Bang Bang!

I wished upon a shooting star,

Praying that it might listen to my bawl,

As it shot across the dreary blue sky,

Breaking both into beauty and delight.

I lay by the sea and yelped,

Yearning till my love emptied into the tide,

I wished upon the gods of marine and their might,

To take away the pain and free me tonight.

I walked the path with ache in my heart,

I smiled on the outside while I bled cobalt,

I hugged bodies and smoked them up,

I sat alone and tore my world inside out.

I wished for love, never for pain,

I wished for hope, never disdain,

I wished for dream, never nightmare,

I wished for life, never death’s gain.

Image Courtesy Illustrats

Play- Off!

A game of cards,

That’s all aces,

When it starts,

It leads us blatant.

Of the players,

Of the wins,

Of the losses,

Of the kings.

A game of cards,

We fight to win,

It’s all about kismet,

Who gets the queen!

Image Courtsey Illustrats

Urania!

By night, when Polaris comes sprawling out,

She hides within the silhouettes of doubt,

Just as the dark skies reveal and cloak,

She waits for sundry stars to gawk.

She tells the sky to turn murky from azure,

Just then the moon comes out of blue,

She waits for the clock as each second ticks,

Till the time, she can truly breathe again.

As the watch chimes nine,

She sees the sky spread out in shine,

As the veils hover and swing,

Venus awaits the eyes that seeks within.

Image Courtesy Illustrats

Oh Boy!

On days like these, you know the kinda day when the shadowy clouds cover the sky, birds are chirping frantically looking for cover and there is a prospect of a thunderous downpour. These are the kind of days I like to write. These are the kind of days when your heart beats as loudly as the dark clouds. You wait with bated breath for the raindrops to touch your skin and cool you. The gentle breeze that caresses you changes form into a wild wind which uproots the trees from the ground. Just like that you sit and you wait for the day to happen to you. You engulf within you the view no matter how it grotesque it may be. 

As I sit on my terrace, sipping a cup of hot clove tea, I watched the house in front of my place being reconstructed from what it was to what it’s going to be. Instantly my thoughts moved towards comparing it to my soul but then I decided, NO. Over the last year and a half, I have seen everything from a very broken point of view and not really seen the accomplishments. So, what if another heartbreak happened. Love didn’t change me, a person did. I still believe in love. Very much so. There may be a hundred ways to love someone but screw that, I want to be loved in a mad, yet a specific way. I don’t want the quiet kind of love, well sometimes maybe, but mostly I want loud love, you know the kind that makes your heart feel like you're a part of F1 racing. Yeah, exactly like that. I read and read and found that there may be a million ways to glorify pain and use it to get whatever you desire fulfilled but you know what works the best – writing of what love does to you. How it makes you feel like you have wings and how it makes you not even waste an instant of your time because that’s what love is. A chemistry of chemicals and hormones that brings out the glow in you. 

Someone I like spending time with recently told me how they feel about me. I’ve never been at a bigger loss of words. I felt so sad and yet I couldn't utter a single word. It’s been troubling me ever since. I haven’t reached that stage where I am ready to let someone into that part of me again. It’s too soon. So, in spite of me feeling bad and sad, I also felt a whole lot of embarrassment. I really don’t know how to respond to those three simple words that carry so many complexities within them. There we were sitting and having a good time and he just lets it slip into a conversation. AWKWARD! It’s not something that I anticipated. He has become my safe zone. This wasn’t meant to happen and now am in a fix and every day that is passing by I keep framing answers and it’s EXHAUSTING. The best part is, I still don’t know what to say to him. All my mind screams is HELP!

Mortals!

So much research goes into finding out the things that affect us and the way things affect us. In the grandiose of heavenly schemes, we still are hopelessly unaware of the purpose of our existence. We strive all our lives to just to achieve something or nothing or just a little bit of that something. We accumulate things, people, love, memories, junk, plants and even feelings. Humans are hoarders. Even if we are tired of something or even the fact that it no longer serves any purpose in our lives, we still hold on to things.The want within of things that you can’t have or want to have never ceases. Hell, we "want" inner peace too, isn’t that ironic?

My mind goes blank now when I reflect on want. I want to do a lot of things in my life – why? not because of a stereotypical fear or “one life”, no, but because what good will not doing the things you want to do bring you. Sometimes, I feel that what if I don’t get to achieve whatever I want. I haven’t in the past and I still survived. I changed course. I diverted that passion and when the time was right or in my case when it's passed, I got it. I wouldn’t say I settled because I learned to just walk away from whatever gave me grief with love and passion in my heart. Those are not lessons, they are trials. I am so used to walking through flames now that I don't even get burned anymore. 

Why is it wrong to have expectations from humans? Why is it that we give excuses for people? Why is it we overthink about what the others think? Why? because we are humans. This is what we do. We care, we give, we love, we hope, we long, we dream, we race, we create, we lose, we laugh, we smile, we cry, we grieve, we forget, we dread, we contempt. We are humans!

Nawabi Experience!

My answer to almost every disposition this year has been solved by travelling. It's like one of the best problem solving strategy that I have devised. There is a lot of noise in the city that is your home. There are responsibilities, socialization, commitments, your personal chores, thoughts that overrun, emotions that go wild and so much more that you almost always end up occupied. The thoughts that do come to you when you are alone are most of the time just problems that need to be solved. Travelling however leads you to a place where you may have certain job to do but you get like a time out from your everyday life.

There are days when you don't plan your vacations, so you just grab the first destination that comes to you, followed by throwing your clothes in a bag and just travel to that city. For me it was Lucknow this time.

I've been to this place when I was a kid since dad was posted in Kanpur for a couple of years. I don't remember a lot of it and I guess now was as a good a time as any to just go there. I was lucky since my friends were around there and the trip was more of a fun trip, mostly how my trips go. But just to walk the streets of an unfamiliar place make you experience life with a different mindset.

Someone told me that I run away from when I need some clarity and that's okay. I've had to handle so many things in my life head on that even if I do want to escape once in a while, why is that wrong? Anyway, I don't want to make this into a travel blog because this time I just want to remember the reason behind this visit and keep the memories stored in my heart and mind.

Fallacious!

Don’t be so reckless with your heart,

They will not keep it safe in their palms,

That heart of yours is wildfire,

It holds within an immense desire.

Don’t be so heartless with your heart,

It’s not a possession to be traded off,

That heart of yours is an enigma,

It needs a lot more than a stigma.

Don’t be so careless with your heart,

Its beauty is worlds apart,

That heart of yours is not rife ,

It holds within itself the key to life.

Image courtesy sourqueen1

Hope Floats!

Just when you think you got saved from the curved ball,

Life has a way to show you that you’re wrong,

Spirit lays sullen, blue and in pain,

So, whatever can you do but pray in vain.

Little by little you start to glue the pieces,

Of the shattered and scattered hope that ceases,

Breath by breath you learn to live again,

Of each day, you wake up and try to reclaim.

Weary of the mind yet held captive by the heart,

Trapped underneath the burden of right and wrong,

But then you seek that strength inked into you,

Aiming that one day you  float across the world soon.

Image Courtsey Illustrats

Finish Already!!!!

Notions!

A boy told me today that he loved me, I kept quiet thinking will he hurt me if I said okay....

I've never had anyone love me the way I love them. They loved me in their own way but never the way I loved them. If this is not irony then I don't know what is but in the end you crave the kind of love you give out. No, this is not an expectation, the way the love is shown may differ but at least some level of intensity of the love should match. That's what's its all about eventually, right?

On the other hand, sometimes the feelings you have for a person takes a minute and at times it takes so much longer to cut through ties and associations. Even though you've invested yourself into all those relationships, the moment you realize that they only really make life tough, that's when you have to teach yourself to let go. The remainder of your feelings always take time to go. They are like that damn stain that won't  wash out even though you try so hard to make it go away. Those left over feelings are the hardest to overcome because on one side you know you have to change how your heart feels and on the other end you...well I can't explain that feeling. It's like your chest starts to feel hollow, and you know something is missing yet you can't help but feel this way. Those remnant feelings are just like the aftertaste of a meal that you were really looking forward to but tasted horrible and now you are stuck with dealing with really awful mouth-feel along with a bad mood.

I like watching feel good movies when I'm in a crappy mood. I like the fact that they make you believe that things will be okay. That things will eventually play out the way they are supposed to. Endless overthinking happens with a distorted illusion of what we have seen and heard of love. How it shouldn't leave you damaged but that it mends it but then what do you do when it does the opposite? Do you let go of the belief? I mean it should not leave you bitter and scared of venturing out but instead help in making sure that you get a holistic experience with a person who wholeheartedly wants to experience the same with you. I have learnt one thing, people say love needs effort, and that's actually partly true since a relationship requires you to be thoughtful about the other. But I know this that when you are truly in love with a person, it doesn't seem like an effort to make them happy. 

No One Does!

They don't get you. They don't get when you need time off and when you need to be held. They don't even get the right way to hold you. They don't get why you scream when you do as tears roll down your eyes. They don't get what goes on in your head. They don't get why you speak what you say. They don't get why a song kicks your spirit high or when it drowns your soul in. They don't get how you stop breathing one instant and sigh the next. They don't get how a little scene of  daily scenarios make you howl for hours. They don't get why stop while walking and look towards the sky. They don't get why you shut out the world one day. They don't get it why you light it up the next day. They don't get how a day can drag you down or how a night invigorates you. They don't get why your silence speaks volumes. They don't get your mind. They don't get your heart. They don't get your soul. 

Perched!

Seated on the brink of the realm,

Perched on a string that stays lit,

Melodic recitals of a novel hymn,

Ventured out to dissimilar winds,

Lonesome and apathetic to humanity,

It’s a toil we all go through in absurdity,

Just like life we hope to find,

A love that will survive time,

And yet we glimpse and aspire,

Contemplating what’s mine and yours,

A clandestine affair of life unresolved,

Behold the earthly view,

Inactive gazing at the firmament blue,

Viewing the gloomy ground brewed,

Looking for a sign of life anew,

As the world goes driving by without clue.

Jatta Aayi Baisaki!

Every year we celebrate around 3 new years. Imagine that! There is the official new year, followed by Chaitra Navratras and then Baisaki. Three very beautiful occasions to celebrate life, be thankful for all that we have and start afresh. My father's side of the family is part Sikh and hence the amalgamation of traditions often happens. While my mum's side of the family is mostly from Amritsar, so whenever we were there Golden Temple was a must. Even during Diwali, we do laksmi puja and then we start with Sikh traditions. I remember my dad's cousins and their never ending keenu farms in Horshiarpur, how we used to load up on tractors and then play in the fields, collect loads of fruits and end up splashing around in the tube-well. Summer vacations in the hometown were amazing. You get pampered like crazy which in case you are a Punju translates into loads of white butter on whatever you eat especially when you are from the city. I remember this time when we had gone for some wedding in Ludhiana and moved to meet the family all over Punjab, close to Baisaki and the atmosphere was divine. Lush green and yellow fields, welcoming blossoms and warm people, cheering on, partying and dancing to the beats of Dhol. I learnt all of my bhangra moves from my cousins there. City life is very different. The rituals differ, at least some remain same. The tradition to wake up early and wear new clothes and visit Gurudwara to seek his divine grace has been a tradition that no matter where we are, we follow. How can you forego Kada prasad anyway, rigtht? 

Another year goes by and we keep asking for new things every year, that's what I thought when I asked what I wanted this year. The list keeps changing and altering, with hopes that our dreams will be fulfilled so this year I promised myself that I won't ask for anything except his blessings just as I was about to pray. He knows what we need, so I decided to let him do his job. 

Sometimes, it's good to let go and leave everything to him. For he has bird's view and knows what we need more than what is wanted. So, this year I asked for the well being of whoever I know, protection for my babies, family, friends and a little of his favour for me.

Tu Thaakur Tum Peh Ardas
Jeeo Pind Sabh Tayree Raas
Thum Maath Pithaa Ham Baarik Thaerae
Tumaree Kirpaa Meh Sukh Ghanayrey
Koe N Jaanay Tumraa Unt
Oochay Tey Oochaa Bhagavant
Sagal Samagree Tumaray Soothr Dhaaree
Tum Tey Hoe So Aageyakaaree
Tumaree Gath Mith Tum Hee Jaanee
Nanak Daas Sadhaa Kurbaanee

Trickle!

Take a drink of me,

Choose where you want to nip,

Sip by sip into me,

Descend lower with every swill.

Take a taste of me,

Choose where you want to begin,

Bite by bite of me,

Discern a new part of me.

Take your fill of me,

Choose what you want from me,

Sliver by sliver of me,

Melt yourself into me.

Image courtesy Illustrate

                                              

Whims!

I saw the moon last night,

Gleaming amid the sparkling sky,

I gazed lost with baited breath,

At the splendour that it holds in itself.

I saw the moon last night,

As chaste as the bright light,

I spoke of all my heart’s desire,

Declaring with a coy demeanour.

I saw the moon last night,

Gently stroking my essence right,

I wished with all my heart and might,

Hoping he would listen to me tonight.

@Image Courtsey Illustrats

Match the Box!

Pieces of the puzzle that fit,

Some don’t and they make a mess,

Day and night the tension builds,

How do we solve a case mislead?

Comic feels and emotional tides,

Heroes and villains both unite,

Stringed stories onto a hem,

Builds a picture in your head.

Shards of a broken glass,

Sit exposed on the ground,

Just watch baby, where you step,

Life lays a trap all around and how.

O' Kabira!

"Bura Jo Dekhan Main Chala, Bura Naa Milya Koye,

 Jo Mann Khoja Aapna, To Mujhse Bura Naa Koye."

Wise words are spoken and you remember them more when they are build into music that touches every ounce of your soul. Kabir Café is one such fusion group who has presented the world with the gift of music and poetry bundled into one package. I heard this group for the first time at Sula Fest and since then I have become an ardent fan. 

What happens when you quit everything to follow your dreams? You end up creating beautiful music. We have been blessed with so many amazing poets that we only need follow their lyrics, ones that have power. Kabir was one such poet, and even though we know of him, studied him in the 5^th standard, somewhere with rock, pop culture and alternate music we forgot him. But like every word has a reader, every poet has a follower! Kabir Cafe has brought him back to life and aren't we all grateful for that.

The energy that their fusion music brings to the stage is mad, just some simple yet beautiful lyrics make you lose yourself into bliss and connect with all the positivity that is ushered into the soul.

This is what good music does to you. This is how fantastic poetry drives into your core and makes you connect with each other and the artist. Somewhere between munni badnam hue and all the rubbish bollywood numbers (not denying there are some good ones and definitely not denying that they are dance worthy) but somewhere your mind is hungry for music with substance. 

Age doesn't matter then, ethnicity doesn't come into the picture, there is just you, the music and the love for it. This is why we need good musicians with us, they make living worth it. The music that they give us are the best companions for days and nights where you seek comfort outside the boundaries of humans. They provide solace in ways which I cannot put into words except that they surround you in a silo even when you are surrounded by a million bodies.

Sufism, classical songs or Bhakti songs may not be to everyone's liking, or maybe they might be into the fashion statement of many people. For me, it's just the connect with God or nature or universe. I don't know but I always seem to get the answers I seek when I listen to or sing these songs. That's all I need to know, that they are my telephone line to the almighty in the 21st Century ;p and these artists- my gurus!

Oh that feeling!

Changing your work place is almost like an experience you have, say when you leave your maika to go to your sasural. Ofcourse, it's only so if you liked working wherever you were working before. When everything that is new around you warrants that you be careful about how you behave, how you dress, how you address, with a probability that you may end up not impressing the bade buzurgs, you just end up trying too hard at times. Or the opposite happens and they warm upto you so quick that you don't feel like a stranger at all.

It often happens that when you go back to your home or a place you love, you are greeted with smiles, hugs and that extra love. I've been lucky that ways as wherever I've worked, I've always been remembered (thankfully for good), but my last job became so much more than just a work place. It's a place where I felt everyone was connected to me and it's such a great feeling to go back there again and again. From the security guards who salute so hard with a great big smile on their face when you ask them how they are to the canteen boys who will run and make the best ginger tea for you and even save some samosas for you because they know you are coming for a visit or the office folks start feeding you whatever they have with them. To the old clerical staff blessing you, or even your seniors joking that they were overjoyed that you are back or the endless laughter with people who are so excited to know everything that's going on with you. Hell, even the shopkeepers notices your absence and requests that you atleast pay a visit fortnightly. That's the kind of warmth and love I adore, that's where I feel belonged.

It feels great to meet everyone, but you almost end up with a painful jaw because of all the smiles. I especially love the hugs that linger on and pull you in so deep that you can literally feel their vibes rubbing off on you. It's so amazing to hear compliments and comments like " tu gaye to raunak chali gaye", or " Kaam ke time pe tu bahot yaad aate hai" or "Tera hasta hua chehra bahot miss karte hein". This is the reason why I go back there whenever I feel low, all the energies that surround you along with a playback of memories so special to you just make you feel amazing and are an instant pick me up.

I know it will take some time (okay, maybe a lot) to get used to adjusting in the new place (even though I think I already kinda have) but then the minute something falls apart you just want to crib about all that went wrong, and you call the people who matter most and crib and crib and crib away to glory. That, my people is one of the BEST therapies. 

The Lure!