Cheese Of Contentment

The feet of God,
Is the beginning of a journey,
Where cynicism loses its meaning,
And takes on a hue of worship,
The temple isn’t merely an abode of the celestial,
It’s a place where man for the briefest of moments,
Has a glimpse of the divine seed inside,
That longs to grow into a tree,
A tree, whose shade will calm,
The fickle mind,
And tame the purring cat of desire,
To fold her limbs and sleep,
With the cat asleep,
The mouse of wisdom leaps,
To nibble on the cheese of contentment,
And a man will never be the same,
By touching his heart,
And not only his head,
Onto the deity’s feet.

Not A Whisper

Look at the play of this world,
Thirty years, I have been seeing,
Dropping the curtain of eyelashes to dream,
But never have I experienced the bliss,
Of seeing the world inside,
Or felt the breeze with closed eyes,
Or thrown a pebble and watched the ripples,
It now seems the blind,
Have been blessed with sight.

Thirty years, look at the play,
Not a whisper
Of this new world,
Older than time,
Yet, I walk this unknown place,
As if I was born here.

The Play

Lamp is quiet,
Darkness is loud.
Laughter is fluid,
Anger is stone.
Passion is fever,
Love is calm.

Greed is hunger,
Sharing is foresight.
Envy is a festering wound,
Kindness, an open palm.
Lies are simple,
Truth is.

Death is beginning,
Life is preparation,
Prayer is the path,
Man, His creation,
Existence is infinite,
God, the sum of the whole.

Grain Of Sand

A grain of sand,
I sit on the shore,
Watching ships and trawlers pass,
If I try and swim,
I am bound to drown.
A sand of grain can only wait and sing,
As soon as the sweet music of His name,
Falls from my parched lips,
The boat of remembrance,
Sets sail,
And the blueness of the vast ocean smiles and sings,
‘O’ grain of sand, you travel a long way,
Such is the glory of God,
Even the lowly sand journeys,
To meet the faraway Lord.

The Silent One

It is beautiful in its flow,
The grace of God,
The abundance of nature,
Nothing is miserly about the five elements,
Water, wind, earth, fire and ether.

The further you walk,
And don't count your steps,
The skies open up,
More so, when you dare to see,
The clouds part to give a glimpse of thee.

The yellow flowered tree,
Has the same magic,
Soothes the eyes,
Fills the ears with music.

The Azaan from the mosque,
Has the healer’s touch,
It has sewn many hearts to pump blood.

The song of the Cuckoo is meaningless,
It is meaningful,
Only to the silent one.

Great power flows from the head to the palm,
Through the fingers to another’s field,
A kind utterance of love sans greed.

It is beautiful in its flow,
The grace of God,
Boundless,
Apparent only to the silent one.

The White Stick

Like a bright pink bougainvillea flower,
Held delicately in your palm,
If each step were to become a slow dance,
The crow would sound sweet,
The asphalt road would come alive,
And in those moments of self doubt,
You could sit on a milestone,
And converse with the shy breeze.

She won’t discuss petty politics,
The rising inflation or any religious agenda,
She won’t predict your future,
Or offer to save you from your fate,
She’ll insist, you travel with the wind,
It’s favourable, she’ll tell you,
For those who have travelled before you,
Are now mindless.
The body can’t function without the mind,
You’ll argue.

She'll smile and say,
Breath is the life force that sustains the body,
Mind simply wields an illusion of control,
Since, you never let go of fear,
You couldn’t learn to flow,
The mind is now a stagnant pond,
Where the tadpoles of anxiety grow.

Come, hold my hand and I’ll walk you through,
The beautiful scenery and the rough terrain all the same,
Till you come to see that the forces of nature are cyclic,
You sleep, you rise, love, despise,
Love briefly and the same violence repeats.

The mind is blind,
And consciousness, the white stick,
That guides the blind man through the crowded streets,
Travel with me and you’ll be able to see,
There is someone in there,
Besides you,
Who knows, let’s go meet him.

The Silent Song

The quieter life gets,
The more I am filled with music,
The noisier it gets,
The silence is deafening.
The race isn’t mine,
I am born to wander…
I am restless when I work,
So, I only do what I love,
And the less I do, the more I see,
Unseeingly,
I know many things,
These aren’t life’s lessons,
They come from behind closed eyes,
In that stillness of desire,
The music plays again,
I can’t lose it for money,
Or for any worldly gain,
No, I can’t drop my consciousness,
How can I?
Life is only living when I cease to be ‘me’.

Papa - Lost & Found

The old goes but never leaves,
It stays hidden,
Or you burry it in books of a forgotten childhood,
Like an old greeting card,
One is scared to open and read.
The ink is legible, dated 2006,
Dear papa, the letter reads...
The story goes like this,
I chanced upon it a week after his death in 2009,
There were hundred notes of seven and a letter I had written,
I spent the money, kept a hundred for remembrance,
The letter stayed buried.

Then last year, I lost the hundred rupees,
An old woman in front of a mall begged for money,
She was well dressed and lamented,
Her son had left her on the railway station and gone,
I rolled up my window,
And ignored her as best as I could,
There was no money in my wallet,
Just the drivers’ license.
She stood in the sun,
Helpless, looking at people passing by,
Clutching at a torn bag,
She wore glasses and a bindi,
In the heat her tears could be mistaken be perspiration.

I offered to drop her at an old age home,
She refused saying, what if her son came back?
‘Give me money’, she begged again.

I dug out the hundred that I had vowed never to spend,
That’s the only time I remember begging to a beggar,
‘I hope you are not lying about your need,
Because this is the note my dad left me’,
I don’t think she understood anything I said,
Hungrily eyeing the note in my hand.
Five minutes later,
A young fellow came and picked her bag,
And the mother-son duo left without a backward glance,
I felt cheated, my hundred was gone,
I felt foolish, too, but only for a while
Papa taught us that sometimes people’s need is greater than ours.

Three years have passed and the letter surfaced this morning,
This time I was ready to read,
What a daughter had written to her father,
Almost six years back.

Dear papa,
Many happy returns of the day,
I hope you and Mamma choose to celebrate the birthday,
Go to the club and have some fun,
For heaven’s sake, get out of the house!

And please, don’t ill-treat my ‘baby Beny’,
When Mamma goes to the canteen,
Baby Beny was the monstrous black lab,
I had saddled my parents with,
Before going sailing on the ship,
Papa and Beny didn’t get along too well,
He ran away with Papa’s slippers,
And chewed at his favourite trousers,
The hound even made him trip a couple of times,
Hence, the concern for Beny’s well being.

I further wrote, ‘I am now four poems old and enjoying my writing stint,
I may write short stories, soon’,
Strange, how time flies,
I’ll soon be three novels old.
The letter ends with love and hugs,
From ‘tatiya’,
He would lovingly call me a'honeybee' ready to sting,
I had a bit of a temper in those days.

PS- Be ready to fly to Singapore, when I return,
The return fair is ten thousand.

We never did go to Singapore,
We never went anywhere,
He was in too much of a hurry to leave,
To quit.

Fragments From Knowhere

I don't fear death,
I fear life,
The slow decay... eating away,
At generation after generation of men, women and children.

I haven’t seen war,
I live in the time of peace,
The only blood I have seen is on my knee or the TV,
Yet, I know many who don't sleep that well.

I don’t understand relationships,
They are so tricky,
Extracting, demanding,
Drained, I couldn’t give any.

I didn’t know violence,
Until, I saw my shaking finger rise,
And spew venom and cut another to pieces.

I didn’t know judgement,
And then they spat at my face,
I had judged so many.

I didn’t know any demons,
Till I met mine,
They had been travelling long,
Long before my birth or my father or forefathers,
They were of this world,
I only had the visiting rights.

I didn’t know whom to seek,
On many doors I knocked,
And knocked the door away,
When all but one was left,
I sobbed and said my prayers,
No hand came to bless,
Or pull me to my feet,
Where was the need to rise?
At last, I had found my feet.

Generation after generation of men, women and children,
Seldom come to know,
In the face of resistance,
Only if they had learnt to let go.

Ugly Inside

There is so much ugliness inside,
It surges,
It drowns,
It poisons little children,
Their impressionable little minds,
It draws blood,
A coward’s battle,
It kills not once but twice, thrice,
A life time is not enough,
The hair turns white,
The teeth fall off,
And molasses becomes the heart...

Cursed are we to have birthed,
To crave acceptance,
This is not that place,
Where God can ever be,
He hides behind our fears,
As cowardly as we.

Hole In The Heart

In the picture on the wall,
The strange, contemporary art,
There is much to see,
To make sense of,
To take it apart, piece it back,
Trace the bold strokes,
Imagine, invent,
Hold the bizarre colours deep in a trance,
And the picture is clear,
But just about,
Something is amiss,
Life is like that,
Even if everything were to fall in place,
Understood,
Unveiled,
A certain something will always be missing...

It's a tenet of nature,
The whole is in parts,
And the parts are flung wide and far,
Some find their way back home,
Others wander in the dark,
And without the other,
Something will always go sour.

Just like the picture,
In life that which doesn't make sense,
Must be labelled as art,
Art by a great painter,
With a hole in his heart.

Such Benediction

The early morning Sun catches,
A glint of a teardrop in one eye,
The other ever compassionate,
The craftsman has carved his love in stone,
From a human hand God is born,
Such benediction,
The statue speaks,
Sits still,
Watches, fulfills,
The full are emptied,
And the empty know consciousness,
The whole temple becomes sandalwood,
And bliss in every breath,
The prayerful simply sit and lay bare their soul,
Such benediction,
The head doesn’t bow,
It falls off.

My Mind Is Out To Get me

I talk out loud, when I walk,
The crazy hand gestures to explain to someone what I mean,
Only that someone is me.
Could I be delusional?
I am scared, when little children come rushing from nowhere,
I practice my angry stare,
That’s probably paranoia,
I don’t hear people, they are noise,
I only see the wind and how far it can take me…

From the real world I run,
To my fictional one,
Create half truths out of lies,
And hide behind their lives,
The characters are free, unlike me,
They may flow from my pen,
But they go where they like,
I am not that liberated,
My enemy is my mind,
It takes me places,
Where fallacies come alive,
It steals my peace, my hunger, my thirst,
It chatters like a magpie,
Oh, God, there are times I swear, it forgets to breathe,
I walk fast and it walks faster than me,
I sit still and there are a thousand ants biting my feet,
The tremors run down my spine,
Up, flows the blood.

The mind isn’t survival, its pure cunning,
In wanting to be my friend,
It coaxes me to fly,
Fly from the window and never to return.
So many books on peace,
I have devoured
And it laughs,
Your books and your writing is a façade,
You can never beat me,
I am stronger than you are,
I embrace myself,
You don’t stand a chance,
I think, you sink…
My mind is out to get me and that’s the crazy truth.

You in Him

In loving you,
My relationship with God is changing,
There are moments when I cease to be a beggar,
A rare contentment descends,
That is not of this world,
To own nothing,
And yet, be drunk,
It has nothing to do with you and everything,
You see, I fear, but I fear less,
I love still, but there is a stillness in love,
The nights are dark but there are more full moons,
In seeking you out,
I think, I may have stumbled upon Him.

The Stars Shoot

The strangest of things happened, yesterday,
I looked up to ask the sky full of stars,
The eager constellations, the clear question mark,
So many of you, yet, you won’t lift a finger,
Or lend me an ear,
Billions of you dazzling in the sky,
In this grand Universe,
A lonely speck am I?
I just wish to be heard,
From a tiny sex cell,
I became a being,
A thinking, feeling, creating machine,
With an overwhelming restlessness brewing inside,
It’s dark and I fear for my life,
Do you hear me?
Do you see the two liquid pools raised to you?
Do you?
Fed up, the monologue had gone far too long
Are you even capable of listening, I scoffed,
Not minutes had passed,
A shooting star went by,
Stumped, I stared at the sky,
They weren’t merely responding,
It was a powerful message,
For all those who seek,
Know that you are knocking at the right door...