existence

solitude

Make Periods Normal Again

Period

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.

Your words

Spin me not one but many yarns,
I would read it with real interest,
With full understanding that you,
With a loving heart made them,
So I can turn to them for comfort,
When with an ailing heart or pain,
On any day, when I need support,
And smile upon reading your words!

Note- Written in response to Swapna's As I Spin a Tale

spirit animal

A book

TRY

Reading Agatha Christie

Reading detective fiction has been one of my favourite pastimes since childhood. Many of these still remain my favourites because of the fact that they are so readable and at times so forgettable. Among such books, Agatha Christie’s works stand first and foremost. 

Her detective fiction gives a kind of “aha” feeling, which can be compared to the exhilaration that one feels on putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Now wonder, the historian Romila Thapar advises her research students to read Agatha Christie to enhance gestalt thinking or the ability to see the whole picture. As these books belong to the category of popular fiction, they are easy to read and intellectually stimulating at the same time. 

Her most famous detective is Hercule Poirot who has been immortalised on the small screen by David Suchet. Poirot is a retired police officer from Belgium who is known for his penchant for detecting crime. He is described as short, with his head the shape of an egg, moustache always well-trimmed and shining, and with good manners. He is shown as obsessed about neatness and order, be it solving the case or his attire. The most famous among Hercule Poirot novels are Hallowe’en Party, Five Little Pigs, Elephants Can Remember, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Appointment With Death and Murder in Mesopotamia. 

Miss Jane Marple is one of Christie’s detectives who views human life everywhere the same as in her village of St. Mary Mead. She is an elderly spinster who is very observant and manages to ask the right questions at the right time. Some of the books with Miss Jane Marple as the detective are The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, A Murder is Announced, They Do It with Mirrors, A Pocket Full of Rye, 4.50 from Paddington, At Bertram's Hotel, Nemesis  and Sleeping Murder. My favourite is At Bertram’s Hotel, which is about a nightmarish world where some very innocent people are framed for crimes they have not committed and the police recognizes a gang of lookalikes who manage to get away with it.

Though not so numerous as the Hercule Poirot mysteries or the Jane Marple stories, there is the couple Tommy and Tuppence. Her true names are Thomas Beresford and Prudence Beresford and they appear in stories such as Partners in Crime, The Secret Adversary, N or M?, By the Pricking of My Thumbs and Postern of Fate. Tuppence is shown as a charismatic young lady who manages to keep her head in cases involving mafia or espionage. 

Though there are chances of reading an earlier read Agatha Christie by mistake, most of the time, it goes completely unnoticed. 

Pic: www.telegraph.co.uk

friends forever

time for everything

Timing

positive affirmations

New Woman

 

This soul was once like a huge flame leaping to the skies,

Then it withered, dried and drooped to the very earth;

Sometimes, like Icarus, it leapt out of its many mazes,

But burnt out in the heady dash for total freedom.

Then she brought forth a new-born, a swaddled baby

She sang her magnificat of newly found motherhood;

The soul forgot its troubles for a joyous interval

And learnt how to escape the many mazes again.

Yet mostly this soul was a single-celled organism,

Cowardly and crawling in this huge universe,

Too silent, too shut out and too withdrawn,

Incapable of learning or making its way around,

Sometimes, it longs for the crazy days of yesterday,

When the sun of total freedom had burnt its wings.

Pic Courtesy: Icarus and the Sun by Serena-Moretti

growing up

wuthering heights

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” 

“Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being.” 

~ Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

A perfect life

If life was perfect, I would never have lost you to silence,
Or you thought over what an innocent smile really meant,
It would have been a celebration of our mutual silences
With a huge degree of understanding, not hide-and-seek.

If life was perfect, it would have smelt of fresh coffee,
Your perfume, glowed with your glaring new blue shirt,
Your movie-star good looks and impeccable manners,
Along with those caring ways, never with another.

If life was perfect, to laugh would have been easy,
To cry easier and to trust and confide the easiest,
It would have given freely, not full of tragedies,
Which were between the cup and the lip always.

If life was perfect, I’d be what I am in my dreams,
Putting words into perfect little sheets, bound to books,
Or teaching children to sing rhymes and poems,
Or loving my little voices that mingle with mine.

Still if life was perfect, I would sit at night on the seashore,
With you gazing surprised at how beautiful I’m in black,
Talking of sweet nothings to remember and treasure,
That would be a perfect moment, for years to come.

Garden of Eden

Let's hold hands and walk in the garden
Search around for the four-leafed clover,
Walk around till we find the true mystique
Of a clover much-searched for and found.

One leaf for faith, hope, love and good luck,
Good luck, the most needed of them all,
From morning till night, we could pluck
And learn from the leaves of a four-leaf,

When the magic of the purple riot falls off life,
In a sunless garden where the flowers are dead,
A four-leaf clover might bring in a warm smile
Memories of bright sunshine and summer rain;

An Eve in the Garden of Eden plucked a clover
To know if Adam is her one true faithful lover.

Togetherness

After the days of humdrum, you and I have met,
Savourings days of togetherness and promises;
After the sleepless nights of sad separation,
You and I have made recompense with our lives.

When the others have chosen the easy crossroads,
We have been foolish in not seeing the obvious;
The lessons that our elders gave every single day
Much to our dismay and feeling of righteousness.

We have not been lucky at the crossroads again;
You and I parted ways more than once in life;
While time ravages youth and leaves us feeble,
Broken, old, lonely, sad and too tired to talk.

We have been fools who missed the obvious lessons,
But when we come together, it is like spring again.