Thursday, December 10, 2009
What's cooking
Two poems
on the stove,
half done
and in the throes
of slow simmer
and sometimes…
boiling over
in weary wait
for four herbs and seven spices
of a forgotten faith;
and a pinch of fresh salt
of frozen eyes,
and a feathery pause,
till the moon arrives…
The moon,
says the book,
best be cut right
in a perfect half;
baked to gleaming gold,
and garnished with a star-crossed night.
And then, says Chef,
deep-fry a dream
in the grease called time
add a pinch of desire,
and sauté on full blaze
with a long-soaked prayer.
And then go pluck some rays
from the rapid rising sun
to lace the cup of dew
which the dark saved for the dawn;
And this blend,
says the book,
will soon find its flow
to fulfill the two lone poems,
simmering and half done,
waiting on the stove…
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Lull
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Poem That Never Came
it kept cutting into my sleep
blowing bubbles at my eardrums
slipping storms under my lids
cooing like a baby
meant to be born of me…
All night …
it kept posting me letters
on stolen crumbs of paper
crimson, saffron and ochre
from a nameless love
with a faceless gaze…
All night…
it kept ringing
this song I know but don’t know of
in a voice so mine, but never heard of…
All night,
it kept arranging itself on me,
newborn notes on a musical string…
it danced,
made faces,
made me smile
and sing
this happy poem of my own...
it rivered and swam
snaked and soared
it drizzled like dew
it snowstormed too
and then turned molten
to rip me through…
All night
It teased,
tickled
and tingled at my sores
this poem in the womb
which, at the first ray of dawn
for no reason at all
turned back and slipped again
into the arms of the unknown.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAZyDSJOh4o
Khayaalon mein tumne bhi dekhi to hongi,
kabhi mere khwaabon ki dhundli lakeeren;
tumhaari hatheli se milti hain jaakar,
mere haath ki yeh adhoori lakeeren;
badi sar-chadhi hain ye zulfein tumhaari,
ye zulfein mere baazuoon mein utaaro...
Friday, November 6, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ITslFEtHc
Hawaaon pe likh do hawaaon ke naam,
hum anjaan pardesiyon ka salaam....
Beautiful. Nostalgic. Butterflies. Birds. Childhood....
Shaakh par jab dhoop aayi haath choone ke liye,
chaanv cham se neeche koodi,
hanske boli aayiye;
yahaan subah se khela karti hai shaam...
Chulbula yeh paani apni raah behna bhool kar,
lete lete aaina chamkaa raha hai phool par;
yeh bhole se chehre hain masoom naam...
Monday, November 2, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Bird's View
When one day..
the bird soars away
into arms of the higher skies
quietened by the song
and new wings
from the heavens high….
One day,
chirping to a lotus leaf
it will skim the world behind
at a map of our time
of your life crossing mine
two lines locked in crosses,
of churches and danger zones
of no entry and no exit…
of magic by default.
Two lines swelling to opposite ends,
like two lone mountains,
glued at the base
one dangling from the other
upside down, hanging around…
Two lines…
blowing curves
and cutting bends
freezing in webs
or bellowing out in a blaze…
And the bird
up there
from crystal blues
and static clouds
will bow a little more
to trace our lines at their mouths
and will find the umbilical cord
in a Lord deep in prayer.
Smiling in surprise,
and drunken from his daze
when he trails the endpoints
of your lines and mine..
all it will find
one circle
of no ends,
no time.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
The little Buddha
Said he - I am hungry … Can you hear the elephants rumbling in my stomach?
And then he laughed… his eyes in a hurry to gather all the evidence of it at the creases.
And then he streamed away.
Flowed away.
Rivered away?
With some people, words don’t follow vocabularies. They follow rivers and clouds and wafts and butterflies and bees and wispy white buds that flew between mountains following the breeze.
That is how he would come and go. Just a little before he would come wafting in from nowhere, you could smell of things to come. Like dreams. Like lulls. Like pauses stolen out of meditating yogis. Then, just when the fragrance would get dribbling on your limbs, you would suddenly turn your head, knowing the exact direction to navigate and find him. The tiny little man who rode the highest waves. He walked like he only walked from his spine. He walked like he were walking with his eyes. He walked like his smile was rolling out the road in front of him. So he kept walking and he kept smiling and the road and the smile kept feeding each other.
He walked like that.
And he walked also like his limbs knew no bones. And also like his mind knew no stones. He walked like the world was at his feet. And he walked like he ruled no one. And no one ruled him. He walked like that. In the absence of himself. And in the company of Someone Else.
And when he reached you, somewhere about your fringes, you always saw a little more of the September sun. A little more of the butterflies. A little more of the sweets peas. And a little more of Everything.
And if while walking, he suddenly changed his direction and you lost him to some other set of faces out there, far away, there always rose this little rainbow from him and it would climb the skies and come bending down to you and tumble in your palms. On happier days, such rainbows also carried his laughter. Peals and peals. So, here you would be, and out there, far, far, far away he would be and you still knew he had walked in, somewhere, and just from the raindrops tapping at your insides, you would map out his location. And find him, mysteriously facing you and smiling. From that far a distance. You always had this eerie sense --- could he smell your seeking?
He could.
And like this he streamed, flowed and rivered around. And like this, he would always laugh about the rumbling elephants and hunger pangs.
And then, one day, he fed his elephants and satiated himself. Forever.
Today, he heals others of such rumblings. Elephants and more.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
शब्द नहीं जानते...
शब्द के जन्म से पहले शायद,
या फिर उस से भी पहले की
जब शब्द के होने का आभास नहीं था शायद….
जब फूलों से गुदगुदी हवा बहुत गुनगुनाती थी
जब उस छोर के तारे इस और के चेहरे सहलाते थे
और झोली भर कहानियां बुन जाते थे
जब बसेरा नदी के पास ही था सब का
और गुनगुने पानी का गीत भी था बराबर सब का
जब खुशी अपने होने का चिन्ह
मुस्कराहट पर बिछा जाती थी
और अजनबी हर एक टीस
आंखों को हल्का कर जाती थी
तब, सब बातें जीवित थीं
धड़कन भी सुनाई देती थी उनकी…
और फिर एक दिन
शब्द ने आ कर
शोर कर दिया हर आहट में
और गीत डूब गए
शब्दों की बुनावट में...
लेकिन
अभी भी,
कभी कभी
जो बातें शब्द नहीं ओढ़ पातीं
वो कह जाया करती हैं सब कुछ
मुस्कुराहटें लौटा लाती हैं
और आंखों का पानी भी शायद...
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
मिटटी गुमसुम
ऐसी मिटटी में,
जिसको लेप तो दिया हो सतह से,
आड़े ठेढे पौधों से मुक्त,
खाद भी हथेली भर कर फूँक दी हो साँसों में;
जहाँ सूर्या भी उगता हो सीधा सपाट,
और मेघ उलझ ही जातें हों जिसकी भीनी बाहों में…
ऐसी मिटटी में
शब्द नहीं उपज पाते,
फिर भी…
अपनी बिछडी हूई जड़ें शायद।
September 7, 2009 (Industrial Area)
Friday, September 4, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
To Desire and back, and back, yet again…
He weighs that behind closed eyes, folds the question in his hands, and then, pulls a smile out of the fold: “Why not? Be a child. Ask. Ask. Ask. Ask for any wish.”
But do I ever know what is good for me?
“No,” he smiles again.
It always happens, you know. At some aching curves and bends, I turn the familiar Helpless Human and decide to post a wish, and ask for specifics, and make my dreams come true.
"And then?"
And then, just when I fill the prayer in my hands and am just about to pour it on my soul and churn it in the prayer wheel whirling within, with all the right ingredients – tears, a jaw tight from painful determination and all the stocked-up profusion of humility– I pause..
“What pause,” he asks, but his eyes tell me that he knows.
It’s a pause… I almost fight against. A strange strange pause. It stops me from being so helplessly human. The pause reminds. It reminds. Reminds, like a memory from some long past birth. Some past blessing. (Or bane)… It reminds me that He knows better. That He decides best. That whatever He fits is flawless.
“And then?” he goads.
“And then, in the nick of that moment, when I am about to place the wish on the wheel, I just pour some saline at the Lotus Feet instead and weep: “Let me walk in Your will”.
“But that’s faith, my child,” says he.
But they tell me to ask, ask, ask for my wish, burn all my fire and make the cosmos see it and then let His mercy show, in my fulfillment. They tell me, go, leap, leap higher and pluck that wish. Bloody hell, pluck it and make it yours.
"That is also faith. But waiting is another faith."
“But this world uses other words.”
“Like?”
“Like, passive. Like, procrastinator. Like, lazy. To my ears… they sometimes roll up into a bristly ball that batters my insides and almost seems to scream - ‘loser’.
His smile widens: “But is that the word that leaps out of you too?”
No… To me, I sound like the ‘undoer’. I can never be the doer. I find it so impossible. And then, just like magic, I just know the moment when I turn doer. It comes from Him tapping at me at the right places. I just know the magical hands of Him that push me and pull me. But I can’t describe them to them.”
“If I told you… I am the world’s most successful un-doer?” he asks. And then himself replies – “I know when He wants me to act. I wait. And I pray. And in the silence of this wait, He slips in, turns me into His instrument, I play out His action and in all my silence, I don’t even know when I have done it and returned! Returned yet again, to the state of undoing. He works like that. He works through us and we don’t even know it in the din of our own minds”.
Really?
“That alone is the reality,” he says.
Then…. I change my wish (yet again).
“Tell me,” he begins, his hands back in their fold, ready to fill my prayer.
“Please tell Him, to let me walk in His will. He knows what I desire. And deeply desire. And He alone has placed it there. And He alone knows it too. It’s a secret between He and I. Also, tell Him, to keep me close to Him. And keep me in love. With Him and then all that belongs to Him. Will you?”
“Yes, I will,” he comforts, almost my father behind his face.
But when he is walking away… the saint in His stride, I almost call him back.
And then, instead, I turn in, and whisper to myself: “And tell Him…. please, please…. that actually He knows what I so deeply desire…. And tell Him to try giving that to me. I am human, helplessly human after all. ”
He walks on, smiling. But something tells me, he too heard the whisper.
Monday, August 17, 2009
He lords over
A heart bursts sometimes,
and sometimes knots cold;
and knells up granite...
Then one rustle of the leaf
in some newborn stir of the breeze,
and come home to feed the fire,
a song wraps itself in some eyes
and comes looking for you.
Have you known it?
The hopeless
free fall
into love...
into my God?
Here... from long time back
sun suddenly shy of its blush
in the just about falling, breaking leaf, off its tree,
and in the umbilical cord just about snapping,
but never quite,
In the quiet of the love
that waits in the heart,
to pour over a face when it finally un-hazes
...is the music that I meet again...
Letter from Him... (writer, obviously the Unknown)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies
Or being hated,don’t give way to hating;
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep you virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And- which is more- you’ll be a Man, my son !
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
God, bless me a breath of Fury
Cry,
Cry my body out.
Cry
Cry
Cry.
And all the things that would cremate my mourning.
And all the things that would cremate my bondage.
And all the things that would fast-forward the breaths in my account.
And all the days that would shrink themselves out.
All the prayers I assembled around my bones.
And all the dreams I propped against your soul.
All the distances I was still gulping between us
And all the bridges I was still building between us
All the beginnings I was making despite all The Ends
And all the ends that reached only You, inspite of you.
All the songs that coiled around Us.
And all the films I wrapped our midnight cosiness in.
All the dishes I almost smelt in our kitchen.
And all the vegetables you would chop and I would throw in the beautiful blaze of us.
All the colours our Home would bear.
And all the things I would say when time would rear.
And all my fury I would knock into you on the fieriest of days.
And all my anger I would tell you of in the mellowest of ways.
And all the wounds I’ve kept sewing, all times, to show you some day.
Like, all the things I liked.
All the things I disliked
And all that I love of you
And all that I love even more of you
All the fragrances of you
And all the fragrances of me
All of me
And all of you
…Was still to be lived.
And then you stabbed
and knifed it all out
and pulled the last stairway
to the Heaven Of Us.
Scream
Cry my body out
Cry
Cry
Cry
But Love won’t lend me
even one sip of hate.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
यह कर सकते हो?
बीज बोया…
कोसी कोख मिटटी की,
सूरज की किरणों के उगते
सींचा उसे सपने भर हाथों नें,
आंखों का अमृत छिड़क कर
पलोसा,
दुलार दिया।
और फिर ऐसे,
अर्सों तक,
बरसों तक
परोसा उसे
प्यार,
ओक भरी प्रार्थना,
पलक से छंटी धूप
और
कांच... बहती नदी का
ऐसे
उस पौधे को पाला पोसा
बड़ा किया।
आओ उसे आज उखाड़ आयें,
इस प्रेम को उजाड़ आयें.
JANUARY 16, 2008
Painting Courtesy: jacquewadsworth.typepad.com
लेह-लदाख
ढेर,
मिटटी, पत्थर और रेत के,
कहीं कहीं अचानक से पेड़ के भी…
ढेर,
जैसे उसने एक दिन खेल खेला हो,
अपने किसी बच्चे होने के एहसास में,
बनाईं बहुत सी ढेरियाँ मिटटी की
और लेप दी अपने हाथ आये रंगों से,
उमंगों से।
कभी मला एक पीला नीला हरा पौधा हाथ में
और गून्न्थ दिया एक पर;
दुसरे पर फैलाया हाथ भर कर सूखा धान
और किसी और पर बरसा दिए गेहूं के छिलके;
कुछ पर पत्थर बरसा कर
निकाल दिया रोष अपना;
और कुछ को प्यार से फुसलाया
पास से गुज़रते बादल लेप कर.
दुसरे को बहला लिया हरा भरा कर के,
और किसी और पर रख दिए पिघलते रूयीं के गुच्छे.
कुछ पर सरसों की होली खेली,
और खेलता रहा…
और फिर थक गया ढेरों को ढकते
और उन्हें छोड़ दिया,
किसी और दिन के खेल के लिए।
यही ढेर
बहुत से प्यार और पूजा के,
गूंजती चुप और गाती आंधी के,
हांफती ऊंचायी
और खेलती धूप के…
ढेर
पिघलते सूरज में नदियाँ बहाते...
यही ढेर बन गए
एक लेह-लदाख
June 29, 2007
Photo Courtesy: www.lehladakh.net
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
I passed away
I wake up to dripping blood on my tongue.
I wake up to a swelling of suspicion.
I wake up to nothing.
I wake up nothing.
I don’t smell the mango as I shove its mouth into mine. And even as its pulp drips, scatters, and tickles my throat, I can’t taste the blessing. I only gulp oxygen and it never returns.
This world laughs too loud.
This world laughs too much.
This world laughs in madness…
...And I have lost my madness.
Maybe I passed away.
Monday, June 15, 2009
A river runs through me
A river runs through me,
one thin sheet of glass,
and if I turn rock at my edges and bends,
it cuts away at corners...
gnashing at me,
wounding,
bleeding me,
and flings me away,
into times lost.
A river runs through me,
and I am just about learning,
to wear it in a perfect fit.
Painting Courtesy: www.clatsopcollege.com/ River Spirit, by CCC Painting Instructor Kristin Shauck
The Bridge knows
and the words that fly off your tongue,
swings a bridge...
that knows,
that the medium
is not always the message,
that the words that roll off scalding,
smolder from a heart gone cold, sour and wounded.
That the words that fly off your tongue,
still don’t always sing
what the ocean’s song is.
The bridge knows.
Painting Courtesy: http://www.jamieandrade.com/
Monday, June 8, 2009
Bout
of creeping up on me.
Toe to head.
Always
toe to head,
in devilish glee.
In its first lurks of landing
it deposits little needles of weight
into the valleys of my soles;
and my toes begin to feel
like frozen iron bricks
tied to wherever I lie, pause or sit.
And then it begins to sneak,
up my heels, ankles, and legs,
flowing into my blood stream
and into the heart of my calves
breaking them into halves
of strain, load and pain.
And then, in a fresh bout of frenzy,
it turns a dagger in my pit
and soon I begin to smell it
riding flames inside my nose,
my breath turns up the temperature
and my eyes redden to the heat.
My limbs succumb to the stranger
my head turns a bulge of cloud
my jaw begins to stiffen
and finally my shoulders accept defeat.
Soon… I am limp mass
following the stranger like a slave
around my bed, slumber and pills.
It has the most creepy way
of crawling up on me,
and turning me dead meat.
Nothing quite tames me
like Fever,
the bad old bout of Fever.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Kedarnath Singh's 'Tum Aaayeen'... And how!
जैसे छीमियों में धीरे- धीरे
आता है रस
जैसे चलते - चलते एड़ी में
काँटा जाए धँस
तुम दिखीं
जैसे कोई बच्चा
सुन रहा हो कहानी
तुम हँसी
जैसे तट पर बजता हो पानी
तुम हिलीं
जैसे हिलती है पत्ती
जैसे लालटेन के शीशे में
काँपती हो बत्ती !
तुमने छुआ
जैसे धूप में धीरे- धीरे
उड़ता है भुआ
और अन्त में
जैसे हवा पकाती है गेहूँ के खेतों को
तुमने मुझे पकाया
और इस तरह
जैसे दाने अलगाये जाते है भूसे से
तुमने मुझे खुद से अलगाया ।
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Guru Granth Sahib Ji - english
For others who don't know Punjabi, this is one of the okay ones, but if you look at what Sahib Singh ji and others his level have done, you may be getting into misinterpretation here. But not bad to begin with.
http://www.srigranth.org/servlet/gurbani.gurbani?Action=Page&Param=1&g=1&h=1&r=1&t=1&p=0&k=0
Painting Courtesy: globaljudgements.com
Guru Granth Sahib - interpreted
Known to be one of the best interpretations of Guru Granth Sahib ji - by Late Sahib Singh ji. Those who know Punjabi, you have a treasure at your fingertips. God bless such sewa.
http://www.gurugranthdarpan.com/darpan2/darpan_pdf.html
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The familiar life... in 2000
The familiar life
My head felt like a knot. Many knots. A headache, a numb head, a dumb head... anything else sounded so much better and the best of all would have been an empty one. It seemed wise to bang this bundle against the wall, fling it into the water tank, scrub it good, pull it out, dry and clean of all the grey that had been glued on to it. Only if.
Nodding for the nth time, I realised for the nth time that this grey on the top didn't always bring the brightest of smiles, the breeziest of breezes. This grey up there lives such a square life, breathes such calculated breaths, saves, stashes, finances feelings... a well-worked-out equation that always promises a remainder called `smooth life'. Only if the rest of me could live that way.
The head felt even more knotted as I lay it down on the pillow. Of course, it makes sense, I deliberated, to live a familiar life. Walk the streets that have been long cleared of all the wayward green. Friendly and safe. ``That's my sensible..." I almost heard Mom exclaim. And Iwent to bed, stretching my lips to a smile. The knots stayed, but.
BUT! I woke up drenched in sweat. How do I live half dreams? ``Don't dream,'' Mom said. ``It's like forest fire, it burns you, it burns the ones around you, it burns all night and day. Water is so much more calm. It flows along that trail, never makes a noise and it doesn't burn. Be like water, darling, flow demure. Be like water, my daughter....''
But doesn't water spill over sometimes, Mom? Doesn't it dive from a cliff, hit against the rock, gush down, frothing all over. So noisily, so noisily that you jerk your head back to see it live, and breathe. So loudly. So fearlessly. And that, Mom, isn't noise, is it? I love listening to waterfalls. Don't you, Mom?
She wiped the sweat off my face, closed my eyes with her ever balmy hands. ``Sleep my darling, and dream as much. But dream only in dreams.'' The lullaby did put the sleep back on the lids but the head knotted up again.And then, in slumber, I was flying, drifting, floating... allthat makes a feather. The feeling felt familiar. And my own. There have been times earlier too, when I've tried stretching my arms as wide as they can be, filling in the breeze. And an equal number of times have I tried stretching them above my head, raising my heels to get them as far up as they can get. And then I've also tried to breathe as deeply as I can, so that my lungs swell to the brink of a burst, to take in the spring sprayed all over. The dew also comes along, wrapped in sweet peas and gulmohar. And I've never had enough of it. And it's in this not having enough that I have found the desire to try again, for more. And I've gone on stretching my arms, breathing ever so deeply, just to get there. And it's never left me tired.
The morning, and I walked out with a spring in every step. They picked up pace as the ground beneath left them. ``Don't forget darling,'' Mom called, ``don't forget the way back home...''
Where's home, Mom? I walked, tickled at the crisp brown of the leaves floating about.Spring had begun to show as the dream cradled back into my eyes. And I moved, like the river that overflows, breeding new rivulets, then streams, and a pond and, who knows, some day, even a sea.
I want to dream, Mom, and not only at night. I'd be the stream that froths on to the rocks and flows. And then someday reaches home, suddenly out of the meadows. Then the knots would come off. Just like that. Who knows!And I won't forget the way back, Mom. I promise.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
From A Bird's Eye View
http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19980504/12451824.html
From A Bird's Eye View
The same old moon above ...it didn't hold ME. There were millions below. And stars too which didn't float in space. They moved, they blinked and they didn't fall. They were squares, triangles, circles of stars that moved along a pale orange trail. A trail that seemed to be lighted from beneath. And it took me back to my days of the mud houses I had shaped with my hands -- puny little mud houses with lamps lighted in. And of toy trains and toy buses.
The sky below moved as I sat mid air. Static in space. Not moving. But I was. And fast. This was my first brush with wings. And that too at night. (Night flying comes to the privileged few, the captain had said). I had suddenly grown wings right above my head that evening when my friend had pressed my hand and whispered:"We are flying!"
Minutes later, looking through the copter window, it was a sight too spread out. And it took a dimension to catch my eye. The lake... a bucketful of water spilled out, the roundabouts ...ride on a maypole, sector-17 ...blocks and moving dots ...I could play Chinese checkers. My eyes couldn't get huge enough, nor my mouth even as I kept making bigger circles with it to keep the ears from bursting. The neons blinked below ...I could recognise them, not by reading but by making out the locations. Identifying marks down there was like... I am still groping for a word. Comfortably familiar? Yes, this comes close. And so was the moon besides me.
I lived a world somewhere in between. A lifetime in the air. And the one below looked like a shred.. on a joy ride.. mapped out..in a circle. It was on a move. I had felt it before. Now I knew it... it took me a flight to see. For there had been times when the world down there had stopped suddenly as if someone had pressed a `stop' button somewhere. But it never did. Same as it was here ...mid air. The wings above my head had ceased making noise. And a lot other noises too went. For now I saw...Nothing is too big. Nothing is too much. Nothing is the ONLY ONE ....From a distance.
I landed with a smile. Thanks Captain.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
I will wait... forever
yarns of night from the rainforest;
when the wind roams drunk
at the promise of a wet storm;
when mountains wake up
even closer to my window;
when it has rained all night
and the moon is too drenched to walk home;
when the trees by the Lake
paint their nails pale and pink;
and when all of my life’s decision have been taken
in black and white ink…
…..there still remains a drive up the mountains,
a fight over a pastry,
seventeen hundred and seven songs,
and one sleep on your shoulder
Awaited….
forever.
2. The Palma Collection; Getty Images
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
He says talk of the miracles...
speak of...
the yellow butterfly
and the freshly spotted purple;
the Golden Shower tree,
pregnant with a windy May;
the road that loses its feet to the mountain peak,
and that wretched shack with shocking momos;
the blackbirds that eavesdropped.
and the fog that hugged us that day.
He says,
speak of…
that song that rose from black & white
and brush-swept our willing faces;
the two children we stole from our family albums,
wore their faces and hopped all day;
that snake swimming in the lake
and that quiet walk by the highway.
He says,
speak of...
dreams and wishes and songs that came true
He says,
speak of...
the miracles - when you were me and I were you.
But then…
miracles are for keeping,
so utterly ahead of speaking.
IMAGE COURTESY: A painting by Bheem Malhotra, www.tribuneindia.com
Thursday, May 7, 2009
I rise, yet again…
Sometimes everything looks easy…
Sometimes, impossible mountains collapse.
Sometimes, scalding suns turn moons.
Sometimes, everything is only as far as stretching out - with arms, with gentle words, with a heart full of love and yearning, and then…! Swi….sssssh - a magical magical flash of cards just rises, finds ground and begins to roll back into a neat pack. A pack that just gathers itself in a stash that defies all permutations of spill-over.
Sometimes, the insides suddenly shed all garbage. All anger, all lust, all greed, all obsession, all ego… and turn Love. As if the chanting sun stole in through the pores of our skin at some point and bathed the insides, the morning ablutions for the prayers ahead. At such times, the insides - rinsed, hallowed and perfumed - suddenly float over the flesh, five feet over, or maybe five feet under, and become happy slaves of Him. In easy surrender. Just like that.
At such times, words don’t hurt. At such times, weapons don’t hurt. At such times, nothing hurts. Nothing can hurt.
Yes, sometimes, it all looks so easy.
Sometimes everything dreamlike and heaven-like and loving and kind is a possibility.
Sometimes everything is dreamlike and heaven-like and loving and kind.
Such times come after I have closed my eyes and touched His Lotus Feet under my morning trance.
Such times come after I have closed my eyes and bowed to Him and Her on that Himalayan peak.
Such times come on mornings when, my hands folded, I have washed my face with the spring from my eyes, while staring into the feet of the Formless Somebody in my room.
Such times come when I pour some white light from There Far Above, over my family, my home, my city, my country, my globe, trees, grass, flowers, rivers, mountains, and me.
Such times come when I turn so boneless from agony that the only limbs that can move are my hands - in a folded Wail of pardon.
At such times, everything fits.
At such times, you become I, and I reach out for you, with only love. Yet again.
Such times. Oh such times.
May 7, 2009; 3.56 pm.
Monday, May 4, 2009
SomeOne
Or I am trapped in a body.
This Someone, trapped in, keeps growing new wings every secret flash. And when I am not watching, it keeps breaking and sprouting out of the skin and cells to breathe lungfuls of trees and flowers and leaves and rivers and mist and forests and waves and temple bells and eyes and faces and prayers and more and more and all of more and more of all and keeps filling the lungs. And then, some mad moment, it stops even rationing it all and just harvests all of that by the armfuls, and keeps bringing it home and of course, it all spills over and begins to tiptoe in, finding nooks and crannies and clefts in my cells and pores and skin and vessels and nerves and bones and all of me.
And soon, I become the Wings.
Sometimes, when it’s not wings, Someone grows new antennae. The kinds that bees have. Or butterflies have. So glassy, so glassy that even I can’t see them. So I easily refuse that they are there. But oh, these antennae have a strange network. So crystal, that the human in me wants to call it hogwash. Maya? But then, the stories never end. My eyes look at a face and my antennae transmit me the saline lumped behind them. They look at a stranger and they telecast my story with him from a past life. I dream of a child and my ‘satellite dish’ tells me he is going to grow into my Master. I look at any face and I know, ‘I know him, her, them….. I look at all and they all look like me. I look at them and they all are me. I know they are me and my antennae are broadcasting it from the Unknown Somewhere.
The Unknown Somewhere is not so unknown too.
It looks white. Cottony white. Suds of milky, melting cloudy cotton walking on No-Ground. But the ground beneath my feet is yet so solid. So grassy. So mountains, so much a carpet of flowers. So sea, air, sky, and even fire at some times. Nothing hurts. Nothing thrills. All fits. Just fits. Into Love.
This Someone, knows only love.
With all arms, fingers, nails stretching, stretching towards love… For this tiny white flower that grows a smile on its face as it bends from the side of a mountain faraway along the aridness of Chamba.
Or that unwrapping peepul tree that stands in the middle of an unnamed road in the heart of Dehradun.
Or that lost little girl staring through my car window.
Or that little monk in a Rahul Bose movie.
This and that,
and that and this
and many more things…
This Someone, knows only love. And no anger. And no hatred, and no jealousy. It knows no money and no silken clothes and no diamonds.
And Someone knows no big houses. Someone knows Home. And home is Love. And love is home. And when love is home, all the world is one.
This Someone knows only One.
And I have a feeling, that despite this body refusing to let Someone in, Someone lives here. And I have a feeling, the body is not me. And I am not body.
PAINTING COURTESY: Winged Aureole - David Hicks; www.fineartamerica.com
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
I am in prison... (Love is the only way)
I am in prison.
I can move my fingers but this deep valley in my palm is a mesh of wires gone rusty. Clearly, the lines in my palm are distressed, they say.
My eyes can roll and jump left and hop right but I can’t bat their lids. And the eyes that can’t bat their lids forget many things. Like shedding tears. Because they never know. Because they never feel the pain or ecstasy enough to shut under the lids and stamp the moment.
My arms can move and move well to coil themselves around the world, and feel One that the Masters talk about. But my shoulders ache under a cold mountain. A cold cold mountain that lost its river to a landslide. The river is Me. The mountain is You.
I, inside me, have a fresh new pair of wings, especially after some pilgrimages… but its feet are tied with your wrist and I can’t simply leave ground because the sky is calling….
I am in prison… Loosen the tangles. Give me birth. Only you can release me. Only You.
PAINTING COURTESY www.1st-art-gallery.com. By John Gabrile Stedman. A reproduction of a female Negro slave with a weight chained to her ankle, from the Naraative of a Fiver Years Expedition Against The Revolted Negroes of Surinam 1772-77, 1796.
Monday, April 27, 2009
To hell with words.... From Kanatal Resorts
To hell with words.
To hell wth words.
The meditative Himalayas in whose arms I am right now are the most dwarfing. They are a strong hint of what His presence would do to us...
Whenever you, I and us have a mind that seems to have lost its centre, let's just come away to the Himalayas. The roads gulping the massivenes of it all, the trees singing to the winds, the clouds at a game of see-saw over the cutting sliver of a mountain, a valley that returns your song wrapped in a generous rate of interest... and Faces - ah.... all Smile, all Us, all One with no strangeness of distance... Where everything comes together, we are softly lulled back into His Lap... Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Just like that......
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Question Mark waits to sliver
you sleep,
and walk tunnels of sleeplessness;
When
you talk
and the words splinter away like orphans;
When
you look into the mirror and
meet an undisclosed island from lost memory;
When
a smile rolls on your lips and
a scream begins to scratch the walls of your gut;
When you say a ‘hello’ and ‘am doing fine’,
and blood goes sour
and drips into your tongue;
When in the fever of your morning rush
you freeze in the kitchen…
like a blackening, blackening shadow,
silent, so screaming….
When,
the whole of TV is stirred and spent
and the whole of the day is slugged out and smoked,
when all the clothes are washed and dried,
and all the meal is sobered and swallowed,
When all the bills are panicked over and paid
and all the shopping is stuffed into our walls,
and all the medicines bought and beaten,
and all the diseases cut and cured,
When all of life is worn and worn out,
and all of us are masked and hidden…
…It still finds us,
Like that germ of the air…
It always nooses over,
The Question….
(Written at 3.43 pm, April 20, 2009)
Painting courtesy: http://www.superstock.com/
Sunday, April 19, 2009
एक और बसंत (Spring, once more)
एक पत्ता,
अटका सा है कहीं
गिरने को है,
बस अभी… बस अभी…
फिर भी जुदा है अपनी डाल से…
एक पत्ता.
हवा सन्न-सन्न कर डरा जाती है,
कई पड़ोसी पत्तों को बुझा जाती है,
सूखा सा यह एक पत्ता
हड्डियों का सिकुरा सा ढांचा,
भयभीत और भुझा,
फिर भी साँस बुन लेता है,
किसी आर्शीवाद से माँगा हुआ…
एक पत्ता,
पतझड़ का,
यूँ ही साँस बटोरा करता है,
एक और बसंत की आस में.
(Came wafting in, like its own leaf, 5 minutes back... April 19, 2009, 12.55)
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Don't hang me off the clock
Don’t hang me off the clock,
Don’t let the pendulum toss me around….
And bruise my within,
And bleed my edges
And string up my nerves
And puncture my pause…
From left to right
From here to there,
From now to then….
Is not just a rolled up packet of minutes…
Don’t hang me off the clock,
As I crawl towards a pause…
Flowing,
by the bed of a river
where the earth is drunk on sweet peas and damp leaves,
I lick wounds as the waters sing…
And when the sun filters to find my face,
I hide it under my eyes…
and flow away awake.
Don’t wear the watch
don’t blink on my cell
don’t ride up and down the dates
I like the sway of things….
But never of the clock.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Soulitude (My column, HT City, Jan 17, 2006)
Give us some Fog.
You know, this winter, has been not good enough. This winter has just about frozen over from 2005 to 2006. The chill’s gone dead cold and swung on the other side of zero. But, it’s chosen not to be generous. It hasn’t brought us the Fog. And all those messages from the Mist.
Just a few nights of the Fog, please? So that, after the muddle of a commonplace routine that pours heaps of knotted fungi all over and inside of us, let the Fog bullet a trial into our face. Just when we think it’s time to go Home, and we push the ‘Start’ buttons of all the technology that will deliver us, the Fog comes and mountains itself bang in front of us. Blocking all sight, like the film we can see but cannot see beyond. But since Home, we think, is the destination, we’re left with no choice, but to cut through. So we, riding the blare of technology, all the wheels and all the horns, with no safe options, make way into the thick of nothingness. Have you ever driven through thick blankets of Fog, God? Then, nothing else matters. Everything leaves. The past – the most distant, the most recent. Because we, in all absoluteness, are too bloody ‘taken over’ by sightlessness, just about sniffing our way down the road & not fall out of line, into some abyss. The next minute, day, month… the-next-anything stops mattering. Making way through No Sight, only vision works - that the End could be a second away. But since we’ve nothing to do but move, so we do. When the End lurks ‘that’ close, it stops frightening. It becomes one hell or heaven of a game and well, we love to play. Despite ourselves. Despite anything. Despite everything. Despite nothing. Driving through the fog, the streetlights hang like many suns from the heaven and the trees become a network of another world. Driving through like that, we can smell you, God, that musk and cloud and sun and stars. We can hear your words better - you sound so quiet in the rustle of leaves breaking away from their umbilical cords and in the rise and fall of dew. Something in your quietness tells us, God, that we will come through if we have to. And if we don’t have to, then Cheers to the last game.
Listen God, give us some Fog, at least once in a while. So that we learn to take a plunge, without looking. So that we learn to journey, and to hell with Home. So that we play the game for ‘now’, to hell with all ‘that was’ and ‘will be'. Give us some Fog, so that we learn to live in the possibility of death. Give us some Fog, so that we learn to play dangerously.
Your child, who could be much more.
***
The love, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…
Oh well, blood does bind. And shared history, too. The last few days, many cells have been ringing to ‘private numbers’. From the across the barbed wire, hands & hearts have been reaching out. Many new friends and some strangers too, have been inviting “just anyone” to be their guests. A story that we recently carried – on cricket being just incidental for those visits to Pakistan - is just a small fragment of the fragrance. Do you feel the unrest, the desperation to bind again? We do. Many others too... It’s amazing how extreme hatred wombs extreme love!
***
When Ishmeet died... and the TV lost its soul
They've stir-fried, garnished and hung national TV on sale. They keep wrapping it in these ugly yellow ribbons in some sort of self-certification. News-telling? Tch, tch… 'remote' chances. News-selling? Sure, buddy, all the time. After all, hijacker's dangerously at hand – hidden inside the hollows of the harmless remote. One finger-shift, and there's always a better news-seller out there. And bigger breaks. And the biggest bucks.
And there she is – our anchor, smile widened permanently from everyday expanding. The smile. It is such a bloody job essential, and the news on the telly-prompter changes so rapidly, there's never enough time to pick from these options: Paste Smile, Strip It Off, or simply, Pull All Plugs And Just Break Open. And in all this chaos, she breaks news of the 19-yr-old Ishmeet Singh drowning, with her safe-to-smile face. On this side of the screen, the parents and friends are barely surviving the shock. From the news-storming on all channels, between volcanoes of anguish, they're probably gathering little crumbs of information on how they lost their only son to a faraway island. And our girl on TV here? She's in prime time ecstasy - too busy matching smiles with different colours of news.
And then, on another channel, if they wear the right expression while breaking news, a worse mockery 'breaks' in. In the middle of a Lata Mangeshkar or an Abhijeet struggling with words over the loss of the unassuming, promising talent, and Farah Khan shuddering over how the boy's mother would be coping, there's this desperate break to be taken. Like, it's now or never. And not before announcing the 'promising' bit 'coming up': on how the kid lost his life and how his mother lost her mind somewhere. "But all that, after this short little break. Don't go away": the promise spits enthusiasm and you wonder if the anchor actually said that!
As 24 hours turn into Prime Time and 'breaking news' becomes how 'Sallu and Kat stare at Splitsville' or how an alien stares at us earthly-beings from somewhere on Mars or how a lizard and a cockroach found love or something like that, Death dies of cold neglect. Or worse, it turns a reality show with a popcorn interval.
Reality bites… Ouch, it does! But hey, let me go grab my dinner before I catch the footage on Ishmeet's cremation. While I bite into my cucumber, chances are I may not taste blood after all.
Soulitude column (Jan 2008)
Or is it your head?
Is it your head with that tick-tock - first working up a rhyme, then a song, then a tedium, then a noise, and then, the same chaos of routine. Waking up, walking 45 minutes (or 4 kms – whichever explains your health or absence of it, best), the bath-breakfast-work-lunch-friends-dinner-cell sessions-and-back to bed rigmarole… So where went Time? Or does it matter…
It didn’t matter to one man. The Time. So he flowed, in an unlearning, wise sort of way, a twig in the rivulet, dashing against rocks, down the waterfalls, into whirlpools, dipping, slipping, losing, finding and then back in the flow… It didn’t matter to him – The Time. And so the tick tock was never music to his ears. In fact it was nothing to his ears. He didn’t live by the years. Or days. Or deadlines. He lived by NOW. Now, ‘now’ was a problem. Even as all the masters spoke of ‘now’ and only ‘now’, nobody was listening. They were being born, and what next was suddenly ruling their lives. Now what next? School. Which and where. What next? College. Which career and what for? What next? Job? What next? Marriage. What next? Kids. How many in how many years? What next? Them. All about them. What next? House. When and where? What next? Kids’ marriages.. What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next?
And our man, who lived by completing full circles of experiences, sniffing his way through with his soul as the radar, the words turned deafening and then they all started sounding like alarm bells. The folks said they wanted him to do this and do that by this and that time so that they could be ‘liberated’. Liberated of responsibility, they added. Responsibility they had themselves created.
And this man of ours was buried under alarm clocks, transgressing his own lines of destiny and just about short-cutting to destinations at the ‘right’ time as they decided.
Today as this reaches you, riding on your morning cup of beans, strain your senses a bit and you’d listen to the cries of that man buried under time clocks. Pierced by a seconds-hand, knocked down by the pendulum, hanged to death at 12 o’ clock. Time killed him. Because he defied it, to live by the soft song of surrender to the river.
Happy New Year. It’s 32 minutes past 8 and it’s time for meditation.
Jan 1, 2008
मार्च का पत्ता (आखिरी क्षण)
हवा की सरसरी से सहमा,
बिन हाड मांस, बीमार सा
अचानक की बौछार
और कभी बे-तुके ओलों से झेंपता,
ज़रा जिंदा रहता सा
तपती दोपहरों की राह बटोरता... जब न तो हवा चले न सड़कें,
हवा की सरसरी से सहमा
वोह बिन हाड मांस का पत्ता…
आज पाँच बजने के बारह ‘मिनट’ पहले
हल्का सा हिला
और टूट गिरा अपने एक बरस के पेड़ से…
वोह ‘मार्च’ का पत्ता,
सूखा, सिंकुरा, मुर्दा सा
छोड़ आया आज आसमान की ऊंचाई.
(March 19, 2007 1.48 am)
चाँद उजड़ा सा
ज़मीन के बहुत करीब
एक भूला भटका सा,
चाँद लटका सा...
कभी पेड़ की आड़ लेता,
तो कभी टीन की छत से छिपता
कभी चलती गाड़ी की खिड़की से चढ आता
तो कभी घर के पिछवारे में जा गिरता
पानी में तैरता
साथ साथ चलता
तो कभी जम जाता रात की उनींदी आंखों में...
कभी यूँ ही झांकता मस्ताया बच्चा सा,
आसमान के उस छोर से.
सब अथ्केली और उजाली रातों के बाद,
आज का चाँद है चुप, अकेला, पिघला सा....
जैसे रंग भर कर उस में
हाथ से मिटा दिया हो किसी ने.
April 4, 2007, 12.08 am
चुप (SILENCE)
चुप (SILENCE)
तुम, मैं और हमें कोसों दूर करते शब्द
गुच्छों में,
कभी अकेले,
बिर्हबान जंगल की रात से,
अधूरे, कटे से, मीठे, खट्टे, करारे और कड़वे…
और उनके बहुत से गुच्छे
हमें कोसों दूर करती बातें
बहुत सी बातें...
सुबह सुबह की धीमी, ओसी बातें
रात की दबी दबी सी चुपकी सी बातें
और सारे दिन और पहरों को भरती बातें
हमें कोसों दूर करतीं हजारों हजारों बातें.
घड़ी, दौड़ और काम
रोटी, पैसा और नाम
और न जाने... तुम्हें और मुझे दूर करतीं कितनी बातें.
चलो आज सब को पार कर जाएँ
तुम और मैं चुप हो जाएँ.
March 19, 2007, 12.56 am
'Word'ict
You are just a word.
And in a regular sort of magic,
in a daily round of musical chairs,
you meet in symphony,
and marry into an idea.
You are just an idea,
You romp under my cells,
you skip around my eyeballs
shoot through my lips,
and you soar over my skull,
and smash me against these keys.
When you are all done,
I fold you into steadiness
and sober you into a story.
You are just a story,
sometimes you sit under storms,
sometimes you come down with the rain,
sometimes the sun shines behind your End
and sends me to slumber of easy illusion.
In my easy illusion,
Words fetch me flowers,
Sentences get me more,
And I could fall in the trap,
more words,
yet more.
You are just a word,
Some orphaned idea,
Or a roving story.
But can I hug you to sleep?
अमलतास का गीत
वो अमलतास देखते हो? वो ना झूम कर बांहे फैलाये हवाओं की हथेलियों पर सूरज की छननी से ढ़ांप कर एक गीत भेजता है हर सुबह मेरी ओर. पर वो ग...
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Someone is trapped in my body. Or I am trapped in a body. This Someone, trapped in, keeps growing new wings every secret flash. And when I a...
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Scream. Cry, Cry my body out. Cry Cry Cry. And all the things that would cremate my mourning. And all the things that would cremate my bonda...
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SHE and I sit exploring the worlds trapped inside us. Our paintbrushes become our limbs and we sit in silence, painting our inner w...