Anaahat

Break the monotony break all rules walk all the distance don’t give-in, to those moments, to back out, don't you dare, shy away. Take those chances, to break into newer paths, lined with courage, hidden in your hearts. Break the monotony and break those rules, swim in the ocean run to the places unvisited, when life as we know, will end in our souls. 

when, the walls close in, when, the ground shakes, underneath, constantly, unceasingly. when, the will, slips away, to fight, to reclaim, to rise up. to sort, to build bridges, then, all it takes, to lift the laden feet, to straighten  the stooping shoulders, is, to breathe. just, to take in the air, to fill your lungs, to simply, breathe, one breath at a time, one heartbeat in time, breathe...

What I know is to live this life, to see the beauty, to enthrall, to enthuse, to revel, to feel the magic that holds the world together. This magic which astonishes. The magic beyond anybody’s control. The words, the inspirations, the wonder that people see. The passions that they chase. The dreams that they follow. Doesn’t matter, the logic. Or if it can be broken down in to levels of reason. Doesn't matter if you don’t understand, what matters is that you are blown away by it. To see, to be and to give yourself completely to these moments, is the end of life as we know it.  From then on, the definitions change.  The plates move, ever so slightly, and the core has altered in greater degrees. Giving rise to that moment which gives the absolute meaning for your existence on this earth. And, that is the purpose of life.  The moments when you feel as much alive, breathing and sensing. To slowly, flow in these moments, and to get free off them. To reach a greater plane whe...

It’s silent, their love. with endless possibilities, hidden in stolen glances, blood-rushes, on tinted cheeks, frozen hands, to freeze time. It’s a river, their life. changing, flowing, gurgling with joy, attaining depths, rushing on shallow lands, heading to a destination, by etching  its own course, with frozen hands, to freeze time.

Enough of lines of feelings which cannot be quantified. Enough of the hopes which cannot be fulfilled. Enough of the lies which escape those bloody hands. Enough of the days of longing and wants. Enough is all I say. Enough of trying to change The muddled world. Enough of wanting fairness, From the greedy souls. And then,  one day arrives. with no more space for desires and wants, in the vacuum filled, empty cup of life.

A long time ago, a little girl in a car  looked out of the window at the dark sea the mellow stars in the night sky. while he sang in the background a strong baritone that crooned in her ears. therapeutic. calming. haunting her days, during history and Math, PT and Arabic.  while she learned from him, the story of pain, and of the open-eyed dreams. But, once in a few years, comes a year, when many people die, when livers are eaten and brains bleed. People you have known, people you have heard about, famous people, unfamous people. taking their innovations and their genius with them, Leaving behind the carcasses, and a void in our lives. Now he is gone. With him her music, his lyrics that she sang in solitary nights, but she still dreams, looking at the stars, and now writes stories of pain.

Some people are born of pain, it's etched on their faces, on their hands, on everything they touch and feel, as if they carry an inflaming wound inside, of some murderous strike. Some people are born of sadness, you can feel it dripping from the words when they speak, from their hands when they touch. And they taint you sad too. Some people are born of silence, an empty silence, dark and void, and it is etched on their souls, uneraseble, unquantifiable, and they cannot rid of it, try hard as they might. Some people are just born, of sadness, of pain, of empty silences, and its etched on their faces, on their hands, of some wounds never healed.

It is truly amazing, how the answers to the most important questions are so simple. Like, the meaning of life is always the quest for the truth. Truth which is unchanging, truth which is absolute, truth which doesn't need debate. But truth which just simply, is. Last week has led me to this realisation with the many coincidences. First, I googled "Goenka lectures" and I was led to this amazing site D.I.Y.Dhamma. In one of the lectures, the lecturer quotes MK Gandhi, regarding his spiritual view of life. It is at that time that I decide to myself that it is finally time to read that biography "The Story of My Experiments with Truth". Not to know of his public or private life, but of his spiritual life. I am now reading that book. What it opens in my consciousness, I am yet to see. The lecturer speaks of Aung Sang Suu Kyi's spiritual path and he quotes from her speech titled "Freedom from Fear". So, this morning I googled "Freedom from Fea...

These barricades which were mounted, for liberty,  freedom, exhilaration, stifle and besiege now, like an over-possessive parent, an obsessive lover, reducing my  self, to a concentrated, amalgamated, insipid residue,  gathered at the  bottom-most pit of life. Thank you Thursday Poets Rally for the Perfect Poet Award   I would like to nominate Marit.

there is a painting on my wall, a dark, broad wood frame, enclosing Meera, as she sits amidst colours galore, waiting in lonely solitude, with her dotara, her hopeful eyes brimming with longing, and love, colossal, celestial, expressed in this melodic trance, that strums to the tunes of my heart. (This poem is inspired - apart from Meerabai herself - by this painting by my good friend Arti Jalan.)

Bridging the gaps, an attempt, amidst lifetimes of love unexpressed. Without, those treacherous teardrops, let us now begin where you and I, said goodbye last. Let us try and calm those countless expectations, waiting in melancholy stupor on that turning where yours were cradled and mine were crushed. And yet, summers ago, with shadows sprinkled on the ground, we had picked flowers, tiny and pretty, the fragrance of which doesn't leave my hands.

where does it come from the hope that moves you the optimism to see life so merrily, so tirelessly, without any weight on your soul. the feelings and hopes and the loves that you carry around. like a wounded soldier ready to breathe life in a dead country's soul. where in your soul, does it persist, to exist, the happiness, the peace, the quest for a forever, for what you dream in your mind's eye, hoping you will, someday, be there. where is it that you head in this manner, my wounded soldier, carrying those burdens of feelings, of hopes, in the quest of love alone.

I see him there, in the throngs at Azad Maidan, wearing a side-cap, his hair neatly combed, slick at his nape, head held high, lips pursed in silent determination, and his shoulders drooped with some unaccountable weight. Hunger strikes and human strikes, young hands raised in hope and anticipation, angered at the Kasabs, the tolerant us, the depleting life styles, the increasing price of lentils. My hands freeze in time, and my heart drums. I ask him how is he alive? Wasn’t he supposed to be dead in Taipei? His ashes in that temple in Tokyo? No, he says. He never died and he is carrying his burden ever since. And all that we are forced to eat are potatoes and the load of bullshit fed by the whitewashed faces, the turban-clad Indian man, and the saree clad phoren mem by the daily-getting-richer leeches and the lying, cheating and swindling businessmen. What burden, I ask. Isn’t his dream realized? I wave around. See, I say. We have ach...

Darkened, bulging sky, Rain exploding on the earth, resonating my thundering heart. (This is my first attempt at writing a Haiku. Inspiration from here .)

"It is beyond those two hills - the boundary," the Tree told Ms Elephant and Mr Dog. Stars lit up the dark sky and showed them the way. They were runaways. And had walked away from what they knew as homes. Where they had grown up, where they had had many falls and where they had learned to stand. They left it all behind: the people, the lovely zoo-keeper, the cages, the sniggering of the observers, and the pokes of inquisitive children who treated them as specimens. For the quest for a world with dignity and respect - across the boundary. They were not always unhappy at the zoo. There were lovely days in the beginning: jumping with Ms Monkey, laughing with Mr Squirrel and eating with Ms Bear. Their world fell apart the day Mr Moose came to the Zoo. Mr Moose would cry every day, and rattle the cages for hours together. And for those hours, the ground of the Zoo would shake. It was he who brought passion for Freedom into the Zoo. After a fe...

those pictures and smiles, haunting magnifying multiplying  the emptiness  the void, the space making reality  just a dream as good as  those soundless desires, that erupt in the quiet of the night. And, the meaning of life, of happiness, washes away into the aftermath of the afterlife.

It’s just like this. The feeling. Like this blank page in front of me. With nothing on it. White and clean. This is the feeling you have. The feeling that no bad-boss can shake, no emotional-entanglements can endanger. The feeling which those constantly nagging fears, hopes and loves cannot touch at all. Imagine. That’s what the 10 days at Vipassana revealed to me. That nothing is permanent. That impermanence is constant and that’s the absolute truth. During my childhood, I grew up with a seeming order around me and an equal amount of chaos within me. As years went by, I created a world around me which I felt was right. With ideologies and rights. I shed all the shackles one by one. I pulled out the millions of strings pulling at my heart, each one taking a piece of my heart with it. By the end of it, I was de-shackled. But the shackles left an empty space, a void. A void of meaninglessness in my existence. In my actions. And in the world around me. Every day, I would contemplate o...

I'd want it to rain, on the day I die, not heavy rains, only a light drizzle, on the day the body'd be burned, the drizzle vapourising the burning wood, swallowing the rising smoke, diluting the tears, sorrows and longings. And when the sun rises, there'd be no reminder, no ash, no bones, only a mark on the time gone by, leaving me free to soar up in the sky, for peace, for truth, for love, alone.

At the door of the black-hole-soul, a vacancy flashes, of a parent, brother, a friend, a lover, siphoning my vessel of all the things dark and light. From above He watches this game I play, watches me, break and scatter, and watches still, as I gather the pieces with timid hopeless courage. And I find myself at that same place of hurt and disappointment. The adamant self, discounting the altercations, the growth and maturity I pride in, only to realize that I am but, the solitary prisoner of my own self.

That relentless squat, every day, rain or shine, holding a dirty bowl, waiting with patience, or resignation. Tattered clothes, and his bony structure, torn with karmic beatings. Wrinkled face, with a toothless grin, and a pair of thick, hazy glasses hiding his gaze looking for, some glances of sympathy, perhaps some gestures of kindness. A walking stick by his side, to run away, again, if need be. He looks up every time I pass, no eye contact, no conversation, not even a moment spent to drop a coin in his bowl. Just a connection of two steps, From the time I turn on his street, to the time I turn the corner. But there he sits, with a certain degree of dignity, with a fervent defiance against life’s trials, in his silent, unyielding begging.

It seeps slowly, through the bones, sags her shoulders like a breath through her being. Corners of her eyes, hold invisible traces, of hopes and hopefuls, dying and living, each day, every day. Dreams and wishes, in silence elude her senses, out of her system, through her feet, sinking, firm into the moist earth. Then she breathes, again life into the core, raises her eyes, clears the lines,on her forehead, takes a step, leaving behind, an imprint, of a disappointment.

Is it the intimacy, the dependence, the duality of existence, the doubling of things. Is it the fear of not finding the unconditional love preached by the damn fairy tales or the fear of being loved, for love alone. Whats wrong? They (damn them) say, the grayed uncles and the wrinkled grandmothers, This is no way to be, to be sol, alone, solitary. What will life be, when the youth will be gone, the independence will be physically taken away, And one fine day, You will be lying on the floor, with a broken backbone and nobody to clean the mess, the rotting of life. Whats wrong in living in fairy tales that have acquired new definitions, when there is no need to ‘settle down’ and settle for whats available just for a reason to live another day, for another life, to fight the fear of being alone. without the quest of a ‘forever’.