Month: November 2011

why should i aspire
to wash the steps
of your temple
when you have not even blessed me once,
i discover some dust
which must have touched your feet
some time,
and take that as blessings

do i need any thing more
my pain, my anguish
my frustrating persistence
is ;ole only a petal of millions of flowers
offered to you every day
why do i persist
then?

why have i waited for so long
the shadows were with me all along
i was looking for you, but you,
like stilt roots, were supporting
a big roof there
under which a nursery of young saplings
needed you, now that the gate is open
and the saplings have grown up,
will you return to the same cave
in which ancient paintings by our ancestors
reminded us
of talking through
art, form, lines and colours
lest langauge limits what we have to say
had to say,
still say

when the stirrings
could not contain,
the brim was afar
and the lips listlessly waited
for
words
but they were far to seek
silence bridged the gap
between the yearnings and the blessings of the time

you stay there, close the door
and let me not come out
i may come too far
and then gaps may widen

inspired by cross dialogue with designers from japan and Portugal and India in my room

how do i look for ideas,
right to left
as japanese do
no, no
but they write top to bottom,
but then
am i left to write again
what i see,
observe
and mean
the creative impulses don’t move in any direction,
they emanate
from centre to surroundings
but often form margin to the other margin
when will they make
to the center
ah!!
when it shifts to the margin

…..

ek akeli pagdandi, kya kuchh keh pati,
kisko batlati
dard kisee ke gujarney ka,
kisee ke ka na thaharney ka
santap sehlaeti
sara ka sara
agar pedon ne apni chhaya ko
mujhse churaya na hota
kisee ne kisee ko meri paridhi mein
samaya na hota

if you were just to steal,
a few moments,
crime would have been lesser
but you sow them
in the deserts of desires
bury them in the lake of licenses
scatter them in the fields of fond hopes
and then these moments grow
like the seeds of calotropis
wind spreads them afar,
with immense possibilities
of shaping the world, at par,
a little by little, but without
changing any thing inside
the purity of core
a small island
which will not sink
when the sea water rises
am i not sure,
not sure?

What an accident
When a heart can no more cope
The life slips on a slope
And you realise the pain
That had remained frozen
Like a glacier
On a steep mountain
When a time is changed suddenly
The meanings are transformed
You no more mean the same
As you did
When trees flowered
The spring was effortlessly
Shadowing your steps
And then it happened
Heart of someone you loved
Didnt cope with
All the stress you have
When you can’t share
The peaks and the lows we all go through
The summer did not dissolve
But the storm still set in
Now I pray
O mother kaali
May you heal
The fractured paths
Promises and the pursuits
Let us all be sane
And true
To those who we care for
Ever
Always
Future safe

Every time
Every single time
I heard the music of your
Tears flowing down
The slopes of shrinking sky
I knew
I had to burn a fire
Of all the Left over letters I wrote
But never sent
To an address which
Dead letter office
Said, did not exist

When you are nowhere one goes
You have almost closed
The gate to that place,

The fire in the oven
The baked bread
The stale wine
And the roasted dreams
Of that shining armour
Which made the warrior lose

The war
Before one could even fight
Properly
The soldiers had found the cause
They fought for
Was actually not the one that deserved their
Iife
But life is all they have
Should it be wasted
Just like that
They have now surrendered
To the enemy
With in
The same dark night
Same light of the northern sky
Same silence
Buddha faced
When he left the palace
To discover the truth
And nirvana
The night of light
The stars growing on ground
The water climbing the mountain
The breeze wiping the tears
Off your eyes
………………

when night slips quietly into morning
she does not whisper
her arrival
who was awaiting always
outside my window, the moist breeze
which will not stop the moving curtains
and will not let dryness of my throat be hidden
i am in wait here, once again
stars are witness
to the serenity that prevails
outside my house now

the doors have been eaten away by termites
and the windows panes are broken
but the rod on which once curtains hung
is still there,

is still there