Desire: Valentine's Day

You have been my home and my solace in times of trouble. It is with you that I learnt how to travel in a magical land of dreams. Though we have never been together in life, it is in this world that I run to you, whenever your thoughts come to my mind. Throughout the years, I have missed you so many times but more than that I would like to tell you that I have never forgotten you even for a day.

We have wandered through this life in many lands and drank deep from desire. Your gaze pulls me closer and I am jolted into a whirlpool of desire. I give my everything to you getting carried away by the moment. Your eyes sing melodies that has always lured mermaids from every land and brought them to you without fail. 

Your words pull me to you and I dream about our moments of togetherness like eating a candy in secrecy. Your passion is something that gives me more to dream of and I watch you sleep soundly after this bout of lovemaking. You look peaceful like a small baby and that comforts my soul. 

We wander in green fields watching the dew on the blades of grass and drinking from words and from silence. We watch the sudden downpour that drenches us and celebrate nature and our moments of togetherness. Though miles away, we are together in thoughts and dreams. Everyday our wanderings across time and space are marked by the stories we tell and the places we inhabit. 

Summer Love: Kiss Day

You are my favourite song that I sing day and night till I get tired of singing. You are my summer love of youth that come to me in snatches of songs and as pleasant memories though our love never got a happy ending like others did theirs. With you, it was always the silence that reigned as if we came from some primeval ocean full of ancient longings. You were the sun, the moon, the land, the ocean and all that this heart wanted to see around it.

It was as if we did not need words to speak of the magic that was between us, it was as if we have always known each other minutely and the much-needed words failed to come out though I tried hard when you were around with you. I wanted you to stay around with me always and it is your companionship that I craved throughout all the years.

What I remember is your mellow voice that spoke enthusiastically and warmly of things that moved you and the beautiful way words sounded when you spoke to me. Not that others do not speak enthusiastically or warmly or sweetly but this heart remembers you with fondness and exaggerates how you were, how you spoke and how you behaved. Now, eons later you have become a beautiful song that I know by heart and that might be sung a lifetime. 

words: hug day

There were words that leaped out of neatly bound library books and offered solace in the dark nights of the soul. With wonder, you remembered these miraculous tomes set by a writer whose heart was full of infinite longing and pure love. 

For years, my dream has been to write with the same magical touch that offers solace to the reader. I never knew this dream till you peeked at my midnight dreams that summer. Awake from sleep, I wanted to tell you what I felt for you especially when you were away from me and how my heart beat when you were with me. 

Though you were not mine to own, I started becoming possessive about you. You need to smile at me, talk to me only or enjoy spending time with me, I argued. In the realm of words, I starred writing the songs of silence about what you mean to me. 

This heart wants not to please the mob; only to sing about what it remembers the most of a long-lost love. These songs have no art; they speak of the loss in not having you beside me. They have neither rhyme nor rhythm but only a wild beat of words that are quaint to the ear, yet in their own way, unique and creative. 

Words come, with its thousand limbs, entangled meanings and nuances, like a sudden burst of rain that creates ripples in still water, while the great green forest holds watch over with its mighty silent wombs of understanding, from that moment when you appeared in my midnight dreams for the first time. 

Making memories:Promise day

I want to spend some time with you and I want to know everything about you. I want to spend all the best days across various seasons with you, wandering this world and learning more of you, what you are like and your likes and dislikes, creating some really good moments together. Someday, I want to look back and think that we were creating memories together.

I want to know close, read each and every look, every smile, learn your language and also what you say without using words. I want to see and remember how your eyes light up in a smile and how my world lights up with your smile and how this world lights up making it a better place to live.

Your fingers touch me and I forget myself and the worries of this world. Your lips kiss mine teaching me the art of love every single day.

It is with this pleasant feeling of being loved that I want to go to sleep at night and it is with the certainty of your arms around me that I want to wake up in the morning. 

Letters to the Self

Teddy Day: Dreams

Though we may be apart, in a sense we are always together, across all lives, present and future. For this sense of being alone, creeps on you even when you stand in crowds and even when you are with your friends.

You are my other half, my twin flame in this life, for it is with you that my dreams run wild and I weave stories of togetherness in an unreal realm. And, I have become like you in the years that followed.

In a way, when I look back on life, like a traditional Indian bride, I have walked with you around every revolution around the sun, I have stayed loyal to your love and held your name holy like a talisman.

You are my other self, whom I do not know for I have never seen you as you really are, for I was struck blind by your light. Yet I know you were with me in each and every circle round the holy fire and will find you near me in every dream. 

Even when I dream, you are with me and I return to your thoughts time and again just to hold your hand in an unreal realm where rules don't matter and hearts speak only the truth. In another world, in a parallel universe, we celebrate our life of eternal togetherness.

It is destiny that brought us together and again we spend our time chatting away about how life has been during these years of absence. I dream of a life of togetherness again, stargazing or soul gazing or learning more of each other.

And, though apart in real, in every circambulation around the sun, you and I will grow together in wisdom and though our lives will remain apart, you and I will find that this sense of oneness with each other in spirit, that itself is a reason for celebration.

#teddyday

 

Us: Chocolate day

We met each other for the first time two decades ago when we were in our twenties and within days we were talking to each other about our favourites- books, films, music and food.

You and I spoke of things that were serious and trivial, and formed a bond with common tastes. The first evening was followed by many more tastes and smells that we experienced at the eatery close to our workplace.

You sat beside me for a friendly chat sipping hot coffee in an evening air that smelt of freshly brewed coffee and newly baked bread. It was that book by Robin Sharma that brought you to my mind because I remember how you were so passionate about what you love.

Those days, I think was a transition period because I saw myself transform into a princess and I would spend hours in front of the mirror wondering what you saw in me.

I think it's the magic of those bygone days that come with the smells of hot chocolate and freshly baked bread. And, I remember you because though I am sad that you were never mine, I always wonder how wonderful I have felt with you around me.

Today, your sweet words made me remember our long lost days of togetherness.

Fantasy: Propose day

Years: Rose Day

May be it was part of my bravado to make  fun of love and how lovers feel when they meet after a long time.

Though the hourglass looks still, the days have fled so fast as if on wings. Here we are, the writer and the written, the wanderer and the dreamer, face to face, eye to eye.

I don't know where you have been and whom you have met but I would like to hear what passed day by day, hour by hour, second by second.

I might have to fight back all the tears of absence that have weighed my heart and you may have to slow down the countless words that never found a way to the lips.

But god willing, when that day finally comes,  I want it to remain still like forever and I want to tell you for sure that I know what a love story really feels like.

Shivsakthi Talks

Letters to the Self

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Goodbyes

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.

Barsaat

Rain has been a very interesting theme in literature and multimedia. There have been plenty of love-songs with rain in the background and the heroines in the focus or with the lyrics that deal with an emotional downpour. In Half Girlfriend, one of the recently released films, there is a song Baarish in which the heroine steps out spontaneously into the rain. May be because of the summer heat,  I find myself humming a few of my favourite rain songs:

1. Mausam : This song  by Mehnaz has been a favourite back from the Channel V and MTV watching days, when the first thing on the mind after coming back from college was to listen to the latest songs. This song is about a girl who is on a  train journey  to her hometown  and the memories she has about her lover. 
2. Barsaat: This slow number by Adnan Sami tells what it wants to tell the beloved. The longing to have someone you love next you when it rains, is beautifully expressed in this song taken from the album Kabhi to Nazar Milao (which from the trivia encylopedia starred a Mrs. India).
3. Aaoge Jab Tum: This song from Jab We Met does not have rain in the backdrop  but deals with unrequited love and the longing for the loved one to return.
4.  Bhoondon se baaatein: This song from Thakshak has a beautiful Tabu dressed in royal blue dancing in the rain. The lyrics explain what the rain is and how she wants to talk to the raindrops. 
5. Sawan Barse: This song from Dahek has Sonali Bendre and Akshay who are getting ready to meet each other and the rain comes as an obstacle in a busy city of  Mumbai. 
6.  Barso Re:  This song from Guru was a surprise with a svelte Aiswarya dancing like a peacock with the rains. 
7. Ab Ke Sawan: Set in the background of a Bengali community, this song by Shubha Mudgal celebrates love and longing across the different age groups. 
8. Hum Tum:  This song is one that brings in a feeling of nostalgia with the various fantasies that plays in the mind of the heroine. 
9. Tip Tip Barsa pani: I think the right name for a hot song was a sizzler  in the 90s and it does not surprise the viewer in the least. However, a recent version by Neha Kakkar is a beautiful rendition.
10.  Sawan Aaya Hai: This song from a completely ridiculous film Creature is about the season of monsoon. Mohabbat barsa dena tu, sawan aaya hai!

Varshaa: Rain Melodies

In one of his stories, the celebrated Malayalam writer T. Padmanabhan writes of a man who loves to listen to the sounds of rain so much that he takes a cassette of rain-sounds with him abroad. When he feels homesick, he listens to the sounds of rain- the sudden outburst, the pitter patter of rain on the roof, on the ground and to the sounds of occasional thunderbolts. The rain has always held a fascination for artists and is a constantly celebrated theme in Indian literature and films. 

The theme of the rain is explored by the artists Jason J.Nair and Aby in Varshaa: Rain Melodies, a collection of five rain melodies that inspire both creativity and nostalgia. Though it bursts on you unawares and creates plenty of inconvenience, the rain serves as a muse or a source of inspiration for many writers and artistes. The rain pitter-pattering outside, the sound of thunderbolts flashes of thunder across the sky, the wait for the rains symbolised by the dance of the peacocks or the memories of getting drenched unexpectedly, there are so many threads that come together on listening to these rain melodies.

February

Mother Mary Comes to Me

When you read Arundhati Roy's memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me, you are reminded me of the world you stepped into when you first read the opening pages of The God of Small Things. Once again, you are a teenager reading about the Booker and the River Meenachil she has portrayed in The God of Small Things. 

 

Her memoir features her tumultous relationship with her mother whom she calls her shelter and her storm. The book is about her mother Mary Roy, leading educationist and the woman who fought for ancestral property rights in Kerala. Mary Roy was the founder of a school Pallikoodam in Kottayam and is depicted as a strong woman who stood for what she believed in and Roy traces how she meets Laurie Baker and his assistant, creating in her a desire to be an architect. 

 

The book begins with how Arundhati and her brother are addressless children trying to survive with their mother in the maternal family. Her mother had fled from Assam where her husband was working after their marriage ends abruptly. So, the first part traces her  childhood in Ayemenen in Kottayam and her youth as an architecture student in Delhi, her meeting with her future husband Pradip, the literary endeavours that she made throughout her life as a writer.

She has managed to capture the contradictions involved in the relationship with her mother- the devotion and the differences, the need to connect and the need to stay away. She reminisces about her writerly life and her various assignments. The book also captures the last days of Mary Roy including how the epitaph says Dreamer, Warrior, Teacher on her tombstone.  

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Reminders of Self-care

Forget

 

It is strangely pleasing,
To see that you remember,
Each and every word I said,
Every word of nonsense,
Recorded and stored,
In your fond memory
 
All the queer fantasies,
Uneasiness and likes,
Every turn of phrase,
Recorded and stored,
Carefully held close
In your fond memory
 
But I would rather you forget,
Every little thing, every word,
Than remember and store,
Treasure with sharp ache,
Going through every day,
Like on a bed of arrows
 
I would rather you change
Change with the seasons
Dance with the crowds
Shake with roaring laughter
Smile that slowbreaking smile,
Than ever remember me
 
Yet every night the candle burns,
With thoughts sent as waves,
Prayers that may or may not reach,
For all blessings to fill your hands,
And strength to forget, forget, forget
An intense slice of an uneventful life.