Real love

 

Real love will be like water,--

flowing, cleansing, fresh,

It will softly brace you,

Give a very gentle touch,

It won’t hit you,

It will be around you,

It won’t try to barge into you,

It’s there to keep you afloat,

not drown you,

If you drown that’s due to your own

gasping fears and insecurities,

If you are open and give it space,

it will spread like a translucent sheet

as long as you have space in your heart,

where stars, sky, moon, clouds

will see how they look,

You will turn their mirror,

If you turn narrow like a gorge,

it will rush past with noise and fury,

It will rasp against your stony walls,--

not to break them

but to slowly make you realize

that these stony cliffs imprison you;

that actually these are what causes

this torrential roar in the flow of your life,

It shakes your precipitous slopes

to gently remind them the futility of

standing too rigid and haughty,

It doesn’t try to attack or change you,

It just keeps with its gentle, wavy reminders

until one fine day

the steep slope of your rigidity melts

and falls into the stream by itself,

It doesn’t try to push you out of its way

if the boulder of arrogance and conditioning

comes across its way,

It just flows past and around you,

Not leaving you alone

but always kissing your hard outer shell,

making you first mossy, round

and then you roll and flow

and settle with the painless bed of sand

it has prepared for you to rest.

That’s real love,

It’ll be always there

in one form or other

like water, vapor or snow,

It will save you from hate,

She may no longer the princess of your dreams,

or he your prince charming

but you will still have enough reasons

to smile sometimes

far away in time and space.

In love with your place

 

One should know

how to fall in love with one’s place,

It’s an art, or rather craft

how to stamp and seal

the significance of little things,

little corners, tiny moments and

common people around you,

We just need an eyes for them

and an open heart

to see, smell, touch, taste and hear

these soft, welcoming murmurs:

your very own neighborhood park,

local market street, corner shops,

the familiar people, the usual trees,

hoardings, banners, street dogs,

cats, cars, bikes, beggars, carts, vendors,

Everything that strikes you

with familiarity and recognition,

Some bench in a solitudional corner

in the nearby park,

Some trees that look happy and healthy,

So also the ones sad, weak and brooding,

Some bird that you can recognize

among the rest of birds,

Some sound that you like—

be it a bird or human,

Some hawkers that shout in your street,

The usual beggar that you see usually,

The brightest and naughtiest kids around,

Some beautiful smile on a lovely face

that makes you feel good,

Few people who wish you well on the way,

The old people going on their walks,

Someone’s pet that fills you

with a good feeling,

The parked car that you would love to have,

The house that you like,

The paint the you like the most,

The dress on someone

that gives you positive vibes,

Someone’s voice that is full of sweetness,

The chatty neighborhood grocer,

The busiest ones always hurrying,

The laziest feasting upon free time,

The oldest one going slow on the path of life,

The latest born with its rising sunrays,

The tree that looks sad and you empathize with,

The joyful tree,

The little backstreet lane

where you can walk,

The door that makes you feel curious,

The familiar and unknown faces.

 

Dear, your very own little place

has it all

that any other place possesses,

It’s there,

Spot its pulse,

Accept its invitation,

Be its visiting guest

and go around like a tourist,

And then it will spring so many surprises

to keep you entertained and relaxed.

The naked hole

 

There is a hole in my heart

hanging like an ornate amulet,

And when sadness is groping

along the deepening twilight shadows,

it gets transfigured into a hook,

It sadistically pierces and

dredges the mud of memories,--

a perpetrator of pain,

It opens a gateway for

blatant intrusion of grief.

 

There is a craft of living,

To live is to look

hodge-podge normal on the surface,

So I express my grief and pain

through a laugh,

a casual remark and silly talk,

a smile, a joke,

a set of plain mundanities

which help those around

in holding onto their concept of life.

 

The seasons change

But the springs and summers fail

to melt and thaw

the frozen heart

with its icy hole

leading to a cave

emanates from which a silent scream.

 

I know that

one has to learn

to forget to live

and engage with petty, chattering festivities

that sum up as

individual and collective life,

But the hole’s hook is anchored deep

to keep the ship of my life

stranded in the betraying bay,

while the open seas beckon

with its waves and tides of freedom.

 

Look at love!

Its circuitous, meticulous forays,

It loops, tangles, untangles,

unites, breaks and finally shatters

the stones that were once pearls,

It has its gifts and allowances for the kids

playing to its script and direction:

some trace of truth in a lie;

some grain of lie in truth.

 

Slowly you get attuned to

this hole in you,

Still seeking love

you fall in love

with this missing chunk in you,

You hold the memories in the pit of your soul

and with the fire of your agony

and pressure of your grief

you crystallize them to diamonds,

Then you hold your self-mined treasure

and sadly muse over it as the mystical emblem

of all that you missed, lost and grieve over,

You give it a precious title;

like we did with the golden earth

and named it as gold.

 

You get satiated,

You gloat and float

with air in you

that rushes through your hole,

You bob on the chance waves,

Your emptiness feeling like fullness,

You feel it has been worth it,

You stand like a gentleman

and proudly brace the left pocket on your chest,

You put your hand on it,

You think you are looking decorated, victorious,

praiseworthy and well clad,

But in reality

you are simply

covering that naked hole in you.

Twilight

The celestial lovemaking 

of light and dark 

as the twilights hark,

'Stop, pause and rest

after the day's busy fest.

Love

Sometimes you dump a person 
even though she/he still has a bright smile, 
twinkle in eyes and lovely fragrant words on lips. 
Well, that's simply the sunset of love.
Sometimes you lovingly embrace a person 
despite the frown, caustic remarks 
and tightly pursed lips shut over bad odor even. 
Well, that's simply the sunrise of love.
Love is simply a day 
-- or usually days at random -- 
in people's lives.
And that makes it so ordinary, so natural, so normal.
Let it remain such.
Why make it otherworldly?

The creator

 At a given moment, 
there is no absolute reality 
or truth or existence 
beyond one's set of beliefs, knowledge, 
information, set of conventions and collective mindset, 
and the respective set of contradictions of all the previous categories. 
In our endeavours to find the absolute, 
we simply shift to a different set of all these categories. 
We simply create a new plain of reality. 
We keep pushing our truth 
to cover more space 
and adjust our ever-expanding desires and fears. 
There is nothing to discover, 
There is everything to create--
first in ideas, imagination, emotions, insecurity, expectations and fears; 
secondly, its manifestation in physical reality 
in the domains of art, science, social conventions, economic models, 
everything.

The teachers

Sometimes the things 
that would have come naturally to you 
as a human being 
acquire a difficult shape 
because they try 
to make you learn these by force, 
fearing you won't be of any use without them. 
In your natural state you could have been useful, 
at least like a plant that just grows, 
giving its little share of oxygen, 
shade and a little starter to some hungry goat. 
But the attempt surely leaves you useless -- 
to them at least.