Friday, August 21, 2020
Equanimity
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.
Dream Book
My dream book has the following qualities:
- It is addressed to my other, my other self, for one whom I write the best of my thoughts
- Though in prose, the words may be simple, mostly of one syllable and beautiful
- It is a collection of thoughts at different moments of silence between me and my other self.
But I don’t know when I will write this book and even if I don’t write the book, I want to say this dream aloud to somebody so that I might feel the need to put the dream in the form of words. Do you have a dream book, dear reader?
Summer Rains
You came with the summer rains
With thunder and lightning,
An explosion in the big silence
And left an upturned life,
But with a huge difference-
Your absence and memories.
You brought with came with the rains,
When the roses bloomed you
When the earth danced
To the rhythm of raindrops,
On the rooftop, dum dum dum,
In that house with a leaky roof,
While I’d lie awake and listen,
Watch out for the merciless rain,
Toss and turn on my bed,
Snuggle against the pillow,
Get up and move the furniture,
Come back and dream of you.
I’d look at those lovely roses,
And imagine a few incidents,
Run and rerun your smile,
Every word and every laugh,
Our cryptic mutual messages
And your funny way with words.
I’d go over how that mighty rain,
Peltered on our brown skins,
Tanned as you’d say,
Natural as I’d say,
Brown, plain and dark skins,
In that heavy sudden outburst,
There was nothing left to say,
Yet all that was left unsaid,
Was everything that we couldn’t
Speak, dream or create-
A language we couldn’t speak.
I’d remember how I could sing,
Stand, dream, sit, talk, laugh,
Everything except cry
Be myself beside you,
For you were never another,
Only my own self, my mirror.
The smell of wet earth
Dancing under the touch,
Caress of raindrops.
With thunder and lightning
Like in summer rain,
And left a big silence
After you left.
Your words, your smile,
Every gesture, every moment,
Became my treasures,
Of a miserly heart.
I’d gather all these moments,
Treasure them in my mind,
For you are no longer here,
For you are no longer mine,
Only a story to remember,
Only a memory to erase.
This crying idiot you never saw,
Who hid behind all clownishness,
A love that searched ways to erase,
All barriers of words between us,
But never could utter a word
Or dream a glimpse of you.
For I can see you in my dream,
For your left reminders on my path,
Your voice, words and a model,
Which I unconsciously imitate
And respect to my own surprise;
It was not that long you know to judge,
Only a summer of well-repressed words,
Dreams and an unlived life together.
As I move on with new strength,
After troughs and crests of longing,
A few words to celebrate an absence,
A few songs that an clown offers
To kill a love that stopped this life,
To make you smile with remembrance
For being so big (not fat) in my eyes,
For you these Songs of Silence
Perfect match
Though it is as though we have always belonged
To each other across the ages in a sacred sense.
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.
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.
Quietly chanting mantras of eternal togetherness.
Wisdom of life
I say: Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle. –Sun Tzu
Reading for fun
To taste bit by bit and take in your words?
Not that you have left them behind for me
They are all over the place, wherever I go.
The hourglass on my table marks the time,
Though it looks still apparently, obviously,
But the words grab my complete attention,
And it's more like reading a first love-letter.
The words glide across the page at this hour
Be it the ancient stories or lover's quarrels;
The slow-burning desire of lovelorn youth
The ambitions of the powerful and the strong.
Nor do I count my life in terms of big events
But by the tomes that I've read daily for fun.
The Garam Masala Box
The smell of spices wafting from the spice shop nearby took me back to the year we got married and started setting up a home for ourselves. ...