I am a baby
My mommy’s doll
Loved by Daddy
By One and all.
-----X-----
I skip and jump
Play peek-a-boo
And bark with the doggy
Bho bho bho.
----X------
Monday, December 28, 2009
Remembering Blue
I remember Blue
The blue you wore
On a stormy evening
Some ages ago.
The clouds were dark
And winds violent
The storm raging
Like the one within.
We walked on green turf
Of grass mowed and manicured
Hand in hand, foot naked
By the blue bloom flower bed
No thought no feeling
Just oneness with that evening
Without a word we acquiesced
The wind of west and east.
We sat back to back
Sharing the silence
So content.
You said- “let’s die this moment”.
Once again
I remember a blue
My drunkeness of spirit
My depth of contentment
The blue you wore
On a stormy evening
Several ages ago...
The blue you wore
On a stormy evening
Some ages ago.
The clouds were dark
And winds violent
The storm raging
Like the one within.
We walked on green turf
Of grass mowed and manicured
Hand in hand, foot naked
By the blue bloom flower bed
No thought no feeling
Just oneness with that evening
Without a word we acquiesced
The wind of west and east.
We sat back to back
Sharing the silence
So content.
You said- “let’s die this moment”.
Once again
I remember a blue
My drunkeness of spirit
My depth of contentment
The blue you wore
On a stormy evening
Several ages ago...
Wear Mauve
Wear mauve
And make my day.
In the winter of my years
When I‘ll be cold and grey
Left in the solitude,
To reminisce and pray
In the company of loneliness.
Lying with asthma and
Fighting the gout,
I’ll remember you.
Peeping and smiling
From the clouds of delusion
And through the daze of days...
You‘ll walk back in time.
In lavender, perhaps mauve
Bright and luminescent.
In the golden sunshine of our youth.
And make my day.
In the winter of my years
When I‘ll be cold and grey
Left in the solitude,
To reminisce and pray
In the company of loneliness.
Lying with asthma and
Fighting the gout,
I’ll remember you.
Peeping and smiling
From the clouds of delusion
And through the daze of days...
You‘ll walk back in time.
In lavender, perhaps mauve
Bright and luminescent.
In the golden sunshine of our youth.
Drishtikon
Raah chaltey, kal savere
Kacchi dhoop ki saat kiranein
Dikh gayi, prachi ambar main.
Ek kiran jo thi akeli,
Usmain keval shwet rang tha.
Paas ja kar, muskura kar
Mridul bhav jab hriday se dekha;
Usmain to shat-sehestra rang the.
Kacchi dhoop ki saat kiranein
Dikh gayi, prachi ambar main.
Ek kiran jo thi akeli,
Usmain keval shwet rang tha.
Paas ja kar, muskura kar
Mridul bhav jab hriday se dekha;
Usmain to shat-sehestra rang the.
Kabhi Yun Baith chup chaap.
Kabhi Yun baith chup chaap
Keh jaye kuch khamoshi ki awaz
Ankhon main chipi wo kahani
Keh jaye sanson main saans.
Kabhi yun baith chup chaap
Sun bhooli hanseen ki phuhaar
Jo bhool nahi paye,wo din wo raat
Barsey naino se bisri barsaat.
Jagtey sotey , uthtey baithtey
Kho gaye jo Baton ki hod main
Na samay ruka , na umra,
Guzar gaye ankahe, anmaney se…
Jo bun na paye hum…
Jo sun na paye hum
Bator lein wo aaj…
Kabhi yun baith, chupp chaap.
Keh jaye kuch khamoshi ki awaz
Ankhon main chipi wo kahani
Keh jaye sanson main saans.
Kabhi yun baith chup chaap
Sun bhooli hanseen ki phuhaar
Jo bhool nahi paye,wo din wo raat
Barsey naino se bisri barsaat.
Jagtey sotey , uthtey baithtey
Kho gaye jo Baton ki hod main
Na samay ruka , na umra,
Guzar gaye ankahe, anmaney se…
Jo bun na paye hum…
Jo sun na paye hum
Bator lein wo aaj…
Kabhi yun baith, chupp chaap.
Friday, December 11, 2009
A speck in the Cosmos
Let my vanities wane.
For every spark of cognizance.
For each gain and pain.
Let me unskew my image inane.
Just a speck in cosmos
Ray of light from nowhere to somewhere.
So were the world's empires and emperors.
So the constellation of Conquerors and paupers.
Each moment makes eternity.
Every note sings the song
Every word makes an epic
The cosmos is indeed a microcosm.
I make the cosmos.
Speck by speck I gather,
the vanities of my perception.
The glue that holds it on.
The ruse of existance.
For every spark of cognizance.
For each gain and pain.
Let me unskew my image inane.
Just a speck in cosmos
Ray of light from nowhere to somewhere.
So were the world's empires and emperors.
So the constellation of Conquerors and paupers.
Each moment makes eternity.
Every note sings the song
Every word makes an epic
The cosmos is indeed a microcosm.
I make the cosmos.
Speck by speck I gather,
the vanities of my perception.
The glue that holds it on.
The ruse of existance.
4 A.M.
Feverish with night's sleep;
Gliding into intimacy deep .
we talk until dawn at four.
Yearning for such moments more.
Musing about past yearnings
Imaginations from a different eon
Recounting the times long gone
Blessed to be waking up, not alone.
Early birds begin to warble
Eastern lights light up the East.
The songs we forget to sing so oft.
Are often the ones we long for.
Gliding into intimacy deep .
we talk until dawn at four.
Yearning for such moments more.
Musing about past yearnings
Imaginations from a different eon
Recounting the times long gone
Blessed to be waking up, not alone.
Early birds begin to warble
Eastern lights light up the East.
The songs we forget to sing so oft.
Are often the ones we long for.
Friday, March 20, 2009
To the One long gone
Sometimes in hours pensive
Someplace like middle of a market street
She thinks of the maple tree
Under which they sat, when free
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere
Some thoughts that she can’t define
She stands struck with still feet.
In the vicinity of that market street.
From her hair curls, to the tiny feet.
From eyes moist and misty sleep
Sad, sorrowful and alone.
She often weeps woebegone.
Someone she can’t acknowledge
Some thought far forlorn.
Waking up to a melancholic morn
Not reconciled that it’s long gone.
Someplace like middle of a market street
She thinks of the maple tree
Under which they sat, when free
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere
Some thoughts that she can’t define
She stands struck with still feet.
In the vicinity of that market street.
From her hair curls, to the tiny feet.
From eyes moist and misty sleep
Sad, sorrowful and alone.
She often weeps woebegone.
Someone she can’t acknowledge
Some thought far forlorn.
Waking up to a melancholic morn
Not reconciled that it’s long gone.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Storytelling
This is the story of You and I.
A little sweet , a little dry.
Somewhat like dreams,Somewhat like life.
Thread by thread,
With stitch and knot
I hold together some poignant plot
And bring a sudden twist in the tale
Decided by the flip of a head or a tail.
A little sweet , a little dry.
Somewhat like dreams,Somewhat like life.
Thread by thread,
With stitch and knot
I hold together some poignant plot
And bring a sudden twist in the tale
Decided by the flip of a head or a tail.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Phantom of yester
Long I for the past
Cry I for the night last
Phantom of yester, torments till today
In reality, shadows of the dreams often sway.
Cry I for the night last
Phantom of yester, torments till today
In reality, shadows of the dreams often sway.
A sunny winter promenade
A busy day, full of din
Bright with glaring winter sun
From it we escaped
For a sweet romantic escapade.
Arm in arm, eye to eye
We gave ourselves to the other
Walking far and further
Matching steps with another.
Lost in a dream
Covered with golden calico
From sunshine between the tufts of leaves
On a lane lined with sleepy trees.
Immersed in the otherness of me
We look at each other and see
A calm boat in a turbulent sea.
A tug, a look, a dreamy smile
Wakes us up to reality
Only because, we are hungry
Munching guavas from a vendor on the roadside
The only break of our promenade.
(Delhi winters…Bright sunlit day …Pusa tree lined walks…a million years ago)
Bright with glaring winter sun
From it we escaped
For a sweet romantic escapade.
Arm in arm, eye to eye
We gave ourselves to the other
Walking far and further
Matching steps with another.
Lost in a dream
Covered with golden calico
From sunshine between the tufts of leaves
On a lane lined with sleepy trees.
Immersed in the otherness of me
We look at each other and see
A calm boat in a turbulent sea.
A tug, a look, a dreamy smile
Wakes us up to reality
Only because, we are hungry
Munching guavas from a vendor on the roadside
The only break of our promenade.
(Delhi winters…Bright sunlit day …Pusa tree lined walks…a million years ago)
A Suicide Note
Drunk he said it’s ethereal
He didn’t know it was ephemeral
The Maya of a chimera
The icon, the dream, the idol.
Next morning we found him in a dark dingy asylum
He didn’t know it was ephemeral
The Maya of a chimera
The icon, the dream, the idol.
Next morning we found him in a dark dingy asylum
Bombay to London on Virgin Atlantic
Azure endless skies
With borders of grenadine pink
Stare blank at miles ahead
Without a single blink.
Restless silence in frozen me
Hums within with a buzz, a whirr
Even the clouds look alien and lost
Akin to a stoic philosopher in thoughts.
A wing of virgin and a union jack
Peep at me through an oval window
Pretty hostesses walk like shadows
Trying to enact – ‘service with a smile’.
Home, a fond book …
Friends and other pockets of warmth
Are all left behind.
Swimming away in the void.
Like a dream frozen in time.***
Everything is contained and cold
Saying loud and clear - ‘On business!’
Until…
Mehndi Hassan’s rich voice
A melting resonance, sings
*‘Ab ke hum bichde,
To shayad kabhi khwaabon main milein’
-Pushkar Gunjan
(5:30 P.M.-IST, Oct 1, 2005…midair flying over CIS countries on a Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow, London)*‘Ab ke hum bichde, to shayad kabhi khwaabon main milein’ – ‘If we part this time…
…we might meet again in dreams sometime’
With borders of grenadine pink
Stare blank at miles ahead
Without a single blink.
Restless silence in frozen me
Hums within with a buzz, a whirr
Even the clouds look alien and lost
Akin to a stoic philosopher in thoughts.
A wing of virgin and a union jack
Peep at me through an oval window
Pretty hostesses walk like shadows
Trying to enact – ‘service with a smile’.
Home, a fond book …
Friends and other pockets of warmth
Are all left behind.
Swimming away in the void.
Like a dream frozen in time.***
Everything is contained and cold
Saying loud and clear - ‘On business!’
Until…
Mehndi Hassan’s rich voice
A melting resonance, sings
*‘Ab ke hum bichde,
To shayad kabhi khwaabon main milein’
-Pushkar Gunjan
(5:30 P.M.-IST, Oct 1, 2005…midair flying over CIS countries on a Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow, London)*‘Ab ke hum bichde, to shayad kabhi khwaabon main milein’ – ‘If we part this time…
…we might meet again in dreams sometime’
You and I
We agreed, and then disagreed
Argued, and counter argued
Acted, and reacted
Proposed, and disposed
Opined, and held back
When we were…
Voices have drowned
Opinions languor
Expectations minimal, rather none
Weapons are laid, feelings numb
It is all quiet again
When we aren’t…
In all of this we forgot
The day we started as one
Sunlight and sun
Hearts drunken
Dream in eyes…
Perhaps, it’s all gone.
In the remote corner of our hearts
Barely alive yet expectant,
is that one tender thought
Huddled in a corner
Scared, bullied and broken.
(11:36 A.M. Feb 10, 2006 …in the middle of a day at Tesco UK,Welwyn Office )
Argued, and counter argued
Acted, and reacted
Proposed, and disposed
Opined, and held back
When we were…
Voices have drowned
Opinions languor
Expectations minimal, rather none
Weapons are laid, feelings numb
It is all quiet again
When we aren’t…
In all of this we forgot
The day we started as one
Sunlight and sun
Hearts drunken
Dream in eyes…
Perhaps, it’s all gone.
In the remote corner of our hearts
Barely alive yet expectant,
is that one tender thought
Huddled in a corner
Scared, bullied and broken.
(11:36 A.M. Feb 10, 2006 …in the middle of a day at Tesco UK,Welwyn Office )
It was never one
With a fluent stroke of pen
We wrote our name
Joined to form an entity,
A word, one till eternity
Or so we thought…
And we etched that beautiful name
Not playfully but as a serious game.
A bond to last a lifetime,
A mantra to be our lifeline.
An entity to cherish
A bond to love and nourish
In life- from moment, first to last
And with a divine stroke
It shattered and broke
Slashed in two distinct halves
As if it was never one.
We wrote our name
Joined to form an entity,
A word, one till eternity
Or so we thought…
And we etched that beautiful name
Not playfully but as a serious game.
A bond to last a lifetime,
A mantra to be our lifeline.
An entity to cherish
A bond to love and nourish
In life- from moment, first to last
And with a divine stroke
It shattered and broke
Slashed in two distinct halves
As if it was never one.
My Sleepless Dream
No soul to walk a step
In this wakeful night
Lost in my thoughts and you
Bathed in the lonesome moon.
Sleep looks a mile away
And farther, the hint of rest
Restlessness the only candle
Promising to burn this long night.
In the night raven
The raven sings,
the craving notes
Of songs forgotten.
I amble solitary
With your thoughts and you.
Pensive with a hint of smile
And remembrances that still beguile.
Covered in a deathlike pall
Sunk in this morose stillness.
Your thoughts alive like you were near
Seeking my tribute, a drop of tear.
The stillness has gone
And restlessness is sans rest
Carried on the willful wings of wind
Your whisper like a godsend.
In some corner of some other world
You have stirred from your sleep
Like a ripple in a lake deep.
Dreaming of me perhaps…
In this wakeful night
Lost in my thoughts and you
Bathed in the lonesome moon.
Sleep looks a mile away
And farther, the hint of rest
Restlessness the only candle
Promising to burn this long night.
In the night raven
The raven sings,
the craving notes
Of songs forgotten.
I amble solitary
With your thoughts and you.
Pensive with a hint of smile
And remembrances that still beguile.
Covered in a deathlike pall
Sunk in this morose stillness.
Your thoughts alive like you were near
Seeking my tribute, a drop of tear.
The stillness has gone
And restlessness is sans rest
Carried on the willful wings of wind
Your whisper like a godsend.
In some corner of some other world
You have stirred from your sleep
Like a ripple in a lake deep.
Dreaming of me perhaps…
Let’s make a home
Long into the night we spoke
Till the early hours of dawn
Building homes, airing dreams
Sharing a lifetime’s hope.
A spark of warmth,
A twinkling firefly,
Blinked and paused.
Whispering into the ear of dreams –
‘Let’s make a home’
A new born dream.
Born with the whisper - ‘Let’s make a home’
Akin to a warm nest
For warmth of love,
Repose and rest.
Let’s make a home.
With a ray of bright sunlight
In the glint of our love struck eyes.
With a palette of rainbow
Dipped in your winsome smile.
It is all blank now,
in hues black and grey.
Like the shadows of a sunny day.
Remnant of a sweet nothing.
Like nostalgia of a giggling chimera.
Till the early hours of dawn
Building homes, airing dreams
Sharing a lifetime’s hope.
A spark of warmth,
A twinkling firefly,
Blinked and paused.
Whispering into the ear of dreams –
‘Let’s make a home’
A new born dream.
Born with the whisper - ‘Let’s make a home’
Akin to a warm nest
For warmth of love,
Repose and rest.
Let’s make a home.
With a ray of bright sunlight
In the glint of our love struck eyes.
With a palette of rainbow
Dipped in your winsome smile.
It is all blank now,
in hues black and grey.
Like the shadows of a sunny day.
Remnant of a sweet nothing.
Like nostalgia of a giggling chimera.
To a stranger at Heathrow
A smile that lingers
A little longer than it should
A gaze that rests
A lot longer than it should
For strangers that we were.
Just a blink’s acquaintance.
Born with the moment
Should have died with the next.
It did.
You shook your head
We shared a smile
And went our ways.
You to your reality
And I to mine.
Without the necessity of a goodbye even.
(An amused long look from the stranger at Heathrow on my way to Bombay March ,2006)
A little longer than it should
A gaze that rests
A lot longer than it should
For strangers that we were.
Just a blink’s acquaintance.
Born with the moment
Should have died with the next.
It did.
You shook your head
We shared a smile
And went our ways.
You to your reality
And I to mine.
Without the necessity of a goodbye even.
(An amused long look from the stranger at Heathrow on my way to Bombay March ,2006)
Antiquity of an unshed tear
One remembrance fond
Of a dream gone
Walks back in time
Riding a familiar smile
We meet and greet
A little warm, a little hesitant
Look into each other’s eyes
A lot familiar, yet quite distant
Images flash past
Of a world that’s lost
For a tribute we shed
The antiquity of an unshed tear
That has lost its identity even.
Of a dream gone
Walks back in time
Riding a familiar smile
We meet and greet
A little warm, a little hesitant
Look into each other’s eyes
A lot familiar, yet quite distant
Images flash past
Of a world that’s lost
For a tribute we shed
The antiquity of an unshed tear
That has lost its identity even.
Solitude of Moon
Cuckoo coo-hoos the evening away
Clouds shift like vagabond tepees
Eucalyptus sways to the song of winds
Befalls the night in raven tress.
The horizon is still a riot of colours
And a lone moon hangs on
To a thought miles away
Smiling to bear its solitude.
(On seeing the moon at Hangzhou dusk, 2007)
Clouds shift like vagabond tepees
Eucalyptus sways to the song of winds
Befalls the night in raven tress.
The horizon is still a riot of colours
And a lone moon hangs on
To a thought miles away
Smiling to bear its solitude.
(On seeing the moon at Hangzhou dusk, 2007)
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sunshine, Oranges and You.
If I could paint your name,
On that lonely piece of cloud
Then walk on the smoky trail,
Left by the jet plane.
I would paint it with blue.
Dipping my brush of memory,
In the palette of myriad hues.
To my humour,It would turn out as golden sunlight
The tint of a young spring sun.
Hidden in the peels of an orange.
And when you visit me like melancholy,
Painting my canvas blue.
From near to far,
To the endlessness and beyond
I’ll miss sunshine, oranges and you
And empty my paint bucket
To sprinkle in the blue emptiness,
Millions of gaily butterflies.
On that lonely piece of cloud
Then walk on the smoky trail,
Left by the jet plane.
I would paint it with blue.
Dipping my brush of memory,
In the palette of myriad hues.
To my humour,It would turn out as golden sunlight
The tint of a young spring sun.
Hidden in the peels of an orange.
And when you visit me like melancholy,
Painting my canvas blue.
From near to far,
To the endlessness and beyond
I’ll miss sunshine, oranges and you
And empty my paint bucket
To sprinkle in the blue emptiness,
Millions of gaily butterflies.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
It Took Us Aeons
It took us aeons
To meet again.
And when we part
With a promise..
To meet again
Aeons later in some other life
In some other form
Then also I‘ll be me
And you you,
In all our familiarity
and oneness
We‘ll embrace
Like we never parted
How do I tell you now
That I was mistaken
Believing in deathlessness
And in promises of permanence.
You might never be you
And me I
After we embrace
and say goodbye.
To meet again.
And when we part
With a promise..
To meet again
Aeons later in some other life
In some other form
Then also I‘ll be me
And you you,
In all our familiarity
and oneness
We‘ll embrace
Like we never parted
How do I tell you now
That I was mistaken
Believing in deathlessness
And in promises of permanence.
You might never be you
And me I
After we embrace
and say goodbye.
The song we loved the most
A February evening, a musical soiree
Springtime, past valentine’s.
Sweet chill ,misty air
Flowers and dew all there.
Smiling moon in night sky
Beats rise and touch a high
Carrying on its crest, songs soulful.
Glitter below of radiant faces.
Shimmer above of twinkling stars.
Looking for you in the ocean of face
Wistfully searching for your eyes and grace.
I rise...
With slow paces and still pondering
The song that will exhume ‘our’ spirit
A mournful ballad of lost magic
A love song, or something tragic.
I tread, still indecisive.
Confused musicians and audience in quietude
I clear my throat, and take a note
Oblivious of the beats, the rhythm
And the song itself.
There it was...
Just you, me and the song we loved the most.
Springtime, past valentine’s.
Sweet chill ,misty air
Flowers and dew all there.
Smiling moon in night sky
Beats rise and touch a high
Carrying on its crest, songs soulful.
Glitter below of radiant faces.
Shimmer above of twinkling stars.
Looking for you in the ocean of face
Wistfully searching for your eyes and grace.
I rise...
With slow paces and still pondering
The song that will exhume ‘our’ spirit
A mournful ballad of lost magic
A love song, or something tragic.
I tread, still indecisive.
Confused musicians and audience in quietude
I clear my throat, and take a note
Oblivious of the beats, the rhythm
And the song itself.
There it was...
Just you, me and the song we loved the most.
An Incomplete Poem
Lying half done in the mid
Lay my incomplete poem
Calling out for feelings unsaid
And perhaps for some tears unshed.
Filled with affection,
My mines of gold.
A tale unfinished,
While ages unfold
Hearts broke and lovers pined
The moon wept and poets whined
Couldn’t avert what was destined.
Misfortune of an incomplete poem.
The ink from pen divine
Wrote in elegance and style
And somewhere in the mid
The pen stopped and ink dried.
Lay my incomplete poem
Calling out for feelings unsaid
And perhaps for some tears unshed.
Filled with affection,
My mines of gold.
A tale unfinished,
While ages unfold
Hearts broke and lovers pined
The moon wept and poets whined
Couldn’t avert what was destined.
Misfortune of an incomplete poem.
The ink from pen divine
Wrote in elegance and style
And somewhere in the mid
The pen stopped and ink dried.
Valediction
Goodbye good friend!
Let it be no teary valediction.
For I want to see you smile
Like we always did everything,
With spirit and amazing style.
Goodbye good friend
Do call or drop a line.
About things special and generally fine
In moments of repose
When you ponder and wistfully smile
On thoughts of an old ally.
Goodbye good friend
Bid adieu.
Before I become blind.
Before mist in my eyes,
rolls on your cheek to say goodbye.
Goodbye good friend.
Divine blessing godsend.
So long! Till we meet again.
Years later…
In the longing lanes of nostalgia.
Let it be no teary valediction.
For I want to see you smile
Like we always did everything,
With spirit and amazing style.
Goodbye good friend
Do call or drop a line.
About things special and generally fine
In moments of repose
When you ponder and wistfully smile
On thoughts of an old ally.
Goodbye good friend
Bid adieu.
Before I become blind.
Before mist in my eyes,
rolls on your cheek to say goodbye.
Goodbye good friend.
Divine blessing godsend.
So long! Till we meet again.
Years later…
In the longing lanes of nostalgia.
The Frozen Cherries
Maya stepped out of the Four seasons hotel and realized that she had an evening and almost the next day to herself. This was the second time in two weeks her client, an automobile major had postponed the presentation.
‘Once yours, yours for a lifetime’ – she mumbled her punch line for the millionth time. And there flashed a winsome smile that she practiced every time she had looked in the mirror for the past one month.
She brushed her wind ruffled hair smooth and waved for a cab. Suddenly, her eyes fell on a humongous billboard that had the ruddiness of frozen cherries sprawled on the white expanse.
“We preserve spring for you. And almost anything”. – The neat scawl read. Her own words but from some other season some other time.
‘Amartya, somebody who never dies…’ Maya let out a whisper of despair and fell into that retro chute again.
Their worlds were quite different. Amartya was unbridled, unconventional, tempestuous and she was conservative, traditional, methodical. A life measured on proprieties.
Where did they meet? Well…generally musing and unawares, she walked into his exhibition where she saw his paintings. The paintings had the expression and meaning of her freedom.
The second time was, when Amartya came in to give her diary back that she had forgotten at the exhibition. He had read her thoughts scrawled in the diary:
If I could paint your name,
On that lonely piece of cloud
Then walk on the smoky trail,
Left by the jet plane.
And gave her a painting which had a pink blush cloudlet passing over a parched dune. Perhaps an expression of his own incompleteness.
And then she wrote:
A pink blush cloudlet
Empties its paint bucket
Sprinkling in the blue emptiness
Millions of gaily butterflies.
Inevitably, she got drawn into his world. A couple of bikers formed his gang and all of them looked doped all the time. Perhaps, the haze of smoke and the will to live the moment kept them together. Probably, they thought her to be an intrusion but Amartya was surely getting used to her.
‘Maya – an illusion that you can never catch.’ – He would whisper lying in her lap, locks of hair obscuring his face.
‘Why do you say that? I am yours- mind, body and soul’ – she would whisper reassuringly.
‘Maya’….
‘Hmmm. Bolo…’
‘Maya…when you are with me, it is as if my home and its warmth is nestled safely with me’ – he would muse aloud.
‘And you are my flying carpet straight from world of Arabian nights.’…she would say it with a huge hug meant to squeeze out all the emptiness from within him.
One day She asked him – ‘What is home to you Amartya?’
And there was a long silence and then he spoke in an uncertain timbre…
‘A house with wooden floors,… a large sunlit kitchen cum dining,… Sunday morning, smell of fresh newsprint and tea,… overridden by the aroma of freshly baked cookies….’ – he spoke looking dreamily at the sky.
‘And….?’ – She implored further.
‘Sound of spoon clatter on the china bowl,… a bunch of bamboo shoots in a crystal bowl….’
‘Hmmm….’
‘Me patting a golden retriever with my foot…a pair of goldfish….and………….’ – there was a long pause and Maya knew she had gone into the forbidden territory.
Hurt, fear of flight and a feeling of invasion was writ clearly on his face.
He suddenly sat up and said – ‘You will never get drunk.’
‘I won’t’ – she said quietly to preserve the moment.
At times as these he would mumble something which she remembered verbatim, and it would always be profound coming from a lost child she thought he was.
The mumble only had a wistful forlorn ‘Ma’audible…
Those days were crazy. A sort of spell was cast around them which scared her often. They would laze and idle on the terrace counting flying eagles when suddenly she would feel his grasp around her waist tighten as if to hold the time still. And when Maya looked right into his eyes he would smile after a failed attempt to hide his fears.
‘I am very unstable Maya. Eventually, you will get hurt.’ – He would plead and tell her stories of his past flames and fires which were dowsed unceremoniously suddenly by one high tide of the vagabond spirit. The stories about a Thai girl, who had come to get a Masters from Bombay University, but went back with an irreparable heart. It gave him a queer feeling for a long time that he was responsible for bringing floods in Thailand.
Even his hurricane romance with the daughter of his English professor which broke his heart and made her pregnant remained with him for a long time. Later he found out that the brave poor girl cried so much that her beautiful eyes got eclipses of dark circles which remained forever. He still had dreams that the foetus had the head of a full grown child with his mother’s dark eclipses and tributaries of tear stains. Julie, Sanskriti, Cherrie, Rita, Vaidehi …the list went on and so did their stories.
A few paintings he made for each season that he had spent with each one of them and people if they knew them, would know the distinctness that was exhibited in each.
Maya deplored him for his heartless philandering but always could justify it with his honest confessions. She saw an inevitable pattern and was amused to think about the fallibility of those women, in trying to hold a cloud in hearts that were empty. It was her greatest fear and her greatest challenge. She perhaps imagined even their voices of caution sometimes but somehow she knew that she would be the last feminine subject of his paintings. That was her hope and that was her resolution.
In the months that unfolded it was a subterranean strife between the creator and his subject; the form and the matter; the imagery and imagination; the intellect and instinct; the wantonness and satiation; the primordial and civilization and it bred twelve paintings of her alone. There were more. He was delighted at how prolific he had been and acknowledged that Maya was a Godsend.
‘Maya it is not your body, it is your intellect and your spirit that drives me crazy.’ – He would remark, steeped in juvenile wonderment as if concentrating hard to sustain that spell.
‘When I close my eyes there is no place that feels unexplored and yet you amaze me with a new perspective a new experience. I feel each and every hue of your palette and each and every stroke of your brush colour my imagination and caress my body.’ – She would whisper and the ebb of her voice in a blend with spirals of giggling air surely drove him crazy. Bodily this time.
After several bouts of endless lovemaking when Amartya lay stroking her, he mused out loud – ‘Maya. I would rather let the memory of us like this be, than face the humdrum of reality claiming it gradually.’
She rolled over on top of him and held his face and looking into his eyes whispered – ‘My Honeypot…We will be forever young.’
His face would light up with the inanity of her reassurance and would chuckle…’So in the name of our youth can I have those cherries again’.- and they would roll together in the mirth and laughter of the moment.
A couple of months and several paintings later, after one such intoxicated night Maya woke up to find a note saying –
To The girl I paint for…
Dearest Maya,
You are an illusion that one can never chase and if caught you won’t remain you.
I would rather let the memory of us like this be than face the reality of having something so sublime sink in the quagmire of ordinariness.
I’ll never forget a single hue and every single stroke that you made possible.
Forgive me if you can…A cloud has no home.
With love
Amartya
Maya clutched at the sheet and wrapping it around her and ran towards the window. Peeping through the windowpane saw that his bike wasn’t there.
She read once, twice, times over and just couldn’t believe it.
Was something really amiss that I couldn’t figure out? Was he going to commit suicide? He did speak about the meaninglessness of life off late…Will he come back after a few months? Did he lose interest in her? – Several thoughts good and bad crept up but none had an answer.
Suddenly, it struck her in the fuzzy realm of possibility that she might have talked in sleep. More she thought more she got convinced. She had let out the secret of stealthy creep of civilization which a woman brings in.
‘Amartya. Will you let me make your home?’ – That is what she had said. God knows what fears where unleashed by the pent up flawed child. It precipitated in the dark alleys of his psychic impressions.
She saw hell for eighteen months, her eclipsed eyes resembled the Australian Panda and at night almost always slept by muffling her cries in the pillow .
She could see him on the sidewalks, in the café’ they frequented, on the park benches where they lazed in the sun reading a book, in the card shop corners where they had kissed, in the book shops where they sat pretending to read but sat only to smell the newness of books and seep in the hushed quietude and unison of spirits. The orange Gerberas, the purple of orchids, the sweetness of moon white rajnigandha all lost there meaning. Suddenly, the mélange of colours that had filled her senses brought revulsion.
She wore more of whites and lighter shades as if enforcing widowhood on herself, less for convention but perhaps more to soothe her maimed spirit. Her faintly religious self was attracted more towards God and religion these days. So many times she had seen the sun set and the moon rise sitting quietly on the premises of a nearby temple hearing the bells toll and tinkle. Maya was getting into the habit of keeping her hand over the flames of evening Arti several moments longer than usual, perhaps a shade of masochism; perhaps an attempt to purge her spirit. The flight of heady drunkenness was surely a thing of the past.
Several months passed by…and still no sign of Amartya…no letter no phone call. Maya had already called his gang of bikers, his gang of dopeys, and the art gallery which bought his paintings, a distant cousin who not even recognized his name in the first go and also the spiritual cult he had talked about very obliquely sometime ago. Nothing bore results.
After a lot of bickering by her parents and relatives and also the fears of loneliness she complied to get married. Very few don’t get scared with the solo march of youth into the sunset. So did she.
Maya expected to find her soul burnished in the pure flames of the wedding havan kunda.
Nothing of that sort happened. Her soul remained frozen with the cherries of those bygone springs which no flame could thaw. Mechanically,she went through all the rituals.
She was so frigid that she stoked and admiration among the old ladies of the community… that the girl was so woebegone at the prospect of leaving her home forever that she was under extreme shock. Otherwise the girls these days have no shame left in them…they giggle and look straight at their husbands unabashedly these days.
Months passed by and two years expired. Maya had learned to love her benign caring husband who brought coziness of a hearth and routine stability of a mill to their marriage. She practiced and tamed her self, the self that had resonated with wild frenzy and romantic high while with Amartya. Maya’s greatest moulding effort was to turn her mother’s recipes as a pillar of her domesticity. She could make spinach soup and force it on Govind for better eyesight and preserve ginger-garlic paste ground on Sunday mornings to last the full next week. Maya also attempted pappads and mango pickle scribbled on the back of a colleagues wedding card while on phone with her maasi.
Amartya only figured out in the creativity of her words for ad campaigns or the imagery that she projected during discussions which impressed most of her colleagues and seniors. Several times she could relate his exact words with so many products that if Amartya saw it , would recognize her thought of him behind it. It was a very satisfying feeling to know that in some esoteric and telepathic sense she could be in cognizance with Amartya. That too through his own words, his own thoughts… rather their thoughts. It was all suspended in the mist of waning past and a new hope of life which they were planning for…soon. Until …
Flipping through the Sunday magazine the restless fate made her glance fall on a feature about an exhibition by some impressionist painter. The name was enough to leave her numb.
Amartya.
The rationale and the denial of her failed search refused to believe her eyes. September 19 – September 20. The dates coincided with her business trip to Bombay. After a lot of conflict, she arranged to send a message through the organizers to Amartya. The reply was almost immediate which was brief in his characteristic style – ‘Sure. Would be delighted to see you again’.
Even the hint of first love that is lost, breathes magic in the air. The frozen cherries had come to life in full brilliance of their ruddiness. The sad face of moon seemed to be smiling and the twinkling stars assumed meaning again. The evening Bangalore mist and the cool breeze at night seemed to embalm and heal her wounded maimed spirit. Maya often found her fingers caress Amartya’s name printed on the paper cutting.The finger tips tracing A M AR T Y A…followed by a smile that made her look like a lovestruck teenager. She carried it in her diary as a clue to the eternal goldmine of colours and love.
On nights she snuggled in her blanket , feigning sleep to Govind and wondering where all had Amartya been to.Frozen river in Leh…or the monasteries of Tibet…or to some obscure abode where even her love couldn’t find him.
She often rehearsed the first anticipated instance of their meeting.
‘What did he look like now?’ – she often thought.
Maya took her old photographs and kept comparing her face in the mirror to them and decided to wane the accent of vermillion and gave the mangalsutra she had, for a long pending repair.
Her body longed for the magic Amartya used to weave which still touched her spirits.
‘Perhaps, he might want to paint her again when they met. May be, in sculpture form like once when he sculpted her with mud before painting her.’ – She often wondered and blushed at the idea. Even today she could let her imagination loose and feel his careful confident fingers literally sculpting each and every form of her body with the smooth wetness of mud. It wasn’t the base animal but the love of the creator for his yet unborn creation. Although it had some carnal shades for Maya it was by far their best creation – the most sensuous and the most spiritual.
Govind let her be alone as he had understood her inconsistent phases of mood. Perhaps, it was one of those.
It was 4:43 P.M precisely as she waived at the passing taxi. It stopped and shoving her bag inside she slipped in the rear seat.
‘West Parel.’
The propriety tugged at the conscience and conscience brewed the guilt. The freedom of spirit in tussle with the warmth of the hearth. The flame of the body was being tested by the flames of the Yajna. In all of this perhaps the former held a sway over the latter.
The taxi went in through the maze of people, cars, rushing across lamp posts, shops, roadside pheriwallahs, hungry cows, red BEST buses and myriad forms of cacophony.
The billboards rushed past her. One series of billboards specifically disturbed her. It popped out at almost every turn. A young man with an intriguing expression on his face, vocal eyes but lips muted with a wide scotch tape. At the next turn there was a young woman. Then an old man, an old woman, a very young girl, a young woman. All of them spoke volumes with eyes and were muted by a wide strip of scotch tape. Maya had never seen such vocal eyes and intriguing expressions. Nothing was written on the billboards just the silence that heightened her guilt. At the roundabout suddenly she said take a left.
‘That road would go towards santa cruz memsahib ‘ – the taxi driver asked perplexed by her sudden change of plans.
‘That is where I should be going. Santa Cruz airport.’ – she mumbled.
Sitting by the window seat she watched the planes take off and land. There was this faint voice of a young crazy girl which still urged her to get back and reclaim the past but was too feeble to act upon. The child eyes of Amartya, moist with tears and void with confusion prodded her to get back.
Maya lipped Amartya’s idea of home in silence and as usual word by word. The plane took off leaving the central yellow line of the tarmac behind like the moulding tail of a flying snake.
Maya hid her face in the towel and wept uncontrollably much to the embarrassment of the person sitting in the seat next to hers.
Clouds flew past like islands of candy floss in a sea of mist and the terra firma below looked like a gigantic mass of algae green plankton .The golden shimmer of Arabian sea met seamlessly with the calm azure.
She disembarked and messaged Govind…
Heat dinner for me too. I’ll be home in 20 mins.
At home, Govind opened the door , kissed her and said…
‘There is a huge parcel delivered for you. Did you order for something?’
Intrigued she went towards the parcel, turned it around but there was no clue.
Maya opened it carefully, and after seeing it sat on the floor agape and numb.
‘A house with wooden floors, a large sunlit kitchen, Sunday morning, smell of fresh newsprint and tea, overridden by the aroma of freshly baked cookies….
Sound of spoon clatter on the china bowl, a bunch of bamboo shoots in a crystal bowl….Me patting a golden retriever with my foot…a pair of goldfish….’ – the words rang out loud and clear still hanging in the air as if it was said minutes ago.
There was a woman in the painting who resembled Maya.
There was a note saying….
Dearest Maya,
I had to leave…Didn’t want to spoil it for you…
Homes are not made on clouds but on trees.
It is not in the fate of clouds to find home. They are born vagabond and that’s their destiny.
One moment of warmth with you was enough to fill a thousand solitary years.
With affection
Amartya
That was the last she heard from Amartya. Spring came again and the frozen cherries thawed in all their ruddiness to welcome a new life.
‘Once yours, yours for a lifetime’ – she mumbled her punch line for the millionth time. And there flashed a winsome smile that she practiced every time she had looked in the mirror for the past one month.
She brushed her wind ruffled hair smooth and waved for a cab. Suddenly, her eyes fell on a humongous billboard that had the ruddiness of frozen cherries sprawled on the white expanse.
“We preserve spring for you. And almost anything”. – The neat scawl read. Her own words but from some other season some other time.
‘Amartya, somebody who never dies…’ Maya let out a whisper of despair and fell into that retro chute again.
Their worlds were quite different. Amartya was unbridled, unconventional, tempestuous and she was conservative, traditional, methodical. A life measured on proprieties.
Where did they meet? Well…generally musing and unawares, she walked into his exhibition where she saw his paintings. The paintings had the expression and meaning of her freedom.
The second time was, when Amartya came in to give her diary back that she had forgotten at the exhibition. He had read her thoughts scrawled in the diary:
If I could paint your name,
On that lonely piece of cloud
Then walk on the smoky trail,
Left by the jet plane.
And gave her a painting which had a pink blush cloudlet passing over a parched dune. Perhaps an expression of his own incompleteness.
And then she wrote:
A pink blush cloudlet
Empties its paint bucket
Sprinkling in the blue emptiness
Millions of gaily butterflies.
Inevitably, she got drawn into his world. A couple of bikers formed his gang and all of them looked doped all the time. Perhaps, the haze of smoke and the will to live the moment kept them together. Probably, they thought her to be an intrusion but Amartya was surely getting used to her.
‘Maya – an illusion that you can never catch.’ – He would whisper lying in her lap, locks of hair obscuring his face.
‘Why do you say that? I am yours- mind, body and soul’ – she would whisper reassuringly.
‘Maya’….
‘Hmmm. Bolo…’
‘Maya…when you are with me, it is as if my home and its warmth is nestled safely with me’ – he would muse aloud.
‘And you are my flying carpet straight from world of Arabian nights.’…she would say it with a huge hug meant to squeeze out all the emptiness from within him.
One day She asked him – ‘What is home to you Amartya?’
And there was a long silence and then he spoke in an uncertain timbre…
‘A house with wooden floors,… a large sunlit kitchen cum dining,… Sunday morning, smell of fresh newsprint and tea,… overridden by the aroma of freshly baked cookies….’ – he spoke looking dreamily at the sky.
‘And….?’ – She implored further.
‘Sound of spoon clatter on the china bowl,… a bunch of bamboo shoots in a crystal bowl….’
‘Hmmm….’
‘Me patting a golden retriever with my foot…a pair of goldfish….and………….’ – there was a long pause and Maya knew she had gone into the forbidden territory.
Hurt, fear of flight and a feeling of invasion was writ clearly on his face.
He suddenly sat up and said – ‘You will never get drunk.’
‘I won’t’ – she said quietly to preserve the moment.
At times as these he would mumble something which she remembered verbatim, and it would always be profound coming from a lost child she thought he was.
The mumble only had a wistful forlorn ‘Ma’audible…
Those days were crazy. A sort of spell was cast around them which scared her often. They would laze and idle on the terrace counting flying eagles when suddenly she would feel his grasp around her waist tighten as if to hold the time still. And when Maya looked right into his eyes he would smile after a failed attempt to hide his fears.
‘I am very unstable Maya. Eventually, you will get hurt.’ – He would plead and tell her stories of his past flames and fires which were dowsed unceremoniously suddenly by one high tide of the vagabond spirit. The stories about a Thai girl, who had come to get a Masters from Bombay University, but went back with an irreparable heart. It gave him a queer feeling for a long time that he was responsible for bringing floods in Thailand.
Even his hurricane romance with the daughter of his English professor which broke his heart and made her pregnant remained with him for a long time. Later he found out that the brave poor girl cried so much that her beautiful eyes got eclipses of dark circles which remained forever. He still had dreams that the foetus had the head of a full grown child with his mother’s dark eclipses and tributaries of tear stains. Julie, Sanskriti, Cherrie, Rita, Vaidehi …the list went on and so did their stories.
A few paintings he made for each season that he had spent with each one of them and people if they knew them, would know the distinctness that was exhibited in each.
Maya deplored him for his heartless philandering but always could justify it with his honest confessions. She saw an inevitable pattern and was amused to think about the fallibility of those women, in trying to hold a cloud in hearts that were empty. It was her greatest fear and her greatest challenge. She perhaps imagined even their voices of caution sometimes but somehow she knew that she would be the last feminine subject of his paintings. That was her hope and that was her resolution.
In the months that unfolded it was a subterranean strife between the creator and his subject; the form and the matter; the imagery and imagination; the intellect and instinct; the wantonness and satiation; the primordial and civilization and it bred twelve paintings of her alone. There were more. He was delighted at how prolific he had been and acknowledged that Maya was a Godsend.
‘Maya it is not your body, it is your intellect and your spirit that drives me crazy.’ – He would remark, steeped in juvenile wonderment as if concentrating hard to sustain that spell.
‘When I close my eyes there is no place that feels unexplored and yet you amaze me with a new perspective a new experience. I feel each and every hue of your palette and each and every stroke of your brush colour my imagination and caress my body.’ – She would whisper and the ebb of her voice in a blend with spirals of giggling air surely drove him crazy. Bodily this time.
After several bouts of endless lovemaking when Amartya lay stroking her, he mused out loud – ‘Maya. I would rather let the memory of us like this be, than face the humdrum of reality claiming it gradually.’
She rolled over on top of him and held his face and looking into his eyes whispered – ‘My Honeypot…We will be forever young.’
His face would light up with the inanity of her reassurance and would chuckle…’So in the name of our youth can I have those cherries again’.- and they would roll together in the mirth and laughter of the moment.
A couple of months and several paintings later, after one such intoxicated night Maya woke up to find a note saying –
To The girl I paint for…
Dearest Maya,
You are an illusion that one can never chase and if caught you won’t remain you.
I would rather let the memory of us like this be than face the reality of having something so sublime sink in the quagmire of ordinariness.
I’ll never forget a single hue and every single stroke that you made possible.
Forgive me if you can…A cloud has no home.
With love
Amartya
Maya clutched at the sheet and wrapping it around her and ran towards the window. Peeping through the windowpane saw that his bike wasn’t there.
She read once, twice, times over and just couldn’t believe it.
Was something really amiss that I couldn’t figure out? Was he going to commit suicide? He did speak about the meaninglessness of life off late…Will he come back after a few months? Did he lose interest in her? – Several thoughts good and bad crept up but none had an answer.
Suddenly, it struck her in the fuzzy realm of possibility that she might have talked in sleep. More she thought more she got convinced. She had let out the secret of stealthy creep of civilization which a woman brings in.
‘Amartya. Will you let me make your home?’ – That is what she had said. God knows what fears where unleashed by the pent up flawed child. It precipitated in the dark alleys of his psychic impressions.
She saw hell for eighteen months, her eclipsed eyes resembled the Australian Panda and at night almost always slept by muffling her cries in the pillow .
She could see him on the sidewalks, in the café’ they frequented, on the park benches where they lazed in the sun reading a book, in the card shop corners where they had kissed, in the book shops where they sat pretending to read but sat only to smell the newness of books and seep in the hushed quietude and unison of spirits. The orange Gerberas, the purple of orchids, the sweetness of moon white rajnigandha all lost there meaning. Suddenly, the mélange of colours that had filled her senses brought revulsion.
She wore more of whites and lighter shades as if enforcing widowhood on herself, less for convention but perhaps more to soothe her maimed spirit. Her faintly religious self was attracted more towards God and religion these days. So many times she had seen the sun set and the moon rise sitting quietly on the premises of a nearby temple hearing the bells toll and tinkle. Maya was getting into the habit of keeping her hand over the flames of evening Arti several moments longer than usual, perhaps a shade of masochism; perhaps an attempt to purge her spirit. The flight of heady drunkenness was surely a thing of the past.
Several months passed by…and still no sign of Amartya…no letter no phone call. Maya had already called his gang of bikers, his gang of dopeys, and the art gallery which bought his paintings, a distant cousin who not even recognized his name in the first go and also the spiritual cult he had talked about very obliquely sometime ago. Nothing bore results.
After a lot of bickering by her parents and relatives and also the fears of loneliness she complied to get married. Very few don’t get scared with the solo march of youth into the sunset. So did she.
Maya expected to find her soul burnished in the pure flames of the wedding havan kunda.
Nothing of that sort happened. Her soul remained frozen with the cherries of those bygone springs which no flame could thaw. Mechanically,she went through all the rituals.
She was so frigid that she stoked and admiration among the old ladies of the community… that the girl was so woebegone at the prospect of leaving her home forever that she was under extreme shock. Otherwise the girls these days have no shame left in them…they giggle and look straight at their husbands unabashedly these days.
Months passed by and two years expired. Maya had learned to love her benign caring husband who brought coziness of a hearth and routine stability of a mill to their marriage. She practiced and tamed her self, the self that had resonated with wild frenzy and romantic high while with Amartya. Maya’s greatest moulding effort was to turn her mother’s recipes as a pillar of her domesticity. She could make spinach soup and force it on Govind for better eyesight and preserve ginger-garlic paste ground on Sunday mornings to last the full next week. Maya also attempted pappads and mango pickle scribbled on the back of a colleagues wedding card while on phone with her maasi.
Amartya only figured out in the creativity of her words for ad campaigns or the imagery that she projected during discussions which impressed most of her colleagues and seniors. Several times she could relate his exact words with so many products that if Amartya saw it , would recognize her thought of him behind it. It was a very satisfying feeling to know that in some esoteric and telepathic sense she could be in cognizance with Amartya. That too through his own words, his own thoughts… rather their thoughts. It was all suspended in the mist of waning past and a new hope of life which they were planning for…soon. Until …
Flipping through the Sunday magazine the restless fate made her glance fall on a feature about an exhibition by some impressionist painter. The name was enough to leave her numb.
Amartya.
The rationale and the denial of her failed search refused to believe her eyes. September 19 – September 20. The dates coincided with her business trip to Bombay. After a lot of conflict, she arranged to send a message through the organizers to Amartya. The reply was almost immediate which was brief in his characteristic style – ‘Sure. Would be delighted to see you again’.
Even the hint of first love that is lost, breathes magic in the air. The frozen cherries had come to life in full brilliance of their ruddiness. The sad face of moon seemed to be smiling and the twinkling stars assumed meaning again. The evening Bangalore mist and the cool breeze at night seemed to embalm and heal her wounded maimed spirit. Maya often found her fingers caress Amartya’s name printed on the paper cutting.The finger tips tracing A M AR T Y A…followed by a smile that made her look like a lovestruck teenager. She carried it in her diary as a clue to the eternal goldmine of colours and love.
On nights she snuggled in her blanket , feigning sleep to Govind and wondering where all had Amartya been to.Frozen river in Leh…or the monasteries of Tibet…or to some obscure abode where even her love couldn’t find him.
She often rehearsed the first anticipated instance of their meeting.
‘What did he look like now?’ – she often thought.
Maya took her old photographs and kept comparing her face in the mirror to them and decided to wane the accent of vermillion and gave the mangalsutra she had, for a long pending repair.
Her body longed for the magic Amartya used to weave which still touched her spirits.
‘Perhaps, he might want to paint her again when they met. May be, in sculpture form like once when he sculpted her with mud before painting her.’ – She often wondered and blushed at the idea. Even today she could let her imagination loose and feel his careful confident fingers literally sculpting each and every form of her body with the smooth wetness of mud. It wasn’t the base animal but the love of the creator for his yet unborn creation. Although it had some carnal shades for Maya it was by far their best creation – the most sensuous and the most spiritual.
Govind let her be alone as he had understood her inconsistent phases of mood. Perhaps, it was one of those.
It was 4:43 P.M precisely as she waived at the passing taxi. It stopped and shoving her bag inside she slipped in the rear seat.
‘West Parel.’
The propriety tugged at the conscience and conscience brewed the guilt. The freedom of spirit in tussle with the warmth of the hearth. The flame of the body was being tested by the flames of the Yajna. In all of this perhaps the former held a sway over the latter.
The taxi went in through the maze of people, cars, rushing across lamp posts, shops, roadside pheriwallahs, hungry cows, red BEST buses and myriad forms of cacophony.
The billboards rushed past her. One series of billboards specifically disturbed her. It popped out at almost every turn. A young man with an intriguing expression on his face, vocal eyes but lips muted with a wide scotch tape. At the next turn there was a young woman. Then an old man, an old woman, a very young girl, a young woman. All of them spoke volumes with eyes and were muted by a wide strip of scotch tape. Maya had never seen such vocal eyes and intriguing expressions. Nothing was written on the billboards just the silence that heightened her guilt. At the roundabout suddenly she said take a left.
‘That road would go towards santa cruz memsahib ‘ – the taxi driver asked perplexed by her sudden change of plans.
‘That is where I should be going. Santa Cruz airport.’ – she mumbled.
Sitting by the window seat she watched the planes take off and land. There was this faint voice of a young crazy girl which still urged her to get back and reclaim the past but was too feeble to act upon. The child eyes of Amartya, moist with tears and void with confusion prodded her to get back.
Maya lipped Amartya’s idea of home in silence and as usual word by word. The plane took off leaving the central yellow line of the tarmac behind like the moulding tail of a flying snake.
Maya hid her face in the towel and wept uncontrollably much to the embarrassment of the person sitting in the seat next to hers.
Clouds flew past like islands of candy floss in a sea of mist and the terra firma below looked like a gigantic mass of algae green plankton .The golden shimmer of Arabian sea met seamlessly with the calm azure.
She disembarked and messaged Govind…
Heat dinner for me too. I’ll be home in 20 mins.
At home, Govind opened the door , kissed her and said…
‘There is a huge parcel delivered for you. Did you order for something?’
Intrigued she went towards the parcel, turned it around but there was no clue.
Maya opened it carefully, and after seeing it sat on the floor agape and numb.
‘A house with wooden floors, a large sunlit kitchen, Sunday morning, smell of fresh newsprint and tea, overridden by the aroma of freshly baked cookies….
Sound of spoon clatter on the china bowl, a bunch of bamboo shoots in a crystal bowl….Me patting a golden retriever with my foot…a pair of goldfish….’ – the words rang out loud and clear still hanging in the air as if it was said minutes ago.
There was a woman in the painting who resembled Maya.
There was a note saying….
Dearest Maya,
I had to leave…Didn’t want to spoil it for you…
Homes are not made on clouds but on trees.
It is not in the fate of clouds to find home. They are born vagabond and that’s their destiny.
One moment of warmth with you was enough to fill a thousand solitary years.
With affection
Amartya
That was the last she heard from Amartya. Spring came again and the frozen cherries thawed in all their ruddiness to welcome a new life.
Contentment
Warmth of sun on back,
azure view of cool skies,
a lone eagle cry.
Full breeze in face.
ruffling hair wild.
and a jolly wind tickled lake.
a suspended abstract thought.
at the brink of bliss
spells out the futility…
of seeking contentment elsewhere.
azure view of cool skies,
a lone eagle cry.
Full breeze in face.
ruffling hair wild.
and a jolly wind tickled lake.
a suspended abstract thought.
at the brink of bliss
spells out the futility…
of seeking contentment elsewhere.
Sprinkling violets, Blooming Lilies
Sprinkling violets and lilies pink
Bloomed all across
Between you and me.
Horizons kissed the crimson dawn
Then stars sprinkled the sky lawn
We didn’t forget our colours of love
Blooming violets and lilies pink.
It all turned white
Our heart’s love
Our souls dove
Flew across a million miles…
We swirled, we sang
We ran , we danced
All across the firmament.
Sprinkling violets, blooming lilies.
Bloomed all across
Between you and me.
Horizons kissed the crimson dawn
Then stars sprinkled the sky lawn
We didn’t forget our colours of love
Blooming violets and lilies pink.
It all turned white
Our heart’s love
Our souls dove
Flew across a million miles…
We swirled, we sang
We ran , we danced
All across the firmament.
Sprinkling violets, blooming lilies.
Drunken Rabbits
Sprawled in the lawns
Under the sky starry.
Flying on the wings of wind
A vagabond piece of cloud flies past.
Exchanging looks of unity.
Once in a while
A smile playing
In that secret pact of affinity.
Talking to one another
Primarily to ourselves
Of days past and favorite yearnings
In moments wistful and pensive.
We talk silly long into the night
Till early hours of morning
In slurs, drones and hmmms
We talk like drunken rabbits.
Under the sky starry.
Flying on the wings of wind
A vagabond piece of cloud flies past.
Exchanging looks of unity.
Once in a while
A smile playing
In that secret pact of affinity.
Talking to one another
Primarily to ourselves
Of days past and favorite yearnings
In moments wistful and pensive.
We talk silly long into the night
Till early hours of morning
In slurs, drones and hmmms
We talk like drunken rabbits.
Dried Magnolias
No soul left
No drunkenness of spirit
No wonder-eyed wonderment
Just a throbbing primitive demon.
A monster of the flesh
Alongside a nostalgic sensitivity,
Lives on like the ghost
In the shadows of the yore.
Remnant of thoughts
On a fading canvas
In luminescent moon
On forgotten notes of Claire de lune.
Dried magnolias
in my favorite book.
Like a whiff of spring mint
For a newborn hope.
No drunkenness of spirit
No wonder-eyed wonderment
Just a throbbing primitive demon.
A monster of the flesh
Alongside a nostalgic sensitivity,
Lives on like the ghost
In the shadows of the yore.
Remnant of thoughts
On a fading canvas
In luminescent moon
On forgotten notes of Claire de lune.
Dried magnolias
in my favorite book.
Like a whiff of spring mint
For a newborn hope.
Friday, January 30, 2009
A song for the One not chosen.
Marked in existence dual
From the closed door into the open.
Peeps the other life
The one that was not chosen.
A carpet bag of moments
Spilling what could have happened
Lying on the path not taken.
My other reality, of identity mistaken.
Otherness of reality lives and longs.
Wallowing in the dust of golden songs.
A fond requiem that we play along.
Consolation for the one not chosen.
From the closed door into the open.
Peeps the other life
The one that was not chosen.
A carpet bag of moments
Spilling what could have happened
Lying on the path not taken.
My other reality, of identity mistaken.
Otherness of reality lives and longs.
Wallowing in the dust of golden songs.
A fond requiem that we play along.
Consolation for the one not chosen.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
For the Gulmohars that wept for Us.
We will meet for one last time
and go our ways from there.
You your way
And I mine…
We will say the unsaid.
Deliver a parting wish.
And just meet for no reason,
Like we always met.
We will contain ourselves.
Just a casual meeting,
for tying up the lose strings
Before this fate intended parting
That was the plan…
We set it up for the Gulmohar Grove.
Our fondly frequented rendezvous.
I imagined you in my favourite white.
You appeared in your deepest blue.
The winds hummed our rain song,
as clouds wept woebegone
Terribly sad and numb we stood,
in silence and in cold rain …
Knowing full well.
We won’t sleep tearless ever,
Thinking of us and our fondest thoughts
For the Gulmohars that wept for us.
and go our ways from there.
You your way
And I mine…
We will say the unsaid.
Deliver a parting wish.
And just meet for no reason,
Like we always met.
We will contain ourselves.
Just a casual meeting,
for tying up the lose strings
Before this fate intended parting
That was the plan…
We set it up for the Gulmohar Grove.
Our fondly frequented rendezvous.
I imagined you in my favourite white.
You appeared in your deepest blue.
The winds hummed our rain song,
as clouds wept woebegone
Terribly sad and numb we stood,
in silence and in cold rain …
Knowing full well.
We won’t sleep tearless ever,
Thinking of us and our fondest thoughts
For the Gulmohars that wept for us.
Humming a moon song
The night is quiet.
So is the world, and worlds within.
Time is in the arms of somnolence.
Except a thought that prefers silence.
Silence to wake up and speak.
It arises in my half sleep.
Born to a sleepy moment.
Wrapped in the fondness of past.
A thought apt forgotten.
Today when the moon is full
And night past mid
From a vague dream it stirs
Smiling, young and virgin.
Walking back on that moonlane
Humming the same moon song…
Seeking absolutely nothing.
So is the world, and worlds within.
Time is in the arms of somnolence.
Except a thought that prefers silence.
Silence to wake up and speak.
It arises in my half sleep.
Born to a sleepy moment.
Wrapped in the fondness of past.
A thought apt forgotten.
Today when the moon is full
And night past mid
From a vague dream it stirs
Smiling, young and virgin.
Walking back on that moonlane
Humming the same moon song…
Seeking absolutely nothing.
Communion
We had lost ourselves.
Our souls split,
Our spirits vagabond
Had lost meaning.
In the absence of the other.
Aeons later we meet again.
Our faces have changed,
And so has our demeanor.
Yet, I think I know you,
In one eloquent meeting of our eyes.
Our souls split,
Our spirits vagabond
Had lost meaning.
In the absence of the other.
Aeons later we meet again.
Our faces have changed,
And so has our demeanor.
Yet, I think I know you,
In one eloquent meeting of our eyes.
Black
Gold fish ain't gold
Color of sky isn't blue
All the seven colors
of rainbow aren't true.
For I see only dark
Cold, mute and stark
No colors of imagination
No flights to embark.
Bobbing in the sea of black
In sounds of emptying drain pipes
Cacophony of confused voices
In shadows of dimensionless lives.
Betrayed by god
Deprived by nature
Incarcerated in dark dungeons
Cursed in life forever.
Color of sky isn't blue
All the seven colors
of rainbow aren't true.
For I see only dark
Cold, mute and stark
No colors of imagination
No flights to embark.
Bobbing in the sea of black
In sounds of emptying drain pipes
Cacophony of confused voices
In shadows of dimensionless lives.
Betrayed by god
Deprived by nature
Incarcerated in dark dungeons
Cursed in life forever.
For the lost Neverland.
Waking up to an eerie thought
On a morning of a no place
Wedged between unfamiliar
A cold sandwich of unknowns.
Staring at the blank ceilings
Looking at the stark dark walls
Wakes up the peter pan
Crying for his lost neverland.
Ini, Mini, Mynie, Mo
Ringa ringa ringa rose
At the end of a rainbow
All gone like a Disney show.
The gaily laughter
The giggling brooks
The happy endless blue skies,
All is lost to this cold morn.
And more…
A thousand umbrellas of daisies
The drunkenness of freedom
Flushing meadow of pansies
Unchained unrestrained Liberty
It was a dream of last night
The thrill of an uninhibited flight
Scooping swerving gliding flying
On a jet plane of dream that wasn't.
Staring at the ceilings blank
Three wings of a stopped fan.
Wakes up the Peter Pan
Crying for his lost neverland.
On a morning of a no place
Wedged between unfamiliar
A cold sandwich of unknowns.
Staring at the blank ceilings
Looking at the stark dark walls
Wakes up the peter pan
Crying for his lost neverland.
Ini, Mini, Mynie, Mo
Ringa ringa ringa rose
At the end of a rainbow
All gone like a Disney show.
The gaily laughter
The giggling brooks
The happy endless blue skies,
All is lost to this cold morn.
And more…
A thousand umbrellas of daisies
The drunkenness of freedom
Flushing meadow of pansies
Unchained unrestrained Liberty
It was a dream of last night
The thrill of an uninhibited flight
Scooping swerving gliding flying
On a jet plane of dream that wasn't.
Staring at the ceilings blank
Three wings of a stopped fan.
Wakes up the Peter Pan
Crying for his lost neverland.
Wedding - 2
Solemn vows in solemn eyes
Unuttered whispers and lonesome sighs
Unhummed dreams, communion’s desire
Fuse together in sacred fire.
Mango tuft sprinkles nectar
Marigold wafts fill up the air
Grains rain, smoke dances
For Love, harmony and abundance
Stars shine, moon smiles
Celestials in the heavens align
Ancient order comes alive
As sacred string between you and I
Unuttered whispers and lonesome sighs
Unhummed dreams, communion’s desire
Fuse together in sacred fire.
Mango tuft sprinkles nectar
Marigold wafts fill up the air
Grains rain, smoke dances
For Love, harmony and abundance
Stars shine, moon smiles
Celestials in the heavens align
Ancient order comes alive
As sacred string between you and I
Souvenir of an exalted moment
The thrill of a uninhibited flight is known only to a incorrigible romantic. White is the colour of his sails and blue the colur of his ocean. The azure emptiness of his skies when he sets out to sail is coloured by the rainbows of his illusions.
The imagination is what colors it…
And when the mirage is broken all the colors he spilled in blue emptiness fall to the ground as some illegible, gauche, dimensionless black scribble. Only as a reminder of a thought that soared right up there, in the skies staring blank in wonderment, bathing in the beauty of the moment.
Art will always be an imitation. Literature would just be a counterfeit of what a human feels for existence or the way it should be. Just an incomplete reproduction of man’s metaphysical stance. Even the most skillful of masters cannot capture in totality what they felt when the idea dawned on them quietly or with the blaze of a stricken matchstick.
There is no individual person in us per se. We are all patterns of multitudes that we carry within. A vague pattern of which makes an individual. So in ourselves we have the capacity of feeling beauty and creating beauty. The part which Apollonius rules.
In ourselves we have the capacity of turning into beasts with the urges of the flesh and the hunger of our insatiable bodies and souls. Everything that would be base for the privilege of being a human as there is surely a division based on certain attributes what makes an animal an animal and human a more developed expression of nature. When the base human takes over, in certain collusion with Bacchus Dionysius rules here.
There are times in life when you fall completely in the realm of all the sublimity that a human can experience. Communion with God or the sense of God , Oneness with nature, madly in love when the ego is razed to the ground, an idea which stimulates the innate delight of discovering something new, a feeling akin to standing on a precipice perhaps on the edge of a mountain or may be while meditating on Vivekanad rock.This is when art might peek in. Just to keep a souvenir of that exalted moment. That is the time when Apollonius smiles.
The imagination is what colors it…
And when the mirage is broken all the colors he spilled in blue emptiness fall to the ground as some illegible, gauche, dimensionless black scribble. Only as a reminder of a thought that soared right up there, in the skies staring blank in wonderment, bathing in the beauty of the moment.
Art will always be an imitation. Literature would just be a counterfeit of what a human feels for existence or the way it should be. Just an incomplete reproduction of man’s metaphysical stance. Even the most skillful of masters cannot capture in totality what they felt when the idea dawned on them quietly or with the blaze of a stricken matchstick.
There is no individual person in us per se. We are all patterns of multitudes that we carry within. A vague pattern of which makes an individual. So in ourselves we have the capacity of feeling beauty and creating beauty. The part which Apollonius rules.
In ourselves we have the capacity of turning into beasts with the urges of the flesh and the hunger of our insatiable bodies and souls. Everything that would be base for the privilege of being a human as there is surely a division based on certain attributes what makes an animal an animal and human a more developed expression of nature. When the base human takes over, in certain collusion with Bacchus Dionysius rules here.
There are times in life when you fall completely in the realm of all the sublimity that a human can experience. Communion with God or the sense of God , Oneness with nature, madly in love when the ego is razed to the ground, an idea which stimulates the innate delight of discovering something new, a feeling akin to standing on a precipice perhaps on the edge of a mountain or may be while meditating on Vivekanad rock.This is when art might peek in. Just to keep a souvenir of that exalted moment. That is the time when Apollonius smiles.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Seperate lives
Severed by gaping distances
And by percepts Of immediate concerns
Separated by years of being busy
In the otherness of our realities.
We exist...
I in my world
And you in yours.
Perhaps a few breaths would help
To reconcile us in brief repose.
By pictures of our realities
We sync up...
Only to find that we have grown apart.
on the wheels of endless dawns and dusks.
Yet the images do invoke
What within me, was my own.
Or so I thought...
- Pushkar Gunjan (Jan 19, 2009 - 4:30 P.M.)
And by percepts Of immediate concerns
Separated by years of being busy
In the otherness of our realities.
We exist...
I in my world
And you in yours.
Perhaps a few breaths would help
To reconcile us in brief repose.
By pictures of our realities
We sync up...
Only to find that we have grown apart.
on the wheels of endless dawns and dusks.
Yet the images do invoke
What within me, was my own.
Or so I thought...
- Pushkar Gunjan (Jan 19, 2009 - 4:30 P.M.)
Monday, January 5, 2009
Laoshe Tea house and Beijing Sunshine
Shivering in the winter chill
And rolling in your laughter
Unaware of the puzzled stares
Mindless of how would we fare
We walked across Tiananmen square.
Strawberries glazed in the fruit candy
Eye glazed with happy smiles
Around the Bare trees of maples
Under the bare blue skies
We frolicked and flirted like there is no tomorrow.
Our faces bright with lovelorn smile
Shining in the Beijing sunshine
A shot of the moment
Frozen and glazed as a wistful smile
Fluttering forever like a happy butterfly.
-Pushkar Gunjan ( Beijing trip, based on the photograph in front of Laoshe Tea house and recalled images of the sunny walk through Tiananmen Square, March 2007)
And rolling in your laughter
Unaware of the puzzled stares
Mindless of how would we fare
We walked across Tiananmen square.
Strawberries glazed in the fruit candy
Eye glazed with happy smiles
Around the Bare trees of maples
Under the bare blue skies
We frolicked and flirted like there is no tomorrow.
Our faces bright with lovelorn smile
Shining in the Beijing sunshine
A shot of the moment
Frozen and glazed as a wistful smile
Fluttering forever like a happy butterfly.
-Pushkar Gunjan ( Beijing trip, based on the photograph in front of Laoshe Tea house and recalled images of the sunny walk through Tiananmen Square, March 2007)
Divine musician’s pond
Feels like…
Baby steps by the giant ocean shores
Fluttering sails in the blue calm
The height of mountains proud
Longing of vagabond clouds
Embracing Ecstasy, frolicking agony
Touching Sublime, flirting humility
Wrapped in myriad tinkling notes
Spread across canvas of consciousness.
Soaring beyond the frontiers
Of sentient and sub consciousness
Far from this insignificant existence
Reduced to a flippant stone
In the divine musician’s pond.
Baby steps by the giant ocean shores
Fluttering sails in the blue calm
The height of mountains proud
Longing of vagabond clouds
Embracing Ecstasy, frolicking agony
Touching Sublime, flirting humility
Wrapped in myriad tinkling notes
Spread across canvas of consciousness.
Soaring beyond the frontiers
Of sentient and sub consciousness
Far from this insignificant existence
Reduced to a flippant stone
In the divine musician’s pond.
If the night is so enchanting,What would the morning be like!
If the night is so enchanting
What would the morning be like!
A celebration of blessed reunion
Or a dowsed ember morning.
Fondness of yesters has come alive.
Unaware of inveigled longings.
What has taken eons and fate,
Would it pass by, as silent nothing?
If the night is so enchanting
What would the morning be like!
Longings wish to find utterance.
In verses that wish they had been written.
Yearnings long to find sustenance
In what seems unreal, evanescent.
If the night is so enchanting
What would the morning be like!
Close to dawn a blessed somnolence.
Put to rest the storm within.
The white shroud that it wore,
Was my vague love wrap from the yore.
If the night was enchanting,
Morning was somnolent and sweet.
I slept with fond dreams.
Smitten, cold and smelling of you.
-Pushkar Gunjan
What would the morning be like!
A celebration of blessed reunion
Or a dowsed ember morning.
Fondness of yesters has come alive.
Unaware of inveigled longings.
What has taken eons and fate,
Would it pass by, as silent nothing?
If the night is so enchanting
What would the morning be like!
Longings wish to find utterance.
In verses that wish they had been written.
Yearnings long to find sustenance
In what seems unreal, evanescent.
If the night is so enchanting
What would the morning be like!
Close to dawn a blessed somnolence.
Put to rest the storm within.
The white shroud that it wore,
Was my vague love wrap from the yore.
If the night was enchanting,
Morning was somnolent and sweet.
I slept with fond dreams.
Smitten, cold and smelling of you.
-Pushkar Gunjan
The hymn of communion
I will stand by
Starry eyed and expectant
And sprinkle on the black you paint
A million twinkling stars.
I won’t blink until you paint,
Half a million more
And make them rain below
As downy flakes of snow
I refuse to let the moment dive
Into the cold oblivion
Until we weave the strings
Into a silken magic wing.
I muse and wonder
About my otherness that’s yonder
Would a solemn hymn do?
To make it co-believe communion.
- Pushkar Gunjan
Starry eyed and expectant
And sprinkle on the black you paint
A million twinkling stars.
I won’t blink until you paint,
Half a million more
And make them rain below
As downy flakes of snow
I refuse to let the moment dive
Into the cold oblivion
Until we weave the strings
Into a silken magic wing.
I muse and wonder
About my otherness that’s yonder
Would a solemn hymn do?
To make it co-believe communion.
- Pushkar Gunjan
Solitary another
Paint the sun crimson
Trees with curly locks green
Brown for thatched roof hut
Gold burnish for the sheen on stream
A banana tuft peeking above the roof
A school of happy salmons or maybe tadpoles
Half a dozen strokes in the blue
For birds that ride the westerlies
Before you forget and I shy away
Before the moment is gone
And colours dry up
A brown boat, a fishing pole
A boy with butterfly net,
a girl hopping the ropes
All that we muse about
All that we relish in thoughts
In bliss, in love, in communion
Bunch up the spectrum on your canvas
Before the moment blinks
Before the butterfly flutters
Crumbling our world into a solitary another.
- Pushkar Gunjan (Nov 15, 2007)
[Talking about how painting could translate into a poem and poem into music or the other way round and how it would be great to display all of them together. The moments passed by that morning a little hesitant a little charmed with longings of it never ending. Bangalore. That house was aptly named Sneha Kunj]
Trees with curly locks green
Brown for thatched roof hut
Gold burnish for the sheen on stream
A banana tuft peeking above the roof
A school of happy salmons or maybe tadpoles
Half a dozen strokes in the blue
For birds that ride the westerlies
Before you forget and I shy away
Before the moment is gone
And colours dry up
A brown boat, a fishing pole
A boy with butterfly net,
a girl hopping the ropes
All that we muse about
All that we relish in thoughts
In bliss, in love, in communion
Bunch up the spectrum on your canvas
Before the moment blinks
Before the butterfly flutters
Crumbling our world into a solitary another.
- Pushkar Gunjan (Nov 15, 2007)
[Talking about how painting could translate into a poem and poem into music or the other way round and how it would be great to display all of them together. The moments passed by that morning a little hesitant a little charmed with longings of it never ending. Bangalore. That house was aptly named Sneha Kunj]
Tum Se Hi
Eyes cast on destiny’s shoes.
Tiny tiptoeing feet.
Dancing on our gaze’s lane
Like mist wishing to be rain.
Don’t spoil the magic this time
Or ever again
Our charmed gaze will bring
Enchanting flames of Gulmohar spring.
Yet again…
Tiny tiptoeing feet.
Dancing on our gaze’s lane
Like mist wishing to be rain.
Don’t spoil the magic this time
Or ever again
Our charmed gaze will bring
Enchanting flames of Gulmohar spring.
Yet again…
Charm of China
Will the cherry blossom again
In the greens of Hanshan hills
Like a garland thrown from the heavens
On crown above the mirror still
Will the woodpecker peck again
Willfully on the woods of pine
Roving from wood to wood
In the search of tree sap fine
Will the shrivelled boatman sing again
The songs of Jiangsu on a moonlit night
About the girl flower Jasmine
who withered in love as she pined.
How can it be forgotten…
The pearl and peonies
The wisterias trellis in the pavilion of moon
The poem about a girl’s fingers of jade
Songs mellifluous on the melancholic flute.
Carrying in the cauldron of soul
The senses and essence of the east
To wistfully muse within me
In the company of solitude.
- Pushkar Gunjan ( Nov 18, 2007)
In the greens of Hanshan hills
Like a garland thrown from the heavens
On crown above the mirror still
Will the woodpecker peck again
Willfully on the woods of pine
Roving from wood to wood
In the search of tree sap fine
Will the shrivelled boatman sing again
The songs of Jiangsu on a moonlit night
About the girl flower Jasmine
who withered in love as she pined.
How can it be forgotten…
The pearl and peonies
The wisterias trellis in the pavilion of moon
The poem about a girl’s fingers of jade
Songs mellifluous on the melancholic flute.
Carrying in the cauldron of soul
The senses and essence of the east
To wistfully muse within me
In the company of solitude.
- Pushkar Gunjan ( Nov 18, 2007)
Unsaid Muses
A verse that talks to muse
Shakes it head on life’s ruse
Hapless in hands of divine will
Something that writes itself until…
It loses itself in muse again
Wishing it could feel
The form, the spirit and rhythm.
And be born like divinity’s will.
Or will it be aborted
Unborn, unfeeling, unsaid.
Perhaps…
Shakes it head on life’s ruse
Hapless in hands of divine will
Something that writes itself until…
It loses itself in muse again
Wishing it could feel
The form, the spirit and rhythm.
And be born like divinity’s will.
Or will it be aborted
Unborn, unfeeling, unsaid.
Perhaps…
Love - 1
Under clear blue skies
And honey coloured sunshine
Gazing on the vast plains
Of green grazing pastures.
We breathe in…
The wonderment of our imaginations
Our wanderlust passions
And something really significant
For each other, a pleasant enchantment.
Embracing our new found intoxicant
Love for ourselves and the cosmos
We open our arms to embrace
The sublime in us and existence.
Or simply stated
The idea of being loved.
Immensely unconditionally.
And honey coloured sunshine
Gazing on the vast plains
Of green grazing pastures.
We breathe in…
The wonderment of our imaginations
Our wanderlust passions
And something really significant
For each other, a pleasant enchantment.
Embracing our new found intoxicant
Love for ourselves and the cosmos
We open our arms to embrace
The sublime in us and existence.
Or simply stated
The idea of being loved.
Immensely unconditionally.
Shalimar The Clown - A Casual Critique
Well,writing a review for Salman Rushdie or any such heavyweight is like telling Lata where all did she falter in her rendition and how square should the bat be for a square drive to Sachin.
However, since I spent close to two weeks reading it please let me feel like a John Updike or a Pankaj Mishra for sometime.
The whole book is divided into five sections – India, Boonyi, Max, Shalimar the clown and Kashmira.
Generally, in three of the sections namely – Boonyi, Max, Shalimar the clown…Rushdie pirouettes, dives, scoops, trapezes, somersaults with words as usual, conjures magic, casts spells, philosophizes and paints such a romantic picture on his canvas that you are spellbound by this man’s capability to conjure up what is call magical realism. In another breath you can say he has at times brandished his genre and capability in that art a little too much. Perhaps, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and James Joyce from whom Rushdie sought his magical realism inspiration, both would wince at such an opulent magical realism if they were to read it.
In fact, this piece of his has a lot more sanity and coherence than ‘The Satanic Verses’(understood just 30-40% of it because it insanely shuttles between myriad scenes, settings and locales. Its allusions to Greek Mythology to the characters from British soaps and advertisements and more…my own low general awareness being one of the major factors) or for that matter even ‘Midnight’s children’(Midnight’s children would score heavily in terms of the narrative which is not as fragmented). ‘Shalimar the clown’ reads like a different book in the first and last chapter. In the interregnum is where he justifies his literary giant status.
One problem with his allusions, references and opulent, at times forced magical realism is that his characters become puppets and that quells the development of multi -dimensions in the characters. A touch of lyrical quality in his writing, he careens a lot towards determinism which makes it awkward to take with his liberalism. With references of Rahu-Ketu the invisible antagonistic forces shaping up things and other invisible phantoms, sorcery, demons and prognostications he renders his characters helpless. Perhaps, that is the worldview he wants to share with us and to an extent most of us would agree that however much we might want to be in control most of it is beyond us.
A little of his usage of portent and omens is a reminder of Shakespeare (whatever little I have read) where certain spooky bizarre events would augur the forthcoming devastation and destruction(It happens on so many occasions in this book . Rushdie does it beautifully and you can at times feel that like an involved raconteur he holds the audience charmed.
The way he shapes up his events and characters(if he shapes them up and doesn’t capture them under the effect of hallucinogens) and proceeds, tells a lot about his outlook having the reference frame of ‘the butterfly effect i.e. sensitive dependence on initial conditions an important aspect of chaos theory’.
Shalimar the clown can be rated a few notches below Midnight’s children if you consider the whole narrative but if you were to consider a third of the book it has been written by a divine hand and can compare to the best of writings of contemporary literature. Perhaps he borrowed God’s pen to write those parts, if I can overshadow in my flourish the aspect of his atheism.
His inconsistency is the failing of the book. The disappointment is most acute at the end of the book which ends like a B-grade Bollywood movie. Kashmir is forgotten, the tales and travails of the people loses grip on you and you are propelled from a poignant tale of love-betrayal and the tale of Kashmir to an inadequately sketched revenge tale.You can’t but help but remember those revenge sagas of Bollywood and Hollywood and that brings down the divinity.
There are certain anachronisms for Soap operas on the Television of Harud Yambarzal…Late eighties we never had soaps on tv and moreover there were no ‘item numbers’ then…Abdullah not remembering Firdaus’ birthday is again too urbane an idea for Kasmiri village folks.
At some places he has ignored some aspects like Hamirdev Kacchawa the army officer remains throughout his career spanning 30 years in Kashmir only. That isn’t the way postings in the armed forces work.
The tale specific ruminations:
The story as it was, should have remained the story of Kashmir which he tells beautifully through…Shalimar the clown, Boonyi, Abdullah, Pyarelal kaul, shiv sagar sharga,zoon misri, nazarebaddor, himal , gonwanti, greego brothers, Max Ophuls, Firdaus, Pamposh, Bombur, Harud, Peggy Ophuls, Kashmira, Hamirdev Kacchawa, Woods,Big man misri, yuvraj, Sardar Harbans…and some others.
Pandit Pyarelal Kaul’s musings and philosophizing is beautifully captured….
Boonyi’s character developed the best, multi dimensional and the one which comes out as living the most.
Shalimar the clown however, doesn’t blossom as a character as much as Boonyi does. You can sense his undying , insane love for Boonyi when he says after they make love at Khelmarg – “Don’t you leave me now, or I’ll never forgive you, and I’ll have my revenge, I’ll kill you and if you have any childen by another man, I’ll kill the children also” which is taken as a sweet nothing by Boonyi. However, that is the pivot of the whole saga. After Boonyi betrays him despite the exemplary support of Pachigam for their marriage the disappointment, hatred, embarrassment has been a little underplayed. He becomes a senseless zombie in a murderous rage.
That is why Boonyi’s character evokes a lot more response in whatever happens to it.
The episode when Boonyi leaves Kashmir for Delhi and how heart in heart she knows she will never see him again and the way the deal is struck between Max and Boonyi(“Don’t ask for my heart, because I am tearing it away and…..I’ll be heartless but you will not know it because a I’ll be a perfect counterfeit of a loving woman and you ‘ll receive a perfect forgery of love” ) in such a cold manner that it gives the reader a chill and disgust so deep that you can identify with Shalimar the clown’s hatred. The episode beautifully describes her disappointment with her new life and how she misses Kashmir and Pachigam, her folks.
The episode when Boonyi comes back to Pachigam disgraced…the treatment is super sensitive and Rushdie weaves in gold here. The blizzard, how Boonyi hears nothing and can see shadows dancing around her; ignorance of her father and Zoon’s telling her that they have declared her dead officially and how the living dead live is very heart rending. Later at night when her father comes over and talks too her from outside in the dead of the night is a heart breaker and could not have been dealt with better. His monologue about the living dead is a pure magic of imagery, hindu philosophy and Kabir’s philosophy about the living dead. Rushdie has touched the frontiers of excellence here and you can’t help but exult after each paragraph by sheer admiration for the master.
What could have been a tale of Kashmir by a raconteur who is par excellence
ended like a forced fusion razzmatazz.
Overall, good reading but as soon as you try and cast Rushdie into some kind of literary Godhood ,Rushdie disappoints. And there is no place for a fallen God in my personal pantheon, at least for now in my ‘personal unenlightened opinion’.
However, since I spent close to two weeks reading it please let me feel like a John Updike or a Pankaj Mishra for sometime.
The whole book is divided into five sections – India, Boonyi, Max, Shalimar the clown and Kashmira.
Generally, in three of the sections namely – Boonyi, Max, Shalimar the clown…Rushdie pirouettes, dives, scoops, trapezes, somersaults with words as usual, conjures magic, casts spells, philosophizes and paints such a romantic picture on his canvas that you are spellbound by this man’s capability to conjure up what is call magical realism. In another breath you can say he has at times brandished his genre and capability in that art a little too much. Perhaps, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and James Joyce from whom Rushdie sought his magical realism inspiration, both would wince at such an opulent magical realism if they were to read it.
In fact, this piece of his has a lot more sanity and coherence than ‘The Satanic Verses’(understood just 30-40% of it because it insanely shuttles between myriad scenes, settings and locales. Its allusions to Greek Mythology to the characters from British soaps and advertisements and more…my own low general awareness being one of the major factors) or for that matter even ‘Midnight’s children’(Midnight’s children would score heavily in terms of the narrative which is not as fragmented). ‘Shalimar the clown’ reads like a different book in the first and last chapter. In the interregnum is where he justifies his literary giant status.
One problem with his allusions, references and opulent, at times forced magical realism is that his characters become puppets and that quells the development of multi -dimensions in the characters. A touch of lyrical quality in his writing, he careens a lot towards determinism which makes it awkward to take with his liberalism. With references of Rahu-Ketu the invisible antagonistic forces shaping up things and other invisible phantoms, sorcery, demons and prognostications he renders his characters helpless. Perhaps, that is the worldview he wants to share with us and to an extent most of us would agree that however much we might want to be in control most of it is beyond us.
A little of his usage of portent and omens is a reminder of Shakespeare (whatever little I have read) where certain spooky bizarre events would augur the forthcoming devastation and destruction(It happens on so many occasions in this book . Rushdie does it beautifully and you can at times feel that like an involved raconteur he holds the audience charmed.
The way he shapes up his events and characters(if he shapes them up and doesn’t capture them under the effect of hallucinogens) and proceeds, tells a lot about his outlook having the reference frame of ‘the butterfly effect i.e. sensitive dependence on initial conditions an important aspect of chaos theory’.
Shalimar the clown can be rated a few notches below Midnight’s children if you consider the whole narrative but if you were to consider a third of the book it has been written by a divine hand and can compare to the best of writings of contemporary literature. Perhaps he borrowed God’s pen to write those parts, if I can overshadow in my flourish the aspect of his atheism.
His inconsistency is the failing of the book. The disappointment is most acute at the end of the book which ends like a B-grade Bollywood movie. Kashmir is forgotten, the tales and travails of the people loses grip on you and you are propelled from a poignant tale of love-betrayal and the tale of Kashmir to an inadequately sketched revenge tale.You can’t but help but remember those revenge sagas of Bollywood and Hollywood and that brings down the divinity.
There are certain anachronisms for Soap operas on the Television of Harud Yambarzal…Late eighties we never had soaps on tv and moreover there were no ‘item numbers’ then…Abdullah not remembering Firdaus’ birthday is again too urbane an idea for Kasmiri village folks.
At some places he has ignored some aspects like Hamirdev Kacchawa the army officer remains throughout his career spanning 30 years in Kashmir only. That isn’t the way postings in the armed forces work.
The tale specific ruminations:
The story as it was, should have remained the story of Kashmir which he tells beautifully through…Shalimar the clown, Boonyi, Abdullah, Pyarelal kaul, shiv sagar sharga,zoon misri, nazarebaddor, himal , gonwanti, greego brothers, Max Ophuls, Firdaus, Pamposh, Bombur, Harud, Peggy Ophuls, Kashmira, Hamirdev Kacchawa, Woods,Big man misri, yuvraj, Sardar Harbans…and some others.
Pandit Pyarelal Kaul’s musings and philosophizing is beautifully captured….
Boonyi’s character developed the best, multi dimensional and the one which comes out as living the most.
Shalimar the clown however, doesn’t blossom as a character as much as Boonyi does. You can sense his undying , insane love for Boonyi when he says after they make love at Khelmarg – “Don’t you leave me now, or I’ll never forgive you, and I’ll have my revenge, I’ll kill you and if you have any childen by another man, I’ll kill the children also” which is taken as a sweet nothing by Boonyi. However, that is the pivot of the whole saga. After Boonyi betrays him despite the exemplary support of Pachigam for their marriage the disappointment, hatred, embarrassment has been a little underplayed. He becomes a senseless zombie in a murderous rage.
That is why Boonyi’s character evokes a lot more response in whatever happens to it.
The episode when Boonyi leaves Kashmir for Delhi and how heart in heart she knows she will never see him again and the way the deal is struck between Max and Boonyi(“Don’t ask for my heart, because I am tearing it away and…..I’ll be heartless but you will not know it because a I’ll be a perfect counterfeit of a loving woman and you ‘ll receive a perfect forgery of love” ) in such a cold manner that it gives the reader a chill and disgust so deep that you can identify with Shalimar the clown’s hatred. The episode beautifully describes her disappointment with her new life and how she misses Kashmir and Pachigam, her folks.
The episode when Boonyi comes back to Pachigam disgraced…the treatment is super sensitive and Rushdie weaves in gold here. The blizzard, how Boonyi hears nothing and can see shadows dancing around her; ignorance of her father and Zoon’s telling her that they have declared her dead officially and how the living dead live is very heart rending. Later at night when her father comes over and talks too her from outside in the dead of the night is a heart breaker and could not have been dealt with better. His monologue about the living dead is a pure magic of imagery, hindu philosophy and Kabir’s philosophy about the living dead. Rushdie has touched the frontiers of excellence here and you can’t help but exult after each paragraph by sheer admiration for the master.
What could have been a tale of Kashmir by a raconteur who is par excellence
ended like a forced fusion razzmatazz.
Overall, good reading but as soon as you try and cast Rushdie into some kind of literary Godhood ,Rushdie disappoints. And there is no place for a fallen God in my personal pantheon, at least for now in my ‘personal unenlightened opinion’.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Moon Song - 2
I hum your moonsong
To the freezing winter moon
Partly to a thought far away.
Shining crystals shimmer
Teary eyed in tinkling delight
The droplets roll down
As sighs of icy vapours rise.
A million stars gaze below
At million lives littered
Making one glittering umbrella
The only abode we share.
Quite contrary to what we thought.
To the freezing winter moon
Partly to a thought far away.
Shining crystals shimmer
Teary eyed in tinkling delight
The droplets roll down
As sighs of icy vapours rise.
A million stars gaze below
At million lives littered
Making one glittering umbrella
The only abode we share.
Quite contrary to what we thought.
Moon song - 1
In the quietness of moments
A night that slumbers
Dreaming of a dream,
That lives far and yonder.
The moon is awake all night
Dazzling in its own light
Smiling at a flying bird
Hoping its daybreak…
A night that slumbers
Dreaming of a dream,
That lives far and yonder.
The moon is awake all night
Dazzling in its own light
Smiling at a flying bird
Hoping its daybreak…
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