Grief and love

I too know power deep in the limbo of dreams.
I too watch a ship and want, an eagle and want.
I'll never be a princess feeding swans.
No golden bird is singing in my fingers.

My joy, like yours, is snatched from tenement mornings
and wrung till it cracks in my hands,
a pitiful rejoicing in a sand box, a sun-patch more.
Yes, I stand in hallways gathering valleys in my apron,
yet, scarcely daring another spring.

O honey, I hoped to be a butterfly fluttering in your pocket,
but now you flood just one cell of my mind,
still hating your walls, still half-dreaming
of my bringing you a brother, a young son.

Yesterday I passed your stoop.
I saw an old woman tousling children's hair
with a drifting, mechanical hand.
An old woman already dreading the final apples,
the last rain.

and while we work on the dissertation...some stolen winks

You'll understand this better if you have
felt how it is, waking from a dream
certain you can fly or that someone dear
lost long ago, has returned (to you).
When you wake up, no one will believe
that you can shut gravity off, that you
owned a tomahawk in your past-life and it's buried
and still calling for you. You dive to reach the bottom;
rock by wet rock, piecemeal, collecting the dream.
At the window, moon rests her elbows,
watching the snow on your bed. Outside, jaundiced streetlamps
struggle against the dawn. Loose dogs, crickets, whose sad voices
fill the plains with longing,
(of which), for a brief moment, you are filled with your own.
Next to you, your lover, in his restless sleep,
jerks his arms and legs.
You smile, not knowing he was flying north chasing the moon to Alaska.
When up, he'll never tell you. You won't believe. You don't want to.
Perhaps one day, brushing your teeth, hair or writing his name
on the fog of your bath, you'll realise
how much of your life you've spent, doing this and
trying not to believe in what you do, when asleep.
In this in-between hour, this suspended limbo, solitary, just for a brief moment
you'll feel the stab of truth: It is real.
but before it singes your mind forever, your thoughts will disperse
and go the way your breath does, when you walk out into the snow.
The day will begin, and the world will crack open
gradually reappearing phlegmatically car by mocking car.

Marching times

Historically, March has been the month of obsession all my life. Through school, college and now in its final circle in my student life, exams have been thrashing the daylights out of me. Now the March when all I wanted to do is to complete- my-darned- dissertation. Mercifully, this one is being intermediated by a jolly March spent obsessing over too much wine, cheese and good things.

This time is no less eventful. I am alternating between ecstasy and sorrow with tiring frequency. I have never explained myself as much as I am doing now. I almost gave in to the tyranny of tradition yet again. I am close to leaving the city where I grew up. I've declined job offers after pursuing them to the end. I have cried in the department washroom. I have walked on the wrong side of protocol. I have counted my money two thousand times. No cell phone this month as well. Almost ended. Almost started again.

All nags, by way of time, reach their fitting conclusion. Or fade. I held my camera this afternoon, and saw it to its end. I go to a park every morning. I’ve been wanting to write about it for sometime, but that should be another post. As one enters from the gate that I take, theres a semi-largish tree which burst into soft pink blossoms a month back. It is an ice-pack for burning eyes. It has a smaller cousin on another street in the neighbourhood and one near my department.

Basically, I have been wanting to know what its called. So spent an hour this afternoon at the Oxford bookstore, reading Pradip Krishen’s immense labour of love - Trees. What a treat!

Anyhow, my tree goes by the name ‘Sandan’. Botanically and rather sensously, ‘Desmodium Oojeinense’. Other local names are ‘Asainda’, ‘Tinsa’ and ‘Tiwas’. It comes from the lower Himalayan ranges. And is undeservedly rare in Chandigarh.

As are the boys with silly walks. Oh dear!

I will - will...

I am the sun and moon.
I am the air and sea.
I am the glory of God,
and the decadence of Satan.
I am the power of the universe,
and the fragility of life.
I am the flesh that gives form,
and the thought that gives substance.
I am the beauty of love eternal,
and the filth of hatred everlasting.
I am the divinity of birth,
and the repugnance of death.
I am the embodiment of pleasure,
and the exquisiteness of pain.
I am all that has been,
and all that will ever be.
I am deity
I am humanity
I am...

I am a final year Mass Comm student, about to walk out of school for the first time in 24 years.
And being the vain being that I am...I will walk with my nose in the air and muck at my feet...

There'll be 38 others joining me and no one wants to leave!!!!

Such is the paradox of the 'I',
Freud do I hear you barfing in the corner there???

of the sort

What comes but poesies

for all the drinks refused

for the holes made in pretty heads

for over-baked bodies in bakeries

for almond-eyes bought by terror

for planting holy bombs by the river

for the arms' alms in the name of salwa judum

what grows but poesies

for today you can only wear cotton

for today you can only eat wheat

for today you can only sleep on earth

for after you get tired of gunning

(which you will)

you will come home

to my gossamer love lines
we all have battles to go to

what will remain but poesies?

Some rain, some shine...

What does it take to want again?

To want a pedicure, an inhale, a good day, a friend, an appetite, a workout, a holiday, a pay cheque, an audience.

What does it take to be happy?

A tree every window, a desk, a computer, a new song, a first line, a remembered word, a water bottle, free telephone, box of crayons, loose sheets.

What does it take to be addicted?
Cluelessness.
And of course, some pretending.

Some notes of mine I took down while I attending presentations, saw movie clips, shared mind conspiracies, read some writing on the wall...all between 3to 5 on all weekdays.

And today as it hailed outside and me trying to hold on to all those little ones who contained that space in Mass Comm department room...I addressed an exhausted lot.

It dawned! It's been two years and it'll be time to say bye soon. I've waited for the moment, but today I want it to pause a bit.

Maybe, could be, possibly...the place has grown on me.

Dreaming about that tree every window, a desk, a computer, a new song, a first line, a remembered word, a water bottle, free telephone, box of crayons, loose sheets...