She

Her heart is large enough
To hold you close to her;
For she is not of this world.

She is foolish in her ways;
Poundwise or pennywise;
For she is not of this world.

She didn't give me a staff
Nor a bag for my journeys;
For she is not of this world.

Nor enough to nourish me
Like the others did theirs.
For she is not of this world.

But she loved me enough
To let me learn by model
To learn lessons my way.

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!

Another remembrance day

Years of absence and years of loss,
Words that could never bring it out.
Not really knowing what is missing,
Stifling up private grief for ages. 

Missing a warmth that was hearsay,
Love, talent and words in stories,
While not even a leaf was left behind
Of a life lost so many decades ago. 

She told me this to bring a tear to me;
For I had long forgotten this grief
And learnt to live without it long ago;
Than miss someone gone so long. 

Too young to have remembered you,
Too fond to love one through hearsay.

Summer Tedium

The summer heat sizzles and burns, while one longs for the rain. On the way back from work, I look at the water drizzled in the orchards and dream of soaking myself in the river back home, in the village that I grew up in.

On the roads, one looks at the heaps of green and ripe mangoes, watermelons and ripe guava. In the lazy evenings, you smear sandalwood on your body to cool you down and drink tall glasses of spicy buttermilk to quench your thirst.

My heart reaches for you in these eons of absence with a longing that I have never known before, dreaming of the times when our love was a constant source of happiness. Like one longs for the rains in the scorching heat, one longs for your presence in this long summer tedium. 

Summer Tedium

In the midst of this summer tedium, one longs for the rain;
In the orchards, water drizzles are made to battle the heat,
The ripeness of guava fruit permeate the evening air
While heaps of watermelons call your sole attention.

The songs that you play on your guitar in summer time,
The melodies that captivate the audience under a spell,
While you try to figure me out, to fix me somewhere
Within the matrices of your growing understanding.

One sole glance from your sprightly eyes full of laughter
One smile that could restore the energy lost this season
The longing that fills your heart in the summer nights
To be with the one you love and to be his companion.

Part illusion, part dream but this growing understanding
Of an affection brings back life in this summer tedium.

Yeh dil mange moru😁

Copernicus

He proved that the earth was not the centre
Of this mighty sprawling universe.

Sorry my dear to break your illusions
You are not the centre of this world either.

Journey

Thick like ladies' fingers
I had teased them once
As I held them in mine.

On this long tedious path
I saw you tap your fingers
To the song I was humming.

Through the tedious heat
Though you didn't turn
To look at me even once.

Yet I saw you tap your fingers
To the song that I was humming
All day and night long.

Of the days spent in singing
With eyes that shine bright
With hope that rises again.

After the summer tedium,
After the dreary monsoon
Just in time, for you and me.

Your fingers draw the story
They weave a dream in words
Music, coffee, words and us.

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.

Reading Philippa Gregory

All the butter in your words melt,
Their aroma sizzle in these books;

The lovely knights and queens rule;
In the realm of heart's full content.

In the tedium of summer I take them
And gobble them up voraciously.

Pic: thebodydietetics.com.au

Poetic justice

Children who are always told what to do,
Who don't really know what they really want.

The storms within and the tears they hide;
The boomerang comes back in slow time.

The impossible

I think the hue and cry is about nothing.
You and I are not impossible.
You and I are too too different to be
Possible.

Heaven& Hell

You have raised heaven and hell
To get the things that you want.

Justice, equality, wages, voice
But never have sought a love.

For years it's been given up
And written away in verses.
An old dog of a heart asks now
Couldn't you've saved it all up?

The image once in the mirror
Was a bold warrior in armour
With no worthy cause to fight for
With no war worth winning.

Yes, it could have lived peacefully
Than the miss the one already gone.

Water Dog

To define oneself, one needs so many words
To define oneself, one needs so many roles.
Elemental water, loyal as a dog in chinese era
Strong and enduring like a lion of the zodiac.

For years, this elemental water needed vessels;
For years, it worshipped you with its loyalty.
Now you are no longer here to define me
I flow again with the wanderlust of a dreamer.

Not that I need this persuasion of soft words
Not that I need this melting of strong wills;
For even without a single word or glance
This lonely wanderer and his song are mine.

For it's from these shores that he drifted off
And to this loyal heart that he'll come home.

Bakra

The lies that you tell
The magic of ulta-pulta
Has brought us here
Where we are.

Learning the ropes
To evade responsibilities
To whine perpetually
For what you get.

May be you deserve
Far more than this;
But you need a bakra
To hang your sins on.

The questions to trap
Shows your real self.

Miracle

A miracle has happened.
A mountain has moved
And a new terrain is here.

In the midst of all this
I felt your hand hold mine
And tell me not to worry.

Days

Where you went hiding those days?
I see the images, I see the shadows
Wasted in fully crowded courts
Without any possible consolation.

What did you speak of? Only my ears
Never heard or did I feel it right, to ask
But one snippet of a story brings smiles
While one bad word shocks me so much.

You must have felt the same one day,
Though I didn't know the reason yet.
The lives are all entwined without
Knowing the why, when, what or how.

But when I find but one missing piece
I celebrate with more love than ever.

Win-win

PIC: Tumblr

Sometimes, your soul might be weary;
But the eyes are focused on the road; 
And a hurdle crossed makes you happy
Not at once, in degrees as it kicks in. 

Drops of Youth

In tiny glass bottles, they sell drops of youth,
At exorbitant prices and dreams of perfection.
The words persuade, I decide to buy some
Just to check out for an overnight miracle.

Drops of youth, she claims can cure your scars.
Can melt away your acne-scars and pimples;
The girl mutters guessing my Achilles' heel
The need to have perfect pimple-free skin.

While I read her compact and eyeliner,
The perfect matte and the Absolute range
And think of the many things I have tried-
Diet, facewashes, scrubs, oils and whatnot.

Yet I'd love to keep an old belief of this land,
That they're brought on by an admirer's eyes.

Pic: www.sabrinatajudin.com

Sunrise

All smiles and bright;
The little one shines.
It's dawn once again.