The Unsent Letters

The Corona Journal

I was just now going through my last year's diary and I noticed that unlike most of my previous years ( I have been journaling for years and is known to buy a save our trees every year methodically and start writing in it before 12 o'clock midnight), last year my entry begins on the day lockdown is declared and it is no coincidence that the diary chronicles many projects some very unsuccessful and some very successful like most of the lockdown journals. 

I think that it has it recipes of herbal cosmetics that one had to rely on because of declaration of lockdown to recipes of food items that one made taxing one's cleverness in creating simple followable steps. I heard of a recent DIY hair remover and was amazed at how open we have become to.mixing a few well-known ingredients rather than risk buying a hair removing cream or wax. The journal talks of momentary weightloss simply because of the nonavailabilty of meat and that of bakery items. It also wallows in self-pity after the failure of a microgreening program after reading a lot online. I think reading online makes you amazingly knowledgeable but amateurish about the DIY projects. 

The journal marks the demise of a well-organised worklife in July after lockdown is declared again and one learns how to take classes online. Though it speaks of the ennui of day to day life and later on the serious issues like blood pressure variations and memory lapses, it also celebrates some luxuries one had like long baths and detailed entries of everyday adventures in the field of films ( Because I teach film.studies I guess) and songs and books on kindle. While ageing is a process that shows on the bones and in one's nerves presently, I want to offer gratitude to wifi and for some small mercies that helps one survive the toughest of times.

There are also so many threads of stories that one has started with a perspective that is mature but lost interest after one finds it too intellectual and difficult to manage and ends up writing the same fairy  tale romances that one loves. Hope life gives more days to live a life that is worthy of writing about!

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. 

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.

Perimenopause

On air

The way your memory creeps up before my eyes

The way you croon your favourite songs and mine,
The songs that have stayed despite the long years
Playful, naughty, sad, philosophical or just pleasant.

The songs that bring you back to me wherever I am
Wild dreams of being one with you body and soul
Spending endless hours in embraces like creepers
Despite the long sad years of absence and longing.

Though I long for our lost days with a heavy heart,
Those days of endless sunshine that were so perfect
Your sweet voice singing your favourites and mine
During all seasons and all times, every single day. 

The songs that I listen on the radio this morning
Brings back a smile in this era of infinite longing.

#listentotheradio

May

Peacock

Devotion

Ram Navami

Legacy

Legacy

May be it is because I lost you even before I knew what loss was. I lived years without knowing what it was to grow up without a parent. 

Then on becoming ten, I saw with sadness how parents loved their kids and it stung me that I would never have fought or answered you back had you been alive. 

It would have been a normal life with you around me and I would have grown up like the others too. But this was a life snatched away too soon only to leave a similar legacy of not being around to nurture one's offspring. 

happy easter

Celebrations

In most of the festivities, sadness cast its shadow like the ancient skeletons hung amidst sumptuous feasts. I could never let it go for this heart never knew how to let its soul soar in the skies.

Every year, this was a celebration of joys and sorrows with equanimity: for one learnt this bitter stoic attitude quite early in life. There was no better teacher than my grandmother who sang the way of the cross in her sweet mellow voice during Lent.

For it was never an easy life; always a loss between the cup and the lip and when the ancient scale of weights is checked against feathers, it is a heavy heart that upsets the balance by its inability to let go of the past.

World Poetry Day

Mehndi

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