Glass-eyed

This heart was a lone warrior, who fought against the injustices of life. Then you came along with the love-light in your eyes and changed this life upside down. You taught me how to look at myself through your eyes and how to love what I saw. It is in your love that I learnt how to be a woman and draw attention to myself. But before my heart was filled with this joy of togetherness, you went away leaving me behind.

Days, months and years when I thought I might have been dead, without you, without my own self that has forgotten how to speak and read. The books pile up before me, my own personal copies from the libraries, here, this and that yet I cannot read a line or understood a thing, a sort of glass-eyedness has taken possession of me. I feel that I need to get away, move out, create a new life but feel sad because I am no longer able to read the print before me, glass-eyed I sadly sit and stare out of the window, thinking of botched goodbyes and unpleasant endings to love stories. 

 But the memory of love that we shared then reaches out to me and I am glad that it was the best thing that happened to me in life.

Sanctity

For there no church bells, no crowds. There was no me looking splendid in a white gown or me crying thinking about leaving home. Only you and me, and a few who mattered, your parents who did everything to make our dream come true and of course, the God of silence, in whose presence we promised eternal companionship. 

No priest uttered the holy words, nor did the laity sing hymns of praise, only I closed my eyes with a smile as you tied the holy knot and bowed down, before you and God. I do not know what prayer my soul heaved, but there was much more in that silence than in the most profound of all prayers.

There were no teasing crowds afterwards, to tease us about our first day of togetherness, to bring blushes to you and me, only your ten pet budgies who watched quietly at the newcomer me glowing in their owner’s complete attention. 

Now many days have passed and we have learnt more about each other through words, touch and fights and the budgies have learnt how to speak in my presence. But it’s the God of silence, who reigns supreme with us as we felt on this Sunday when we stood quietly before his holy altar and prayed for abundant blessings throughout life. 

A Song

 

 

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.

Eternal game

You and I were meant to meet; like two streams joining to form a force, entwined to travel through miles and miles to become invisible specks in the endless sea of eternity. But you and I were destined to struggle about identities, independence and possession- that make such a natural blending impossible. Like two opposites, fire and water, who cannot co-exist; we have become feuds in one eternal struggle for life. But this is enough for this life, for without being possessed, without following the rules of the world, this love has turned into a game that can played forever.

Love of my life

You are the best thing that happened to me though I didn't recognise it at that time. In the past, there were crossroads when one was left alone and this time, this heart manages to find a home in a heart where love beats in a language known to it. Though I fail to bring back our days in real, this love has become a fond and affectionate bond where we seek and find each other out with a hunger not known before or after. 

Priceless

There were times when I have struggled a balance between my dreams of material wealth and spiritual happiness. Not that there were many possessions, a bare room that looked more like a scholar's study than a girl's bedroom but there was always a need to keep it spick and span.

There was this craving for possessions later always caused by an awareness of a lack looking at the wealthy and the rich. Then now, when it is possible to have possessions and objects that one wants, this strange heart wants nothing but to be left at peace, to know the wisdom of simplicity and of keeping away from needless clutter.

It wants not to learn the price of new desirables but to keep against its heart the priceless value of timeworn possessions, worn-out words, tired dreams and old loves of words, coffee, wine, music and  you.

Wisdom

You were a wanderer who left behind your hometown to start a new life, to prove yourself in the eyes of your near and dear ones. I was a dreamer who could listen with wonder to your ramblings and walk with you everywhere, one who could go places without leaving my favourite armchair. 

In the many years of absence, you and I travelled together across many exotic lands. From these wanderings, we have gathered so much of wisdom and have arrived at a place of mutual understanding. How we have changed in our lives holding close only values that which matter to both you and me!

In the long years you have been away, I have glimpsed you in many forms but not in real but I still remember your tenacity in sticking to your dreams and nothing else. For me, who have lately started following your footsteps, the world looks new and vistas inviting. 

May be this is not a dream at all but a piece taken out of tattered lives like yours and mine, but when these words come to fruition, it is more perfect than anything else heard, felt or seen.

Tonight

Tonight, it was your words, chocolate and butter, that made me drunk.Words that would bring back your bold gaze that could read more of me and weave a tapestry of desire.

I still wonder why I would spend hours in front of the mirror wondering at what you saw in me and go over in the mind, a flash of your childhood smile.

But all this magic faded away and we became two strangers fighting about what belongs to whom. Still it was your words, chocolate and butter, that made me drunk with delight, tonight.

Pic Courtesy:things sweet and wonderful to eat. wordpress.com

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.

Dedication

You are my other that helped me to grow, to learn more about life and even about my own self. You might be a person, an event or a book that has left an imprint on my soul.

You are my first love, this entanglement with melodies, the way my soul lifts up in the Hosannah or feels happy with the Magnificat or bursts out in a raga with the rains.

You are my ever existing dream of weaving together dreams, words and melodies into a book of poetry worthy enough to be engraved in a beautiful script and to be set before your appreciative eyes.

You could also be my love, the one that never found its way to express itself yet reaches out to you in words, gestures and memories wherever you are.

You are a lesson, a mistake, may be a chapter that I cannot forget, a memory that I cannot erase despite of all the bitter strife of these years.

You have taught me how to be, how to love yet not to lose myself and the lessons are not bad as you can see for yourself.

Equanimity

You steal those silences with amazing dexterity. Earlier, these silences meant everything; now they foreshadow bitter moments that can break this heart into pieces.

You might say it's not so; but this heart knows its aches and joys, it knows not how to lie and maintain a straight face in pain. For years, this heart has tried to learn this elusive lesson of equanimity.

For it has always laughed with joy and cried with pain and knows not the stance of calm except when indifferent and aloof from the cares of everyday life; with prayer and penance and self-torture.

You have never known such days of life, when one could only write and escape this mad world of unbearable agony or pray to God to send an angel.

Memories

Our old hang-out has changed and a lot of people have owned it once we left the place. The small details- a few dry fallen leaves scattered by wind across the steps, the towering torch, the yellow flowers that form a bed across the wide lawns, the bright blue sky that peeps between the trees, lovers who speak and fall silent every other second- still matter.

You and I have lost this sacred space the day when our love became bitter and sad than the joy it was to us every day. For every day, the first waking thought was always about the moment that I will meet you later in the day. Sick leaves, holidays and hartals were like hell; for a day to be real and alive it needed you and your loving support.

The purple flowers that grew where we used to sit and talk still enchant many lovers to pick them up as gifts for their beloved. Our paths are strewn with fallen leaves from that old tree that bears a nameplate on its neck and has borne many seasons in our absence. Years of absence has sprouted new life around it.

Now you and I are no more careless wanderers who thought of nothing but each other. You are an invisible onlooker in my life; one whom I see yet do not recognize. You listen to me talk to others; never wanting a word for yourself; taking a strange pleasure in noting how I have changed beyond recognition. You travel around for days wondering why you come back to the same place and the same person who wounded your heart.

Success

Days of hard work and burning the midnight oil were rewarded by a grand success that few could even dream about. Still, this foolish heart was not sure how to move ahead leaving behind its little troubles and worries. The rain of blessings that heavens poured out did not help at all; instead created floods that destroyed the land.

The dream is still there. But to climb that summit once more, it needs more than hard work or time; for this heart can never forget the pain of losing the power of dream to an illogical frame of mind. Victory was mine; but the feeling of a victor never came for the heart had its reasons and illusions.

Now when the same summit that the traveller climbed though unacknowledged looks far and hard to reach, all I can do is just wait for time to reveal life's reasons in not being able to taste the fruits of victory; rather like a soldier who lost his precious life in the last battle of his life, I remain lost, with a cowardly heart that cries at its losses and an illogical mind that takes pride in missing opportunities.

You and Me

You and I don't have anything common between us apart from our love for words. You love stringing words together; beautiful words that collide against my mind, when I encounter them somewhere in books. They show how you have been digging words, their meanings and their various tones to paint pictures.

While here I sit and sweat trying to express what is on my mind; for words fail when it comes to what I feel for you. So I try to explain mystery after mystery, glance after glance, suddenly remembered conversations that bring you clear before me.

You and I have been away from each other for too long. Sometimes, I find that the colour of your words have faded and died. It has nothing to do with me, I know, but the fact is that  it no longer makes me laugh or cry unlike earlier and I long for those unwritten words of yours.

self

I have a self that knows years of sense and more nonsense. I stand alone in crowds yet walk with you in green fields at the same time. I run in many new paths sitting at my armchair though I never leave my  world but for fresh signs or old paths.

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. 

You are my favourite daydream that I return to 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 different circle of life, you and I will battle out our eternal game of love. 

Possessiveness

I always thought I owned you heart, body and soul. Yet there were times, when you chose a companionship because it suited your taste. You never heard the pangs of my jealousy or my angst over your possession. 

In the years, however, you and I changed beyond recognition. You became forgetful of the promises you made and became a wanderer in the green fields while I stayed happy being the air around you, worshipping you like a demigod. 

When the wheels turned, our relationship crumbled and what is left behind is nothing but heartbreak. The angst of my heart is fresh like the yesteryears for you have always been a wanderer. Yet I refrain from criticising you this time, after all these years, for being your companion has taught me the taste of wanderlust. 

Precious

There are times when I have wanted you back; like we were always to each other; two opposites like water and fire; dark and shade; halves that could set right whatever was wrong in our lives.

For you lacked life and I lacked peace; but a strange fate put everything right for us before it went wrong again. But once shattered, the halves are never the same. Can you ever touch your heart and say that my absence has never made any difference in your life? I cannot.

For every day has passed like a punishment and every joy left unshared; all because of your magnanimity and your worship of rules, customs and traditions. For now, more than ever, my anger erupts at your foolishness in crumbling a love that was the best that could ever be.

You and Me

You were the strain of music that I lost somewhere in my life. One day I just stopped singing and lost you somewhere along the way. The songs that you taught all sang of how your tears would make garlands of songs for my neck.

Yesterday, when I remembered that we had required nothing but togetherness to be happy every day and how hours of looking into each other's eyes could bring in a new life after every parting. Then the song played on my lips again; but this time I guess I know how to make garlands with tears as well.

Masks

You and me have worn many masks with each other. Any other woman would leap and violently tear that mask of silence off your face. But I watch in silence, everyday, how far will you carry the game. You will only smile and say the same words of courtesy. But when your silence is broken by hoarse laughter that sounds so hollow, all my anger disappears and I find you the same as ever, childish and ever trying to hide your insecurity in being aloof and in being funny. After finding out how you feel, I see that I try to do the same with you.

dedication