Can you feel her pain?
She cries in darkness,
Whines in solitude,
Her plight, you may ask -
Is craving for your sight,
Yearning for your touch,
Gasping for your voice,
Heaving for your smile.
An absence-presence,
A living-dead,
She hates to admit but,
You regulate her being.
The agony kills
Yet she is born,
Each moment
Through her pain.
On winding roads, In busy streets
Her eyes rove, searching for your face
In every car at traffic signals,
At every music concert in the city
She searches the crowd, the audience
To perhaps get a glimpse of you.
Can you hear her?
I surely can.
*humming* *humming*
Can you hear her now?
Listen carefully..
She sings…
The Song of Solitude.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Seeking, Searching.........
In the verandah I sit and stare
In isolation I smoke and glare
Into the blank, moonless night
The spotless sky with its rendering light
Seeking, Searching……..
On the roads, amidst the traffic
In crowded alleys, during pregnant pauses
In silent screaming and times horrific
Mind’s tussling with the heart causes
Eyes to rover all over,
Seeking, Searching………
In the pages of a read book,
Betwixt every line, beneath each word
Amongst characters forlorn and flop
Hoping to find that known look
Excavating hidden treasured-mirth
Beginning anew each time I stop
Seeking, Searching……….
In the living carcass of a dead mind
Trying to concoct a new plan
To re-write my-story all over again
To ultimately be able to find
Eternal sunshine of the beautiful mind
So I continue with split-memory, vision astride
Seeking, Searching………..
They say –
Knowledge is Power
But I knew –
Ignorance is Bliss
Was I Wrong?
Are they Right?
Need I stop my yearning?
OR
Continue My Eternal Quest?
Not Knowledge,
But longing Desire
Seeking, Searching……!!
In isolation I smoke and glare
Into the blank, moonless night
The spotless sky with its rendering light
Seeking, Searching……..
On the roads, amidst the traffic
In crowded alleys, during pregnant pauses
In silent screaming and times horrific
Mind’s tussling with the heart causes
Eyes to rover all over,
Seeking, Searching………
In the pages of a read book,
Betwixt every line, beneath each word
Amongst characters forlorn and flop
Hoping to find that known look
Excavating hidden treasured-mirth
Beginning anew each time I stop
Seeking, Searching……….
In the living carcass of a dead mind
Trying to concoct a new plan
To re-write my-story all over again
To ultimately be able to find
Eternal sunshine of the beautiful mind
So I continue with split-memory, vision astride
Seeking, Searching………..
They say –
Knowledge is Power
But I knew –
Ignorance is Bliss
Was I Wrong?
Are they Right?
Need I stop my yearning?
OR
Continue My Eternal Quest?
Not Knowledge,
But longing Desire
Seeking, Searching……!!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Another day at YP!!
It was 5 o’clock on a Wednesday evening and it was pouring cats and dogs yet again. Dark clouds and my life have become like a body and its shadow, wherever I go it follows suit. The splashing raindrops enmeshed with the rays of the bulb in the room created magical sepia hues on the glass door. The dullness outside was in stark contrast with the bright, chirpy orange little office we have in the garage. And for once I was extremely happy to be on this side of the door.
Usual meetings one after the other kept us occupied. While Ishita spoke to me and Sanya about matters of grave importance. There was Nitya talking to her Fac gang and Ashutosh about posters and publicity. We reshuffled. Ishita now addressed Nitya, while I sorted out ‘Call for Entries’ for the Film Series with Ashutosh. Nitya left with her gang of girls all set for her next Fac workshop on Sexual and reproductive health rights on friday at Venky (also known as Sri Venkateshwara College). Ishita departed to bathe and get dressed for an “official” meeting that night. Then entered Diksha in a “not-so-happy-kinda-pissed-off” mood. The reason? That she was returning from Aryaman’s meeting with the Afghan students and got drenched till her waist in pools of muck, poop and dirty water. It was a sight to remember, we all burst out laughing and snorted in order to control that laughter. But then she joined in. The ability to laugh at one self is not something that many possess but it should be something that be inculcated as it makes life easy for us and those who we interact with.
Sanya restlessly told Diksha that she had to pick her sister up from the Airport hence they should reschedule their fundraising meeting later, and with that she too left. I incessantly searched for envelopes like a dog does for a bone in a pile of trash especially those which would fit A3 sized posters in them for it had to be couriered to Film Schools. But not finding any, I decided to get the posters and the other documents printed to be brought at the staff meeting at Pritha’s house the next day, while Ashutosh would buy the envelopes and courier the mails. It was a chiaroscuroic picturesque moment with people hustling and bustling in the room like a film reel in motion. All this while in the other side of the room, Diksha hurriedly was editing my Covering Letter and YP’s short profile and mailing it to me.
Just as our conversation was warming up her phone started to ring. Guess the ring tone… it’s the Cuppycake Song!! “Yes, I am shutting down the computer and leaving the office, will be there for dinner in a bit…..” and so she turned off the computer, switched off the lights and we stepped out while Ashutosh who was supposed to lock the office, apparently shut the door and forgot the lock inside. Quite a smart move I must say! So in he went and did the needful. In the meantime we waited outside shivering in the cold winds and freezing rain.
The two of us, Ashutosh and I, urged Diksha to drop us at the nearest auto stand and we thus seated ourselves in her car. She drove past the labyrinthine passages of Def. Col. and dropped us at the market. We searched for an auto, seeing one we went and sat inside, the “auto bhaiyya” refused to go as usual. Reason? The engine was filled with water and hence the vehicle won’t start. We kept sitting for a while and then being hapless decided to walk, for only God knew when the rains would stop. Walking, treading, jumping, hopping, slipping, sliding, falling,… yew…...gross...the same pool of muck, poop and dirty water enwrapped my jeans and water poured from above to make it look even from all angles. My laughter on looking at Diksha in that very state a few hours back reverberated at the back of my head, and history (pretty recent one in this case) was repeating itself and i was the scapegoat this time (we both were) but I couldn’t even feel pity for either myself or him. Drenched completely we proceeded on our pilgrimage of reaching home, but the autos refused to take us, and the buses stormed past us. Finally boarding an auto we were somewhat relieved. Ashutosh was to be dropped midway so he hopped in too. And all the while the auto moved, honked, was stuck in the traffic and moved again… the YP talks continued…..!!
Usual meetings one after the other kept us occupied. While Ishita spoke to me and Sanya about matters of grave importance. There was Nitya talking to her Fac gang and Ashutosh about posters and publicity. We reshuffled. Ishita now addressed Nitya, while I sorted out ‘Call for Entries’ for the Film Series with Ashutosh. Nitya left with her gang of girls all set for her next Fac workshop on Sexual and reproductive health rights on friday at Venky (also known as Sri Venkateshwara College). Ishita departed to bathe and get dressed for an “official” meeting that night. Then entered Diksha in a “not-so-happy-kinda-pissed-off” mood. The reason? That she was returning from Aryaman’s meeting with the Afghan students and got drenched till her waist in pools of muck, poop and dirty water. It was a sight to remember, we all burst out laughing and snorted in order to control that laughter. But then she joined in. The ability to laugh at one self is not something that many possess but it should be something that be inculcated as it makes life easy for us and those who we interact with.
Sanya restlessly told Diksha that she had to pick her sister up from the Airport hence they should reschedule their fundraising meeting later, and with that she too left. I incessantly searched for envelopes like a dog does for a bone in a pile of trash especially those which would fit A3 sized posters in them for it had to be couriered to Film Schools. But not finding any, I decided to get the posters and the other documents printed to be brought at the staff meeting at Pritha’s house the next day, while Ashutosh would buy the envelopes and courier the mails. It was a chiaroscuroic picturesque moment with people hustling and bustling in the room like a film reel in motion. All this while in the other side of the room, Diksha hurriedly was editing my Covering Letter and YP’s short profile and mailing it to me.
Just as our conversation was warming up her phone started to ring. Guess the ring tone… it’s the Cuppycake Song!! “Yes, I am shutting down the computer and leaving the office, will be there for dinner in a bit…..” and so she turned off the computer, switched off the lights and we stepped out while Ashutosh who was supposed to lock the office, apparently shut the door and forgot the lock inside. Quite a smart move I must say! So in he went and did the needful. In the meantime we waited outside shivering in the cold winds and freezing rain.
The two of us, Ashutosh and I, urged Diksha to drop us at the nearest auto stand and we thus seated ourselves in her car. She drove past the labyrinthine passages of Def. Col. and dropped us at the market. We searched for an auto, seeing one we went and sat inside, the “auto bhaiyya” refused to go as usual. Reason? The engine was filled with water and hence the vehicle won’t start. We kept sitting for a while and then being hapless decided to walk, for only God knew when the rains would stop. Walking, treading, jumping, hopping, slipping, sliding, falling,… yew…...gross...the same pool of muck, poop and dirty water enwrapped my jeans and water poured from above to make it look even from all angles. My laughter on looking at Diksha in that very state a few hours back reverberated at the back of my head, and history (pretty recent one in this case) was repeating itself and i was the scapegoat this time (we both were) but I couldn’t even feel pity for either myself or him. Drenched completely we proceeded on our pilgrimage of reaching home, but the autos refused to take us, and the buses stormed past us. Finally boarding an auto we were somewhat relieved. Ashutosh was to be dropped midway so he hopped in too. And all the while the auto moved, honked, was stuck in the traffic and moved again… the YP talks continued…..!!
Friday, September 5, 2008
METRO RIDE
IN A STATION OF THE METRO
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
~ Ezra Pound
Ever tried taking the metro to commute? Well one doesn't really have a choice when that is your sole means of transport to travel from one end of the city to the other. Life has become much easier though and traveling much smoother with the insertion of metro rails into our city life.
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century Black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. The London Underground is both the world's oldest underground railway and the oldest rapid transit system. It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube and it began its operation way back in 1863. The Kolkata Metro, first to ply in India started its operation only in 1984, and twenty years later was followed by New Delhi in 2004 which has a combination of elevated, at-grade and underground lines.
Enough of historicising the Metro. But ever wondered that the pregnant metro has a whole new world to offer, almost a microcosm of our own world up here. The routine metro ride to the Delhi University and back is so routinized and by the clock that i never can sense or feel as to exactly when i woke up, freshened, left my place, boarded a bus or an auto, alighted and boarded the metro and reached my class. It becomes so regularized like brushing your teeth that you can never reflect back on it, almost like a zombie you travel. But is it so? Not really, because your sensory perceptions are at work and your mind registers what your eyes observe.
The millions of faces we encounter daily, hooting-scooting, hustling-bustling, almost as if in a whirlpool of maddening rush, all appear faceless in the sense factory products, the same stuff packaged separately. Those eyes look at you, questioning, searching, condemning, remarking, condescending, praising, appreciating, superimposing all in their minds but nevertheless looking at you through and through. Yes the GAZE...the very gaze that makes you awkward, uncomfortable, almost as if being naked amidst a crowd of onlookers. The men and the women look for the same things, for instance how revealing your clothes are, and if permitted men will strip you down literally with their gaze while women will strip down your consciousness for not conforming to the norms, for not covering your so-called "honour", for letting the hawk-like men to prey upon them through their very gaze. Or something as baseless as judging other people by the kind of clothes they wear. But then this is something typical not of the metro but the culture where we hail from, and will be found rampant even on the streets, in the bus, at any and every place, be it public or private.
Coming back to the sub-terrestrial
The world within the metro is like a parallel world, a surreptitious universe running beneath our very feet, lying underneath cocooned by the earth around.
And each metro ride is associated with some or the other memory - whether cracking jokes and bursting out with friends, bitching and back-biting, observing the onlookers in solitude having nothing better to do, reading that favourite novel, plugging onto the I-Pod, a brief conversation over the phone, brushing up the notes, last minute preparations before the exams, trying to catch a glimpse of that cute guy sitting across, or just trying to brush aside one's disheveled fringes being reflected on the glass pane on the doors and windows. Memories...memories... every day, each metro ride has a story to tell, only if one bothers to listen.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
~ Ezra Pound
Ever tried taking the metro to commute? Well one doesn't really have a choice when that is your sole means of transport to travel from one end of the city to the other. Life has become much easier though and traveling much smoother with the insertion of metro rails into our city life.
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century Black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. The London Underground is both the world's oldest underground railway and the oldest rapid transit system. It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube and it began its operation way back in 1863. The Kolkata Metro, first to ply in India started its operation only in 1984, and twenty years later was followed by New Delhi in 2004 which has a combination of elevated, at-grade and underground lines.
Enough of historicising the Metro. But ever wondered that the pregnant metro has a whole new world to offer, almost a microcosm of our own world up here. The routine metro ride to the Delhi University and back is so routinized and by the clock that i never can sense or feel as to exactly when i woke up, freshened, left my place, boarded a bus or an auto, alighted and boarded the metro and reached my class. It becomes so regularized like brushing your teeth that you can never reflect back on it, almost like a zombie you travel. But is it so? Not really, because your sensory perceptions are at work and your mind registers what your eyes observe.
The millions of faces we encounter daily, hooting-scooting, hustling-bustling, almost as if in a whirlpool of maddening rush, all appear faceless in the sense factory products, the same stuff packaged separately. Those eyes look at you, questioning, searching, condemning, remarking, condescending, praising, appreciating, superimposing all in their minds but nevertheless looking at you through and through. Yes the GAZE...the very gaze that makes you awkward, uncomfortable, almost as if being naked amidst a crowd of onlookers. The men and the women look for the same things, for instance how revealing your clothes are, and if permitted men will strip you down literally with their gaze while women will strip down your consciousness for not conforming to the norms, for not covering your so-called "honour", for letting the hawk-like men to prey upon them through their very gaze. Or something as baseless as judging other people by the kind of clothes they wear. But then this is something typical not of the metro but the culture where we hail from, and will be found rampant even on the streets, in the bus, at any and every place, be it public or private.
Coming back to the sub-terrestrial
The world within the metro is like a parallel world, a surreptitious universe running beneath our very feet, lying underneath cocooned by the earth around.
And each metro ride is associated with some or the other memory - whether cracking jokes and bursting out with friends, bitching and back-biting, observing the onlookers in solitude having nothing better to do, reading that favourite novel, plugging onto the I-Pod, a brief conversation over the phone, brushing up the notes, last minute preparations before the exams, trying to catch a glimpse of that cute guy sitting across, or just trying to brush aside one's disheveled fringes being reflected on the glass pane on the doors and windows. Memories...memories... every day, each metro ride has a story to tell, only if one bothers to listen.
Monday, September 1, 2008
The Inexplicable
Quite often I wonder
How my life is all asunder,
Am I the epicenter
Of a world decentred,
Or just a remainder stub
Swirling in the whirlpool of a tub!!
Throwing a glance at the looking-glass
Often I imagine “Oh what a pretty lass!”
But mirrors are meant to lie
To make your self-esteem high,
For when realities strike
And life’s clocks go on strike,
We are thrown back
Into the dingy corners of our mind’s shack,
Our dreams, desires and all that jazz
Are meant only for us to heave and spaz,
Erased are the goals of accomplishments
Dead are the hopes of all fulfillments!!
Intrepidly treading in perdition’s vale
Racing through my fading memory’s lane,
I see in a distance a flickering ram of light
I pursue and chase, as if a mirage in sight,
The sun angling the ram’s shadow on the sand
The contoured silhouette is but of a man,
I look up and stare blank to reassure my surprise
It was indeed the man of my dreams, I could surmise,
Joy-stricken I skip, jump and rush to catch him
Only to realize it was all but a dream,
The vale, the ram, the man, his shadow and dusk
Was only a peeled dream, a stripped desire, a desiccated husk,
All that remained was a feeling of pain
Injecting me all over again.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Vague Ramblings
Another night...
….. But the one for which my incessant wait is compensation!!
Waiting for days at end for this night to appear from No-Man’s-Land... for, such a night exists no more here...
This world has become the steep mountain and our lives that rock which we all, the Sisyphus-incarnates roll up that mountain only to pursue it back rolling down…
where we had started from and once again begin anew..
This trial is an ongoing one... Has neither an arche nor a telos!! It is that point of nothingness, anonymity, senselessness... Where we came from and where we will go back to… births and deaths are only excuses to impose breaks in this journey of monotonies.
Like zombies we walk... Aimless, directionless in hoards like cattle...
though a cosmic force pulls us through…into the motion…Forward.
Left-right-left-right-left…and the march continues…
Who am I? I often ask... but remaining unanswered... I continue my procession...
Am I just a cadaver... following others as if chained to a moving cart?
Or do I exist in isolation; in solitude... in myself... just by my SELF... am I just a cog-in-the-wheel? Am I living a de-centered identity? Do I have an identity??
Who am I? Where am I? What is this place??... I know not...
Hello…hello... Is anybody listening?
…I feel no life, I see no soul, I hear no sound, I smell no blood, I taste no sweetness…
The melody is lost, the harmony haunts… all I see …all I see …is dearth of light...
Darkness all around... Bleak visions, blurred sensations!!…
Ruminating exhaustion... sapped sensibility... all the zeal and zest in life are sealed, packed and locked in the closet of the uncouth naivety.
Mostly life is uncanny and I, a laborer, am trying to decipher its meanings,
unfurling its very folds from the misty oblivion to
the very LIGHT that I seek.
Vague Randomness has enwrapped my life... and I have lost the key to all logic and sense...
The night enfolds me in her wings, tight...tighter...crushing my bones...
Clutching me to her breasts, she embarks on her historic flight never to return... the wind's reverberating lullaby puts me to slumber... I suck on my thumb like a new born, and coil and recoil as if in a mother’s womb...the warm cocoon cuts off my ties I could have had with this world
.....and carries me away to that
No-Man’s-Land ….where she came from.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Reverberating Silence……
With the beams of the golden sun
The dawn treads between us,
Breaking the night that bound us into one
Woeful sweat trickles down the statues of subdued lust.
Waking up to the cuckoo’s song
The wind chasing through the labyrinthine sheets,
Wishing the night to have been long
Searching tumultuously for your odour, for your heartbeats.
But gloom descends as the morn unfolds,
On my side sleeps hollowed solitude,
The crushed, deflated sheets speak of the stories untold
I embrace the emptiness and hum the ever haunting tune.
I arise to catch the reverberating silence donned in white
To reflect back the darkness soon approaching me,
I shout, I run, to catch the hopeful rays that escape my sight
But defeated, I collapse under the sorrow-borne tree.
Wheeling in my chair, with the yellow leaves of despair
I weave a wreath to adorn your grave,
The dust on which, I sweep with my tears and brush with my hair
I hear you sleep peacefully, sitting by your side like your knave.
You have gone…how easily you have left me behind, in solitude
To be engulfed by the darkening horror each moment as a destitute,
Crippling by the hours and days, this claustrophobia I seek to flee
Your gift of death, the shroud of the virus is all that is left of me
Remembering your requited love, had long erased my fearful wrath
The implacable cunning virus smuggling away substantial warmth,
The face, the voice telling me who I was, and what I have become
Must I give in, accept my reality and sulk till doom comes?
Friday, July 18, 2008
Through The Looking Glass
Through the looking glass I see you staring at me
I comprehend not, the question lingering on your visage
Your look appalls me, I pant searchingly to retort back,
To break the glass you have imprisoned me in
Through which you all mockingly dissect my identity.
Through the looking glass I reflect back at my reflection
I see what you all can never see,
I see a beautiful woman with her long tresses
Draping on that kanjeevaram, colouring her lips scarlet,
Smudging that invincible kohl contouring her olive-eyes
Powdering her face, hooking on those silver danglers,
I see her smiling at her thoughtful glance
I see her swell with pride on confronting her real self at last.
Through the looking glass I see you approaching
To shake that pride off, for donning on your attire, your facade,
I see you slap her, pull her hair, abuse her, strangle her
For not living up to 'his' gender typology, like your male friends.
Through the looking glass I see her collapse on the floor
I see a black tear smoothening the dilemmas rifting her face,
I see what you all can never see
I see a woman’s soul encaged in a man’s cadaver,
I feel the distress like a fluttering caged bird
Trying to catch the shadows of freedom and acceptance.
Through the looking glass I see her turning on the shower
Wetting her dampened spirits, crying her soul out,
Tears and shower drops enmeshed together races down
To meet in the hollowness of the dark drain’s reservoir,
She dries her perennially wry soul, slipping into those kohlapuris
Through the jarred doors she escapes into the wilderness,
Where her trembling legs follow her wandering eyes
Knowing no destination she walks on,
People pass by jeering, laughing, taunting
Trying to guillotine her already beheaded self.
Through the looking glass of the calm azure skies,
Darkness embraces her, whose limbs she seeks to break,
The look of mystery in your eyes rapes her urge for reason
Speeding away her stalking shame to catch the hopeful rays,
She runs on, chasing biased winds to meet life in a speeding bus
The glass crashes and falls shrouding her reverberating corpse.
Through the looking glass I see what you can never see
I can see myself reflected in her,
I feel the sweet pangs of sadness swirling in those drapes
The sun sets and fades as we lay and stare,
Her smile rests at the slope of my cheek
Withdrawing her magic she continues to gaze on,
But this wait is for an altogether another encounter
When she will be born by pain at last,
And know why the caged birds sing
And then you may write her down in history!!
I comprehend not, the question lingering on your visage
Your look appalls me, I pant searchingly to retort back,
To break the glass you have imprisoned me in
Through which you all mockingly dissect my identity.
Through the looking glass I reflect back at my reflection
I see what you all can never see,
I see a beautiful woman with her long tresses
Draping on that kanjeevaram, colouring her lips scarlet,
Smudging that invincible kohl contouring her olive-eyes
Powdering her face, hooking on those silver danglers,
I see her smiling at her thoughtful glance
I see her swell with pride on confronting her real self at last.
Through the looking glass I see you approaching
To shake that pride off, for donning on your attire, your facade,
I see you slap her, pull her hair, abuse her, strangle her
For not living up to 'his' gender typology, like your male friends.
Through the looking glass I see her collapse on the floor
I see a black tear smoothening the dilemmas rifting her face,
I see what you all can never see
I see a woman’s soul encaged in a man’s cadaver,
I feel the distress like a fluttering caged bird
Trying to catch the shadows of freedom and acceptance.
Through the looking glass I see her turning on the shower
Wetting her dampened spirits, crying her soul out,
Tears and shower drops enmeshed together races down
To meet in the hollowness of the dark drain’s reservoir,
She dries her perennially wry soul, slipping into those kohlapuris
Through the jarred doors she escapes into the wilderness,
Where her trembling legs follow her wandering eyes
Knowing no destination she walks on,
People pass by jeering, laughing, taunting
Trying to guillotine her already beheaded self.
Through the looking glass of the calm azure skies,
Darkness embraces her, whose limbs she seeks to break,
The look of mystery in your eyes rapes her urge for reason
Speeding away her stalking shame to catch the hopeful rays,
She runs on, chasing biased winds to meet life in a speeding bus
The glass crashes and falls shrouding her reverberating corpse.
Through the looking glass I see what you can never see
I can see myself reflected in her,
I feel the sweet pangs of sadness swirling in those drapes
The sun sets and fades as we lay and stare,
Her smile rests at the slope of my cheek
Withdrawing her magic she continues to gaze on,
But this wait is for an altogether another encounter
When she will be born by pain at last,
And know why the caged birds sing
And then you may write her down in history!!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
God Sends
Amongst this crowd of people you see huddled in a corner those people who were the ones who managed to leave their carvings on the pillar of your life. You would be surprised to find that some people who you assumed would be part of that huddle are not there. You would be even more surprised to find that those people who were the least expected candidates have got admission into the gates of your heart. They were the ones who had actually shared your grief and happiness. They were those stars that guided you through your darkest and most difficult times. They were probably a lab partner in school, who helped you out of a sticky situation with your chemistry teacher, or maybe just a stranger, who saw you crying on a park bench and helped you mend a broken heart. These were the ones who left the marks that were like footprints in clay, strong and indestructible.
Suddenly, you snap out of your reverie and look around. A tear rolls down your cheek and you say a little prayer for them. How and when one touches another person's heart is unknown. The smallest gesture of kindness can give a person a lifetime of happiness. Angels like these come for a short while in people's lives and leave after their work is finished. Call them God sends if you like, but you can be sure that you will find one at the turn of the darkest of alleys life makes you walk through...
Memory
Sometimes we find ourselves all alone
Sitting in a corner and looking at the floor,
Time flies by because it does not wait for anybody
And it always wants everybody to be happy.
Moments like these, when we revel in our solitude
Ennui overtakes us and memories flash by like a film reel,
Some good, some bad, some happy, some sad
In their remembrances, smiles compliment the tears rolling down our cheeks.
A life long forgotten revisits us
People come without a sound and leave noiselessly,
Situations long buried in the depths of our memories surfaces to the fore
The absence of somebody haunts like the echo of a gong-bell,
While others make their presence felt like butterflies flapping their wings.
Memory is the best author
Weaving together life’s situations in a seamless thread,
Memory is the best craftsman
Grafting together the disparate ends,
To produce the utmost beauty in the unthinkable
She brings to life our past, conditioning our present to shape the future.
She makes us smile, laugh, whine, cry
Envy, hate, empathize, and love.
In Her reside those cherished people and treasured moments,
The times when we spoke our first word
When we stumbled and fell to stand up again,
Our first crush and moments of being dumbfounded in front of that special someone,
When we entered college and ragged our future friends
When we scanned the notice boards to double-check our results,
When we panicked before every interview
When we received our first salary,
When our crush snowballed into love and resulted in marriage
The tears of joy in creating a new life,
Tending the buds to bloom into beautiful flowers.
Memories come, and memories go
Like situations and people do,
Knowing neither her origin nor her end
Like a river, flowing in her own harmony,
Like rail tracks, running parallel to our lives
Updating our life’s register regularly,
Turning today’s activity into yesterday’s memory.
She is all about living yesterday once more
But in a friction, bullet-shot of reality strikes,
And Her chandelier comes breaking down into fragments
We busy ourselves in today, hoping to revel again in solitude,
To cement these fragments and rebuild Her castle.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Searching You................
Through the beams of the golden sun
The dawn treads between us,
Breaking the night that bound us into one
Woeful sweat trickles down the statues of subdued lust.
Waking up to the cuckoo's song
The wind chasing through the labyrinthine sheets,
Wishing the night to have been long
Searching tumultuously for your odour, for your heartbeats.
But gloom descends as the morn unfolds,
On my side sleeps hollowed solitude,
The crushed, deflated sheets speak of the stories untold
I embrace the emptiness and strum the ever haunting tune.
I arise; I descend, donned in white
To reflect back the darkness soon approaching me,
I shout, I run, to catch the hopeful rays that escape my sight
But defeated, I collapse under the sorrow-borne tree.
With the yellow leaves of despair
I weave a wreath to adorn your heavenly bed,
The dust on which, I sweep with tears and brush with hair
Each moment, your absence-presence chokes me dead.
Ringing church bells announce the evening mass
Amidst the wilderness, creeps in a sense of blank desertion,
My soul departs, leaving behind the corpse of this lass
Racing to the cliff, seeking absolute interfusion,
Down below, the burning river pulls towards its intimidating glass
I plunge to meet your soul there, to revel again in our communion.
I descend and we arise!!
The dawn treads between us,
Breaking the night that bound us into one
Woeful sweat trickles down the statues of subdued lust.
Waking up to the cuckoo's song
The wind chasing through the labyrinthine sheets,
Wishing the night to have been long
Searching tumultuously for your odour, for your heartbeats.
But gloom descends as the morn unfolds,
On my side sleeps hollowed solitude,
The crushed, deflated sheets speak of the stories untold
I embrace the emptiness and strum the ever haunting tune.
I arise; I descend, donned in white
To reflect back the darkness soon approaching me,
I shout, I run, to catch the hopeful rays that escape my sight
But defeated, I collapse under the sorrow-borne tree.
With the yellow leaves of despair
I weave a wreath to adorn your heavenly bed,
The dust on which, I sweep with tears and brush with hair
Each moment, your absence-presence chokes me dead.
Ringing church bells announce the evening mass
Amidst the wilderness, creeps in a sense of blank desertion,
My soul departs, leaving behind the corpse of this lass
Racing to the cliff, seeking absolute interfusion,
Down below, the burning river pulls towards its intimidating glass
I plunge to meet your soul there, to revel again in our communion.
I descend and we arise!!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Fallen Leaves
All these years, we kept our thoughts at bay And determined not to cry on the farewell day, It would mean the ultimate escape never to return
To those overbearing classes, bunking them is all that we learn,
To those abhorrent assignments, tutorials, exams, the midnight oil for which we burn.
The world shall now be a free blue sky
Where we shall stretch our wings and fly,
No one to impede our soaring flights
No one to extinguish our rows and fights.
But when we will stand there on the very morning
Something deep inside would be paining,
It will be the very ground.... oh boy
Where we have grown second with joy!
Feeling to be born by pain at last
We will be blinded by the visions of our past
But as reality sinks in, it will be time to bid adieu ...oh so fast!
At that very moment, my mind shall wander off without doubt
To the one-tree hill where we folks used to hang out,
Where the peepal tree stands tall but alone
We will be like its fallen leaves ripe and grown,
Ready to be swept by the tide of time
Oh wish this life would continue to resonate and rhyme!
How soon the compounds will be lifeless and melancholy
With grieving hearts we will leave to search for our own destiny!
Saying goodbye to that favourite professor
Will be a really hard endeavour, Who will guide me, pick me up when i fall?
Who will pull me out from my withdrawal?
Not knowing how to repay the debt i owe you
Through testing times your footprints will guide me through.
And then the thought of parting with my best friend
With quivering lips, tears welling up my sadness will know no end!
But i have promised not to cry
Forcing myself to smile even if it be wry.
Cherishing the moments of our great feats
Apologising for all the petty fights and heats.
Parting with you,
Will be sounding my own death-knell!
But then reality will intrude my friend
All speeches will come to an end,
The farewell will be all set
And then i shall realize that my eyes will be wet!
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