A white so dark...

Vandalized walls, which were once a beautiful graffiti,
I paint over and over with every possible hue to reclaim it...

These layers often chip off at impact,
and the past echoes from its blemishes...

One night, determined I poured black  all over,
cold-opaque, Perfect I thought !

Nothing peeps through,
but nothing penetrates it either - I forgot...

The brightest colors have a dull ache over this black !

Promise me a white so dark , won't you ?
So I can start anew...

Yaadon Ka Sheher

Sachhe-jhoote kisson ka pitara khole,
Kuch khushiyan apne hisse ki bator ate hain,
Aao yaadon ke sheher ghoom ate hain,

Ankhon se jhankti sharartein,
Aur samajhdaaron ki mehfil me 
bachhon si beparvaah gustakhiyan kar ate hain,
Aao yaadon ke sheher ghoom ate hain,

Hasi me jo siskiyan dhund len,
Unn yaaron ke sath gehri baaton me gote kha ate hain,
Aao yaadon ke sheher ghoom ate hain,

Muskura ke, kabhi gusse se zahir ki, pyari si shikayetein,
Aur allhad zidd se doston pe hakk hum bhi jata ate hain,
Aao yaadon ke sheher ghoom ate hain,

Patton pe padi os ki boondon ko bahot din sanjoya hai,
Aj nange pairon se geeli meeti chhapka ate hain,
Aao yaadon ke sheher ghoom ate hain...

August 17th, 2015

Toska

'Toska' (Russian) is the word I was looking for...and as Vladmir Nabokov describes it; “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning."

Black

Reckless crooked love,
Empty laughs,
Soul-less talks,
Lying bare,
Frantically kissing,
as if digging to find some meaning to everything...
Clenching so tight, 
to silence the echoes of loneliness...

Craven soul, disguised as a drunk hopeless romantic...

We had learnt to fool ourselves,
Never learnt how to love...

She drowned, the soul learnt to fly...

If he ever knew me, he wouldn't wait at the shore,

he would find me in the depths....

My Canvas

"You are like a temple- no, you are greater than the walls of Jerusalem, and if he knocks down your altar instead of kneeling at it, there's no prayer in any world that can redeem him."
- Martina Dansereau

The Craven God

"Religion's monopoly in the field of ethics has made it extremely difficult to communicate the emotional meaning and connotations of a rational view of life. Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside the earth and beyond man's reach. "Exaltation" is usually taken to mean an emotional state evoked by contemplating the supernatural. "Worship" means the emotional experience of loyalty and dedication to something higher than man. "Reverence" means the emotion of a sacred respect, to be experienced on one's knees. "Sacred" means superior to and not-to-be-touched-by any concerns of man or of this earth. Etc.
  But such concepts do name actual emotions , even though no supernatural dimension exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without the self-abasement required by religious definitions. What, then, is their source or referent in reality ? It is the entire emotional realm of man's dedication to a moral ideal. Yet apart from the man-degrading aspects introduced by religion, that emotional realm is left unidentified, without concepts, words or recognition. 
It is this highest level of man's emotions that has to be re-deemed from the murk of mysticism and redirected at its proper object: Man."

~ One of the most rational excerpts from The Fountainhead.

I have always wondered, why does society/religion portray man as a helpless, contemptible being who is doomed unless he bows in front of the almighty. Whenever people sing hymns to praise the lord, I think to myself , why we picture God as a craven king, who would make his court write songs to glorify him. Man's virtues need not be endorsed by religion or for that matter, society. The laws of religion, I fear have given us more self-doubt instead of inner peace. The idea of the sacredness of austerity is so deep rooted, that little things we do that give us happiness seem sinful. The abstraction of a man's conscience is blurred with years of corruption. We no longer can tell the difference between the society/religion imposed 'right' and the righteousness of our own soul. Its unfortunate that religion/society has arrogated man's code of good or evil to itself. We seem to have forgotten that 'the noble soul has reverence for itself'.

20th July '15

Exorcism of My Demons

Conjuring the spirits of earth on paper..

The Mirror Shatters

A song once said, "tu bhi main bhi sabhi hain sheeshe, khud hi ko hum sabhi me dekhen..."

I smiled and winked at a baby once in the grocery store, with all her innocence she giggled back...my day was made!

Yes, we expect mirrors to reflect as we confront them, masked or unmasked...a clear glass gives no reflection, it shows something beyond. Something that the predictable mind did not expect to see...when u see that sight ask yourself, do u love it?

"I love you"...hardly ever true...an over-rated statement it is..."I love myself when I am with u", now that’s closer to reality... In life, we cherish the mirrors that we like our reflection in…

When falling in love with your reflection, be wary Mirrors do shatter!

The half remembered song

A dream, like a half remembered song whistles from far, conjuring the past...

I hallucinate those eyes yet again...

That faraway elusive look in them...

I remember plunging into those mystical dark waters...

Feeling the strange osmosis that revealed the deep buried desires that they were unaware of themselves...

How they would shy away in a willful nod and smile, reassuring my intuition...

Dewy eyed I look at them again, wishing they would unveil their fear...impregnable and cold- they refuse to be vulnerable now...


June 9th '14

Blessed

"Ceiling fan humming,

 The rocking chair cradling,

Fast asleep with rhythmic snores,

Fingers still clenched the newspaper,

He forgot to take off his spectacles yet again,

I tip-toed to him, gently removed them,

He jerked for a moment, still asleep,

I glanced at his wrinkled face,

Had always known it for its strength,

But today I saw a different man,

Calm, loving -veiled under a disciplinarian that he is,

Aging is such a humbling experience I thought…

I had an urge to kiss his forehead and express how much I acknowledge what he does for each of us…

Instead, I just held his finger for a while and felt like an eight year old again...

I could never find the right words to tell him…

I closed the door behind,

My luggage was already in the car… and again, I left for the station…

It wasn’t the first time, yet the pain pricked the same way..."

20th July '14

Truly Naked

"The tea I poured still steaming,

He looked bleary eyed towards the window,

Every time it rained he conjured a past I knew nothing about,

He blinked as if coming back to life,

Smiled, that re-assuring smile of his that made me feel so distant..

He was mine by vows,

But was that enough?"

I read somewhere: "it is never about taking off your clothes, letting someone into your fears, insecurities, your truths and your lies is being truly naked."

July 22nd '14

Enamored of those lies

Once enamored of lies that etched all memories,

Words now lost all traces of salvaged meaning,

With the final silence that sleeps within the heart,

Bewail ! this demented sorrow and rage assembled, the voice pleads..

I shake my head slowly in disagreement and turn away from the unspoken desolation..

To try, fail and pretend u don't feel the disappointment..

July 27th '14

"Lie to me again", she whispered
"I love u", he assured
She laughed hysterically, embracing the beauty of the massacre that was to follow...

August 25th '14

The Price We Pay

Only if your eyes said what your lips do,
Only if I knew there was pain behind that silent veil
- I would have known for sure...

But the curve on your face was impregnable,
and my mind weary of the dreams your words showed it..

The fetters of logic kept me in denial,
yet I yearned for your embrace just the same,

Foreboding of the storm that I was acquainted to,
yet, recklessly I stand at the shore (bare toes clenching the sand)
and let the waves kiss...

The waves retreat...
The feet now soaked in forbidden waters feels the loss of the sand it once gripped so hard.. 

April 26th '15

Words

Quotes from the novels I held dear,
lyrics of that song,
the forgotten poetry,
confessions in the dark,
lies in the light - all nothing but words..
I blankly stare at them to make sense of what I read,
Pin my ear to the phone wondering how convoluted the art of perceiving is..

What do I really read?
What is that I hear ?

"I love you !"
...After a long pause
"I love you too"

Silence often holds more truth, yet we cling to the words !

July 1st '15