Kangleimaichou

I  had marked it as distance I had begun to call it stranger Though I had lived in it I once  had  dreaded its taste E ven dreaded its memories I was alive Alive aimlessly Alive without a name I had to run as far as I could I had to run farther To  evade  what was once so precious To disown what was my world I had learned to look at it With bitterness Whoever talked it was my foe Whoever smiled in it Embittered me I had taught myself all the opposite The world turned just a stage Life a vengeance Memories curdled I buried...

Keep it close, the mind says Let it go, the bewitched heart suggests If the truth be told; better keep it unsaid One has known beauty One has been kept in spell Also learned bewitchment  The mind is at odd with heart But the heart says, it is heavy Heavy to move around with it Yet it admits, it’s a beautiful weight

Once I hoped Once I relearned to hope Hoped to undo the past I was not looking I was not seeking  I wanted to forget  A chapter  The chapter of failures  The failures I had known The failures that ruled senses  There was none Who could help The wounded me In weeks I was a new person In months I was a stronger person In months I could shake off  The Chapter And in months I knew her scent And in months I lived in her smiles Soon it was her  Soon all was new The rain was new The splatters transformed Autumn ’ s hu...

I wouldn’t be surprised when Orwell’s 1984 is banned, considering the fact that the nation is now run by a Hinduvta government, and its performance is evaluated by the so-called intelligentsia who Arnab Goswami easily manipulates in his Times Now’s courtroom. I am reminded of the time when a Kerala consumer court had issued an arrest warrant against RIL’s god  and the editor there went ballistic for doing the forbidden of touching his master’s pal. We were chided, and we swallowed it and went home telling ourselves we were working for a newspaper which is considered to represent the conscience of the nation. This is one reason why I suggest you sit with someone who has been involved in editorial decision-making to find out what’s wrong with India, the democracy with too many unspoken rules and secrets. With regards to ‘my pals’, this platform is an open one, and I don’t discuss family and seek no bonhomie with anyone, and I don’t do convenient friendship, and thus my relation wit...

It’s strange They say It should be what it was He thought But it is the past His past of romance The only romance he knew He only had that   With that long gone And that he had known  He turned a mad man It was what was missing That emptiness had to be filled To continue living   Till yesterday he was  Who snickered at it He despised What he didn’t have It was gone It was too remote Remoter than the past   But a sudden twist has altered it His mind changed Hope installed  Life revived   He felt for it It's for real It's a long ...

It was meant to be precious It was among the two That you were to get One was your mother And it was her How you thought about Thought them While tramping in the melee You had been to places You always wanted What you needed Never before you carried Such a picture At which you would smile With prolonged fondness And you looked for a word, A word that would exact it That was love The thing that had long evaded The thing that you had known The thing that stared At your back She changed you Changed you after so long Made you stand Before what you had avoided It was her you carried It was her smiles that You stared at with smiles You stored up her words Even the unsaid ones She once said She wanted to find a quiet place Where she could find peace The place where Buddha was You knew that So it was that you knew It was that you had in your mind A shawl for your mother Buddha for her You smiled when she asked you Asked you to get her something It was...

I once knew London The London of my parents The city of my grandparents The city of Thames The London of Cockney And the city of posh But it soon was strange All was strange In the London I once knew With the memories of my grandfather Far from my past With the memories of my Parents swallowed up Fast by the new London I couldn't like it I knew there was nothing What I knew was old It was old and remote It was also irrelevant What I looked at Was the stories I had heard The stories told in my childhood The stories my grandfather told By the warm fires In the warm sun It was the stories from India London was not my place No more Any longer But I found a place in the stories It said it was in the hills It said it was a town A town in the hills Perhaps a place in Kim The town of narrow roads The roads sometimes snaky Between the lines of chinar  trees Its people simple Unlike the highlanders I knew I took the town to my sleep I woke up to the t...

I have been holding myself back from delivering any remarks against the recent coup d'etat in Thailand. One chief reason is the fact that my third fiction encompasses the political landscape of the place.  But with all the updates streaming in from several sources, I am rather tempted to let my political stance be quite clear. The glittering gadgets in reckless hands and the roads packed with foreign cars can’t be construed as a development that exacts political developments in the minds of the people. You can discuss what province in the country has got the best fried pork with the best and the most beautiful people, yet the same people would discourage you from discussing politics. Politics, to most, is for the elite or for the royalists, and this most Thais don’t mind much as long as they have a place to work to make a living. No Thai would bother to go as far as the kindergarten curriculum to find out why they are taught that certain families are superior to the rest,...

All that I knew was that I had to leave that hopeless chaotic place where my teenage life ended at five. It was with bitter disdain I left the place. And for those who were leaving the place with me were the people to be pitied and people who thought almost like me. In the expensive potholed and dreadful city of the democracy I had come for the promised best education. How many of us would ever think of getting into such a college named after a western holy man, and what was distinct was that I was the only one from the entire region. It gave me this sense of superiority that made me feel that I had better and bigger things to achieve in life. I actually wanted something big, or something which was placed close where others’ was placed.And when I thought about that my kind were out of the scene. Our men were always cliquish and all that they cared for was food and cheap drinks, and the women were had nothing ambitious; they appeared as though they had come out to advance their ...