Songs of the Yellow Moon

When I was growing up, I used to get so irrirated with my grandmother who will come up with aa song for every random word that I said. Being a language teacher, she was a storehouse of poems and songs and rhymes that would make me cringe, so much that my message will be completely lost in the process of communication. Growing older, I have understood that I have got at least fifty percent of her riddlesome nature, of singing songs about random words and people.

There were other legends about her. One was that she had the ability to make a very fiery husband crack up in laughter whose way of self-expression was flying plates at the dinner table if he wasn’t happy with the food that she prepared. Then on sleepless nights, they would tell each other how they had met each other when they were both eighteen and he will say with a smile that even then he knew she will be the one whom he would marry. With my late reading hours, I might drop in to their room listening to them argue about the hardships and obstacles they faced from her family (sixty five years ago) and their beautiful love story that I don’t think even their children know much about.

I am no different I guess, at least about the song part. Life is so uneventful yet one feels consoled by the sight of a full moon. I guess the best part was the feeling to go on gazing at it as if its magic is enough to lighten up your entire being. I think that's when my I remembered my all time favourite "Yellow Moon" and needless to say as with old favourites, these play in the head from beginning to end, with each word, right in its place.

About the lovebirds, lost her songs and her memory after his death and her favourite way of spending sleepless nights was her constant prayers for death and asking for the priest to give the holy sacrement. Once, when I was giving her food, she noticed the newspaper and asked me "Has my name come in the obituary today?" May her soul rest in peace!

Songs of the Super Moon

In the long years that we were in love,
You were the only sun of my universe
I have rhymed, bled and given birth
On the pure rhythms of your calendar.

Like the moon, I have had my full tides,
Where I have went ahead of everyone,
Conquered the world and been on high,
Loved you with the might of my limbs.

Like the moon, I have had my ebbs,
Where I have fallen behind so low,
So much that I couldn't smile or laugh,
Missed your limbs that coil round me.

We change with the tides of the moon,
Yet our love comes back in full circle.

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

Hum rahe ya na rahe yaad ayenge ye pal

Some favourites from KK. May his voice linger on! 

1. Pyar Ke Pal

2. Yaaron Dosti

3. Abhi Abhi to Mile Hain

4. Dil Kyun Ye Mera Shor Kare

5. Alvida

6. Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai

7. Labon Ko

8. Khuda Jaane

9. O Meri Jaan

10. Zindagi Dol Pal ki

11. Zara Sa

12. Aap ki Dua

Euphemistic desire: Dear Diary

Today, I heard a transgender writer speak of her genitals as if it were the most natural thing in the world, her lips curling to the words my vagina, my breasts, my body and the crowd listening as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I don't know how many among the men would say my penis or how many among the women would dare to say my vagina or my breasts except in a very clinical sense and that too when talking to the doctor about some afflictions that affect them.


Our world has ways of putting words to complex things but not something as simple as your sex or mine or theirs, your desires or mine or theirs. Stronger than the feeling of finding nicer labels for all private parts was the feeling of curiosity about how she has lived with courage when many a man or a woman with ordinary lives might have crumbled before life's ordinary struggles.

Is it that difficult to find words to express love for the one you love just because you are an introvert or because your identity is different from that of the majority?

Thoughts listening to Kalki Subramaniam

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.

The Unsent Letters

Always intrigued by the Letters that Noah wrote Ellie in Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook. Thinking of writing 365 letters that were unsent.

Menstrupedia Comic: The Friendly Guide to Periods for Girls

What comes first to my mind, when I think of the onset of periods is the Maturity Celebration in Tamil Nadu shown in the song Thandatti Karuppayi from the film Kaadhal starring Sandhya and Bharath. However, this might be a popular media depiction of a girl hailing from a rich background as we read of girls who skip school they cannot afford sanitary pads or girls who use rags and sawdust during this time. For most of the girls in my generation, menarche came as a surprise or even shock as most of us didn’t know why we were bleeding. 

As Aditi Gupta says in her TED Talks, A taboo-free way to talk about periods, some even though they had blood cancer. The generation before that probably never spoke the word aloud. The generation before that must have never have heard of sanitary pads. But when one clearly remembers the trauma of the first period at school or the kind of experiences of your clothes showing signs of it, through firsthand or second hand experiences.Nowadays, the onset of menarche is quite early when compared to the previous generations because of various reasons. 

Children learn about periods quite early from their peers who have early or through books and films. However, it is good to educate them about what periods is all about. So, a sign of the changing times can be seen in a book by Aditi Gupta named Menstrupedia Comic: The Friendly Guide to Periods for Girls. The book talks about menstruation and the processes that are behind it in the form of a comic. It aims at dissipating some of the myths that surround menstruation and in bringing about a healthy view of it as a natural biological process. The book is in the form of a story where Priya Didi speaks about menstrual hygiene and health to her younger cousin and her friends Jiya and Mira. This is highly recommended for young girls who will learn to see periods positively. This book is available on amazon.

Sacred Spaces

In times of despair and darkness, your soul lingers on a favourite memory for a second and without knowing how or why, there is shift in thinking that realign you to the present. This memory could be a place near the River Green, where you grew up or could be the verdant campus where you studied or your favourite space in your house.

The spaces you love, the view that your balcony offers, your favourite reading space in the drawing room or the serene space you have made for your gods-all become memories to be visited in the mind's eye.

However, my favourite space was my armchair from where I visited many imaginary lands and learnt the magic of written words. The view that this room offered was lovely, with the blue skies and the sight of tall buildings etched across. During the rains, this is the space from where I sang my favourite songs.

Yet my love, you are my favourite sacred space, the one I visit every day, whenever I think of our days of togetherness, the one secret haven where I rest when in strife and where my soul might come back when the body loses its breath. 

You are that sacred space that I will inhabit in the realms of dreams where the bonds of this world don't matter any longer. 

#sacredspaces

#home

Unsent Letters

Dear Sean

I still remember the first day I met you. It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining bright. You and I met and looked at each other with surprise in our eyes. Even now, I think you never fail to surprise me. That first day was pure magic, I still remember. I have always thought it would be a wonderful story for us to tell the future generations. However, our lives were never meant to be together. Yet on days like this, I write you letters on how beautiful life would have been had we been together. Even after all these years, I still love you, adore you and cherish you as mine.

Yours truly,
Berry

Unconditional love

Beauty

Angel Number

Change

Favourites from KK

Some favourites from KK. May his voice linger on! 

1. Pyar Ke Pal

2. Yaaron Dosti

3. Abhi Abhi to Mile Hain

4. Dil Kyun Ye Mera Shor Kare

5. Alvida

6. Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai

7. Labon Ko

8. Khuda Jaane

9. O Meri Jaan

10. Zindagi Dol Pal ki

11. Zara Sa

12. Aap ki Dua

Tonight

Only you, only you, your smiling eyes whispered,
As you sang our song, unaware of the huge crowd,
For I couldn’t believe it, standing where we were,
How you could look before you, and see only me?

Your eyes illumine the words as a leaf under light
Your solemn face, singing of trysts at moonlight,
Like by magic took on a look so soft and tender,
By what spell or charm it still makes me wonder.

The words you sang to me long ago, now, crowd,
Like colour against monotone, promises unlived,
Your songs of love and longing in forgotten days
In a gaze that read me, in a million uncanny ways.

Like buried seeds coming to life at the touch of rain
You come back with new tears as ungrieved pain,
Our tragedy was not breaking up but fading away,
With distance and fights that broke out twice a day.

Your eyes now sing to me from crowds this night,
Whose look has turned wan like the words I write.

acceptance

A good ending

She was like many of us, driven and strong

Who travelled not the well-beaten paths

But made it on her own through the foliage

In the process, lost old loves and found new.

The journey was never the same throughout,

There were really tough times that broke her

She trod step by step, day by day all along

Till she got what she wanted throughout life.

But when she met him again, her childhood mate

There was a spark of affection, pure unlimited

It was as if she wanted him to stay with her

With all the force of her childhood prayers.

It's with the same sense that we see her again

Beaming her childhood smile with him around.