Where Do All the Ants Go? 

When I was in third grade, standing in front of a mirror with two plaits of hair on either side held hostage by two ribbons of equal size cut precisely by the store owner, I saw the most spectacular sight: a trail of ants, marching marching and marching. I screamed and asked, “Amma! Where do all the ants go?” Her screaming response amidst the pressure cooker whistles told me something similar to how they were headed to a wedding. The little parcels they were carrying were gifts for the bride and the groom. What a well organised wedding guests! 

Another day, with the white foam of toothpaste slicking down my chin in front of a blue Hindware washbasin, I saw another trail of ants marching marching and marching. Another wedding! To see their disciple, I tried to break the crowd by placing a finger breaking the single file line with parcels for the bride-groom. After a detour, they were joined again, all disciplined, without a tut-tut of noise except for the Lub-dub of dripping water from the soap stained rusted pipe. What a well united family! 

Often I see them escape into the tiny pip-like holes in the walls in my 20 something year old house, and I wonder if they reside there, packing parcels for the next wedding, the wedding after and the wedding after that. I imagine them seeking revenge for breaking their family once, a toothpaste monster with a giant finger breaking their commotion, by gnawing on the 20 something year old bricks and wood and cement and all those that go into a building. 

Sometimes, they roam around aimlessly like military troops in the border. Sometimes, they disappear from our house only to turn up in the next summer again, gnawing and chewing and packing and pip-pipping holes. 

After all these time, I still wonder, 

Where do all the ants go? 

A wedding? A funeral? 

A home? 

Or as those young people call it, 

Are they 

Wanderlusts? 

- Krishna J. Nair | 18.06.2020

Save Our Souls 

. . . - - - . . . 

“Did you hear the notes,

All the static codes, 

In the radio Abyss

Strangers in this town, 

They raise you up just to cut you down.

Oh Angela, it’s a long time coming

Home at last.”

The Lumineers, Angela. 

The static codes meant that a life has passed on, that there was one less soul in this phase called ‘life’. The waves meant that there was a life, that there were endless possibilities. For waves were just as stories, they all ended when somewhere else they began, just to end again. And yes, the waves are countless.

The static codes began looming as a shadow from the corners of a street at first. Then it started appearing everywhere; in front of a rusty billboard, across an old film poster with the name torn apart, beside the talented chai vendor who managed to not spill a drop as though his life mattered on it. Maybe it did matter for him, it was his way of living. Mine was very different, for I believed that humans needed a solid anchor to hold them to ground. 

There used to be fairs when the vendor gave me balloons after minutes of bargaining. There was a time when I used to tie them to the bed post, hoping that they’d never fly far away. They managed to get away at times, but was stopped by the bouncers- the ceiling. They were anchored. I thought that was necessary for everything, even for myself. 

But maybe, floating is as beautiful as being stationed. “Earth to human, dear!,” they used to yell at the day dreamer. But they remained to float, there was nothing weighing them down. So tonight, I am letting the anchor go lose from my arm, I am ready to float again; for I am sure that the waves will wash away the static codes, and the ship will guide me home somehow. To exist, you don’t have to be tethered to ground; you can fly and fly and still realize that you’ll be sent back down by the bouncers – the unknown. 

-Krishna J. Nair, Save Our Souls

27^th November, 2017. 

MATCHBOX

There are certain materials 
I desperately hold onto 
For I often fear, if I let go 
It'll be gone before dawn. 
There is a green box with red
Writing on the lid 
On the brown table in my room, 
Next to my blue curtain 
And a white notebook. 
I keep matchboxes in them. 
Matchboxes I have stolen 
From different venues. 
There is one with the red tip,
the green tip, the brown tip.
On nights where darkness dawns, 
I ablaze one, and hold it into the tight. 
Desperately. It burns from Friday 
Through Monday, before the curtain
Is violated by the rays. 
It burns my eyes and my skicn 
And my toe and every inch 
I long to hide under layers 
Of blankets hiding me like 
layers of skin wishing to be 
Peeled away. 
I hold onto things desperately 
Like the matchstick in the night. 
When it burns out, 
I strike one again. 
And one again. 
One more 
Until the 
Ashes cover 
My skin. 

-Krishna J. Nair | Matchbox | 26.03.2020