A Song About Things..

Like the touch of the warm sun in the chill

Like the sound of a new learned word

Like the smile that reaches out through the tears

Like curling up next to you after a long day

Like the breeze that cools off the trails of sweat

Like the nostalgia on seeing a familiar street

Like the first ever dance in the cold cold rain

Like soaking tired feet in the fresh waters of a lake

Like finding comfort in the dark and the quiet

Like the rock hard trust found in a child’s eyes

Like singing about the small things or nothing at all

Like finding the last words to finish a song.....

Claustrophobic

Routine invasions into my zone

Inflate the magnitude of rage

Frowns, growls, threats, all expendable

To thwart the prowler on my turf

So with wax I trace shadow lines around me
Shooting up a web of lasers
They surround me
Protect me
From intrusion

Gasping for air
I fail to find
I fail to find
Claustrophobic!

A wide open sky shimmers over me
Solace in my own space
I raise my arms to finally breathe deep

Itching, burning, threatening
My lasers burn deep through my skin
Menacing, hostile
Warning me to abide by my rules

Gasping for air
I fail to find
Still painfully
Claustrophobic!

Coiling in wards
a foetus I grow back into
Pushing through
Nudging through
Wriggling to make space
Elbowing my own creation


A box of illusionary lines
We choose live in
We choose to create
we choose to nurture

We choose to be claustrophobic.

The Last Twenty Steps Of Fire

While Tibet fights for its Independence from the Chinese Government, two teenagers, ages 17 and 19 burnt themselves as a sign of protest against the Chinese empire. They were, however not the first ones. 49 others have burnt themselves to bring about a revolution. These teenagers, on the martyrs way, took their last 20 steps and collapsed. This is a homage for them. I could not think of any better way to honour them than this. 

All for a cause

All for a fight

All that was needed was a flaming light

Two young souls

Ablaze with passion

Treading on the footsteps of the 49 knights

The fiery brave hearts

On the martyrs way

Crumbled into ashes as they knelt to pray

The last twenty steps of fire

Of hope | of rage | of war | of desire

The last twenty steps of fire

To freedom from chains | chains of the empire

Homage to the messengers of the revolution

We salute your protest against the constitution

An alter, where the sacred fire would burn

A reminder to believe that the fates could turn

Your sacrifice reflects the Pure Divine

You are our messiah, You are our Superhuman.

Time Capsule

It was like unearthing a very old, wonderfully preserved, Time Capsule. A kaleidoscope of mental images, endowed with all the colours, the sounds. Detailed. As if a broken down movie strip from a very old, but frequently watched, movie. Broken bits of conversations, laughter over a long forgotten joke. Every further step inside, made my breath stop even more as memories started to breath life into me. Everywhere i looked, it felt like a Talisman to my journey from being a child, to not being one anymore.

That’s where I fell once; and everybody laughed. This is where he threw me in the water during our 1st holi! This was where I saw my first set of falling stars when i stared at the sky during a black-out. That’s exactly where i hid as a child of 10 years of age. I thought that was such a brilliant place to hide! That tree, it wasn’t there before. I don’t remember hiding behind it. But it looks huge. Looks comfortably settled in the soil. But it cant be that old. It can’t have grown so fast. It hasn’t been so long since I moved.

Has it?

Eight years. It had been eight years since I visited this place. I did frequent it, but never like this. Today was different. Today was like revisiting my years as a child. The times of adolescence. The time of my life that i remember the most. Today was like re-winding the movie and living through it again. Not as a 10 year old kid, but with the 10 year old girl. Alongside her. Watching her, as her shadow.

“Lets meet at the Star”. A phrase, so familiar, that it made my insides disappear. A bunch of words that i would only associate with us. Four friends decide to re-unite after almost a decade. At a space that was the most familiar to them. At the place where they all grew up. Together. They fought, they danced, they cried, they laughed, they played. The Star.

I was unnerved. What would I talk about after 8 years?

But we spoke. Spoke until the time ran out and exceeded. Until our childhood came back to life. We re-lived it. Together again, like when we were kids. Nothing had changed. Nothing metaphysically, at least. Conversations were in exhaustive. Its funny how the past kept us talking. We needed to, i guess. I did.

It was like finding closure. Wonderful, warm closure. With them, with myself, with The Star, to whom I never really said good-bye in a way that it deserved.

Music in Nature

There’s something about an empty house; creepy and peaceful at the same time. With nothing for company but a ticking clock. In the absolute apparent Silence comes a Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock… and gradually builds itself to form a rhythm, a beat: Music.

What do you look for in Music? A certain beat, rhythm, sound, pitch. Harmony. A melody that seduces your senses. That lingers on for long after it goes out.

Sitting next to a bank of a river, in the heart of a lush forest, can bring alive your senses just the way Music would. Why is it, you wonder? Listen closely. You are encircled by a melodious tune. Its all around you. You are its epicenter.

The wind gushing by, doesn’t it make a sound?

Yes, it certainly does. Its whooooosh is like a hum of some long forgotten song.

The cascade’s clatter on the river, intimately rhymes with the crash of a cymbal.

While the wild pitter-patter of the Rain, just fills up the surroundings with its jingle.

The Double Bass Drum borrows its thud from a galloping horses’ hooves.

And the chirping bird adds on to the tunes of a Flute.

Music! Music everywhere! We bow to thee, O Nature! The Chief Creator of Music. Using nothing but the Natural Elements, You compose a melody like none before. A harmonious union of everything in your disposition.

And now, you are back home. Back to your routine. Your schedule. That has integrated so well in your life, that your daily environment seems like Nature. The melodiously enticing forest voyage comes to an end. Now what? Did the song end at the border of the woods?

Listen closely, again. Heighten your senses. Awaken them. Make them sensitive to Music. In whichever form it may be.

A train passing by; its reverberation does it feel parallel to a Tabla tune?

Its whistle, even more so, merges with the notes of a Flute.

The rotating of a fan, helps create a pitch oh so unique!

While the oscillation of a wall clock fashions a striking background beat.

Music again! Rediscovered! In our natural environment. While Nature composes the tunes, so do the surroundings we live in. The sphere that encircles us, resonates with delicious melody. We just need to lend a ear to it. Capture it. Recognize it.

But what if you were alone in a silent room? Would the music die down? Music, does it reverberate only on the exterior? Stay. Feel. Hear.

Against your ribs, your heart thumps,

What does it sound like, a rhythmic beat on a drum?

Listen to the inhaling and exhaling pace

The tempo is established for the song to find its race.

Music is around you, if you care to listen. Its in you, you are its focal. Its origin. Its creator. The grand orchestra that fires up dies down only when you do. The Music never stops. Not unless it has an audience.

Space.

Space. Changes everything.

We discuss largely about Time. Give it the importance it deserves. Knowing that it slips away as we breathe. But what we forget to talk about, is Space; to ponder upon its importance. To give it its rightful pedestal that it begs for. We tend to take it for granted to an extent that seldom do we even consider it.

The only time we realize its gigantic value and the impact it had on us is when we find ourselves in a deep Vacuum. A vacuum so intense and void that no other space could ever refill it. A dry vacuum that was moments ago moist with memories that were created through this Space, from the fragments of Lives that were birthed from this Space. A Space that changed the course of our Lives, that inspired us, that brought out the best of us. A Space that made us feel emotions that no other Space, however sophisticated or fancy may it be, could even come close to replicating.

Time plants the gems, but Space nourishes them; polishes them; situates them-Space gives them a significance. A significance that is in direct relation to the Space, and to only THAT space. Nothing could change it, nothing could replace it.

Now here we are. With everything seemingly in the place it should be. Nothing seems to have changed, except the Space. With so much Time in our hands, and so many replacements already charted out, we still feel lost. We still find it impossible to breathe in this horrible vacuum. We strive to make a Home out of this new found hostile void.

Space. It indeed changes everything.

The Flight

She watched it in a state of admiration. Transfixed, she registered its every move as it flit across the wide open sky. An almost negligible, yet distinguishable black shape; a phenomena not very much out of the ordinary, that, in the moment, moulded into something of great magnitude.

A scenery of green mingled with grey dashed past her, but her eyes never left the blue canvas tinged with black.

And then all of a sudden, she lost sight of the bird. Craning her neck, she frisked the horizon, but it had become one with the blue infinity...... Its funny how anything bordering on ‘depth’ is tagged with the colour Blue. BLUE!! The infinite sky, the deep blue sea.. Blue..!!

Blue.. The word lingered in her mind for what seemed like an eternity. She loved Blue. Always had, since the time she could remember. Amongst an assortment of shades, Blue always stood out loud. Never did she understand why though. Why so much affinity to this colour in particular? But now, as she fondly gaped at the clear blue sky, she found the answer reflected in her dark eyes.

The train came to an abrupt halt. She was jolted out of her reverie and in her uncomfortable state of inertia she spotted it again. There it was! Or was it a different one? But then again, would it matter? It would still mean the same. The reason for which she raked the skies for a glimpse of a bird wouldn’t change. The reason they fascinated her wouldn’t either.

The same way, that Blue would never cease to seduce her. The expansive Blue and the Unconstrained Bird! Together, to her, they spelled out Freedom. Yes, that’s what it was. Total, Infinite, Freedom!

Liberty. Something that finds its place as an abstract concept in black and white; That is fantasised by most, but probably conquered by none. What we are really left with, at the end of the day, is a moist, realistic illusion.

<< We are all just Prisoners here, of our own device >> quotes a great song. And it puzzlingly makes her think of Sisyphus. Probably the only character she knew, who came to terms with his jailed, chained Destiny; who tore open all the layers of Illusion to glare hard at Reality; to understand it, to accept it, to embrace it and to live with it.

Even a bird is stalked by predators. The blue sky without exception is drained of its colour every night and is sucked into annihilation. We are all restrained by our everyday schedules in a seemingly free world. We all dream, but hardly do we ever achieve.

And for some absurd reason, that’s reassuring. Beneath the underlying order that we create, there lies Chaos. Chaos, that if once disengaged, would be insurmountable. Chaos in direct relation to the realisation of Total Freedom.

She shivered as she imagined what it would be like if the concept of Total Freedom actually took shape in the real world. The mayhem that would fall upon, would undoubtedly lead to Apocalypse.

Illusions are good, she thought to herself. Not everyone can deal with Reality. Not everyone is Sisyphus.

Sacrifised

Deafened by the roar of chaotic cries
They fight the profound supersonic silence
Blinded by the hot pricking sticking soot
They struggle, strive, hope for guidance.

Wide empty sockets reflect his terrorised kingdom
As he rested in piece on his rotting throne
While those with life gazed upon him,
Now a blackened, bloody hollow soul.

Innocent, yes that they were [chorus]
Prisoners of an incoherent vessel
Lived like The Great Sisyphus
But dead at the command of a whistle

Numbed by disorientation
By disbelief, by the repeated violation
The wound, seldom healed
Is torn open, yet again, with aggression

Tired of chasing a cure
For an infestation that might not have one
Violence is multi-faceted monster
That, with time, changes its definition


Acceptance, thats the first most painful step [bridge]
For something that never would make much sense
Accepting that we are pawns in a bloody game of chess
A gory game of chess
A pathetic game of chess

A Day Like No Other

I had to write about today. How could i not? With all that it has made surge in me. I owe it to this day. I had to talk about it. It was indispensable. Unavaoidable. Unfathomable.

To many, in a brief description, it would be a seemingly ordinary day with a minute change in the nature of events. But to me, the magnitude of this change was not just gigantic, it was crucial. It embodied everything that it boiled down to at the end of the day; or rather, in this particular case, at the end of the year.

It was one of those days where you find youself floating, physically and metaphysically, from one event to another, from one feeling to another – from one shift in emotion to another. One of those days, where everything gets a superficial chaotic shell; but deep in its core, we know that nothing ever fit so wonderfully like the way it did now. Deep in the core of things, beneath the apparent mayhem, things made perfect sense – they were right where they were supposed to be. Underlying all the disorder of regualr schedules, rituals, programmes, time tables, blah blah blah, were the pieces of the puzzle merging together. The scattered pieces towards which the teachers, the staff, had been working all year long – so that at one moment, they would make us see the big picture.

And today, i saw it. I understood what it was all about. It was exactly this sense of mingled feeling that attracted me to the profession of teaching. the attachement that gradually builds its way up the teacher and the student, the bond that is unlike any other, the gratitude and the feeling of accomplishment. The sense of having achieved something and to have made a difference, how ever negligible it may be, in somebody’s life. Knowing full well, that one day, my memory could be erased permenantly from the kids conscious. But also, that what the child learnt today, would never be erased. Never. And that would be as good as holding me in his memory. Because a teacher is nothing more than the knowledge that he/she imparts. And as long as that finds a way to hold on to the borders of memory, the teacher stays alive inside the student too. Anti-destin achieved. And that is indispensable.

Like today was. Today, through a hazy, frenzy, whizzy bubble, i saw reality. Reality of the moment. Reality of the difficulty to say goodbyes with a teary smile. Reality of satisfaction and accomplishment, at the teachers’, students’ and the parents’ end.

So now I sit alone in this huge, nude classroom; devoid of all color, and the aftermath of the emotional tornado seems to prick me deeper somehow. The absolute, heavy, loud Silence, moist with the sensation of complete Nihilism reinforces and replays every moment of the days gone by. And sitting alone, with noone for company but the souvenirs of these past three months graved in my memory, i find closure. And then i think out loud ‘mince! c’est dur les adieux’

Corps, Esprit, Ame - Amalgame

Desnos, on m’appelle

Qui sait, pourtant quel

Certitude il y en a

Robert, on m’ nomma

Boulevard Richard-Lenoir

Ou Cimtière Monparnasse

Tchecoslovaquie

Plutôt L’Allemagne nazie?

Ces camps de concentrations

De mon corps froid

De mon âme errant

Toujours si errant

Tel qu’erre l’air

L’air si deicieux

Si savoreux

Si Libre

Bribes dispercés

De mon Moi fragmenté

En quête

Toujours en quête

A travers les ombres

De petites faites

L’autodidacte

Somnambulistique

Malade du typhus

Où mêlent mes fantômes

Fantastiques

Qui suis-je?

Si pas une ombre lourde

Parmi les ombres sèches

Sinon une fantôme violette

Errant, enfin errant,

Toujours errant, en une quête