Grieving!

Those days of innocence, sure had me convinced,

Time was the answer, pain would be vanquished!

Those were days of innocence, sure I was convinced,

I was hurt by a ‘no’, recovery could be kissed!

The days of innocence have passed, and I am still keeping faith,

I will be a happy person, on the threshold of death!

                                                                                  

I am a human child; I have learned all the tricks,

How to step ahead in life, to plaster a smile that sticks!

I have compressed that little space, where darkness seems to live,

I am magicking a few stars, for the warm glow they give!

Now my tears are of happiness and victory rents the sky,

What joyous occasions, hear my triumphant cry!

 

My happiness has been sharpened, has smoothened, has been toned,

My age and wisdom flaunted, the art of living honed!

 

Today I say goodbye, see me off I am dying,

Innocent times were a lie, I am still a grieving!

P.S. The society that we live in considers grieving a weakness and expects you to 'get over it'. But some things will never be right, never stop hurting and never will never leave the mind! We learn to move on, but we never stop grieving.

Mood Swings!

Yesterday, as I finished work from home, the lingering melody of 'Aaaoge jab tum O sajana'  hit my ears and nestled in my mind!

Sometimes you hear a song you would rather it did not exist and the tune and lyrics are on your lips all day long and as you hit the pillow the silence of the night strangely weaves the melody of that song, so much so that you wish you could crack open your skull and get those tunes OUT!

But then there is also 'that' song that you would love to hum for days on end, and try out variations in notes like a composer whose non-existent talent will remain within, out of the critical eye, and yet fill you with such satisfaction and feeling of content that the day seems brighter, the night warmer and the feel of your blanket encapsulates you like melting butter on toast!

As I walked out to stretch my legs, the regressive composer in me woke up with a start, and I began to hum Aaoge jab tum...

Oooooooeeeeeeeeeeee Oooooooooeeeeeeee the ambulance screamed past and broke into the melody I was just so beautifully managing to bring together in my head! Someone was critical.. Never mind.

To refresh my senses and to sharpen the edge of my musical talent I began to make tea! Making tea is soothing, you look at the water boil and the tea leaves swirl and the colour change from brown to red to a darker red and then the aroma and with that I began to hum "aaoge jab tum... O"

Shatter, crash crash! The television in the adjoining room announced the arrival of the 'Rakhwala' to save the damsel in distress! Well her need was more than mine to be rescued than to sing.. Never mind.

Grocery shopping can be a delightful experience for the great grand children of Mozart and Bach! It is as Sheldon Cooper states, doing the mundane helps you focus on the more important problem orbiting your brain, like the most suitable notes for the melody you are improvising on! I began to walk towards the store, my steps setting a nice rhythm to "Aaoge jab tum..."

Beeeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeep, some road rash maniac wheezed past me all in a black blur and the voice in my mind began to sound like a fog horn (believe me that never happens to my voice, in my mind of course, out loud.. hmm) and the fog horn just never could match up to the flowing tune! Well, he must have been late for a meeting.. Never mind.

As I walked into the grocery store and shopped for the mundane things we need to live, a hundred salesmen accosted me for various money saving offers which I was only so stupid to refuse! And then as I returned the cash registers rang, someone else honked, babbled and giggled and played cricket and created a jam and shouted and sighed and sweated and complained and clucked and all I wanted was a bit of a quiet to finish the melody and all these activities could not be stopped because their need to be noisy is much more important than mine. Mine, to compose a perfect melody of an already perfectly good song! Never Mind.

That night I went to bed, unhappy! My beautiful, flowing, superior melody still inside me, quiet now, tired of fighting the superlative noises... As I looked out of the window at the bright stars sprinkling the clear winter night my throat choked with rage. In this big world with so much space the air was rent with voices and noises and had no opening for my little melody, my little song - stolen though it was. Perfectly well made maybe - but mine all the same with all the changes I would make and the images that would flash in my mind as I strung note after note.

This world to me, on that starry night was a place of droning with no place for my little, improvised and probably bad melody!

P.S - Sometimes a small wish catches hold of you and being unable to fulfill it makes a big difference only to you and to nobody else! This write up is for those little wishes that have been repressed for ages and will remain so for you and for me.. But the sadness will envelope your heart and we shall term it as 'Mood Swings' for generations to come.

The God Particle!

Monsoons have started lashing their fury upon us. I have seen pedestrians, huff and puff in the heat and humidity, pray to the God of rain Varun for showers of relief and cool. And now when he has just about started I can already hear complaining murmurs. GUYS! He is from the community of Gods, they can hear all this back biting...

Anyway I digress. So as is the routine I forgot my umbrella on the evening it would rain most and had to hastily take cover under the awning of a cafe! Now I agree I could have taken comfort inside, in the warmth of steaming coffee but that meant wasting valuable time if the rain stopped suddenly... truly that was the reason! And under the awning I met Robert the Robot...

Oh quit rolling your eyes so cynically thinking it to be such a cliche. He was named after Robert Bosch a great engineer and an efficient businessman! What better name for a robot?

Robert was quite pleasant for his kind and his vocal throw slot actually seemed like it was designed to look like a smile. So I nodded and said, "Looks like a hearty storm is brewing out there! Forgotten your water repellant I see." How very British of me - talk about the weather and state the obvious! But Robert did not mind, in a voice mellow for his kind, he told me his repellant was at the lab and he had been on his way to collect it. Well, so dratted luck wasn't just for humans, the Robot community got that in heritage from us. He reflected upon this observation and analysed that they did not inherit from their creators, much as we would like to believe it. They had their own perfections and few flaws but very organic ones not inheritance, he shuddered!

Well, well Robert it would be extremely arrogant to believe that a species not even a decade old would want to detach itself from its creator in a manner that makes me think they are ashamed of us. For without us they would not exist! Robert let some warm air out to dry his moistening valves and said, "'H' you were created by God right? You haven't inherited anything from him, so why can't you accept that other than creation you play no role in my species?"

"Well," I raged with cheeks puffed and colour puce, "I did inherit Godliness from my creator. It is the reason why I con, like Krishna himself did and the reason why I treat nature like my property for that is what the mighty Hanuman did. I treat my women like public places for Ram, the complete man, saw it fit and I indulge in impulse and cravings for that is what the Great Shiva did! Don't you dare say I share nothing in common with my creator.."

Robert took a while to process this and then with a momentary hanging of systems due to moisture he slowly loaded just a line to his vocal throw slot, "Oh 'H' I get it now. The Godliness has skipped a generation and has come to us Robots."

P.S. - I saw a news on NDTV about scientists discovering the God Particle and thought if its particles God is made of, and we inherited some from Him,  maybe we missed out on all the right ones!

Conversations...

Its been a little while, since our laughter has started to spill,
It has been a little while, since silence has started to kill!

What is it that you tell me, that answers all the questions,
What is it that I hear, that takes care of puzzling notions!

Is it simple sentences, or agonising riddles you ask,
Do I follow every word, or is each sigh a task!

Is it stories that you weave, or the truth upon me you deem,
Am I going to the world of fairies, or is it all a dream!

Do you get it when I say, with you I can be me,
Do you really agree, that heaven is ginger and tea!

How long are we to talk, how long will this go,
Are you going to listen, and smile and watch me grow!

Is this what forever is, and life and breath come on time's lease,
But conversations that we make, will never seem to cease!

P.S. The most significant part of any relationship is the exchange of words and thoughts. But a relationship always starts with questions, some that you ask and some that you don't. These are some questions that are hard to ask and need some pondering!

Born to be Slain

He snuggled and slept in her soft bosom,
Her hands were his heaven, the touch of a blossom.

When pain beckoned, his eyes welled and her heart shattered,
He walked on the roses, thorns cut her, her blood never mattered.

Mother - God made stronger than himself!

Her caress was a feather that made him cry and sigh,
He was her sole master, for him she would die.

The moment his eyes opened, on hand and foot she stood,
If he were to desire she would help him swallow food.

Wife - God gave her Sacrifice and wept himself!

Her little eyes twinkled, her hands reached in love,
She had nothing to offer - a stupid white dove.

He slashed off her feathers and ripped off the limbs,
He was the one who made her, she was his to kill...

Daughter - God made her to be slain and died himself!

This post is a in tribute to Baby Neha Afreen and the thousands of daughters who are abused and murdered every year in each corner of this country.

Knitted...

In a quick fluid moment, she made a gentle knot.

Not a noose, never pulled,
Nor a thimble, never spooled!

It ran, it tumbled, a little woolly ball

Fingers never pulling its tail,
Eyes following the jumbled trail!

Slow and shaky, wrinkled deft hands.

Soft touches, gentle sighs,
Clever angles, stitches and  ties!

A sweater now the woolly ball.

Chilly winters, warm hug,
The heart feels a little tug!

She never pulled, she never pushed.

Knitted a little person to be,
Needle's granny, Woolly ball me!

The Last Meeting

It was an angry meeting.. If he could have, he would have hurled a stone at her. One of those stones she had kept trying to bounce off  the water for all these years. Years was it? or ages.. They had been together forever now! A school girl's crush at first, the shy shade of attraction in junior college, the stolen hugs of romance later and a strong rock, an anchor so recently. And now they were saying goodbye?

He could still say goodbye and walk away without being destroyed, if only she would behave like it had mattered to her. If she showed that each little sacrifice she made for him had truly been about love, and not about duty, that each lie she had told for him had been about importance than compulsion, that every gift was about significance and not social conduct.  It would greatly help, if she stopped telling how they were still going to live and be happy, instead of turning into zombies that walked the earth not because they wanted to, but because they had to... haunted by a past that was so beautiful that it made breathing difficult and ripping out the heart with bare hands felt easier than this dark torture. Where the hell were her tears? One drop and he would be able live, one drop and he would be released!

But she just sat there, staring at their pond, cuddling a little pebble, frequently breaking the reverie. This life has been made for bigger and better things than you and I. When we live it, we shall be happy. But he wanted to have the bigger and better with her. It's human to feel devastated, but time will heal us, and ten years from now you will be able to look back and smile. How do you know there is nothing better out there for us till we step out. We will no longer be bound by each other and will be free like birds to fly as high, to cross any border just as we please... and on and on her reasons went! 

He had a hundred on his phone, none good enough but she had sent a hundred. Now since they met she had muttered a hundred more. So mere reasons had been enough to break them apart? Mere reasons and twisted words to choose a different path? A new thought was creeping up, the thought he had so desperately battled to keep away.. was she happy doing this?

Reasons?! excuses more like, to break free and live. Live the bigger and better and test waters for the new. Excuses for she could no longer keep up the facade. This was how it had to end with reasons and lies.

As she cuddled the stone and looked out at the pond, she did not tell him for the first time in her life she was trying to find a reason, good enough, to stay alive!