Empirical Worship

I try to reach You in my way

Sometimes like a scientist,

By resolving Anger and Fear

Into their primary colors

And then getting tired, angry and scared

Just to doze off in Your arms.

Sometimes like a poet,

Loving just to know How it feels..to love.

Sometimes honestly alone

And sometimes honestly sad

Sometimes finding happiness

in watching a line of ants walking by my bedside.

You are in the recipes I invent

In my own kitchen, just to realize later,

That I discovered something written ages ago

But then, the joy of finding You

Overpowers all the labels.

And in the free moments of my fearless solitude

As my eyes see a colorful kite

Playing hide and seek with the sun rays

I drop all my hopes in joy

And I call You my freedom.

I know by now that it is not easy

That all mothers are not free

The difference between hopelessness

In joy and sadness alike,

And the boundaries of liberty

I am grateful for that place

Between my heart and my mind

Where sometimes You come to visit me.

Gardening

Answers to a lot of everyday puzzles
grow in the vegetable patch in the backyard..
I used to wonder why people like gardening
Now I know.

Juicy tomatoes help forget
The dry and pointless discussions at work
Hot chili sometimes soothes
The chilly winds between two people
What you sow comes out faithfully
And usually grows in direct proportion
With the care taken.

A fully grown garden
With mango and gardenia trees
Invites yoga mats and garden salads
And so much companionship!
Probably because trees don't talk
And don't have opinions
People converse in silences
In the gardens that they make

Gardens never break
Never fight and never let you down
Maybe that is why everyone travels inwards
Sometime sooner or later
Into the Gardens.

Journey

I like being suspended between lands

Just for a while when I travel

You are on a plane, all packed 

And dressed in your casual best. 

The frenzy of leaving done with

And the haste of arriving still far away

On a cloud, sipping your wine

Picking fruit from the little fruit box

Presented to you with a professional alacrity

Going back after a long time 

With your immediate future taken care of

Flights,hotels and train tickets all arranged

But the far away future is like scrambled eggs

No room for ten-years-later 

Questions after questions and lots of them

To be answered (or dodged) starting from Mumbai airport. :)

At such times,  poor mind seeks solace

In this little comma in the air

That is going to keep you away, 

At least for a few hours..

From all the panic of arranging full-stops for you! 

Thank Heavens for Journeys.

Desert Sand

Wavy hair against the wind

A Little palm pressed in her father's hand

She learnt to take her baby steps

In the shifting Earth of the Desert Sand

The clouds made shapes in her Happy Sky

And the Rainbows stretched in her wing span

But all her dolls and doll houses

Were always made of the Desert Sand!

The years began to show some Colors

As the Moon gave her a pair of tides

Her solitudes letting her get away

To see all her unseen sides

By the Oasis in the hesitant Rains

Her sculpted breasts and her easing waist

Were made of evasive Desert Grains

All her lovers faded into the Night

Slipped away from her porcelain hands

Her face was always full of Flowers

Flowers made of  the Desert Sand!

So many mirages to chase! 

And not one that quenches thirst

Solitude meeting Solitude again

In the shifting storms of the wise Desert!

She realizes that behind her curves,

Behind her beauty and her grace,

Of a Golden Deer in a Camel's Land

Lies the wisdom of a tired man 

Who's bones are made of Desert Sand!

Although she is known to many 

A Woman desired by every Man

She will return to what she blossomed from

The calm expanse of the Desert Sand!

Dots

Raindrops on a Lotus Leaf

And my silly mind

I can look for a better contrast

But I know I will never find..

When I was a little girl

I closed my eyes in bed

And waited patiently for sleep

But saw these dots instead

Red and Blue dots 

Coming towards my nose

And I followed them all the way

Squinting on the rows

But now when I am in bed

And eager to follow those dots

They get brutally conquered 

By my peripatetic thoughts

Then I stand aside 

And try to direct my thoughts

Full of purpose and pride

Of standing out of the lot

Alas! I must confess

Even that is a mind-game

But I don't know what part of my mind

Finally calls it lame

Feelings are bad enough

Thoughts are even worse

And a million words to describe them

To make a pointless verse..

Language is such a burden sometimes

Too pretentious for the unsought 

After all it all begins

And ends in a little dot!

You

All the excess goes to You

Too much Joy and I can't share

The stifled tears 

And the silent Despair

They are all Yours to be heard

And also all that remains unheard

The giggling rivers of unexpected Happiness

And the silent Moonlight of Melancholy

The Des with the morning rays

And the sad soulful Puriya

That is never sung for the hundred ears

That surround me. 

And You never complain!

Even though You are all alone

And I am sometimes out of tune

Never skeptical of my easy Happiness

Or weary of my transient Tears

You give me fluffy clouds 

And a clear blue sky

When I come to You with a cloudy mind

And when I grow wings

You gently pull the Earth upwards

So that it touches the soles of my feet!

I am grateful 

And I will always be

In Laughter and Pain alike

For this compassionate Eternity! 

Free

I am just flowing now
They seem to call me the River
And when the high mountains call
They will call me a Waterfall
In humble slums where mosquitoes huddle
They will clamp their noses and I will be a Puddle
Where am I going and what will I be?
Maybe the Rainfall or the Sea.

In any case I am not worried at all
Even when I am a Waterfall
The pleasures of being able to know
That you can even just let go
Or being heated and vaporized aloud
To turn into a thick dark cloud

I resign..I resign !!
I am happy with my peaceful mind
That helps me leave the happiness behind
I don't turn around to look
Failure is just a word in a book
Content with the place I choose
I never win and I never lose..
Free from the dales of unwanted sorrow
Free from Yesterday and Free from Tomorrow!

Homesick

I hear the Markets at 2 AM
Selling little eggplants with thorns
The half-moon slice of papaya with lemon
Half a glass of thickened tea
Long-lost cousins popping up
Telling me about their marriages and babies
Piping hot sheera with a scent of banana
With the morning dew on flowers

It is funny how my mind frees itself
And goes to India at night
Without a ticket, a passport even
And comes back by the morning light
When I wake up, it takes me a while
To know where I am
And early mornings are filled with sheer amusement
Of my mind's incredible wingspan!

The days are not too bad
Realistic,logical and scientific
Where I rationalize unreasonable events
And make peace with delays and mistakes
Returning to silent evenings
And cooking a Meal.

But I do look forward to bedtimes
When I can take my mind off her leash
And let her wander into the streets
Of my childhood
And tell me stories from home
When I am fast asleep !!

Chemistry ;)

You and Me
Is just Chemistry
And love is a chemical too
So eat some bread for your seratonin
Next time you feel a little blue
When you think you have thought
A little too much
And you are looking for a place to flee
Try out an easier solution first
A fresh cup of tea!
What is future after all!
All that you want to do
Let it linger at the back of your mind
That dreams are molecules too!
Leftover opinions from the residues of past
The broken heart refuses to leave behind
When you give it a little Buddha thought
The Past and the Future are just in your mind!
You can sit back and sip coffee
Till the time memories and fears lurk
Beneath the shadows of your tired mind
You will know that opinions are just hard work!
And who are you after all?
A sub-atomic particle in this Universe
Oblivious and eager to change
But controlled securely by a nucleus :)

PS: This was supposed to be posted here, but I did it by mistake on PurpleMoon and now I am really bored to delete that one. :D

Time Tables

I never carry a copy of the train time-table
I always go and wait on the station
Until the next one comes
Because I know it will in some time
It does not matter how long
I don't plan the ten minutes around it
I just wait.

And as I do sometimes
I meet an old woman
With a silver brooch on her dress
Who went to India in the early sixties
Or a woman whose Golden Retriever
Just gave birth to a litter
I see oddly adult school girls
Experimenting with makeup
And stiff men in shirt sleeves
Going to the city for work
Sometimes on a bench in the corner
Sleeps a wasted man, oblivious
To the frenzy of the sober world
And for a split second I envy him
For his dauntless abandon

Sometimes I can see my train
Going without me in front of my eyes
Because I am one minute too late
But then I just tell myself
That I am fourteen minutes too early
For the next one

I love the person inside me
Who does not care a crap
About train time-tables!

The Blue Umbrella

The rain provokes Umbrellas
Purple, Pink and Mauve
Sometimes over some eccentric head
With bunny ears and painted whiskers!
Some of them are like little posh women
Folding into a non entity
And fitting snugly into a tiny handbag
They also make them for snobs
Pitch black with a curved handle
Large enough to fit five
But allowing only one aquiline nose
While the others shiver in soggy pants
Some of them are unpretentious
Openly advertising a grocery shop
While the bushy head underneath
Enjoys it's free dry space with a disarming smile
A little theater with Polka dots
And a big window with see through sheets
That lets you see the happy rain
Come down in silver lines
And how they end up flirting with wind
Turning inside out in the middle of the road
And dragging the frail bodies under them
Into a desperate rain-soaked frenzy
Some times in a busy mall
Sheltering two heads under one of them
Two halves holding dry hands
And the rest left at the mercy of the Rain
Sometimes when you have none
And you are two heads shorter than everyone
Walking under all of them
To reach the end of a busy street!
Little replicas of the prettiest of all
The Big Blue Umbrella
With Rainbows and clouds
And a million shimmering stars
That never goes out of fashion!

The Seven Twelve

All that idle thought
About what is yet to be
And what might not
The struggles to set me free
Of the fears yet unsought
And even later will be
A confirmed useless lot

Vanishes with the seven twelve
That takes me to the city
As I sit by the window and dwell
Over a pack of spaghetti
And whether I have enough tomatoes
To make a perfect sauce
All my borrowed woes
And the little cosmetic loss
Dissolve in caustic and brine
In a chaos, never to be recovered
And I am just as fine
All packed with a lunch and showered
Waiting again, for the seven twelve
That completes the circle
Of my worry-less quantum of Life!

The Unexpected Two Dollar Coin

Getting into a skirt after a long long time
As I pose, I suddenly find
Snugly asleep in the right hand pocket
A dull, golden two dollar coin!
I can feel it before I see it
Small, heavy with a sluggish pace
Unlike the ugly fifty cents
That seem to roll all over the place!

And as they pull it out of there
My fingers fade away into a dream
Of pairing it with another of it's kind
For an Afogato with two scoops of ice cream
Or maybe use three fourths of it
To buy a Koala postage stamp
And send home a letter full of pointless babble
With a clever card for my grand mom!
Spend it in the pharmacy
To remove the blackheads off my face
Or drop it with a melodious tinkle
In the mall singer's guitar case
A fancy pencil that goes swoosh-swoosh
Between the lines of my lab book
A dollar for the waiter in the Indian restaurant
And another for the cook

But then I think I would be nicer
If I just close my eyes
And save the fat chubby two dollar coin
For another Happy Surprise. :)