Everything someplace

The little girl liberated from school day
finds smiles, fun and frolic along her way
just the time when the four girls wave
one blue, one red, one black and another wont say.

Far else somewhere two ladies sit outside some open doors
where red butterflies seem lost in time and petals forever glow
where wild flowers grow in small weird places
and funny kids make funny faces.

Some other somewhere a temple sits far atop the hill
with a hundred stairs to reach its base and its so uphill
A young rabbit though seems quite determined
gorging on the gorgeous greens on the way.


Another place somewhere the mountain wakes
pushing some water that cheerfully escapes
is this when the tea is made in strings of steaming pans
and poured with dark brown hands into glowing silver cans.

Here somewhere the farmer's plight is a stoic sight to see
as I watch from my first floor window alongside a bumble bee
purple flowers with many petals seem to want different middles,
and the water that kept pouring away now wants to stop midway.

 Gargi

Love lotus

My love is blessed-
by the sweet angel's song.
My love is blessed-
it can do no wrong.

My love is blessed-
by the child's unreal innocence.
My love is blessed-
with the radiance of permanence.

My love is blessed-
by old grandpa's boundless wisdom.
My love is blessed-
with a grace that is so seldom.

My love is blessed-
by mother's pure heart.
My love is blessed-
a treasure that does not part.

My love is blessed-
with everything that is honest and untouched.
My love is blessed-
for eternity and beyond.

Always amidst all the muddy things there rises an unaffected and majestic lotus. Luckily, my lotus is called love :)

Gargi

Anything but a ritual.

And I thought love was a dreary ritual,
a chore and a never ending trouble.
Of heart aches and broken promises,
of winsome words but weary actions.

And I thought love was a dreary ritual.
But that was a long way before today.
Way before I was ever known to you.
Way before life unfolded to me anew.

And I thought love was a dreary ritual,
but that was before I found any trace of you.
You - unspoiled, forthright and innocent,
whimsical, pure and effortlessly true.

And I thought love was a dreary ritual,
an utter fool I was, to be thinking so!
With you love got magical and surreal,
patient and giving, truly unconditional.

And I know today that love is a gift.
To be accepted, cherished and kept,
to be kept away from common convention,
to be treated like a slice from heaven.

With you love, vices don't intrude.
With you love, nothing does delude.
With you love, life is beautiful, like rainbows in May.
With you love, life is perfect, in every way.

Gargi

Songs of sleep

Sleep comes like a shadow
along life's dreary lane
just when you least expect
and makes life sane again

Sleep works its well kept secret
as life screams its ancient plans
sleep takes over in silent jest
when life has just begun in earnest

Life's mysterious joys are replaced
when sleep's wondrous truth is faced
chaste life has a fitting end
when virgin sleep comes to befriend

Gargi

Grateful.

I wish to hem my blessings -
with threads of gratitude.
I am conscious of my treasure -
and grateful for its abundance.

I wish to deeply appreciate -
all my blessings this day.
With awe, pleasure and gratitude -
and repeat it all over again.

There is a quiet joy in me today -
joy of a different kind.
for I am blessed with the luxury of love -
love that brings calm to my mind.

I wish to thank all there is to thank -
for this beautiful gift that has become mine.
I wish to sing a thousand prayers -
for it to forever and more remain mine.

Gargi.

Happiness

Like the first monsoon rain
    that comes pouring down without hesitation
Like the baby's uninhibited laughter
    proof of a soul that couldn't be free-er
Like the mother's love unconditional
    beyond all boundaries and every fear
Like all of the above, pure, true and blessed
    is my happiness, which lately, knows no bounds! :)

Gargi

Doesn't matter to me

When the clouds rake up a sorry storm,
  When they thunder up against the norm,
People crave for shelter, safety and calm.
  To me, it doesn't matter: for I've your arms, my universal balm.

When friends cheat, loot or don't care,
  When loved ones are away with no time to spare,
People brood, cry, give themselves a melancholy day.
  To me, it doesn't matter: for I've in you, my best friend in every way.

When life gets stubborn, sullen in an unforgiving way,
  When all paths close, except the ones of pain and shame,
People get disheartened, discouraged and maimed.
  To me, it doesn't matter: for I've your love, it always wins me every game.

Gargi

I hold you in awe.

I sometimes wonder
about the success phenomenon
would it ever behold me in it's juvenile attraction?
The show offs, the talkers
the screamers, the followers
those that shout their accomplishments
those that look down on other sentiments.

Alas the only thing they could ever do to me -
is increase my disgust, my disrespect, my pity.

That lone man on the distant land
whose voice is anything but noise
in whose work radiant perfection throbs
he who couldn't care less about me,
about you, about our impressions or assumptions.
The only thing that could ever move him -
an idea, a passion, a thought, may be?

Alas no force in the world can hold me back -
my respect, my awe, my heart, my thanks.

Why is there such unmissable charm in humility? Why is there such power in understated achievements? Why cant any amount of money, marketing or pure gab beat pure, consistent and unpolluted ability? Thank god for that unmatched radiance that lends itself only to men of genuine ability, detached passion and consistent excellence. Thank god that nothing can beat down a person true to his abilities.

Thank god for small mercies.

Gargi

Spoilt for choice

Live gives me options
the first is called wealth
in whose shelter, I can live
the life of luxury and stealth.

Then there is a second
it is called fame
fame that spins me a rare story
it can give me wealth and glory.

Happiness, the third is named
elusive, mysterious and slippery
if you choose this, says life
your time will know no pain, no strife.

Spoilt for choice, I am offered love as fourth
deep, lasting, enduring and true
Love that knows no language, no boundaries
Love that can bring peace to you.

Me with my presumptuous, cocky confidence,
I disregard all choices.
I ask for you.
Life, in all its innocence, offers me my due.

I smile as I receive all of wealth, fame, happiness and love,
in their purest form, rare and true - you.

Gargi

True love

Time stops in its tracks,
unwilling to tick ahead.
The cloud gathers all its lost friends,
unwilling to bring the rain to an end.

My heart, generous, beats a tad faster,
unwilling to let me be the master.
The power of love that is honest and unconditional,
knows no conventions, no rules, no parallel.

Gargi

Ripples of promises

Words, promises, colors and hue
    As transient as the morning dew
Ubiquitous in their impermanence
    Abundant in absence
Promises disguised as words
    Interfere in all colors and every hue
Nothing more than pebbles tossed in a tranquil river
    The ripples don't last beyond a quivering shiver

Gargi

My mornings

Mornings aren't mine anymore
not without your gentle touch
My laughs have lost their spirit and roar
now that I miss you so much
Flowers seem to find blooming a chore
and songs seem to bore me more
Nights are longer than ever and unusually so,
As I scan these lonely roads, to and fro.

Gargi

The poem in my pen.

The fury in my thunderstorms.
The calm in my songs.
The words in my head.
The only truth I'd never dread.

Joy prophesied. Love premonitional.

The truth in my smile.
The twinkle in my eye.
The noise in my shouts.
The space in my silences.

Time stopped. Love eternal.

The rhythm in my life.
The reason in my madness.
The in between my sentences.
The sudden spring in my steps.

Myths dispelled. Love unconditional.

The assurance in my apprehensions.
The balance in my confusions.
The hope in my doubts.
The love in my life.

Gargi

The friend

Have you The one friend
who sticks by you every bend.
adores your quirks, honors your smirks
knows every thought that lurks
who gives you all that is hers.

Have you The one friend
who knows no weather, no time.
with whom your song always does rhyme
whose silence renders powerful as words
she who brings the joy of the worlds.

Friends all kinds, some kind some kinder
some near some yonder.
But the only one who defines belonging
How unbelievable it is, that I
have forever known the feeling.

Friendship is perhaps the only thing that makes me all warm and gooey inside. I am thankful for the many incredible friends I am given. But like everyone else, there is the one friend who is special, surreal and the reason for all sorrows to be forgotten. Whose outstretched hand and the kindly smile always reminds you what an inspiration friendship can be :)

Touchwood,
Gargi

Sometimes I wait

I sometimes wait, just beneath guava tree
where the children chase the rabbits in glee

Sometimes I wait, on the bed by the window
I wait silently while I watch the rainbow

Sometimes it is on the vast wide sea shore
I wait with the wind in my hair, sand on the floor

Gargi

Time stops with Ruskin Bond

I suddenly realized that I cannot read most of Ruskin Bond short stories without choking on a lump in my throat! Every other story manages to evoke a strangely familiar painful feeling in myself. 

I wonder why though. His stories are neither terribly tragic nor unnecessarily sorrowful. They are almost never about broken hearts or lost loves. Then why is it that they move me so? I always thought only unrequited love and lost sweethearts could evoke such waves of emotions in me! But it is beyond argument that these wonderful little stories bring a shiver in my spine, heaviness on my heart and tears to my eyes. As I ponder about the mystery, it dawns on me that most of his stories are nothing more than random occurrences. Incidents that happen in the lives of common people living common lives in some unknown but common land. 

The stories are almost always about some bygone experience, like a forgotten train journey. They are about some distant but enduring memory, like an old grandmother remembering her frolic-full days of laughter and mischief. A freak occurrence, like a widow finding and losing love, for the second time. They are about human eccentricities, like a woman falling in love with a man she has never seen. They are about life's whimsical and quirky ways, like an old man growing exceptionally attached to a little girl. They are about things we would otherwise not notice, like an old photograph now seen with new eyes or a daffodil that suddenly feels different. They are about travel, where we move ahead but only after we leave behind. 

His stories, like his travels are always moving always fleeting. They are with me this minute, they get lost the next. One experience withdraws only to tumble onto another. Each as sweet as the previous and as mystical as the next. I think it is this fleeting quality of his stories that touches me. This fleeting, transient and a vaguely temporary feeling that brings to me the strangeness of it all. The impermanence of everything. The broken dreams. The not so broken ones. The going to be broken ones. All of them cross my heart in a fleeting moment. That's why I cry. 

Oh and there is some element of broken and lost love after all. Even if in a very abstract sense often spoken of like it was in the past. Because after all there is really nothing more tragic than unrequited love. Is there?

Gargi

 

What more can I do?

I try
I fail
I beg
I retort
I tremble
I fumble
I shout
I surrender
I agree
I don't
I order
I am denied
I refuse
I am given
I postpone
I forget
I forgive
I realize
I understand
I accept

Coz what more can I do?
I rest

Gargi

Choices and Chances

I have always wondered about choices and chances. Opinions vary about whether life is a choice or a chance. I have had many people argue vehemently that life is a choice. Your choices and your options decide where you are today and where you will be tomorrow. Most of the times, I have to agree with this opinion. We have, after all, always had choices, good or bad, wrong or right. We have made the choices and we are living its consequences. Good or bad, right or wrong.

However, there are certain times, when I am forced to have an internal debate about chance. And destiny. There have been a couple of times when I have had no choice. Things have just happened. Out of chance. With absolutely no input from my side whatsoever. Even when I look back, and try to find a logic behind the occurrence, it doesn't exist. It was just chance. Pure chance. And nothing else!

Interestingly or should I say luckily, both my chances and my choices have been always for the better, even though not immediately obvious. I would risk it further and say my chances have always been better than my choices. In every way. Always.

So today, I will keep my practical mind aside, and send a small prayer for my life to continue having these rare but life changing destinies and chances :)

Gargi

You

Whimsical,
Avant-garde,
Touchstone,
Exceptional,
Extraordinary,
Surreal,
Idyllic,
Unprecedented,
Unparalleled,
Serendipitous,
Blessing.
You.

Love vice.

Words
like the sand
in the hand
they slip
they escape
they vanish
they hold no value
no permanence
they are but mirages
that come out as sounds


Love
like life
and its strife
it comes
it promises
it vanishes
it holds no meaning
no strength
it is but a vice
disguised as virtue

Gargi