Theloopylululog

The best purchase I have ever made?

The bestest purchases of my life are my…

Before I reveal the name, may I entice you with a poem? Please consider it a treasure hunt, yeah?

I will keep the lights on…

I try not to stare.

It’s been a while and you don’t look the same.

Yet there’s that charming familiarity that’s warming the air.

*

Were you always this pale?

Did I never notice earlier?

*

The triple windows are wide open.

A couple of Red Whiskered Bulbuls try to catch my attention;

I throw them a few grains of rice and they sing a song of gratitude and fly away.

The feet-less pigeon is just moments away from settling on the sill watching me as I write.

I wonder what it marvels at every day.

The Sun walks in; draped in Tangerine today and quietly settles on the sleeping table in the corner of the room.

Did you know that the black beauty is almost my age? And that teak wonder was 400 years old when it died?

Well, you never cared about the precious things I surround myself with, did you?

*

I suddenly catch you staring at me.

Embarrassed, I blush and slip a few strands of loose hair behind my ear.

I hide behind my tea mug and look out the window.

*

The fading everyday life of my neighbours’ is haphazardly hung out to dry on the clothesline.

A splash of color amidst ennui and frustration.

*

Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 plays.

Four Seasons by Vivaldi, Coldplay is queued up next.

There’s an entire album of The PianoGuys too, bursting to let themselves go!

To play on a loop.

I can tell you are wondering…

No. No more Bryan Adams!

People change, darling. Unlike you.

Moreover that was 11 years ago; I was still in ‘That’ phase, remember?

It’s time you let it go.

It’s not funny anymore!

*

The lace curtain is at it again!

The foreplay with the warm breeze goes on and on…for hours! Ever wondered what’s that about?

*

No? Nothing piques your mind? Does it?

*

Time seems to have frozen us.

There’s much that could be said. But…who’s to thaw first?

I fervently pray we don’t begin to talk about the weather!

I hope you remember we suck at small talk.

I secretly wish you would simply look around and let the room fill in the blanks of the years you missed.

*

Souvenirs of the time since you were gone decorate every nook of the room.

The pixelated stories of chaotic yesterdays.

The books of ice cold mountains that filled the shelf in your prolonged absence.

The measuring tape that has seen the length and breadth of countless hidden secrets.

The box of threads that sewed many dying dreams alive.

The radio that replaced your trusted company.

The pencils that tried and lost many a war with the parched acid free paper.

The battered laptop that speaks of hope and courage on stagnant noon’s, when the gaping hole you left behind itches to swallow me whole.

*

The wood in my furniture, the mud in my terracotta mugs and the pulp in my books have learnt to empathize with me.

An emotion you are uncomfortable with, even today, I’m guessing?

*

You don’t seem to recognize anything, do you?

The silence is awkward and getting itchier by the hour.

Back then we were like a bonfire crackling with mystery and bonhomie.

Now the distance between us is but a few feet.

Yet, it seems like a whole new continent sprung up between us while we turned our backs to each other.

I am now dollops of color in a greying sea of wizened calm and joy.

You still look like an iceberg floating in a sea of whiteness and silence.

I find it hard to figure you out and yet I seem to think I can.

Do you even know me?

Or am I just shooting blanks at midnight hoping for the elusive maneater to die somehow?

*

The music is breathing its last.

*

I look at the pigeon, still marvelling at me; sigh and toss my still wet hair.

A bouquet of dewy pearls showers upon your unsuspecting face.

For a fleeting second our bemused eyes meet and my heart stops.

We give in to giggles like a flock of little ducks out on their first swim.

The room suddenly comes alive…

*

The sky, pregnant with a thunderstorm is due soon.Boom! A bolt of lightning strikes!

I shudder and close my eyes tightly for the inevitable thunder to follow.

Few seconds later I look around;

You are on your way out.

Shifty again, are you?

Of course, you aren’t ready yet.

My eyes on the verge of welling up give up midway.

You play the same game over and over…

As always, it isn’t the day to stay.

*

I turn around and helplessly watch your silhouette receding into the sunset.

It’s up to these inanimate objects again;

To fill my voids in myriad ways and help me weave fairy-tales out of yarns of vivid nightmares and lacklustre dreams.

*

But soon you will tire yourself of this charade, my dear;

And realize that as twisted as it might be,

We belong to each other.

Our hands don’t fit but their touch makes our lives come into bud.

You will drop your façade someday and turn yourself around.

I promise I will keep the lights on.

On a day, very much like today, when the thunder and the lightning break into a passionate tango of unspoken love,

You will walk in through that door,

And quietly slip into the room and lie beside me.

---

Well? Who do you think the object of my unending, unconditional love is?

My Canvas boards, the only purchases I have never regretted.

Yes, I am an artist and my love affair with them began 18 years ago.

On a whim, while on a break from work in March 2008, I bought the first one. After perusing many art institutes, all of which I couldn’t afford, I went all in and bought myself an oil painting set. Nothing fancy. Student oil colours, some horse hair brushes, a couple of canvases and a palette.

Just like that my journey into oil painting began. Decades later, I am still a blushing bride when I mount a canvas to paint. I simply sit across it, smile and our love story begins. Again.

And again. As if we were meeting for the first time.

As if we were meeting again for the first time in a long time.

We know each other as we know ourselves.

We know each other like we have never forgotten each other.

A relationship that once strayed off limits.

A relationship that had the honesty to come back.

A relationship that took years to build.

A relationship that stayed despite…

The love of my life.

My canvas boards.

Behind the scenes :

The object of my unending affection, attention and frustration in the poem written in 2019 is a 14×18 stretched White Canvas Board that came to my life in the summer of 2017. An unintentional break from painting had extended into a decade, both of us ( me and my boards obviously) not knowing how to get past the chinks and awkward silence.

But I was rearing to go again. Jump right into business, oil paints et al. Only to sit and stare at it for long hours, with the brush dripping oil and colour hanging in the air. There’s Sunlight. There’s Tea. There’s Burning Desire!

Hours later…The Sun goes down. The music winds down. And yet Nothing. Zilch!

That canvas board was still staring back. Stark. Cold. Blind to my overflowing devotion to it.

(Perhaps playing Please forgive me by Bryan Adams might have done the trick, No?)

The poem was written honouring the time we spent apart between 2008 and 2019. The only time we have ever spent apart.