The Old Manor House

Another one of my poem's. This one's not just a result of emotional impulses. Started on it months ago, but never got around to completing it. Here it is, now.

The Old Manor House

The rusty old iron gate creaked with a sigh
As she entered the ancient Manor house
The unkempt garden seemed to sneer at her sight
And she felt as small as a mouse
The vastness of it all seemed to engulf her whole
She gathered around her the cloak that she wore

The curiosity seemed etched on her face
As she shuffled her feet ahead
The strangely beautiful mansion seemed to beck to her
As she stayed rooted where her feet did rest
Compelled to move ahead, instead she turned around
The gate had moved on its own to fling back with a resonating sound

Her lips did quiver, as she peered around the hedgerows,
With anticipation as she imagined what she’d find inside
As she gazed longingly at the door,
The wind whistling by her side
She felt a cold chill run down her spine
The tall trees had begun to roar and whine

The sun was high above her
It shone white with all its might
Beads of swear appeared on her brow
As she fought against her fear, slowly, steadily, blow by blow
She looked at the ground beneath her, strewn with dead leaves,
The dust rising in little swirls and settling, at ease

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought, she saw something move
Up, up on the window high up on the highest floor
Was it someone peering outside? Or just her eyes playing games with her mind?
The moth-eaten lace curtains flapped lazily
The glass of the window broken, cracked on one side
She saw a dark eye glinting from the shadows or was it...

Just the glass reflecting the light?
The enigma that surrounded the building was as dark as the night
But she had to know, had to see, had to prove
That nothing could stop her from going inside
She gathered all her might and set her mind to enter the house
Without even a sign of fright

The knocker on the front door resembled a snake
It shone a dull golden, which would have looked grand in it’s time
The door was dark mahogany which, with its shine and splendour,
Would have put the brightest, newest door to shame
She pushed it with her hand and it swung inwards
Baring to her a room filled with dust, cobwebs and scurrying rats

She shielded herself with her arm as a bat swooped towards her
Opening her eyes once more, she saw a colony of bats resting upside down
On the largest chandelier she had ever seen, which had slowly turned brown
The glass clinked softy as a few more bats moved in their sleep
Bustling around at the sunlight which had entered the room, unseen
Uncomfited by the sudden interference into their lives, they shut their eyes

She moved her eyes around the hall with its moth-eaten furniture
And a grand fireplace which still made the place feel warm
She moved towards it, enraptured,
Above the fireplace hung a portrait old and faded
The lady painted on it looked extremely aged
She stood with a young woman, a smile etched across her face

This must be the girl who had been left alone in the haste
While the others fled with the fear of being murdered by the enslaved
The Lestranges had been knowned to have kept quite a few innocents
Locked up in the cellar, while their glory lasted
And at last their threatening had come to no advantage
When the commoners had risen to power and they had been bated.

Coming back to the present and gazing at the face of the young, beautiful girl
Who had once lived in this very house, with her grandmother and her father, the Earl.
She turned her back to the picture, glanced around and advanced towards the staircase
Which rose magnificently to the next landing, she slowly trailed her hands over the banister.

Up, up she went steadily and turned left to a golden door which led…
To a beautiful chamber with a four-poster bed
The room still smelt sweetly of roses long dead
It was strange how she could still feel the sadness creep up over her
In the darkness of the room which mystified her with the enigma
She advanced towards the broken window,
They say the young girl had climbed up atop the window ledge...

She looked down at the haggard overgrown hedge
The saccharine smell of wilted roses reached her
It made her feel heavenly,
She looked towards the horizon, the distant sky
Only a lonely tree stood whimpering under the afteroon sun

The trees whistling her a sweet lullaby, the grass whispered beneath
Beckoning her to the man of her dreams, who stood there looking up
His face ashen, with tears in his eyes, he held a bouqet of roses
Raised a hand and smiled with lips that weren’t there..

She climbed atop the window ledge,
Dreaming of flying, weightless on the misery-filled air, while joyful laughter
Rang in her head, she felt a hand support her back,
She smiled and pushed herself out of the broken window
The moth-eaten lace curtains flapped lazily
While the eye looked for another story to go by.

Partly inspired by Vermillion Pt.2 by Slipknot.

Minus Eighteen.

Life has a weird way of "equalising" things. Even good things. No one can have too much of a good thing, but yeah, however much of the bad - MUCHO!! Eventually it ends up initial good being equalised by bad, but initial bad being loaded up with more bad, and more bad. And still some more. So, shit happens.

The phenomenon of "equilisation" works with grades, too. Why. I don't know.

I spend a whole day cramming up facts for the Fine Arts Theory Test and then..

I lean back in my seat at school to take a look at my question paper and there it is. Horror of horrors. Out of the five questions - each marked a BIG six - I have no idea where the last three came from! I frantically demand my teacher appear before me right now. There she is. I ask her.

"All of them are in the notes."

"..."

"Yes?"

"They are not. I think I didn't get all the notes."

"Your fault." So be it.

"But these three.. how. When. What. Huh." Dazed.

She turns to one single other FA student. "What about you?" The girl nods, feigning sympathy when I can see, almost as if in her thought baloon -
"Yes! Yes! Yes!! Woohoooooo!!! Finally. Not more than me."

Eighteen out of thirty vanish away into thin air. Simply. Kaboom.

I can register only snatches of the teacher's dialogue "Didn't you know.. how come.. must've been absent. Distributed.. long back. Very careless." Or maybe I nightmare-ed up the last "careless" bit. But it sure was there in her mind.

Sniffle sniffle. I feel my eyes filling up. On the verge. Then I feel hot all over. Then I feel this tingling. I cry.

"No problem. Do the other two. We'll see."

No problem, she says. We'll see, she says. Yeah right. The other teacher meanwhile observes me like I'm some rare specimen of an endangered species. Get a magnifying glass, Ma'am. Isn't it very interesting, Ma'am.

"You have the Practicals too. Score there." Ha!

Finally, when I care enough to get decent grades. More than decent, in some cases. Here comes someone who tells me average is okay. No, it is not. Murder. Good, so that's it then.. how did this happen? One big unsolved mystery.

Then I stare off into the distance. Down below, I see the horses going round and round as if in a circus, in the field. Galloping. Whinnying. Green grass. Blue sky. Cool wind gets in through the window with no glass.

I start writing my paper.

Creeping Normalcy..

With looking forward to posting half a dozen posts per day to absolutely nothing at all for a couple of months. I wonder if it's lack of inspiration or something else? Not many people think of motivating others when they lack some themselves, I guess.

"Normal" has changed it's meaning for me. It used to be - everything goes. To.. Nothing Goes. Not even one percent of what used to be Life. Still, I'm here, same still darkness, the same faint sunlight though the light blue curtains, the same AC, the same old Guns N' Roses, and me tap tap tapping on the keyboard. Change is the only constant. I did read that somewhere. Well...

Being a Humanities student has it's pros and cons. Contrary to popular belief, it's not all "easy peasy".. and I wonder if India's gonna have a shortage of Archeologists, Geographers, Historians in another decade.. with everyone "aspiring to be an engineer". All right. No offence.

Thank goodness I don't listen to people's views. I should've been dead. But I'm as alive as I was the day I was born. India is a difficult place to be in but the people are more difficult. What with the "caste" divisons. I still get to hear a snippet from people here and there, travelling along corridors, through a crowd of shit-headed people. Even classmates. Unbelievable, considering they're 16 AND they don't believe in shitty nonsense. Or so I thought. I wish I could just erase all the surnames of all Indians. If they can show brotherly OR sisterly love to their caste-fellows. I'm sure they'd do the same if the only criteria was Nationality. Not even religion. I hate religion with a passion. More fiery than anything I can think of.

With the LHC experiments.. I hope they consider remaking the whole Earth. We get Earth II. So cool. Imagine a world without countries, religions, no higher or lower, no distinctions, no discrimination. But that's just my over-active imagination. What of all the money? The military? The wars.. the economies.. the histories.. everything rolled into one. We get another human-made disaster.

Consider living on Mars one day. As me and my Humanities friend were discussing it one day - we'd just have Geography to study. No History. No Economics. And anyway, if we get the same teacher. It's gala time! :D

Rabbi Shergill - Bilqis . Jinhe Naaz Hai.

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

I sat under the dying mango tree and thought about how things had gone awry. The heat rising up from the ground made me feel light-headed. As I heard the buzz of silence, heavy on my ears and my mind, I felt a calm creep over me. Red ants busied themselves talking to each other on their way, gosipping. I wondered what they talked about. A half-eaten overripe mango fell flat on the ground making a squashy noise when it rolled on to it's bitten damp side. Work of the parrots. I hugged the tree, and the bark felt rough against my cheek. I breathed out.

A cool breeze lifted my hair and brought it down slowly. A couple of raindrops fell on my hands while the sun still half shone merrily on the grey, party overcast sky. And I thought of the sketches I used to draw as a kid. The sun hiding behind the clouds, grinning, smiling forever. Was it the sun who was always happy or was it I? I felt a lump rising in my throat. I gulped and pushed it down. But the tears still came. There was no stopping them. No end to them. They went on, came back like the birds did to their nests every evening. Without fail.

I let go of the tree and raised my head towards the sky. A tiny drop fell on my right cheek. I didn't wipe it off. I never did. I prayed an Atheist prayer that it would soon start raining heavily. Anxious that I'd miss the first raindrops, I ran to the hall through the kitchen, up the stairs and stumbled on to the roof. Breathless, I reached for something to hold on to. I couldn't find anything. My eyesight blurred for a moment while my eyes looked at nothingness. Then I settled on the ledge. Mum always got scared when I did that. I didn't think there was anything dangerous. I wouldn't fall off. That would be stupid, and I was anything but that.

I swayed my legs to and fro, touching the wall and then not touching it. Hitting my heels lightly on the wall.. and then hard. Side by side, but that made me queesy. I resumed the to and fro moves. Harder. One two one two one two one. It hurt. I alternated the movement between the feet. That felt rhythmic. Then the rain started pattering on the jamun leaves right overhead. I was shielded from the rain. I felt cozy. Safe. For then, atleast.

Food for Thought..

“The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.”

- Galileo Galilei