Walking amidst the sights, I nearly felt myself lost,
Gypsies all around, selling trinkets at an enviable cost,
The sun was just beginning to rise over the last tent,
Such an aura of heavenly joy to this beautiful day it lent.

I strolled, from stall to stall, searching, expecting the ethereal,
Somehow, it seemed to me, nothing was any farther from the real,
Atleast I thought I believed so, until the moment I set eyes on her,
Frozen stiff, I wondered how people could pretend not to bother.

My feet pushed me, forcing me to join everyone in the play,
The more they tried, the more detached I got from the fray,
My mind couldn’t have been more still, in such a stormy water,
My body, just tiring, from a day that was getting slowly hotter.

She was looking at a curtain, seemingly admiring the intricate lace,
While trying to push back her hair, which was slowly taking over her face,
By doing so, she gave me the first complete glimpse, of her face,
Maybe this was what they called distortion of reality, of time and space.

I got so close, I could almost hear her, and her infectious laughter,
Whatever the reason, it was surely something my heart was after,
She moved on, leaving me behind, soaking in her fragrance,
Floored, somehow, standing as I was, was an effort in pretense.

Sometimes, I felt she might turn back, catch me staring,
But some reproaches, despite the joy, are worth bearing,
Sadly, happily, she just walked on, oblivious to the world, to me,
Years away now, her enduring smile, is the only thing I can still see.

History, they say, repeats itself. So here I am, back to Aparna, guess the while has again come a full circle. Guess these Beacons never give up. Although I would have wished that this episode was true in its entirety. It is however not so only on one point, there was no Aparna in it. That however is only what lets me take the imagination to the next level, everytime I remember it.

This was an incident that happened when I happened to visit an exhibition, and found one girl who kept smiling more as the day got hotter. All around her, people were getting more irritable with the passage of the day, and here was one woman, who seemed to derive more happiness as the day moved on, it was as if she drank in the day. Though I long left the purpose of my visit there and simply spent the day following her, just looking at her, she was, it seemed, oblivious to everything, specially the likes of me, lost in her own world. Hence the title. Makes me remember Aparna, everytime I recall that smile(since the event was long ago, I can no longer recall her face, only that permanent smile, so it makes it all the more easier to transpose that with Aparna.

Pushing my bag underneath, I climbed onto my berth,
Crawling slowly, I dusted it for what it was worth,
Stretching my legs, I turned around to have a look,
Nothing out of the ordinary, so I got back to the book.

Forty pages later, it was getting more and more boring,
I closed it, dreading what the next pages would bring,
I watched as a hawker passed, chips around neck, like a string,
What a racket, I wished he would just sell and get moving.

Bored, I climbed down, nudged the old lady and sat,
Opposite me, a toddler sat, ah the noisy little brat,
Bleary, flustered, I was nearing my point of frustration,
When the train slowed down, pulling into a station.

That’s when I noticed her, staring out of the window,
As if searching for the ends of the fading rainbow,
Stretching her hands out, to feel the rain,
Oblivious to the train, now moving again.

At the far end, the tea vendor was nearly shouting,
And the toddler, probably chided,  was now wailing,
The old lady, dozing, was beginning to fall on my shoulder,
I really didn’t care, I was busy myself, watching her.

Hands still outside, the water was dripping from her fingertips,
The pure delight, all the while sparkling white between her lips,
There were a thousand people, and sadly, nobody was watching,
The thousand-odd ways those drops were trickling, bouncing.

As if self-conscious, the rain stopped, she turned round,
Wiping her hands dry, she finally began to look around,
Having seem them all, her gaze now came to rest upon me,
Held my breath, she stared, stared, stared, and smiled at me.

For that single instant, unbeknown, I too stared,
As if challenged by those eyes that so dared,
Transfixed, tacitly we sat, eyes still glued,
Together, yet so alone, in this multitude.

This one is for the Mirror. Happened on a lonely journey to Hyderabad. Guess that was the only noteworthy point about the journey, besides making me wonder of the many times when we are in the middle of a bustling crowd, and yet never feel more alone in life. Of the times, when we are alone in the room, simply staring at the ceiling, and yet the heart feels congested in the crowd.

The prisoners of our own thought. The travellers of our journey. many times we have company, more often we don’t. So often we take it upon ourselves to feel alone, when surrounded, and other times, so together in each of our loneliness. This one is dedicated to those thoughts. Ones that separate, ones that celebrate.

P.S. Don’t know her name. She smiled, I smiled, she laughed, I laughed, Hyderabad came.

Sad, dejected, half-heartedly, I continued to walk,
Wishing I had somebody, to whom I could freely talk,
Someone human, someone imperfect, someone fallible,
Someone who believed in the concept of impossible.

Someone  who sympathised with the mind’s inherent weakness,
Someone who empathised about society’s ironclad harness,
Someone who realised that living itself, was life’s greatest progress,
Someone who yet understood, why everyone, must someday digress.

I suspected nothing when my feet never touched the ground,
My mistake, I believed that such a thing shouldn’t astound,
What else were dreams for, if not to fly,
Where else was a freedom, none need buy.

Though you weren’t mortal, I thought it mattered not,
Apparently that was the first flaw in my thought,
Thought the days, the clock, was running out on me,
You never worried, time wasn’t something you could see.

Maybe the problem was, you couldn’t feel at all,
You could foresee the mistakes, but not stop the fall,
You wish so much, to correct me, comfort me,
Yet I am more astray than even you can see.

Not just a lifetime, we are completely lives apart,
And so I only wish you too had atleast a heart,
For, that distinction between our souls divides us,
So that we must exist, neither as one, nor as us.

You never could get those embracing arms, not even a conscience,
Thus we stand, thus we float, my body in between, like a fence,
So I decided, to ascend, leaving behind all bothering things,
Sadly proud, of having finally got, my own pair of wings.

This one is dedicated to Nicolas Cage and his intriguing eyes and wonderful performance in City of Angels. The movie joined my list of all-time favourite movies, for one simple reason, it has the first pre-requisite, a sad ending(something I call a KB ending, Indians don’t seem to have caught up on that front yet, since there are hardly any recent movies that have made it to this list with the exception of ‘Gamyam‘.

This poem was my own interpretation of what I might possibly do if faced with such a dilemma as Meg Ryan faces in the movie. Although it takes the premise further, hope it is justifiable in the name of poetic licence(the point that if in the movie, angels could descend into mortals, surely we too can ascend into angels???).

You step away, and I believe it will be forever,
Forever seems alien, since I can’t even define ever,
Walking back, I cannot trace even a single footstep,
They just seem to wipe themselves away, step by step.

I try asking something, but the words disappear,
I try recollecting, but all the courage turns to fear,
Probably the fear, of causing one final displeasure,
Or maybe your reaction, an inability to measure.

Foolishly, disregarding caution, I let my dreams fly,
As if seeing through them, you give a fitting reply,
Being dreams, they are already prepared for such a demise,
But this one is just too much, even for them to surmise.

Every passing moment is a riddle, puzzling to its own very self,
For, you know not, the number of times I question myself,
Being unanswered, the doubts pile with every new moment,
You realise not, these queries, or how much they torment.

I decide to capture every moment, until the last glance,
But I know not, against fate, whether I stand a chance,
The eyes get distracted the moment you begin to speak,
For it is now the ears, that all of my attention seek.

And thus I stand, when you begin to walk away,
My feet utterly confused, whether to follow or stay,
The mind is inconsolable, but the heart sheds not a tear,
Though a lifetime apart, it knows you are always near.

When distance is an illusion, a mere matter of perception,
Every step away from me, is just a victim of deception,
And so I let you go away,
Because, I am, the only way.

Most often in everybody’s life, there comes a moment when we lose somebody close, and wish we had a chance to say goodbye. Or when somebody who leaves with every intention of coming back, never happens to. More than the act of saying goodbye, what we fail to realise is the sorrow of spending that last moment. How many times have we separated from someone knowing it will be the last time we will be ever seeing them, hardly a handful.

On how many of such occasions did we already know beforehand that we would never see them again in our lifetime, maybe one or two, or maybe none. Suppose you got to know days/weeks in advance, somebody you cared for, was going to leave you forever on a particular day, what would you do? What preparations would you make? How would you plan your last moments with them? What would you say? What would you do?

This poem is about one such opportunity granted perhaps by God in His more humorous moments, to get something I never could plan for many years ago, get a lasting last glimpse. The last time I saw those two people, I never knew it would be the last time, and was never prepared enough to depart for a lifetime.

But God being what He is, gave me another chance at life, by sending me advance notice of my last glimpse of a person who I would say, peculiarly resembles both of these two people, given their extremely different characteristics. So I spent the last whole week thinking and thinking over what I would do when I see Snigdha for the last time in my life. The outcome of those thoughts, this poem is therefore dedicated to her and those underlying Beacons.

Many years ago, I made myself one,
Though initially I told it to no one,
It is one of those things that needs no telling,
They seized it, like an idea that needs no selling.

Only for a few decades, one lifetime, I had thought,
And yet I cannot even count the daily battles fought,
It seemed every victory was only an encouragement,
Every step ahead, another test in mind management.

People might say, forget it, they are just words,
They were never supposed to have an afterwards,
But a word once given, remains given forever,
Something I will never be able to deny, now or ever.

The clues, my lips may play around with, and converse,
But your name, it shall always remain hidden in this verse,
Many times, from the temptation, mind does almost cave,
But worry not, this is something, I’ll take to the grave.

You have never seen me, the way you know it is,
And we have never talked, the way it really is,
Perplexed, though you don’t, you know it but you don’t,
I am sorry, but in this matter, the secrecy is paramount.

We have never talked, I said, and so you never suspect,
And what puts you off the trail, is probably the respect,
With too many dead ends, you don’t know, whom to expect,
Which suits me all the more better, in fact just perfect.

But every secret has to die sometime,
So too will this one, after a lifetime,
But until then, there is something that you will never miss,
The story of the person, behind this unbreakable promise.

My first post in the new year. Though it might sound like gibberish to most of the readers, one of the ones that give me the most personal satisfaction in this new year. I feel like as if a considerable portion of the weight i have been carrying has been shifted to the blog’s shoulders.

This is another of the Mirror ones which is truly mirror in almost every sense. This is the closest i have ever come to telling my story. Though it had a more than a thousand chapter, one for each day, this was something that was like the overlapping theme connecting them all together bound by a promise.

It tells of the difference one single promise made to my life, and how nothing was the same again. It would have been simpler, people would say if the promise was broken, because then i might have got much more happiness than now. Alas such a happiness would never have lasted like this one does, and will keep doing for as long as i live. Even afterwards, the happiness will show through every line that i wrote about it.

Every so often, we all make promises, how many of them are ones that make us commit ourselves for a lifetime. And on how many of such promises do we maintain our commitment in the letter and spirit of the word given? We will never know the satisfaction of successfully maintaining our commitment on the ones that we do, but then, that’s where the actual pleasure in the whole game lies.

Being a winner without even being able to know it, receiving the reward without even existing to accept it. It makes every single temptation that we come across seem like the test of a lifetime, because that’s what they are, ones that try to break the determination of a lifetime. It also makes every single temptation we overcome like another little step towards our very own star trek, and mind you stars are never very near.

To the casual observer, they seemed like a pair any other,
If it wasn’t for that singularity, they wouldn’t even bother,
Like all the others, they seemed immersed in their own world,
With the occasional interruptions reminding them this world.

They seemed not, to understand concepts such as time,
To indulge their senses thus, there hardly was any time,
For, they spent every valuable second, one moment at a time,
But the clock was ticking, and they knew it would soon be time.

Building walls around them, against death was no good,
And to waste it in such an activity, life, was too good,
They knew, that, for time, life was a regular food,
And so needed to make the best, before being gone for good.

For everything they said, something more could be read,
From what snatches you hear, everything seems so well-said,
All that needed to be, all that was, would eventually be said,
And whatever still remained, would forever stay unsaid.

To say time was of the essence, would be an understatement,
To claim they were dreaming, would surely be a misstatement,
They realised, and prepared themselves, for the final arraignment,
There was a lot more distance to even grasp any contentment.

From their sheltered cocoon, they never tried to venture out,
Yet in both their minds, there lingered one common doubt,
Which of them, would be the first, to finally leave,
Bestowing the other, with a chance, to briefly bereave.

Or perhaps, even death could be put to shame,
If they had already flown, by the time it came,
Maybe it would chill death’s own bones deathly stiff,
All they had to do, take a deep breath, and over the cliff.

This one is for Priyanka, the last of the KiDNAP(not the last you will read about them, but the last for quite a few months). With this i conclude the Beacons series on KiDNAP, and hopefully move on to other things. The first thing i am sure she will ask upon reading this is why me? as would any other of them, but thats exactly the tricky part.

Each poem dedicated to them has one characteristic of their personality cleverly woven into the narrative that it escapes all but my own eyes(of course the casual reader[people who dont personally know any ofthe KiDNAP] would not know any way).No prizes for guessing what this one is about, though i would be mightily be surprised if anyone guessed the entire premise on which the poem is based.

Another of the titles that i so liberaly borrowed from Yanni. Dont know what i would be writing if it wasnt for him(have personally found that unattractive titles lead me to write less expressive poems).

Such a shower, would normally seem out of season,
But he had long since stopped searching for reason,
He knew not when he lost it, cared not if it lost him,
A lot more important things had already left him.

He clearly remembered the day, as if it was happening today,
He knew not, they would no longer be one, by the end of day,
A misunderstanding, he told her, begging her to stay,
But in this matter, she had nothing more to say.

He was walking back, alone, when it began to rain,
He continued, for, weren’t they both the same strain,
One, unwanted by the sky, living a fall from grace,
Other, unnoticed, in search, of a now lost embrace.

Joining the earth as a stream, it would never again be the same,
Walking back from a rejection, he found no one else to blame,
Never the old form, even perhaps if it did evaporate again,
No newfound love, could erase, heal, the old one’s pain.

In its life of a few minutes, it changes and rewrites, many a fortune,
In a span of many years, he will never face a greater misfortune,
Every drop is saturated, with so much potential to live for,
Every moment is torturous, the next hasn’t any better to offer.

Those whom it caught unawares, scurried, running helter-skelter,
He hurried not, there was none left for his heart to shelter,
But it will soon be quenched, and people back to the asphalt,
Not him though, his life had already come to a final halt.

Condemned back to earth, it slowly meanders its way to redemption,
To even expect a glance back, would be the pinnacle of presumption,
For many years to come, people would never see such a November rain,
It was something he would relive, every moment, again and again.

This one is dedicated to Nisha, another of the KiDNAP. The Beacons never seem to stop glowing, beckoning, atleast for one more time, till Santorini is done with probably tomorrow. Am surprised with myself seeing the amount blue on the calendar widget for December, and there are still few more to come. Guess thats the luxury of being jobless.

When someone who you thought was yours forever and ever, suddenly decides to call it quits and never wishes to see you again, what will you do? This is an attempt to capture what i thought one person i knew might have done in a (to use an economics word) ‘free market’ scenario. And besides it also deals with another of my favourite topics, rain, and how both the rain and this guy are not really much different fundamentally, as they arise from the same conditions.

Another of the titles that i owe to Yanni. Somehow whenever i get short of titles he seems to be waiting to remind me of one.

Pretending it wasn’t over, was not going to be much use,
For, to feign forgetfulness, was not his cleverest ruse,
The floods had stopped, but the wreckage remained,
And everything around him, had forever been stained.

Over time, even the wreckage, may finally get cleaned,
But the scars, he knew not, on whose side they leaned,
They seem engraved, every time he remembers them,
And seem to fade, every time he begins to forget them.

He never seemed to know, was she a moment, was she a memory,
Whether what he remembered, was the reality or just a story,
And those mementoes, supposed monuments of romantic eternity,
Were they all fake, or just piercing questions about his own sanity.

The separation should be clean and final, they both did agree,
But memories are no verdicts, that any court can decree,
Nobody can fairly expect thoughts to suddenly vanish,
Even if they determined to steadfastly try and banish.

Did she too think as often about him, he wondered,
Because every so often, towards her, his mind wandered,
Did she ever think,of walking back the track,
Like he did, every moment of wanting her back.

Like a chain, every single memory clung onto the next,
Unable to get them to leave, to forget he had no pretext,
He understood how she must have felt, unable to forget,
But somehow, not remorsive enough to merit any regret.

Helps not time, the more it passes, darker grows the stain,
No sooner does he forget, it can’t wait, to remind him again,
How simpler  life would be, if he could leave her behind,
And start afresh, a new beginning with a spotless mind.

This one is dedicated to the next in the KiDNAP list Komal. Will the Beacons never stop? Hopefully i will get over them when the next two get posted and done with. Somehow kid myself that this is the way it will always be. Somehow end up not getting fooled at all.

This one is about a crisis that most of us face. Assuming an impossibility that i would face such a situation, this was a kind of intrapolation of how i would react and what i would require to survive thereafter.

When darkness becomes a stranger to the night,
And there no longer is an end to broad daylight,
When the moon and the stars separate upon a fight,
And yet he never doubted his future was bright.

If there was any indication of the events about to come,
He would never have believed the person he would become,
And that day was not very far off from today,
It was too late, to divert, too late to change his way.

He thought he knew her from the very first day,
And so couldn’t believe it would end this way,
Surely a joke, by fate, indulging in naughty play,
Or was it for real, for true, he could never say.

All that he knew, was that, the sun had set,
Set on a life, he never could fully forget,
The rains, they would never come, he had bet,
Alas, such drenched dreams, they leave him wet.

Barely in control, she turned around and walked away,
And found that they had indeed walked a long way,
A few more steps, and maybe, she could somehow end this day,
Memories, if only her mind could keep those vultures at bay.

She hesitated, turning around would seem most awkward,
But maybe it was the only way to move on, take life forward,
Why didn’t he ever look back, and see her pause,
Pondering a reprisal, fighting her own lost cause.

Though it mattered to none else, it mattered to her,
When the first tear fell, it wiped away her anger,
The clouds being spent, split. watching the two pine,
And let through between them, new rays of sunshine.

This one is dedicated to Deepthi, another one for the Beacons, and the second in this series. Saw the movie yesterday, and fell in love with the concept as well as the execution(felt sad for another reason though). Decided the title was too good to pass up a poem on, and since it was anyway a too big title for a poem, i decided to have double the fun by splitting the title and using it for two poems.

Although the next one was supposed to be The Spotless Mind, had a conversation yesterday after which i changed my mind, and decided to finish two quickies for DreamCatcher, titled ‘Resonated’ and ‘Silver Lining’. After which i will get back to the KiDNAP series as well as other long-pending ones.

For those not yet done thinking, this was about the simple ways in which a lot of relations breakup,and the small steps that people hesitate to take to get back on track. It is about how there is still hope every single day, if only we retraced our steps and found a common ground, maybe even if that means standing on each other’s feet.

It was trivial, I though it didn’t even merit such a fight,
She thought not, and refused to acknowledge my plight,
I tried telling her, that she knew not all the facts,
Unconsciously, she told me, that I knew nothing.

I tried telling her, about my pain, my lifeless days,
I tried convincing her, in quite innumerable ways,
I tried showing her, all my heart’s hidden pain,
Unflinchingly, she told me, that I felt nothing.

I tried asking her, about the reason for her fears,
I tried promising her, there would be no more tears,
I tried questioning her, the reason for her stand,
Unwavering, she told me, that I understood nothing.

I tried assuaging her, it was all my fault, a mistake,
I tried proving her, this time my tears weren’t fake,
I tried asking her, another chance at love, at life,
Unruffled, she told me, that I realised nothing.

I tried showing her, there was still a reason to smile,
I tried coaxing her, to think things over for a while,
I tried requesting her, that we needed another try,
Uncaring, she told me, that I deserved nothing.

I tried forcing her, to force herself to reconsider,
I tried begging her, she had a lifetime to consider,
I tried reminding her, of promises we made each other,
Unmoved, she told me, that she had promised nothing.

All that I had asked her to feel, she simply denied,
It seemed every action of hers, compassion defied,
I tried telling her, we were inseparable, for this lifetime,
Unperturbed, she told me, that we both were nothing.

This one is dedicated to Aruna. Seems the Beacons are getting more of their dues back with every passing week. More than the Beacons, this one was particularly the beginning of a series I will be bringing out in honour of KiDNAP. Was simply sitting idly at home and going through the Beacons, and found that apart from what i had written mostly in college there was hardly any new content on the KiDNAP.

So i decided it was time they got a fresh lease of life from reading something on themselves.(it must be noted that none of these poems actually represent what they are in real life, and are only mere visualisations of whatcould be, in case certain characteristics of theirs got into freeplay. The order of this series is purely alphabetical, and hence i request that people don’t waste their already strained grey cells, trying to figure out a pattern out of this. The rest of the poems coming up in this series are

2. Eternal Sunshine of

3. The Spotless Mind

4. November Rain

5. Santorini

After they get their dues, will be moving on to other things equally close to my heart.

Silently through the night, her formless hands creep,
Searching, feeling for him, through the lands of sleep,
The darkness around, its not an easy rival to win,
So, finding him, she waits, for the right time to begin.

She knocks on the door, knocks on every window,
He ignores her and sleeps, but she just won’t let go,
She continues to bang the windows with her incessant silence,
And so it turns into a battle between each one’s patience.

She knocks, he sleeps, till even sleep deserts him,
Both sleep and his patience, they abandon him,
Left with no choice, he wakes up, and opens the door,
For, this morning, he has lost, he can fight no more.

Forced, beyond his control, he decides to co-operate,
How far she will follow, he cannot even estimate,
She is beside him, above him, around him, all along the way,
She prodded him, cajoled him, and kept him in the fray.

Every second she is around, is his daytime,
And without her, he knows not, any other time,
They talk, they discussed, they argued, all in silence,
Their laughter, tears, they know not the difference.

With every single footstep, she grows more younger,
With every single stride, his feet get more stronger,
Once arisen, he no longer has any sleep to forsake,
And unable to sleep again, is he ever awake?

This one is dedicated to Snigdha(another one for the beacons). Not for what she is, but for what she represents. She has such an uncanny resemblance, that seeing her laugh, brought back memories of two people whom i had last seen in March 2004 and March 2005 respectively. Though i know what they are doing today, and though i see  both of them whenever i want in my mind’s eye, just closing my eyes and walking with them, yet, seeing her laugh brought back those memories of watching those two persons laugh, the twinkle in their eyes.

Though this is one for the Beacons, ihave deliberately not put her photo for 2 reasons,
1. I don’t have her explicit permission to do so.
2. Just seeing her photo may lead many of you to realise the March 2005 person i was talking about(too much of a risk).

Although there were quite a few already completed and ready for posting like Icarus and Santorini, i decided that this must be a quick job, and went to work on it today morning. Since it is another of those zombie abstract styled ones, most of you might feel this as utter non-sense. If you feel so please let me know, will be glad to clarify. Because there are more than 3 layers to it, and it would satisfy me if such over-complexity simplified should not be understandable.

Encore! She cheers after another amazing trick is done,
And the magician is ever eager, to please the little one,
He turns his hat topsy, tossing and shaking it a while,
And slowly pulls out a wonder that makes the girl smile.

The hall begins to empty, “one last time” she pesters him,
And for the first time, in his eyes, tears begin to brim,
Down the years, many a child had come and gone,
But never such a one, like his heart had now won.

Such satisfaction in his craft, he had never before found,
Than by just watching this little one sitting spellbound,
Alas! The day came to an end, and she too got up, determined,
That one day, the secret of this enchanting magic, she would find.

She went around and asked everyone she could name,
But the answer they all gave, was invariably the same,
“Grow up little child, and you will know all there is, to know”,
Persistent though she was, she couldn’t bear an immediate ‘no’.

She counted not the days, for, like minutes they sped by,
She courted instead the knowledge, whenever it came by,
Helpless, the magician watched, as she slowly wrecked her dream,
Asking himself,why people were never satisfied living the dream.

The dream that she had so long come to lifelong cherish,
Was through her own will, own mind, beginning to perish,
For, the charm of magic, lies in the beauty of the unknown,
A fantasy, that disappears once its truth becomes known.

Because truth leaves on her such an indelible stain,
The very sight of it, can inflict on her a remorsive pain,
There will always be other kids, to charm and to entertain,
But, this one, will never be able to feel the magic again.

This one is another autobiographical one, with a little ‘gazebo’ kind of angle to it like most of the ones on ‘Mirror‘ have. It is the versified version of a story i cooked up to explain my concept of love during one of the long conversations with Nisha Ahuja. I was trying to explain to her the reason for the stand i have taken, as also the reason why the girl i love must never know it(not the stand, the point about the love).

To begin with, neither am i a magician, nor is she a little child. But the whole poem is a metaphor of the ‘need to know/right to know vs. the consequences of the knowledge’. The crux of the arguement was that if i loved a girl, she had the right to know, because it was upon her that the love was being showered upon, so obviously she deserved to know where the rain was falling from(maybe because she liked, maybe because she did not want to like it), right? Unfortunately, a little lunatic that i happen to be, i do not subscribe to that arguement, and so came up with the story of a magician, who’s charming a child with a trick.

The focal point between them both being the ‘magic’. The child, although wonderstruck by all the mumbo-jumbo of the trick wishes to know the secret of the trick, where the ‘power’ for the magic comes from, and maybe whether she too can perform it one day. And so she sets about obsessed with one day uncovering that little secret the magician carries, the power of charm that he wields over her. The magician of course wishes such a day never comes to pass, when this kid no longer is in awe of his magic. And so wishes day and night, that the child never grows up.

It was put to me, that such a thought on the behalf of the magician, was nothing but selfishness., pure and unadulterated SELFISHNESS. To show the kid the trick again and again, and tempt her with its stupefying disbelief and yet never want her get to the secret of the same. To create a desire in someone and nurture it personally, and wish for that desire to never be fulfilled, only because the magician can again and again further that undesirable desire, was what else if not selfishness.

I had only a few simple lines of arguement. A few lines that will initially sound so insanely impossible and so impractical that it will be immediately rejected, out of hand. But just allow it to simmer for a while in your mind, and also add to the simmering a fact that you are dealing with a wierd kind of relation, and maybe someday you too will be convinced of it. My point of view was that the magician was being selfish, all right. But he wasn’t being selfish for his sake, he was being selfish on behalf of the girl, a manifestation of the girl’s own selfishness without her will or thought for her own benefit!(i know it can seem kind of supreme idiocracy to call a person ’selfish’ on behalf of someone else, but just hang on, and read the rest of it).

Lets assume the girl has now grown big, and has learnt that magic is nothing but a load of trash, and it involves mere ’sleight of hand’ and is an insult to the rational intelligence of a mature human being. Being a twenty or thirty year old, have you ever gone to a magic-show and never felt that it was al one big fraud and only because you couldn’t stand up and shout what the fraud was, you were sitting down, and thinking to yourself what the angle to this trick was. Atleast i have never seen a single adult drool unashamedly with mouth agape at every simple little the magicina performs like the little children do.

So if this girl now no longer feels the magic(she may still ’see’ it as magic, cause she cannot perform the trick herself, but she will no longer ‘believe’ it to be magic), who stands to lose? Let us put that question to both the parties involved, the magician and the girl. The magician first. There always were, there always are and there always will be little children for the magician, to show off his tricks, and take them to a world they never will again be a part of. There is no dearth of children, and there is no dearth of magic. The girl now. She will never again be able to see a magic show/trick without suspending her disbelief, and even if she did, she would never be able to do it, without regaining her disbelief. Such a suspension even when rare would only for the most astonishing of tricks, and never for simple ones(such a pity, that now in her life, magic is no longer just magic, it is now categorised into amazing tricks, bearable tricks[the 'been there, seen that' kind] and boring tricks).

To conclude in a line, for the magician there will always be others, for the girl there will be no more magic. It was that selfishness i was talking about. Borrowing somebody else’s selfishness and using it on them because they never know at the time that such lack of selfishness on their part(wishing to never grow so they can live in magic all their lives) would ultimately take away all the ‘magic’ that their life now has. Because, in order to understand magic, you have to first lose it. And it is such a loss you can never get it back in your life again. Innocence only stays until willed away, knowledge haunts till death.

So, anyway whatever you choose to make of it, woudl only like to say that, the whole story above was only one part of the actual reason for this poem. Only one half ofthe poem deals with that aspect, the other part of it, through various randomly arranged lines, deals with my schizophrenic nature of living in a “Neverland” and having these “Peter Pan”ish ideas of a life that is never short of surprises and magical ones at that, where angels are no longer fictional sketches of a hallucinating mind but are characters i wish i could talk to and maybe even fly with, and when i can simply chase butterfiles down lush green fields that span upto eternity and so on and on and on.

Guess its time i stopped here. Its becoming more and more like prose blog, specially with WordPress giving such a small textbox that i can’t see how long i have rambled on. So that’s it for now. Wish i could tell the whole story about that side of me, but maybe more pieces of it with another poem(another Mirror one to be precise).

When the words come to an end, there is no sentence left,
When the memories come to an end, there is no thought left,
When the feelings come to an end, there is no emotion left,
When this love comes to an end, there is no life left.

From your life, from your heart, when you threw me away,
I had only one choice, to let you have your way,
With all your force, when you slam the door on my face,
You believe and you know you are long past the grieving phase.

You think you have finally bid goodbye to your tears,
And that I will just be an image down the years,
You think you have bid goodbye to all your fears,
And that no deeper than this can sorrow pierce.

You think that you have bid goodbye to my smile,
But in the process have yourself forgotten how to smile,
You think that you have bid goodbye to my joy,
But in the process have forgotten how to enjoy.

You think that the goodbye warrants this distance,
And that your mind will maintain that resistance,
The more times you think that we belong to history,
The more it seems like the beginning of a new story.

Because this isn’t a decision that only one can take,
And love isn’t an object that we can make or break,
What you have bid goodbye is the fury, the anger within,
But that realisation will only come, when the ire wears thin.

But don’t worry, I haven’t yet said that goodbye,
I will always wait for that frustration to pass by,
Only when we both decide to call our lives a lie,
That’s the only time, we both will ever bid goodbye.

This one is another of my autobiographical ones. However, with a twist. It so happens that this one is one of the few ‘unautobiographically’ autobiographical ones. For those to whom it seems a little above the head, i would just like to explain that, in my concept, we will never be on ‘conversant’ terms in the first place. So the very thought that we may split is absurd in itself.

However, that is exactly what this poem is about, taking an absurd point to its logical conclusion. I understand that such a conclusion in the most diplomatic terms could be termed as ‘absurd conclusion’. But then this isn’t about being politically correct or about being astute. This is about being frank and true to my heart, in case an impossibility becomes a possibility.

If such things were true, an angel’s life should be a fairytale,
But you don’t find them more different than this one’s tale,
Like those winged-one, you don’t see her fly away,
And you begin to really believe she is here to stay.

Ignorant were those who said angels have no feelings,
Probably they believed angels weren’t living things,
Maybe they hadn’t talked to one, or listened to one,
And so felt that one angel is like any other one.

They never could see the smile leaving her face,
Never could see her in the moments she couldn’t face,
When the odds weren’t even, and she began to shiver,
That’s when she seemed more human than ever.

The tears leave a stain as they roll down her cheek,
It is not her chin but some humanity that they seek,
She wipes it away because you would not believe her,
But wishes it to flow because you cannot understand her.

Those words that you said, they didn’t cause that anger,
Because you never believed that she knew about anger,
You never expected that one day you would see her tears,
That those tears would finally harden to make her fierce.

Soon you see those tears begin to dry,
And notice her anger begin to die,
You see the pout leaving her folded lip,
You realise how mortal she is to the last fingertip.

Her smile forgives you without a single word,
Her laughter begins to again fill this world,
You begin to ponder when she bids you farewell,
Whether it was already one day with a mortal angel.

This one is another one on “Little Miss Sunshine“. After she commented, i thought i should write something more, since the previous one conveyed so little of her “multi-faceted” personality. Besides, it was too much truthful to be a poem, so i decided to add some spice this time and make it more fictional(unfortunately it still ended up being as nearly truthful as it can get).

I still believe that she resembled Drew Barrymore when young. The photo above is another proof of the same, although she refuses to do any more than simply deny it rather than back it up with adequate proof. I won’t argue on that count because she never lets me lose an argument, don’t know why.

She is gone before your eyes can even blink,
And yet she is the only thought you can think,
You stumble upon everything, already in a trance,
And become yet another slave of her glance.

Every time you look around, you see her beckon,
It’s only this one time, one last time you reckon,
Alas, you realise not, the power of allure,
And the enticing number of times it can lure.

You search for her, the source of this spell,
In which direction to go, nobody can tell,
They too are in the same well, in which you fell,
Trying since ages, to somehow break this spell.

You wonder, what eyes they must be, ones that can enchant,
While the rest of them are repeating her name like a chant,
If only for a single day you were given the reins of fate,
What would you not do to get out of this state.

To step aside and learn what keeps us all prisoner,
Like a never-ending melody that addicts the listener,
To find out why we follow her like obedient sheep,
To discover the keys to those secrets her eyes keep.

Alas you are no closer than the farthest among us,
Maybe because our destinies have deemed it thus,
Hanging forever because none of us know what is the hook,
Searching forever because none of us know where to look.

Tied forever because none of us understand the knots that bind,
Or maybe because it is all an illusion, the creation of our mind,
Thoughtless in our minds, we can neither surmise,
Nor forget her, the one who could mesmerise.

Back after a long long long break of a few weeks. This time not only is it on my current muse “Aparna“, it also happens to be one of the very few and rare ones by me that are confoundingly abstract. Personally, i found the meaning in them only after completing it, it seemed to have taken some srt of recognisable shape only after it was finished completely. So for those of you who don’t understand a single line in it, don’t worry you can simply ask the line you didn’t understand and i will be glad to be of assistance(i too was in such a condition for a greater part of the poem, left me thinking this poem had absolutely no concept, no continuity of thought, no clarity or direction, until the moment i got done with it) Those who manage to figure out what it means in the first reading itself, my deepest salutations, for being able to do what even i couldn’t.

In brief, this is about a set of people who were proud of their control over their mind, and find that they are incredibly trapped/mesmerised by a force they always believed was in their control. They fail to realise it is their very control that holds them prisoner, while all the time they blame a spell, on a person who never cast any.

Swaying in consonance with an ebullient breeze,
She shakes off its advances, with a careworn ease,
Ruffling her petals, as she hung onto a slender stalk,
Proclaiming gustily that it isn’t only humans who stalk.

She stands up, and walks away free of the bond,
But she is no fugitive, to hide and abscond,
Walking away she is, from the grasps of human sight,
Away from those minds bereft of any genuine delight.

Walking away from those who interpret her like a question,
From those who wipe her out of every broken relation,
From those who treat her like an insane obsession,
And those who hoard her like a miserly possession.

Running away from those who suppress their affection,
From those who use her to disguise cunning defection,
From those who cannot see her, blinded by rejection,
And those who don’t want her, drowning in dejection.

They follow her, chase her, to the limits of perception,
They all need her, want her, to cover up their deception,
Without her, their greed, their envy and jealousy cannot live,
And for that reason, her life, they will not let her live.

So they strangle her life, and pluck her for the day,
Use her and discard her, to be trampled along the way,
She cannot remember a single one, who allowed her to stay,
For, she was always available, if only new, everyday.

Away she ran, before her fragrance they could steal,
And in the world, there were no more smiles to heal,
Hope is all that is left in this world of gloom,
A hope that she was not the last one to bloom.

Frightening. Thats the mildest way of putting what happened to me. I was struggling to write something on Aparna, just because I felt like it. Alas it was not be, as I struggled for 3 days sitting with an opened cap before an empty page with a title “Daisybud”. It seemed nothing would ever come out of it, and after all I might have finally written the most uncreative title in my life after all. Then it happened, today morning, I woke up early and tried to get back to sleep, and as a result found myself in a 3 hour dream involving who else but Aparna. After I woke up from three uninterrupted hours of looking at Aparna there was no looking back.

Aparna to me signifies a smile, a smile of laughter, of delight, of pure innocent joy, the kind that is long since missing from this world. So the dream was a kind of ‘wake-up’ call for me, to open my eyes and tell a story that was crying to be told.

Everyone nowadays sports a smile especially since ‘people-relationship’ got a flip through the endless number of personality grooming sessions that everyone seems to undergo. But how long was it since a person truly smiled out of the happiness of the heart rather than a hollow mechanical movement of the lips. When people smile to mask their seething discontent, their anger, their envy, their greed, their discomfiture. When they groan silently beneath those smiles, and curse and fault everything around and within them.When the smile becomes but an article, an accessory to the drama of fooling everyone around, it is then that a smile is powerless to do nothing but watch its state of deprivation into the depths that even a frown never knew.

I could have easily titled this one as ” Rape of a Smile” and got away with it, because nothing would have been more apt, but instead chose to call it after a flower because it signified the hope that I have on humanity that the situation will soon improve and that people would hopefully smile because of their unbridled inner joy, rather than social conditioning of what reaction to give to what situation. That is also the reason why the daisy featured at the beginning is just beginning to bloom, a symbol that everyone in the world still have their Aparna for another day.

We looked for the ending right at the beginning,
But couldn’t see beyond the place we were starting,
We searched for its beams, tried to hold its railing,
But couldn’t feel anymore than where we were standing.

Every time that we felt, were stepping onto empty space,
It sprung up beneath, matching our steps, pace to pace ,
Whether climbing with a smile, or slipping with a frown,
It was the one single thing that never let us down.

Our thoughts built it up, with every single thought,
Our words spread it across the breadth of every thought,
Only stepping forward whenever possible, side by side together,
As our love for each other held its planks together.

Times it would seem to creak, with every new fight,
But over time, the clamps and bolts only grew more tight,
As it arched upwards, trying to send us into flight,
Fly though we could not, atleast it gave us the delight.

It would heave sidewards with our growing discontent,
Seeming to fall apart, everytime we were hesitant,
But somehow it held on, maybe awaiting the time that would come,
When these petty differences we would surely overcome.

We look downwards at those who couldn’t come join us,
And across at those in this journey like us,
And wonder if they all have the same anticipation,
To reach the end, of this journey with no destination.

For, we, together, are the bridge across forever,
And we build upon ourselves to walk forever,
And time, a jealous spectator that keeps trying to disrupt,
But the love that it cannot grasp, it cannot interrupt.

As the title reads, this one is inspired from, and dedicated to, the beautiful moments that Richard Bach gave me through his novel/autobiography “Bridge Across Forever”. In many ways though I disagree with his definition of love and the treatment of that definition, what is unforgettable is the impact the book leaves on a person(left me euphoric for atleast a week). So this one is dedicated to him, though remodelled on my concept of love.

The next few ones coming up will have original titles by me, so people would have to bear with the titles unless I gather up the energy to visit a music store, and catch up on ‘good old Yanni’. I never cease to get surprised at the beautiful titles for his pieces that whoever it is who names his songs comes up with. They just keep the words flowing simply by chanting the title over and over again like an incantation. So the next one coming up is one on my evergreen muse “Aparna”(have just got confirmation that she still is Aparna [Reddy], though have long decided to dispense with that part of her name).

Remember the walk, that we walked to remember,
When we decided to walk away during life’s December,
The pounding rain had slowed down to a drizzle,
As if to keep quiet during our ensuing tussle.

It never came, for, didn’t we amicably split,
Maintaining our dignity, our civility we called it,
And thus buried in our minds the remains of bitterness,
After we had burnt to shreds, every last bit of happiness.

Happiness, that elusive word that brought us together,
But to find it, many a storm we had to weather,
Not finding it together, we decided to search for it alone,
And so we went our own ways, leaving happiness alone.

Having gone down many roads, seeing the world,
And having learnt that compromise never grows old,
We came back to the beginnings, this park, the walk,
Only, this time, there were a thousand things to talk.

We ambled along, as if we had all the time,
As we explained to each other, the passage of time,
How much we were sorry wasn’t even betrayed by a tear,
That much we both understood, just by being here.

Bygones were already bygones before the walk began,
Now every footstep was a new journey, a new lifespan,
There was no more looking around, and no looking back,
Maybe afraid to find the past, if we ever turned back.

In the simplest of ways, it all began with a walk,
It all ended in one, and all it took to begin again, was walk,
We promised ourselves that we would remember this walk,
Never mind, Not only this, we have many more miles to walk.

Happened to come across this title when i was taking part in a “Never-Ending Movie Quiz”, and though i haven’t seen the movie, have simply fallen in love with the title. My obsession for fancy(catchy?) titles being what it i, i couldn’t sleep unless i had written a poem on it.

This is a slightly “gazebo” kind of situation that i see myself in, and wish maybe that someday things would simply get sorted out by walking and talking. Although wishes never did fall form trees, wish this one does happen, given the slow death that walking is slowly experiencing, must be painful, to know you are dying and watch your last moments on its last legs.

Hand in hand we walked, across the breadth of land,
Across the oceans, and into the playground of God’s Hand,
Where the stars and planets, mere dots, went past in a blur,
And our thoughts seemed to happen before they could occur.

Wanderers we were, travellers in time, travelling with time,
Letting our footsteps and shadows catch up, taking their time,
We used to wonder if someday we could even play with time,
Perhaps take time back to a time before its time.

And watch with glee as our memories grow larger than our lives,
Yet each of them being only mere fragments of our lives,
There were such a number, that each one seemed new,
It was like painting our canvases, our lives, old and anew.

Our lives were the journeys, and we were the destination,
A lifetime was the distance, and eternity the inspiration,
Our tears quenched our thirst, our laughter filled our bellies,
And our memories showed the direction to our weary mind’s queries.

We walked, we ran, we flew, we stumbled, we fell,
And bruised our knees, more times than could to each other tell,
Yet we kept moving, as if enchanted by and in our own spell,
Sprinting, lest time escape our clutches and sound its knell.

Though every memory lasted only a moment, every moment was a memory,
Yes moments are momentary, for us though they were monumentary,
Those we never wanted to end, and those that themselves never ended,
Like the sky and the ocean, only to the eyes they appeared blended.

The story was us, the characters were us,
We listened to us, and spoke to us,
Matching step with step, we reached the end of us,
And completed this dream, this life, together, as us.

Back to my forte, abstract extrapolation. Made myself a promise to dedicate an hour every Sunday to write atleast one poem for the week. Spend the week scribbling a line or two once in two days, and complete the entire piece on my ‘Sunday hour’. This one was completed as the first output of such a resolve.

Had the line “take time back to a time before its time” hanging in my mind from the last 5 days, and decided to do something, since it kept bouncing around refused to leave mind(that’s the way it always is with thoughts that strike me in the rain, like a lot of others, this one also happened when I was walking last Monday, drenching alone in the rain). And besides around 10 days back had written a title ‘Us’ on my scribbling book to be a future poem containing what I knew not, just keep writing down titles that seem nice to my mind, and write up stuff to fill it. Actually its more like stuff keeps flowing on a lot of things, and so do titles, its more of a mix-and-match of the two.

This one is another on my utopian world where people who are together, are together because they are meant to be, want to be, and choose to be. They stay together because they know no reason to separate and see no reason to. They are separated only by circumstances at a physical level, which is none of their concerns, because they only ’survive’ in the physical world whereas they ‘live’ in their own meta-physical world where they aren’t relative to things, all things including time are relative to them. A world where their thoughts turn into realities simply because no other reality exists except their own thoughts, and since they don’t have differing thoughts, there is only one possibility of, their thought.

Though perfectly working, I cannot see a thing,
For, your smile blocks every other sight,
It has settled forever on my eyes,
And doesn’t even step aside for the sunlight.

It is long since I’ve hear a different thing,
Every moment, it is the tinkle of your laughter,
It deafens my ears to everything else,
Only to be replaced with its own playful banter.

A different smell, the air could never bring,
Ever since I first smelt, the magic of your fragrance,
It was so heavy, it choked my every breath,
And became in no time my very subsistence.

A different taste might surely do a thing,
To replace the taste, the sweetness of you,
So hot and yet so sweet, all at a time,
If only, every single time, you didn’t seem so new.

Every single second that you remain on mind,
To never forget you, as if to remind,
I wish I could, but how can I,
If you choose to leave every single memory behind.

I walk on you, and bump into you,
And arise unto you, and fall asleep into you,
I swim away, only to get closer to you,
Maybe it’s because I’m mad about you.

I may seem mad to think so much about you,
But frankly, it makes me mad to forget you,
I never felt so happy about the drowning or mourning,
For such moments, I would sink into you, every new morning.

Feels exhilarating to takes such a leisurely break from some serious poems and have fun in the simple things that make up a moment. Quite how often we get too intricately involved in the figments of our own grandiose imagination that we fail to properly appreciate, or worse still totally fail to recognise the beauty that lies in the simplicity with which most things are expressed. We are so lost in the interpretation of non-existent meanings of flamboyant words that we fail to see the depth of emotions that simple words can convey, this poem for me was such an awakening.

It was the wake up call, to find back those roots for which I took to poetry before going astray with the ambition of writing something ponderous to capture the imagination of an audience. It was the call to get back on a path of self-expression, the very reason I had begun with writing in the first place, before getting sidetracked on a path of bespoilt innocence that was arbitrarily sacrificed on an altar of temporal gratification of artistic pursuits that constantly keep trying to mar my original purpose.

Anyway, just can’t stop rambling. What I wanted to say was that though it was very minimalistic compared to my other poems, it was on of my most satisfying ones, because it took me back to the path that I had intended to follow.

Thanks a lot Aparna. Even through a poem you have managed to set me on track. Guess am more happier letting this continue, than alerting you to these ‘Random Verses’ and having your honesty spoil a dream.

I wake up and see one every morning,
Because there is one on every wall adorning,
They stare at me, those eyes of yours, always asking,
Why I still make my peace with you every morning.

They follow me to the door, smiling goodbye,
Staying still, while everything else rushes by,
A click of the lock, and I step into the world,
Into such a strangeness I feel myself hurled.

Where people keep talking, but somehow not to me,
And words don’t quite mean, what they are meant to be,
They laugh, and they joke, at such trivial things,
Reminding me of the joy that every small deed brings.

Silently, I bear with them and their uncalled for happiness,
Bear it until I can get through this unfinished business,
And so keep glancing at the clock, wishing it to get running,
As I bide my time, awaiting yet another homecoming.

I rush home, unlocking the door, to none in particular,
Silently wishing, that at work I was a little more popular,
So I could bring some of them home, and introduce you,
But alas, such thoughts are quite often very few.

I look at a wall, and blurt out the dejection,
And you reply, face saddened at the rejection,
I cry my heart out, and recover in a while,
And laugh upon seeing you returning my smile.

I guess I must be lunatic, talking such things to a wall,
And sitting up nights, listening for your footfall in the hall,
Things were much different, before you clambered up that wall,
Leaving me alone, to deal, with your death, and my own downfall.

This one is dedicated to the human stamina for unlimited brooding over long-spilt milk(or should I say long-spilt tears that refuse to drop down, and instead hang on for dear life, long past the their time, solely because of the unquenchable thirst a person has for sorrow, one that grows on imbibing it and fuels the thirst for more of itself).

Frankly, there is no parasite as parasitic as sorrow, because after devouring on every single little shred of happiness and delight that it can set its eyes own, sorrow never hesitates to even devour itself, if only to further its own cause and spread its addiction into every willing thought of a person suffering from an unexpected separation.

Enough said about things that are broody, having had my fill of melancholy, can’t take any more of it myself, so am switching to something more pleasant and refreshing(surprises me how this topic never fails to refresh every time I put my pen down, it is as if it is an inexhaustible reservoir of joy) called Aparna.

Wish I could be the smile, that leaves your lips,
And swim in the puddles of celestial joy, with which it drips,
Leaving you forever, to cheer up that someone, and everyone,
And yet be born again, as you search to bring up the next one.

Wish I could be the tear, that drops down your eyes,
I  would leave you and run away, if only to make you feel nice,
Of course, on the way, I would always kiss your cheek,
For in your sorrow, that’s the only happiness I can seek.

Wish I could be the voice, that leaves your throat,
Enchanting all around me, every time I float,
Loads of sugar, sometimes barbs of salt, on me you coat,
And yet every time they hear me, it’s about you they gloat.

Wish I could be the breath, that every second leaves you,
One that you forsake, only to accept again, fresh and new,
I shall waft about, taking to those around, your fragrance,
Till you call me back, reprimanding my vagrance.

Wish I could be anything that ever leaves you,
For, to have loved, lost and found again,
Brings such a joy, that it makes me forget the pain,
Which comes from every moment of my leaving you.

I was looking for it, in every person that I anywhere met,
But glances of disinterest, of lust and desire, was all I could get,
And one day, you walked into my life, into my heart,
Funny, how in the simplest of ways, these things start.

I had always met people, who wanted to talk, to impress,
People who turned up in polished shoes and a creased dress,
There was them, and there was you, one who would hear,
One who could feel my tears and also guess my fear.

You would look at me, and I would look down and blush,
Not because it was embarrassing, or my cheeks were flush,
But because, if I looked straight back into your eyes,
From pure surprise, you wouldn’t know what to do with your eyes.

But your eyes don’t just look at me, they look into me,
They pierce and try to ferret out every secret from me ,
To run away from them, your trespassers that stalk,
I let you hold my hand, as we take this evening’s walk.

There’s something about the way you say my name,
Is it my obsession, or do you call everybody the same?
Either way, what matters is, I called out, and you came,
And from now on, nothing for us, shall ever be the same.

This one is a series called “The Other Side” wherein I have tried to explore the feelings from the other side of the veil, one that is rarely written about, and even if written, hardly heard well enough, specially when there are such a huge number of ‘female bashers’ like me out here. So this was an attempt to tell the story from the girl’s point of view, like I promised somebody about a month ago, and am thus looking forward to any kind of feedback, especially from femme fatales, because I had to rely a lot on breaking a lot of common stereotypes to achieve even the least bit of movement.

In this autumn of life, we fall like leaves,
Fall from each other and back into one another,
Our fortunes changing, as each new gust leaves,
Towards the sky, or the earth, we never could bother.

We talk as we fall, of this bond and its reason,
And wonder if love is after all, only a season,
One that will never see an end upon our hearts,
Ever-changing, at times beautiful, unbearable in parts.

You will never know my joy, at this love we got,
As we move into a world, that time forgot,
A world that didn’t care about our language,
And where you didn’t ever ask me my age.

A joy at finally getting out of this wilderness,
As we walk into the sunshine of happiness,
A happiness whose boundaries we have to set,
As it hovers above us, knowing no sunset.

It’s been years, since I saw that smile again,
Though only an image, I still cannot restrain,
From wondering, how little has actually changed,
About the feelings, that your smile engaged.

Though in the mind, the vision is always there,
The eyes aren’t satisfied, with an image back somewhere,
They are starving to see it, with their own eyes,
And that still tells me, how slowly our time flies.

To them, you are the raindrop, that broke away,
From the cloud, to quench them, falling this way,
Within them, forever they wish, you would stay,
The mind, it’s jealous, it always makes them stray.

I have never seen it, ever leaving your face,
And never want to, even if only a passing phase,
And each time, the twinkle it leaves in your eye,
That’s just enough, to bid all agonies goodbye.

Seeing it, my overcome tears, always run back,
And a reluctant sorrow, turns its stubborn back,
My mind has only, to hear that laughter’s tinkle,
And it irons out, my every frown’s wrinkle.

Were times I wished, I could touch your laughter,
Feel it and hold it, for now and ever after,
Hold it before my thirsty eyes, and just stare,
Till the moment I have, not a breath to spare.

Felt content, watching those pearls, drop from your lips,
And when I tried, to hold them by my fingertips,
They just dissolved, melting themselves into me,
Flowing in like a joy, the happiest I could ever be.

Try as much, I can’t and don’t, want to let go,
And therefore keep being swept away, by its flow,
For those who feel, life has more sorrow than joy,
They have not yet tasted your smile, and its addictive joy.

After more than two years, yesterday, I saw a photo of Aparna Reddy(Reddy no longer?) on her Orkut profile, and checked out her blog. The first wave of nostalgia hit me, the moment I saw that photo, that smile it could still captivate, not that I doubted it for a moment, but the very idea being proved to my eyes still spellbound me enough to write about it, and those days when I used to submit the exam paper in 1 hour to sit and stare at her for 2 hours, and write “Searching For You” while at it.Still can’t guess what game God was trying to play on me, by making such a smile, and showing it to me for two years and then keeping it etched on my memory, trying to have fun, seeing me wrestling with it.

Immediately I felt I had to write my feeling, I had to record this nostalgia. I couldn’t sleep for the whole night yesterday, fighting with myself to finish the poem first and then sleep, but ultimately my laziness won. Not for long, today morning, the moment I woke up, the feeling started tormenting me again, and so I decide not to push my luck anymore and got down to this. Wish I could spend all my days just looking at her smiling, would make me prefer Earth over Heaven any day.

It’s long since you left me to be alone,
Leaving to fly away, as if airborne,
Yet I land safely with your memories,
Their simplicity, and their untold worries.

May the sun never set on your delight,
Though for the world, it may already be night,
With the covers of darkness I shall fight,
To keep that smile on your face forever bright.

I shall fight with sleep, temporal and eternal,
To keep your eyes away from their sojournal,
To keep them twinkling, alive and awake,
So another day of joy, they can partake.

I won’t let death take your heart away,
Even if it means putting mine in the way,
For, I cannot let a life like yours stray,
Into the foggy mists of an eternal grey.

People said it was useless, you were already dead,
They know not, because they know you, only in the head,
And when they know you, like my heart,
They will understand why we cannot part.

From those pictures of us, you may cut me away,
I care not, because I am more than a mere photo.
From those letters of ours, you may tear me away,
I care not, because I am more than mere words.

From those mementos of ours, you may break me away,
I care not, because I am more than mere clay,
From the reflection in your eyes, you may wash me away,
I care not, because I am more than a tear.

From the times of laughter, you may frown me away,
I care not, because I am more than mere joy,
From the shackles of our bond, you may break away,
I care not, because I am more than an emotion.

From the depth of your heart, you may cast me away,
I care not, because I aren’t going anywhere,
How far away you threw, you have no clue,
For, I am you, around and within you.

When its time, to describe your entire life in a day,
And you know, you can’t recall every moment on the way,
Times of joy may never in your memory, for long stay,
Of the times when you cried, you will definitely say.

When you have 24 hours, to describe all your years,
To explain your tears, and their underlying fears,
Do I atleast share a minute in your narration,
Or did I just seem a fantasy of your creation.

Let me be the river that flows into your existence,
Flowing down your throat like the elixir of subsistence,
Washing away the worries that cling to your feet,
Enriching the thirsty ground, wherever we meet.

Let me be the sun that brightens your day,
That warms your soul, all along the way,
There won’t be a place you will miss my ray,
Like your shadow, I shall return as long as you stay.

Let me be the wind that blows into your face,
In your every breath, let me leave my trace,
Soaring with your heart, in an earthly grace,
Without my presence, may you never find a place.

Let me simmer into your life, like the fire,
That burns within you, and your every desire,
Along the path, let me be your candle’s flame,
Through water and wind, burning all the same.

Just let me walk in through your heart’s door,
And you’ll never have the need for anything more,
I may not be God, to stop all your tears,
Atleast I’m human, to cry with you for years.

Let me in as the dew, or the ever-settling dust,
Let me in as anything, that for life is a must,
In the midst of all this chaos, confusion and strife,
Have faith, and just let me, into your life.

This one is dedicated to my definition of love, which many have defined as ‘impractical, unrealistic, and even downright loony’, but that doesn’t change it from being LOVE.

On a fine summer morning, upon opening my brow,
Find the landscape around me, filled with unseasonal snow,
Amidst the vast expanse of white, a budding blossom of pink,
So startlingly contrastive, that it sets my mind to think.

The snow laden path to you, seems a figment of imagination,
As my crunching footfall sets the pace to the destination,
With the cold morning wind blowing me your assurance,
My hunger for your glimpse quickly gobbles the distance.

Across the horizon, is steadily rising, the morning sun,
A daily reminder of the countless miles I have won,
As the rising mercury spreads its warmth on creation,
My Venus, your memories help maintain my composition.

I seem paralysed watching the time go by,
As mile upon mile nimbly seems to fly,
Continuously in stationary motion, I am not sure why,
As my stamina for you, continues to grow high.

The noon seems to approach way too soon,
Surprisingly, my body doesn’t begin to swoon,
Trudging on for you, like a glass pane bright,
Absorbing the heat, reflecting your faceless light.

At the edge of land, the sand’s all around,
My foot sinks in with each step on ground,
Ahead lies the water, one that knows no bound,
Like the depths of my heart, surely not yet found.

Venturing in, I see the waves reach a standstill,
As if forgetting to blink, awaiting your will,
Deeper inside, the path is rougher than a hill,
Expecting a Messiah, to someday dry it up and till.

The sky opens up, pouring soothingly slow,
There’s water all around, above and below,
Yet I push on, having no other place to go,
Drenched throughout, halfway through the show.

As a speck in the horizon, at last I spot land,
And strange shivers run through, from head to hand,
The whole experience totally bleaching me bland,
Waiting to finally grab a fistful, of sand, dear sand.

Upon firm ground the picture doesn’t change,
Try all I can, my limited thoughts to arrange,
The entire journey somehow seems strange,
With you laughing on, always out of range.

Finally at an end, it all seems only a beginning,
As I try to shake off an unexplainable feeling,
Of having to start it all over once again,
Putting my journey and its travails in vain.

Your presence, then dispels all doubts away,
As I recoup all the energy spent on way,
Hoping you’ll forever, beside me stay,
If only just for a moment, hour or day.

The emotions still left, are pushing through,
Trying to cover, all that I have been through,
Justice enough I deem it, on merely seeing you,
Yet, distance enough I know not, to talk to you.

I find not the strength, to stand by your side,
Having spent it all, traveling the world wide,
Looking to the heart, where you’ll always abide,
Hoping you don’t notice me lagging in stride,
To laugh or cry by myself, unable to decide,
Upon finally finding you, all the while inside.

This one is dedicated to someone who made 1 portion of the ‘purpose of my life’ complete.

Special thanks to Nisha Ahuja for pointing out that this poem was missing and thus helping me post it, because this one occupies a special corner of my heart.

Just the two of us, walk up to the edge of the lawn,
Waiting for the sun, to break out from the dawn,
To pry apart from our feet, the morning dew,
And witness the buds begin blossoming anew.

Walking down the path, holding your hand,
Weak in the knees, I cannot anymore stand,
Yet managing to hold on, as you stare into my eyes,
And we start drifting, through the blushing skies.

To ask you to slow down, is surely no crime,
As I try to catch up, with the fleeting time,
That refused to stop as you swirled in my arms,
Freezing me cold with the spell of your charms.

Yet despite the direction your memory tries to blow,
We are separated forever by a tiny little window,
Through which the sun’s rays begin to gleam,
Waking me up from this never-ending dream.

I still cant remember when they began,
Or for how long and far they just ran,
It seemed only yesterday that they had a cause,
But even while it withered, they never had to pause.

They flow into the cracks of your every burden,
And wash them away before they can harden,
Although it has been quite a long while,
They still spread themselves across your smile.

For the times when you totally lost control,
Upon you like raindrops during an evening stroll,
For the times when the days were dark,
All around you like a sprinkler in the park.

Yet all through life, you can never feel,
Although they drench you from head to heel,
Despite discreetly being able to hold their sway,
Those were my tears, beginning to flow away.

In whichever distant land, you let your feet fall,
Dearest, just look at the sky and give me a call,
Your voice floats like the breeze of spring over brook and dale,
And merges just as seamlessly into the air I inhale.

By the brilliance of the sun, you become distant too soon,
I await the night, to see your face in the moon,
The fragrance of flowers amidst the rustle of leaves,
Subdues the silent tempest in which my heart grieves.

People say that yours is a journey of no return,
Notwithstanding, my heart from your direction will never turn,
A lamp of light burns the oil that feeds it, to flame,
Just as I await your verdict, the result of this endless game.

Across the woods, into the horizon afar I gaze,
Tears rolling down, as the sky turns a purple haze,
I close my eyes longing for the morning anew,
A morning that will rejoin me and you.

O dearest love, wherever you are, just let me hear your voice,
The music in your words gladden me more than I can rejoice,
I live before you, behind you in this despairing conundrum,
My only companion, your song, that I tirelessly hum.

Though you aren’t, your ever-smiling face is here,
It keeps following me to eternity like my shadow near,
Looking into your mesmerizing face makes me forget,
All the sorrow, that everyday lives seem to beget.

The day prolongs not for the star-studded night,
The night lives on in the shadow of the morning light,
The solemn glow in your eyes, sends my watery heart into ripples,
As night by day, day by night, my yearning never stifles.

Go wherever you wish, my celestial song shall follow,
It shall echo and reverberate in your heart’s hollow,
But never bother to ask yourself the question why,
Because mine is the eternal song of the sky.

Like a forgotten native traversing the desert,
I carry on with no choice, though my feet hurt,
Try as much as I can, my thoughts to divert,
From inevitably returning to you, I cannot avert.

I walk on though I know not, how long the night,
Just hoping I’ll reach the end before it’s daylight,
A look above shows, the future is not bright,
Thinking of you, I just hope my direction is right.

For, however long I walk, you’re still out of sight,
As the winds blow, I clasp my last bit of faith tight,
Day by fiercer day, I live by the wind of the night,
A wind that soothes my worries, making me light.

Where can I find you, the solace of my heart’s desire,
For no wind of any might can put out this fire,
Wherever I go, I hear only talk of your fame,
But am so exhausted, I can no longer call out your name.

The day passes soon, giving way to a drenching rain,
I look out for you, only to see the pelting rain again,
People around me quickly run for the nearest cover,
I stand there alone, waiting for you, facing its power.

The rain endlessly pours down, as I stand under,
Facing its quenching water and burning thunder,
Asking myself just where did I blunder,
To be separated from you, my wonder.

I realize it is morning, by seeing the mist descending,
But my relentless footsteps keep the dust ascending,
And I stand confused, whether it’s the mist or dust I’m depending,
For mine is a task that seems to have no ending.

I suddenly feel I have turned over a new page,
For with a strong urge to turn back, I reach this stage,
My mind blames it all on the effect of my age,
But try as I might, I am still a prisoner in your cage.

I continue looking for you, soaring like a kite in the sky,
Not sure, whether you own me, or I own you, the sky,
When a gust of wind, snaps apart my confidence thread,
I continue unsupported, not knowing the direction I head.

The waves part, as I look for you in the deep sea,
But however deep I look, there is only water I see,
The clouds part, as I look for you in the new moon,
But I see no evidence to tell me you are due soon.

Patiently I wait, looking for you in the mid-noon,
But the brightness of the sun, only sends me into a swoon,
Hastily I decide to settle down on my own,
But repentantly wait to see you in the seeds I have sown.

At their own pace, the plants have gradually grown,
To my futile effort, no trace of you they have ever shown,
I try to take my mind off it, by watching their buds bloom,
But I see only your face, that brings back my gloom.

I curse myself for trying to needlessly believe,
That forever my side, you will never leave,
All my charm has waned itself into a frown,
But there is no depth at which I can drown.

To see me in this state, though you aren’t there,
To console me for my life, your captivating smile is here,
Seeing it on your embossed face, I burst into ecstasy,
As though awaiting for long, an unfulfilled prophecy.

I have lost count of those endless nights and days,
That I battled with myself in innumerable days,
Convincing and cajoling myself to start again, anew,
For, till my last breath, I shall be searching for you.

Dedicated to Aparna Reddy, whose innocent face and endearing smile made this possible, may she have that smile forever, lighting up many more lives with one of the joys of creation.(presently she is only lighting up the lives of the class of humans called Americans)

Your eyes look bejeweled like a Greek,
I would die for their attention to seek,
Though you may look soft-hearted and meek,
Underneath lies a character as hard as teak.

One look at those rare, poignant tears,
And waves will be lashing backwards at themselves,
Just one time if your silken voice one hears,
It’s enough to push all the voice-records off the shelves.

You possess a face, so wordlessly exquisite,
That beings from the Heaven are dying to visit,
Tapering down like the Andes mountain is your nose,
Comparing myself with you, is like the thorn with the rose.

As near to you, I can only see your matchless face,
But far from you, I can let my dreams run riot like a knife,
Like an iceberg, I fear I will one day melt at your gaze,
For, your face, it needs no telling, is my second life.

Mighty oaks come alive at dawn, their reflection in water glistening,
Fresh dewdrops in the rising sun’s rays, stare out at you glowing,
As I rise up each morning, the chattering birds eagerly listening,
I am spellbound by the beauty of morning light that is mind-blowing.

I await you like the morning daisy flower, wilting by the hour,
Even as the wind erodes the sand, upon which I steadily stand,
I reach out for you, like the evaporating morning dew,
The charisma in your face, shall remain the enigma in my brace.

I can never love another person anew,
Until I hear your voice, that’s well nigh overdue,
Your absence for a moment, has dried me like the desert,
Yet I tarry on, till my position you gently assert.

With dissenting minds and commenting mouths I fight,
With the only fear that I may in diversion forget,
How beautiful, how wonderful, you day by day get,
Like the first ray that strikes earth, from the morning light.

Long before this feeling, long before this emotion,
When the magic was yet to be set in motion,
The first glance at you wasn’t love or devotion,
A distant gaze, far away like the endless ocean.

One of utter, nonchalance was my first look,
Unbending, and unminding in your direction to look,
Your existence seemed as forgotten as air,
With no concern of how amiably you fare.

Looking around, scouring for more worthy prospects,
Everywhere I looked, there seemed greater defects,
That my eyes were tricking me, I was convinced,
However my mind all the while never winced.

When it happened, it all seemed a mishap,
As I stumbled upon my own lowly trap,
Confused at the direction the wheel turns,
Leaving behind marks, and a few deep burns.

Hovering around, my eyes rested back on you,
Surprisingly they seemed rewashed and new,
Walking past the other faces like morning dew,
I finally reach your sight, long overdue.

I keep trying in my own small humble way,
To make you smile more, each new day,
Spreading your joy in waves across the room,
It seems the world knows neither doom or gloom.

To see the aura, and the glint in your eyes,
I committed deeds the world wouldn’t deem wise,
To make you joyous, there was no better way,
Even if in the process, I had to greatly pay.

The medals lost, the prizes sacrificed, seem nothing,
Compared to the smile on your face they bring,
My swelling pride upon seeing you thereby win,
Says, for your sake, failure is no sin.

I realize, I have all the while been swirling within,
Feelings begin to arise and subside, out and in,
Much akin to teaching a fish to rightly swim,
I linger around, trying to satisfy your arising whim.

Emblazing my every moment of life, thought and mind,
You play across every second, with no chance of rewind,
I project myself, my abilities and sheer dint,
Yet as I walk, I leave behind only your footprint.

Try as much as I can, I can no longer deny it,
The image of being forlorn, somehow doesn’t fit,
With the fragrance of romance, I’ve surely been hit,
Groping on all sides, for an outlet to this embracing pit.

I wish I could be convinced that this wasn’t true,
That love had no hue, and the sky wasn’t blue,
The truth strikes me as being bitterly pleasant,
The idyllic life, of love and the hillside peasant.

A life of great expectations, without any care,
Where every man, soars where no angels dare,
Where reality and fiction never seem laid bare,
And acceptance and rejection are too big to bear.

I wish I hadn’t got in at the first place,
Unable to bear its twists, and the searing pace,
To swim the tide costs all my reputation and face,
To walk out pulls my heart strings, setting them ablaze.

Cursing the cupid doesn’t bring back the times,
When your heart was measured in penny and dimes,
The lure of the happiness that drew me inside,
Seems to be dissipating too much far and wide.

No longer untouched by love’s staple wear and tear,
There were always times when you just didn’t care,
Looking into your eyes, beyond that glassy stare,
I find not, the least glimmer of the bond we share.

To see you each day look to me with growing hatred,
No trace of compassion, or tears ever shed,
The only emotion I found, was one of a loathing pity,
For, to you, I was just somebody, a non-entity.

A somebody, who in you daily life interfered,
A somebody you wished, long ago had disappeared,
Though no trace of this in your eyes have you shown,
That it exists, from you demeanor I have known.

Despite the hatred, despite the endless pain,
I was a somebody, who could never abstain,
To work untiringly, if just to see you gain,
Regardless of the recurring pain, again and again.

To hang around when you seemed very desolate,
Trying all I could, yet never being so desperate,
The waters of failure, washing down the feet of fate,
I just tarry to ponder, on how I reached this state.

Up against the crest, I try to stem the tide,
However, I have destiny, my master to abide,
Caught up in its fury, is my tattered fishing net,
No amount of repair, can it safely to the shore get.

Remember that in this candle, we are the flame and wick,
Burning each other, through every thin and thick,
Discard me, disown me, it will bring no change,
Without the wick, your flame will always seem strange.

All the while, I have never tried to approach you,
For the sole reason of letting you, be only you,
For the fear of seeing on your angelic face, a frown,
So, always maintain that smile, through life’s up and down.

I only hope this experience will allow me to be,
Since in my direction you shall never see,
Curse me, hurt me, abandon me to your visionary hell,
I shall still follow you, always you guardian angel.

You have never talked to me and mostly never will,
But never forget that I shall love you still,
Throughout your life and mine, I shall love you gently,
Even though, every second, you are KILLING ME SOFTLY.

At first sight, they looked like an eclipse over a bright sun,
In an unchallenged manner, the championship of my heart they won,
They subside like a heap of rubble when you are sad,
And bloat up like a new bubble when you are glad.

They are down and glum when you unusually fret,
And attain an expression I cannot in Heaven interpret,
When you stare at me, the Earth feels light, like standing on a petal,
When you blink, the sky feels heavy, pressing onto my head like a pedal.

They question me in a morose manner when you brood,
And assume expressions as broad as your minute mood,
Looking into them, I can easily see when you are good,
As they look like the fragrance of freshly cut sandalwood.

I can surely tell, when you are, or not in a dream,
As your thoughts flow through them like a stream,
They show your emotions, in a range from steam to ice,
I can see whole new world opening in your eyes.

It has been a long time since the fires have died down,
But their warmth hasn’t still let me down,
Shivering in this cold, I still remember seeing you the last time,
The day when my heart inexplicably missed its rhyme.

Yet you glide into my dreams, and wake me in the night,
I look around and see you and I don’t in the dim moonlight,
It is soon morning, and I look at more than one shadow,
And I know, with me forever you shall follow.

I refresh myself and look into the mirror,
Seeing your face, I know there is no error,
I look up and find the blue sky parting,
And your twinkling face, an unanswered question asking.

I look down, onto the plate on which I dine,
And find you staring, like a moon that has no decline,
I smile to myself as I realize this is no miracle Divine,
Since you were pledged to be eternally mine.