The "Y" Side...

A generous smile greeted me when I opened my eyes,
It was different around than what I had imagined in my mother's womb,
I tried to move around and saw him then,
My source, such was his graceful appearance...

I instantly realised that I knew him,
He had heard me move in my mother's womb,
Placing his hand to feel how big I had grown,
That was my first contact with things alien separated by a thin membrane..

One day, he took me around,
me sitting on his shoulders,
to a place too far that I can't remember,
To see a Sun setting, a life down the hill gearing up for the night.

I wondered, why he was so calm most of the time,
Everyone else around seem to talk as if there's no tomorrow,
He replied for everything with an unreasonable smile and calmness,
I believed everything what others had told about him...he was so unusual!

One fine day, I happened to see his other side,
He was talking too much....and something seemed to be awry,
I think he just wanted to be himself,
A shade of his persona which was unknown to many.

Years later I looked at myself in the mirror,
And couldn't stop wondering,
How in the world could two people be so similar!
I had inherited his calmness...that eternal calmness!
and everything which people couldn't understand about him...

He's more than twice my age now
and staring down at the other half of life,
he drops a little hints here and there,
just to make me realize that my days have come to stand up for the rest!

Another day,Another night
I come across the bills and recall those visits,
For a moment I forget about the blood and hysteria around
Thinking about the feeling of togetherness...if only for a brief time
A privacy felt amongst a crowd...in a foreign land...

I think the day isn't too far,
which he had been preparing me for,
A day when he no longer would be on my side holding my hand
and let me fly free with time...

If only he could be with me,
To let me put my head on his shoulder,
and see the sun going down the sea,
With a calmness that exists between us...


P.S...To a person who gave me my name
From a person trying to live upto that name....

Alapana...

A chorus in my backyard forced me to take notice,
Something so soothing...so reminiscent of days of my youth,
I walk now with a stick in my hand,
which never forgets to remind me of the days to come...

The evening sun infront of the house was going down the sea,
A glowing red spreads across the waters
Never had it ceased to amuse me as a child,
That Sea could engulf something so powerful...

The little waves touching my feet,
taking the sand away from underneath,
Something like time does to you...
Takes away moments but promising to return with better ones...

Once, I prayed so hard to let me fall back in time,
To a life that I had once lived,
Where all I would care was to forget about time,
That was the time when the next day was more promising...

I was amidst people who were brimming with life,
Bustling but serene at the same time,
When severing was not in mind,
yet knowing that one day we have to face it.

And then we did face it,
promising each other to never forget,
Etching the memories to our souls,
we moved on to the other side of life...

That's when probably I began thinking about time,
and from then on it started going faster than I thought of,
Years later, I looked back,
Found nothing apart from the lingering images of my youth...

I ask the rain, do you fall there too?
Where someone I know lives...
I ask the wind, do you blow there too?
Where someone I know lives...

Perhaps the sun is the best of all the messengers,
Rising in one part of the world while setting in the opposite,
It soothed me that we all share the same warmth,
Just reflecting what someone else is thinking in some part of the world...

I smiled that the waves washing my feet,
once kissed the feet of others I knew,
It made me jealous for an instant,
that when I couldn't,they met the ones I love.

The dusk reminded me of the night to come,
Reminding me that the time has come,
To walk back into oblivion of my life,
And seek a rhythm to this dwindling life....

I smile at the days bygone and hope the time keeps its promise,
But life's just that...made up of broken promises and hopes of undoing that,
Pure melody I would say, this way of life,
Chaotic yet reminding you that serenity exists in some part of the world,
A peace which everybody seeks, but only some find....

Dedicated to.....12 men with whom Time had been glorious(I wish there was no such thing as time!), a friend whose passion for books/theatre is immense, a friend who has never ceased to surprise me(my best partner when it comes to movies!)..."A n S", a journey through the lanes of Pilani which introduced another friend into list of specials, a lovely friendship forged in 3-2(i regret for not knowing all of them before...but better late than never!)....a lovely school where I first learnt to "converse".....Orkut/Facebook/Yahoo msgr for keeping those conversations alive after 8 long years!....and everyone else with whom I have spend my days and those whom I always to know but couldn't....[:)]

Note....In Indian classical music, an alapana is defined as the exposition of a raga(Melody). The flavor of the raga is outlined in the alapana by rendering the raga's permitted notes in structures and phrases unique to the raga. Alapana typically precedes a song that is going to be sung in the given raga.

Samsara...

A fine morning greeted by singing birds and warm sun,
There was buzz around nothing like I had ever seen,
Quite an anxious day it was turning out to be,
I was being goaded to prepare myself to meet my prospective in-laws along with their son,

It was as if my whole life depended on that nod!
How old was I? Twenty??
I was cajoled to leave everything in the hands of God...
It wasn't the God that I thought of, but my life ahead which was filled with hopes plenty.

Little after 9 I guess, they had come,
I couldn't wait and saw the guy from a crack on the door,
Impressive I thought, he looked too calm!
My plans had changed now and I toyed with the idea of life with him more and more...

I walked into the room and pretended not to see him,
He didn't look at me either, but had the nerve to request for a private moment with me,
I wondered what he's gonna say
That was the first time I cursed myself for being unprepared for this moment

He looked around the room,
And admired the zari on my saree,
Maybe he didn't know where to start,
And I comforted him by blurting out something stupid!

After sometime we seemed to have hit a roadblock,
This was more or less a negotation
of what he likes and what I like,
little did we know how we are gonna end it!

And the unexpected happened atlast...
He asked, "What do you expect from me?"
I seriously had no clue...I had never thought about it myself,
He repeated once more, but I couldn't say anything..

Now it was my turn and I struck my blow!
I asked,"Are you ready for this?"
This caught him off-guard and he kept calm,
Both of us kept calm and looked into each other's eyes.

A little later, everything was fixed,
nobody gave us a chance to speak,
we were told that we were too shy to say anything
So...there it was...things worked out without even my nod.

Years later....one fine night,
I woke up to the sound of a thunder in the middle of a rain,
Wondering if my life was a dream or just a joke,
I looked around and found nothing but silence.
Silence and more of it, I had all day,
But I couldn't get an answer for that "why?"
Why did this happen?
Why didn't anyone stop it?

When I met him first, he asked me,
How do you see your life 10 years down the lane?
I didn't have an answer, but he did
I wonder why he never told me what he had in mind.

Over the years, the roads diverged
and one fine afternoon that happened.
Ever since I tried hard to connect the dots of our lives
Trying to understand if he was one unhappy or was it me?

The smile on my face is gone
replacing that is a eternal gloom
of having done something terrible
An unfathomable fear of being the reason for his death.

Yes, he died...but he had killed me years before,
Years before, when he became indifferent to my presence,
It was as if I am no more than a ghost,
Ghost who destroyed his Samsara...

His Samsara...where I didn't have a place!

The Cursed...

The drops of rain kissing my body woke me up,
And people I saw around me giving a look profound,
How many times do I tell them that such things I scorn,
Yet the anger of my thoughts dies without making a sound.

Many a times I think with this burden on my back,
How cruel could Zeus be to give such a spherical shape to this stack,
How could he do this to me?...I merely played my part in the war...
he cursed me to bear this burden for eternity!

You know what the worst part is?...
I can't look at the Heaven, though it's me who bears the burden
Neither can I see the Earth , though it's just below where the heaven is,
Day and night, I look down and see nothing but a path untrodden.

I wasn't meant to be like this,
I hope my Lord would heed to my prayers,
but he never forgets to mention the betrayal,
and that erodes my hopes of redemption layer by layer.

All you creatures glaring at me from down there,
I have just one thing to tell you,
Don't forget that you too have a burden on your shoulders,
The burden of hopes and that of consequences,
You can't escape it, yet you think I am the only one around to carry it!

My lord! You have kept me down for time immemorial,
Yet I never understood what delight that begets
Maybe soon, one day you will realise my worth
And that day, I will look into your eyes
And say to myself, so this is how you look after all these years?

I once had a dream, to stand tall!
That's still a dream, but maybe the day isn't too far
I will swim across this pool and put the sphere under my feet
And scream....I am Atlas, the immortal Titan!

I am Atlas...I am Atlas...

What lies Beyond??

One...two..three...I am coming,
"Sebastian, Ariel I shall find you".
I swim rather quickly flapping my small fins,
But I seem to be falling behind the other two.

Atlast I see them laughing in one corner
Laughing at my innocent and curious looks to find them,
I give up and swim across to join them rather meekly,
It's all so beautiful with them....we dance, we swim.

One day, I looked at the mighty gates of Atlantis,
Sebastian told me that beyond it lies a world turbulent,
So turbulent that you rarely have a chance to look back
I couldn't take my eyes of those gates, beyond it everthing looked fabulous

I began to think about those gates day and night
and began wondering how would life be without Sebastian and Airel?
Finally, I dared one day and crossed those gates
And I told myself,"Flounder, Here you go........!"

I swam..I swam as if there was no end,
All along, there were schools of others like me,
And there were corals, plants alien to me
Everything looked so beautiful and merry

And then I reached the edge of that land,
Beyond that, it was getting darker
I remembered Sebastian's words about a turbulent world,
I wondered if this was that? Yet, I couldn't stop myself...I carried on.

Somewhere down there, I got sucked into the current,
I couldn't look back...there was no looking back
I loved my ride, but little did I know where I would end up,
Something about life beyond the gates intrigued me.

The water was calm again, and I had no clue where to go,
Suddenly a Shark saw me and invited to have dinner with him,
I didn't like him and so I carried on my journey,
But perhaps that was my mistake, I should have stayed back with him

I turned and found myself heading straight towards the whale
It sucked everything down and I was afraid of getting lost
I tried to flap back and don't fall trap to this,
somewhere I prayed that I should have died in the hands of that shark rather than the whale!

The situation got too frantic
and as a last resort I prayed
O King Triton...O God Posiedon...Help Me...Help Me!
I don't know who it was, but with that flash of lightening I fainted

I woke up amidst Ariel and Sebastian,
They were laughing again that I had a daydream!
I smiled at my moronic dream,
Yet..I couldn't stop thinking about the life beyond...

What lies beyond? What lies beyond?