e tumi kemon tumi

Berobey ? amra dujoney shudhu. Kothai ? Kano ? Berotey geley kothai kothata tki fixed kortey hoi ? Ha jani tumi bolbey gontobyo chara chola jai na. Kintu bolo to gontobyo janley, cholar amejtai choley jai tai na ? Tokhon kothayo themey jawa, kothayo ektu dariey dekha, kothayo chokh bondhyo korey nishash newa- shobi kemon jano dom bondhyo hoye chepey ashye. Asholey shomoi  ar  gontobyer majher shasher shomitao boro kom. Tai aaj thak. Emni berobo.

 Brishti ashbey bolchyo ? Ta eleyi ba. Ki korbey bolo? Shey ki onahuto aguntuk ? Takey atkano theek noi, ashley ashbey, amader sathey hatbey na hoi k pa. Osubidhey ki bolo ? Chatha achey amar shongey . Bhodro bhabey obhodrota korbar jonyo , tar thakey shoriey nebo amader. Ektu shomoi er jonyo koto kichur thekey shoriey niyechi amader. Aj na hoi ekjon anmona brishti thekeyi hok.

Ha jani  ami bhijbo ektu. Tumio. Kichu eshey jai tatey bolo ? Tomar anchol diey na hoi amar bheja mathata  muchey nebo. KOno chotto dokaney dariey dhoya otha cha khabo bharey korey. Ada hoito debey na. Elacho na. Tobuyo almunium shader mathya thekey chuiey pora jol dekhtey dekhtey cha khabo. Shongey korkorey aandh chand biscuit. Brishtir chchat ashbey mukhey. Kichu joler fota gal beye thootey ashroi khujbey.  

Hoito bhalo lagbey tomar.  Choshmar jhapsha kancher modhey dieye amar dikey takiey hashbey. Tarpor bhuley jabo amader boyish koto. Haath dhorey brishtir majhey hatthey thakbo. Shei shomoi hoito gomra mukho akash ta heshey shurjyo ke dekey anbey amader dekhtey.

Jabey amar sathey ? 

Sing me a song you are the piano man

Words.
Once expressed.
Heart did not need them.
Only the trust was lost in a shadow fight.

Running to stand still

Running from myself I paused to stop.  For the me was losing to I. I stood unashamed of my nakedness. A human being unpretentious as nature.

In that moment I had dared to metamorphise.

Is this the world we created

Independence day.
The day the British gave us the right to rule ourselves. But now I wonder what we did.  Once upon a time the British clothes were burnt. Now we all wear foreign brands. The toys children used to play are long gone. They are now beautifully made short lived Chinese toys. We are the Japanese in management forgetting the illustrious rulers we had. Mathematics once an Indian domain is now looked down for it fails to give easy lucre. The brilliant politician Chanakya has been replaced with fire and brimstone signifying nothing.  Women, once taken to be a deity, a power is now reduced to a pawn.

Today is not India birthday.
Rather it is a quiet moment to contemplate what we have become.

I hated a guy who was sporting a shorts displaying Union jack. 

I do not hate him anymore.

In solitude

I lived in a world of my own.
I drew my sky my home my trees my sun
I lived happily with myself.
Solitary I said.
Selfish the world said.

Till the zephyr wafted you in.

A walk in the clouds

Tonight.
When you read a poet's life,  you may see just another person who had paused to take a breath. Among the posts that had dried, maybe you will find a person who breathed. Maybe deep in the night when the wind will serenade at the window panes,  maybe you will hear him as he wanted to be heard.
Tonight.
When you think about the poet's words, you may see a person hidden behind.

For tonight
When you walk with the poet
Maybe the moon will rise.

Ode to a white flower

Even in the dark
Even if the song ends
Even if the musicians leave

Hope stays.
A gate crasher.
A lazy bum
Too sorry to leave

In search of a sanctuary

It was a shelter.  Just to hide a tired soul.  Like a pilgrim who had given up and waiting for deliverance. I rested.  To catch a breath. Before the breath would leave.  Like faith that had left it shackles. It was a moment stolen from time. A void that nature forgot to fill and in that brief silent moment I closed my soul to the world around.
But it was a shelter. Ephemeral. Where life would seep in, onto a troubled soul. So I left seeking for an asylum in my delirium.

A search for peace. A search for eutopia.
A fable of life.

From here to eternity

I am just a silhouette.
It is you who interpret.
Add colors and textures.
Add shades and strokes.
As you decipher what I write
I expose myself to you.
As you decrypt my words
You expose yourself to me.
Till the silhouettes fuse
In the continuum of existence.

Dead to born again.

U

To you.
As I come to know you.
For you.
As the world has come to know you.

A Flower Speaks

A flower speaks.
A lot to the world.
And a few to the Bee.

The world listens.
The Bee knows.

Janus

Life?
Are you there?
There was no answer.

Death?
Are you there?
Yes. But not for you now.
Was the reply.

Where did life go?
I asked.
Is it with you I asked death.

Death turned its back.
I found life.

An affair of the heart

Once it used to rain. Once it used to be just the same. All encased in the safety of weather proof wreath of controlled lifeless emotions

But then one day a few drops of rain took shelter in the flower petals.  A few words peeped out from the confines of grammar. A few similie dared to tease the delicate existence. They left the confines of life and started to live.  Beckoning others. Till others tripped in,  in discrete sounds of a piano melody breaking away from the confines of the chord. 

They chatted and dreamed. They wished and hoped. 

For once they stopped existed. 

For the eternity, they lived. 

On words heard and feelings felt.

The kiss.
Suspended between two eager lips.
Till words made their place.
And wrote the epitaph.

Dare to dream

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
What I wonder what you are.

A little nursery rhyme.
Rhymed in the pitter patter of the childish voice.
But one day the child grew up.
And science told that there is no wonder - just a burning gas.
And the Twinkle faded from the eyes.

The heart somehow held on to the twinkle.
And in the silence of the night let that twinkle travel to the closed eyes.
And then the wonder filled the heart.

Muse

What do you seek.  Oh little bee. Will you steal the nectar from the flower? Can you? What will you find in the nectar? A momentary sense of madness? Or a sense of exultation? Do you in that moment forget what you are? Do you stop being an entity and exist as a sense? Heightened by the elixir of creation?  Where you create yourself to destroy and create again? Did you feel the madness of creation where, feelings unknown, possess you like a devil.

What did you find.  Little bee?

When you flew away was there a sadness? Or was there a sense of satisfaction that overwhelms and overpowers into the warmth of intimacy? Did you carry with you the sense of oneness when you flew away?

Did you in the empty space of time, think of the moments and the cold foggy rainy night till the night dissolved in a sanctuary?

Did you find the nectar, little bee?
,

In God We Trust

Do l believe in God?

Where does belief or rather faith spring from. A hand me down Sop? Or some protein strain in DNA that left subdued through generations mutating in an extempore outburst of feeling religious. Maybe it had to be a habit inculcated in childhood that made you bow down in a temple or say your prayers daily in a Jesuit school. I never questioned.

I never questioned when I had fasted,  feeling pious as I am supposed to feel.  I never did question faith when the temple bells rung after midnight and I had to jostle to glimpse the statue of God.

I never questioned why  I felt peace when I lit a candle in the church on Christmas day. I never bothered to find out why I had been overwhelmed and scared standing in the meditation room of Vivekananda Rock.  I never understood why in place of feeling religious I had wondered at the marble figures of Dillard Jain temple.

I questioned why when my head was banged on the walls of Puri temple behind the idols in the dark alley for refusing to pay up the priests.  I questioned why when a Hindu from Cambodia was refused entry into Puri temple. I questioned why when I had to walk with police cordon in a sensitive area of Varanasi.

I question why I need to utter arcane chants that I do not understand to pray to God.

When someone tells me to leave to God, I ask why?

Faith moves mountains.
But where do I find it?
I search.

Intezar

I waited.
A stain of a tear.
In a dusty lost road.
From here to eternity.
A distance near.

The girlfriend

I am not Chetan Bhagat. At least I will not dream of composing half girl friend.  Cause if you use basic algebra you get a halved girl or a halved friend.  But combining the two is the dilemma. A half girlfriend.
I guess we are the only country where a girl is not a friend or rather the juxtaposition of the two nouns end up with it being neither.
The snickering and the know all winks. Girl friend.  Mamma Mia.

You are in college. OMG. And a girlfriend? What about studies.

Few years down the line. You look for settling.  But then again. You get your emotional settled first? And subsistence?

So you go on till you are settled.  And the girl friend gone.  It's you now settling down for the sake of progeny.

So Mr Bhagat,  I would settle down for a muse for eternity.  Never a half baked sad story of a girl friend.