Into The Dreaming

In the forests of the dreaming
I wandered, aimless, in the dark
Time was lost and space was bound
The unreal stood naked, stark

Dark flames, persimmon leaves
Sleuthing through mist like orange thieves
A taste of sorrow, then a touch of light
I staggered through delirium to delight -

A forgotten smile found by memory
A lonesome candle growing teary roots
An intimate finger tracing a silken route
Lost lives that were meant to be

And then a veil like curtain fell
With the flourish of a serif-like hand
Then another fell, and then a thousand more
The dark settled like jaded sand

It was dark as the womb of the earth
Then a shade darker still
My eyes fluttered, frantic, lost
When softly by the window sill-

-The clouds flinted a cool blue hearth
And quenched darkness like hesitant rain
In that softened likeness of fluid rain
A silhouette was birthed

Carved by light from stony dark
An amalgam of truth and mystery
It was sans doubt the heart of my dream
Yet I knew not what it be

…it was you, asleep, and silently-
My dream grew brighter, warm
Your lips parted inadvertently
Passion rushed to me in a swarm

Your bosom rose and fell
To the simple rhythm of your heart
And the ocean’s ebb and swell
Kept time

The moon kissed the mountain tops
The valley deepened with a sigh
The wind sang to the meadows
Your toes wrinkled to a downward smile

I wish for eternal waking
To never sleep away this dream
To watch you sleep as reality
Laves at invisible seams

Lovely Dawn

I breathed in the vagrant breeze
in a lovelorn fool's hope
That it carries but a stray whisper
That would serve as my release

The breeze sighed itself away
And with it hope took wing
And I sat under a lonely sky
And heard the requiem for a dying day

Night dawned early
In an unbroken monochrome
The sullen moon rose -
Night's eternal company

The moon cast elusive shadows
The trees ceased to whisper
The birds dreamed of music
And furtive flights across green meadows

I closed my weary eyes
And the stars winked within
I dreamed of limpid pools,
still waters and lonely isles

In that dream of dreary longing
Your face echoed, rippled, bloomed
A smile fluttered into the skies
That grew brilliant at the seam

Mute colors metamorphosed
Into brillian raucous hues
Those sang of love and wonder
And solitude's bittersweet brew

I awoke to muted thunder
And clouds that framed your face
Your smile shone through moist eyes
The sun peeped out in a haze

Midnight's Footprints

You are the rhythm of my night

You are midnight's footprints

You walk a path all your own

A path everyone knows

One only I can follow

You are the rhythm of my night

You are midnight's footprints

I the twinkling sands of invisible time

You are a thousands folds in the veil-thin fabric

A thousand wrinkles

A thousand tiny paths that is one path

Uncounted verses whispering themselves

To the listening night

You are the rhythm of my night

You are midnight's footprints

In the sea of life, you are the effervescent wave

You define the rise and ebb of my life

As you shatter upon the rock of destiny

You rise to kiss the western wind

And the sea roars

The skies listen to the silent depths

You are the rhythm of my night

You are midnight's footprints

Upon the rock of destiny

You are immovable change

You are the wind and the shape

You are destiny's shaper

You are the sapling of hope beneath jagged crevice

You are the sculpture within

You are the rhythm of my night

You are midnight's footprints

Dawn will come

You will be etched in stone, baked in the sand

And forgotten

Dawn will come

You will be washed away, sifted over

And remembered...

Upon the leaf of a sapling

On the lip of a desert bloom

Within the heart of a cowry shell

You will blink

and drink up the dawn. Slowly.

One Year After 26/11

सुबह उगे नफरत की धुंध से, घुटन से, अंधियारे की चुभथी चादर से...

They came in through the sea with impunity
To mutiny against hope and against peace and joy
It wasn't a bunch of people, held hostage on the sly
It was mumbai, it was the whole city that cried
The skies of the night were filled with angry flame
And the billowing smoke and darkness of human pain
They rained hatred...spewed it in a shower of bullets
Our blood was innocent..and still they wanted to spill it
You've got to will it and it happens..that's what they say
So who willed it? Why us? Why don't we have a say?


ज़ख्म भरी यादें, डरा हुआ जहाँ, घने हैं साए मौत के यहाँ

A whole day that burnt into the night that burst into a day
That screamed into the night. They fight-
-Against hate that burnt like a blister, stung like a curse,
That scars like a wound that's left to fester
Each moment a forever of agonising pain
That wept into days that drove us insane
What gain what motive, what cruel intent
Can drive them to action beyond repent


सिसकती हैं हज़ार आँखें खौफ में खोई, पर भूल गए हैं बाक़ी सारे

It's all over now, (they said), the water's under the bridge, (they said)
No reason to be angry or hold a grudge, (they said)
Let the government take over, you don't get to judge, they said
Well, yeah! it's over for the hundreds who died
And for their brothers, sisters, mums and dads
And the baby that cried
When you love someone with your heart and your soul
And he's gone, a piece of you's empty, and you're no more whole
It's not over and it is not the end,
There's tears and scars and memories you just can't mend
What happened was wrong, don't need you to read me the rules
Look to your heart, your conscience, don't need no other tools
We're healing, but we're waiting for some kind of sign
That we're really safe...but we're still not fine
We're healing....

Ancient and Ever New

Mighty rivers and forgotten streams
Lucid verse lost in ancient reams
The search for self, and the wisdom that lies
Shining in the soul's colossal skies

The brushwork of dawn, and the symphonies
Of trees and birds and bumblebees
The songs of the night, the moon's silence bright
In the reign of dream's mysteries

The play of love in the hearts of men
The sharp gleam of want in their eyes
The beaten track from clueless birth
To death that waits round a bend

In these are hidden the folds of time
And the stark beauty of the ever new
And like the sun engulfed by a drop of dew
It is to them that I liken you

For just as a pond's silent chime
Holds time in it's heart
So too are you hewn of timelessness
And a pinch of the ever new

As you remain cheerfully unchanged
You are born anew each day
And while you tread the beaten road
You shall make your own way

Wild Blossoms

She sings to her lone self
A secret, naughty tune
That draws the forest's thousand ears
Like new meaning in lost runes

She hides in the darkest violets
and deep blues and satin reds
And bold fuchsias and tangy orange
And the blushing pink of newly weds

She sews on the hews with daydreams
And tall tales and stories old
With sunlight for her needle
And the stories for her thread

She waits for no hand to tell her
How soft her petals are
Nor a nose to sniff her wild scent
That is half dream, half yearning intent

She knows, soon it will come
His gaze that will stray to her clearing
Rise to her perch on blackened stone
And as a raindrop, touch her core

He will see the wild blossom
And hear her secret tune,
And he will know she is happy, simply to be
Content and alone and free

Musings

What will I be when I grow up? Like all children, I used wonder about this, daydream in class, dream about it at night. And sometimes, just let my thoughts wander, as I wondered.

I am no more a child, nor someone on the verge of adulthood. I am now a man, and have been, for a few years. I have, you could say, grown up! And still, everyday, I ponder upon this question; What will I be?

Just when life brings me to a destination, I realise it is no more than another crossroads, with possiblities both obscure and obvious. It almost feels like I'm trying to predict a future that simply does not exist until it becomes the present.

I have wondered why this is. Why do I still seek? What is it that I seek? What am I waiting for? I do not see this as a problem to solve, but a question to which I seek an answer. What is the difference? Simply this; it does not bother me that I have not found the answer yet. Nor do I think it will upset me if I do not find it at all. I don't need the solution. I do not crave the answer. It will come to me. Until then, I cannot stop waiting.

Does the answer lie in what I am today? It is possible. For isn't all of time one single, seamless, thread? The tree of history is the seed of the future. No matter where I am, I am in som sense, at the beginning. So let me begin...

Today, I am an observer.

I act with the confidence of twenty five years of conditioning. I react with the slow sureness of a thinking intellect; an intellect capable of lofty surrealty and perverse logic in equal meaure.

I create new ideas from those that already exist. I create because I a drawn to new ideas. They allow me to delve into the waters of infinite possibilities - the answers to my question - and swim through them, looking for nothing, but finding what I like, liking what I find, at that moment.

I believe in concepts that take me beyond logic - I weild my destiny. I am, but a leaf, drifting in the winds of destiny. I am destiny, and I am the leaf. There is a purpose to life. To grow beyond a purpose,is life.

In all these I believe, without contradiction. Because deep down, they make sense to me. I cannot explain them, but I know them, like I would know the depth of the ocean while standing upon its shores. I cannot tell you how deep it is, but I 'know' it.

But above all, I am an observer. For I believe this is not part of my conditioning. Remove all my layers, one after another, and in the nothingness of my being, there will be a witness, whose purpose is neither to record, nor judge, but to simply see.

That is what I am today. Have I always been so? I do not know. Does a child remember the first time it spoke? Does the infant recall its first words? What is the first moment of sleep, the last instant of the waking?

The dawn of a new day nulls the existence of the night. I do not know what I was before, or even if there was a 'before'. I have always been an observer. A witness to myself. A lone pebble under the swirling stars.

And this, is the sum of my being.