In rememberance of a Friend

A pen with the initials RSM inscribed on it which she used to say she would have inscribed on all the Nokia phones once she became CEO, a box of thoughts(suvisheshams) handed out to any one feeling blue, a big smile for her friends,the asbsolute freedom to say what ever you pleased with out minding the language,and the absolute terrbile way she destroyed the most beautiful songs .That is the Rekha Susan Mani I remember.

I wish I had never seen the mail, never heard the news , never known that she is no more in this world, for I would do anything in the world today to know that the smiling facebook photo is for real and that she is still alive and well.


From a cobweb of memories old,
I can still see your smiling face
Oh thoughts , they come in a flood
flashing scenes in my mind's maze

I remember the smiles , the jokes and fights,
Those rainy nights , when all was dark
I remember the laughter that echoed our room
The clouds too that made our friendships strong

When we parted ways , and you moved away
New friendships came and blocked our way
Time moved on , future beckoned
To distant lands we flew away.

We drifted apart ,as friends would do,
Not keeping in touch as we so promised to
With a pang in my heart , I realise today,
That you are gone for ever ,with angels for friends,

 Now I can see your smiling face,
in my mind ,clearer than ever before,
As I close eyes and let tears fall,
To grieve for a friend forever lost.

Old anecdote from college hostel

Ever since I started my blog at infy long ago, I had wanted to jot down small anecdotes of different people I had met in different stages of my life and one person who I always wanted to write about before she disappeared from my memory forever was our engineering college hostel and its warden (Nighty Thalla).

Hajira Bivi was one person who you couldn't forget easily. She was almost always dressed in a night gown with a shawl covering her part of her hair..and falling lazily around her rake thin shoulders, haunting the stairs and corridors of the hostel with a sour expression most of the time.The name was coined by would be romeos stalking the hostel who invariably got her at her angriest sour faced expressions.

In all the time that I studied for engineering , Cochin University never had hostels for BTech students , and we were all left to the mercy of private hostel owners who charged exorbitant rates for jam packed rooms and meager meals.But with its apartment converted structure and sweet talking owner, the suburban hostel had seemed like one of the better evils of the lot at first glance.

The initial honey moon period soon ran out and soon I began to find that vegetarian food just meant no non vegetarian (albeit the occasional bug in the food) and not necessarily any of nutritious stuff that we were supposed to get. Hajira warden who was super sweet initially started finding fault with us for no reason and soon , she would start stalking the staircases at night to catch people who were awake late night and report them to the hostel owner. Soon , we found that people who got along well with her seldom got reported while people who got her ire , got reported for minor matters like reaching 2 mins late after the 6:00 PM curfew. At 6:00 PM , she would wait at the hostel gates to see who were late and woe betide anyone who got caught.

During this time , somehow she started telling a few of us about herself, how this job was the only way she could support her family and this endeared her to us in-spite of all her faults. After all those were part of her job.But then some strange things began to happen. Things began to disappear. Small things like audio cassette tapes at first, but then things like watches , even money.These missing things were seldom heard of afterwards , until some one saw all of them in a bag in her room. Sometimes, long after something disappeared, she would return the things to its rightful owner citing that she found it somewhere. Many of the hostelites secretly thought that she might be a kleptomaniac who takes things and then returns them  after months.But she was sweet in many ways , and on one occasion , even let me and three of my friends in at 6:30 pm when we had a true emergency.

Soon afterwards, she was removed from her warden post supposedly for some misappropriation and we had a new dragon of a warden. We thought that was the last that we would hear about her , but that was not the case.During that time, yours truly and some of her friends decided to move into a rented house and almost paid the advance , but for some reason, the house owners backed off from giving us the apartment at the last minute. Later we found that a character assassination had been made and by none other than our Nighty Thalla..which prevented the house owners from renting it to us. She was very much there in the neighborhood and was hoping that we would join the new hostel that she had just started .

Then the story of the egg black magic or "Motta matnthravadam" happened. and it seemed to me at that time one of the funniest stories of the time. One evening , our new warden came running to our room and said , "You know , I 've known it all along. This place is jinxed". We thought she was being a bit too silly , but were eager to hear the story. "I went to the church priest and he confirmed ." She continued. It seemed that the from the day she joined for the new post , she was having a head ache and illnesses. When she finally had it checked by a priest, he told her that she had been a victim of ,hmm what else other than "motta manthravadam" by the old warden.. The idea of our Biwi casting a spell on the new warden was so funny that it was the topic of hostel dinners for weeks.But black magic or not , she could do nothing much to influence many people to join her hostel and soon I heard that she had left for her home town permanently.

Some times, I have wondered what became of her, and though we have cursed her a good many times while we were at the hostel, in my heart of hearts , I wish her well.

Friends and Cousins

Revenge Undone

Winds of Hurt and hatred blew
My heart and mind they burst
All of me wanting to hurt back
The one who broke my trust

Weapons Wild I made to whirl
With words picked and sharpened in woe
Dreams I had in angry glee
Planning Revenge for my hurt ego

Day and night, I nursed my wound
For the day we met again
To return the same back in kind
I hoped and prayed in vain

Then one day , I got my chance
He came in sight once more
Oft rehearsed words then failed my tongue
As a look of indifference he wore

The childhood days of love had gone
The hurt and hatred too
For he was now a different man
A stranger beneath the face I knew

Not looking at him as I went away
My feelings with out a vent
How could I hurt, who cared no more
Love and hate , my heart's torment

Your Silence

Why do I feel sad

For Some one's silence
When there was no fight
No harsh words sent
Why does it make me hurt
If there is no answer,
A milion Excuses I make
For the life's busy takes
Why do I still expect
that one day the silence will break
When each word I say,
is just another word lost

Why do try to start
a futile conversation again
When my heart's so full
With the silence you gave

Why do I want the reason
if not to clear myself
That knowingly or not
If reason for silence is me