Word Addiction

I think during my childhood and growing years, I have had this strange habit of reading while having food. It was an interesting habit especially of savouring the food and the words at the same time. At times, this was a way of getting past the reality of bland food during Lent times. Staying vegetarian for around fifty-six long days was unbearable in childhood though one had to do it out of obedience. However, on growing up, this religious habit of staying away from non-vegetarian food became completely out of fashion.

Even in my twenties, I would reach out for pickle jars on the dining table just for reading the print so that I keep myself occupied while eating. It's not that I don't know what's in the pickle; I guess it's a habit or rather an addiction to printed words. This might extend to the information on creams, food products, cleaning solutions, toothpastes and so on. There are some curious instances where one might encounter an error and burst out laughing just like when I read the label on a face cleanser: Apply on a cotton pad every morning. Or boards on the road like the one for the Dry-Cleaning Shop that reads Dying, Cleaning and others. 

Then there are some days of reading spree, when one might abandon connections with the external world so that one might step into the magical world of books. After buying a kindle reader in 2017, this habit of reading spree has become so addictive as one can read whenever you want whatever you want. One looks with pride at the verbal worlds explored and the journeys made, all sitting at your favourite armchair.

This act of stepping into the unknown can bring unexpected delights, such as feeling the touch of earth on your feet, remembering the feel of how the bark of a tree or your lover's limbs felt like on your soft hands or relishing the game of lovemaking with the one you love. It might bring unexpected delights from nature such as the pleasant full moonlight night or cascades of flowing water or the fresh life-giving air of verdant canopies. But the memory of a world full of adventure that you read in a book beckons you  to a world similar to the one  Lucy stepped into right from her wardrobe. 

Us

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 win our eternal game of love. 

Togetherness

It was good to see them together after their scars faded away. It was forever, she thought when she had etched his name on her heart, the palms of her hands in a mehndi design or on every scrap of paper that she came across. 

Destiny said otherwise and the one that smiled with love at her was even more smitten. In the meantime, this first love was forgotten. But after a lapse of a few years,  look at their chemistry, it looks magical, like out of a dream. 

In her eyes that look up to him, in his smile slightly older but contented, in their perfect blend together, there is this miracle that after a battle of egos, the magic that makes a breakup look unreal. 

Forgetfulness

We have sang so many songs of silence
Though all our hopes were lost and gone,
While time has erased whatever we sang
With new memories and quiet forgetfulness. 

Like the earth that celebrates the monsoon
With fresh green sprouts of pulsating life
That peek through the tiny little spaces
Found on walls, chinks, floors and ground. 

You are like the monsoon that fed the earth,
With plenty of positive thoughts and beliefs,
With rare dreams and fantasies of being alive,
Though they were never said aloud or revealed. 

May be it's the meeting of the earth and rain,
That retrieves an era erased by forgetfulness.

Earth, Teach Me an Ute Prayer

Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.
- 

Earth

Book donation drive

The NSS Unit of MMS Government Arts and Science College is organizing a book donation drive in order to promote reading among the tribal community of Podiyasala. Those who are willing to donate used or new books may send them to the following address. 

The NSS Programme Officer

MMS Government Arts and Science College Malayinkeezhu 

Thiruvananthapuram 

Kerala

India

695571

Kindly help us in spreading the reading spirit among the needy.

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.

The Unsent Letters

Strangers

Coffee

A happy life

Soul Friend

This heart has been a wanderer who loves to ramble and find ways where none existed before. It never understands the wisdom of other’s words nor can it choose anything other than what it wants for itself. Sometimes, it creates raging fires in places where a soft little word would have done.

Not that there were no mazes in the olden days. There were many that it burnt down or flew past, though not with a victorious smile or swelling pride but with quiet equanimity; it didn’t have much left behind to boast of.

For years, it has searched for beauty in all places- in the serenity of nature, in the spontaneity of a child’s smile, or in the most beautiful thoughts where it has always dwelt. It has often wandered in the serenest places on earth, where it took in with amazement, the feeling of being so minute in a huge beautiful world. Sometimes, it has wandered alone, partly to its dismay and partly to create a pride in solitude. There were also times, when in another wanderer’s eyes, it read solace, warmth and strange delight.

A new strength came from a kindred spirit in whose eyes, the world was made anew or paths made merrier with zesty songs and bright sunshine. With a soulmate, an anam cara, it has often dreamt of wandering again through the same mazes differently.Though there might be new invites from around, the cascading waterfalls, the beautiful mountain-tops, the endless beaches or beautiful fields of green delight, it needs a soul friend to listen to its endless amazement.

Though there might not be many words and many hurdles to jump over, this heart still wants to watch the stars fade away all along with its soul companion.Often it dreams of flights across all its mazes just to find solace in the comfort of a friend and at times, it feels that the time has passed and the magic gone. Despite of constant mistakes while wandering, it seeks within itself an answer, to wait patiently for its dream to come back again.

May be this heart would hum a new song or dance a new dance, a never-seen wonder of rejoice when it comes home, all safe in the arms of its soul friend. Till that day, this wanderer searches on weary faces a semblance of its dream, feels down when it finds nothing familiar and ends every journey with heavy feet and grim thoughts. Yet, with a spring of delight, it waits on every corner to see what surprise life holds in its sudden trips and turns, turning a deaf ear to the noises that are around it the whole time. 

Life in Small Pixels

A life in small pixels,
For an eye that has loved
To wander and stare at life,
As far as it goes,
Without any inherent fervour
Or the joy of life.

Joy of life,
The much-quoted joie de vivre,
Common among all cousins,
Friends and the young,
Somehow found missing,
From the beginning.

Yet the mind knows
And understands fully well;
That this life is mine alone
A sum of all experiences,
Yours and mine,
Bitter sweet.

Your eyes trailing on words
Splashed across the page,
Ah! the magic of that smile,
Cryptic, heavenly and mine,
A moment too momentous,
To capture in small pixels.

What we try to do together
Is to find beauty in the gross
And loveliness in the wordless
Limitless boundless blue skies,
To still the flowing river
Sip the magic of togetherness.

Many more days of silence wait,
Till this rambler can set forth
On faraway adventures across seas,
To watch the red-orange sunset
To feel the foaming waves dash,
Once more against our feet.

Till then, life goes around,
Prisms that capture moments
Made from minutest abstractions,
Versions of beauty around,
A mind in pastel shades
Capturing a life in small pixels.

Wanderlust

For a heart like this full of love for wandering in the serenest places on earth, each and every picture of natural beauty is an invite. The cascading waterfalls that astonish, the beautiful mountain-tops, the endless beaches and patches of green everywhere.

May be on a day like this, looking at this beautiful earth, I may not write a word but only sigh and think; for what to write about a work of art that is more beautiful than any word can describe. Yet I sit at home and dream of visiting all these wonderlands after looking at their pictures.

It might happen that one fine day, I will be able to wander as long as I please and as far as I please. But right now, the travels occur in dreams that carry me to these imagined places of delight.

Travel

Travel

Travel

Deja Vu

I don't think I have been to this place before but as I look around I get a feeling of deja vu. The blue waters and the houseboats look a very familiar sight, a place I might have been to many times.

May be if I stayed around, the waves might tell me from whose dreams I stole you, through whose heart I heard the song of a home of rest ahead. May be if I stayed around, it might tell me more about you, the one I might want to hear more about.

I am so immersed in the trance of the blue waters that I hardly see a stranger smiling at me. May be that's my answer or may be not.

From Your Valentine-3

The morning is only hours away and the need to see her has become so strong almost like hunger or pain. The first time I saw her she was so fragile and sick. Those days, I was not a prisoner as I am today. I was a priest who was condemned to exile for marrying off young lovers. When I was sent to live in the prison under Asterius, I took all my belongings- my books of learning, my secret potions and even my Arabian horses. 

I was taken to the bedchamber of the sick girl. There was a smell of decay in that room and when I looked at her closely, she was a frail creature with huge eyes and a feverish look. But on speaking to her, I felt that her eyes had lost their focus and she was unable to see me. Then I remembered the recipe for a herbal potion that I have read of and my next few days were spent in preparation of that cure for her illness. 

My first suggestion was a change of her rooms to somewhere with more light and sunshine. She was given a room on the Eastern side of the castle. For days together, she was my sole thought, my reason to be, the only delight in a confusing world of high ideals and disillusionment. I was at her side, observing her and how she became better day by day. 

My room was on the Western side but every now and then, I would cross the yard to come and see her. There was a strange delight in being responsible for a person’s well-being. Then, I remember the day when she opened her eyes and saw me. She mumbled some words of recognition at her mother who stood by her. When her father visited her, she was at a loss for words. 

There at times, when I wonder, had I been a layman and not a priest, I would have loved this girl who said my name Valentinus quietly and deliberately. She did not address me as “father” like the girls in my church nor did she give much thought to the fact that I was a priest. May be she knew what Emperor Claudius had in mind.