Patchworks of Fate

Threads fragile, Threads discolored by time,

Wasted away, scattered by the lack of human touch.

Caught in the whirlpool of destiny,

Spin along the curvature of fate.

Gaining hues, getting reunited,

Shaping up, being woven into

what seems like a patchwork unfinished,

Abandoned by the finesse of some lass.

Picked by the Craftsman, Girdled around His fingers,

Bound to His Craftsmanship, giving way to a yarn.

A yarn woven to cover the wilderness

To sheathe the nude

For all that reflects

In this man-made world

Are masks and silhouettes

Attires hiding shame

Apparels covering greed

To project only beauty

That appeals to the eye

The eye that sees the surface

And shuns what is beneath.

There are other worlds to sing in.....

A robin alights on a branch of a canopy a fine day. Amused by the various shades of its suburbs, it ponders day and night, how to spread its wings, how to make its nest. Quiet and sober, it hums a tune a day and spreads its aura to the sudden delight of its fellow creatures. 

It’s not too late when it starts identifying itself with the place, the shades and the creatures which all together make up a world of its own.It becomes the most sought after chirpy feathery angel with its beautiful colors and melodious charm that is contagious. But, while it is the heart of the jungle, it forgets that life plays its own games. Amidst friends and pleasant companions, there are hidden demons that are dark and dangerous. The threads of its everyday life are so intertwined in the mesh of the greens that it wipes out the memory of all lands it has visited far and near.

Just then, nature spins its wheel of fate and the robin is alarmed! It has to leave everything behind and visit another land that is now alienated. It has dearth of choices. It can’t even understand or reveal this sudden whiff that is going to change everything overnight.

Leaving her tits and bits, before dawn can make the picture vivid to all, it flies away with a heart that is both happy and sad, but too heavy for the wings to lift….

It inhabits a new branch and ponders once again that it should never forget, it is destiny’s child, and there are other worlds to sing in…..

Inspiration Live...

Born as an angel on the tenth day of December, when the maple leaves were basking and shining in the glory of the balmy sun, she spreads her radiance all around, inviting smiles from whoever looks at her.

So cherubic is her countenance that one forgets about all the worries of the world on witnessing this friendly child, but, soon their smiles are turned into expressions of sympathy and pity…..

And that is when they see that although God had carved her out of His finest moulds, destiny had something else in store for her. It was during her birth that control over her nerves was lost, resulting in partial disfigurement of her limbs and mild mental retardation.

Yes, she is my first cousin who is five years younger to me and is full of life, to say the least. So unique is my emotional connect with her that despite the lack of regular communication all these years, we are unquestionably fond of each other.

This, I realized over the past two years since I have been putting up with my uncle’s family, where I get to see a splendid harmony that the members have succeeded in striking with an aim to lead a normal life.

Many names as she has, Cherry is what we call her out of love, although each one of us has different salutations that express our adoration towards her, and she responds to all of them with twinkling eyes !

If she happens to meet you once, she will never forget you and will talk about you often enquiring about your next visit.

I often become the subject of her wrath when I don’t speak to her immediately after I’ve reached home after a long day at work. But, anger is fleeting for her. So, as soon as you go near her or hold her hands and whisper in soft polite notes, she is all smiles in no time !

And if you want to please her beyond ordinary, just gift her a beautiful pen and a writing pad, or a CD of her favorite numbers or a nice story-book. That’s all she ever demands as a child.

I find it a way of expressing my gratitude to God for making difficult times easier for me here, by attributing the possibility to her presence.

There have been times when I have had a heavy heart but unable to share it with anyone, when I sit beside her for a couple of minutes, the heaviness takes a swift ride to some other lands. Its divine intervention that she enjoys the same songs that bear meaning to me, has the same taste for food, things and people and there is a parallel link in our thoughts which we can both identify with and sometimes talking through eyes is enough.

It makes me proud to have the same frequency of thoughts as hers and in the same I find solace amongst all the turbulence that surrounds me.

Educated till tenth grade in the Sophia Opportunity High School, beyond which her impairments ceased to support her in becoming one of us in this competitive world, fate decided to keep her away from malice, lest she becomes too civilized to sustain her purity and goodness. It had been a journey full of photographic memories for her where the school staff had not only been exceptionally cooperative and understanding but also provided her some of the most beautiful moments of her life like winning a race, or performing the Rainbow Dance or getting featured in the annual school magazine !

Substituting and filling for this lack of any standard training, fatherly guidance and wisdom rushed to her rescue. Her enlightenment is often astonishing as to how easily she can distinguish the good from the bad which men of sound wisdom can’t. She can comprehend and converse in almost five languages leave apart her excellent communication through gestures, expressions and body language. She is sensitive towards human pain and gets hurt by harsh words easily.

If I’m not being exaggerative, she is adept at typing and documenting data with such expertise that you might want to avail of her services now and then. Possessing an excellent grasping power, she is ever keen to learn new activities.

Painting the world fairer with her challenging survival, she is a storehouse of inspiration in the daily humdrum of my life in which we often fail to see beyond the inadequacies….

Unlike Me......

 Mounted on the silver sphere, clad in white, flowers intertwined in my free-flowing hair, I descend from the sky and land onto the stage that is lit up in midnight blue.

Yes, this is the moment when I await his arrival….to embrace me and waltz with me to celebrate the joy of life ! I experience sheer delight which I had always imagined. I wish to be swept off, to be carried away, releasing all that I’ve always held within.

Yes, his presence would be like ankle-bells scattered on the floor, causing melodies to resound and rise in unison, to elevate my heart like it was as light as a feather !

I am in the valley of Utopia where thousands of trumpets sing to me in the breeze or may be its my inner bliss. They penetrate every pore in my skin. A gush of ecstasy rushes through and fills me to the brim.

My arms wide open…I wish to sing like no one is listening, I wish to dance like no one is watching, say a thousand words yet uttering nothing. I wish to leap and tell the entire world that I’ve experienced the elixir of love.

I wish to lie on the wet sands and let the waves come to me, caress me, retreating back to gather their charm.

Unguarded and undaunted, I yearn to be enchanted with this feeling I never knew.

A completeness that augments my individuality, a submission that bolsters my feminine strength, an awe that unsheathes all my inhibitions.

Yes, I await it…….!

Retreat...

Its a sea of emotions again...

Emotions that I'm familiar with, emotions my heart craves for and emotions it dreads.

Once more, I'm in a trance, split between the real and the surreal. I want to believe the rare shades of surrealism and I want those of realism to fade away...

I confront the joys that I always long for. But, there it is......the guard that holds them back, several invisible barriers that keep me from feeling what I do and expressing what I feel.

Why can't I smile back with love when he smiles at me, instead adopting a stern look of indifference and turning away...

Why can't I utter a word when I've been wanting to say so much, waiting for him to come around...

Why can't I yield when he wants to walk with me and drown in his fragrance that I attempt to recreate when I'm alone...

Several unconstructed fences hold me back, injuring me over and over again. I know they're meant to protect me. But, they cause me to behave like a different person everytime, leaving me alone in a world where people think I'm too proud to share my space.

But, they hardly know that I taste pain everytime I feel love. And, thus, I retreat into my shell when I feel like flying the most...

Unison

What you see of me is only my countenance sculptured well. But, as much as I live on the surface, I live within. The outer self has been just beautifully carved and chiseled out of the rock that the inner me harbors and is substantiated with.

It defines my life, the way I lead it and above all, it gives me reason to live it the way I do…….every moment, every hour !

We talk a lot these days about ‘inner voice’ or ‘conscience’ and people say I have one….which they happen to encounter in situations where I am unable to support those around me for the sake of that strange feeling inside my heart that says ‘this doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do’. Call it heart or mind or simply a voice that is active all the time and is omnipresent, happy when I am walking the streets humming my favorite number, sad when I am disappointed with the way people change, anxious when I am waiting for an interview and silent when I don’t give it any food for thought !
But, more than it being my companion, it has now become my soul-cum-devil sister, to whom I feel like pouring out all details of what I go through in the course of the day, in the hustle-bustle of life. Things I could not share with any of those I am dwelling with or those who tend to befriend me only for a passing phase though. Be it acclamation for the work I have done, a new friend that I happened to identify in a stranger till yesterday, a strange feeling that made me happy momentarily although disapproving, a kind act that I found myself prompted to do for the helpless around, the chiding I got even when I was not wrong or that frequent feeling of being estranged to the home I go to every night...
She hears it all, with the ears of a priest who allows the confessor to express without inhibitions, like a friend who shares the joy s/he can sense in the excited voice, like a father who knows which part to emphasize on with a tag of worldly advice and encompassing all, like a mother who engulfs it all for the child’s joy. This inner voice eventually became my secret friend from whom I could quickly sneak an advice in the face of a fleeting moment, when I am not sure how to act or what to say, it is this voice I rely upon. It not only nurses me when I tend to get bruised by the worldly touch but also pampers me when uncertainties tend to pull me down. It helps me act like a considerate daughter, a responsible sister and a storehouse of so many roles we have to play in the ticking hours every day.
But, does this voice have an identity ? a face ? or does it live ?.........Yes, it does !
It was after witnessing a theatrical act, a soliloquy of a person who speaks to her inner voice and realizes some of the realities of her life, that I came back home and questioned myself, do I have an inner voice, does it speak to me…. And immediately the answer came, Yes I do……and all this while what I had not realized is that the inner voice for me is my Mom, she’s always been. She’s the one living within me every fraction of a second, going every place I visit, watching me even as I type these letters and feeling a tide of waves in her bosom whenever I smile or I cry.

She is the internal force that led to the formation of the rock within me and is constantly shaping it even now, giving it tenacity, subtleness and a new look every time that obviously reflects on the surface. She created me out of her blood, gave me her breath when I was strangling to come out, fed me when I was no more than a sheet of flesh covering fragile nerves, and she is still the one striving day and night tirelessly to make me a human who would surpass human flaws and exceed human expectations, a daughter she would be proud of and already is, from the moment she yielded me...
She is like the ‘Black Diamond’ rushing with a lightning speed in the darkness of those silent hours when passengers have been long waiting after the hectic day’s chores to go home, cold, hungry, devoid of sleep. The Express means a lot of things to them. Its sight enbalms them with the comforting feeling of being home instantaneously. They forget about the hunger or the sleep. All they think about is a seat on those hard wooden or metal benches whereon they can sit, munching peanuts, playing cards, cracking jokes or carelessly going off to sleep awakened only by the shouts of the herds of rickshaw pullers when the last station arrives who ride them home safely despite the winding, rustic ways dotted with dark trees and wide expanse of fields whose ends are way beyond sight now.
Her voice is like the jingle of tiny bells hanging from anklets in the hum-drum of life, like hundreds of festivals being celebrated together when I am strolling on dark unfamiliar streets, like infinite notes being orchestrated in harmony amidst the cries of commoners.
The chord that had kept me connected to her is still alive, making two lives in unison, breathing joy and pain alike...

FOR YOU.........MAA

Oh Mother !
What should I do to depict you ?
Should I compare you to the sun, which burns itself energising others or to a river, which is another name of life for thirsty travellers.
You are the ocean when I am thirsty.
You are the oasis when I am deserted.
You are my lady personified, whenever I feel myself all alone in the miseries and in the uncertainities of the world.

The Search

Since the creation of man by God, The Lord, humanity has raced endless tracks and many a path it has trod.

Being gifted with powers a match to none, he left behind all creatures in his unparalleled run.

Clothed in wilderness and innocence of Creation, he raised from its laps abjuring primitivity and headed for even stars and what is not in Heaven !

Hallowed was his birth in the womb of Nature..that in the course of race grew fainter and fainter

Now, the track seems to dive deep down at the bottom as if Hell has replaced Heaven where darkness reigns fanthoms

But, wait, someone stands there who has not lost his halo

He is paving way for humanity, he is guiding every fellow

I wish that luminous flame could reside within all, that not only brilliantly shines but also kindles a spark in all and my soul !

It is not the momentary glow of a worm that makes men blind and falter

One can find in it the steadiness and calmness of the candle that burns at the altar

It burns itself to give light to others, still it loses nothing of its own

But, doing so, it only grows more lustrous !

He is the masterpiece of the Supreme Architect, he is most like the human, God must have ever desired to create

In this race of humanity, I was on the track of searching the counterpart of darkness

And the wishful search ends with the discovery of 'The Divine Spark'.

Simple souls that impart life

I owe my life to my parents.I am grateful to them from the deepest of my heart for what they have made me.I wish that even the faintest region of my shadow be painted with the beautiful and divine colours of their greatness.

Let their blessings, principles and teachings be the ladder through which I can rise above clouds, the life jacket with which I can leave behind the stormy waters, the umbrella to protect me from Sun and the rains, the shield to confront even the toughest challenges of life.

They are the chords of my heart which enable it to beat and hum saying..................

Holy creatures dropped from Heaven

Bestowed with all goodness,but, no malicious burden

They only know how to love and pamper

Even their slightest chide is mingled with utmost care

They would make every possible sacrifice in the world without uttering even a single word

They would starve themselves to make their child live, laugh and prosper well

But, even the slightest remorse and expectation in them won't dwell

Their touch of care is like a free floating feather

The cliff of their shield, even, the strongest turbulence can't weather

They act as propellers throughout our life

They can shred their last drop of blood to paint us alive

Selfless beings that defend us from life's every whirl

They are the oysters that impart us the shine of a pearl

Even if you dislodge their heart and falter on your way,

The heart would sympathetically ask you, 'Are you okay ?'

Earthly beings or Gods, I still don't know what to call them

I think the Creator shaped them because in words, even He couldn't define them !

An old pal !

Truly named and rightly called, he is the 'Son of Christ'.The purest soul I've ever met and who cant even breathe the whiff of sin. His heart is of gold if that's the best comparison.He would silently walk in the footprints made by him as a play-mate.My old pal, Christy, carpetted my life with warmth and hopes in High School.His playful ways and humble nature can remind anyone of the childhood primitivity making him greedy, craving to abjure all ways towards materialism.I dedicate the following to him with utmost adoration...................

What should I do to depict you.

Calling you earthly would ill define you

A creature divine, sent by Lord, The God,

To add a pinch of happiness in this world full of odds-

An embodiment of virtues, compassion and affection

Pudged of grossness as if an incarnation

He sooths many hearts, relaxes many lips

He spreads radiations in the place he visits

The radiations glowed my life on the cherishable day I met him

They brightened it further since the day I understood him

In the early days, I thought him to be great

But, as time followed, he grew reverent and affectionate

He is as innocent and tender as a half-opened bud

But, at times, more caring than a mom to her pup

Anger and malice do not dare to touch him

Good things and feelings can't afford to keep away from him

He is a person, not only I, everyone likes and loves

He is more cute and adorable than a pair of doves

He gifted me with friendship when I had lost faith in it

He redefined the word when all others had fouled it

He is the brightest jewel in my crown, I would always like to possess

To be lucky enough to get him, I always do profess

He knows not how to hurt even the plume of a bird

But, once or more, I hurt him and thought I must have lost him

I thought him to be carried away by others

And so grew envious and suspicious

Then, he was the one to open my eye, He taught me to be patient and to rely

So, here, let me make the heartiest confession

My ways were out of sense of possession

The fear of my jewel being stolen..

The threat of my friendship being broken

Since men want their passion to be reciprocated

I desire my friend to always be bonded

And if at all, my friendship be true

Even if things go out of way, I have the firm belief I say

Time and distance may keep us apart, but, he will always remain in my heart

For, in my life, he's similar to none

I pray for his success and happiness to come.

CHILDHOOD IMAGES

The feathery white sheet that covers mountain peaks is only lifeless 'ice' when created by God.
It is the warmth of the Sun that melts it into water and means life to all creations...
 
It is the pull of gravity that imparts it motion and makes it flow...
 
It is the contour of the landscape that decides the direction of its flow !!
 
Likewise, it is God who creates us, they are our parents who bring us to this world, and they are our teachers who show us the way of life and teach us how to regulate our pace when leading it.My English teacher in the final years of school...Mrs.Parul Castle...is a name that is not only a word but a miracle that incorporates the 'warmth' of the Sun, the 'attraction' of the gravity and the 'features' of the landscape for me.

Our coming across each other was no less than a blessing for me.She has a seat in the heart of my hearts which can only be a divine wish. People might not witness her around me but I can still feel her presence.
Having been known to her only since a few years, to me, she is no less than a friend since ages.
I cannot justify the depth and intimacy of our association, still, a thought about her flashes across my mind transforming me into 'Alice In Wonderland' :)
The brightness of her sight even when she is not near me, the softness of her unspoken words, the gentleness of her touch without any physical contact and the communication with her heart without any network makes her my 'Lady Personified'.
Such inevitable and unparalleled fantasy and protection she offers, compels me to give her the status of God's most powerful manifestation - Mother.
The word self-encompasses everyhting in Creation or even that beyond its limit.
But, I do not have words that would encompass my feelings.
What she is to me, is unmentionable - something which only I and my God knows - or may be not even I !