A Requiem...

I fear not Lord
Your last pull of string-
Calling the final shots,
For A Requiem I sing!

I fear not Lord
Your last roll of dice
That will end the game
And Death will suffice!

I fear not Lord
As the day comes to an end
For You give us Strife...
And Peace, also you send!

waltz...with her!

'God! having a waltz with her...leading her!'
He thought for a moment when the night queen came to him
And asked for a dance...
He memorized his steps...he knew them all good!
But...
Having a waltz with her...so lustrously present in the white gown...and diamonds...
He was perspiring;

He stood up...
Looked at his shiny shoes...
Tried to see his face on the leather...
The music had started meanwhile...
She was waiting with her arms to be taken and placed...method!

He hit the floor...
Tensed no doubt...but the music...
'Get to the music...'
She whispered...
He heard her...and got a glimpse of people watching him and her...
'You can do it...just place your hands on me...'
She whispered to his ear...
He got the tingle...
He got the hint...
And placed his hand on her...
Softly...
He felt his moist nervous palms slipping on her...
But she was staring at him...
Her blue eyes...
Red lips...
Flowing music...
He took the lead,( nudged by her, of course!)
But that was the only nudge he needed...that evening!

The rest followed, automatically...
He knew his steps...
He memorised them...
He put his left foot forward quickly followed by his right one going horizontal...
Then he dragged her halfway to take her by his stride...
He moved from his second position
As soon as he heard the change of music...which became faster...
He pushed himself back...his right foot going back...
Followed it by his left one...
On the floor now he could see the exact drawing made by their footsteps!
He just kept his mind on the invisible design...
That looked like a complex curve with a lot of 'u'es and turns...
The music got slower...
He also followed it...
The lady was smiling...in his arms...he noticed after a while...
'Goddamn! you're a real dancer!'
She gushed...leaning on his shoulder as he thought of making the design on the floor a bit tricky...
'Ready for more?'
He gushed...
Animated...
She winked her eyes...
He swapped her position with his...
In a wink of an eye...
And heard at once a roar of applause...
And her flushed pinkish face said it all...
She was unexpectedly pleased...
She was leaving her body to his whims...
And he took her to his stride...
With no hands slipping... the sweaty palms became non existent!

she, her song and...

Following the song, I ran upstairs...
And did not find her in the rooms!
Her song...however showed me the direction...
I found at the balcony...standing...
She was wearing a pair of white Egyptian kind of 'harem pants'...
And a puffy top...
Looking like a goddess straight from museum paintings...
Oblivious of me, of course...

'Veshe jai adorer nouka...tomader ghum bhange kolkatay...'
(The fond boat floats away...as you wake up at  kolkata...)
She sang, standing at the balcony, facing the rising sun...
Below the streets were getting hurly burly...
People were running to works...
'But why is she singing a song of city flooded by water in winter?'
I thought...
And got closer, tiptoeing...
'Was her cheek not shining a bit too much?'
I thought and got sideways to look at her face...

At once, I knew the reason...
I knew how city filled by water comes into one's mind even in dry winter...
Tears were rolling down her cheeks...

nicotine!

Hey you!
Nicotine!
You're so tricky...boy!
You enter me through my mouth and go straight to my lungs and brain...
Had heart been your only destination I would have taken you easy!
Boy! I've given hearts to many and too many took mine!
But you trickster Nicotine!
You go to my brain as well...my principal workstation...
And create such a stimulation there that... my god!
Every time you are not there, my workstation commands me to usher you in...by serving  you proper welcome- the grandest and the most curious ones!
So...
I go hunting for you, damn nicotine...
At awkward hours...at the dead of the night...
At the loneliest sunsets...
At the merriest evenings...
At parties and after parties...
Before going to the loo...
And even...
Even after stomaching those lovely kebabs that my wife serves me...
And also after not having kebabs!

making love...

Making love to you dear...
Is like reaching heavens no doubt...
Your orgasmic gushes made me so animal so many times...
By Aphrodite!

You shoved me in and out...
And made me a toy so many times...
Entering the rain forest of different kind!

By Aphrodite!
Making love to you is like
Reaching the point of stranger revelations...
Revelations of being animal, instinctive, brainless, dumb!

Making love...
Is discovering you as well...
Finding your most candid version...before me...real and bodily beautiful...
A version of the holiest state...naked...like truth...
A version of being divine...shameless, sinless, pure...

Making love to you
Is like placing my heart upon yours...
My every bit of you into you...kind of amalgamation...temporary nevertheless!

superannuation...

He always remained the hardest nut to crack...
Despite being hurled with expletives, naughty jokes, banter and ridicules
Related to his dresses, miserliness, appearance, etc;
He had remained mostly cool...
However, on two or three occasions he erupted, like a dormant volcano suddenly coming live and perilous...
But they were so infrequent that his marksmen, who threw all those verbal missiles forgot them
Or dismissed them as something very banal...
And they continued making fun of him...

Finally, the day came...
He thought he would retaliate though lately, in the most appropriate fashion...
Showing them his true grit...

After the pleasantries were distributed...duly...
His chance came...
He rose up...
His marksmen were a bit nervous and were biting nails...
'What would the crack narrate on his last day at the office?'
They thought...
But he just stood up,
With folded hands...
Seeking forgiveness for nothing...

He wept...trying to control his wrecked heart...
And said nothing...
The superannuation brought him humility
Humility and sense of being human also descended on his marksmen, quite logically...

a billet doux...for you... in troubled times...

Though the sky is not sunny...
And the air smells of gunpowder arid...
Still thinking of writing a love song to you...
A love song from me to you dear...

I see the streets being filled by anxious people,
Markets being closed down every day,
Gunshots sending fear of death every moment...
Still thinking of sending a love letter to you dear...
A letter that will carry my throbbing heart...
And ten million kisses...
And my bare soul upon your feet!

Yes I know the sky is gray
And the seas are ashy...
And the curfew is imposed on me, on you, and on every one of us...
But still...
Writing a love letter...a billet doux for you... has its own charms...
As I can see you on the paper...
Talking to me...smiling...
Right on the sweet, short note of love...

The times are rough dear...
People are lying unfed...
And banks are closing down...
But I think...
Writing you a billet doux...takes away all these mundane stuff...
Takes away all the burdens off me...
And off you as well, I guess!

To my mom...

You know dear...
I wrote umpteen poems and two novels almost on you...
Still...
December comes with you hovering over me like a sting of deep felt pathos...
Still
December fourth comes every year since two thousand and three...
Bearing bleakest memories of my long and short life!
O' mom!
Every year since...
I had received that phone call from the hospital...early morn!

'Please hurry! She is terribly unwell...'
I, being sleepy, couldn't have caught the voice properly, trailing all the way...
I had returned only few hours back...to my sleepless home...
And rode out again...through the vacant, sleepy, foggy street...
I rode as if there was no tomorrow...jumping every traffic signal red...
Breaking every traffic rule...afraid of being chased by dogs of the street and sergeants waiting like hounds behind those white street corner kiosks!

I ran through all...the speed breakers...the tramps...the milkmen...the newspaper boys...the swallows picking grains left by a speedying goods carrier ahead...
I jumped all to see you there-
At your last and final refuge...bed no 303...
With pipes and monitors and needles all over you...
The doc was there too...
He embraced me even before I looked at your closed eyes...fast closed...as if sleeping!
God!
Such a  bleak and blank moment...I have never witnessed...
Such bleak and blank day!
I stood there, stupefied...by your bed side, mom...
By your white, clean bed...
While you took the journey...transcendental!

( in memory of my mother, Sefali Ghosh Dastidar Dutta, who passed away on 4th Dec, 2003)

Living next door to Brishti...

He was sitting on the porch
On one indolent spring evening...
Tomorrow would be the 'dol jatra' and
He felt the air of the evening already carried the smell of abir...

Furthermore, a little distance away, from where he sat,
A few people had gathered under the canopy, near an old temple, singing bhajans...
He could hear them sing bhajans of love and devotion...
Simple and chaste hindi songs full of vigour...
That brought before him Lord Krishna's yearnings of love at the sight of his Radha;

'Hi!'
He heard someone calling from behind
And the familiar tone did not make him to be stirred by surprise...
'She must be Brishti...'
He thought and lethargically turned his head...

But the moment he saw her,
He was left speechless...
For, Brishti, his childhood buddy, his next door friend, had come dressed in an orange colored kurti
With curious shiny red borders and laces...and as he looked more carefully...
He found her looking resplendent by the light of the bulb hanging overhead...
He found her looking extraordinarily handsome...as if...
As if she was a flower which had bloomed that evening only!

'Hello! Brishti! you look so wonderful! going somewhere?'
He asked, impromptu,
As he looked at Brishti...
Her flowing hair,
Her lips aglow...
Her brightest smile...
And the small red bindi on her forehead...

'Yes! Came to ask you to give me a ride tonight...'
She said, almost quipped...
'Oh!'
He said...still looking at her...as if he was seeing her for the first time in his life!
'Hey! Why looking so strangely to me? Am I looking that much startling?'
She remarked casually and pulled him out of the chair...
'But...but Brishti...'
He mumbled,
'What?'
She turned her head and her flowing hair...(like those heroines of silver screen, you see...)
'I heard you're going out of the town next week?'
He asked...somewhat cautiously, as if he was going to put his feet and words into a very accident-prone slippery zone;

'Yes...I am going out of the town...and probably would never return...'
She said, looking at the people who were sitting under the canopy, near the old temple and singing bhajans of love, swinging their heads...
'So...what's the need?'
He asked...hurt;
'The need is more so...dear...to give you something before I go away...forever...'
Brishti quipped, smartly...

He thought
Even after living twenty four years next door to Brishti,
He knew nothing about her...
He never knew her!


(inspired by  'Living next door to Alice', by Smokie)

a dented bumper...

'I'm...I'm extremely sorry...sorry...Mister...'
She jumped out of her sedan and walked up with haste to me...
Apologetic...
While I stood right on the road, my door half opened...
Staring down at the front bumper which got a big 'kiss'...dented...
I was furious!
How could someone drive so insanely in a narrow populated street like this?
I thought and looked down...at the front bumper...
'Sorry mister...'
She repeated second time...
I looked up...
And saw a face...
Longish but beauteous...
'You're in a terrible hurry , I guess...the way you nicked me...and before that nicked a van...'
I commented, coldly;

'Please...Don't mind...I can pay up...'
She said, looking nervous...
Glancing at her watch, at least twice in between...
 She must have been in a hurry
I thought...
'Okay...'
I thought to leave the 'kiss' there, unpaid...
And went up to the door...
'Thanks...'
I heard ...her sweet voice...
'Don't speed that way...'
I looked back and remarked,smiling...
'Yes! I shouldn't ...but today...my friend...I mean...my best friend...is taken ill...hospitalized...so...'
She mumbled, putting in clarification-
Emphasizing the phrase 'best friend';


I smiled and nodded...
She stared at me...half nodded...
And smiled...realizing that I realized her predicament...

She went away...
I took my road...
Only...the dent remained at my front bumper...
I didn't care to make it even...
I kept the 'kiss'...there...

the progenitor...

'Being the progenitor
Is really awesome...'
He thought, sitting under the cool shadow of the tree...
Watching his young one running through the greens like colt gone scotfree!
He just looked at his creation
Running by his childish whims and screaming
like hell breaking loose-
Into an ambiance that was otherwise so somnolent;

He stared blankly at the newest Bolt
Running to and fro aimlessly, so animalistic and so instinctive!
'Hey dad! will you mind if I run a bit away from you?'
His poem asked him...
He nodded...silently, full of satiety...

And the colt ran...
Ran away from him towards more green pastures...
He became anxious a bit...
'Kid...don't run too far..dear!'
He yelled...
'Its okay! dad! don't you worry!'
The receding kid answered back, sort of screaming...
The scream echoed...
He, the progenitor, was anxious no doubt..
But he felt the childish need...
He felt within the child...the child's curiosity to explore the unexplored...
To know the unknown...

Only the distance between him and the kid was a bit worrying...
'But he would always be there...let him run...'
He thought...
He felt a dual pull...
On one hand anxiety was gripping him...
On the other, he felt proud...of his creation getting more beautiful and strong...
And...
Sitting under the shade of the tree, he, the progenitor, had a dream...
The sweet dream of his kid returning like a great explorer...an Ulysses...
Returning home...after a long expedition...

at the souq...

The cave like entrance created confusions in my mind...
But once I got into the souq...
A whole world opened up before me...
A whole world of assorted goodies and gifts and spices...
I wandered aimlessly at the souq...
Enthralled by the textiles that hung from the wooden rails...
Traditional niqab...black...with head gears...
Modern versions with the face uncovered...
And shirts and jackets with geometric designs...and colors...so varied like jigjaw puzzles...

Wandering, I came to the place where spices were kept in baskets...
Spices ....ummmmm
The aroma once got into me-
Sent ripples of fruitfulness...
I walked like a dazed woman...
And then...
Somewhere in the middle I heard someone talking a bit loud
That surpassed the hullabaloo of the buyers and sellers...
I looked around...
And saw him...
Standing right there...
And the soft light of the afternoon fell on his face that looked helplessly perspiring...
At the souq...
He was definitely
Having difficulty in expressing himself;

I knew he did not know arabic...
But I know that!
So I went near him...
Thought of lifting my niqab even!
And put him into a surprise!

But then...more than committing a blasphemy
I thought...
It could lead to severe bio-electrical shocks to many...
To him...to my neighbours and family...
And it might cause my harm...
Lead me astray...

So...
I went near him,
Had a good look of his face
( which still had the innocence of his younger days...only the sight of stray beard was new to me!)
...after so many years...alas!  through my veiled eyes...
And slipped away-
Into the crowd;
Leaving him stranded there
Like a dumbstruck man,
Who was surely suffering from memory loss;

Before I took the last turn
That would take me away from his sight...and the souq
I turned my face slightly...
Pretending to look back at a shop that sold shoes-
And I saw him...
Still standing like someone who had seen a ghost!
Standing..as he was....in a middle of great confusion...
While the sellers still bragged him about some wristwatches and bottles of spices...


At the souq...
I met my old fling...
And still
Kept my hijab...

a rock song for you...

Darn! seeing you there so meek and timid, like a kitten...
I feel like pouring the rain of fire onto your shy figure...
Rain...
Rain full of fire and glowing warmth
That would send shiver down your spine dear!
Down your spine...
And jar your fragile heart to wakefulness...
And bar your senses from asking for anything more!
You would then, I hope, I pray, dear,
Feel the pangs of love restrained!
Love so restrained by chains of thorns that press onto one
To pierce through the skin...
Leaving spots dark...blemishes permanent...
And blood would ooze out from those sweet injury-spots of love,
Drops of red red fire...
Drops of red red wine!

Darn!
To see you there so timid and meek
Is like facing the iceberg on the voyage...hindering my movement of fiery soul!
I feel like pouring my redness onto dear!
Rain...
Rain of blood and wine!
Down your spine...
Sending shocks to you to defrost you
From your ice cold solid state!

Darn!
You're such a goddamn cold
A cold cold solid state...
And I am so fiery!
So fiery red, liquid...

The envelope...

She found the envelope
Kept within a book...after twenty years almost!
A red one...hand made stuff...
She looked at the envelope...
And...
Remembered the day...

A wet wintry day it was...
Mid December but the sky was a bit cloudy...
'It would rain...probably'
He murmured, sitting by her side at the deserted canteen of the university...
A scrapbook was open before him as usual...
She ordered two samosas...
The hot samosas came soon with red tomato sauce...
Rakhal da was busy calculating something sitting on his high stool...
The day was wet, moist, unlike a December date...
She was looking around...
He was drawing a picture or something on a page of the scrapbook...

'You have got nothing to say na?'
She had finally asked him, breaking the silence...
Between them...in the lonely canteen...with empty tables barring theirs;

'What?'
He had muttered, busy drawing a pencil sketch on the paper...
'About us?'
She enquired, feeling despondent really...
'Hmmm...'
Was his brief iconic reply;
'You're an ass...'
She teethed her words, mincing almost...
Enraged within;

'Hole...add that up...'
He said and chuckled, still drawing something;
She felt like grabbing the scrapbook and throwing it away...
She felt like landing a fist of fury on his nonchalant face...
He...
Was still drawing...
'Okay...I'm going...here's the money for samosas...eat more if you want...'
Saying this she went away, hurriedly, out of the canteen...
Her mom called just then...
Out on the street she yelled over phone to her dearest mom:
'Yes! yes! I agree to marry that poker faced middleaged junk! don't bother! tell dad to arrange for everything...but I'll be late for home today...'
Saying this she hurried across the crowded footpath selling books...
At a crossing nearby...
She had heard a familiar call:
'Hello! are you a deaf? calling you half the distance almost!'
She turned around...
To see him running towards her
With something that looked like a crude hand made envelope;
'What's this?'
She asked when he, huffing and out of breath,
Gave her the thing...
'Nothing...just some nonsensical idiotic gibberish!'
He yelled, unmindful of the peopled street and honking cars and hawkers...
Then he ran away...
She looked at him...running zig-zag...
Through the crowd...

the mariner...

I was fooling around the boat...
Knowing that she would be out sailing tumro...
With it...
The girl of the evening had turned into a dazzling woman of night...
I could see her ear studs twinkling in the dark sky...
I touched the wooden plank of the boat...
The stern post looked shiny...almost gleaming from the light that shone on it from the hull...
The white navigation light was on...
I placed my hands on the ropes and pulled them...
Like a child fiddling with a toy...
Only...
That effort of mine brought her out...
She...
The mariner...
Wearing jeans and a white flannel shirt
And a dark green jacket...
Her eyes fell on me...standing on the platform...
'Hi! need rest...going out tumro...want anything?'
She uttered in a tired voice, almost yawning...
'na..nope...only wanted to have a look at your beautiful boat...'
I mumbled, unsure of what to say...
She smiled, waved her hand and went back...disappeared...
'Hello...miss...hello...?'
I called out...
The boat rocked on the restful dark water...
As if nodded in silence...
I looked around...
Found no one...
Only found a small wooden board nearby...
Something was pasted on it...a kind of a notice:
'This is an abandoned place.Enter at our own risk'
I smiled
And thought to lie down on the platform-
Right beside the noticeboard...
After all who could leave one's beloved? even if ...
The voyage had been ended hurriedly-
And the boat had been left abandoned for long...

at the 'mechanics' class...

'So when we try to create a kind of free body diagram...
We always remember that we are considering the object to be free initially from all forces...
We think of a space...three dimensional...and then we imagine...
Yes! we imagine the object to be going through certain forces...
Imagine...dear...Imagine...'
The professor at the lectern suddenly raised his otherwise mellowed voice...
And pronounced the word Imagine with a severity...as if he wanted the whole class to be poets...

'Forces..'
He thought sitting on the last bench, pressing his back on the green wall that left flakes of green tinge on his shirt...
'Are every where...who's free really?
Then he took up his pencil and the drawing board...
Thought of a space
Put an object named 'i' there...
And let it float...
Then he thought of the space...
Thought of air...and its density...
Thought of the bottomline of the drawing board as the ground...
Put arrow downward to indicate 'g'...the gravitational force working on 'i'...
Now to keep it there floating...
He needed to make the situation on board a bit changed...
(So he imagined...)
He thought of exerting some kind of force upward...
He thought of the object as a rocket...
Exhausting ...gases downward...
He drew arrows up which negated 'g'...
He provided some kind of stability to the rocket like object...
Then he thought...
It was not so easy...
He ransacked his head...
The freebody diagram engaged him...
He was captivated by the diagram and the forces...
He felt he himself got entangled...

 'Freedom...'the professor, meanwhile declared from his lectern...
'is just another diagrammatic expression of servitude to forces...internal and external...'
He nodded...
And smiled...looking at his sketch...
And the object on the board...
'I'...
The object...
It was there...
But not going anywhere...
Only its energy was dissipating all the time...
All the time...

on rereading 'Aronyok'...

Rereading 'Aronyok'
Is my favourite pastime...
It had become so...over the years...

When first I got hold of that Bibhuti babu's book...
I was only fifteen then...
Young, dreamy, adventurous, erratic...
So...'Aronyok' made me wild...
I ran after wild berries, wild blossoms, wilderness...
And that led me to stranger realities...
Realities of sitting on the bow of a country boat under the soft, insane moon...
And humming tunes of 'Holud pakhi...'
And then...
I grew older...
The book grew older with me too!
It brought before me...
Realities of different kind the next...
Realities of Kunta...
Her piteous eyes...
Her rustic innocence...
My mind led me far and wide...
My 'Aronyok' led me to the depth...

It led me to Poesy, philosophy, people,and dreams...
It helped in a transgression...of a different kind...


'Aronyok'...
You made and spoiled me!

('Aronyok', is one of the greatest works of Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee(1898-1950). It presents beautifully, in the most wondrously romantic manner, the life of the country people living near Mohanpura Reserve Forest and its fringes...it is a fiction, but it is somewhat journalistic in design, presenting great details of life of rustic people of Bengal and Bihar...)

winter...

You, sometimes, come to me like that grand old nanny...
Shaking and trembling all the time, wrapped in blanket...
Chewing betel-leaves...and telling us stories of ghosts...post dinner...

Sometimes, you turn up as a college going girl...busy...talking on cellphone...
discussing a point of rendezvous with someone-
Bubbly, unpretentious, sunny!

Sometimes you're a great cricketer...
Sending the leather to distant dew-laden meadows-
Amidst cheering minions;

Sometimes you stay indolent...
Like that next door boy...
Just listening to rock songs and boozing...

Sometimes...after the sunset...you bring warmth...
With my love's lips...
so tempting and lustrous!

Winter...
Have I told you ever-
That I miss you the year long...waiting and waiting...with all my heart?

at a coffee shop...

'Cool! so you've become a regular scribbler?...what do you scribble? How you manage to find time out? How's your kid and wife? how's kaku?'
She asked all these at one go, as if she had little time at her disposal and would go out soon...of the coffee shop...on this beautiful wintry sunny, sunday morn...at Park street...
I looked at her...
She was sitting opposite to me...
'Yes...about  childhood, mother, nature, and love...I scribble whenever I find time...kid is going good...wife is perfectly alright...dad is a bit ailing...'
I answered like writing down a horizontal line...no ups and no downs...
As I looked at her...who had grown a bit plump...womanly...
'Buss? aur kuch likhte ho ki nahin?'
She asked, suddenly as she completed her third long sip...taking a good amount of chocolate layered coffee from the glass tumbler...looking at me...with her eye brows dancing...
I know this...I know this dancing of her eyebrows meant playfulness...
This shows that she is happy...
And this knowledge that she is terribly happy, pleased me a lot!
So I smiled, and looked at my glass tumbler...not a sip taken so far...
'Sorry! I'm asking too many queries! Take a sip...its really good!'
She exclaimed and entreated...
'yeah...'
I whispered almost...and took a sip...and the hot chocolate went through my pipe...Ah! smooth...warm...
Now...it was probably her turn to scrutinise me...
'You look trimmed...'
She said, kind of commented upon, casually, merrily...
I smiled...
Not knowing what she had actually meant by the word 'trimmed'...my hair? my body? my moustache?
'You didn't answer me...'
She said, breaking a truffle cake by the  flat spoon...
I looked at her golden pendant hanging right on the cleavage...as coming to a brief view...a view of a moment...under the cover of her dupatta...
And looked outside...turning my head...
The cars were scarce on the sunday morn...
The red building on the other side of the road as seen through the big glass window of the coffee shop looked like freshly painted...
'Hey! you!'
She upped her tone a bit to gather my attention...
'Yes...dear...'
I murmured...
Suddenly her face went through a strange transformation, in front of my own eyes...
A sudden shadow of sadness made a brief impression upon her face of the morn...it stayed for a while before going away...
'I do write a lot...on varied things...about music, wine, painting, people, streets...life...'
I answered, taking my second sip from the tumbler...
'Not about me?'
She asked, looking at the broken truffle cake on the white chinaware at our table;

I remained silent and sighed,
She looked straight at me, looked at my eyes-straight, very very straight, like an arrow almost, sharp!
I looked at the road outside...getting busy gradually...
The red building appeared fresh and redder with the sun now falling on its facade...
'Hello! gone to another land? you poet?'
She asked...
I felt the warmth getting back to her after a brief coldness,
I felt my blood getting the warmth from her,
So...
I took the third sip and took out a piece of paper from my wallet...a folded piece of paper that had grown crinkly almost...
And opened the folds and placed it on the table before her;
She sort of jumped onto it and grabbed it as if it was an expensive thing lying...
She took it up and started reading it, softly,
Her eyebrows were all concentration...
Her face showed curiosity, eagerness and...
Well...I don't know...
I might be wrong...
But...
At that coffee shop, on that sunny, wintry morn, at Park street...
I saw a glimpse of Love...
In her eyes...

my grandad's turntable...

The other day, when I went up to my attic
I found my granddad's old Thorens...broken...
It was not that I saw it for the first time in my life lying there...defunct...dust covered...
I found it there...lying useless from my teenage days, perhaps...
But as the beautiful rays of the setting sun fell on it through the window...
I suddenly discovered that it was beautiful...
It was like rediscovering something...
It was like finding the past good in an ugly present...
So I went up to my grandad's turntable...
And placed my hand on the platter...
Knowing that I would have to wash my hand afterwards...
Knowing that the heap of dust would make me sneeze soon...
Still...
I placed my hand on my granddad's beautiful possesssion...
An ol' Thorens...
Under the twilight light...
The thing looked awesome!
As if it was also shivered by human touch after a long time...
I tried to move a bit the platter...
It moved!
It moved as if it came alive by my touch...
And...
And Methought I saw my granddad...sitting right there!
I saw him sitting right in front of my eyes....rocking on his favourite chair...and smiling at me...