Quote specialist

Shamima was a quote specialist. Her internal exam essays and assignments were peppered with quotes, mostly attributed to Jack Smith. It is still a mystery to me where she found him. She refused to share that authority with even a confidante like me. "Jessie," she counselled me, stabbing her finger at me like a rap artiste, "don't share your reference books."

It was widely suspected that Jack Smith was her own invention and she attributed every quote she memorised to him. Lissie madam, who swore by the Medusa guide, was perplexed as she encountered this authority in every paper, from Chaucer to R.K. Narayan. In the open class she quizzed Shamima. "OK, tell me? Where did you read this Smith?He seems to be an authority on all ages and all authors." She seemed to have cornered Sham for once, but before you could say Jack Smith, she came up with: "In Medusa guide! ma'am." She also added for good measure: "Ma'am, it is more important what is being said than who is saying it.!" This silenced Lissie ma'am for Medusa was her Bible and she could not be seen questioning it.

Lissie was always wary of someone who dipped into Medusa. She didn't want to antagonise someone who drew on the same source as she for material. So Jack Smith continued his existence.

If the question on Jane Austen was "Jane Austen was a miniature artist. Sir Walter Scott preferred the big canvas. Explain." You could be sure that Sham would write:
"A novel could be of epic proportions. It could be of small proportions. But those little details are what matter. As Jack Smith says: "God is in the details." And so the essay went, summarising the stories of several Jane Austen and Walter Scott novels Sham had memorised from Medusa.

Very soon Jack Smith began appearing in the papers of all of us. Sham, or rather Sam, as she could never pronounce 'sh' was livid. "Eti, how could you girls be so bad. Jack Smith is my man. I will not share him with anyone else." The statement was so comical, that every one burst out laughing. I was reminded of this when my daughters fought over who should have the Sarina poster.

Sham, if you read this, hope you too will have a hearty laugh.!

Talking to myself

Everytime, inside the bus
Full of strangers
I keep looking for
Known faces
Someone I could
Lighten the journey with
Trading inanities
On life's Sisyphean grind
Or trumpeting new acquisitions
Aware of sounding like the serpent
Selling the forbidden fruit
Even while saying it
All the time both
Hiding the pain in lies
Pretending to be swimming
When being swept away
Living the same servile lives
Yet assuming sovereign airs
As the bus lurches, sways and surges
And I trade old words
With him, I often feel
I'm talking to myself
In a dream I've already had.
(Published in Kavya Bharati)

Down to earth

At the public tap
The mother does not see
The moons floating in the pots
Full and waiting to be fetched home
The child thinks they have fallen in
And whispers conspiratorially
She will rescue them
When no one is looking.
To grow up
Is not to see the moon in the pot
When you heft it to your hip