None...

I closed my eyes. To fade away,
was the top priority
For in my heart i was very sure
That hurt was not for me

When things go wrong we sit and think
That He is being unfair
But what we do not realize is that
Our grief He tries to spare

How much of pain would be enough
To break a person’s back?
How many tears, how many sighs?
Till all he can see is black

The day does come when we are embittered
And do not want to see
That all that He really does want to do
Is protect you and me

Bye

it hurt as the rain drops
slid down the glass window
in sync with my own tears
for saying goodbye is always the hardest thing to do

memories are built and last
but letting go of an attachment so deep is hard

how does one say bye to everything
that they have built around them
and pick up and move
and try to nest elsewhere

the new may be happy and full of surprise
may be beautiful and fresh
but those memories keep coming back
and rolling down as tears

is it the desperate want for being in the known
or just the fact that the heart makes a connection
oh why is it so difficult
to say bye and move on

FAIR / UNFAIR ??

This morning as I scrambled out of bed I wondered why things r so unfair. Couldn’t I have had a headache n stomach pain some other day? A whole day of work awaits. Unfair!!

I managed to drag myself through the morning routine and finally locked up the house and walked out. I didn’t have to walk much. Right outside the lane an auto driver saw me carrying a big box and ran up to me asking where I wanted to go. Relieved I told him where I had to go and haggled about the price. I walked to the auto and just as I was about to step in I noticed a little boy sitting in the back seat. At first I thought, n I might add a tad irritated, that it was just one of the neighbourhood boys playing the fool. But as the auto driver got into his seat I realized this boy was going to sit there.

I got in with the box dividing the seat into almost perfect halves.
It was only then that I realized that that the little boy had some sort of problem and the driver was possibly his father or a relative.

It is at times like this that the lack of understanding of the language really bugs me. I tried to attempt a conversation with the broken bits I do know. The driver suddenly asked if I was from Bombay. I replied in the affirmative. He started talking in Hindi like someone who found a comrade. He told me that the sweet little child was his son… mentally retarded since birth.

My eyes filled up. Such a sweet face. Gentle and kind, unassuming, loving and half contorted with what seemed like paralysis. He slowly slid his frail body closer to the box, leaned against it and gave me one of the sweetest smiles I have ever seen. I smiled back unable to think of anything else to do.

As we moved on his father talked about the time he was in Bombay. I couldn’t get my mind off the boy. I asked if they had tried to put him into a special school at any point of time. I looked on through the rear view mirror as his face dropped. He nodded and said that they had tried many schools to no avail. The boy was unable to walk, talk or do anything by himself. He needed continuous assistance and attention. The father further went on to tell me how he had taken his “jigar ka tukda” to the to ENT surgeon in town and was told that the boy would be absolutely ok (speech and hearing) if he underwent surgery. But others discouraged him saying the doctor was talking rubbish.

This funny unease swept over me. I felt like my heart was being tugged at as I listened to the auto driver talk and watched this child, so innocent and completely enamored by the sights and sounds around him.

I had to do something, and I did. Never in my life have I seen such a true show of gratitude. Tears flowed freely in place of the words that were caught in the throat.
I didn’t feel like a hero, I didn’t feel like a saint. I felt tiny and wondered what was truly unfair in the larger scheme of things?

And through it all, the index finger of the little boy’s left hand always touched his father as though to ratify the connection..

QUIET

Its quiet here, I’m all alone,
There is no sound at all
But of the rise and fall of my breath
That seems to fill the hall

The click of the switch,
The knock at the door
Stir me from my lost stupor

I rise, or do I?
I do not know, my legs don’t seem to move
I stare at that spot on the wall
Where the images are bright against the white

I need to pull myself away,
I need to open the door.
Coz I can hear someone out there,
He bangs the door even more.

Dragging myself with dreamy eyes,
I manage to pull open the bolt
That seems like its welded shut

Its dark outside
My eyes unfocused,
I cant really see very well
I try hard to unclutter my mind and focus at the task on hand

And then I see him
Old and wrinkled with the bluest lovely blue eyes
His wrinkles seem to ripple like the waves
“yes” I say and stand and stare at the unusual man

“Some water please child” he says to me
Im too transfixed to react
“water, child” he says again
I silently obey like in a trance

I quickly pour the water out, into a tall glass,
And run back as though
He were a bright magnet and I an iron fly

I extended my hand with the glass, still too stunned to talk
And our fingers brushed as he took the glass
COLD, colder than ice

It sent a chill up my spine
As my eyes truly opened for the first time
Because to this day,
I have never known anyone alive to feel so cold to the touch

“Thank you young one” he said
Gratitude in his eyes
And noiselessly drank the water
While my mind strained to make sense

He put down the glass on the threshold
Stood up straight and looked me in my eye
He grabbed my hands in his
The chill filled me anew

“Calm down sera, I mean not to scare, the child of one I loved
But he sent me here, just to check,
That his beloved grandchild was alright”

“Who?” I demanded with more strength than I felt
“Tell me who you talk about.
For I have never heard of you,
Let go of my hands its cold”

“Dear one, he still sings for you,
The songs of your childhood
Those very verses that gave you
The name you chose for him”

It dawned on me who he spoke of
It had to be none else
And tears filled my eyes again
For I missed him the most

“He loves you child, even now
He thinks of you all the time
And longs to carry you in his arms again
And let you drink out of his glass of wine”

I sobbed uncontrollably, my face in my hands
My body shaking as I collapsed
The tears would not stop
Of the beautiful memories, of the loss

I finally looked up my head filled with thoughts,
To ask the man what else he knew
But to my dismay and utter shock
He had disappeared

I ran to the banister
My first thoughts were “he’s a ghost”
But I saw him walking far away
As I ran onto the road

Am I supposed to laugh or cry?
At the memories that flood my mind?
Of the beautiful memories that fill me up
Of the loss that changed my life..

Questions

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether I am actual alive or not. I look into the mirror and wonder who that person is. It couldn’t be me.. Is that what I look like? Really? Is this the flesh that enshrines my soul?

Things come and go, shit happens, and all that remains the same is that I'm still breathing. The lungs fill and empty, day in n day out without a rest. What would it be like for them to rest? Are they not tired like I am?

Why do these things happen? Why do I feel like I have been hit by a truck and run over by a road roller? Is it the way life is? Does everyone go through the anguish and pain that I go through? Or is it different. My heart aches for the millions who starve and millions of others who are victims of atrocities that are unimaginable. But selfish and oh so human that I am, it hurts more to see the ones I love in pain and causing pain.

I do not believe that it is possible for someone to feel pain without causing some too. And thus each and every one of us is the cause of pain at some point of time or the other. Does my elevated level of grief make me a trouble causer? Or are some people just destined to feel more hurt… “sensitive human beings” as they are called….

I never have been able to figure it out, maybe I don’t really want to. My heart aches from loss.. of people, of things and of the slow but steady, and very apparent degeneration of some of the people I love.

At first I prayed. I asked why? Then I requested Him to please intervene. But He didn’t… was it His plan? How can it be? How can He bear to watch one of His own children, His own creation unleash upon itself the effects of the BAD?

I have been asked how it is possible for me to label a thing or action ‘bad’, when bad is so subjective and opinion riddled.. “It’s simple” I said. “Bad, to me is anything that causes harm in any way to the people around or to the person himself, often both.”

Was I destined to loose? Not the trivial battles of examinations or jobs, not the menial little bits, but to loose the people I love, in one way or another, to disease or drugs or alcohol or sometimes just plain unexplainable loss of love on their part.

What is love? Isn’t it meant to be something that remains forever? It may vary in form and intensity but isn’t it the true fibre that binds us, to ourselves and others?

Who is a selfless man? One who forfeits his possessions or valuables for others? He can maybe even give the lives of his dear or his own, but what of those who love him? Doesn’t he hurt them? Doesn’t his attempt at ‘martyrdom’ or ‘sainthood’ steal from some a part of themselves?

And thus for every such ‘martyr’ and ‘saint’ there are the sufferers, who live, they have to live, with a part of their souls lost.

I cry. It’s a physical pain. For what can you do but ache to see someone you love knowingly take their own lives apart.
I was a crusader. I fought, I screamed, I begged, I cried,

I broke…..

Into a million little fragments, too far destroyed to ever be put back together.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chequered with woven shadows as I lay

Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,

I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bayMost idly floating in the noontide beam.

Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway

Of ocean's giant pulsing, and the Dream,

Buoyed like the young moon on a level stream

Of greenish vapour at decline of day,

Swam airily, watching the distant flocksOf sea-gulls, whilst a foot in careless sweep

Touched the clear-trembling cool with tiny shocks,

Faint-circling; till at last he dropt asleep,

Lulled the hush-song of the glittering deep,Lap-lapping drowsily the heated rocks.

-- William Allingham

Confusion

Leave be the things that make no sense and journey on my friend,

in insanity we get embroiled and our souls we forget to tend.

The Feather

Light as the air that it travels on,
Beautiful in the detail that constitutes it,
It flits by the little girl as she reaches out to grab it.

On her palm it rests, barely
With fascination she raises it to her eye,
and with awe and childish breathlessness,
She sees a reflection of the sky

Enamoured by its beauty,
Its weightless sublime magic,
She stares and smiles and absorbs


And then there came a gust of wind,
Or maybe it was her breath,
And carried with it the little feather
In circles and spirals of dance

A smile, a sigh of happiness, maybe just a little regret,
But joy, oh yes, so much joy, for the image that will remain forever.

White

She twirled, with arms outstretched.
Holding the first bits of weightless winter on her fingertips
Her honey brown curls
Danced in the wind

Beautiful in white
Lace and satin as soft as her skin
She breathes the crisp coolness

The pink is in her cheeks
The smile on her lips
Awakens my blank mind
What beauty!

Joyously she opens her mouth and lets them melt on her tongue
Twirls round and round,
Her head heaven bound

There is a voice,
She looks ahead and starts to run, her face aglow with innocent glee.
“Mummy, Mummy lets dance in the snow”