Anam Cara

Sometimes, the answer comes late for some seekers. The lonely roads may wear you out; the skies might turn bleak and hostile; the days might spent without ever having a soul to breathe your worries to. 

There is always this desire, the need for warmth, for compassion, for meaningless chatter and meaningful silences yet the road is quite lonely. 

Much later at a turnstile, you might meet a traveller in whose eyes you might see eternity, in whose warmth all your wanderlust might be kindled again, in whose extended hand you might see a soul connection. 

There might be others who have gone ahead and reached their destinations long ago but your blessing is that you value the wisdom taught by the lonely roads, the weary feet and the warmth of your long-desired for companion. 

Photo Courtesy: flickr.com

Spring

Holiday

She was already late judging by the sunlight falling on her face. Her eyes were hurting and when she checked the time, it was 7. 

These nights of work were upsetting her biological clock. But somehow she loved her deadlines and the fun in finishing work just before the stipulated time. 

She got up, washed her face and thought of a perfectly finished task was there in her mind but she might have to run it again for small errors. 

While brushing her teeth, she thought of the different options before her for breakfast. 
There were some pleasant smells coming from the kitchen. It might from from the house next door. 

In the kitchen, Akash was frying eggs and toasting bread. The whole kitchen looked a mess but on the table were placed two cups of steaming black coffee.

This was kind of a surprise and she asked,“Do you want me to do anything?”
“No, you just relax and read your newspaper”. 
“What do you want- butter or jam on your bread?”

She went close to him, put her arms around him and kissed his right ear and said  "Thank you!"

An evening

In the midst of this summer tedium,we meet again,
In the same old park where we used to sit around, 
Reading books and chatting for hours altogether, 
While the ancient tabeubia trees bore us witness. 

Once again, the carpet of pink blossoms is made, 
For you and me to sit and doodle with lifelessons-
The serious thoughts about the angst of this life , 
The trivial thoughts about the colours in the world. 

You are a strong shoulder that I had let go earlier, 
Your few words fill me with so much of happiness, 
I am the mighty wordsmith in whom you believe, 
The one who can conjure up new worlds in verse.

You and I talk of the serious and trivial meet again, 
In our old hang-out under the same ancient trees.

Ships that pass in the night

I thought you were here to stay always
With the kind of love-light in your eyes,
With that bounce in your quick steps
Or the well-measured choice of words.

I thought you were the kind of true love
That could make a princess out of me,
The one that could make a day magical
Out of the countless songs that you croon.

I thought may be it was a soul connection
To make a bond like this to form so soon
Though from a stranger to my everything
You took hardly a few days to become.

Looking back, I see that you were nothing
But a ship that pass in the night, in real.

Lost Love

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.  Berthold Auerbach

What could I do then, the singer croons delicately,
While tears fill my eyes, as I think of a life gone by,  
For I knew you never were mine; but another's
Yet this foolish heart worshipped you like a God.

You were the one whom my heart searched for years,
But when I loved you, it was only existing in my fantasy;
For it was not your fault that this love could never be;
Only mine that I knew it well and loved you more for it.

It was my own folly that made me love you so much,
To wreck all chances of happiness in your name,
Then wander in strange places looking for your face,
And write songs about you read by strange eyes.

I wish I had told you how much I adored you then, 

So that you could have become my only love forever. 

Coffee

Recompense

For every word of harshness that you hear,
You have a word of love to cure the heart;
For the darkest hours of a wakeful night,
You have a beautiful dawn to shine bright.

For the loss of innocence of childhood,
There is the growing maturity of years.
For the loss of a life near river green,
There is lot more sunshine to balance.

For the trenches that this life fell into
There are the new scales that it climbs.
For the years lost in search of dreams,
There are these words on a virtual page.

Which brings in daily strange comfort,
For every friend lost, that of strangers.

Glass-eye

The mind has lost its sharpness, it has become glass-eyed and sits wondering as to what has happened to it. It has lost its powers of conjuring up words after words and images after images.

This world looks desolate without what it has always loved, kept hidden like a treasure from the rest of the world. It weeps over the loss of cognition and wonders how it will survive in the years to come.

However, what hurts the most is its loss of live though most probably it would have been just a mirage and not reality.

The Year of the Metal Rooster

In the Year of the Metal Rooster,
Big events were happening daily,
When a Water Dragon and a Wood Sheep
Decided to have some fun one day.

The earliest cells must have dreamt,
Of the rain and the soft music it made,
On the tin roof and window-panes,
While the elements mixed together.

What strange elements blended,
What fires and what blue-green oceans,
To form this mysterious phenomenon,
Welcome or unwelcome, God knows.

The story of me might have began,
In the Year of the Metal Rooster as fun.

My roots strangely

I belong only to you, my dream.

I dont belong to my place that left as a child.

I do not belong to my father's family since its all dead and gone, with a few bones scattered in a churchyard long and far away,

I do not belong to the place where I grew up,

Beside the River Green, my mother's family

Where it was always fun to be playing in water,

Yet too scary to belong,

For there were rightful inheritors,

More rightful than us.

Nor do I belong to a family which calls me my own,

Though the blood that runs through my veins is hardly theirs,

Nor do I belong to them who call me by a sweet name,

They do not know me at all, am a familiar stranger,

That nods and smiles and passes them by.

Its only you who know me, my love

My feminine spirit and tenderness,

My occasional clownishness in trying to belong,

To some name, some family, some tribe,

Where I do not belong.

You are where I belong, in the melting down of the barriers between you and me, 

and the all engulfing tenderness that follows,

That is the space where I see myself,

As yours having a name and being other than all these illusions.

Love

I never say  I bring you only bouquets of joy,

Yellow flowers of sunshine and love.

Hidden beneath them may be flaws in me

Which may wound you and pierce your heart

Yet with the broken, tattered, torn, scarred flowers , 

Which call my soul, I bring you dreams

From the unknown land, where in the grass,

Little toes will step towards you with delight.

Twilight

My dream, in what strange world have you set me free?
As witnesses to twilights, embraces of dark and light,
Holding in arms, lulling asleep, reluctant partings,
Dual dancers in that uncertain zone, separate, leaves,

We wandered, in those green fields, on those blades of grass,
Our lips drinking sweet intoxicating drinks from silence,
Watching the birds that fly in the blue skies, amazed,
To feel the rain that drenches us lying lazily surprised,

As our love, like starlight from distant stars, at night,
From far away, gazes at where we have roamed,
In day as a stretch of rainbow after heavy rain,
Written clearly against the skies, in vibrant colours,

For this mythical bowl of dreams was always filled,
Everyday with love and hope, now with our desires.

Perfect match

How long have we belonged to only to each other?

That day since we took a quiet walk of togetherness,
Though it is as though we have always belonged
To each other across the ages in a sacred sense.

Coffee kisses, pasta lunches, candlelit dinners,
Shared moments of togetherness well-cherished
The perfect wine that we tasted last and so deep,
Not first love nor the first riot of purple passions.

There might have been others before you and me
Countless love-stories that taught us heartbreaks;
The many roles that you and I played across lives,
The sense of having known each other all along.

But I do remember us walking around the holy fire
Quietly chanting mantras of eternal togetherness.

You and I

What brought you back to my mind, I do not know

But I do not like the hot surge of tears that arise,

That still rise though it’s been so many long years

Since we walked away from our future happiness.

Words, reasons, explanations I cannot find at all,

But the heart wants to scrawl a few more words,

In that curious hieroglyphic that we had invented,

To encode a secret message just for your eyes.

But then the long years have made us so apart

For so long that I do not know you anymore,

Nor the heart’s language or its silent desires 

Even my own self I hardly recognise anymore.

You have a good mirror to look in, so do I have

What we’ve had once is more than what'll be.

Meghadutam

memory

Find that rainbow day

Tales of love

In the dark rainy nights,
She sang lullabies to us,
In a very sweet voice.

The stories lived before us,
Brave knights and lovely ladies,
All fighting for love.

Both of us, listened wide-eyed
Lying on each of her arms,
As truth and love ruled.

Little did she know of its truth,
As we grew older, we realised,
With pain and disillusionment.

How our childish hearts soaked up,
These unreal tales of happiness,
And real love, truth and honour.

She said, love makes us whole,
She sang, never forget your truth.
She sang you are special.

Now aged and crooked, she sits,
She has lost her sweetness
And we, our innocence.

For him, love is sad and lost,
For me, love is cruel and lost,
For her, life is lonely and gone.

Yet the old hope in tales flicker,
When we meet a smile,
Of understanding in her eyes.

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.