Thursday, December 30, 2010

The privilege


"...and should you die without reaching full sunlight, you will die on a level touched by its rays."

P.S. Shot this from a mountain top half a km away from this tree, at sunset... :)

Friday, November 19, 2010

Winter

As much as was the awaiting,
Of a shared charm, this winter,
It arrives sans smiles, sans greeting,
To dead wood and an icy splinter.

Holding the frozen times bygone,
The faces pale and hearts cold
Sprinkle the salt a little, alone,
Upon the sweetness of the days old.

But the clouds linger just awhile,
Dispelled by a whisper like one last breath
Name of a rosebud, memory of a smile,
An assuring rose on snow-white of death.

Drops of ironies as pleasing as this,
Instil a vigour, so these charms last.
And we walk through the winter's promise,
Untogether, in the wake of a beautiful past.

N.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Flesh and blood

I am also mere flesh and blood, aren't I? But if I could just retain a remnant of that purity, if I could just hold the sight, a glimpse of that world preserved in a corner of my mind, if I could just leave a memory of a Struggle, if not Achievement not to remain just flesh and blood, I would not have wasted my life.

And I would not have been wrong in choosing and restricting my circle to a few people, people I've chosen to love, respect, be friends with.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Lotus

The lotus which is admired for retaining its beauty in muck, would the same lotus become less admirable if it were to express that the muck is not its rightful place and its not happy or indifferent at all as the world thinks it is or wants it to be in it?...
...But then if it were able to express, it had to be able to bring itself out to its rightful place. If not, muck is what it should deserve. Muck is where its rightful place is.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Life and death

The whole life is a preparation to meet death. How you lived life would decide how you'd face death or it's little friends...sorrow, despair, frustration, disappointment, failure. Time keeps playing practical jokes on you. But you got to have your sense of humour intact. Without these little antics of time, wouldn't the whole journey be so monotonous? All colour and fragrance would make you sick and weary. And it is a long journey. And in the end if you are the one who has the last laugh, you'd have lived your life well.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Some broken bits, snatched from sleep

How people start shifting uncomfortably in their seats, how their voices become a shade louder, as a guard raised in anticipation of a threat coming in. They even start making noises just to cut out any chance of a word falling into their ears. A threat, that might disrupt their convenient, comfortable, safe lives...It might not, but why take a chance?

...How has this become such a common and inseparable part of people's lives? Through what path must the society have evolved and to what torture must it had been subjected to be distorted so? What events must've brought about this struggle to evade, this violence and defiance, this rigid resistance to thought?

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The past

It is strange to look at the past when it has not become a "distant" one yet. It's not believable, not convincing as "past"...but it seems more of an interrupted present...

Thursday, April 29, 2010

To Sleep

And now as I prepare to surrender to rest,

The shoots of dreams start to show,

The promise of color,

The assurance of wonder,

The hint of the other world.
Or simply a white lie, tempting nonetheless...
And like a painter ready with a view in sight
and an image in mind,

I sort my palette of thoughts
as my eyelids lay the first strokes
on the void of this black canvas of Sleep.

N.

(Footnote: I don't know why I put that in the form of a poem :)

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Slack

Downside of staying ahead of your years is that when the years catch up, which they do anyway, you've already exhausted the charm for the experiences they're supposed to bring with them. They are not "new" to you anymore. And you don't have anything else to look forward to because for you that'll also be "old". Some kind of a dead end...

Friday, April 16, 2010

Father and Son

This mere one day gap between these two birthdays is a symbol of 'closeness' between these two people. However, this slight gap can also be a symbol of the 'thin line' which seems enough to put them on opposite sides. But then, they won't quarrel or go to war. Turns out the thin line is a mirror and they both see themselves in each other.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Place to be

There are few places quite as wonderful to be as the thoughts of a woman. And there are few things quite as gratifying as knowing that you have been there in her lonely leisurely moments.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Call

...The water in that puddle is merely a few drops that the wind plucked from my waves. Raise your head and look ahead. The sunrises and sunsets on my horizon are still there as they had been always...and as beautiful.

...

I'm not the water that fills the intermittent puddles on a road called your time.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Taking a fool to paradise

You invite a fool to paradise and he'll get busy packing and eventually carrying his earthly crap along. But who invites a fool to paradise? Oh...of course.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Fighting for Peace!

(Sigh)...These squabbles and belittling each other won't get you anywhere. There's a thing called "indifference" and there's a thing called "prudence". Prudence consists of being indifferent to things which are too petty to be obliterating the higher view of one's own existence. Distractions.

Then there's "knowledge" and "wisdom". Wisdom consists of understanding where and how much the knowledge is to be applied.

Now the tricky part is that you can do this, i.e. use your knowledge prudently (or not use for that matter), when you have a constantly unobliterated view of higher level of your existence! However, it's not as tricky as it sounds because having that view is simply knowing the answer to the question: "Is it interfering with my peace of mind or priorities?" If the answer is YES, it's not worth involving in.

You can minimize the already loud "noises" ONLY by not adding to it yourself. You know it doesn't deserve the importance you are giving it at the expense of your own precious and limited time. And as you keep seeking to make this a peaceful place, with good and genuine intentions that you do have, to that, creating peace outside is NOT your job, achieving and sustaining it inside IS. Leave outside be.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Touching the light

In a stupor, drunken or otherwise, passing a finger through a thick cigarette smoke ring or a candle flame. Fast enough so as to not break the ring too much or burn my finger and slow enough to feel the weightless smoothness around my finger...Touching her skin makes me think of touching the lightness.

Then...on a lazy winter day, moving my hand from shade to a block of light formed by a sun-ray on a wooden floor. The hand not touching the floor but hovering slightly above it. I can sense the touch of the ray on my hand and the warmth of the wood below...Touching her skin makes me think of touching the light.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

On "Movements"

...Do you not think that just "spreading the word" would be a harmful thing for the movement? I mean a lot of "wrong" people can be attracted to it, thereby triggering the same fiasco as have happened with all the movements in the history. By wrong I don't mean criminals or fanatics but I'm talking about that more common crowd of mindless, ignorant fools, born followers, the herders, the hanger-ons. This problem of wannabes and clueless hoards has always took everything, every revolution, every good intention and by their mere filthy blindness have turned it into "the world as we have today". I mean what is left that has not been tainted/corrupted by this swarm of locusts. Take anything...Religion, spirituality, philosophy, science, freedom, happiness, morality, politics, societies, responsibilities, patriotism, being practical, media, cultures...Hasn't the meaning and purpose of everything been distorted, turned upside down, inside out by their sheer lack of understanding the fundamentals coupled with that stinky urge of "contributing to causes", "giving back", "making a difference", "joining movements", "getting onto the bandwagon" as a redemption of whatever petty guilt they have gotten stuck to their little consciences. Isn't the world a mess that it is because of this only? I think more than anything else, this is one single cause responsible for the eventual decline or failure of every system, every revolution, every movement.

The fundamental mistake lies in thinking that numbers are what we need to bring something about, to make these movements successful. Whereas, it's not the quantity but the quality of people that should be the criteria, the base and aim for distributing such knowledge, sharing such information and asking for involvement. Mass movements will only end up in messy stalemates, leaving everybody frustrated, banging their heads on the wall not being able to figure out, "What the hell went wrong?!"

Friday, March 12, 2010

Casualties

Lying on the road, nearing the last breath,
Picturing the afterlife, waiting for the death.

Yet, the pain doesn't hurt, the bones don't ache,
The smile doesn't leave, the hands don't shake,

Our journey ended before we went the distance,
Funny way to go...to be hit by an ambulance.

Friday, February 26, 2010

My Night Queen

She lives in the dark,
and can't see her way ahead,
Have gotten used to the blindness,
But feels enlightened in her head.

In her knowledge somewhere though,
She nurtures a dream of light,
She has stars in her eyes,
But enjoys more the glamour of the night.

She lives in the dark,
and there she wishes to stay,
And wants to be loved in the dark,
but not in the light of the day.

N.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Biker without a bike

Give me some grass and give me some steel.
Give me some air and I'll give you one deal.

I'll let you crawl, if you just let me fly.
Won't impel you to change, just let me get high.

I'll not even look back to sneer, I'll let you be.
I'll set you free to rot, you just set me free.

N.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Seasons

One more evening passing by, one more sunset on the horizon, one more struggle watching helplessly a day coming to an end, wishing for it to stretch a few hours more in hope of a miracle. In hope that those few hours are all that is needed to bring back that long forgotten smile, that much missed joy, that one reason to love life again.
Then nights. The hopes fading away like the vision of heavy weary eyes into a half sleep. The anguish slipping into a calm like a tired baby’s cry.
Numb. Blank.
Then…a new dawn. The first ray felt by the closed eyes. The first dim strokes of an old favorite colour on the horizon. The warmth like that of first streaks of light after a long polar night. The first chirping of an early bird on the roof and a light breeze. A faint rustling of dried leaves in the backyard…soft footsteps of someone approaching slowly. A smell of roses. A bright silhouette in the haze beyond the window and a hint of smile…that long forgotten smile?… A dream?…An end of a nightmare? A twinge and a fear…and a springtide of laughter…uncontrolled…wild…free.
Frozen…

But then again...everything melts and everything withers away. Life is just a passing of seasons.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Pandora - The planet of life

Nature's beauty in it's full, unscathed, untouched, unobstructed form. Resembles, in my mind, what our Earth must be like earlier. The Earth I miss. The Earth of the past, before man "claimed" it, the Earth of the future when Nature will claim it back. Dense lush forests...bulging, roaring and rushing rivers and falls. Clouds like mountains, mountains like clouds...Wind blowing freely and on them birds of infinite plumage. The unhindered growth, the NOT-over-sized vegetation, because nothing is "over"...and so is nothing "under". The people living in and among the nature, "connected" to it. As a part of it, like every other animal and bird does.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Slow death of greatness

It was once said to me, "A great man decays before dying."

I agreed then and I agree now. Greatness decays, phases out. From sunlight to starlight...It doesn't go in a flash. But the path it takes on it's fall is not the same as to the top. If it was, that would be a slight consolation. But it's not. And when this tower falls, one sees only dust. Everywhere...and everything is engulfed in it. Dust which drowns and chokes whoever is near. The shroud covers not only the dead but those who mourn. And when it settles, what lies there are the broken pieces, the remains of glory. People occupied in the memory of glory, not of the dead lying before them. The dead who achieved glory...and who decayed. And suffered alone as he witnessed what was being lost. He suffers because no one understands more than him as it was he who was Great. He suffers as he watches his fall from Nobility to commonplace, Pride to mere inertial superbia and then to no honour at all. He watches himself as he goes through this painful spiral from Inspiration to expiration. No one's suffering can be equal to his as he watches his Greatness flat-lining.