Saturday, June 27, 2020
Unhappy Endings
I was only ten when I learnt about unhappy endings.
Like when I knew my grandmother had cancer,
I kneeled in churches, for God answers a kid’s prayers, they said.
She died and I didn’t meet her to say one goodbye.
She looked like a horrible nightmare,
Not the one you saw last, not the one you loved,
A swollen, ugly remnant of what was once beloved, they said.
Once botched goodbye, an unresolved parting for a little girl,
There were no tears for her, only numbness that didn’t feel real,
From that chirpy girl who never gave her a proper burial,
Who died a little that day, with prayers unanswered,
Full of questions but never with answers or resolutions,
Now, I’ve grown older with bungled muted loves,
Improper goodbyes, giving up too easily, too easily.
Tales of love
In the dark rainy nights,
She sang lullabies to us,
In a very sweet voice.
The stories lived before us,
Brave knights and lovely ladies,
All fighting for love.
Both of us, listened wide-eyed
Lying on each of her arms,
As truth and love ruled.
Little did she know of its truth,
As we grew older, we realised,
With pain and disillusionment.
How our childish hearts soaked up,
These unreal tales of happiness,
And real love, truth and honour.
She said, love makes us whole,
She sang, never forget your truth.
She sang you are special.
Now aged and crooked, she sits,
She has lost her sweetness
And we, our innocence.
For him, love is sad and lost,
For me, love is cruel and lost,
For her, life is lonely and gone.
Yet the old hope in tales flicker,
When we meet a smile,
Of understanding in her eyes.
Unending Love by Tagore
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and re-made the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another
We have played alongside millions of lovers shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell –
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours
And the song of every poet past and forever.
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and re-made the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another
We have played alongside millions of lovers shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell –
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours
And the song of every poet past and forever.
self
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 battle out our eternal game of love.
The Come-back
The yellow metal lured while the frail fingers clutched,
Dark nights were denied sleep but love reigned,
In pale cottons with jerry work, in the silent long hours
Much run stories of mind, they come back vividly, like a cat,
Suddenly upon the threshold of my quiet life, intruding.
Where would I bury that secret desire, one long love?
One long love, the sacred spaces uttered fearlessly,
For this love that never was or will be bound by time,
Or by hands that touch or lips that kiss or whisper,
Only by a strange silence that tells you about me,
In circular miles that entangle with despair,
They begin nowhere and end nowhere,
A nowhere from where I turned
But couldn’t find you again,
When arms entangle in passionate whispers,
Diluting the ancient brine of all losses,
I wish with all my heart that I could erase
One whole day, one wrong word, one moment,
To bring back the same shadows of real life,
That glowed in dark nights a long long time ago.
One small step would have changed time,
If only you with your pale cottons,
Turned back and listened to what strange tales,
Others couldn’t say for they never knew
The world you were to me,
In a sacred space that I call my soul,
Not yellow metals that still clink melodiously.
On books
A lot of books are published everyday on the works of great writers.When you read these books, you will understand that the interpretations given by these writers vary from what the original writers have thought about. Who would have thought that Hamlet would be accused of Oedipus Complex? So what happens is that these learned critics and scholars undervalue literature by giving undue importance to trivia.
Another major trend in the current academia is that literary theory is more important that literature itself. Since the second half of the twentieth century many theories have come into existence and they have replaced literature.What difference does it make to the reader to know that the writer was expressing his/her repressed thoughts through the use of a symbol in a poem under analysis? More than giving strange interpretations, what literature does is to change a perspective of life by providing a richer understanding of its mystery.
Simplify, simplify, simplify, said Thoreau. He was wise to know that most eloquent speeches were vacant of meaning or spirit. Many good writers write with a simple, unadorned style and it is not difficult to see the effort that has gone into developing such clear and lucid thinking. What I would like to know is how was your perspective changed on reading a particular book?
Another major trend in the current academia is that literary theory is more important that literature itself. Since the second half of the twentieth century many theories have come into existence and they have replaced literature.What difference does it make to the reader to know that the writer was expressing his/her repressed thoughts through the use of a symbol in a poem under analysis? More than giving strange interpretations, what literature does is to change a perspective of life by providing a richer understanding of its mystery.
Simplify, simplify, simplify, said Thoreau. He was wise to know that most eloquent speeches were vacant of meaning or spirit. Many good writers write with a simple, unadorned style and it is not difficult to see the effort that has gone into developing such clear and lucid thinking. What I would like to know is how was your perspective changed on reading a particular book?
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