Filling Empty Spaces. An Interview with Umberto Eco.

I have noticed an increase in traffic to my blog recently. Much of the search engine traffic is directed here because of the quote by Umberto Eco that I have used as my blog title. I have always had the urge to provide the context of the quotation, which also adds to the reader’s appreciation of the text. So when i saw people driven to the blog for the quote without having the context, i found a reason to provide it. Here’s an excerpt from the interview where Eco talks of filling empty spaces, he further goes on to explain the idea. .

An Interview with Umberto Eco, by Mukund Padmanabhan, Sunday, Oct 23, 2005.
Source: The Hindu.

Umberto Eco…”I work in empty spaces”

Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge once remarked: “I can’t understand how one man can do all the things he [Eco] does.”

Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing the same thing.

Mukund: Which is?

Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have some philosophical interests and I pursue them through my academic work and my novels. Even my books for children are about non-violence and peace…you see, the same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests.

And then I have a secret. Did you know what will happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? The universe will become as big as my fist.

Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I have already written an article! (Laughs).

Read the complete Interview here>>

Read my article on Filling Empty Spaces in your Life: A Secret to Success here>>

Get published and Earn: Creative Writing sites and Market.

Who says creative writing  doesn’t have a market? Fine you can’t earn your living being a poet but sure there are a lot more opportunities that can come your way, and a bit of money. I came across these few sites that pay really well with every poem/ flash fiction/ book review selected for publication. Though the number of such sites/ publications are few as compared to the flooded non-fiction market, also, creative writing does not offer much when you go for freelance writing yet if you are among those who love writing poetry, fiction and would even love better to have them published and earn a few bucks with it, check out these few sites.

 

Pedestal magazine

Accepts almost all the genres: Poetry, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Book Reviews, Interviews, Slam, spoken word, poetry with music, and performance poetry.

Pay Rate: $40 per poem, Pay Rate: $.08 per word Length: up to 4,200 words for Fiction, Pay Rate: $.08 per word, Length: up to 1,000 words for Flash Fiction, Pay Rate: $.02 per word, Length: 850-1,000 words for Book Reviews, Pay Rate: $10 per track for Slam and other genres. Check out Submission Guidelines.

 

Riddle Fence

Riddle Fence accepts previously unpublished poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and reviews for publication. Upto 3-4 poems or 1 piece of prose, maximum 5000 words in length can be submitted at once.

Pay Rate: $30 per printed page (prose and poetry). Accepts only snail mail submissions. Read Submission Guidelines.

 

Vestral Review

Accepts only flash (short-shorts) fiction. It says “In our definition, a flash story is no longer than 500 words and it has a plot. If it’s longer than 500 words and/or has no plot, we are not interested. The reading periods of this magazine are February-May and August-November. No submissions are accepted in the month of December, January, June and July.

Pay Rate: Stories up to 100 words (excluding the title)–10 cents a word, Stories between 101 and 200 words–5 cents a word, Stories between 201 and 500 words–3 cents a word, Stories of great merit receive up to $25 flat fee; 3 cents a word is a minimum pay in any case.In addition, every contributor will get one free copy. Read the submission guidelines before submitting your work.
Send your submissions to submissions@vestalreview.net?subject=Submission.

 

Blue Mountain Arts

Blue Mountain Arts is interested in reviewing writings for publication on greeting cards. They look for highly original and creative submissions on friendship, family, special occasions, positive living, and other topics one person might want to share with another person. Submissions may also be considered for inclusion in book anthologies.

Pay Rate: $300 per poem for all rights to publish it on a greeting card and $50 if your poem is used only in an anthology.

 

Cappers

Cappers encourages Free and light verse. Traditional, nature and inspirational poems are purchased. Poems should be  easy to read with down-to-earth themes. Five or six poems are used in each issue. submissions should be limited to batches of 5-6, length 4-16 lines.

Pay rate: $10-$15 per poem on acceptance.
Raed the Submission Guidelines.

 

Strange Horizons

Strange Horizons is a place for you if you can submit high-quality, extraordinary Science Fiction, fantasy, horror, and “slipstream” poetry. It also accepts Fiction, Reviews, articles and art exhibits.

Poetry

About the kind of Poetry Strange Horizons’ looking for, it explains “We want poems that have some literary depth but aren’t boring; poems that are unusual yet readable; poems that balance inventiveness with traditional structures. We like serious works, as well as poems with wit and humor that don’t collapse into pure silliness.”
Pay rates for new poetry will be $20 per poem.
Email poetry to poetry@strangehorizons.com.

Read Poetry Submission Guidelines.

Fiction:

Read this before submitting “We want good speculative fiction. If your story doesn’t have a clear fantasy or science fiction element, or at least strong speculative-fiction sensibilities, it’s probably not for us.” Strange Horizons is not generally interested in horror (especially stories in which the main goal is to evoke feelings of terror or revulsion in the reader), stories that explain a scientific or technological phenomenon in great detail, stories we see too often, stories with twist endings.

Pay rate:  5 cents/word, with a minimum payment of $50.
Read the Fiction Submission Guidelines before submitting your work.

Articles.

Non-fiction articles, including: interviews with authors of speculative fiction; articles on aspects of science (such as astronomy, ballistics, artificial intelligence) or technology (historical or futuristic) that would be of interest to readers and writers of speculative fiction; criticism of books, movies, games and any other media relating to speculative fiction and articles on history and culture that relate to speculative fiction.
Pay rate: Pieces in the 2000-5000 word range will be paid at a flat rate of $50.00 per piece. Pieces shorter than 2000 words will normally be unpaid. Pieces longer than 5000 words will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Read the article Submission Guidelines
Art Gallery

The Magazine plainly sets its preferences “We love art that is stylistically distinct while maintaining the essence of speculative fiction. Abstract expressionism, impressionistic, photorealistic, just about any approach, are all considered, provided that the speculative fiction theme is at the core. One theme we are looking for is material that captures the dramatic nature of speculative literature—think about it: alternate realities where magic can yield power similar to potential technological achievements a million years in the future, where a single person can change the outcome of an entire world, or where nature in all her majesty outwits human ingenuity yet again.”
Read the Submission guidelines before submitting your work-

Reviews

Strange Horizons publishes in-depth reviews of speculative art and entertainment, especially books, films, and television, three times a week.
Pay Rate $20 for reviews of at least 1000 words. Read the Review Submission guidelines before submitting your work.

 

Jim Baen’s Universe: a professional science fiction and fantasy magazine.

Pay Rates: For the first 5000 words, we’ll pay 25 cents a word. That comes to $1,250, or the next 5000 words (i.e., from 5-10K), we’ll pay 15 cents a word. That comes to $750, or a cumulative payment of $2000 for a story that was 10K words long., For the next 10,000 words (i.e., from 10-20K), we’ll pay 10 cents a word. That comes to $1000, or a cumulative payment of $3000 for a short novella that was 20K words long, For the next 20,000 words (i.e., from 20-40K), we’ll pay 8 cents a word. That comes to $1600, or a cumulative payment of $4600 for a short novel that was 40K long, Anything longer than that, we’ll pay 6 cents a word.

Read the Submission Guidelines

Please note that Jim Baen’s Universe magazine is not accepting any submissions until 2010.

Poetry Market.

Duotrope: 

Duotrope’s Digest is a free resource for writers that primarily offers an extensive, searchable database of current fiction and poetry markets. We also offer a calendar of upcoming deadlines, submissions trackers (for registered users), and some nifty reports compiled from the data we’ve accumulated.

Poetry Market at Fiction Factor

Fiction Factor publishes a list of sites, magazines, ezines which are updated periodically.

You can submit articles that offers aspiring writers tips and advice on honing their skills, and helping new authors to break into the publishing field at Fiction Factor. Pay Rate: $5 US via PayPal only for each article accepted and published Read the submission Guidelines

Note: Fiction Factor Does not accept poetry submissions.

Poetry Market at For writers.com

Another site that periodically publishes Poetry market listings. It also has some useful links to writing lessons,techniques, prompts etc.

E Zines

A List of Poetry and Literary magazines, ezines compiled byFrederick Glaysher. Very useful.

Must Read-

Writing and Publishing FAQ at poets.org

PS: Please make sure you read at least one issue of the magazine you submit your work to. This will give you a good idea of the kind of works being published by the magazine. Don’t feel disappointed if your submissions are rejected, you might be at the wrong place.

Unrelenting Destinies: On reading a poem of an eleven year old.

I organize papers
carelessly scattered
on my study table.
There is one paper
bearing burden
of a heart-
eleven year old.
I read it again, a hundredth time.
The world of stars
and galaxies
has shrunk itself
in pink and blue
four lined paper.
Just a few words,
poetry
of a boy- little lone.
He is asking me, over and again

“Will you tell me madam
what is the definition of a family?
Mother says
there is
a destiny
a dream
yet to be fulfilled.
A sole journey
to eternal happiness
Destiny
yet to be accomplished.
She says
‘When you really want something
the whole universe conspires
to help you achieve’.

Madam will you
tell me
‘Does universe conspire for everyone?’
We all have dreams
my parents too
have one
or should i say two?
Different dreams
Directions different
‘Are different universe
conspiring for them?’

Or-
Is it just one
in many roles.
Wretched universe
where is mine?
No geography
No Physics
No mathematics
could answer me
just so simple
a question.”

Just to ease
his troubled mind
I asked him
the other day
What he wanted to be
when he grows up
like all of us.

“An astronaut.
madam-
for i will go
too
in search
of my own universe.
May be of my parents too.
I will reconcile
both of them
and find a destiny
that everyone shares.”

I had a dream…Into Calculations. A Dream Fragment.

 

Kierkegaard said ‘Life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards’. What kind of an understanding a mind is capable of yielding? When we make attempts to live our past, often our memory fails us. It comes to us in fragments taking a new shape as we try to understand it. True, ‘Life must be lived forwards’ because any attempt to live it backward will only lead to disappointment. Kundera said ‘Life can only be lived once’. We cannot, how much we try, re-live our past.

It is only in dreams can we live our life again, because dreams can evoke senses and give a pseudo feeling of being in the moment. Though dreams too are fragments but each fragment being a product of unconscious brings to surface even the desires, long forgotten and suppressed. Our mind is a creator which brings varied images to evoke a sensual experience. Similarly our dreams by taking material from our past, present, dreams, hopes, aspirations, fear presents life in a cinematographic fragment, transmutes a similar feeling and gives a sense of deja vu. Dreams bring to life our lost memories, they bring to us people we have lost to time and help us comprehend our inner self. These cluster of images sometimes tells a story. It is when we comprehend them in our waking mind do we discover that fragments make a substantial whole.

We all have dreams that make sense to us, dreams that so subtly present to us our inner life that we are only vaguely aware of.
Here’s a dream i had which i have adapted into a short story. The imagery is almost the same, i have infused a few dialogues to highlight the theme and motifs. This dream made me realize that my fear of numbers can truly be called a phobia now, which i had not confronted completely until i had this dream.

Here’s an excerpt-

I am walking through a dark long corridor with someone i do not recognize. I trust him. He is taking me somewhere i want to go. As i walk i meet many faces, strange and familiar. They are indifferent, unquestioning, calm. But their eyes, when they look at me, seem to answer something i do not understand….

read the whole story.

Blood and roses.

“Life is a bed of roses.”
Thorns prick when we sleep on them.
All our life we regret
Why blood and roses are red.

© Copyright by tina rathore.

a must read..

I came across this really wonderful article while looking for college admission essays. well, don’t let the term ‘college admission’ come your way. Just go ahead and read it. This is a must read for every writer.
Here’s the excerpt.

“Bringing forth into words what really is ineffable is the greatest trick poets, and all writers, must perform. There is no greater pleasure for me than creating the necessary images to transmit feelings from my mind to someone else’s. This is a beautiful part of life known as art. Art adds to one’s understanding of oneself, and doing so helps one to live in peace…”

read the complete article here.

Under arrest. a short story.

Our life is a long trial and this world, a court. each one of us is fighting a case against our fate. we are all condemned to death. there is no one who can bail us out. there is no bail available. we are both the victims and the accused, of the crime we are unaware of. ( An Interpretation of kafka’s The Trial.)

God is dead- Nietzsche.

 There is someone who wants to kill Him. Someone. He is sure to die. One day. Today.

 *****

“He is dead. He is dead. They buried him, submerged the remains, he has drowned, he is on fire, our lord is dead”. kanakan came running to his mother shouting aloud with a voice that was drenched with tears and sweat. A voice as heavy as the Shivaliks where his father had gone, as heavy as the burden of his promise, that it failed to move out from his gullet.

ma! did you hear?what have they done to our lord?Our ganesha, our shiva, our narayana,…the gods of our temples, they have brought the idols to pieces, taken Everything away…now they are heading near, they’ll rob us all for what we have, all that we are left with, all that we never dared to achieve, all that with which we nourish our dreams, all that mother, all that, all that things you have kept from them. mother! is there anything we are left with? our god is dead and dead are all the ways to reach him…only till they open their eyes are we alive…just till then, after that? what after that?

But who’s dead? whose god? what life? who’ll wake up and shatter our dreams? who will? my child. was it a bad dream? come here. we are safe. we are away from all that death brings, the harsher realities” came a soothing reply. kanakan was relieved but only for a moment.

‘no! we aren’t safe! they are coming. Let’s hide ourselves somewhere. Is there any place we could go to, never to return or return never to go back again? If only there is any place, lets go and hide and ourselves. Lets go, call father, asha, harsha, lata, gungun call them all, lets move “kanakan tried to pull his mother with soft little hands at the same time pushing himself deeper into the folds of her stomach brushing his head against it as if to go deeper into it, to make a place for everyone in that peaceful womb.

Asha came and huddled at the corner closely watching her youngest brother with her squint eyes as if looking at the fan on the ceiling. kanakan’s sobs started getting wilder and he was now hurting her mother with his head now dug deep into the crevices of her manifold stomach. “stop it kanakan. stop it. get away from her, right now. you are hurting her. what is it that you want? so desperately.” Asha shouted from the corner but did not move.

“They have come. Finally they have come. After so many days, years, centuries. The No-mans have come. We should open our doors to them. We are no cowards mother. Remember what father said when he left us went to the mountains. Do you remember? They will come someday. If not in our lives then in our children or grandchildren. There is nothing that would have kept them so mercilessly tied on others whims and cruelties. This had to end. Had you known it before mother, was there anything that you could have done to keep them waiting for your children to live happily and die an unquestioning death.” Harsha persuaded her mother.

who are they beta. and what do they want?

They call themselves Nomans. They have come here in the name of Itheism. They have not come to our village, they were always here. They say there is no god. People don’t believe them though yet they say it. But this is not happening any longer. They will now crush your idols to pieces and no one will come to your rescue. None of the gods who you pray to. none.

so do they want us to pray them? erect mosques, temples, gurudwars in their names. Take fasts unto death for them?

‘They want no temples mother. None of your sacrifices, offerings and ceremonies. They want nothing. They say they are gods and so, ‘ Harsh’s voice dropped from a deep resonant to a murmur. ‘are we’.

“They have come mother. we will have to live our life on own terms. We will have to unburden Him of our petty desires. We will have to shed ourselves and become a part of Him. We have to become Him. We have to become our own life givers and takers. Our very own destinies. We were marionettes in His hands and he has dropped the strings. musn’t the show go on?”

*****

No i haven’t killed him.

please…don’t take my son away.i haven’t killed him. i am not the murderer. i don’t know who did.

oh! yes he killed himself. it was a suicide.

Then why are your hands red in blood?

This is my own blood. look i am bleeding. look!

Please don’t take my son away…

you were given a death sentence, fifteen years ago…go ask your father.

I am just as old…just as old…

My son is innocent.

you are all undergoing a trial. did nobody tell you that…hah! not even your father?

yes he did…he did.

but then there were no notices, no judges provided for…

give me the hand cuffs…

Madam, your son is under arrest.

please..arrested for what? will you not tell me…for what?
*****

Where are you taking me? No! please please…don’t open your eyes. He is dead. I Know. But I haven’t killed him. He is not dead. he is alive. He is immortal. I know this. This is the only thing i know because there was a time when i dared kill him. Don’t hang me to death. What you say? Life after death? don’t open your eyes, please. let me live, a little more. what? life after death?

but death for what? attempt to murder?

But he is not dead. he is alive…My Lord, He is alive. are you listening…he is alive…are you there?

you Cowards! would you not investigate? you sycophants, you believers, would you for once believe me and not Him, and go see for yourself that man ruling the world, alive, living, sentencing, so many, so many, to death. For what? i tell you, listen ma,. for what is son dying? attempt to murder., while he lives, he continues to live…

*****

You will not listen to me. I am not God and here, you open your eyes…killing me with the vacuum in your look. Now life after death..reality after illusion, another death sentence. For what? Someone go tell my mother not to interrogate. Who are we to ask questions and disturb the Universe?

*****
© Copyright by tina rathore

let me grow in your backyard mother, a short story.

It’s a girl.
So you found out?
Nothing’s all that illegal.
Thank you so much.

Ma, doctor says its a girl.
Anmol, we don’t want it.
But ma, Neelanjana wouldn’t agree.
You’ll have to make her come to it. But no! not when i tell her mother.How will I tell her. Anmol beta it cannot come. Not now. Not after the hawans, the daily pujas, the pilgrimage we took, the offerings I promised God, all for a dear son. After all this, even after all this. No! we cannot let it come. It’s all the devils doings. The devil in Neelanjana’s mind. She kept telling me, time and over ‘ma, its a girl, its got to be a girl’. The devil in her mind. She’s possessed. We will have to free her. Ask her for abortion.

So they have discovered me, my father and my grandma conspiring against me. Listen mamma. They have found us. They have found me. But see how late. I am already a big girl. “Can they do anything to us now?”
Mamma did not answer me. She was lost in a reverie. Her heart was boiling next to me, so heavy was its breathing. She was in a bathroom next to the drawing, leaning against the door, listening to my father and grandma conspiring against us. She stayed there for long lest she should be caught eavesdropping.

“How could Anmol do this to me? Isn’t he the one who calls himself a human rights activist, fighting against all kind of atrocities? Is that the real he? And he talks of a devil. devil in my mind? devil in my…”

Mamma was thinking aloud wiping her hot tears with her starched cotton odhni. She is a mother after all. Mother of her desires, her dreams, her happiness, her pains, but she cannot be a mother to me. She isn’t allowed. She is not a mother to be. She is a mother not the master of all that she thinks she possess.

“oh! Neelanjana how young we both are. Isn’t it too early to think of a child?” Father spoke to mamma, caressing me, her belly. Mamma as always was silent.
“Lets gather roses while we may. After that what shall remain, we’ll grow old, rear children, grandchildren, the burden of a family.”

Mamma! say something, say you wouldn’t let it happen. Say you need me mamma, Say I’m closer to you than he is. I am mamma, I’m a part of you. I am you. No! she wouldn’t speak. She is afraid of him. oh! you coward mamma, you cannot let me die in your womb. You know how old i am? Remember the day i was born? When you first bled in your teens, when grandma said “oh my daughter is a woman now. This blood is your children yet to be born in flesh. It would keep gushing out until you give it a form and then there will no blood, only flesh.” Remember you asked her “What will it be mother- a girl or a boy?” and she said “Whatever you wish for my child” and you said mother, do you remember? the date of my birth?, you said “It will be a girl, a beautiful girl. It is a girl and there i was.” Every month you gushed me out in blood always saying to me “you haven’t a form yet, my baby. But you are here, always here, in my heart, growing everyday.”
Where are those lovely frocks? the frills on them? the pink, white, blue ribbons you stitched to adorn me with. You fancied me in your dreams, your daughter a fairy. Now! don’t you want to see me, your beautiful daughter? Now i am flesh, all flesh. I’m blood no more. Tell them mother I’m blood no more that you can gush it out on a napkin, pack them in black polythene and forget about them- your unborn children.But now you sleep, unaware of me- you two. “Mother! are you listening?”

She started belching early in the morning, puking everything she had eaten at night leaning against that wash basin. But now everything she had eaten is out. She does not stop. She has finger in her mouth, while she belches- her stomach, her entrails contract to push out something- what is it? Her stomach has nothing else but me. She wants me out? No mother, please! I’m too big for your gullet, for the wash basin, for the tiny little holes that sieve your dinner, for the drain pipe, mother! I’m too big now. but she wouldn’t stop. She is eating again, So that it may come, so that it brings me along.

She sings me a lullaby as she swings herself on a sofa. She is singing me to sleep or is it death mother? No! they wouldn’t do anything to us. She is praying. She is singing. She is calling someone. She is pleading him. But she is talking of another world, another life, another birth. She sings the same old song “agle janam mohe bitiya na kijo/ ab jo kiye ho data aisa na kijo” But you are my god mother. This life mother? “Will you not let me live it, mother.”

Father and grandmother made all attempts to convince mamma but she wouldn’t agree. “What for?” She asks them but never waits for an answer. She will never be able to hear from her love, Anmol when he says “Because it is a girl Neelanjana. Mother wants a boy and then our dire straits, from where will all the money come for her education, her wants, her wedding and the groom? just think of it. Who will ever love her the way we would. Can we allow ourselves to do such an injustice to our own child? Then you know it yourself, what life it is for a girl in a city like ours. High time we think of population control, see where our country is heading, think about the generations to come, there will be no water, no food, no fuel. Think what will happen.”

Think mother think! Think of yourself. Think about me. I do not want to die. I want to live with you, in your care, I want to listen to your stories, I want to know how i came, I want you to see me grow into a lady, I want you to pat me to sleep, to comb my hair into pig tails and drop me to school with a bag, and a tiffin and that red water bottle mamma, the one you kept for me in your diwan, the chocolate pieces pencil box…

“Thank you mamma. I am your flesh now. oh, the smell of your skin, your starched cotton odhni, your caress, you are so beautiful.”

But where are you now? I cannot breathe. They are digging your backyard. There is a stomach of concrete, the hard shell, they are pushing me in, i am crying, i am calling you but they have gagged my mouth with your cotton odhni. They have tightened the lid. I cannot breathe. Where are you?

They must have told you, the nurse too conspired against us along with that the doctor you call your friend. They must have told you.”It was a still born.” You know mother? they have dug me to death. But i am growing. The concrete stomach has delivered a still born. The worms are feasting on me. The ants are taking my flesh away, holding me by their mouth, moving in a bee line. Do they know of beauty mother? your moon baby is eaten away. What they know of art? of creation? they know only instinct, desire, food, stomach. They do not even ask me who i am. Why i am here. They have no purpose. They only have holes from where they come and go.
I see there is someone digging in. Is that my brother? He is observing the ants, the food they have stored. He is digging the holes. “Is he looking for me?”

Your chants to the sun god, your kalshiya water has nourished a rose, a bunch of roses. How beautiful you are, still. Mother, i know you think of me when you open your diwan for Diwali wash-keeping. How you cry over those frocks you stitched for me. But I am not alone. I have so many sisters. We have bloomed in your backyard and we play with the wind. You wouldn’t let the mali pluck your red roses. You will pick them yourself to decorate your Gods, the Gods that give you sons.

****
© Copyright by tina rathore

wall. a short story.

 Accepted. I am an inmate of a secondary school on house arrest. No, hostel arrest. My warden is watching me, she says she knows me nerves and all. through the blind camera hole she keeps me updated in her azure blue register, on the left hand corner where i sit,writing me in words rubbing her fist against the surface right to left, right to left straightening the line with the nib of her fountain pen.

My roommate too keeps an eye,not on me but on my wall. my wall shies away in its veil from these eyes, bare green and white, my wall staring back at him, they play dare-the wall and my roommate. I between them, transfixed, for lone, inexistent. So you see! my roommate is as much a friend to me as my wall or my warden is. We three- I, my roommate and my wall share a communion of sorts.but im much closer to my wall.

The wall beside my bed is full of multicolored papers. At one end there is a long list of dos and don’t’s. My school time table at the other corner. Recently one of my friends gifted me a graffiti board on my birthday. What am i to do with it? I asked them unthankfully. Its just a way to remind you what we think of you. paste it on your wall and we will scribble on it everyday. this is our friendship board they went on and on not paying heed to my relent.

So heres another thing to be hung. Theres a clock hanging on a nail pierced into my wall. Mamma says it is there to help me keep track of time, so that i do not keep moving towards past or get stuck in present. But this clock is very apathetic to me, very unlike my wall. A poor piece of plastic, Doesnt it know when to stop? There are so many of the kind everywhere. One with a cuckoo that peeps out and sings every time as the clock strikes, eight, nine, ten. “What shame!” i tell mama, a plastic immortal cuckoo mocking at us, cuckooing us to our graves. And then there is another with a white pigeon hatching the time keeper underneath. Now, this one is still better, this pigeon, a true mother, an epitome of motherhood. Russians must me going crazy opening the pigeon boxes. Rest are all geometrical figures; square, circle, reciting, triangle, pentagon. But none of the enclosed figures are found successful in capturing time. They are all useless. Some of them dont even agree. They are either a few minutes fast or lagging. The one on my wall never assists me. It dictates me. They have hung it there, my mom and dad. But i dont like it. its not there for me, im here for it i explain mamma when she scolds me for using her sofa to put the batteries off. Then i would go out and play to return without having wasted a minute. I move a quick 180 and here ends my tuition. Someday i would live my life like that and i will call it a quicky and may be sometime i will hold it there for all my breaths. But mamma insists it doesnt happen like that. She would show me all other watches id forgotten to stop. What i dont understand is why should i be bothering about others, am i not only accountable to mine?

So my friends keep scribbling on the graffiti board they have hung on my wall. They claim they know me, more than, they say, i know myself, but nothing they write is the real me. Everyday it brings me closer to the mask, i never knew i was wearing.

My wall too wears a mask. Doesnt it writhe underneath? my walls suffocated, my walls suffocated i keep telling my warden when she enters my room with a pin and paper to be stuck onto my reminder board. She mercilessly thumbs the pin into the heart of my wall mumbling walls dont breathe my boy!

My reminder board is getting crowded every passing day. The most basic of daily chores are listed here. The list starts with a long breath at 5 am to close your eyes at 10 pm. I practice them without fail, because the camera hole through which my warden watches me stares at me without a blink.

The mosaic on my wall hides under it something my warden is unaware of. If you someday clean up all the mess that suffocates my wall you will see a window whose curtains are folded in a knot, beyond the window there is a sea, a sun, a sailor roaring his boat towards the lighthouse that shines brighter than the sun. There are birds in flocks heading homeward into the light blue sky.

But then she would come with a list of dos and don’ts wiping the camera hole with a hand-me-down T.shirt, sticking another reminder that reminds me of sun outside. My friends would come scribbling on my wall, the masked i.

I asked my warden the other day for a pack of crayons to paint my wall. She dismissed it with a smile directing me to the classroom where she taught us for a good one hour how to paint a wall. My palette, now, is full of transparent colors.

people have visitors here. visitors, black, white, colorless .visitors who come to see someone over, see someone off, see someone through. they come and go all the time and makes for a busy day for my wall. i too have many visitors to attend to. these visitors narrate me their stories- their life in hotel, homes,. prisons, streets, bedrooms and where not. the warden’s sure not watching them.

No. i cannot do what they do. The wardens not watching them or how else can they dare do what i fear doing. How do they escape the camera hole? I want to ask them but the warden is watching me and writing me in her azure blue register- how indelible my life is becoming. How can i dare what they dare- the delible lives. She has but one register , She never reads it though , She never rewrites it either. She will not write my life again, She will not scrap, edit, revise- she will sell my soul in the cheap market of Sahisra, the Wednesday market, the black market, the transparent market; naked.

My visitors too see me with a naked eye. They see my skin- it’s a colored skin and i can change it- sometimes pink. Sometime yellow and other time dull beige or brown. But they only see my color. The colorless people, they envy me. oh, i have got colors and i play with them. I make the colorless people colored too but they do not wish to wear. I asked Crux, the other day the color she loves and she said ” White. white as snow, white as paper, white as background of your eyes, white as your teeth, white as the clouds, white as the gown of fairies, so many colors beneath the white but i love the layer, the layer white.” what a rhyme i said that my wall could have danced to it. so here’s a rhyming song for her i just hope it rhymes. ” She wears the layer, the layer White and feels so black underneath i wear the color black but feel so white underneath. sometimes i mix the two and wear a shaded hue can her colorless eye see she has one but i have two.”

*****

© Copyright by tina rathore

economy writing.

insomnia
dreams trouble
no more.

—-

“stay” he said. stayed i
all our life composed a song
never sang.

—-

daydreaming
two eyes, one night
many dreams.

—-

at a read meet
draught of caffe latte, sip of poetry
sound of digestion.

—–

abc abc
one two three one two three
no time for a change.

—–

a chance look, half inch smile
dowry bargained
knots tied.

—-

grenades bombs missiles
pieces of flesh; camera zooms
another story.

—-

a thesis
rewritten words; a blank
left empty.

—–

gush of emotions
choked throat; a gulp of water
digested cascade.
—–

a glass of water
choked throat brim eyes heaving chest
revolution ends.

——

© Copyright by tina rathore