider rajesh singh grew up riding horses around the police lines in patna he was confident enough and actually a good enough horseman to adopt touch me not as his regular mount and our resident vet from the indian foreign service ramesh kumar tall gangly and experienced quite liked surveying the horizon from the exalted height of budstar which left the third horse that nobody wanted to ride dara a handsome muscular deceptive son of belial with a coat like gleaming milk chocolate and a twinkle in his eye that sometimes changed into the glint of scheming evil guess who set his heart on riding this good looking rogue oh well i was much younger then but i was also much much more foolish out of all proportion to my youth so it came to pass that i found myself astride several hundred kilos of rocking horseflesh accelerating rapidly but not quite smoothly past the line of the other horses i barely registered a look of horrified surprise on the face of a fellow officer as we appeared at his elbow and then vanished ahead of him in those few seconds that seemed to last forever i squeezed my knees tighter and tighter until my entire lower half seemed clenched in rigor i pulled on the reins until i was sure my fingers would be cut off all to no avail dara thundered on and i realised that my situation was about to become more dire the riding paddock at charleville is set in a hollow at the bottom of a hill the gate from the road is on the only open side the other three sides are the natural enclosure formed by the hill slopes but but buttressed in local granite to a height of twenty feet and dara mad bad dara completed the gallop down one side of the paddock left the line of the other horses far behind turned around the shortest side and headed straight for the stone wall at a rate of knots i was doomed i knew it inside my stalled brain i could hear a distant yammering and still i kept up my futile pull on the reins and still i squeezed my knees tight until my circulation gave up the fight the stone wall seemed to jump closer it came into focus despite the bounce and rattle of dara s galloping until i saw the cracks and dimples made by the chisels the little clumps of grass between the edges the line eight feet up where my head would probably be smashed open until at the last moment dara heeled over onto his right like a motorcycle banking into a tight turn and the wall fell away on my left my mind went blank with the realisation that i was not going to die a strange and horrible death between a horse and a hard place the relief lasted only for a split second i realised two things simultaneously first that while i would probably not die i might be crippled because dara was now galloping along the outer wall and so close as to crush my left leg or at least my left knee against the stone second that the distant yammering was not just within my head sardar karnail singh now in my field of vision was bellowing across the paddock aise sahib aise as he sawed his hands alternately in front of him adrenaline lit up my brain i realised that dara had literally got the bit between his teeth and the only way to get it back against the tender part of his mouth and re establish control was to pull the reins left and right alternately which i did immediately with more strength in my numb fingers and forearms and aching shoulders than i would have thought possible it worked the thunder faded the rocking subsided dara slowed first to a canter then to a trot he ran off the circular sandy track beaten by the hooves and finally stopped on a patch of wild grass and weeds harrumphed snorted long and loud as if laughing at my discomfiture i swear he looked back at me over his shoulder and all but winked in glee before he returned to cropping the grass i was too dazed to even pull his head up from somewhere far away i could hear a friend calling good show karnail singh with uncharacteristic kindness shouted saab utar jaaiye that i could dismount if i wanted to but i did not dismount immediately instead i pulled dara s head up slapped him on the neck tapped my heels into him and walked him slowly back to the corner where the syces waited only then did i dismount in style first pulling off the riding hat then my little fingerless leather gloves then making a great show of patting and stroking and reprimanding dara before i finally swung off and dropped to the ground my apparent savoir faire was the subject of my friends grudging admiration later even karnail singh held off from his usual refrain of sahab kya kar rahe ho ghodey ko kharaab kar dogey what are you doing you ll ruin the horse only i knew the real reason for my apparent nonchalance my legs had been trembling so violently that i knew they would not have supported me if i had tried to get off the horse immediately posted by j alfred prufrock at 2 17 pm 7 comments friday december 23 2022 shades of dusk as the light fades across the western sky i sit immersed in silence that is yet not quite silent home at an unusual hour before the december day has dimmed entirely i revel in the shadows and the peace the silence is accentuated by a faint thrumming from the kitchen the tiny scratching of claws in a cage a bird indignant over some small avian disagreement through the long windows the light laps at the feet of my living room furniture washes over curtains and cushions dresses the corners in long strokes of shadow touches the everyday with the brush of fleeting mystery in what passes for winter in my tropical town smog has risen half way up the sky and veiled the sun well above the horizon so much for flaming sunsets shall i say i have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows while some people take the party with them wherever they go prufrock brings the loneliness but is that such a bad thing perhaps prufrock only shows us the emptiness that sings within perhaps the party is a masque to cover up the quiet and the dark that wait and wait for the doors in our minds to open then again must i be lonely when i am alone in quality in the richness of flavour there is a difference between loneliness and solitude the former brings pain anomie solitude is the luxury of the free mind as the light fades further the noise of traffic homeward bound frays the edges of the velvet silence small lights prick holes in the rising dark my recliner seems to stretch out of its own volition the smell of incense wraps me in memories long evenings long ago with the tinkling bell of my grandmother s devotions or my yawning room in delhi back when i waited for my life to turn the corner on cue the neighbouring muezzin sings his melancholy notes a kite floats past my balcony late to her waiting nestlings a pair of flying foxes great indian fruit bats flap homeward to the fig tree in the ashram to the north now the french windows frame the last of the dusk the room fades into softer dark my subconscious seeks the strains of massed violins my memory resurrects my great aunt who loved me more than anybody else and her strong smooth fingers that stroked my head until i slept from the dark vale that undulates softly between the light from my laptop screen and the salmon shades of evening i seem to rise beyond the detritus of the working day and float into a great domed hall of silent solitude in these moments i am free posted by j alfred prufrock at 5 36 pm 2 comments thursday december 22 2022 the simple pleasures he retired from the ind...