Friday, May 8, 2015

सहर

आज सुबह जब आँख खुली 
तो सिरहाने बैठी वो मिली 
सूरज की पहली किरण, भोली 
उखड़ी हुई, नाराज़ सी, बोली 
"रात भर जुदाई का ग़म सहती 
अँधेरी दूरियों को  पार करती
तन्हाई का हर लम्हा काटती 
 तेरी नज़दीकी को तरसती,
हर रोज़ इस उम्मीद में आती हूँ 
की शायद आज 'मैं' पहले पहुँचूँ 
तेरे ख्वाबों से पहली मुलाक़ात करूँ 
अंगड़ाई तोड़, तुझे आगोश में ले लूँ । 
पर हर रोज़ कोई मुझसे पहले आ जाता है 
चूम पलकें, तेरे ख्वाब चुरा के ले जाता है ,
बिस्तर की सलवटों में उसका अक्स मैंने देखा है 
कौन है वो जो तेरी हर सांस में महकता है ?
अक्सर कहीं दूर चली जाती हो 
यूँ ही बेवजह धीमे से मुस्काती हो ,
कभी लम्बी सी आहें भरती हो,
किसी अनदेखे से, मन ही में उलझती । 
कौन है वो अजनबी, तुम्हारा अपना 
जिसने कर दिया यूँ ज़माने से बेगाना 
कभी उस से मेरी भी मुलाक़ात कराना। …"

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

In another lifetime, maybe..





I'm not my body, this cognizable entity
I'm not my face, that the world or you may see, 
I'm not this form that walks illusory reality
I'm not my mind or thoughts which you perceive as the essence of me

But yes, I'm the silence that holds all of eternity
And the feelings which emerge from what you see as empty
I'm the words that erupt from my on-going journey
and the emotions that singe my soul with their intensity

And should you aspire to capture this real me
you will have to break your world of make-believe
shatter all your beliefs, break every boundary 
only then can our spirits dance together in harmony

But I see the chains that tie you so inexorably
And I know in this lifetime, it will not be
Every soul must make take its own path to the final discovery
And one day you will know that love is nothing if not truly free..


Monday, March 16, 2015

Love, Destiny and Effort..










Of  all the clichés about love, the one that I find most abhorrent is “Love happens”.. It brings to mind various metaphors like an illness or an accident or  disaster that happens and yet people say it all the time. Perhaps,  they say it because it is true, that Love mostly catches one unaware and unprepared.

But the opposite could also be true and I believe that is the reason for all the angst and heartbreak associated with love. We suffer from a sense of being outcast or misplaced right from the time that we are taken out from the womb of the mother and the umbilical cord is cut. And it is in some measure the safety of that tie that we yearn for, knowing that there is another in this world who will nurture and care for all our needs. So most human beings are essentially seeking to find a love that makes them feel as if they belong and completes them.

In this quest, we often, mistakenly cast people into the role of  a lover. So strong, at times, is the feeling of loneliness and a desire to know that elusive emotion called ‘Love’ that we simply delude ourselves into its existence in the form of a person who may or may not qualify or be worthy of it. For True love is like a spontaneous combustion, it is a spark that ignites of its own volition on recognizing one’s other half and it is a self sustaining fire. As Rumi said ‘Love is like a fire burning in the soul of the lover’ and that fire, once lit, does not die. Shams may have passed on but he lived eternally in Rumi’s heart and does so even today in all of his poetry on love.

But does that mean that if love is a walk-in customer, it need not be gratified, that it will continue to be with us even if we do not exert ourselves in any measure to make it stay? This is where heartbreak and betrayal enter. For if there is no effort, love cannot be chained, it has freedom at its very root and will take flight like the summer breeze…Even the most undying love needs reciprocation, two souls can dance together only if they hear a common music and for that one needs to be a creator as much as a participant.

Love happens…But it lasts only if one is willing to pour one’s soul into it and erase the narrow confines of boundaries, whether they be of the mind or those laid down by society or even one’s own life…Love is like the water of life and one must learn to be the flow, only then will the fire in two hearts, that beat to the same symphony of Love, be a blaze that will meld their souls into one, beyond space and lifetimes…



#love happens
#Love is a myth
#Lucky in love
#Rumi's poems

Friday, March 13, 2015

When Did I Stop being Whole?





Of late I have this strange feeling that I have disintegrated from a whole person into various disjointed parts (and not just mentally)... Most people who know me generally open conversations with questions like, “How is the head” or “How is the stomach”, “How is the back” ? And my identity now seems to rest in my  various body parts , one or more of which are, mostly dysfunctional. It's like the days of the week when people ask , ‘what day is it today’, I am asked which body part I am being on a particular day. 
And,  of course, there is my husband who sees me in a ‘mood’, which he used to earlier ascribe to my phases of madness has now made great progress. When he sees me being quiet or ‘difficult’ as he would like to say and getting no particular ailment described, he has the ubiquitous description – “It must be menopause!”.
My daughter is the only one who is different from the lot; having migrated to study in the west a couple of years back, now inured in the comfortable and relatively easy going lives of a student in that part of the world, she tells me “Mom, you are an unrelenting To-Do list.” So She has turned me into an inanimate object, whether that is better or worse, I am yet to decide. Thankfully though it doesn’t just end there, she knows she has a very talented mother, she acknowledges that the grey cells are transmitted genetically. So every single time that I have a conversation with her, even if it is to ask her whether she is eating properly (Indian mothers!) she tells me “Mom, Please stop stressing out, calm down” and I look around me and wonder where the storm is because I have been talking in the perfectly normal “Indian” tone…It doesn’t help that she is studying to be a psychologist because all the new disorders that she is taught about, seem to be pre-existent in her mother to a certain degree and now I have lost count of the number. I only feel blessed to have such a multi-faceted (distorted) personality.
All this leads me to wonder “When did I stop being a whole person?” How am I the sum total of all physical ailments that plague me or the imaginary mental disorders which traumatize others? What happened to the ‘I’ who was capable of thinking and being an individual , not easily ignored..Have I let myself disintegrate or is it life which is doing this? Have I become lazy or laid back or maybe simply indifferent? These questions trouble my mind and I think I need to gather myself back , part by unhealthy part, put it all together again (Unlike the king’s men) and start being whole again…Until then I will abstain from sitting on any walls or fences, simply retreat and heal…



Thursday, February 26, 2015

Standing at a crossroad..

An eternal optimist, always a believer in the essential goodness of life and the decisions that are made for us by a force other than ours, I now find myself standing at a crossroad..even the strongest of faiths are tested at times and I sense myself fighting a lost battle. All around me, all that I held as important or valuable, the foundation of my life, the relationships which have made me what I am today have a strangely noxious miasma engulfing them. And I find myself struggling to breathe...

Much as I strive to detach and find my peace within, however deep I retreat into the world that I hold inside me, I am drawn out by the negativity around me. "This too shall pass...", words that have stood me in good stead now seem to have lost their power, will this pass or will my spirit die because it can stand no more. And which one of the so called ties of my life are able to rise above their own little selves and sense this despair I feel..

Is the design of our lives laid out by destiny or is it the outcome of the choices we make..ageless question and yet I find myself wondering too...It has been my belief that in some way or the other, we have the capacity within, to draw to ourselves what we truly desire or need. And now as I look back on the life that has transpired the only beacon of light that shines is this precious child who is a part of my soul...Where then did it all go so wrong? And how was I not watchful enough to catch it and break the fall?

There is a part of me that still rebels, the one which refuses to accept people saying they have no choice. How can choices end before life does. And I am trying with all that remains of my spirit to hold on to this part..I will not profess to or accept the lack of choices. Maybe it will require every last bit of will power and courage that I have but I cannot let my soul pass on with this sense of unfulfillment. Far too long has my self  been subjugate to the wants or whims of others. A life cannot be lived in vain..If it is a gift then it ought to and will be given its due.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Absolution



Long have I been buried under
Paying the price for wilfull surrender
No longer willing to carry the weights that drag me down
May the fury of the imbecile spew or the Gods frown
I need to fly close to the sun,
Like Icarus may my wings burn
But let the ashes of my being lie
Let no Phoenix resurrect and fly
I want my soul, from the afterlife, to craft from those ashes
A thousand serpent heads, more venomous as each lashes
Not unto others, like Hydra, but entering into my own core
Every tentacle snatching the burdens of the other souls it bore
Cast into stone, even as they were in their living selves
I want my soul to become Medusa to these pitiful shells
And then clasping these limpets in every destructive curl
My soul will dance in the timeless cosmic dervish whirl
Ever expanding, ever growing, with every step I trace
Until they are flung out into an unknown time and space
Unburdened
Unfettered
Untethered
Unbound
The soul upon catharsis, will return to its dream like reverie
Like a Satyr, wandering and carefree..