Musings #2

Introduce anarchy. Find change. Always look around for things you can do. Or chuck aside things you could do without. Stop taking sorrows on face values.. everything dies. No emotion lasts longer than what it is supposed to. Indulge, menace, act evil. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Fall for someone older. Sin, and you will love the tiny assumption of power it brings. Disorder will never seem such a blessing.

Either way, live. And live with all the luxuries you'd only created in your orderly head.

Musings #1

Everything passes- time, people, bad mood, good weather. And then there's a repeat- of both- the good and the bad.  

And we continue living awaiting the next cycle- of the time it'll turn around for a repeat- repeat of the mundane, sometimes of the unusual, at other times, of poetry and art and music. The latter, are brief good moments. 

Of Kumaon and Beyond

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A narrow strip of pebbled road rumbling with the uneven churn of wheels; little houses, some mud, some brick, others English, lazing by the sunlit patches of green where scattered lengths of mustard raise their yellow heads from many an obscure corner; long strips of earth sprouting a young stock of rice germinations while mighty hill rocks outline the fields with their jagged selves as if standing guard to the tender seedlings; buffaloes lying heavy on great heaps of pirul, their big eyes half shut with lethargy and their brazen, smooth skin reflecting back the drunken, intoxicated heat of the fragile hill sun.

I hear the innocent shrieks of those little things, their tattered rugs barely covering their swift, agile, monkey like selves, yet their rustic sinews glowing fair from beneath their discolored clothes. Oh! How this young’un wipes his runny nose with the back of his small hand while emanating an embarrassed giggle, his shy eyes searching for an immediate haven in the nearby bush so he could run and bury his discomfort there. This accompanied by a gracious laughter from the attending elves blends the simplicity of the hill folk quite effortlessly with the pure, unadulterated, natural surroundings.

That these young boys will grow up to be hardy hill and marry girls half their age is quite a vision best left unimagined at this moment.

Winds have strongly swayed by and it seems darker now, for evenings in this part of the world arrive no sooner than one has realized it was ever day!

I stand under a navy sky studded with numerous stars twinkling so close to my nose that they almost blanket my cold face warm.

Now that twilight has already arrived, the little lantern lit houses dot the surrounding hills like candles in a dark room. The Gautami Gange at the base of Mount Kailash does not cease to rest but carries its eternal, gentle gurgle far and beyond. The old wooden bridge above the river continues to creak from side to side as women carrying logs and fodder on their heads tread it to get to the other side where civilization sprawls. Two old gentlemen with autumn in their hair but the glint of spring in their eyes share a loud guffaw over puffs of locally made bidi, while hurrying their scattered herd of goats home.

Each soul is headed towards his humble abode, now that the warm sun has drowned in the chill of the moonless night.

The rugged hills no more resound with the unrestricted giggles of children or the timeless chatter of chopper women. Perhaps the rocks now await the arrival of a more powerful member of the woods- the leopard- whose soft paws will trot these very leaves, but whose hungry prowl will be careful enough to not disturb a single dry leaf’s rustle.

The cat’s nose would search for the familiar smell of a goat, a dog, or even human flesh- if it is a man eater- and his eyes shall glint in the dark like fireflies but without the gullibility of the latter.

An uncanny silence prevails over the hills.

Oh! A young mother lulls her young babe to sleep, while the old aama strains her eyes and hunches her back to prod her livestock into the goth, for the alarm bells have already been rung by a local bird. Yes, a leopard is definitely on the prowl, and is probably arching his back at a definite angle so he can spot a wandering lamb and launch a most swift attack on it.

Stars continue to glisten against the lowly hung sky. The tall deodars and pines cast their dark, sturdy yet harmless shadows upon the sleepy hills. Mount Kailash relishes the rich flavor of rustic, natural, earthy aromas- the smoky air being rendered so with the crackling chulha fires, and the essence of wood roses and pine cones hanging no less heavy in the air.

A distant, lonely siyar draws a long, disheveled cry; perhaps announcing the arrival of the big cat- while a pack of alarmed langoors jumps across trees amidst loud chattering.

So draws to a close another day in yet another sleepy, far flung hamlet of Kumaon, where the slowness of life is complimented by a lazy sun, a laidback cowherd, a sluggish, meandering river, and an old familiarity with the smell of the naïve, gullible pahadis whose clothes are older than their thatched mud houses.

Kumaon, you are strangely innocent!

Loops

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It comes back.

Everything does.

Everything has a definite end, love and longing, both.

And in the end, everybody gets served, just the right amount they deserved.

People come and go. Faces pop in and pop out. Eyes sparkle and the same eyes demean. Hearts that once beat or you beat for another heart another day.

We weave dreams, we build castles. We revel in newfound love, we miss our old loves. Windows once opened to allow light are painted afresh, so that the fragrance of newness might help the staleness of the old to be driven out.

We walk. We trip. We fall. We get up, dust our bums, walk again, this time steadily so as to not trip again. We appreciate the hand that stretches out to us in order to lift us back on our feet. Sometimes, its only intelligent to bargain our own hand in the process.

 Change is the norm of civilization, for it is the only constant; death being the only certainty of Life. True, dreams once knit cannot be rewoven. However, what matters is the impression of the dream that gets traced on the thread, visible in the form of those wrinkles, those shapes that got formed over time; traces that got left on the bed we sat on last, or stains that got left on the coffee mug we sipped from.

We follow a loop. You, me, everybody.

 We fall in love, we fall out of love. And its all too natural to love and be loved.

All over again.

:)

Vanity?

Many a men came from far and near,
Both mighty and valorous, and those with fear,
They dreamed to enter my soul,
And consume it whole,
But nay, wouldnt anybody have it so easy,
So much so, that they prod and play over my being and body.
A soul, the most pure and naive one, alone has known mine,
But that has been in a distant land and in inseperated time,
Enchanting, i must say, the magic was,
Love, love and love alone was the cause.



But the Sun of my life has taken a new turn of late,
The reason for which is beyond me to calculate,
Old has been oldish, though i cherish it beyond,
A sweet Life, a bygone era, that this heart shall preserve
till Life itself be gone.
"Must you, fair lady, limit yourself to the past?"
So says in retrospection, my wonderfully primitive heart.
And for it knows me best, i deem this young heart true,
Thus, with all facility, let the canvas of my being
be painted with Your hue.



You, young man, are extremely raring and childishly eager,
Waddling your unrestricted brains hither and thither,
Though you must know that which my mind holds,
For its capacities, before you, it can nomore withhold,
Heavens have attested to the prodigy of my life,
Alas! I'm human, by all means, should i survive.
The rains and summers have known it all,
The autumns have known it true before the winter fall,
Having lived a little more over a score,
And having known a little more than each before,
Let no thrall prevail, let curtains concealed neatly part,
This ambiguous night, i invite you to fathom my silent heart.

Rediscover Me?

I am forbidden territory,
Undiscovered land,
Unsettled waters,
Virgin soil.
I am an un-entered soul.
The divinity we shared so long,
Wasn’t enough to reveal my sparkle,
Not wholly,
Not so soon.
But ‘twas too soon
When you assumed,
You’d discovered my all.

One day when you’ll crave
To re-discover me back,
I’d have acquired new dimensions,
I’d have taken one more step
Closer to perfection,
I’d have revelled in the joy of my beauty,
Celebrated my pristine self.
Then, you’ll return
And realize,
“I wish I'd stayed long enough to make
this part of her, mine”.

The perfect frame

On a sunny winter noon..
When we decided to take a walk..
The roads wound up..
To a rather curious path.
Laid with gravel..

I found my feet walkin slow..
And steady..
And upon a turn..
I saw the most wonderful pair
Of pillars.

So i rested my shoulder..
Against the grainy old thing..
Whose texture felt cool..
On a sunny winter noon.

And made me a perfect frame.