The Stars

Most melancholy are sung under moonlit nights because the sun superior is too bright to confront. But then, what if even Mr. Moon fails?

Thats why we have these scattered bits of undying hope called " Stars". Not with scorching blaze, nor with creases and wane but a spec of atmost shine they are. Eyed by all and yet they seem so undisturbed. Clouds and comets may come and cross, but they are the ones that stay. And the best part, at a comforting distance they stay. ...

They say people die and become stars. This could be true as they are much relatable to mankind. Like every individual, each one grabs its space and dazzle distinctly bright. Group within groups they too form, as beautiful constellations our early dreamers had drawn. And as a whole, they decor the dark, just by being in there, like people are supposed to.

When all envy their beauty, I envy their timing. Its night for all of them at once. There is no "meet and move on" for them. They get to twinkle on the same time and they are always on the same sky. The same vast sky where there is no "two different roads" and hence stars don't have to take different journey during their lifetime. And I envy that. 

The Five Places in Life

I am your hometown. Your precious childhood was lived here. My memory stays untainted where ever life takes you further. And that is brushed beautifully alive each time you revisit me.  Roads and path appear shorter than it was then, buildings look small, the simple temple at street corner would have raised by then into a splendid structure. The boy at the little box shop would have grown and his shop is now a big store. You like it here with me to just be and do nothing. You know me by heart.  You don't have to be here to feel me ,to write about me. I am where you are heartiest. 

I am that town which you luckily left. A place that holds some void which you never got to understand. A silence and quietness which you did not deserve. I only made you to quit. To step back. You were too young to realize that it wasn't your fault. I gave you a world that was too narrow to live in. You just existed here and know not that there was other way out. I suffocate you with lacking. I shape you into a perfect misfit. I push you into an uneasy oddness. I set your inner demons to a level of wildness which you fail to master. Years pass slow but u easily get old here. I am where you never belong.

I am your city of study. Every people here are  at their own business, driven with passion, having a purpose. You are not on watch and imagine how much freedom that gives! You develop your own style here and learn to carry yourself well. I am unique and I gift you the same. You learn to make choices here and grow independent. May be you should enter here at right age to love me full.  I give you space. Space for your inner child and older self. I make you lone and that calms you down. Sitting here, you self reflect, you miss people and places and all  that is a beautiful feeling. I am like a beach shore, a stone bench inside a rose garden, a moon lit night on terrace. I am where you transcend.

I am your work place city. You like me for my rawness, for my tough vibe. Having filled with unceasing energy, I mold you for living, for a better life. You cry and get cured here. Every people here are at run and you too learn along. This busyness builds you, keeps you on toes. I surround you with chaos and hold your demons with my reins. You are so much familiar with the transits across me that you can travel eyes closed. People take different lessons from the same lecture I offer.  Some learn and fly away, some step back with all due respect and few get too much clinged with me and hence never leave. I hold a mixed culture and much richer history. I am where you attain glory.

 I am your final place of halt. Having lived a haste life, you sit back and relish here.  You shred all sophistication and set a simple routine here. This getting disturbed by any means, leave you stressed that whole day. It's all small deeds like watering your plants, dusting every rooms, every furniture, arranging shelf, daily market, evening walk, bed time books and Fm radio. You prefer to do things the more time taking way. I make you feel rested. Everything is at a gradual phase but with no complains about it. My this passiveness does not bore you. Time for everything is just enough here, not too less, not more either. You understand me and I respect you for that. I am where you retire.

Life and people, as intended..

Our life is beautifully weird, people we meet  are incredibly unpredictable and our relationship with them turns out to be strangely twisted. 

Some are like a "wrong forecast". We would have expected a thunder storm, but they just happened to be a lovely passing cloud. We admire them but don't keep them beside us always and nudge. We set them high and always look up to them. We are not sad that it ended, but just feel light and happy that it happened. We don't complain if we don't get to meet them again, but also we will not miss a chance to sit with them for a breezy rewind over a cup of coffee.

  

Within this "wrong forecast" type, there is one more kind. Where we might have wanted an unceasing wave, but unfortunately it turned out to be a brief cyclone. It started so well , but turned other way somewhere in between and so had to meet it's dead end. We miss those good times and do wish it had not ended the way it did. We can't continue as if the mess did not happen and  it feels awkward to start over again. We want to have them but know that we can't. And so it gets done and dusted once for all, leaving quietness around us and few unforgettable events as memories inside us to muse upon. 

Rarely there are people like "once in a lifetime bloom". We never did expect to meet them, nor there are any chances of crossing them again, but that one time remains hitched into ourselves. Something about their voice, eyes, face, features, attire or words instinctively hit on us like, forever. We will have no reason to talk about them with anybody nor they will have any significance in our life events after that single instance and yet that small memory space was meant for them in our system and so shall they remain... 

Then there is the "seasonal kind". With them you will have your season of spring, scourging summer, withering autumn and cold dormant winter. And if destiny allows, there will be spring again. They will come back into our life just as they left. And if they do so, we will receive them without questioning (at least not immediately ) why they left. All concerns, complains, curiosity and gossips that were hanging about them will be quickly wiped off and we just make way for them to sink in like before. 

And very few are our "perennial ones". We just happened to meet them once and they happened to be travelling along with us since then. We don't remember how it all started, we can't name and  categorize them into one single bond and  we just don't bother what is keeping us tight. Here we have our space and longings ,we have our expectations met, similarities cherished and differences understood.  There are few days of fights or feeling distant, but that gets waved off and  they only go cemented stronger into our life block every time after that. With them we have this unexplained comfort and unimaginable coincidences. Every relationship can be blamed on "time" or "destiny" , but for this one rather than blaming, we are immensely grateful and somehow confident of never losing it. 

Your Godmother

She comes like an approaching wave of laughter  resonating life into all your senses.

She fills like the juicy gheelicious cake to curb down those cravings of yours which you did not even knew existed.

She strikes like a sudden sky busters in your gloomy sky , just momentary but holds enough cheer to spring your mood.

She surprises like a bunch of red roses delivered at your doorstep. Out of the blue, one of those simple things that amaze your another everyday.

She pours like words into a famished poet. You can never force it. But when she comes, all you can do is let the joy flow through you and pen down before it wilts off.

She is missed like a faraway lightning and thunder. Though not near, you can still feel the breeze of a distant downpour. 

She talks your mind. Brings that astonishing feeling of being at home having nothing to mask nor to judge your own words or emotions.

Sometimes she just screams silence.. Like a pillar of poise absorbing your voiceless words. And she does that with ease, because only she has the strength to bare your stillness. 

Distorted Sonnet

To the broken hearts and empty glasses 

To half minds and ruptured adolescence 

To taunting emotions and mumbling tears

To reasons absurd and unknown 

To regrets and relief 

To frozen memories and deleted messages 

To battling guilt and confronting realities 

To past excitement and future anxiety 

To risen responsibilities and dissolved dreams

To biting arguments and slaughtering silence

To surprising success and unacceptable failures 

To the bunch of roses and bottle of rum
To bear hugs and butterfly kisses 

To those taken and all those mistaken..

Happy Valentine's Day !

Who Master's Who

I live in a very luxurious resort, with grass to play, winding stairs, sunkissed terrace, train track window view, glassy floors, spongy cushions, two big bowls, all time food, chains, ropes, yard, toys and with many more accessories of mine. Every morning, my day starts as i wake with a jerk, go scratch, lick and kiss my sleeping master a Goooood Morning! He then pulls and tucks me in, kiss me back, press my paws and brush my fur seeking all my blessings for the day. Later after a quick munch, he accompanies me down the road, breathing and coping up with me from behind. We wave past all our similar yet different pals during that stroll. The cow boy is too calm for his size while the cat fellow is too vexing. The birds chirp in no perfect tune and so I bark and help them enrich their morning raga. We reach host little tired and all ready for my Fooood! I like my bowl clean. Myself and my everyone here ensure the same. In between, my master steps out to fetch things for me and some for him and I just allow that. And when he returns, I can't help but run towards him because I well know that me would have missed me as much as I missed him. I jump and fall over him, we hug and pat and pacify each other and I ditch him till I see my crunching biscuits.  So that way all day I play, I stretch, I cuddle, I eat,... I hush, I dodge, I growl, I eat,.. I snooze, I sniff, I lick, I love, I roll and I eat .. 

Having filled with such happy routine, there do comes rare days when we are Left alone in the home. During those home alone sessions, my master pulls me close and sits in quite. He sometime weeps. I, unable to react to his out showered gratitude, just sit calm and caress his thighs. Inside those four walls, with he in my paws, I lay behind and muse ...about "Master". 

May be except for me and him, nobody here actually know "Who Master's Who".

    

Not Much Has Changed In Her...

Adventure" whim in her eye pools everyday and she does kindle all the naught out of you with just a wink, even now. She doesn't grand anything easily, be it at the verge of eternity. "Hope" looks at her with such long  longing, while "fear" awes in desperation. She keeps them both only at that "distance" till date. "Space " she needs from all and that has been so till now. "Time" yearns to stay little longer with her and she shows no sign of "Mercy". "Patience" would find his place right at the tip of her nose, ready to fall and break anytime during her deep sigh. "Arrogance" and "Pride" has overgrown her height and yet, not much has changed in her. "Smile" still sits heavenly on her lips and that same "Warmth" is somewhere latent between the gap of her lashes and lids.

Though  that "Smudge of Kajal" is now missing from her dark smoky eye line, not much has changed in her.....

A prequel to our daylight

Inspired from ROMA I write,
with much delight, a prequel to our daylight...

I understand your every worldly plight,
and try not to bother against my might.
Because I do not have enough foresight,
nor could I set the lost past upright.
Now that I see dreams crashing over night,
I continue holding on to abyss tight.
For I fail to curb my burning appetite,
and only wish to sit beside you in quite.
To transmit power, shouldering pain in spite,
Here I am, waiting for our another fresh daylight.

To: The controller, Disaster Board of Examinations

Respected  Disaster board of Examinations,

This is to bring to your kind notice that there is serious increase in causalities and failing people, year on year due to poor education system and flaw in your exam patterns. I, on behalf of the entire disaster stuck council, am writing to you requesting  changes in your disaster exam structure . Listed below are our obligations for your actions please.

A Common syllabus

 If it’s a common test, there needs to be a common syllabus! Its globalization era dude.  So grow up and give us everything that we need everywhere and then take test. Don’t pocket your resources and leave us to ponder. A broken bottle of elixir or an habituating venom, divide and give to us in stake. Because our teacher forgot to teach us how to share!

Pre announced exam time table

 Train us all with one skill at a time! Building bridges, digging wells or fighting fire are entirely different concepts and hence not to be graded simultaneously during the same season. You flood a portion of yours, suck every drop of water from another, burn down jungle elsewhere and still expect us to survive on you whole ? So please, at least tell us what exam it is next, so that we will be well prepared.  

Relaxed exam time

You know how big the textbook these days are. If there is so much to study, of course! there is gonna be enough to write. We haste and scribble and are still not completing your entire exams paper. I seriously request from our entire council to give us enough time to de-silt your bed, built boats and dams, bore well, gather funds and prepare enough bund to hold your rains. You, in no time ring the bell and drain blood down from every face on the open exam ground.

Open book test

Next is the request for an open book test. We have grown up googling brother!  Be it a scorching sun or irresistible tide, we can easily pass if you don’t do shut down our network signals. But you do that as the first thing and make our assessments ever more harder.

No” Out-of-syllabus” questions please!

You are already screwing up hard even if the Deccan dries or Bramaputra  floods. Out of no where why do you bring in new new questions and hardships every year. We are all simple humans with nominal IQ’s. So kindly be merciful on us to first teach and then take test.

Looking forward for your kind consideration and get a positive revert from your end on this regard!

Yours faithfully

Just another exam feared student

And This Distant Music Shall Never Fade

On a phenomenal day even if did the sun desist

 to burn and forgo her blaze,

Her light would not relinquish its radiance 

and her charm shall never melt.

Even the earth, if lose her left over patience 

and the inner fire of her’s suffice,

Her eternal love would not hurt 

and its essence shall never evaporate.

Even if the moon turns clear with no craters 

and cease to take changing phase,

Her wildness would not distort 

and her warmth shall never separate.

Even if the oceans undress her depth 

and summon back her every unceasing wave,

Her secrets would not untangle 

and her grace shall never degrade.

And even if nature get aged 

and all her greens turn grey,

Her symphony would not tame 

and this distant music shall never fade.

In memory of my Rajathi..

You built a mystic world for me and almost effortlessly became my home. A world that was naive and biased. Biased in favour of me. Where everything was absolute and understood. Where , even most fragile of beings would gain strength, simply by thy touch, by thy glare, and now.. by thy memory.

Vision did fade from those oceanic eyes, but it still flared with voice! Your raw and recklessly hanging wrinkles which i used to pull and play, your protruding green veins, countable strands of hair, your hard grown nails and rubber tooth, your suspicious stare, your body wobbling laughter, your sitting and sleeping, your slow reading, your pathetic singing, your eye flooding giggle, your shy, your tickle and every miniscule detail of your top to toe housed such high degree of cuteness that any fastidious creature would easily fall and sink into!

 Alas! What a loss  for thy precious five stone mookuthi! Instead of shining up on your nose, lighting up itself and your face, it is lying locked up wasting it's life in here. You walked up and down the outside concrete stairs and earth beside this house bare foot, not willing to taint your soft, specially made shoes. Now that pair is still lying new , without having a fat cracked foot to stand under. Our  cupboard still confines your warmth, your essence, your smell amid each of its eight yard saree folds. The white polished walls carry your palm prints fair and unfaded.. I forgave each time when u blurted out mistakenly my brother's name instead of mine,. I remained calm when u soiled and coloured my white Lenin shirt in the name of washing, I rushed away as if unnoticed when u stealthy stuffed extra food into my tiffin box.. I didn't yell at you when those pickle bottles that u had slipped silently into my baggage stained my clothes.. but this time you have crossed it.. and I won't spare you for this!

Historic life you lived and most gracefully you did leave. But to our mystic world of fairy tale and abyss, a dead end this will always remain. And here, smoking your memories, adult by thine absence ..stoic and still I stand, indifferent to pleasure or pain.