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Annual audit statement. ..;)

2012 was annus horribilis for me...2013 just sped by...
      It was a year of rebuilding for me-relationship, life, work, passion ...I know
It's not possible to become an exemplary figure to the younger lot....no proper bank balance, no car, no house and if life suddenly glares at me..I would just return back an exclaim...like "What!!"

But I do have something at the end of this year...*smirking*

.an experience and a mellowness

.A toning down of what I would term as aggressive longigness.  This aggression is self inflicted like the narrator of Raven..
I don't want it to end. Never more like the raven said..I can never ever quell this silent longing inside me..

Seasons don't amaze me anymore. ..However I can't deny certain images that hover around me when there is an early nip in the air....

This has been a vacation full year for me...I went touring 5 times...The last one being a week before. ..I slept and read in this particular trip. ..It made me know how exhausted I am...next year or rather 2 months from now I want to go to the sufi festival..A likeness I have recently discovered.

I have tried to keep myself social media free. ..This is because it's difficult  to quell this jealous streak that I have inside me.

I have been working with underprivileged and dyslexic children for over a year now..Their zest for life amaze me..

And yes..I have developed a culinary skill.I cook these days a lot..

I have also devised a term  called mental sharing. ..any new thing I see or do I mentally share it...This is my way of being in communion...

Finally I was born a Hindu and will die as one but I have adopted Buddhism as a way of life...chanting has given me strength unknown before. ..

I find celebrating new year foolish but I'm on my way to one...will tomorrow be different. .I wonder?

Reverie

A lonely guitar
                A lonely soul
Create harmonies
               As powerful as
Steel strings
                Catching lightning
This is love
                   And passion
Affirmed..with every strum
                  Of a chord
You walk away
                   Far far away
With no name
                   With the guitar
Around your back
                      Swinging...

My pages

The 50 percent Bong in me raised an eyebrow....crazy, insane....the other 50 percent punju in me consoled...never mind...
No rice...my resolution.
DAY 1
_______
It went well. . I knew it...

DAY 2
______

Hey I was still going strong...
DAY 3
_______
I found my colleague gulping down mounds of rice ... (please excuse my exaggeration)...I went crumbling down.
But no fikrshikr  I somehow managed my bong buds...
DAY 4
________
I was invited to my sis house ..oh did I tell you she is married to a southie...and once again the sight of plplng hot sambhar and ghee laden rice welcomed me..oh god why do u test me ...I gave up...yes I did...to hell with my resolution! !!!!

See didnt I tell you....my bong soul mocked me...

PS....as an afterthought I thought of adding something I think I need to say....some say my blogs are autobiographical
And for some I should stop writing stories
My answer. ..please feel free not to read
My post...I write for myself and not for a bunch of "some"..Thank you

My pages

Yet another city....
Yet another glimpse of spiritual hankering. ..
As my flight took off, I looked down to see my thousand splendidly lit city...
I was leaving it..when it was getting ready to be dunked in mirth...
Devi paksha.....
        Ma aashche....
I landed..safely I may add ( given my flight fears)...in Pink city.
       A city where I couldn't spot a trace of pink!!!!
        A city crowded by desi and phirang photogs.
Road tripping through the scorching expanse of barren amber land...I reached a small religious town in the Sekhawati district.
I peered once again.. ( with my" myopic" vision..)
People praying out of custom..
People praying for divine intervention. ..
People praying without spiritualism...
I remembered Church Going by Larkin.
    "Yet stop I did: infact I often do,
       And always end much at a loss like"

What was I doing here? Surely I didn't travel from one end of the country to another to check my cynical vision...yes
I do love the feelingof being so far away...
I  do love the usual 'chahal pahal 'of people around me. .
I do  love the idea of being lost. .
Yet why was I here?
         Divine intervention. .(yes like one among the many around me..)
                                      
As Larkin said..
"A serious house on serious earth it is
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet ,
Are recognised , and robed as destinies"
I too came to know...
             " why me ?".....

Scattered (An Elegy)....

Inspired by Walter de la Mare's poem......

                                              THE LISTENERS

     " Tell them I came,and no one answered...."

Knock! knock!

Who's there?

Err...I am looking for Him , you see, I met him here often. Full of words he was,.....

          A lazy dreamer.......A confused soul...mmm, You see he had a brooding look-----you 

could recognise that stare anywhere. He used to smile at my silliest of laugh and of course, my

          endless chatter!!

         

Oh Him ? I remember now. Tell you what ? crazy fellow he was. Sadly doesn't visit here

         anymore. Perhaps rightly so , he never fitted.....

But? do you want me to understand that he...I mean he.....

He must be somewhere around. Cocooned in his world of white and green books.

            He had to , you know ...It was an emotional bootcamp for him-----a guerilla

warfare: It is never easy to fight alone. So he left----not out of weakness but sheer exhaustion.

Any idea where can I find him again?.....

Well , he is certainly not oblivious to this world .  You may sometimes get a glimpse of his

              charming ways. But yes, you may find him only if he wants to .

SO MANY CONDITIONS.....hardly worth it....

Conditions? well ?

He wants someone mad , someone lazy like him..Someone ? mmm...who would nourish his 

             thoughts and 

                               bask under his glory and

                                                                   is  carefree

                               and loves the rain and finds music

                                                                      when frogs croak.....

 

You know , we were like a blazing fire....but fire dies down .I thought of borrowing

                                                                                                                          him all to myself

                                                                                                     for a while.....anyways nice 

                                                                           knowing you...........

Hey !!! listen...And who are you?

    I DON'T KNOW....I thought I was him!!! yeah! why do look so surprise?

                                       There was a time , I used to know him very  well...I wonder if

                                                                                              he knew that....

                                                    that...

                    we lived on borrowed times.....

                                                               we would fade one day.................?

Or else, he would have warned me or perhaps

                

                                                           Things would have been different......

  

        

My pages...

I was an eager audience to this city....

Where vast throng of tonsured heads, hermits,fakirs,mendicants
seekers and mystics roam around.....

Where men and beasts co-exist happily in narrow by lanes....

Where spiritualism reeks in every nook and cranny of this Hindu city....

Where dead and alive both take a dip in the yellowed waters of Ganges....

Yes,I'm back from Benaras.

The holy city of the Hindus.

A spiritual melodrama.

I sat on the cobbled steps of the manikarnika ghat looking at the smoke curling
Up the burning pyres...I dipped my hand into the waters while watching the
Faithful immerse themselves - flashes of fabric, flesh came in view. Human
Ache,longing,pain,suffering met the sacred waters.

The waters cleanse it....or so it is said.

I could not see or feel it this way...my vision is myopic.

I just know that doors keep shutting and opening for us . I want no liberation
...my baggage of life lived, memories gathered are heavy and I don't want to shed
them till I'm alive and kicking . So no spiritual elevation for me. Rather I felt calm
to sit on those steps...while watching the burning pyre....

my pages...-

She sat midafternoon in the long corridors of the old library....the musty smell of wooden racks and books didn't bother her. It was her retreat for this day. She yearned to hear his voice but then she remembered their silence.

She was waiting with bated breath...looking at the phone every now and then ..it did beep and she knew it was him. He did remember...somehow she knew he would. His words were read and then reread and then reread once again.....

Was she happy? She couldn't fathom....and then the tears came...they came so easily...was she being watched? She really didn't care!!

She stifled a sob...gathered her things and walked out...Where was she? Why was was she buying a darn movie ticket? The flick spoke of unrequited love...her luck.

Inside the dark hall of the movie there were noises of happiness, few laughter...the smell of coffee and popcorn mingled perfectly with the noise....she wasn't a part of them...

There were more tears....she touched those tiny black stones on her ears...she felt romanced..near to him..

Come on...BE HAPPY!!!.....He remembered....her heart told her...NO..ITS NOT SO!!! our memories choke him...perhaps he dies a death to think of them...I? I survive on them.....m

My pages...

I am slogging over Frost for over an hour now....my eyes glued to the iPad ....the various connotations,the parameters ,metaphors....blah blah blah...

I look out to see its still raining....how I detest these rains now....the only thing that comes to my mind is dirt and squalor ....

But my city loves the rain.....

When suddenly darkness grips the sky and you smell the damp air....
When suddenly it's too humid to even breathe....

When my babies( my students) look out of the window and exclaim BRISHTI!!!!!!

When you see the lady of the house running around to shut those banging doors and windows,or pulling their washed clothes inside....they make a pretty picture though.....loose curls round their faces,Sari Pallus trailing behind them....it's poetic!(Him taught me to look poetically at the most mundane things)

When most of us are hopelessly stuck in the traffic....knowing we can never reach anywhere in time....

When dil Chahta hai to have all the sinful things in life.....khatta...meetha....oil and grease!

When the kitchen starts smelling of khichudi and begun bhaja ....the man of the house runs for the best illish or hilsa.....

When I want to go underneath my sheets and get oblivious to the rains outside....hoping I would love it once again like all the others like my city do.....

Anyway lets go back to Frost....and his iambic parameters.......

Rain or no rain ....life continues.....

All my pages ( to be contd)......m

My pages...

Sleep eluded me last night...toss turn..toss turn. Times or rather nights like these are made to review your life..mostly trials though...and there's no way you fall into loneliness.

So I too post mortemed my life...the to be and not to be ....and yes on nights like these I think of Him...I think of him all the time...

My books have always rescued me from boredom...loneliness...they have nursed me , healed me and yes they taught me the glad games...I read long ago in Pollyana's...I thought of our silly banters, impossible dreams , fervent prayers ....and lo I was glad again...glad enough to curl upto my pillow and drift into that empty space of sleep....m

How can I ever know!!

I think of you at times
And sometimes quite often,
Like tonight, now and last night
I dream of you at times , during
          The day
With my eyes open and at night
When I cannot sleep.

But how can I ever know
If you think of me at times
Like tonight, now and last night
Do I ever walk with you during
            The day
With your eyes open and at night
When you sleep?

How can I ever know?