Longing

Without you the night is so long!
I bear the burden of the
hours and the minutes ticking away
as heavy as a colossal mass.
The ocean of silence around me is filled
with a sarcasm that screams your name.
My longing weeps against

the stillness of the night,
without you time is borrowed!
A blanket of memories and
my yearning embraces futile desire
of a dreary dreamless night.
The snake like fingers of my sighs
are choking me now;
my hopes flutter its wings in panic
waiting to be let go
like that poor dragon fly

in the little boy’s clasp;
my tears and silent sobs tremble in fear
for the nameless, faceless thousand nights

that await,
keeping company with loneliness.
Without you my frantic whispers
murmuring of your name
toss and turn on their sides
melting into illusion!

I must live
Don’t let me die
COME!

Tonight ....

Let me just love you tonight ....
let my love be proved tonight ....
let the sound of my smile be a lullaby to you tonight
let the sigh of loneliness sing a song of dreams to you tonight
let all my undone passion be your happiness tonight
let me absorb each cold moment and rock you in warmth tonight
let me swallow your unshed tears and give you my smile tonight
let me paint all your discolored images in brighter hues tonight
let those dark minutes bring me death so that I can give you a life tonight

Tonight my love, let me prove all my promises to you
of a seamless bond, of an oneness,
for we would have to travel far tomorrow ....

My Existence ....

For the one and only man in my life who loves me unconditionally for the person I am ... he is always there to make me smile and wipe away my tears ... to care for me along with all my oddities and weirdness .....

When you look at me with your raised eyebrows
and dreamy soccer- like eyes,
filled with never ending queries and wonder,
the world suddenly appears to be happy
And ‘peace’ doesn’t seem to be a myth anymore.
The smell of crayons, pencils, cricket balls
PSP and Nintendo
give me a reason to live through another day.
Those mischievous twinkles and angelic smile
wrap up the whole world for me and
I begin to live all over again,

my umbilical bond ever strong and connected
through all the innocence in your eyes, and
the stubbornness of your chin!
You string me a dream of whispering fairy tales and cartoons
You thread me moments of hot chocolate and pizzas
You weave me joyous stories of streaming sunshine
You make me believe in YOU
In LIFE
In LOVE.

Rupsha's world ....

The poem is dedicated to my beautiful angel Rupsha and many thanks to Babui for letting her be my daughter ......

The colour of my cloud is pink.
Let me paint it my way, Mom
If you could come and peep into my world
You would have seen

my rainbows and my raindrops.
They all have the silence that

I hear among the ocean waves
and the noise that

I hear in that angel’s whispers!
And my birds and my butterflies do always

flutter around my shoulder
In a vibrant haze.
Do you know that the meadows and the mountains
there have smells and colours?
And the caterpillar and also that groovy monkey
would wait to talk to me every day?
One day I will hold your hand and bring you
to my shadow world of magic and music.
Both of us, then, will paint our world

in an animated VIBGYOR,
exactly the way we would want to;
perfectly the way we would love to.

you will see Mom, we would sing and laugh

like we friends do at the school tiffin hour

and then,

I wont have to feel those silent tremblings

of your body and your suppressed sobs

that I often hear and don't understand

but always hate so much!

For, mine is a world of joy
without the frowns and

the raised index finger!

Gift of love

At last I reach here, where I am.
A last enormous freedom that
you cared to gift me
with all earnest sincerity.

You have gifted me

a rainfall, packed neatly in enchanting

smiles and piercing eyes, and

those fascinating groovy dimples
are the strings to fasten it so carefully.
You have gifted me

the calm of star lighted hours
The fragrance of early jasmine flowers
The last smile of a fading day
And the first young violet of the spring,
all so carefully kept in an envelope
of your steady embrace and endearing whispers,
like a dew drop in an autumn morning.
You have gifted me

an echo,vibrant with

the resonance of your voice
wrapped in abstract geometric patterns ,
more intense than the easy fathomable reality!
You have gifted me
a bouquet of a horizon where

melody and moonlight meet
You have gifted me

a beginning at the end, neatly placed

in trinket case and a basket of strength and oneness
enfolded in serene ideology
draped in a sound like enormous wings
swathed in steady flight and a concrete destination
among all other faceless furrows of the world.
You have gifted me

a secret sky , veiled in a few moments

that surpasse a lifetime
You have gifted me

a sight beyond seeing itself

enfolded in charming laughter
to take a step ahead without feet,
to regard the world invisible
and create a world of oneness
painted beautifully in turquoise blue
with shapes and borders

our own!

For the love of a young monk .....

I have tried for long to
capture you in words,
within the periphery of my poetry
but each time
synonyms and metaphors
fall short;
the alliterations ring hollow and
my tryst with poesy
sounds as concave as all those times
when I would put a dislodged forlorn eyelash
on my palm and blow it to the wide
with a secret dream;
for you are vaster than my imagination

loftier than my longing
to be-shackle you
within the perishable boundaries;
for you are my azure sky and you are
my eternity!

My words breathe oxygen

and ooze out blood
but your silence more poignant
in its depth, speaking volumes
and I lose myself completely
in your compelling wordless ness!
And when you talk for hours together
with all your passionate ideologies,
I would again be lost in the
silent love making of your eyes!

Even when alone, you
rouse a multitude all around me,
and being in a crowd, you
carve a private space
intimate and distance-dissolving.
Every time I long to hold
your pain in my palm

like a precious pearl
with all my reverence,
but it rained last night
and you had allowed the divine power
to fill in your void and
I fall in love

for your sense of equilibrium.

I see the burning desire in your eyes
and my limbs melt like spent wax,
I remain caught in that boyish charm of your
sparkling white laughter for thousand years.
I want to touch your chest
with trembling fingers, I would be fascinated
by that dimpled grove beside your lips
and would yearn to escape and hide behind
the strength of your arms forever;
yet with an easy nonchalance you
rise above, and urge me to lift my soul
far beyond,
and I comprehend a connection,
a bond with you not just for future
but one that started earlier than the past,
before birth and

even before the death.

My young monk, you come to me
with your melted bronze eyes
and I discard obligation, familial ties
like a pair of torn and tattered old shoes.
I begin to breathe you in my lung,
I begin to have you in my pulsating veins
I begin to throb you in my beating heart
I do not love you yet I begin to live you
in my life!

My second living .........

Just when I was feeling
the walls of my being
was looming inside
swelled with claustrophobia,
Love comes! without any
embellishments! enticements! exaggerations!

My second living begins!

love comes quietly
through that serene walk
among those Gulmohar trees
and the patient wait beside the placid lake.
the smell of fresh mint leaves, almond and peaches.
Love envelopes me like an
avalnache! awakening! apocalypse!

My second living
of magnificent azure sky,
of the trinkling sonority of
a rushing gushing brook,
silken brown eyes of the squirrels,
a landscape vibrating an aquamarine fragrance
with the innocence of a child at his mother's breast.
my second life of
happines! harmony! heaven!

His passion crushes me into himself
as if he would swallow me in his soul
and that is the only way we could be one.
merged in a perfect moment
we look neither before nor beyond!
my feverish longing
palpable! proliferating! pulsating!

My love is stubborn and adament
and smells like wild grass, mahogony green,
my mind whips about in its urgency
to make him mine.
I crave for an existence irridescent
like my frosted nail polish and
my weather vane soul runs in manic spinning
to possess him in torturing jealosy.
For love alone has pain many
insecure! impulsive! incandescent!

But soon after,
like a proud steady flight of an eagle
he guides me rise far beyond,
In each others' arms we create our
own private space;
in the oneness of our soul
we carve a niche for ourselves!
joind by an invisible cord
an unconditional love so naked and pure
in its innocence! Love in a form
supreme! sublime! sacred!

Now, Love makes us

boyant, expansive, uncontainable!
beyond Earthly limitations
surpassing the imprisoning patterns of ego
we have built our home
whose walls are our divine space,
its floor is our eternal sky,
within which we dissolve and form ourselves
into each other like the phoenix bird, like
the fireflies in summer days.
I become another him.
My second living,
divine! dainty! dreaming!

A woman and a swing ......

The following is my reminiscences of an innocent, fragile woman whom I met a few days ago ... the tired slouch of whose shoulders would speak volumes of the injustice, the fret and fever of the world that she had to undergo. Her quick inebrieted glances would reflect the fear and insecurity of a caged bird whose wings are long cut mercilessly. Groping through the despair and drudgery of her path uncertainly she proceeds ..... yet she hopes .... yet she longs to live and love! .......
The musings of my soul, a song unheard ---

I have always felt that life has been unfair to me! I have so often complained that life is passing and I deserve more! My thoughts are so much occupied with the unkind ways that life has dished out towards my direction! I am aware how the river of my life is flowing in frenzy towards abyss, only to be perished with all my half baked dreams and half fulfilled promises!

Then my eyes fall on this girl on the swing at the park. She is making the swing go way past safety. I keep observing her mesmerised. I realise she is a grown up woman! Her black hair streams out in rage as the swing sweeps forward. She kicks out her naked feet, her toenails shimmering and there is a peculiar carefree nonchalance in her gait that makes me envy her!

Up and down and up into the sky she swings. There is this arrogant wild abondon in her movements. I become one with her. When she is reaching the highest point of the arc, I remain poised in that weightless moment. A point higher and above the death and decay of the banal and the mundane. A place close to divine sublimity. A total quiet and serenity in my soul along with a parrot -green smell of my childhood. The woman and I stay tranfixed in the moment.

The woman is now looking sky ward, wrinkling her eyes, focussing on the ebb and flow of the horizon. She loves every minute of her momentary freedom and risk. Her eyes and her trinkling laughter is challenging the world to take it away from her and suddenly there is this peculiar confidence that otherwise is so rare in her! For she knows that this moment of living life with abundant joy and fervour is all her own, the only time she comes a winner.

I lean my body into the air along with her. My memories are now like some faded old black and white photographs. I hold them all tightly in my clasp -- my childhood friend's mother eloping and her helpless pain and uncontrollable sobs, that neighbor boy's love letter filled with filthy words that I failed to comprehend yet the taste of bitter goud in my mouth, Mom's anger towards Aunt, an widow staying with us and my helpless desparate urge to protect her, that forceful first kiss by an elderly uncle that made me puke literally, my best friend's dad - cancer - the morbid smell of that hospital room, my 17 yrs - chemistry teacher's lustful hand and Mom's ever busy schedule, -Goa Ramada - never ending misunderstandings, emotional abuse, my baby that I was forced to abort --- I clutch them all in my palm.

Suddenly, I come back to the woman and the yanking lift of her body into the air. And then I was airborne. Along with those memories since childhood I am gliding and soaring high. Now the wind carries me higher and I feel my life is just beginning! A realisation shocks me. I open my fist and let go of all those photographs into the wide. I see them falling like dead man's ashes one after the other.

For the first time the Earth's curvature appears like a smile to me. The woman on the swing teaches me this is what we do with grief. we lean into the air, swing up, be one with the divinity and open our grasp into the wide! And we live all over again with new dreams and new hopes.

Hide and seek of the past ....

An unknown fear
sits on my chest whenever I try to sleep,
quiet as a cat
sucking my life breath,
making me stay awake.
His deep love in his concern

touches my heart.
But how can I explain it to him
that it is because She stays!

In all my dreams and hopes,
in my fear and anger She stays!
Reality crashes down like a
door to the tiger trap
and I realise that she always will!

She stays in between us
ever conspicuous by her absence;
an absence that is so firm and steady
in appearance!
She stays with her pregnant silence
so loud and verbal
in words!

Stapled to my conscience
like a nagging pain,
She stays in my joys and my doubts,
in my struggles and my triumphs;
like a deep wound that often fades with time
yet remains wedged below the surface forever,
like a stubborn thorn beneath a finger nail
making you cry out in agony, each time
you unconsciously brush against it!

In his sincere, loving urgency he
tries to convince me - it is only the past.
I smile at his impatience that splutters like
mustard seeds in heated oil, at my
persisting melancholy.
But doesn't he realise that
She stays even in his absentminded
reminiscences and stubborn nostalgia
and his quick embarrassed efforts
to come back to the present!

The love I have loved more than my life
is cracking underfoot
like ice in thin winter. For
She stays
like a rectangular impression
left by a picture frame,
a faint nimbus, a contrasting shade
on the wall within which I try to build my home.
Like a nagging despondent tune
humming in my head,
with her lone tear of the rainfall gone
his woman, she stays
in between our love
always and forever!

Death of a butterfly

I heard a song of the butterfly clear and loud;
the shine of his wings and his jewel eyes held my gaze;
my indigo blue butterfly,
who had sunshine bright yellow dots on his wings.
He sang and took me under his wings,
he fluttered and sat on my shoulder,
his whispers kept echoing into my ears,
a cavalcade of strange nomadic happiness around us!

But soon, the slithering snakes of mistrust and despair
started climbing up my soul;
the soothing fire fly in between my fingers became ferocious
and burnt us!
In a frenzied rage
I tore apart his indigo blue yellow dotted wings.
I saw him quivering and bleeding on my palm,
sparkled blue eyes were already dying a death

of betrayal.

Now, I keep trying to write and re-write my poetry,
scratching, cancelling, erasing my lines,
pages after pages get crumpled in my fist,
my futile efforts to make my words concise,
my failure to bring back the old rhythm,
now my words deny me.

Today I remain as powerless to give birth to poesy
as I was incapable to love!

Life

For how long can a heart go on dying?
once it is destroyed into small pieces and
and you find only a stinking debris in its place,
when the membranes of its wall are torn layer by layer
and you just sit back and watch in helpless patience
how it is now a carcass and the stench
slaughtering those cobwebs of memories
in a ruthless callous urgency;
after that it is a peaceful numbness
that settles on your soul

like a spent rainfall

that wont perch earth's thirst anymore

yet would leave behind a strange smell

of experience, of a birth and a cycle of life,
your lips twitch in a smile
for your heart does not hurt anymore;
now, in those countless sleepless hours
it is just a strange peaceful waiting
till your heart merges with eternity
under the soil or along with the fire
beyond any hurt, beyond any cruelty and lack of love
it now remains at peace

in an inevitable ending that

can only signify another beginning!

The other woman

I wanted to grow in that love
severing all ties.
With him I felt fresh as river wind;
a sudden desire in a land so barren,
mind so eager to touch the precious pearl!

But each time we made love

I would see her; the other woman!

a beautiful illusion, an enchantment;

the other woman, her smoky eyes

and lips cranberry and glitter.

Hours follow hours and

I lie alone in my mind;

I close my eyes in his loving embrace

but I see their golden brown bodies

warm and humming.

I begin with hating her; a jealousy so corrosive;

the other woman; In her searching eyes,

In her nights of joy and solitude

It is the same search of love, that I wear in me.

the music of her quickened breath matches with mine.

There are voices in my head now!

Our lives are already mixed like past and future;

promises and disappointments

beyond the kisses and the perfume!

What would tell me where I belong?

The love of a man or the right of a woman?
A lonely moan hardens my breath;
I stretch my hand to
fulfill my book of errors
for I realize, not her but

it’s me who is the other woman!

Woman

It is past midnight now, may be 2 am. The woman, in her lazy steps, comes and stands in her balcony. She isn’t really beautiful in an ideal sense yet her unkempt tussled hair and the careless way she has donned her gown, that occasional biting of her lower lip and mostly, that drunken love in her eyes make her look quite irresistible. But she is oblivious of herself. She can see only a part of the sky from where she stands and a half peeping moon to keep her company.
She enters a private world of her own. Now she lovingly looks at her foreign splendorous Star. It is drawing her like a magnet. How terribly strong its pull is! She long desperately to be one with it. She yearns to touch it; to make it her own. She meets her splendorous Star and then it is a strange strong bond! It comes to her when it shouldn’t have, yet it comes firmly and steadily. She questions the sky why it has come now, when she is finally at peace with her losses? When she has opened her fists and let the things she longed for slip away?
And then the usual pangs of harsh reality; reality that keeps her feet shackled on the ground so hard that her feet bleeds. A strange fear grips her whole being; the fear of losing her Star. What if someday she comes and gazes at the sky and fails to find her Star? There is a fear in her voice, in the clutch of her perfect nails on the railing.
Her splendorous foreign Star …. It plays a song to her just before twilight and she keeps following that tune. Everything else seems meaningless. She knows if she keeps feeling this way she will break more rules. A storm begins and for the first time she doesn’t get scared of it. She gets prepared to follow the Star wherever its destiny would lead.
She doesn’t want to hope too much, but she can feel the blood swirling in her head. And she knows that love after all is a strange thing; love that weapon can not pierce, fire can not burn! And she knows that her endless waiting has already begun! Yet she is not afraid. She gets prepared in her mind. She feels her Star, her nexus of energy, and its tender gaze on her like a soothing breeze, like a mother’s hand, like a sleep on her eyes in her lonely nights.

My pink passion ..

O my pink passion
and whirlwind love!
I will touch you with my soul,
bashful first
but soon out of inhibition,
like a dancer
to your tune
trembling to your whispers,
the rough strife,
the tearing pleasure,
spine, flesh, bones and veins
blazing fire,
the bated breath and
that feverish travel;
if I gain you once, tonight
I will peril hundred deaths tomorrow!

Bird of joy

She sat on my windowsill
enveloped and swaddled,
with an arrogant raise of her head
and half closed eyes in smug pleasure.
She burped and she twitted
and looked at me in askance;
nonverbal message in those eyes
I remained mesmerized n hypnotized
In my efforts to read her;
Her chirp sounded like sarcasm then!
Colorful feathers like a rich patch work quilt
off and on the head tucked
in a fluffy vibrant pillow,
grace nonchalant and brave
making me bashful as I sat sideways.
In its serendipitous charm
and exuberant fluttering
threw away a pocket full of joy
through the window, towards me.

...........The Word Love ....................

I search for my lost love, every night, tiptoeing around the house. They think I sleep walk! Every night I would roam around in the dark. The darkness would press against me, wave after wave, like a colossal black sea. Sudden fear parches my throat. I desperately want to go back to the warm comfort of the bed. Yet I know that I would have to go on. I would have to keep searching till I find that lost love. The darkness thick and vicious persists.

I search everywhere; inside the bedroom, the cupboards, the stack of dishes in the kitchen, the shoe rack, among clothes and toys, refrigerator, closet, I would keep searching in every nook and corner. And at the end of it, tired and depressed when I would come back to bed it is already the orange dawn knocking at my window. I stare outside at the share of my bluish orange sky and wonder if I had by mistake let that love get merged into the wide! I should have been more cautious and I know tonight I would have to search for it all over again.

He tells me to consult a doctor, gives me sleeping pills. I can sense the irritation on his stiff shoulders. I promise not to disturb his sleep again yet quietly throw away those pills into the dust bin, for I know that I have to continue my search. I have got to find out those lost love words and those forgotten caresses.

I am not sure exactly when they were lost! Was it the day when he came back from office and wanted me to go to the pub and I refused? Or was it when he asked me to move away as I was blocking his view in my childlike enthusiasm when he wanted to watch his favorite news channel? Or was it the day when he pushed aside the meal I cooked in anger? May be it was the day when the doctor told me that I am pregnant again and I dared to argue with him to keep the baby! I am not sure. All I know is that I have got to find out my lost love! Not for anyone else but for me. So that I can smile again like the passionate lightning, so that my laughter sounds like the tinkling stream one more time.

There are no people in my search; neither him nor anyone else. It is just about that word ‘love’, a word that I have never understood before, a melting, sighing warm word. Someday I will find it out and it would be like rain. I would lift my face up to it and like rain it would wash away all those frowns and creases, leaving me fresh and ready to begin.

I...

You would say “looks are immaterial;
It's just the head and the heart,
what is in a face after all?”

Then why do you keep staring

at the never-dying radiance on my cheeks

and recognize the essence of divinity,

and believe it’s a touch of the mystique?

The pride in the arch of my eyebrows

and the halo and the tilt of my head;

your earnest gaze,

there’s your need to possess!

You look into my eyes,

the twinkling and sparkling

and it ain’t my fault

if you get immersed and sinking!

Pouting, pursing, promising curve of my lips,

and those familiar secret longing in your

pulsating heartbeats.

The luster of my hair, the sheen on my skin

keeps you captive, the eternal beckoning!

The musical pledge on my forehead

makes you desire love;

the innocent arrogant tip of my nose

make you wonder at the creation of God above!

So you see, it is just not the face

but the story of life;

it’s not just a face

but I the woman and my strife!

Soft like a feather, hard like armor

pure like a child, wild like storm,

the hue of the sand,

the touch of the rainbow;

that isn’t just a face but

I the woman, you know!

Moonshine bright ........

In remembrance of the first time I became aware of the intensity of my feelings for him ....

Moon was hovering around the milkyway
among the black and white cloud.
Sometimes she would feel ticklish
at their soften silky touch
Often she would giggle out of joy
when a sudden rush of rain will touch her hair
She would be thrilled, when the rare
rainbow would caress her soft cheek
And when a twittering bird
will sing a song into her ears
she would sing along in joy and mirth.
So you see, she wasn’t really sad!
Yet she didn’t know what to do
with those abrupt bout of tears
those moistened eyes,

would make her fear
she failed to understand

the strange pain that
would keep gnawing at her heart!

And then you come with your sunrays
glowing as bright with hue
Moon gets a reason to live
for it's only your warmth
that shows her happiness true.
Now the sky looks bluer
And the earth’s flowers bloom on the vale
she forgets the cool winter
her fatigue and meek shine
now brightened to a passionate gale.
Forgotten is the furrow and
now there’s sunshine and breeze
she has burst her bondage
And now she is new and free.
.

Saddest lines!

With west wind blowing
and the rain fall supple
I was floating aimless
with faint stars glowing.
Why did you come
within that great abyss
with your loving kiss
you leaned to be close
and let me live
thousand years of life
in a few moments?

Now it’s a dream or
snap shot stapled to mind
You left me sorrow
as deep and high as mountain
I am neither living nor dead
just a bottomless lacuna.
You left me the saga of pain
like the deep blue ocean
and the weeping rain
the mammoth night
enormous without you
separated souls
by oceans and deserts
and millions skyscrapers
now the love between us
like a raw tattoo
a smear, a half healed wound.
My silhouette now
Against the sky a scarlet bruise!

Yet my small secret smile
Triumph of my heart now
numb in death
for this is the last pain
you could cause to me
For this is the last time
I cried in vain!

Ode to luscious lips

My heart is numb

and I lie helpless

in intoxication
tasting you
the kiss
and the heat of fire.
When you smile in askance
Do you want to feel
the desire of a falling star?
And the ruin of
some broken verses
on you
Merge with your promises
myriad.
Come close to me
yet stay apart
my death in your hands
or is it my reality
my nectar for life?
Among other
swarming smirk and
sneer I see you
breathing,
in your mystifying curve
the depth of the sea
unfathomable
like the deepest night.
In you my infinite dreams
in your luscious arc
lies my twilight sky
and my hundred stars.
Your coquettish beam
launches fire in a lover’s heart
Your solitary songs
allure me to hope.

But still
falsity on you and
those slouching pledges
the wreck and debris
of forged assure
A void and
an uncanny emptiness
and then
among the mourning
I see you dead
sulking and pouting
navigating tragedies
you become pale
and then on that fateful day
I see you dead.

Now, sitting
in my far away lonely corner
I still remember
alluring lotus
your magic casement
In which lies
my strength and my joy
and now I am in love with death
in my pensive mood
my tribute
and my heart
is intoxicated again.

Dream

The dream in my eyesColorful as the painter’s palette

The dream in my eyesGraceful like the butterfly’s ballet.

The dream in m eyesRuns fearless like a feral stream

The dream in my eyesSpills like the wine at the cup’s brim.

The dream in my eyesLike the bard’s full throated music

The dream in my eyesThe deer’s intense eyes, its magic.

The dream in my eyesis your kiss while I weep

the dream in my eyesintense as ocean deep.

The dream in my eyesHow urgent I want to grasp

The dream in my eyesFails me and escapes my clasp.

GOD ....

A soulful tear rolls down as I pray and think
My thoughts in qualms for idol’s magic and mystic
Where is God, where is his abode above?
Why can’t I feel, in my angst, his intangible love?
Is he there when people die in pain and despair?
Could he listen when babies cried without adore and care?
Has he seen all around the bloodshed and death and terror?
Why wasn’t he present to spread his love and eradicate horror?
Did he sleep when men killed, women cheated children lied?
Where is he when morality, value and goodness died?
Then I feel perhaps these are thoughts in vain
As God too in divine despair is wiping his silent tears of pain!!

My last letter

a letter to a friend .....

you asked me if I am happy! I can not answer your question as I am no longer sure I know what happiness is! All I realise is, it isn't what I thought it to be! Perhaps it has something to do with love but I am not sure anymore! And the funny thing is even 'love' seems to be something different than what I thought it is! May be we could have figured it out while drinking tea together, had you waited for me! I feel like telling you so many things, stories of my known and unknown errors and tales of all my half baked dreams and half hearted efforts. I could have told them as fairy tales are being told, without any guilt or blame but out of sorrow and hope. But now you are too far away to listen to me, aren't you?
you have asked me to love him! I do find it very strange when you ask me to give him another chance, to start afresh! Dont you know that a dead love is just like a dead body? It starts rotting even as you try to hold on to it, crying. and after that you are only left with fetor and nothing else!
Guess I didn't tell you about this peculiar sensation in my chest. it is like my ribs are being sawed away and strangely it started after you left! I keep feeling as if my life has closed even before its end. I still cant stop blaming you for going away. I am still in the process of 'moving ahead' and hope some day it would be possible.
And yes, do not write to me anymore. Each time I hear from you, it is kind of a set-back. If you really want to help me then please learn to leave me alone. Believe me, soon I am going to rise like a phoenix bird and some day among these hatred and sorrow and soot and rubble I will manage to perceive my paradise on earth. May be on that day I will smile and write to you one more time. :)

[the above is an attempt towards my creative writing, my efforts to free my soul! someday i would write a novel and would add up these straythoughts into a bigger scheme... wish me luck! ]

Hatred pungent and I

Hatred a feeling like an ugly bluish aged bruise.
Sometimes, even the insipid green tint, the oozing puss,
and even when the pain subsides
remains the ever reminding repulsive scar.
Hatred pungent and I; my lacerated soul.

Childhood nights, the memory of the rat and the rattrap.
The rattle of the timber plank falling,
the sharp, squeaks frantic skittering scrape.
Then the piece of poisonous bread and
death, an uncanny silence.
Hatred pungent and I; my lacerated soul.

Quarrels at my neighbor’s place
Silent tears of my childhood friend.
Her mother’s hair the jasmine flowers,
those strange men and small animal sounds.
My friend’s painful sobs and loneliness.
Hatred pungent and I; my lacerated soul.

Teacher, the ferocious lewd gleaming eyes
the claws tooth and nail terror fright shock.
Death of a child her mind and innocent purity
chemistry and physics and the man’s fingers
moving, a filthy insect in between my thighs.
Hatred pungent and I; my lacerated soul.

The lady sweating the whole day
at her master’s house, cooking washing and housekeeping
tireless good woman dedicated life for others.
The widow makes sure she toils whole day
so that she is safe till the night, night that she can’t escape
serving her master, the price she has to pay
for her husband’s death at an early age.
Survival, a giant blister in her heart.
Hatred pungent and I; my lacerated soul.

I spread my arms and let the rain take me
The word ‘love’ that I have searched all along.
Tiptoeing through puddles mud and grime
trying hard to welcome the life of love.
I stop halfway at the darkening staircase
emptiness swirls around realizing the unknown errors of life.
The love I collected so carefully and kept close
now shines in its ugly hideous prominence, truth settles
the vine of desire, lust like those thrown away old clothes
Hatred pungent and I; my lacerated soul.

Deadly sin ..

Just to feel loved in this world!
I wonder if this is what I have waited for so long!
My eyes water in a strange way and
I smile and blame those kitchen onions
And I try to smother this uncanny sense
of pain and shame that is a rising volcano.

A lethal thrilling night
My body inflamed and swollen
Like an angry river in wield, tongue roving all over
rummaging my little secrets, Lips wet supple urging me
The room becomes an ocean
And the waves start rocking me
My body tossing like a boat in storm
His whispers fly like a colorful bird
But when I reach out to take it in my palm
It is just beaks, claws, shit.

And I lay there without breathing
My guilt hidden under his chest
My conscience buried beneath his manhood.
Spread like a spent flower
My bones made of jade and coral,
Each time the bird beats her wings
I frantically try to envisage love
But the angry smoke and the furious waves
Lash onto the colorful wall saying lust
There were regret and repentance everywhere
On the upholstered sofa
On the Gujarati stitched bed spreads
Guilt like an ugly bruise with a pale green tint all over.

Now I fancy in my fraught urgency
If I hold my breath and shut my eyes in earnest
And count till ten, would I feel new once again?
And then I rush to the kitchen
Burnt smell of spilled milk all around
I stare and murmur to myself
Soon I will clean it up and begin all over again.

LOSS ...

There are so many ways to die in this life!

Still vivid in mind -

an unpleasant clammy wetness;

panic drying my mouth,

I desperately clamp my legs

as if by doing so I could prevent the loss!

A jasmine tree bloomed out of my naval,

reaching my veins and appendages,

loving my mind and caressing my soul,

its leaf and flower drinking the love in me.

In mind's eye I see a tiny figure, ivory,

and when he looks up to my face

I know those eyes, mouth, smile, all mine;

a life to live,

among all the other deaths.

In that morbid room

I tried to hold onto him urgently,

 begged him not to leave and

 his eyes begging me too.

He was trying to hug desperately

 to that slippery silk wall

that was already hissing like an annoyed serpent,

convulsing and rejecting.

The mother water that swayed him

now rushed him down the alley;

and he looked back

his eyes hurt with betrayal!

I heard that spine raking scream;

like a shrill metallic scrape, his or mine?

The amniotic fluid in his mouth must have tasted death

and my mouth felt the same; the taste of my failure.

There are so many ways to die in this world

I die all over again; death,

most grotesque this time.

Now it is funny when they call me beautiful,

for, when I look into the mirror,

failure as ugly as sin that stares back!

I love to talk - 3

Tasty Tadka (seasoning)


Got the following 'tadka daal' recipe from 'Shveta's recipe' blog. It came out to be real good. Even my son who's ever critical of my cooking, appreciated. If you aren't an Indian then try it out and have it with a little rice. You would just love it. But for God's sake do never eat this 'daal' with English bread. The combination sounds horrible. and make sure you keep the chillies at minimum. Those are for hot n spicy Indians :P ... (just kidding)

 Ingredients:For Tadka dal: [for 6 servings]
Toovar dal (split yellow pigeon peas) – ½ cup
Moong dal (split yellow moong beans) – ½ cup
Chana dal (split yellow garbanzo beans) – ½ cup
Tomato – 1 finely chopped
Turmeric powder -1/2 tsp
Salt as per taste

For Tadka (Frying the dal)
Cumin seeds -1 tsp
Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
Asafoetida powder -1/2 tsp
Onion -1 (medium) finely chopped
Ginger – 1 tbsp finely chopped
Garlic – 1 tbsp finely chopped
Green chili -1 tsp (finely chopped) [Optional]Red chili powder – 1 tsp
Garam masala powder – ½ tsp
Cooking oil – 1 tbsp
Butter/Ghee -1tbsp
Cilantro – 2 tbsp finely chopped (for garnish)
Lime juice – 1 tsp

Method:

• Wash toovar dal, moong dal and chana dal and soak them for 30 minutes.
• Add soaked dals, turmeric powder, salt, tomatoes and 3 cups of water in the pressure cooker till it’s done.
• For tadka, heat oil and butter in a frying pan. Add cumin seeds, mustard seeds and asafoetida. Let it crackle. Then add chopped onions and sauté it, till turns light golden. Add ginger, garlic and chopped green chilies (optional). Cook for 2 minutes.
• Add red chili powder and garam masala powder to the tadka and immediately pour it over the cooked dal.

Garnish:
Garnish the tadka dal with freshly chopped cilantro and some lime juice.

Soul lover

you are my soul lover, my beloved
in my heart you abide
You are my soul lover, guardian angel
ever at my side.

You are a splash of color
Rainbow indigo blue sky
You are a painter’s palette
Aquamarine, azure, turquoise.
You are the fresh rain on my window pane
The smell of mint leaves on my psyche.
You are the soothing dew drops
A river serene quiet
Soul lover, you are my dream
And you are my lullaby.

When you laugh, my soul trickles
Warm velvet wax and firefly
Your words cascade like the splashing waves
And storms passion wild
I see you behind my eyelids closed
My frantic efforts to keep you bind.
And then there are you
The splash of rain and the innocent child
My soul lover, a bird in dancing flight
And a painful melody of the night!

Your gaze at me as though
you really see me
Me underneath this body
And there is sunshine.
You are the ardent breeze
smelling almonds and peaches
Your touch squirrels
with silken brown eyes.
With you I never feel greedy or guilty
my heart crimsoned with joy
Soul lover, tranquil and fair,
you are my moonlight and my sky.

You are my soul lover, my beloved
in my heart you abide.
You are my soul lover, guardian angel
ever at my side.