Friday, January 27, 2012

The Rohu that is me!


There are things that the human form of me will perhaps never get over. Though there are not more than a handful of them that genuinely ignite passion in the crab, but when it is up in flames, the most efficient of your fire brigades might just want to quit their jobs.  For once the claws decide to hold on…God bless!

About one of these obsessions, you will get a fair idea if you read the preceding para again. I am sickeningly proud and morbidly irritated at being born under the sign of the Crab. And even though I am a semi theist, I adore Linda Goodman. This may as well be seen as a highly narcissistic tendency. Even writing something of this kind is. Or perhaps it’s just a very crabby trait. Typical symptoms may be absolute loony tune like behavior, laughter that can scare hyenas away, bouts of incandescent senseless happiness and haunting baseless depressions, overwhelming motherly tendencies (more than a dozen people from a variety of age groups call up to wish me on Mother’s day), desire to live in the kitchen (if not nursery), fatal attachment to the place they call Home, tendency to hang on to old buttons and buddys, socks which have had their break up long ago, pen caps, strings, threads, bills, beads, tickets,  coins or even casual to-do notes written by a once close friend. If you happen to find a diary with a various denominations of currency, dried petals, coins, chewing gum wrappers and stuff with stupid things written beside them, you’d probably find me somewhere around. A drawer which looks like a lodge of a beaver high on marijuana, will in all probability have my third standard id card hiding in its depths. And yeah, I think more than you think I am capable of thinking.


Writing, hmmm… I am not really sure if it’s a lifelong obsession or a temporary Marilyn Monroe sort of an infatuation. I love writing but then it never satisfies me and I never trust the acknowledgement of the reader (sincere apologies for that). Nevertheless it makes me very happy that they take the time and pains and I am grateful that they are this generous. I feel my work is not really honest or profound, bordering on sheer dishonesty sometimes. It has an inevitable dark hint to it and is more than often repetitive. I hope to see a day when I might just be a little more capable with my pen and put a few of them together in print. For now, it’s more like a nightmare in which Don Corleone looks suspiciously like Mithun da.


Animals, them I love almost compulsively but very truthfully. It doesn’t matter to me whether they are giving 300 million bacteria and viruses a joy ride. Even my benevolent jyotshis suggest all animal friendly “upays” to me. So not only are they present in my history and geography and science (I am a zoologist by degree), but also they influence the decision making of my whimsical Rahu and Ketu. If you are an animal, pray to Pashupati that I am not in a cuddly mood when I find you, for you might have to end up in an emergency ward for the lack of oxygen (I'll save you anyway) . And you might like to have a conversation with Brandy Singh sometime, the female canine who would probably open a bottle of pink champagne if someone informs her that I was deflated under a road roller.


Kids are my favorite companions. Perhaps because my mental development stagnated very early during my growth years, I feel very very happy and calm when they are around. I can stay in their company for hours and not get tired. Thankfully after the various experiments which were potentially lethal at times, I emerged as an inevitable winner with kids. From solving weird puzzles to reading lines from Paradise Lost to finishing off their soup and toast, Kids do remarkably well in my company. And though I haven’t really arrived at a conclusion as to what the actual reason is. I like basking in the sunshine of their innocence. (Their blunt honesty keeps me on ground :D)

Food, I may be eating it or I may be cooking it. But food will always be in proximity. For this reason despite having a straight orientation, I feel I have a slight crush on Nigella… Absolute adoration. You will often find me repeating her lines, “Everything should be in moderation, even moderation”. Food fascinates me like the Moon does. I love giving it shape, I love giving it the taste, the form, the love, the warmth. My mother says I’d probably stuff up my hubby dear and kids to death. When the sane sibling sapien is talking about some cute guy at a cafĂ©, all that I am able to think about is, his coffee. Whether it was Cappuccino or Latte or Irish, in what kind of mug, with what kind of art. And then I end up asking her if he took sugar. She sighs and turns around to sleep. I might be seen baking at 3 in the morning, or preparing shahi toasts, halwa, phirni, kheer, puddings, pies etc (my sweet tooth is gigantic! So is my waistline ;) ).


My name, Rohini (Rohu as I am popular as). It was Shubham when I was born, basically because my entire family for some reason had presumed that I will be  bestowed with the all supreme Y chromosome. Fate had other plans, and for that my dear family was almost unprepared. So unprepared that for the next 15 years they could not think of a more feminine name and I had to bear the almost inevitable comment “YEH toh ladkon ka naam hai! He he he”. Thereafter I was Rohini, which has a variety of meanings. Balram’s mother, Moon’s wife( as if my being the crabby lunatic was not enough), seventh nakshatra and all, but the one that intrigues me most is “Mother of all cows”. Almost incredible. The cows don’t seem to have any specific affinity to my being but then I think am afflicted with universal motherhood to an extent that it manifests itself in almost all spheres of my life. I often talk to electrical appliances when they are not working, and defying probability they oblige almost 70 percent of the times. My mother calls me before she calls “Bijli Dinesh”. My insanity. HENCE PROVED



Books I love. Until it has not got Mills and Boon or something of the sort printed on its cover. Poetry, prose and drama make my life much easier and uncomplicated than I would prefer it to be. “To Kill a Mocking Bird” is my my Bhagwad, and it puts me off when MS word auto corrects it to Baghdad! The piece of writing that I am currently obsessing over is an absurdist drama written by Samuel Beckett. It’s called "Waiting for Godot". There a lot of people including Papa Singh who think the play is “absurd”. I think I have never come across such a brilliantly thinking piece of the human mind on paper. There are lines that make my heart stop, lines that move me to tears, lines that make me twitch with their agony. And yet “nothing happens”. That is all what the play is about. The loss of purpose, the phases of conscious and unconscious hope, the endless wait of the unknown. The belief of finding light at the end of the tunnel even when you are not even sure of what will you do with it or what will it do with you. The pretence of living, the despair, the escape, all of it. Something that pulls all my nerves together and ties them up. Nothing has ever been able to penetrate my soul in the way it has. And the lines, the most stunning lines “We always find something eh Didi, to give us the impression that we exist”. I am not widely read. I know there may be far better things to come across. But today this play has its words written all over my heart. I can dedicate an entire blog to it.


There is so much to each of us. We are too vast for own selves to comprehend and consequently most of the time we are too much with ourselves. Of how good or bad, great or small, rich or poor, learned or illiterate, beautiful or ugly we are. It’s the story of all of us. There are always people greater and lesser than us. A source of continuous vanity or bitterness. And that how we like it to be. Thats how we will always be. In our own heavens and hells, decorating the interiors, admiring and criticizing them. Not bothering much about helping someone build theirs, but only comparing. The words which I have written today only prove to me my vanity. Of how obsessed I am with my own Paradise and the loss of it. My own Gabriel and Lucifer, my own left and right. But then it also gave me a chance to know what I am like in the written word. And after all dear reader, its my blog, my little Lilliputian kingdom, and thus to Monsieur Gulliver, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. 
        


[A Carcinus rohinensis Bravery Award for you if you survived this. Even if you attempted. :D]





Saturday, January 21, 2012

Purple


One of the most awesome poetry battles with the legendary knight, Kunal Mathur on the awesomest site for collaborative poetry,Black River Poets. Its a conversation between a musing solitary merman and a philosopher knight. :) 




In the realms of the depths unfound
The solemn merman dives
To find the remains of his glory. (R)

And each dive of his,somnambulistic
Search for that pearl,Oh so Majestic
It will soon become a Legend,This story .(K)

Bound in the ocean's purple curse
The salty waters destined to his breath
Escaping the hunting sights of the dorey (R)

Blues of life, The red of his passion
Mix the two and he beats the purple curse
He doesn't care, if fight is smooth or gets gory! (K)

Whirlpools dancing in his turbulent unearthly insides
Since ages unknown he rides the foamy tides
In his golden crown that now is hoary. (R)

O somnambullistic Pearl Diver, so hard u tried
Red, Blue and the purple, All colors they've dried
What do u strive for? You're alone now in this category. (K)

In this weeping solitude, my being survives
In it I drown, in it I rise
Wins and losses are for the Liberal and Tory .(R)

What rips your heart,I wonder? 
Oblivious to tranquility and thunder
Swim on, let go of past glory. (K)

They sink fatal poisons in my kingdom kind
Tell me dear Sapien , what shall i move on to find?
the piteous treasures of your Quarry? (R)

Some seek peace, some wealth sans restriction
A few seek nothing, clinging on to their addiction
Purple Diver, I hope you got the allegory! (K)

The sea is my morphine, it takes away the pain
in dying morality lies no lasting gain
for this shall the spirit be sorry? (R)

Your tranquility, intrigues me
Can heaven really be in the sea?
If that's the case, let it be my cemetory. (K)

Your Heaven is where your peace shall be
be it your your land or my drowsy sea
to seek the white of ebony or the black of ivory. (R)

What gives you the licence to preach 
Those who hide can seldom teach
Come out once O diver, You'll make history. (K)

Licence and history are the words of man
That thou shall end what I began
I have no feet young man, to end your worry. (R)

Can't come out, can't drown
All you can do is make me frown
How abt you, some formaldehyde and a laboratory? (K)

You brought a smile to my lips in decay
Lighting up the lanterns in the dark of my day
Nothing in the likes of sickening adulatory.  (R)

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Wake me Up

         

Wake me up, Take my hand, Help me rise
Lead me east
Hold my pen, Read my word, Love my lie
Lead me east
Let me sink, Let me gasp, Let me cry
Lead me east
Paint me blue, Paint me black, Paint me white
Lead me east
Kill my hope, Shut my breath, Hide my light
Lead me east
Cut me up, Burn me down, Take these pieces
Lead me east
Warm my cheeks, Cup my heart, Slay my beast
Lead me east
Take my grief, Take my love, Take my heart
Lead me east
Crack my smile , Slash my soul, Crush my right
Lead me east
Help me lie, Help me die, Help me fight
Lead me east
Take my corpse, To the saint, Tell him why
Lead me east
Take the oath, Take the sand
Lead me east
Lead me east



Saturday, January 14, 2012

Absence


Seized by nightmares
My hand reaches to feel the assurance of your beating heart
But finds none
For a hundredth night
I lie beside a crease less left
Wrapped in despair and longing
And I wake up to another nightmare
Of having to breathe in your absence

Some yesterdays haunt my corridors
Some yesterdays have said farewell
Some yesterdays had blessed my coldness away
Some yesterdays chase me to hell

Your laughter echoes in my hollow insides
Your words are scattered all over the place
Its a strange grieving quiet in this house
Like a shore abandoned by the sea

Doors still wait unopened
Rains ask for you
Your poems bleed every night
In my sweaty palms

Your guitar has refused to sing
It does not like my tune
The birds don't come home now
Even when worried by June

The drawers are filled with you
And I stand here, looking at them
Like a shipwreck
In the solace of oblivion.

Clothes smell of your smiles
Walls chose to be bare
 I never look at them
For the fear of their stinging stare

I lie back into the void
When the chimes sing with the wind
The curtains dance
And blinded by warm, salty sorrow
I call out for you

I can feel you touch my lonely breath
I can feel you kiss my bruises away
I can feel you the warmth of this quilt
In the pillow cradling my head
On the sheets

And gently on my lips
You place back the pieces of a smile
"You are here", I whisper, "with me"

The silence whispers back
"Always"








Friday, January 13, 2012

A Longing


There is a longing
in this poisoned heart
While it is Shellying and Keatsing
And Donning and Yeatsing
When it is acknowledging
The chivalry of a knight
The love of an heiress
The smile of a poetess
The embrace of a stranger

There is a longing 
in this poisoned heart
When it is promising
Love to a despised soul
Care to an ailing body
Trust to a doubted thought
Faith to a dying belief
And prayer to a lonely God

There is a longing 
in this poisoned heart
When it is weeping
Tears of happy sorrow
Tears of grieving joy 
Tears of numb hurt
Tears of selfish guilt
And tears of you

There is a longing 
in this poisoned heart
When it lies
And tells the truth
When it dies
And is reborn
When if fails
And happily succeeds
When it falls
And rises
When it despises
And falls in love again

There is a longing 
in this poisoned heart
When it holds a hand
When it gifts a smile
When it lets go
When it lingers a while

There is a longing
in this poisoned heart
A longing to feel
What it seems to feel
A longing to be lost
In oblivions unknown
A longing to become the Sun's last ray
A longing to to conspire with the Moon
A longing to belong only to me 
A longing to become you.


Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Spreading the Sunshine


Writing is perhaps the best gift of mankind to mankind. To be able to express oneself in the written word is a blessing. A HUGE BLESSING!! And those who are bestowed with it are incredible human beings. What sketches itself on paper from their musing pens is wondrous and beautiful, profound and moving but above all,  it is that pen writes on the heart of every reader. And they are never the same again.
My attempts at writing are feeble and stem only from the desire to feel what it feels to write. For it really is one of the most overwhelming feelings I am acquainted with. This effort was acknowledged in the most beautiful manner by the Quixotic Knight . He gave me the gift of sunshine and henceforth it is my responsibility to pass on it to deserving pen holders.

The first recipient..


Well… u really don’t know how you gift sunshine to sunshine. This unbelievably beautiful lady establishes such a profound connection between her heart and the paper that when your eyes behold it, you are stunned and often open mouthed in happy wonder. One of the most effortless, and sublime pieces of writing that I have come across.
It makes you think, it makes you thank,
It makes you smile, and colors the blank.
Its like that symphony that dissolves in your ears, flows into your veins and seeps into your tired soul to make it look up again. Anubha Tyagi knocks at the door of your heart that you are more than willing to open for her and she enters like an angel to bring in the sunshine. J

Recipient, the second

                                                 
Its not everyday that you come across someone whose heart can uninhibitedly converse with the world and its inhabitants through the the humble medium of a pen (or keyboard). Anupam's "Reflections" tabout hope, love, and life are presented in such a delightfully earnest and profound manner, that you are compelled to read. I discovered him today itself, and thanked God for it. The language is simple enough to connect with the beholder and genuine enough to be felt through. And the delightful variety is bound to keep you interested. This blog is a must read for anyone who loves to think and ponder. You'll appreciate it immensely. Hats off to you buddy.
Keep Delighting!

Thrird..

heyBJKOutdoors

Random blog hunting can be very rewarding sometimes.. umm. actually most of the times. Just discovered this masterpiece by chance and I am so absolutely glad that I did. When you come across such stunning work, you just know, that in capturing a breathtaking moment, there is a lot more required than just pushing a button.. Soulful!
Hats off to thee Brian!
Happy Sunshining!