Photographs

I have so many photographs of mine
In my cupboard, old and new,
So many faces that I once disliked
But with the passing years
I have come to see how
That me was so different,
So pretty and beautiful. 

Long-haired, wild-haired,
Short-haired, grumpy,
No two faces look alike,
The one on identity cards
Look even more grotesque,
Even taking a snap
Is like finding a new me.

But I wonder when will I ever
Get over all my self-doubts
Embrace me completely
Forget the self-critical nagging
And tell myself in the mirror,
"I am incredible you know,
Because I love myself so!"

These days

There may be millions of people in this world;

The count increasing second by second daily;

Millions, I hardly know; thousands neither,

But these days, what I want to study is, you.

There may be many songs that I have heard;

Countless in number, peppy, soulful or sad;

But these days, don’t want anything except

The song you were humming all day long.

These days, when togetherness is what matters,

I want to trace your contours with my fingers

I want to feel the warm love-light in your eyes,

And make you my entire world, my soul melody.

Medicines and remedies, there may be around;

But these days, the only cure that I have is you.

Evening View

Summer shower

Come to me in a summer shower

When the clouds burst in thunder

When the earth dances with the sky

Come here, come here, come here,

With your hair wet

With your eyes tender

Come home to me.

Come to me in a summer shower

When the clouds burst in thunder

When the earth dances with joy

Come here, come here, come here,

With your heart desirous

With your fond words

Come home to me.

Calculations

For you and me, the numbers are important. We spent most of our days counting and performing the basic acts of arithmetic. Neither your joy nor your sorrows reach me except as vague waves of depression that may be carried into the next age as well.

It has happened more than a single time that the numbers showed how between the cup and the lip, a victory was lost and a dream was crushed into nothingness.

This mad heart still loves to make vague calculations that makes it easy to swallow the hurt and the pain of the past and the present that never lets it be. This dream might appear after a century or never but the days are full of expectations and the nights full of longing.

Whatever time may bring, the days are spent in tying a few words together that appear without embellishments but form a perfect crown of flowers for my king. These are seen by many as calculations meant to trap or attract but this heart knows well that they are calculations to write away a foolish love.

My River Green

The river flows, the first memory in mind,
A huge sheet of green glass; not blue hue,
Like they do in usual children’s watercolours,
A shade of muddy green with trees around. 

It’s Onam, the spring is here, day bright,
We run to the songs from the snakeboats;
We forget our food and rush to the middle
Much to the angst of our seething mother.

Again, we run to watch the fast snakeboats
Rushing to the beat of the peppy boatsong,
The sun shining against our tired eyes,
Then playing in the water for hours long.

A taste of childhood, onasadyas from home,
So long, so far, from the present lone time.

Heathcliff

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable. 

When the snows fall and the cold bites hard
When the winds are rough in dark wintry nights,
He walks in the moors calling out her name,
One who loved him like the rocks underneath;

When her father brought him home one day
He was just a wild-haired gypsy child; sullen,
He loved her and rose up in life just to gain her,
While her own brother brought him up low.

He loved her more than his own dark self;
She chose not him but a wealthy gentleman;
He came back and drove her to madness
And lies buried next to her and her mate.

Many have heard them together laugh and sing
In dark wintry nights, gathering snowflakes.