Caveated (Haibun)
A shiny gibbous moon
with some wiry silver strands is how his head looks like. He has a
striking resemblance to Albert Einstein. An old neighbour, I call him
“uncle”. Most of his day is spent tending to the bonsais, roses,
palms, flowering cacti, money plants and God-knows-what that grow in
the hundred odd clay pots in his terrace garden. Odour of cigar smoke,
geriatric medications, talcum powder, wet soil, insect repellent
spray...his home is an eclectic mix of these smells. The time when he
is not gardening he reads on his mahogany rocking chair and falls
asleep there itself, reading glasses on his nose and an open book on
his chest. The wall across his chair stained with the seepage of the
years, bears a life-size framed photograph. That’s his son, Jay, my
childhood playmate. Born to his first wife, Jay was the third progeny
after two stillborn boys. Wife died during third child birth. Uncle
re-married. New wife was a classic stepmom till she bore a son. A
cherubic boy, the child had a hole in his heart’s ventricular septum and
survived a year and half with umpteen hospital trips. They were
blessed with another son, a few years down the line. Uncle’s visits to
the crematorium seemed to have stopped. Addicted to TV video games
Jay flunked his class ten exams. Reprimanded, he gulped a bottle of
concentrated acid. Jay was fifteen then.
Behind the bedroom door
with peeling paint, a calendar hangs on the rusty nail. It is marked in
red with birth and death anniversaries. A new potted plant makes its
way into Uncle’s garden on each. “These don’t perish easily,” he tells
me.
welder’s spark...
the dark gets darker
after each flash
the dark gets darker
after each flash
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