Shiva’s Head

Quivering hands clutched the banister

as my ten year old senses tested the waters

of that L-shaped battlefield —

that stairway of doom,

haunted by that three-eyed God.

His gaze torching my breath to embers,

vaporizing the ground beneath immobilized feet,

leaving me nothing to hang on to,

save the umbilical railing to the upper floor.

I claw, I scrape, I struggle, I scream,

I rage against a tide of lava

with a wave of blood

oozing from imaginary wounds

and numbing imagined blisters,

valiant hope moving my burning steps

onto blind spots calculated by childish arrogance.

I cross Him and leap to safety and escape

But I could still feel His stare burning through,

Like a magnet gripping my iron-tensed shoulders.

His brash power goading my bruised pride.

Ten years later, I walked past the same spot,

I felt a tug as I crossed the corner,

Not a magnet this time, more like a kite’s thread

Gently pulling me to behold the gaze once again

I turned, I looked, I felt

those coal black eyes

stationary and worldly-wise,

searching me for the kid within.

And then when He found,

Memories of battles fought,

Scars of imagined burns

And a ten year old boy getting over the fear

Of a face on the wall,

Shiva and I shared a wistful smile and moved on.

***

Adithya Nair Satheesan works in Mumbai. Adithya is a daydreamer, a poet, a lover of stories, and a walking and talking version of IMDB.