kids and kisses at last!!!

more than a year after starting a blog, i have been hit!!

hit by the subject of the blog - name, children....

and how they have come...through racial statements, through unspoken wave of hands, and even through a short story.

the jews, it seems, here in pittsburgh, and also in united states, have created an insular world for themselves. the native americans, dont like them, yet cant throw them, despite how they have been outsmarted by the clever jews in many aspects of living -- from business success to ivy league admissions -- this land has a huge respect for education -- and their creme-de-la-creme outputs -- the ivy leagues...

jews from what i hear, from people thus abound everywhere, with their own shabbaths, and koshers and their synagogues be in their religious dispositions, or their striped skirt small girls and hat-wearing small boys going to school..

yehudi, one such small boy, i made friendship with few days back on the road, while waiting for a friend to come down from his apartment..in the course of the military salutes and the little handshakes, i learnt yehudi knows perhaps about the world much more than an average kid would ever know...to the extent, when i talked to him of india and indians, he said he knew them for they were blacks!!! a racial learning perhaps he has been indoctrinated with by his jew parents...i feared then, what a folly this world is upto, training this small little innocent child, with the vulgar intricacies of an adult life....i despaired more, knowing later from a lady, who came and picked him up, jewish herself, who commented on how, yehudi's jewish parents are brilliant individual themselves...but not so caring parents perhaps...having left the kid to loiter around the road near the synagogue...yehudi left me, and i left yehudi without being able to tell him, that 'bro its not the way you know the world...the world has its gardens and flowers too...i wish i could show your parents and you ...how it is actually...'

but yehudi is not the only kid with whom i made verbal friendship with...i dont know the name of this kid, passing my block and apartment just know...with his hat, and guided by his dad, the beard wielding, black suit wearing, jew you can catch so often on the streets of pittsburgh and america i think....he waved at me, his father waved at me, i was smoking...the skies were mellow n gloomy, but that small little kid, with his tender innocent smile, and his wonder-struck eyes looking at me...made my day...a day when i spend my first pujos so far away from home....for the first time ever in some time now...

and those two small little children...i dedicate my blog to you both...after a long long time i found you...having searched for you, through so many alleys of life, so many contours of living...and despairing to strike friendship with you...i wish i had the versatility to pen a little poem for you both, right now...it's not there anymore, as prolifically, -as it used to be...but still i will dedicate this lovely little piece...for you both...below..

do take lots of my kisses, u small little ones...with you ...ALWAYS...


After a Kiss - Marjan Riahi

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I said to him, what would you do if you wanted to give me your heart? He said, I would kiss you, and he kissed me without hesitation. Even the man i was in love with did'nt have such affection. I could not understand how such a big thought had come from the curly head of that sweet four-year-old.

Departure began when i thought of the kiss, and found an old set of keys that could'nt open any door. Because of those keys, i had to go through the metal detector twice.

I didnt expect so many people to come and see me off. My kisses were just to be dutiful;the kisses i received spoke volumes. My aunt's kiss was saying that all her wonderful words came from the bottom of her heart, my cousin's - was saying that she hoped to goodness she would never see my face again. My older sister's kiss was full of hopes of marriage, as if i could find a great husband in a few hours. My sister-in-law's kiss was full of special effort, and a sickening magnanimity, that was meant to show that grave family problems, were less than they seemed.

My best friend's kiss revived the memory of a year in political prison. That year had happened ten years ago. The moment i wanted to say goodbye to my prison mate and kiss her, she just shrugged her shoulders. Kissing ? What for ? Not kissing was a sign of strength.

My brother's kiss was not a kiss at all; it was a smooch. Something that needed a lot of work to become a kiss. It smelled of cigarettes and old paper money. A smooch that wanted me to pay attention to my passport, and money, and documents. A smooch that wanted me not to let go of my purse for a single minute. A smooch that wanted me not to trust anybody and to call him as soon as i arrived.

My niece's kiss was full of the wishes of a seventeen-year-old and maybe they could be realised through me. Her kiss was depressed by wearing a long dress and headscarf every day and wanted to ride a bicycle under a under a sun that caressed her hair.

I dont know which kiss was lost now that i am sitting in this airplane seat.

We were playing hearts. I said everyone should give whatever they have in their hearts. One of the kids took from his pocket a paper boat he had painted himself. Another a few pistachios stacked inside one another, and a third a few scraps of a paper tissue. Kids' hearts were always in their pockets. I always filled my pockets with chocolates filled with hazelnuts, and the kids loved those chocolates so much that i always ended up being short on hearts and had to divide them.

Then it was time for them to sleep, then time to wake up. Then they kissed me and left, and whoever kissed me the most showed off more.

I could'nt kiss my mother. We just hugged. My father's kiss landed on my face like the droppings of a dirty animal. He was not a bad man; he never did anything wrong. He never did anything.

On the eve of departure, the man i was in love with wanted to kiss me. We brought our faces close to each other. I felt his breathing on my face. His cell phone rang and he forgot what he had brought his face close for.

A kiss only transfers microbes. Every New Year's Day i kept saying that and pretending i had a cold so i could keep myself away from all those different kisses and then pieces of my life stuck together like a dream without an interpretation.

The sky behind the plan window curves and reaches the ground. I have not started yet, but many things have already ended. This curved sky is exactly what i want to buy with a kiss. A kiss connects me.

The key chain is at the bottom of my pocket and a four-year-old boy with a head full of curly hair has taught me the proper way to play the game of hearts.

My passport is stamped. They press the stamp down on the page as if it is an endless kiss.
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