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

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…

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.

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..

सइयारा

ज़िन्दगी की ख़ामोश ख़ल्वत में 

बिना किसी इशारे या ताक़ीद के 

जब्र से नहीं, हक़ से आ जाता है 

और सिर्फ सवाल बख्श जाता है 

उक़्दह कहें या फिर मरहलह उसे 

अजनबी ना हमदम कह सकें जिसे 

अजीब सी' कुछ यह वाबतगी है 

हादसा या फिर खुश क़िस्मती है 

चंद लम्हें क़ैद हैं बस इस रब्त में 

जो पाबन्द नहीं अब आज़ादी के 

हर मरासिम का अपना वजूद है 

और एहतेसाब अब सिर्फ फ़ुज़ूल है 

खुदा की इस अज़ीम क़ायनात से 

आवारगी में कुछ हद जाना है जिसे 

हमें बस कुछ यह वज़ाहत गवारा है 

इस अर्श पर वो इक गुमराह सइयारा है 

(सइयारा= lonely planet,  ख़ल्वत=solitude,  ताक़ीद=warning, उक़्दह=enigma, मरहलह=problem, 

वाबतगी=connection, एहतेसाब=fight,conflict, वज़ाहत=explanation,  अर्श=sky)

Everything rests in Nothing

"And what of Solitude"

asked the sad heart, festering,

"Is it manifest of a blessing

or just one of destiny's misdoing?"

"Multitudes of hearts all around

and not a single resonating sound

Every moment of everyday a yearning

to find One other of similar feeling..

The body will soon decay and wither away

Am I destined to go, unfulfilled, the same way?

Often have I in loneliness wondered,

Is there any other who has so pondered?

If only I were granted a vision

a glimpse into the seeking, the question

Maybe then I could aspire

for an answer before I retire..

Within my being this belief haunts me

And as death lures and life taunts me

I know,were I to go lonely into the night

back would I be catapulted, to set it right

Across the endless expanse of time traveled

Now I am weary, defeated and unraveled

Still the longing keeps me bound

negation of this Nothing must be found.."

The Soul then quietly flew away

knowing the heart was enslaved and affray

Nothingness is the only reality

the heart but wallowed in self-pity

It knew not the freedom of solitude

the symphony of silence, its beatitude

But the Soul could see above it all

And seek neither to rise or fall

It had the liberty of being unchained

resting in neither joy nor feeling pained

Exultation and ecstasy in the emptiness

the vast expanse of possibility, the Nothingness...

तिश्नगी

वक़्त के दौर गुज़र जाते हैं
ज़िन्दगी दायरों मे बँध जाती है
आरज़ुएँ भी भटकती हुई
थक कर कहीं छुप जाती हैं
बस कदम बढ़ते रहते हैं
कुछ धूल समेटते हैं,कुछ निशान मिटाते हैं...
किसी बेमौसम कि बारिश मे
उड़ते हुए गुज़रे ख्वाब आ जाते हैं
और ज़हन मे एक सवाल छोड़ जाते हैं
इस दिल में ऐसे भी अरमान थे
क्या कभी ये भी मुमकिन हो सकते थे ...
बचपन के घर के किसी कोने मे
उन पुराने पैराहन और खिलौनों मे
जो सजे हुए हैं मेरे उस कमरे में
अब भी वो मासूमियत देख पाते हैं
ख़िरद के बोझ तले जिसे रोज़ निसार करते हैं …
शम्स की आफ्ताबी से अब रुख फेर लेते हैं
चिलमनों मे क़ैद दिन गुज़ारते  हैँ
माहताब की रौशनी की नज़्में लिखते हैं
खुद को अलीम समझते हैं
पर सिर्फ़ फ़ाक़ाह मस्त ही तो हैं.…
मुक़द्दर से अब कोइ इल्तज़ा नहीं
बस वक़्त से है गुज़ारिश यही
रुख्शत से पहले दे जाये एक ऐसी आशिकी
रूह में जाग उठे फ़िर एक बार तिश्नगी
फिर चाहे ना हो ताउम्र चाहत कोई …


( ख़िरद  - wisdom, शम्स - Sun, माहताब - moonlight, फ़ाक़ाह मस्त - joyful in distress, तिश्नगी - longing)