To hell with time

Give me a vision to cherish and
I would sing alone those lonely roads
Swinging, swaying with the tunes
Mile upon mile I would fly;
Like the butterfly’s gentle caress
I would glide past the road’s woes.
The sunset would be rapturous;
The night sky starry, moonlit.
The horizon would come nearer.
I would turn off time and fate;
I would drift on to the end
Of the road and dreary life,
Humming the honor of captured time.

Kill'em All

I brought home a mosquito swatter last week. We still have those mosquito repellants, vaporizers and nets, but this seems to be a contraception designed to kill mosquitoes and to satisfy our anger toward those parasites.

It gives me immense pleasure to sit watching TV and casually electrocute one mosquito after another. They literally burn to death. Their bodies seem to explode into little pieces. Those buggers deserve death for biting me.

There have been few other gadgets that one would relish using for the gore quotient. One example I remember is what they call the “pestoflash”. It similarly electrocutes flies to death in convention halls and small hotels.

But in the latter, the gadget would be placed in a corner and flies would flock to the blue light and die a very voluntary but gory death.

But the all new mosquito swatter is better in delivering a mental kick to the user.

a. one can kill a number of flies and count them too
b. one can sit idly and really have a good time
c. one can buy it at 100 rupees with a rechargeable battery
d. one can walk in the road carrying it around and kill flies all the way during the evening walk
e. it is shaped like a tennis racquet, so one can practice serves, forehands and backhands offhand too
f. one can, above all, abuse little mosquitoes when they are dying

These past 3 months have seen these swatters enter every household in chennai. One can buy it from any street corner. I can even now hear the tut, tut from a similar thing from my neighbors’.

To Think

I hate to go away to the city
From the valley of elephants;
Fragrant music fills the silence
Chirping birds, talking reeds
Fill my heart with beauty
As through the dusk I wander
On the slopes, thinking.
Its worth the labor
To think in silence
To wander pointless
With a mountain in the horizon
With the mind’s aspect bent
To just think and remember…..

Lovers, lovers and lovers

There are lovers, lovers and lovers……
And then, there are the people who cant stop loving.
Extraordinary fortitude they silently endure.
Theirs is the true love, the love that remains immortal.
They seek love as a need, and they are compulsive lovers.
Crushes and affairs leave them with wonderful essences that last forever.
Theirs is not the love that withers.
Love for them is sustenance.
Love is self actualization.
Love is an instinct.
Love is devotion.
Love for them, is God.

Rich Justice - Poor Justice

22 skeletons of children found in a gutter in Nithari, near Noida. Killed, raped later, hacked to pieces, body parts possibly stolen, flushed down the shit hole.

This hasn’t been a bizarre high school shoot out. Not the madness of one insane hour, but the cold, calculative, cunning series of acts over the course of 2 long years. All this happened in one little village. One of the countless villages that fall prey to the encroaching Indian city. Where landowners sell off their land to hungry realtors and become domestic servants a decade later.

The accused, a sardar, a person educated in the best school and college in India, with an adult son. Living estranged from his family. Possibly a person of some intellect by the sort of books found in his house.

The accused co conspirator, a young man, working for the former for Rs. 1800 per month. Bonuses for delivering children to the master of the house. Himself the father of a 2 year old child.

The area has reported 50 people missing in 2 years. 45 children and 5 more young women. All cases were reported to the local police station. There was no criminal angle worked in the whole episode. The women were accused by the police of having eloped and the children to have run away somewhere. In a different country this would have become a legendary story, like the tracking of Buffalo Bill.

In India, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the police are still heaped in a feudal system of working. The value of a crime, a law or an infringement is seen by the material value of the person in society, rather than the wrong that the crime has perpetrated in society’s midst.

Thus a drunk Salman Khan can run over sleeping pedestrians and still be at large. Thus a Sanjay Dutt can possess arms, be proven guilty and still Bollywood will start a signature campaign to let him off, shamelessly.

After 60 years of calling ourselves an independent nation, widespread campaign was necessary to get justice in a case as simple as the Jessica Lal murder case. Shot right in the middle of a restaurant, but the case wound on for a decade. The best criminal lawyer in the country appears for the accused. The case is won and is considered a milestone in India. Why? The rich villain was caught at last.

There was this poll going on in a private channel – “do you think justice in India is different for the rich and the poor?” – 99% of the responders felt the poor get a raw deal when it comes to simple social justice.

If we still lived in the jungles, if somebody was hurt, the accused would be killed in retaliation. Though this may sound hoary, but this is precisely justice. Undeveloped man, in his raw, native style used to get justice with his own hands. But in a developed civilization like ours, there are still the ugly beasts that kill, and there are the vultures than eat the carrion, and there are the maggots that clean up the remainder, and there is the herbivore who is as hapless as on the day he was born. Yes, that’s you and me.

The End

It all peters out in the end.
The end is forever a tomorrow.
Like the horizon is a mere line
Converging from vastness….
Everything becomes simple
Lines and lines for everything.
Futile, are all our schemes.
Mundane, are all our emotions.
Ennui, are all our philosophies.
Pointless are argument and theory.
Of no consequence is the present
With the end being its essence.
We are made humble in the end.
Everything evens out in the end.

Red Diamond

I could have stolen the thing,
Out of spite, from Hell.
Fire dancing, guilt frothing;
Yes, miracles are possible.
Dizzy dreams I had of it;
On my love’s treasured breasts,
On her soft fair temple,
In her deep nubile navel;
In a swanky necklace wrought,
With fine platinum clasps;
Adore her grace and charm
Adorn her black eyes’ sparkle
Celebrate her youthful beauty.
I saw today a red diamond.

Today

A bird in full flight over the horizon
I beheld one morning on a ride.
Every morning has it thus flown
Lashing out toward life’s tides.

The quiet air was applauding
This riot of light and speed
Coming alive from its musing
Of the night’s dark mead.

Could be heard was the moan
Of darkness which fell to light.
Time had crossed the night’s moat
To welcome another day’s blight.

The ghosts are gone for today
Welcome is another new day
With its many a play and foray.
We have sowed freedom for today.

Happy Birthday!

Yet another year is over for me, and yet another is starting, my 27th. Life has moved along since last year this day.

1. I am in Chennai now
2. I am in a new company
3. I am engaged
4. I will be getting married this year
5. I am being paid 40% more than last year
6. I am carrying less emotional baggage than the past 3-4 years

While the downsides have been a steadiness in emotions, style and habits to the point of complete lack of inspiration, the consolations have been consistency and resolve.

I have witnessed a complete change in myself in relationships and my decisions to keep them where they are meant to be. I think more from the mind and less from the heart. There are a lot of actionable and fanciful impulses that never find expression now. I am more like a mute spectator to my passions than writhing in their futileness and exalting at their power. I am suffering less from life than the past 3-4 years. I am living more in the real world than ever before. There are moments when all this lack of impulsiveness bullies me into a quiet spell. But I come back sooner than before.

There have been periods when my personality has been unable to cope with my profession. Now I am an integral part of my profession. I am more ordinary. I am more docile to emotions. I am able to hold back my impulses. I am smarter now than the tottering idealistic bravado. I am more with the ways of the world.

All these years have been, the past 3-4, a learning experience with adulthood. Now my sights are set toward making money, being successful in my career. To a point entering into marriage has been a major catalyst in this change. I am now thinking of TV cabinets, refrigerators and the necessity of a microwave at home than poetry. I want to buy a car in 2 years, when I will have a kid. I need to have a house by that time. My salary would have to double for that. I need to be selling more trucks today for all that.

Happy Birthday!

Love her so

We shared the evenings
We shared our lives.
But when we quit it all forever
Sorrow came down in showers.
It took so long to realize
That it was the last goodbye
Now all my days are quiet.
But its way too late now
To part with my shadow.
We still share the stead.
My heart is blinded,
By her brightness.
I love her so
I’ve let her go.

My father and me

My father has been at my place in Chennai for the past 3 days. This night, he left for Dharmapuri, where our home is. This is a strange feeling I have felt for him. I seem to miss him now.

When I was a kid, I used to worship him. Going around wherever he goes, doing whatever he does. I would never leave his side when he was home for the weekend. He used to work somewhere far away, and my mother used to run the house.

Through our lives we have seen each other in many perspectives. I have him as the proud father whenever my sister won a medal. She was an athlete in her school days. I have made him proud too. And we just used to adore them.

I guess things go wrong between fathers and sons when sons go out into the world. They see the vices of the world and practice some of them, and see the same in the fathers also. Then the super human image of dads just fades away. After which I am an adult and my father is an old man.

Things started going wrong between us when I was graduating. My father was becoming steadily a drunkard. My mom was breaking down into alternating fits of hysteria and depressions, though I think she managed things extremely well for a middle aged lady. I got into my post graduation and went away to hostel. My dad has a heart attack, then the bypass. Then the second heart attack, then the onset feebleness.

I am still unable to accept my father as being unable to beat me in arm wrestling. My arms are a sorry excuse for a full grown man’s. Slowed down. Absent minded. This cant be possible. Will I be like this someday? How would I look?

When you send off an old man, a person who has suffered for his actions, who is still suffering, who is still fighting to come to terms with his present physical and mental exhaustion, what would you feel? You will feel scared at the vision this offers. There will be a day when I will be emotionally alone. When I will be unable to connect with the age and the generation. When I will a fool at using the “in” gadgets. When I will be scared of trusting my reflexes. When I will be feeble. When I will be senile. What would I feel then?

I wandered lonely as a cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

Memories

Memories never fade away,
Never melting into the dark.
Restraints forced into sway
Smother just its spark.

Tipped toward the earth
Is today’s harsh reality.
Launched toward the sky
Is yesterday’s lost vanity.

Sometimes time wanders along
In meandering, unending monotony.
Then memories awaken from beyond
The conscious mind’s soothing melody.

Love is best made and squandered.
Wars are best fought and regretted.
Beauty is best sought for and detested.
Life is best lived and remembered.

Disorganized

I am disorganized, in everything I do, everyday.

I drove my car, oops, my company car into the bumper of a bus this morning. I drove it to Trichy from Madurai. I left my luggage in the boot, and I forgot to take it out. Now the car is at the tinker’s shop and I am unable to find him!

I ordered for 10 passport size photos to apply for a driving license, but I haven’t got it from the studio for about 10 days.

My bus to Chennai tonight starts at 11 pm. I am still sitting in the dealership, not knowing how to kill the 4 hours in between.

I haven’t booked tickets for my travel next week.

I haven’t put money into my other bank account. A cheque could bounce in a couple of days.

I am getting married in January, but I don’t seem to have the money to pay for the big wedding. I could end up borrowing money. I haven’t saved in 5 months.

I feel like having a cup of tea now. But I am not going!

Law against violence on women

Its big news on the channels that are the mouthpieces of the moderate Indian. NDTV, CNN IBN, Times Now. It’s the new law against violence on women.

Advantages:

1. This is a civil law, hence no criminal procedures involved. No need to show bruises scars and other physical evidence, usually necessary to file an FIR
2. Law applies to women in general – the wife, any woman residing in a house and even a live in partner
3. Law applies to physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and any other form of intimidation and subjugation of a woman’s dignity
4. If the ruling of the civil court is not adhered to, then criminal action may be initiated by the complainant

Disadvantages:

1. The woman has the option of staying on in her marital home
2. How does one assure the woman of security other than rendering a threat of criminal proceedings, which is not working and hence has brought forth this law?
3. As is always the case, even our criminal courts are slow, civil courts have redressed/judged cases for decades

The channels are doing a stellar job by highlighting the law and actually urging women who are facing abuse to take advantage of this new enactment. The startling news is that woman abuse is not relegated to the lower strata of the society or to any other distinguishable stratum of the society.

I was shocked to see a career woman breaking down in front of the camera because her husband has abused her for 20 years, and she has nowhere else to go. She does not want to leave home because her son would get affected, and hence has not filed a criminal case against her in laws and husband.

I was further more startled to know that parents of even the abused woman usually take the part of the husband, and condemn the woman for bringing family issues to public. The woman is thus cornered, with no one present for emotional support.

Education to women is being promoted to make the Indian woman independent, to protect her against social evil, prejudice, abuse and to provide her with a means to sustain her dignity and livelihood, in case a marriage goes awry. A sound education is necessary to give women the confidence they need to face social injustice.

The reactions to this law, by what I have seen – that social abuse of women is more widely prevalent in India than what is believed to be correct, that is, contained to the lower social strata. And it also shows that our society is still male chauvinistic to the core.

A society is not male chauvinistic because men are dominant. Men are dominant, and will be. It is because women feel meek, helpless and hence resign to their fate of subjugation and daily abuse. Women are not vigorously protective of their rights. This is so because the elders of today still don’t believe in social justice for women. A woman is like this because she is merely a woman, is a simple reasoning.

Women feel weak because they are not being shown otherwise. Many women still prefer to be “home makers” to a career. What will happen if marital life is not a bed of roses ten years from now? Being a house wife is good for the family, but the average Indian house wife watches 10 mega serials a day, has her siesta everyday, has an assured three square meals package all in one combo dish, served in a platter. She forgets how to read and write. Forgets the accounts she studied in B Com. Her skills are focused on making a samosa with as little oil in it as possible. What will she do if marriage is not a bed a roses? She will live on, with the assured combo dish. Is stigma worse than being abused?

Exploitation will happen on the intellectually lazy in the guise of duty. The disadvantaged will always remain so, if they choose to. Walk out if your husband beats you, before he breaks you. The world is bigger than your home. Social revolutions are built on individual instances of courage and not on walls built by the establishment.

I have loved three women till now and in love with the fourth, my fiancé.

I have loved three women till now and in love with the fourth, my fiancé. I still love the other three, and there are times when my heart lingers around them, fond memories and sweet fragrances. I have never hated them, I don’t want bad things to happen to them, and I want them to be happy.

There are instances when life feels like a compromise, when I have given up a relationship for my own and the other’s good, and I still feel like a loser. Tonight I got the invitation for my first love’s marriage. It feels strange, I still want to call her up and ask her to be with me, after 3 long years have passed. Be my woman and be no one else’s. I am feeling sad.

I don’t know if I am being unfaithful to my fiancé. It’s much more complicated than that I believe. I have never figured out this part of me. It gets me mad to try to figure it out.

“Good people also get bad thoughts, but only bad people actually commit bad actions. Good people and bad people are differentiated by actions and not by thoughts. My mind has the propensity to deliberate in every angle that any person would conspire to act. I am better in my ability to ponder, and yet do what in my right mind is the right thing to do.” I read this somewhere and I bought it.

I think I am doing the right things in life by deciding to be married to a simple girl. I have agreed to be an ox, lugging the load of a family through life. I can’t have a better life.

Sogathai maraithen uyir vali poruthen…..
Suyathai ethuvo suttathadi vandhen……

Oru nalil - Pudhupettai

Oru naalil valkai ingay yengum oodi pogathu
Maaru naalum vanthu vittal thunbam thedi thodaRadhu..
yethanai koodi kanneer mann mithu vizhunthirukkum
athanai kanda pinum boommi ingu poo pookum
ohh ohh ohh...kaaru vassal vittu vantha naal thootu
ohh ohh ohh...oru vassal thediyae villaiyaattu
ohh ohh oh...kann thiranthu paarthal pala koothu
ohh ohh ohhohoo...kann moodi kondaaal...
ohh ohh ohho
(Humming)

Porkalathil piranthu vittom vanthadhavai ponnavai varutham illai..
kaattinilay vazhgindrom murkkalin valli ondrum maranam illai..
irutinilay nee nadakayillai un nizhallum unnai vittu villagividum..
nee mattum thaan intha ullagathilay unakku thunnai yendru villainge_vidum..
theeyodu pogum varaiyiL theerathu intha thanimaii..
kaarai varum neram paarthu kappalil kaathirupom..
yerimalai vanthal kooda yerri nindru poRz thoduppom..
ohh wow woow...andha Dheva ragasiyam purigirathey
ohh wow woow...ingu yethuvum nillayilai karaigirathey
ohh wow woow...manam veytaa veyiLilay aalagigirathey
ohh wow woow...andha Kadavulai kandaaL
wow wow oohh..

adu yennakku ethu unnakku ithayangaL podum thani kannakku..
aval yennakku ival unnakku udalgalum podum puthir kannakku..
unnakkum illai inthu yennakkum illai paadaiththaavaanai ingu yedduthu kollvan..
nallavar yaar ada kettavar yaar kadaisiyiL avanay mudivu seyivaan..
pazRi podum ullagam ingay balliyanna uyirgal yengayaay..
ullagathiL Oram nindru athanaiyum paarthirupom..
nadapavai nadagam yendru namum senndhu nadithirupom..
ohh wow wow...pala mugangaL vedum seri maatikollvom
ohh wow woow...pala thirupam theyriyum adhil thirumbikollvom
ohh wow woow...Kathai mudiyum pokkil athai mudithikollvom
ohh wow woow...Maaru piravi vedumaa...
ohh wow woow...
(Humming)

Where to now Krishna?

The world spins on and on
As I tramp on in life listless.
Time turns the world bygone
To art enduring and ageless.

History’s mortals stand up tall,
Amid us, todays impudent dwarfs.
Can we ever beat the glorious past’s call?
Today seems equally an image morphed.

Where do I get my bearings right
When my compass fights for its poles?
The other one within often sets me alight
With passions that set me free to the devil.

Tomorrow’s visions seem enough
To push me off the endless precipice.
The run toward what is this life
But toward endlessness of form?

Pure love has come over in swells.
The spirit broke only to mend.
Buried, but game for the recall.
Now what is this calm in my mind?

Depressed

When Love is finished
What solace is a woman.
When Beauty is painful
What comfort is content.

Bright sunshine turns cold
At my sight that looms ominous
To the beholder young and old
Is it so vile and bilious?

The fine blooms on the bower
At once turn coarse and sour,
At my sight they do cower
My eyes their tears pour.

Save me oh God from this love.
Is there a clean, poor hearth?
A solitary, quiet, dark cove?
It is peace in love’s dearth.

Elections – No Bar

Been a long day today. A day full of sales calls, stone quarries and customers, calls from my fiancé, parents, boss, colleagues, travel and sweat. Believe me, one world, a few people and one mobile phone can make a man go stark raving.

I retire to my hotel room after 12 hours of work, eager to get a refreshing drink at the bar, at about 7.30 pm.

No one is answering the phone in the in house bar. I call up the reception to find out why. “Day after tomorrow is the day of elections, sir. No liquor as per government order.”

I ask him if he can serve me in my room itself, he says a flat no. I am left wondering why I must not drink today. Who decided that my thirst for a drink today is abusive to the nation’s sovereignty?

They say very popularly nowadays “vote for your rights, else shut the trap”. Citizen journalism. Lok Paritran. What is all this? Is it my fault that a lot many fools sell their right in exchange to a pint of country liquor? Cant a man drink in peace? Oh can’t a man drink today in peace?

They say “think from the social perspective”. How many of us haven’t taken a cutting chai from a road side shop from a kid as young as 4 years old? Oh what can man change his destiny to, other than to a different form of death? Then what futility are nations, elections and victories other than castrated vanities seeking refuge in a mass of matter due to their lack of intellectual space and density? Ideas and institutions are formed for other people by people who translate their internal quandary into empirical notions.

Fuck all this!!!

Oh I am raving for a drink today! Wish I was carrying a hip flask full of scotch! Merci!

Where are we headed?

Today, I had to stand in a government office in chennai for 4 hours. The whole place was physically stinking of urine and rotting paper, not to mention the other stench from the system itself. Moist walls, dingy furniture, lazy looking people.

We had to get a paper signed by a big shot bureaucrat. Something of enormous economic interest for our company and to some extent in tax revenues for the government. As is usual in India, there was a broker. A sleek, smooth talker, with all the right connections, always dressed like a plain clothed policeman.

The private sector is used to working at better speeds than the government. We want to get things signed and cleared fast. The sole work of the government employees seems to be in slowing down the whole thing to a point, where there are enormous losses and thus to extort more money for a routine process of paper work.

There are two types of kick backs:
1. for doing something wrong or unlawful
2. for doing what is called your job responsibility

The former can exist anywhere, in any country since it is dependent on one man’s moral disposition or depravity or desperation. Anyone can commit such a crime out of simple needs. It need be out of greed, but out of pure necessity.

The number 2 (!) thrives in our country. What do you do when I want my client to pay me money for supplying him this month with N number of trucks, when my only goddam work is to just supply trucks? The person who is my boss then will ask money from me for me to carry on doing this. Then his boss, then his boss….

The system is rotting. India, they say is emerging into a major global power through economic growth, robust fundamentals (no one I am sure knows what that means), and a general euphoria that India is hot and happening. Our nation is growing, yes, economically. India is being invested in because of the following reasons:

1. low manpower costs
2. average to good manpower quality
3. an alternative to the leftist Chinese – more security in the longer term
4. English is popular – a robust educational network and universal content
5. the Indian government is ready to be proactive in policy making to bring in investment
6. a resultant consumer market that is maturing slowly into a buyer’s market – a boon for any company with a lot of products, technology and money
7. to sum it all up “a better cost benefit proposition”

Walmart wants to come in. Nokia is already in. IBM is big. Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, Mitsubishi, a thousand other companies from a hundred different industries have successfully set up shop in India.

What we fail to notice here are the following factors:

1. corporates just choose to work around the red tape and slime
2. the attitude is that “get the work done, whatever it takes”
3. what happens when the advantages stated above are not unique to India anymore?


When Brazil or say Egypt offer the very same advantages as India today, which many nations will in the not too distant future, where will we stand then?

Today, land acquisition costs very less in India, so it makes sense to bribe a politician to get the work done. What happens when it is not the case?

There is always a tipping point. Things will slide after that, no matter how well glued. When will we reach this tipping point? 10 years? 20 years?

India cannot grow in the real sense if it does not address the issue of corruption. This can be done only through transparency, centralization and deregulation. India is growing in terms of factories, software companies and refineries, through a better economic proposition rather than a sustainable set of ethics.

India’s cost of corruption is being built into the costs that customers pay for goods and services. No one notices this.

Old Dog

Near my home, there is a tea shop and a Tiffin center. There is a resident dog on the pavement nearby. It’s an old female, without teeth. It keeps shivering when it sleeps. No not shivering, it is like convulsions reverberating through the whole of its body. It never makes any movements other than to look for food in the garbage nearby.

It’s a beige color, its coat. Its tail is always sagging. It looks slovenly, lazy, devoid of all activity. One can either see it sleeping or lying down doing nothing. Dogs have nothing to do anyways. But still this dog seems to be doing nothing at all.

One evening, I had stopped by for coffee at this shop. I got the coffee and turned around to see this dog wagging its tail at me. There was even a smile on its face, alternated by its convulsions. I could see the whole of its gaping mouth without teeth, and my heart was instantly moved. I thought it was hungry and so I decided to do something about it.

I went into the Tiffin center and got a cake for Rs. 2.50, it smelled nice and was very soft too. I had the temptation of eating it myself, but I went back and held it forward for the dog to grab it. Its attitude now was completely changed. It looked at me coolly, sniffed at the cake and stepped back with an insulting look, though looking pathetic with its nodding head and convulsive body.

I thought it was afraid of me and so I laid the cake down and went back to my bike. The dog came back, sniffed at the cake again and you know what, it sauntered away, with a flourish of arrogance and started wagging its tail at someone else. I murmured, “Bitch!”

I was totally stupefied by such behavior. It set me thinking too. I thought may be the dog wanted some scratching behind its ears or a gentle pat. But can it be? May be it had a case of amnesia, where it forgot what it had asked for some time back. Who would know? May be it did not like the cake! Yes, it did not like the cake. It might have even puked after eating that cake from this shop. Who knows! A kid nearby was eating some cream biscuits, and its charms moved the kid too. It was eating a sweet, cream biscuit after 2 minutes. Superciliousness, I can understand, but from a street dog?

Wanderlust!

Wanderlust

“All move away!
Hurry, make way!
Here comes me along
On to where I belong.”

Thirsty was my flittering spirit,
Rising from the trodden past.
In my blood was speed
“Romp ahead, my arrogant steed.
I’ll reach those gardens yonder
Where my heart, alone, wander.”

The Gods rolled me out the mellows
The stars led me out of the shadows.
The light paved the road toward harmony.
The throttle showed me to every possibility.
Free I was to sleep under any bough.
Futile were storms that rent and blew.

Then, the ride a fair maiden partook.
Poetry her fragrance and laughter spoke.
Love my parched lips boldly stole.
Proud, I slid down the mossy stile.

I said I would never compromise
Though living with many a surmise.
Hope was redundant yet pressing.
Faith was alive yet dying.

“I’m not where I am now.
I’m not what I am now.
I’m not where I used to be.
I’m not what I used to be.
I’d wandered unmolested by man.
I’d been a free man.”

A thousand births I have since died.
A thousand deaths to be so reclaimed?
A silent night moonless rendered
Is a man’s loving when smothered.
Have nature and growth ever pondered?
So is love even when wistfully rejected.

To “The Wanderlust” – 2003 – 2005 & “TN 33 S 7403”

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

A Time to Change

Its time for another change now. I am leaving Vijayawada for good, to go to Chennai. A different company, a different city, a different life.

It feels good that I am going to my home state. I have always wanted to work in a metro, for the exposure and the opportunity it offers, if not for the company and entertainment value.

I have sort of found a place to live. I have to get used to traveling 17kms to office everyday, from my 1.5 kms now in Vijayawada. I have to wash my own clothes. I have to be thrifty with water. I have to start saving, this I dun no how! I have to learn a lot.

The past year has taught me a lot. Through all the deprivations and solitarian explorations, I have pondered and drilled deep down into my mind. I am more self-reliant now. I now don’t need anybody for my sake alone. No one needs to support me. I am self-sustainable, though I am still not viable to operate financially!

I have learned a new language, the language of my forefathers. I have learned to live in a different culture and still remain original. I don’t mind wearing an odd red tee shirt, but overall, I am still suave, in sense and form.

Whenever I leave a place forever, I have always felt a pang of sentimental and/or genuine regret. This time, I am only too happy to be going from this place. May be I will miss it later, but now I am happy.

Farewell Vijayawada!

So long, boy you can take my place
Ive got my papers, Ive got my pay
So pack my bags and Ill be on my way
To yellow river

Put my gun down, the war is won
Fill my glass high, the time has come
Im going back to the place that I love
Yellow river

Yellow river
Yellow river is in my mind and in my eyes
Yellow river
Yellow river is in my blood, its the place I love

Got no time for explanations
Got no time to lose
Tomorrow night youll find me sleeping underneath the moon
At yellow river

Cannon fire lingers in my mind
Im so glad that Im still alive
And Ive been gone for such a long time
From yellow river

I remember the nights were cool
I can still see the water pool
And I remember the girl that I knew
From yellow river

Escape

I could go on like this…..
Toward the dawn, toward light,
On my steed black, in flight.
Escape.
The path moulds to my fickle heart’s amour.
My horse asks for distance ever more.
Unwind my destiny, yet wait till faith
Wilts from within my spirit’s flight.
Lend me speed, call I, to the winds.
Drift me on to places, all sorts.

Fallow

~~ Under your feet lies the land, fallow.
Burn those pretences shallow.
Untouched by your hand worthy, shall
These grasses forever wallow?
Under your feet lies the land, fallow.
Burn those pretences shallow. ~~

I am a rock

A winters day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Ive built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Dont talk of love,
But Ive heard the words before;
Its sleeping in my memory.
I wont disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

???

What a compromise life is. My heart is where it is not supposed to be, where I don’t want it to be. And it refuses to come back to me. It does not seek my comfort anymore.

Why must I experience my suffering? Why can’t I suffer through life without knowing? Why can’t I drag through existing like everything else? Why can’t I surrender forever, this pain for comfort?

To love or not to love?

Why do I come across women, who want to keep you, but not love you? Who are not willing to take the responsibility to say a no when a guy proposes? If the guy is not lovable, then how can he be a friend?

What is the meaning of loving as a friend? What is the meaning of loving as a girl friend? What is the meaning of lets just be friends?

Why are narrow understandings and shallow interpretations sullying such golden terms like friendship and love like this? Why do women want to keep a guy, and yet not love him or be committed to him?

Is it because I am like this, I want things in black and white; or is it because I ask for truth from people who cannot furnish it for themselves or me? Am I being over realistic or am I being a simpleton?

Purple Haze

It had been a long day, with all the top bosses swarming down to Bangalore, to give us the pleasure of their wisdom, though unsolicited. The dealers were there too, and it was old wine in a new bottle.

Effectiveness on the field was perceived to be low, and thus we had to go through another round of cleansing and enlightening about the mysterious new gearbox of our trucks, the E2 series is here to stay, and we were discussing or rather being told of the future of the technology. That no one understands the technology is not a point to ponder without some nausea.

Then the dealers left, and the meeting turned into an internal meeting, what with all that went on and on through the day being repeated in the evening. We were let go at 8 pm, from the Leela Palace, apparently a 7 star hotel. I stole all the nice, black pencils that had been kept for our use. I need not buy pencils for a decade now, at the most conservative estimate of my rate of usage of pencils.

I have a colleague in Hyderabad, Karthik, a Tamilian, who earlier worked for Tata. He is from Bangalore. Both of us decided to go get some beer after all this hulla had gotten over. He suggested the Purple Haze. We landed there.

Once the door opened, I was literally hit by the music, smash across my face. Audioslave! We found a couple of seats at the bar counter and ordered beer. We were the only guys in formals that evening, and everyone gave us a desultory glance for our liberty.

It all started off fine with me. The music was great and the beer was good. The people were young and there was a strange sensation within me. Then I started swinging. My head was darting forward and back. And with a pitcher guzzled and with the music, I finally had got to a high.

Then it was a maelstrom of the nirvana’s, erasmus’ and the what nots. Another pitcher and it was getting late and the tempo changed to some slow music. Altogether that night, I had drunk 2 pitchers and 2 rounds of my favorite scotch, nothing much by my standards. I manage to guzzle more at my place with Jagjith Singh, Farida Khannum and Abida Parveen.

We somehow got to our hotel rooms, and the next day I woke up with pain at the back of my neck. Head banging, something I am not used to. But it was an amazing evening. In a pub after a long time. But I had never been to a theme pub before. I rocked!

Strange(r)

In the dark journey through last night
I had traversed a 1000 miles.
I had come to a different land
From a different land, a stranger
From stranger parts, with strange
Wisdom, with a strange look.
The world is watchin me,
The world is watchin me….
I gaze back, lost, crouched within
I gaze back, lost, crouched within….
I am a stranger, I am a stranger,
They tell me yet again, when
I had just stood tall among men.
A stranger I say is nothing,
A stranger I say is nothing….
What good could you do?
When no one knows you?
What good can happen to you?
When no one knows you?
Oh love, no one knows me here.
They say I am dark within
My deception is glaring thin.
My grave would weep they say
To hold me when I sleep….
For they say, I enjoy my pain
My pain is my design, they accuse.
Oh love, tell them they are wrong….
What good could you do?
When no one knows you?
What good can happen to you?
When no one knows you?
Oh love, no one knows me here.

On a high those times.....

I was on a high those times.
I had a woman by me, and
The world seemed easy.
She did nothing more than
Make me a mirror out of myself.
She did nothing more than
Soothe those anxious worries.
She wasn’t of much help otherwise
Than to lend some light to the nights.
She could care less, than to ask
For an effort out of my laziness.
She did nothing more than
Love me for my sake folks.
She did nothing but let me know
That I was a man in my right.
She did merely inspire my vanity
To become a gentleman.
She did nothing but court my
Conscience with devotion pure.
I was on a high those times.
I had a woman by me, and
The world seemed easy.

Wish you were here....Pink Floyd

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Hope

Dil na ummed tho nahi, naakam hi tho hai,
Lambi hai gham ki shaam, magar shaam hi tho hai,

yeh safar bahut hai katin magar,
Na udhas ho mere humsafar,

yeh sitam ki raat hai dhalne ko,
hai andhera gham ka pighalne ko,
(Jara der ismein lage agar)

Na Udhas ho mere humsafar,

Nahi rehnewaali yeh mushkile,
hai yeh agle mood pe manzile,
(meri baat ka tu yakeen kar)

Na udhas ho mere humsafar,

Kabhi dhood lega ye karwa,
Woh nayi jameen naya aasman,
(Jisse dhoodti hai teri naazaar)

Na udhas ho mere humsafar ...

One Phone Policy

I am going back on my 2 phone policy. I have an office phone and I have a personal phone, to make personal calls.

In February, I could not pay the bill for the Reliance number, because the bill exceeded 6k. I am not able to receive calls in that phone for the past month, and no one has asked why it has been so. Showing that I am talking to people and people are not talking to me.

So from today on, I will stop being a pest, and take care of myself. People who have to talk will talk, wont they?

Eat Well Restaurant, Benz Circle, Vijayawada

I landed in Mumbai on the 1st of may. Was received by Abe Varghese, went to his room, met Saravana Kumar, another classmate of mine. Found 2 other nice roomies of these guys there, Vishal and Akash.

In the afternoon, Abe wanted to buy a Swatch. So we decided to go to a mall called In Orbit Mall, in Malad. In terms of size, the mall was ok ok. But the ambiance created by the people simply dumbfounded me.

This was the first time I had been to the hep Mumbai. Else it would be a short visit to all tourist places. Women and men dressing so well. Such taste, such style, such physical beauty. And the people generally seem to carry off their styles and fashions very well. Wherever I turned, I could see opulence, indulgence. What else would you call having a vending machine coffee for 25 rupees inside the mall, when it is 5 rupees in every railway station?

I got a bit intimidated by all this. We had lunch there at the mall. I got a quarter portion of mutton biryani for 120 rupees, ended up spending a cool 300 rupees for a lunch for 2 people. Things are so costly. Cost of anything that is not at MRP is 3 times more than what you can get in Chennai or Vijayawada, or for that matter even Bangalore.

It beats me why things must be so costly. The land is worth many crores, each shop pays a rent in lakhs or crores. But why? Its better for me to call Eat Well Hotel, near Benz Circle, Vijayawada for my standard menu à 1 chicken b/l curry, 3 rotis and 1 curd rice for exactly 92 rupees with assured excellent, but unscientific CRM. Life is so much easier this way.

Morals

It got really hot in Vijayawada last night. So much that I could not sleep at all the whole night. Sweat was pouring down me by the bucketfuls. I tried taking bath twice during the course of the night, but to no comfortable end. It sweated more.

It was 4.30 am and I could stand it no longer. I decided to go out to have a cup of coffee. You have to wear those bloody helmets at all times you ride a motorcycle here in Andhra. Just the other day I paid a fine of Rs. 100 at 5.30 am in the morning! So I thrust my wet head into the helmet and set out to drink some coffee.

There was a gentle breeze, and I felt revived under its caresses. I decided to hit the highway to Guntur, my favorite road. I kept riding for about 45 min at slow speed, enjoying the cool air. My back was aching from the lack of sleep, but I was not tired. My spirits were high. The headlight beams of the trucks were amusing to see in the slight fog that was enveloping the morning. The sun was just about permeating through the murky indifference of the night that was giving up so easily, as happens at this time of the year.

I decided to stop at a motel, in plain terms nothing more than a dhaba, with some cots and chairs lying dispersed by the side of the highway that was getting busier by the moment. An attendant, who turned cold only when I did not want breakfast, but just coffee, greeted me with a cold nod. I got the coffee, and I went around to another small shop to get some matches.

I was lighting my cigarette when I heard a lady’s voice asking for a cup of tea. I turned around wondering what a woman could be doing at such a place at this time. She was about 35 years of age, slightly plump, with long hair and flowers longer than them. She was wearing a very shiny saree that was but a cheap imitation of silk. Her face was all powdered; she smelled of some inexpensive perfume, her lips were colored by a shade of red that could be termed too bright.

It took some time for me to come to terms with the sight of the woman I was seeing. It took only a moment to distinguish her as someone who sells sex. I instinctively walked toward my bike, as if it could shelter me from my own notions of being near such a lady in a public setting. I felt more secure near the motorcycle.

The cold attendant never turned toward her, and she had to ask for her cup of tea more than 5-6 times, when there was no other customer to be served. The shopkeeper was just ignoring her. She then produced some coins as payment. The former satisfied as to the prudence of giving her some tea, gave it to her in the end.

I noted that there was a downcast countenance about the woman. Her eyes were nearly wet by the time she had got her cup of tea. Her face was distorted by some torment that could be discerned even in the dull setting.

I observed that there was some audio playing on a loudspeaker. It was a local made drama in Telugu, with obscenities, as would no parent warrant their children to be afflicted with. Pointed deliberations about embarrassing things, double meaning phrases. There was general laughter at some of the jokes by the truckers present and having an early breakfast.

Sex was being downgraded, sullied and sold. The person who sells it is never happy. The person who buys it is never satisfied. The onlooker is always disgusted, though one may feel all the sympathy for the woman. What is a primal need for an animal is still a primal need for man. Man has grown no more than a dog in morality, though we can state fancy phrases and concepts as accepting prostitution as a necessary evil for the society. We have grown intelligent.

The society maintains its propriety; the individual need not lose morality. For some actions can be classed as necessarily immoral, but can be ignored to avoid the sex drive of men being turned toward adultery and its complications. Aren’t dogs better in morals? They haven’t claimed to possess morals, have they? Prostitution is only an indicator of one individual’s moral decadence? No.

It is the outcome of a moderation of values that is required to make a system work. It is the systematic and cold-hearted work of ingenuity worth our applause. Give a man some easy thrills and he will never question the system. His unfathomable moral gravity will feed him with opium and put him to a guilty, yet tranquil sleep. The greater cause of a group of people or a family can thus be won too.

Feed a country with cheap liquor and opium, there will be no revolution for a hundred years. Feed a man with some thin layer of accession over his actions, and he will not mind complying with another set of morals questionably not his own. When will we grow up? When will we be perfect?

The Night Spent

Would you care to come?
When I sleep in my home, alone.
There is only deathly silence now
In a mind that was tilled by love’s plough.
I have played the wonderful game
When like the breeze cold you came
To ascend to my summit of caring.
Never even in my dreams daring
Did I ever see my future with you.
Yet this heart listens not to you
Nor it waits for me for direction.
It soars alone to you, void to the discretion
Of my mind that needs only this silence.
The blood of the cold night was spilt
On the carpet of the morning’s warmth felt.
Would you fell this bout of masquerading?
Would you go farther and be my dearest?

Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen

I was bruised and battered and I couldn’t tell
What I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
I saw my reflection in a window I didn’t know
My own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me
Wastin´away
On the streets of philadelphia

I walked the avenue till my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of philadelphia

Ain’t no angel gonna greet me
It’s just you and I my friend
My clothes don’t fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip the skin

The night has fallen, I’m lyin’awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of philadelphia

The Dance of the Nymphs

Vanity Fair

“It is not that speech of yesterday,” he continued, “which moves you. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not learned in that time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? I know what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can’t feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have won from a woman more generous than you. No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. I will bargain no more: I withdraw. I find no fault with you. You are very good- natured, and have done your best, but you couldn’t—you couldn’t reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. Good-bye, Amelia! I have watched your struggle. Let it end. We are both weary of it.”

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and declared his independence and superiority. He had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She didn’t wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.

Nothing much seems to change!

Nothing much seems to change!
She sat there, looking at the sea.
The bows were swaying lest
Her brows break a sweat disturbing.
The lapping waves were gentle on the pier
Lest a drop of them touches her skin silky.
The birds were quiet, unusually,
May not their flapping break this moment for me.
Seems they were moved too to rapture then.
I had a seen a perfect picture alive.
She turned around and our souls met.
I made her mine and it became perfection.
I knew not what the look meant.
The bleakness of the lone shore was gone,
The yearnings seem to have fled to where
I was headed. Toward a perfect love.
Yes, she loves you, you vastness, I know.
You will live to feel it again, while I will go.
To the next life, away this one fulfilled.
It is dullness now, it is dullness now.

Was it you?

Who lent fire to my wings?
When I was an ugly duckiling,
Paddling hard below the waterline.
When I was awkward and shy
To fly, to explore and to express.

I am now a falcon, that
Roves the skies in proud loneliness
The sky too big for its strength
The earth too low to fly about.
The roar of the winds yet sways it not.

The sea is too wide for this ship.
Yet it chugs on its course straight
The dawns and the dusks occur on it
As late as nature ordains a change.
The storms never have their say.

This vista never changed but, for ages.
The same gliding beauty across the
Vast plain made live by the deep river.
The beholder far across on the horizon
Never noticed to protest the dull skyline.

But the book keeps the poetry flowing.
The verses never wavered in purpose.
You keep occurring in them
Like the sun and the moon,
Lighting up those bleak passages.

Was it you then?

The Dusk's Doing

I was riding down the slippery road
When I thought to compose this ode.
The sun was setting into the abyss
When I realized my heart amiss.
The flies were all around, with
The dance seeking the light of death.
Life was all around me, rejoice galore.
Another day stolen from the embracing
Goddess of death, escaped bracing.
The drizzle was talking to me verses
My lips were singing the praises
My hands were raised to salute
The music that flowed from the flute.
Oh what beauty I saw in the dusk.
To the heavens my heart bounds
When pray the mind is unbound.
Isn’t it all in the mind
Our world and our way?

A Parting from the World

What would the world say
When it finds out?
The years would’ve flown by
I would be among the winds scattered.

My duplicity was not unique.
Never do trust their words, I tell
The child being told my story.
They would have made me an example.

My conceit was not uncultivated.
They all shaped me thus through
A force I could resist in vain.
Who would believe one who is guilty?

My vanity was never out of place.
The teachers applauded my arts,
My peers cheered my tastes.
Who would have seen the rent soul within?

My blindness was but an adaptation.
I, then, saw only the agreeable
I was just being comfortable.
Would the ignored tolerate?

My mask of chastity was for approval
From the world that questions me thus,
Amidst a thousand others’ anonymous.
Can I just go unrepentant?

My actions were reactions
To what was spread on my table.
The sweet & the bitter I took up.
Would my innocence be forgiven?

Oh, let me not stop, for I have braved
To tell my truth now.
I have lived in & not with the world.
I go, hence, to my repose, whence I come.

Onward I would march

The silent breeze that rustles the
Bleak tree, my hair too, it ruffles,
Like the tender caress of my love
And so the evening ended
In a note of fondness.

It had been shortened, time,
By thoughts and music of you.
What is not yours, love.
This evening is but a small consign
To reflect on your perfection.

My path has been alight,
But I have trusted your eyes.
My mind never sought refuge
From the stinging sold deluge.
What kindness is wrought
From your shaping touch.

The directions lose bearing when
The heart seeks your presence.
The oceans would seem silly
If they were to bar my way.
Onward I would march,
Onward I would march…..

Repairing an Electric Stove

We say I am bad mechanic. I am bad at numbers. I am bad at cooking. I am the worst driver ever. I would like to narrate something that has disproved that I am bad at repairing things.

I have this electric stove at home. It has heating coils, which heat up when the power is turned on. It suddenly stopped working last month, I did not know why. I really felt like cooking and having homemade food, but was forced to eat out.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was hungry, and I had to do something about it. So I decided to repair the stove. I have a decent set of tools at home, though I never use them.

The whole underside of the stove was rusted and the screws were all jammed. I first oiled them, found the right spanner and screwdriver, and slowly opened it. It was after all a very simple apparatus. It just had a connection leading from the plug socket to the heating coils.

I carefully opened the socket, which had a lot of small screws and nuts. I made sure that I put the nuts and the bolts together after taking them out, lest I should lose them. I took the coils out, which were wound around a base of non-conducting material.

And I found that a soldering had gone off from one of the end terminals. If I put the coil in contact with the end terminal, the stove would work again. I don’t have a soldering iron at home. So I open the end terminal and I just tied the coil’s end around the screw.

Half the job was done. Now I had to put it all together. This is the most difficult part. Now you have to remember, and also use common sense and a lot of thinking in general. For its too easy to dismantle, but really difficult to undo a dismantling.

But I managed to do it, because the whole thing was organized properly after I had dismantled the stuff. The last of the things assembled, and I switched on the stove. And yes, success. It worked again. The coils were glowing orange.

Now I forgot to do one thing. I had used oil to loosen the rusted screws. I forgot to wipe the oil off. Now the coil was burning because of the oil. Dumb as I was, contrary to the dexter I had been during the past hour, I poured water on the flames that were growing. And you know what happened? I got an electric shock, and the fuse went off. No power at home!

Then I had to change the fuse in the main fuse carrier, then wipe the whole stove clean of water and oil, and then I made rice, then I made a spicy curry. And at 4 am, I was feasting on some well-deserved food!

So I wouldn’t agree as a fact that I am not good at anything. Just that I take the time to do things that I think I am good at. For the others, I just don’t take the time. An idiot is lazy, to think. A fool is someone who thinks he cannot do something he wants to do.

The Complexcess!

I have seen many people, wonderful, intelligent and charming and so much more, being cowed down with various inhibitions. And the worst among them is that about the body. It is awkward, but the easiest to overcome, because it is merely about something physical.

This feeling gets deeply etched in the mind when people who we depend on, like our parents or siblings reinforce the compliments made by the rotten souls.

It takes a lot to see beauty. And it takes a lot more to appreciate it. Believe me, there are a lot of inhibitions to appreciate beauty. We may sometimes feel that we are compromising ourselves in the eyes of others by calling something beautiful that we think is so. So to buy a shirt of red color, I have to be brave! To go out with someone, I have to be bold enough. The world thinks it is entitled to make opinions. So much is at stake, for this is Vanity Fair.

The gorgeous displays at the shop windows, parlors and boutiques, they all seem to reflect the perfection that man can create. But there is another dimension too to this. They seem to symbolize the symmetry that man is not endowed with bodily. Such things can be shopped, and made to adorn us. Such as fancy phrases, fancier clothes, anything that seems to elevate our pride.

Whence came this need to satisfy, and gain approval? What else is at stake but our vanity? Is this vanity so powerful that it will stop us from being our own self, for some assumed identity?

Yes, this thingy is powerful, especially since we have seen to what extent people will go, the things they could do, the words they could use, the airs they could throw, the level to which they can stoop, to gain approval. To be seen as “cool”. Liposuction. Piercing. Tattoos. Anorexia nervosa. Fuck man. Hey Dude. A lot of other nonsense.

In this fair of sorts, it takes a lot of character to be actually beautiful. It takes a lot more of character to actually feel beautiful. Such people are the gentle giants among us. Who are the grace that shines on our brows. They bring forth the smiles, and the happiness. Whose mother is not beautiful? Whose best friend is not the most handsome? Isn’t a girl that the guy loves the most beautiful woman in the world?

Vanity so sickens us thatg we all want to be the handsome or the gorgeous. Wanting to seem beautiful for a few people is healthy. But wanting to be omnipotent in charm and agreeableness is sickness. I would rather be me.

Apathy

I was in Vizag last week on work. I had just had a sumptuous lunch, and was standing outside the restaurant with a colleague.

We saw a group of children ambling along the platform, dirty and ragged. There was much commotion among them because the eldest and the tallest among them, a kid of about 6-7, leading an infant monkey by a leash. The leash itself was not looking inviting to be tied up with, made of very coarse material. The neck of the primate was bruised and red from its bondage.

The child was being admired for having such a plaything, by the other younger children. And the child was no exception at getting carried away. He tried to lift up the monkey by its leash. The monkey was choking. So it grabbed the child’s leg, refusing to let go, in mortal fear.

The boy construed this as disobedience, and seemed to be angered. He grabbed a stick, a sort of plywood, and started hitting the monkey on its head. Of all places, its head. The head itself was as small as a cricket ball. To hit it. He was doing it with the sharp edge of the weapon.

The animal started squealing. It was like an appeal for help. I could not hold it longer, and advanced menacingly toward the boy, scolded him for being cruel. He got scared, and tied the leash to a fence and got busy with some other amusement.

The monkey itself was contented to be left alone. Nobody would know when it had been given something to eat.

I was feeling pretty disturbed by this scene. I could not still understand why somebody would injure something so harmless and delicate.

A few minutes later, the whole troupe of the people started begging to people who were coming out of the restaurant. The watchman at the hotel started asking them to go away. They wouldn’t. An argument started between the watchman and a young woman with an infant.

She was dark, very lean, and probably not more than 25 years old. She was starting to shout at the watchman, and he hit her on her face. She never backed off, and the children of the group were raising a din over the whole thing. Other families that engaged in begging somehow managed to take the woman and the children away. The woman did not cry, but was enraged and wounded, and still had the pride not to break down at her destitution.

Now I seemed to understand the cruelty of the child. He was seeing his mother being beaten up, and for what? A notion called Opulence. He was trying in vain to defend her, by shouting. And no good man was there to say a favorable thing in their defense, when even a monkey had seemed to move one.

Why did I not help the woman? Why did I defend the monkey? Is it because I am an animal lover? Is it because animals are more helpless than humans? Is it because I don’t sympathize with humans?

I am not talking about myself. How many of us would try to save a dog that is being stoned for pleasure? Very few. How many of us will try to help a lame beggar who has tripped? Very very few.

We seem to get scared to touch others. Animals seem less disgusting? No, helping a human is more difficult. If I had helped the woman, I would have to answer the society on a whole, which disapproves of begging. So a beggar can be hit, humiliated or killed. Nobody seemingly needs to question. Compassion takes a back seat to the norms laid by God knows whom.

Whereas think about this. I ask the boy not to hit the monkey. He stops. He ignores it. I am satisfied. People think good of me. I go away. Does the hate in the boy go away? It will come back at what will not retaliate.

Misplaced revenge is cruelty.

So there I was, watching the forgotten monkey, till work called me away. I could have taken away the monkey. I did not. I could have bought the boy a chocolate, and told him to be a good boy from now on. I could have intervened when the man was slapping the woman. I did not. Well, nobody did anything.

They walked away, with their loud and vulgar outbursts.

We all walk away with Apathy.

Hiding

I am hiding.
Within my world.
Unable, unable and unable.
To cope with the vision of perfection.
The world outside lives and celebrates, in vanity
While I turn like I am in my grave.
I am living just like this world.
Nothing more, nothing less.

O’ what do you yearn for my soul?
Is it the rainbow that moves you to joy?
Is it the green pasture that creates raptures?
Is it the love, never to be given?

O’ what do you cry for my child?
Is it the mother that chided you then?
Is it the memory that makes you choke now?
Is it the dream turned sour?

O’ what do you yearn for my man?
Is it the vision denied?
Is it the conceit you detest in you?
Is it the call now being answered?

Grounded

Oh if but my prayers were answered …..
The soul would be perched on the summit of your excellence.
I was in the sky, soaring across the sun,
The world was so far down,
I had wings of fire to top my heart’s spire.
I have run out of inspiration
In this cessation of beauty to my senses.
Its but a world now, small and naïve.
I have been grounded, forever.
I am a mortal again, with small worries
And smaller securities, and stronger bindings.
No longer would I see the stars so close
Or be blessed by a beauty so proud.

Birthday Contemplation

My Birthday Contemplation

Today is my birthday. So I decided to dedicate this little essay to myself, after all I have lived for a quarter of a century.

I was sitting in my balcony last night, and reading. Surprisingly, my music system was quiet, and the air was cool. I suddenly got this urge to listen to one song in particular. It was 11.55 pm.

It was a song by the master Jagjith Singh. I coolly lit a cigarette and sat down on the floor of my room. I started thinking. The moon was shining, unlike the season. And I was moved by a sensation so very new to me.

Here I was, born today, 25 years ago, in some strange place. I was created by love or rather by an act that symbolized love. I had grown in snug intervals, always breaking into the open to find a new path ahead. Sometimes I grew like a newly sprouted seed, and then sometimes I grew into a strong solitary tree, and then sometimes into a creeper that longs for support and will perish in the absence of it.

I was a man now, in every right of the word. I made a living on my own. I aspired for a family of my own. I longed to be loved by women. I longed to create, value and forms. I guess it is so much easier for women to create out of love. The most primitive and highest being bearing a child. But man has to love and explore and create to be satisfied.

In the course of the contemplation, I realized something. I had casually killed a fly that tried to bite me. And I saw many other flies too. The one that I had killed fell limply to the ground, while ants were gathering for a feast. Isn’t it a big cycle? Life feeding on death and death feeding on life. If the both can consume each other, then aren’t life and death the same? The creation of something, maybe love, joy, emotion….

When I live I will create what can be felt now. When I die I will be God. I would have created a new life for the world, by being absent from it. The world would be in a new dimension in the absence of one of its members. I would have reshaped its destiny, even by my death, just as I had altered it by my insignificant birth. I would have escaped from a thousand sorrows, missed a million joys and a multitude of illusions.

Life and death play parallels. Man kills a thousand animals during his lifetime and maybe even a few human beings. Man brings new men into this world, as death simultaneously takes them out of the physical dimension. But where do we all go? Where does death lead us? It cant be that a man dies and its just like a fuse that gets burnt and the electricity just vanishes, lost forever. Life will regenerate into life, even when death play the fiddle close to our ears. Pain will regenerate into pleasure, and pleasure into pain. It’s a big circle, with many concentric circles within, endless. And in the middle is the man, the Supreme Being, with the consciousness and the knowledge of life. He is the perfection towards which our souls move, till deaths do us apart from life. And man will be perfect after death, because death is perfection in our harried souls, the culmination of our strivings and supercilious consciousness

The Going Away

Last night, I was travelling from Chennai. I was sitting in the bogey, waiting for the train to move. It was late in the night, and there was the usual commotion that precedes a long distance train.

Opposite me was a young chap, with crew cut hair and tough built body. He was having a loud farewell from his friends. When the train left, he was kissing their hands, and the scene was emotional for the observer and for the man too.

I learnt from him later that he was a new recruit to the BSF, leaving Chennai for training. He was going away from home, his girl friend and his childhood friends….all that for the first time in his life.

I told him that not everyone gets such a wonderful farewell, and that he was a lucky guy. He disclosed that all the friends who were with him are army aspirants too, and only he among them had gotten selected.

We all grow up after the first time we go away from home. Till then there are traces of the boy, who keeps showing up once in a while, in a playful moment. After that, its all the man stuff all the way. The friends’ circle, the kind of conversations you have, the kind of jokes you crack, your wardrobe, your language, and all your perceptions. For some, this happens at a very early stage, and for these people there is no major adjustment needed in their attitudes. But for people like the guy I am talking about, and for me too, it would take a very major change that will and has happened.

It is amazing this life thing. It makes you go through so many things, and yet people change always for the better for themselves, this is my own opinion.

Pleasure.....

Yesterday, I decided to buy a water heater, and I did just that. After that I went home and heated up some water and soaked my feet in it. I was listening to some music and what indulgence! It felt like warmth was entering through my soles and permeating throughout my body. Then I cut my toenails and massaged my feet with oil. Oh what pleasure! Oh what pleasure!

Then a real hot shower, in candle light. Farida Khannum was glorifying my hedonism with her fleeting voice and wonderful lyrics…. Jab us zulf ki bath chali…the water was steaming, like my senses at that time.

We are all hedonists. We will all the time seek pleasure over pain, not because pleasure is good to feel rather than pain, but because pleasure is such a convenient allegory to the assurance of existence. Pleasure creates a stratum where pain seems too remote to be able to affect us. It is like a veil that hides the undesirable from us, though not fully, but enough to assure us the permanence of its expression.

The expression of pleasure is infinitely more complex than the experiencing of it. More difficult is giving pleasure, i.e., making pleasure happen. That is because, in my opinion, pleasure seeks a finer niche than pain, a finer point to converge upon. Pleasure always occurs in multiple planes, with each plane that is surpassed leading to a higher level and higher sensitivity.

Pleasure seeks a gratification of a sense or a need to fulfill, like water that must flow down, if there is a downgrade. So pleasure exists as an object, shapeless and expressionless, till it finds a channel. Then it flows into the spirit, and starts ruling it while it can, till reality steps in rudely. When reality comes into the picture, we realize that we had been put to sleep by pleasure and this creates guilt and moroseness.

What prevails....

Empty spaces were meant to be filled
By the mighty fires, that start as simmering
Embers in the meadows of Eden.
The vacuum that once drew the molten
Metals together has become greater,
With the fire that died, the metals forever
Remained as distinct as conceived, as they
Fell through into the depths of the earth,
May be to be brought out again, into
Yet another birth and ensuing struggle.
Disparate persons seek a comforting
Fire to come to terms with cold life;
Who go back to the origin of innocence
With the emotions invoked mutually.
There is a calm before a fury,
Agitation before a failure and
Clarity before happiness.
And cold prevails before a fire is needed…
And solitude prevails before love is needed.

The Ghost

I am a fragrance that was
Once lost in the clouds.

I am a god who was
Once revered in silence.

I am an emotion that was
Once denounced as remorse.

I am a meditation that was
Once broken by a breeze.

I am a tree that was
Once trimmed by a woman.

I am a counselor who was
Once dismissed as a mistake.

I am an elixir that was
Once reproached as a malady.

I am a magical potion that was
Once possessed by a few sorcerers.

I am a mystical herb that was
Once shunned as a wound.

I am a truth that was
Once rooted to earthly reality.

I am a book that was
Once read in obscurity.

I am a brook that was
Dammed by invisible walls.

I am a placid lake that was
Once accused of destruction.

I am the universe that was
Once believed to come around the earth.

I am the man who was
Once loved for the complexity.

I am the raging fire that was
Once sought for its warmth.

I am the silence that was
Once the language of the hearts.

I am the music that
Once made the angels sing.

I am the object of life that was
Once conceived as a theory.

I am the reflection of what was
Once an act of love.

I am a thought that
Once met a poet.

I am you who
Once were innocent.

I am the ghost of the day that was
Once your best to remember.

An account

Today, I am down with a fever. So I decided to sit down in office and write an account of my life after I started marketing trucks.

I landed in chennai after a couple of weeks of training at Indore. I was promptly transferred to Andhra, since my name ended with a “lu”! I was back in the land of my mother tongue. I spent a couple of days in Hyderabad, trying to get to know my boss, who always managed to overpower me with smartness! He is one amazingly smart guy. He actually made me buy the story that I would learn more in vijayawada, than in Hyderabad.

So I landed up in vijayawada, one hot night (remember, there is nothing called a non hot night in my “territory”). I am basically comfortable in any place if I know the following things:
1. where is home?
2. where is office?
3. who are my colleagues?
4. how am I going to sell?
5. what am I doing here?

The point was that I did not know any of these! The first time I tried to get an auto rickshaw was hilarious. I told him I wanted to go to such and such a hotel in amazingly unintelligible telugu. The gulti in the driver understood, and offered to talk in English, again so amazingly….. I managed to get the word Governorpet out of my mouth and he understood. The process of getting to understand each other had taken many jeers from other auto drivers, and about 10 minutes!

The next day started with me calling up the person who was supposed to be transferred to Hyderabad, “balu”. He told me to come to the dealer’s office. I put the phone down and I remembered that I did not know where “that” place was. So again I called up and asked him and again an episode of understanding and tolerance from auto drivers.

I realized that classical telugu was nothing but the addition of one “undy” after everybody or everything that has to be addressed with respect. After that everything is understood and forgiven on compassionate grounds.

I got to know that my territory would include 7 districts, having a total of 3 dealers and 5 service points. And I would have to visit each of these atleast once in a week. So I would be traveling, a lot. I decided I had to rent a house, and so tried the papers. No success. My colleague from Hyderabad, murali, came to my rescue. He found a place for me and I fixed up home.

It was particularly difficult the first few weeks. Everything was either hot or hotter or hottest. The wall was hot. The floor was hotter. The water was hottest. And I did not have a bed or a sheet to sleep on. So I slept like I was the freest man ever born. I slept anywhere in the house.

Those first few days were the most difficult. I did not know anyone in the city. I was running short of money, and I did not even have a fan in the house. And I did not have the time also to go and buy a few necessities.

The few things that had been very dear to me were not with me here. I did not have my bike. I did not have any books. I did not have my music system. Everyday, rather every evening was a struggle against loneliness. I had these bouts of wretchedness, which happened when I traveled and I stayed in hotels.

“I was depressed”

Meanwhile, things were going great guns at work. I was coping well and getting on my own feet rather quickly. And work was the only solace for my soul, which seemed to be suspended in the past and in faded memories.

I was calling up a lot of my old friends, every night. I would lament, I would laugh, I would sound confident, and I would sound proud. And all this while I was regularly missing my meals, and was profoundly sweating, always. The good was that I lost a lot of weight.

I did not notice that I was losing weight till I tried an old pair of jeans that used to be very tight. Then I checked my weight, I had gone down by 10kgs!

All this while I was living like a free animal, rather than a free man! That was the comment made by my mother when she visited me for the first time. My home was transformed, by her, into what I could call a homely home. I had a bed, I had sheets on them. And ladies and gentlemen, for the first fantastic time in my life, I had a kitchen of my own.

I love my kitchen and cook everyday if I am in town. I cook what I feel like eating, and I don’t bother to give them any names. I always cook before 11pm, so I can still have food outside if anything goes wrong. Its been a string of success stories all along. I started with rice and noodles. Now I have graduated to all curries, dosas, chapathis and even non vegetarian stuff. I love cooking and shaking it up with some music.

This afternoon I went home to have lunch. I quickly made some vermicelli, had it with some sauce and pickles, and I am feeling full after a cup of milk and an apple. Food is good and so is life!

And the gulti style is catching up with me too. For the first time in my life I got myself an orange coloured tee shirt! And my conversations are interspaced by telugu words. And my friends seem far away. And so is a society. The coffee shop is my only hang out.

I am sure I will go back to my old life, but I am learning here. I can never feel more insecure than when I landed here that first night. I can never feel more nervous than when I sat down for my deal. There are quite a few extremes I have come to this summer. I can say that I have had quite an adventure!

Street of joy

I went walking down a street of joy…
There was laughter all around
Children were playing on the pavement….
There were catcalls and hooting
Youth was being celebrated
Music could be heard from somewhere.
Couples were cuddling up
Families were thankful for the joy
The elderly had a sparkle in their eyes
That wonderful night of festivity.
The sky was filled with bursting light
The city was dazzling in brightness.
I was gazing in awe and
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned around, only to see darkness….
In the path I had walked.
I was alone.

Dancing by the moonlit river

Dancing by the moonlit river
In a trance I was….lost……
The world was spinning its course
Life was spinning its web
And I was lost in a maze.
I gave up to the maze
Conceded my decisions to its designs
Resigned to a fate full of mysterious turns.
Every turn shows me a new world
Every turn changes my attitude
Every Samaritan seems a friend.
In its passages I have lived my life
Passions carving my next turn
And guiding my next principle.
Its walls have given me legends
And poems so beautiful….
I have fallen in love with paintings
On its listless walls.
I have lived for an eternity now…..
I will dance forever….
I will be reborn with the first drizzle….
I am dancing by the moonlit river….

Let one lamp be alight....

Let one lamp be alight, lest we get lost.
Let one door be open, lest everything becomes dark.
Let one hope remain, lest there be despair.

Let it be the beacon to those lonely hearts….
That grope around listless through
Those mazes in the night and
Are blinded by the day.

Lets keep up the vigil till dawn….
When hope sprouts anew,
When a new day shows her promise,
We start anew with vigor and strength.

There would be strength to see
This weak night through….
There would be joy in the strength
As the light would show us the night’s mysteries.

It would show our smile and tears,
Be it in despair and pain or in faith and hope.
And the one lamp would have touched a
Thousand hearts through this dark night.

Let there be music to calm us down,
Let there be wine to warm us up,
Let there be company to cheer us up,
Let there be light to see.

So, let one lamp be alight….

It was an evening like any other….

It was an evening as any other.
Light was dying as any other dusk.
Birds were going back with gay laughter.
The earth was settling down to silence and the night.

We were walking that daily stretch,
Amid a slight drizzle, with the air damp,
The road straight, the moon serene.
I was holding her hand.

There did not seem to be a future….
Nor was there any past to contemplate.
We were not talking, nor were we thinking.
What was present was ease, with ourselves.

There was beauty all around,
In nature and it was reflected through her,
Clarified to purity by her.
There has never been a more beautiful sight.

My mind plays strange tricks on me.
Who had been a strange neighbor for a year,
Had become my dearest, of immense importance.
I had new ideas, I started flowing.

What had been passing glances
Became moments of worship.
What had been a shallow acquaintance
Became a bond of faith and trust.

She was nurturing me, with care,
And I was growing into a man.
I was happy with the trust and the warmth.
My soul was responding to her calls to live.

We decided to turn back,
I caught a whiff of her fragrance.
I knew she was the one chosen.
I could now move mountains.

We walked on….

To be worthy....

Like how an upturned rock reveals moisture,
You have shown me living life.
I have been purged all this time and
I find you standing in meaning like the ultimate truth.
You are my prevailing charm….
Will you light up my body like how my soul is glowing
With your health and love?
Will you be my temptress,
Like how you are my teacher,
setting my heart on a rasping flight?
What does it take to move the heavens to bless men….
What does it take to be worthy….of you?

The Love Tree

In our heart there is a tree that bears the fruits of our soul.
Of the labors of love and sacrifice.
It blooms in our spring and lies dormant in our autumn.
Beautiful birds perch on its swaying branches and
Consume its seeds and consummate its partake in loving.
It gives to all in joy and takes only pleasure and pain,
Nothing in between.
Through its loving, it spreads across the span of the earth.
May my loving be in giving and not in asking.
May it free me to be beautiful.
And may it come to me like how I have loved you.

The Collector

Your presence lies scattered all around my home.
Like those stars around the moon,
They brighten me to your eyes.
At day, I go unnoticed into another world.
In such times, I gather those stars closer to me,
In a wishful indulgence. Who can explain this
Greed in me to collect what is about you.
Let me be the collector and you can be the creator,
And I will relive beauty, yet again…..

Captured Heart

Not that there is no happiness is my life.
But this life doesn’t seem like a living.
The day looks long even now as it started.
Filled with nothing but myself and sanity.
The climate is wonderful and memories come to me
Of when my soul was warm and cozy in custody.
Now it is free to roam and all it finds is your worship.
Now it is unchained, yet held here by a force invisible.
What can I have left when my heart has been captured?

One Beautiful Thought

In the delightful evening so breezy
The reeds were swaying back and forth.
The birds were rejoicing another day’s end.
The flowers were showing off their evening airs.
And you were there, shining over them
With your embracing silence,
As they received you, tender moon.
They fell quiet at this juncture
As your charm lulled them to sleep,
With a thousand quiet prayers,
With a thousand wonderful memories,
But with one beautiful thought…. You.

I wander alone these silent nights.

I wander alone these silent nights.
I walk those deserts,
Every direction correct,
Every circle perfect,
Every path prudent.

I wander alone these silent nights.
I wade through those brooks,
I scale those peaks,
Every fall is fatal,
Every summit is victory,
Every step an achievement.

I wander alone these silent nights.
I glide over those plains,
Every feature vivid,
Every landmark dwarfed,
Every river a mere line.


I wander alone these silent nights.
I sail those unruly seas,
Every wave is yielding,
Every storm is fought,
Every port is visited.

I have been a mere man,
And this a mere night,
Both among the uncountable.
O’ how small I am
And how much smaller my world.

That Simple Smile

Of the fleeting moments of love,
Of the unfathomable lust and
Of the so very human hatred,
What still remains is that simple smile.
The smile that radiates all over the face
And sparkles in the eye.
From which emanates a cozy warmth.
It feels like the safety of the womb when
The gaze of that smile beholds me.
The moment is elevated into an emotion,
As I choke with my smallness to God,
Who shows in the smile so pure.
In its truth expressed, yet unsaid,
In its meaning so deep,
In its love so evident.

I don’t know what I don’t have!

I am at my lonely best.
In half lived emotions are my days,
As my world shapes its destiny.
In wonderful memories are my nights,
As my soul wanders in those distant meadows.
In bright hope are my mornings,
As my mind is inspired by possibilities;
I don’t know what I don’t have.

Rush....

In what a rush we live,
in what a rush we leave....

With what zeal we create,
with what abandon we destroy....

with what labour we collect,
with what flambuoyance we squander....

with what impunity we fight,
with what meekness we surrender....

with what a heart we give,
with what a coldness we refrain....

with what innocence we love,
with what cruelty we perceive....

In what a rush we live,
in what a rush we leave....

And then.....

There is a sea in my eyes
A desert in my heart
An orchard in my soul
Chaos in my mind
And yet, there you are,
Somewhere within me,
Like a diamond lost in a
Treasure of gold and silver.
And so, there is beauty;
And then, there are these words.

I saw you.....

I saw the sun rising from the sea to its glory.
I saw you in that moment of freshness.
Sunshine on my shoulders and you in my mind make me high.

The moon shines over me in this silent night's journey.
I felt you in that moment of quiet reflection.
A moonbeam on my brow and you in my heart make this moment so lovely.

When I....

When I saw gold and diamonds,
When I walked through those mountains high,
When I touched those clouds dark,
When I waded through that brook clear,
I was still meek in wonder at nature.

When I walked those dreary streets with you,
When I held those hands so delicate,
When I beheld your smile so genuine,
When I kissed those eyes so pure,
When I was held by your thoughts so lovely,
I was one with the Gods.

Why do my eyes burn?

Why do my eyes burn?
Why doesn’t the dust settle?
I rub my eyes,
There are a few tears,
And alas, it is today….
As this revelation occurs,
I see two reflections of me in the mirror.
You are beside me
Like I am a king and
You my crown’s beauty.
My conscious courts you
With these wonderful words.
My unconscious maroons me
In your pleasure.
I look for my thoughts I have labored
To write a song that would play forever,
In your splendor, of your beauty.
In this moisture in my eyes,
I feel your rise within me.
As I close my eyes again,
Your thoughts arise,
And I ponder in a corner….
Why do my eyes burn?
Why doesn’t the dust settle?

Moments in my solitude

When I am sitting here,
When I close my eyes,
Go do those sore sights
Comes does your smile
Like infant grass
To my blessed lips.

When I am sitting here,
When the breeze ruffles my hair,
Go do those aches
Comes does your care
To my weightless soul.

When I am sitting here,
When I feel this fragrance,
Go do those worries
Comes does your touch
Like the saving rain
To my parched heart.

When I am sitting here,
When this music wafts along,
Go do my acts
Comes does your grace
Like the perfection of time
To my tired body.

When I am sitting here,
When my thoughts come to you,
Go do my rationale
Comes does your name
Like words to a poor poet
To my caroused tongue.

I have....

In my self,
I have been God.
In my imagination,
I have created.
In a brightness,
I have seen beauty.
Like a creeper around a tree,
I have felt love all over me.
Like a fruit on its branch,
I have seen me bear its fruit.
Like a pine in the cold,
I have pined for the sky.
I have rafted the rapids,
I have run behind mirages,
I have been to the end of the sky,
I have been locked up,
I have been loved,
I am alone.

The Archway of Roses

When I sit alone, I let my heart wander.
It hastens, sure of the way,
To her gate. The archway of roses
Looks like its solace and it courts
Those flowers with such abandon.
Bathing in their fragrance and
Rejoicing their many colors.
And spirals into the heavens, in the
Anticipation of its future. But it knows
Not, only the gate has been touched.
The gardens are vast, and the flower
Beds hold such marvels. It lingers
At the gate with impatience.
It heeds my call to this earth.
It waits for me to let it go again,
To the archway of roses, where the
Moon shines over her sleep.

Charmed

One thread holds me back,
Like a golden rule that must be observed.
The strength of an ox and the will of a man’s
Is all void to this silken strand.
Like faith that moves mountains, It allows me to fly.
Sure is its grip whilst I soar and
Strong is its chiding when I glide into an abyss.
The mightiest is quelled at its heart,
Such is a man’s heart charmed by beauty.