Back with a bang

A long interval can mean a lot of things in the blog world:
1.Something disastrous happened to the blogger.
2.Blogger got promoted at work with unprecedented amount of work punctuated by performance related pay promises.
3.Blogger got sacked as he was found out blogging at work.
4.Novelty wears off and the Blogger hangs his boots up.
5.Clinical Depression.
6.Maternity break.
7.Last but not least he gets published and becomes an overnight celebrity so now he has no time for the old idle internet scrapbook!

Well in my case no such luck as no.7 but yes a lot of the others do apply in small quantities!Having a baby is not 9 months,but spans well over 2 years from getting pregnant to rearing a baby into a child that sleeps at night for more than 4 hours at a stretch!But now that I am more than half through that adventure I thought be nice time to pop back & see what the blog world is upto.So in short it is comeback post this obe.This time I am timing myself to see where this newfound inspiration & handy Android Blogger takes me...future is full of suspense & it is all happening right here!;)
Night night x

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Dew Drops Dream

Like the twinkle of a grass. . .

The first rays from east made her smile

She fluttered and gossiped with a passing wind

Cradled in an unknown grasses' sway...

The blade touched the ground as if in respect

and the rays melted into the dreams of the morning. . .

Between the moment of existence and non existence..I wonder

What did the dew drop dream?...

Reflections

Dedicated to Achan

I see the dew drops..
so beautiful and precious
Cradled gently by the tender blade of grass
That sways in glee in a passing wind
The angel in the dew drop smiles
Beckoning the sun to rise a bit more
Like in trance he obeys with joy
And night leaves with a heaving sigh
The light then pierces the dew drop
Making it weep with heaviness
And finally like an unstruck note
It melts away into oblivion.
Like you left me that day
Echoing into a past

I wept, I mourned, I kept to myself
The words, the songs that i treasure so much
I kept to myself the silence of our moments-
the days you taught me about the life in clouds;
about the grace of the stream and the song of my soul
I kept to myself what little i understood of you
And When my words failed me i turned to my silence
and saw thyself mirrored in my conscience
And then I realised who I am
That I am a reflection of what you were

-March 2005

A wet Five rupee note from the past...

Memories are strange things…you never know when they might walk into your life. They just decide to call in on you without informing, without even showing the courtesy to knock- The audacity of the uninvited guest I suppose! I have found myself in the oddest of moments opening doors to the dark grim stranger with a leaking bag of rags in his shoulder smelling of a familiar scent from the past. And I have asked who are you like umpteen times, but with no respect the stranger just pushes me aside and enters like he owns the place…no introduction, no explanations- what can I say, but the audacity speaks for itself again!

The other day I was fretting at my desk to meet a deadline, and without a warning, without a sign, in came the stranger again! And this time the scent was that of a five rupee note…

Long back, and I mean, long back, when I was in my primary school in Punjab, I had stumbled upon this five rupee note on the floor on our way home from school. Now this, I am talking of a time, when after school snack shopping was banned by parents, when pocket money was a thing unheard of, and where being five minutes late was almost like a sin that you could be denied entry into heaven!

Coming back to the note, it was slightly wet and the green of the note was almost deepened by the rain and Mr Gandhi tilted his head and grinned at me through his glasses. My first impulse was to tell my friends who enticed me to the corner snack shop , that I was going to buy them all ‘Kachalu’ – which was semi cooked potato dipped in a spicy tangy sauce. At the time, to me Kachalu was the best food in the world, simply due to the ‘No Street Snack’ policy of parents.

I looked at the note again, tattered and wet, it wreaked a strange scent. On the little white portion by Mr Smiling Gandhi was a faint scribbling in blue ink , smudged all over. It read- Vicky Loves Reeta…;-) !

Amused, at the prospect of trading this epic monument of love for Kachalu I began walking to the shop with my friends. As we were about to cross I saw my classmate crying her eyes out outside the gates. We rushed to her and enquired. As luck would have it, it turned out she had lost all her money and had nothing left for the rickshaw…

Now I clenched my newly found five rupee note inside my palm so tight that , I almost suffocated our Baapuji! Patting her shoulder I was saying ok, hoping that someone would offer her the money and wouldn’t put me in the awkward position of having to part with mine. But as luck would have it again, my best friend Anoop steps in as the Messiah of people in Distress and says,” I have an idea…Shwetha, you are so lucky that I am here now, you better pay me back for this….”All of us looked at Anoop bewildered and puzzled. Her plump fair face, shot to a brilliant red colour and her eyes widened …
She said” Anju just found lost five rupee note and we were about to get Kachalu….but clearly since your ‘Situation’ is more urgent, Anju please give it to her….

Now all eyes turn to me, all judgemental now. I looked at each of them hoping to hear something that would encourage me to keep it. Everyone else seemed to have been cursed into icy stone by Anoop who stood there playing with ponytails , looking at me in a tone of’ Come on, You Heard me!Give it to her or I will throw you in the drain and break your bones!!’

The thought was enough to scare the living daylights out of me..I was a tiny fragile little thing and Anoop was a strong ‘hatta-ghatta’ Punjabi lass with strong arms , a strong grip and a mind that doesn’t think twice!
I opened my palm and looked at the note again. Bappu was still grinning at me from behind his glasses. I stared at him for a while. Slowly, the ‘Rupees 5 ‘was fading away and all I could see was a brighter bigger Bappu. I looked up at Shwetha and smiled and handed over the note to her. She smiled, her face wet with tears and said Thank you. Some reason that made me feel so happy.

I turned away and started to walk home with a smile in my face. Behind me I could hear Anoop say to Shwetha’ Yaar, see I told you na! Now you owe me a treat, come on you only need 2 Rs to go home….with the rest you can treat me to Kachalu’

A homeless deity...

One night I decided to give up on this world and run away into the unknown. It was a strange night when the unknown seemed better than the known. I didnt think, I didnt even pause to look back. I ran into the thick darkness,with a luggage of hatred and anger on a path that leads nowhere. As I sped in the dark, I was fanning the fume inside me. I hated the world...and I kept walking repeating that hatred. And that was when, I saw her, sitting at the doorstep of some fortgotten ruins...

She was a frail little girl. It was just a blur from where I was standing, but she was an eloquent beauty with fierce eyes and an ethereal grace...I was stunned at her form and just watched her from the distance; she looked like a dream!Her face shone like a thousand moon in the faint glow of of the silver clouds.I wondered what a frail little girl like her was doing in this scary silence of this jungle.I walked closer to her and her form was becoming clearer and more enchanting.

She had her head down and she was sobbing. I looked closely, she was bleeding and bruised too. Her beautiful eyes moist with tears; glistened in the dark like little fireflies. Summoning all my courage I approached her. I asked her," Can I help ? ..."

She looked up at me. She had blue black eyes; just like the midnight sky! Such were her eyes that I could see myself reflected in them. A moment of gaze seemed like a lingering century...I was preparing to ask her again if she needed my help, when she stood up and walked off leaving me empty and baffled . I dont know why, I didnt walk off then- I was frustrated enough...I was humiliated enough...- But I didnt! I followed her. She walked and walked under the moonlight and I kept following her. There was something about her that was mysterious and magnetic. It seems strange for a person like me with so much hatred to follow a weeping strange little girl in the middle of the night in an unknown jungle.Perhaps it was my aimlessness, perhaps when in hatred I threw away my world, I was throwing myself into an existential vacuum.

Who knows!

And that was when it happened....she started singing...

My heart stopped!Her voice pierced the insides of my soul like a million swords. Her voice was faint and melodious but as she continued singing, it shred my soul into pieces and I felt a deep, unbearable pain. My insides bled! She walked into into a cave,still singing... I followed her into the cave. The next thing I know, is that I was in this deep dark cave alone talking to my own voice...and found myself battling between shock and pain. She was gone!I felt humiliated and angry, but at myself this time not at the world. I endured all this pain...to catch a glimpse of her and she decides to hide. I was angry with myself or caring...!I stormed out and walked back...

That was the last time I was going to care, I said to myself..

And just as I finished saying that in my head...I spotted her again...sitting on some other ruin...

I was'nt going to let her baffle me this time. She is not what she seems, I thought, and I must get to the bottom of this. I was convinced that this was far from reality and I was spiralling in a phantasmagoria...

I approached her again and I said " Look, I dont know what your story is. I am tired...now. Look at what you did to me!...Your voice pierced my insides and now I am bleeding...What have I done to deserve this?What are you...? Are you like a ghost or something?Are you punishing me for hating this world?...I dont understand...."

She looked up at me with her moist blue black eyes again and stared again into my eyes. There was a certain helplessness in that stare , this time.Then in a faint, soft voice that had the quality of first rain about it, she said " You say I am punishing you? " She titled her head to one side and looked at me rather consolingly and said " No, I am not, In fact you are punishing me..."

I was shocked!

She continued " I am not a ghost or an evil spirit. I dont have the power to punish. I only have power to love and receive love. I am the Goddess that once knew not what grief is, until the day

the seed of hatred was planted on earth.

Today the weed of hatred has invaded the world and there is no place for me. I walked out of the concrete buildings ,whereI was housed and people came three times a day to offer meaningless prayers! I was bathed in expensive milk and honey and annointed pointlessly, when I could hear the world chanting pure hate! I have become nothing but a wooden or marble figurine in a building or an image in a frame. I was feeling consumed !I couldnt breathe! I was dying a new death every moment seeing the world tear itself. It was just too much and I had enough!

So one day I walked out of all those temples , for good! I didnt want to exist, monumentally...I walked out into the darkness like you.And today I am homeless, I am alone..I am a goddess without power. I can only weep at the death of humanity. I can only sing a song of hope...

I wander aimlessly in the darkness mostly on my own. Occasionally I meet people like you ...who are runaways like me. There is only a single difference between me and you - I am running away from hatred, you are running towards it...."

She got up and walked off, singing into the wind, in a resounding voice that was like the first rain...She didnt turn back...

I stood there dumbfound and guilty; in an unknown jungle surrounded by thick darkness!I stood there watching a forgotten deity walk off...

I closed my eyes and I saw her blue black eyes again..I stood there with my face to the sky..

It started raining ...

The deity is crying...

They make me cry...

I open my eyes to this world everyday, thinking today may be it will be better.
I look at the sky everyday, thinking perhaps, today the sun might come out
I open my windows to the street outside...thinking maybe today, the child across the street will sleep peacefully, without being beaten up....

Perhaps this the day , when people wont need reasons to hug each other and when they wont need an occasion to smile .... Today there will be no more accidents, and no more angry displays of nature...no storm, no earth quake, no blasts...any where in the world..

May be sometime today if I close my eyes, I might get to listen to that perfect silence inside me... and then when tired, finally when I step out at the end of the day and look up...I hope there will be a canopy of midnight blue sky spilled with clear stars, blinking their eyes at me...and and if I am lucky perhaps even, the child across the street might smile at me and I may just stand there watching him fall asleep cradled in the silent arms of the night....!

Perhaps, tonight i will go to bed without a thought and would sleep through without a dream....

Floating atop the peace inside me...drifting from one world to another!

Alas, but this is only a dream! Just a dream and nothing more...

I open my eyes today ...and I see suffering, I listen and I hear nothing but screams...
As it is now, the world makes me cry a river inside me ..every day. Its pain- its unbearable pain. I, like many of us, choke on it everyday and die a millions deaths every day! I wonder why people are scared to smile, I wonder why there is no respect. I wonder why they are unkind to our planet..I wonder why there is so much bitterness.

Everyday millions of children are born here, with closed eyes and folded palms; with only one dream in their minds; a dream no different to mine...

A dream without wings, a dream...that will die when they open their eyes!

The starving children homeless and tortured, the killings, sufferings and bloodshed, the screams of abuse at one another, the mad noise of screaming urban life, the treeless rainforests, waterless riverbeds and lifeless toxic oceans, the struggle for pointless power and wealth and the torture in Gods name and a planet that is slowly wasting into oblivion ...where are we ...?

If this is so,I wonder if it is the last flutter.....

If you remember correctly, we were meant to smile everyday when it all began....not cry!

Footsteps

In memory of Achan on his seventh death anniversary-

With music in my ears and endless thoughts in my head…
I walk the road I walk every morning.
My feet stumbling on the rejects of yesterday,
My eyes set at the farthest horizon in the sky.

The silence of the morning let out a gentle sigh
The stripped silhouettes of the trees shivering…
The road was deserted and silent but for my footsteps
My footsteps…that tore the silence gently before it weaved it back on again!

I looked around and I saw nothing but darkness…
And in the darkness the street spilled with sighing corners
That seemed to scream in shrilling silence …
At the subdued spires and their wavering shadows!

The silence was eerie and the darkness fierce
The corners came alive with nightmares of unknown
My heart thumped at the slightest sound or rustle
And I thought I must run, for I felt alone and afraid!

I walked faster, my footsteps getting louder and louder
I cut through darkness, chanting the prayers I never chanted…
There were the footsteps, the heart beats and the faint mumble of chants
And I remember, strangely, the silence thinned after a while!

Although I felt much less afraid , I was still scanning in caution…
My pace slowed down but my ears sharpened…as I thought-
a second sound in the distance echoing all the way….
A second sound, other than my racing frenzied footsteps!

At first I thought, I was just hearing things, a figment of my mind perhaps!
But it sent a chill down my spine when I harked, no it wasn’t…
No it wasn’t ; it wasn’t an echo or an illusion….there was a second sound… and-
With every passing moment the, second sound, a footstep ; was getting closer and closer!

When I slowed my pace it seemed to slow its pace
When I ran, it ran with me and when I paused ,it did that too..
Finally…with my heart in my mouth I turned back to look…and to my surprise…
There was no one, not even a single soul to the farthest corner of my sight!

I walked forward slowly, feeling confused, the footsteps still ringing in my ear…
It came closer and closer and stopped when I it felt right behind me!
At that moment I felt a nudge, I stopped there and closed my eyes
I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t running away…I was smiling…as I stood there under the cherry blossoms!

I stood there under the cherry blossoms, without a fear or care in the world
I stood there in the bliss of knowing I will always be followed no matter where!
When the darkness blinds my vision and when the silence scream at me…
I know now to hark for your footsteps that will always be following me!

I remembered the days I learnt to walk when you held my hands and walked my steps…
I remembered how I tried to match those footsteps…when I walked beside you…
I may never fill the footprints you left back…I may never walk with you …
I may never hold your hands again…I may never follow you….

But I realised under that cherry tree…with shining dewdrops on my face
That when I am afraid and lonely, when I am on that deserted walk of life…
I will not run again, when the darkness scares me, I will close my eyes under the cherry tree-
Your footsteps will be close behind … I will just stand, and listen…your footsteps will be close behind!