To my young one who mopes

To my young one who mopes :: (with reference to context)

When the chips are down, and you want to drown
in the deepest pools of despair. Hold!
Take a long walk with your favourite music.
Match your pace to the rhythm of the dhol.
Dive into the deepest end of the pool
swim and swim with all your might.
Wink at the stars, grin at the sun,

But please, don’t groan at your plight.

Dance on the grass in merry abandon,
Forget the world's standing still.
Sing your heart out tunelessly in the shower
Let the melody swirl down the drain.
Paint as though it were your last one,
Let the pigments splatter your pain.
Listen to the blues ; listen to jazz

Listen to the Beatles say, “beat it”!!
Go and bake your favourite cake,
And if you can't bake, just eat it!
 
If after all this, you still want to mope,
Stuff your head in the pillow; have a good cry.
Look like Romeo or Juliet or what's-her-name
But in the name of heavens, say 'tally-ho', don't sigh!
The only 'high spirits' you really need
are those that shine inside your head.
When you are down, just take a bow.
When you are out, just swing it!!

Shadows

Through
the labyrinth of the narrow lanes,
the solemnity of the ghats,
the vast expanse of the river,
I search for the shadows on stone.
The little karmic marks
left there
from a past life.

On the other side
of the low brick wall,
the fragrance
of the fallen champa flowers
assail the senses.
I look for the shadows of the rose.
The wisps of inscriptions
on cottonfields
of stone. 

The swivel doors of our lives

We passed
each other by,

over the years,
in streets,
in classrooms,
at concerts,
in the markets,
in different cities,
in differing continents
of  time and place.
Always over parallel paths,
That never ever crisscrossed.
Each moving on at their own pace,
Eyes set straight ahead,
Not looking left or right,
Laughing with other people,
Talking to other people.

If we had,
If we did,
We would have looked
through the glass
and seen each other
through
the swivel doors of our lives.

Dream

In all these years,
I dreamed of you just once.
 It was a dark night.
There were no streetlights.
We were in a car.
We were on a road.
A smokescreen road.
We were out of the city.
Driving up a winding road.

The pale yellow headlights
lighting up
the gravel on the road.
The only source of light.
You were driving;
One hand on the steering wheel,
The other carelessly thrown
over my shoulder.
Not a soul around.
High above us,
near the hilltop
the glowing floating lamps
of myriads of firelies.
We didn't know where we were going.
But, we were happy.

If I could turn the clock back, father

If I could turn the clock back, father,
I would take us back
to those Saturday afternoons at home.
The laughter over lunch.
The carefree chatter.
The loving banter.
The taking to task
for not eating my greens.

I would wipe my two year old nose
again on your handkerchief,
demand the first morsel
of your breakfast,
cry while you pretended
to fall off the bed.
I would not scrub your kiss
off my cheeks  with soap
this time.
I'd sleep peacefully as you sang
the only lullaby that is truly mine--
sleep my princess, my darling.

I'd wake up earlier
in the mornings
to watch you and mother
have your tea and read the newspaper.
I would fetch you the flowers
for your morning worship.
I would carry your bag to the car.
Or watch you drive off the corner.

I would sit next to you
and talk. I so want to listen.
I was so shy father
to share with you
my daily life.
To unburden myself
of all I truly thought or felt.
To tell you
I looked up to you.
I knew you were always there.

If I could turn the clock back, father,
I would write you more letters from the hostel,
Cook your favourite meals,
Sit quietly on the swing with you.
Smile at you sometimes.
Do whatever you'd ask me to do.
You would know you were special.
No one could step into your shoes.
I would have held your hand
a last time, father,
I would have hugged you tight.
I would have uttered those
three simple words, father
that we make so difficult
for ourselves
to say all our lives.

All the coins you heaped
in the drawer, just for me,
have blossomed into
the jasmine you loved.
I wait for you in the darkened balcony, father
As once you did when I was late.
Just once, only once, turn the corner
and come home, father.

The moment of truth

From beyond the shoulder of the hill,
at the hatching of the horizon,
the day closes in on me.
My moment of truth.
My day of reckoning.

Whatever I say or do,
Whatever I hear or don't,
Whatever I long to hear,
Whatever I leave unsaid,
The splicing of the moment,
The slicing of the moment,
On the chopping tray of  the day,
At the wrenching out
of the little red rose
in the crack of the wall,
the blood will be mine.
Mine, the pulling out
of the plug of life.
Each stirring in the forest
shall echo yet again.
Each leaf of autumn
fall yet again.
From dust to dream,
From dream to dust,
Yet again.

Photo album

The whiteness
of a teacup nestling in a saucer
Oblivious to its meaning.
The impress on a chair
the presence of an absence,
the non-being of being.
Long fingers holding
a bag like a memory.
Their prints left behind on steel
barks of ancient trees.
The faint imprint of a shoe
on a pale rug
like marks on
the faces of rocks
weathered over time.
Backlit montages
on the transparence of glass.
Ambient light,
the aureole of  black,
are all in the photo album
The totem pole of my being.

February

This month is pretty much like that one.

With its reverie of long years past,
The stargazing in the enchanted wood,
The warp and weft of small memories,
The colours of the restless mind.
The world spins the same way
Round and round on its carousel.
Sunshine fills up every pore of our beings,
The dew drops off the edges of leaves,
The boundless abyss of the earth throbs the same,
And yet, the seasons have rolled past
and life is not  the same.
The dawn that rolls in through the windows
thickly, softly leaves his poetry behind. The breeze
 scatters the burnt sienna of sunflower seeds.
And the white wicker chair lies empty at the gate.

Two Little Boats

at the turn of the lake,
under the cliff,
adrift,
two little boats,
their sails gone,
the oars thrown away,
the paint faded,
the hull jaded,
moving around
in concentric circles,
gently lapping,
on the ripples,
always moving,
never still,
never touching,
a whirligig,
a slow carousel,
forever they take
sun and rain
mist and dew
the little boats on the lake
the little boats in the maze.

Lodi Garden

I walk down to the old monument,
to the garden
with its familiar pathways.
Stride them down
away from my self,
Strike them out
from my heart,
Outpace my steps
There is no way.

The calm of the horizon,
my turbulent mirror,
shows me my
many fractured faces,
my many heightened lives.
The dusk
the birdsong
the grass
the very air
wrenches
the tears out
of my lungs,
the blood out
of my veins.
They flow unabated
The salt of life
The has-been
The am-not
The will not-be.
All around
lives breathe free.
Children play.
Families laugh.
Lovers hold hands.
Parrots fly.

The flowers on the hedge
mark the cubits of the  past.
The squirrel at my feet,
is a lone retreating back,
a receding figure.
The bird
in the foliage,
the unseen hand of things.
A mute witness
to my fatigue
of remembering,
to my hope
of being remembered--
The old monument
In the dusk.

The sunset hour

The sunset hour
of soul searching
of looking within
of seeking the true
in the afterglow
of the holy fire,
raises no questions
needs no answers
no truth beyond its being
just there in the horizon.
out there in the blue.

The truths and lies
of our lives
play hopscotch on the sky.
Their ambiguities and
contradictions
resolve.Dissolve.
Lies ring true
when seen
from the other side. 
So many are
but truths turned
inside out
So many truths are
lies outside in.

At the sunset hour,
true lies survive
they do not die.
They need
greater courage
in the telling.
They need
character
to survive.

At the sunset hour
The moment of reckoning,
Truth is but a lie
Lies become the truth.

Unborn

You remain in that

treacherous land

between here and there,

between now and then,

between us and them,

our flesh and blood.

Unbrought

Into this one;

Suspended

Over the other.

Neither here nor there,

Neither now nor then,

Neither ours nor theirs,

But yet still,

Our flesh and blood.

What seasons

What oceans

What mountains

What valleys

What laughter

What tears

What worlds

You could have seen.

You could have been.

The Pied Piper

Played his flute.

You followed

Into the caverns

Into the dim recesses

Of what could not be forgotten,

Of what could not be begotten,

Of what need not have been,

Of what could not be seen,

Of what remained

In the end,

just ash and dust,

a dream.  

Long Drive in the Moonlight

The car speeds
out of the city.
out of the bedlam
the grey
the chrome
the glass
the sterility
the mindless clamour.

Out into the countryside
the mustard fields
with their laughing flowers.
the mighty banyan
with their open arms.
the glow of lamps
from the houses
dotting the  plains
rushing past. 

Darkness
spreading quickly
thickly
like an ink stain
on old newsprint.
engulfing the fields
the pastures
the flowers
the banyan.
softly, lightly
blotting out the day.

the strains of the sitar,
the comfort of the black around,
the quiet of the dark around.
luminiscent pearl drop
of the moon
suffusing all with light.

the exquisite joy of the moment,
the innocent calm of the moment,
the clasp of the together moment
the memory chord moment,
the stuff of dream moment.
as we speed out of the
ancient boundaries of
walls of ancient cities.