Aubade

Being in love with you
Is to abandon the piano:
It is to take up the castanets,
The bugle,
The kettle drum.
It is to sleep naked, with all the
doors and windows open,
Fearing nothing.
Being in love with you means
many days I am so happy
I can barely feed myself:
I laugh or weep or both and set
aside the fork.
It means I wake one morning
feeling
Such warmth rising inside me
That I am suddenly confident
All snow would melt
Within my steady gaze;
And I dress quickly
To test this
On the crisp,
DecemberLandscape.
Being in love with you further
means the rhododendrons
Are in bloom, the mongoose
Is mating, the moon is full and
the wind strong
Along the western ghats of
South India.
Being in love with you sings arias
In my head, hums loudly
In my bones.
It beats the drum.
Some complain that being in
love with you is merely an
airtight ferocity,
Or a kind of rococo piety,
But we proclaim it
This Resplendent Helmet,
A radical and luminous sobriety.
Being in love with you is crucial.
Everything depends upon it.
In summer, being in love with
you is red, raw and delicious.
In winter it is blue, lucent, and
shimmers when touched.
Being in love with you is to
forget
For a moment the use of fruit:
It is to stare long at the
splendour
Of a green pear
On a white porcelain plate.
Being in love with you is old as
Laughing Buddha,
And as fat.
Being in love with you is only
now,
Cannot be remembered
Or imagined.
Being in love with you is to
notice the basic radiance of all
things,
And is thus a simple, unarmed,
fundamental bathing.
Being in love with you is as well,
a small well-kept apartment
In the middle of busy Kyoto,
Where, with great contentment,
A young couple sit
At a low table
Eating their evening meal
Of sweet hijiki
On beds of warm rice,
The silence broken only
By faint, almost musical
Clinks of chopsticks
Upon the oval bowls.
Being in love with you for even
one second
Is enough. The big picture
changes.
(When the honey jar is
opened,the whole kitchen is
instantly sticky.)
Being in love with you is a deep
thirst,
An undermining hunger.
It is a desperation like that of a
barn swallow caught
In a kitchen mousetrap,
Dragging itself with his wings
And one good leg
Towards the dog-door,
His only hope.
Being in love with you is
ludicrous and cannot be
explained.
Being in love with you sneaks up
on me from behind.
It is a kind of ambush.
Or worse, it is an avalanche
In which I am tumbled furiously
For a time, then stopped cold
In whatever absurd position the
snow
Finds me - perhaps only a hat
Or a handVisible to the outside
world.
Being in love with you sits on my
doorstep
And weeps. It calls pathetically
To be let in the house, rants
About my neglectfulness. I runTo
open the door but - when I
touch
The doorknob - feel a tap
On my shoulder, turn around
And it is there,
Smiling it galling
Cheshire smile.
It is the holy guardian of
archways, the faithful steward of
All tunnels and bridges.
It is alpine and religious, naked
and fierce.
It is the kiss of candour, and the
cherished cup.
It is "the low down" and "the
real dope".
Being in love with you is to
dream, at least once, that you
live inside me
Like a mysterious Spanish town
at twilight: you are the red dirt
roadThat winds into town;
You are the squat houses with
lamps lit and drapes half-drawn;
On the horizon, you are sunset's
silent fire;
You, bouncing are the green and
orange swirled ball that children
run after
Laughing in the street - and on
the porch, the old man, head in
hands,
Watching;
You are the young lovers in the
town square at nightfall, the
moon's play of
Light and shadow on their faces,
you are their lips, their kiss;
And yet you are also the several
dead drunk matadors,
drapedover chairs,
Spread-eagled over the hotel
bed;
And you, too, are the town idiot
on the tavern roof, dancing a
pot bellied
Belly-dance to the slender
crescent moon;
And at the farthest edge of
town, you yourself are the
yelled-at mule, who
Will not budge.
In spring, being in love with you
is green, resilient, and sways to
the rhythms of wind.
In autumn, it is pale gold and
fills the sky.
Being in love with you is
centripetal.
Moreover, it choreographs
And christens.
It cradles and cherishes, yet
Confiscates as much as it
confers.
It clobbers and clocks, then
cloisters - but only to clarify
And cleanse.
It seems to cathart then catnap,
but later celebrates
And celestializes.
It cultivates and cumulates until
it is continual combustion.
Or, saying the same, is a kind of
ever spontaneous consecration.
It cures and cushions,
Compels and completes.
If threatened with congealing, it
may creep
Aside, churn and circulate,
Conspiring to colour the cosmos.
Being in love with you is
centrifugal.
It is hard to believe
Being in love with you
Was once
That tiny space
In my heart
That has since exploded
Into a vast cathedral
Of sky
Under which I stand alone,
Looking up.
It is raining cats and dogs.
I am drenched.
Being in love with you has
soaked me
To the bone
And I will never again
Be dry.
- Michael Londry

Ranjha Ranjha kerdi ni main apey Ranjha hoyi,

Ranjha Ranjha saddho ni, menu  heer na aakho koi.

 [Chanting the name of Ranjha, I have become Ranjha myself.

O call me ye all Ranjha, let no one call me Heer]

Whilst deciding if I liked the lyrics over the music or vice-versa, I thought of You..And how You managed to give me the lyrics -

"tere bina chaand ka sona khota re
peeli peeli dhool udaave jhoota re
tere bina sona peetal
tere sang keekar peepal
aaja kate na ratiyaan"
{Nothing's beautiful, nothing's meaningful without you.
All Treasures are worthless sans you, and even troubles sooth when am with you.
Come, for these lonely nights shall not pass.}

It was 2 in the morning and my heart yearned for Yours. With my eyes closed, I hummed along sketching You in the darkness, and all I could see were those 'kale til' on both Your lips, humming in harmony. This silly heart then desired You to listen me sing this song, but more than that, I was tempted to explain it to you, phrase by phrase, each feeling that resonates in this poetry, and my own affection. But then this is not how we meant things to be...

I like to believe that I am over such temptations now, just like I am over 'speaking many things I wish to speak of'.

I convinced myself that I am over 'thinking of You' and went back to the song.

Jal ja, jal ja Ishq mein jal ja, jale se kundan ho

Jalti raakh laga le maathey, lagey to chandan hoye

[Burn, burn, burn in the fire of passion, for its only when you burn that you turn to gold.

Rub the ashes on your forehead, so you may find some peace]

It rained this morning, and I thought of You.....

Sulagtey koyle, re koyle, ab bujhna mushkil hai...

[These burning coals - my heart, continues to burn]

A terrible history with valentines..the saga continues

February, THE 14th

Going to bed on 13th night, I had decided I will skip 14th and wake up on 15th morning, was almost convinced I'll stick to it untill I saw my mom standing upright before my bed with a lunch tray, on a mission to stuff it into me. It was 1 o'clock noon when I found myself half awake standing before the basin with a toothbrush in my mouth, jolting between the questions ' is it my brush?' or 'hopefully it isn't papa's shaving cream instead of the paste?'......I think I should leave the rest.FULLSTOP.

I don't like the idea that I am not in control of my life

Feels great to have the time and the mental inclination to write about something, doesn’t it? Well… I wanted to write about something, anything but had no idea what to write about. I got the clogs into motion and racked my grey matter but no bulbs went on. Looked around for some inspiration. Didn’t work. Bored, I logged on and started going through the network of people on this site when the link “Preview Home Page” attracted my attention. I clicked on it and was directed to a “view” of my page which showed me how my page would look when others looked @ it. I started scanning what I had done when I was filling out my profile. I was looking at the “My Pick of The Week” (which hadn’t changed in about 2 weeks) section and under the tab “Favorite Books” were the names of some books which were actually, some of my most favorite books. One of them was The Outsider, a book by Albert Camus. And suddenly, I had the one thing I have always wanted to write about but never thought myself capable enough for the job. Inspiration manifests itself in subtle ways, doesn’t it? 

So, here ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in 22 years of Existence (and what an Existence it has been!!!), am gonna write about Existentialism – a stream of philosophical thought that, I feel, has not yet been completely understood and perhaps never will be. I myself am not sure if I have the authority to discuss the philosophy. I guess, I merely have a shadow of understanding of the entire idea. And this is what I dare to share. Bouquets, am not expectant of. Brickbats, most welcome!!! 

Existentialism as an idea, was developed by the French Revolutionary (and many other things, later), Jean Paul Sartre. The idea as a whole is very attractive and motivating but is largely misunderstood and looked down upon. Some philosophers have even called it another form of Nihilism which in itself is negative. Let’s see what u guys out here think. 

And please don’t think I am going to bug u with philosophy ‘coz I myself think philosophy is boring. Nah… am just going to present an idea. And all I ask is for u folks to be my worst critics. 

Well…let’s start off with a story. Story-telling is always interesting, mutually. So there’s this guy called Sisyphus (funny name, huh?) who’s been condemned to rolling a stone up a mountain by the gods (don’t ask me why. Have no idea.). Now, the messed up part is, Sisyphus knows perfectly well that the stone is gonna roll down, falling back on its own weight. But still, Sisyphus goes on doing the same monotonous job day after day.
And today we hop jobs like crazy coz we are not excited enough about them. Sisyphus would have committed suicide had he been a man of this time and age and seen us like this. But we are not bothered about Sisyphus committing suicide. We got to bother about why Sisyphus did what he did. Like some of my friends say, ‘For what Joy’?

Man is born and dies, right? Like everything else. Let’s call birth, an Accident and death, an Event. So… man has no control over these two things, right? Agree? What’s man got control over then? His destiny. The period between the Accident and the Event. Do I sense difference of opinion here? I don’t care!!!
I like this scene from the movie The Matrix. This happens when Morpheus first meets Neo. After the preliminary hi-helloes, Morpheus asks Neo a question. The dialogue follows: 

Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo? 

Neo: No. 

Morpheus: Why not? 

Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I am not in control of my life. 

And The Matrix went on to become the hugh-est blockbuster of 1999 (and of a couple of years after that) and we all love Neo. Incidentally, most young folks in the US liked this conversation the most. Doesn’t prove anything, of course, but I kind of like that idea.

Anyway, back to the Accident-Event crap. Now, I say, man has total control over his destiny. Implies, he has total control over what he does and what he becomes. This is what Sartre said. The process of living is actually becoming. Man is a being at birth. He is something at death. And during the transition from birth to death, he becomes something every moment. Each and every single moment of his life. And what he becomes is what he chooses to become.

Now, here comes the concept of control. Man controls what he becomes. If I choose to be a murderer today, all I need is a gun and the motive. Alternatively, should I choose to be a writer or a saint, all I need is a pen or the ability to preach and the motive. So, what stays common in both the cases (or in all of them) is the motive which is voluntary. A conscious thought that leads to action. This is what Sartre said. Even a murder or a rape is justified. Coz the action is the action. There’s no denying it, right?

And this is where Sartre made enemies 'coz people failed to understand what he was talking about and branded him a negative man with negative ideas. No one bothered to listen to what else he had to say.

Sartre said that all action was justified but each man was solely responsible for his own action and stood to pay for it. This was the part most people missed. Critics love criticizing and in the pursuit, they overlook some very important stuff. Not that it mattered to Sartre. I believe, nothing could ever affect the man. Anyway, Sartre’s philosophy even extended to God. He said that man always blamed god for his fate. Why did he do that? No one is allowed to blame anyone else for one’s own actions. You stand responsible in all ways possible for your actions and blaming people or circumstances is-what Sartre called-bad faith. It was bad-faith when people started the blame-game.

“I could not become an Engineer because my Dad wanted me to study Medicine”. Bull-shit!!!

You could always have rebelled. And you could always have studied medicine. Your Dad never forced you. You think he did but he didn’t. No man can force another man for anything. Man is free from the moment he’s born. And what you choose to do is your own decision. Your dad might have forced you physically (a good thrash-session, perhaps!!!) or even mentally (“Engineering mein kya rakha hai? Doctory hamare khaandaan ka pesha hai aur tumko bhi Doctor ban na hi padega. Yeh mera hukum hai!!!”) but you always had the choice of rebellion. You always had the choice to become what you wanted to become and you became what you wanted to become. No one and Sartre says, absolutely no one, forced you. But since man is ambitious and eternally insatiable by nature, you don’t like what you have become and you want to become something else. Which is good 'coz that leads you to re-inventing yourself.

If you try Engineering now, you might become a successful engineer. Who knows? But stop blaming people and circumstances. People blame society for what they achieve (or don’t achieve) in life but fail to realize that if everyone in the same situation did what they did, this world would be full of murderers and rapists or saints and priests.

So, what then is God for? Why doesn’t he guide us? Sartre said, “God is what man isn’t, wants to become and will never become.” Ponder over this folks, coz this is the truth. Isn’t God an embodiment of what man wants to be- everything positive and good and true? He is, right? And god guides us every single moment but we fail to be guided by him. God is conscience and there is no greater god. (Sartre had to go through a really bad phase for propounding this. He got on the bad side of the Church which propounds that God is everything and controls everything, including destinies.)

Back to the fundamental question now. Why do we live? Why are we supposed to control our destinies if life is meaningless? Enter Albert Camus, a close friend of Sartre and a French Revolutionary as well, who gave us the answers. Camus said life is meaningless and there’s no logic to it but we must live to become what we are not. Man suffers because he tries to take an illogical world to its logical end. IMPOSSIBLE!!! We are in constant pursuit of happiness and happiness is one thing that eludes us. Why? Coz man has different definitions of happiness at different points of time in his life. Each sane or insane man has his own definition of happiness and these definitions change with time for each human being. At 4, Happiness is when your Dad gets you the newest “Hot Wheels” out. At 12, Happiness is to get the new “dream-PC”. At 16, Happiness is to know that the hottest girl/guy in your class has got the hots for you (that is some happiness!!!). At 28, Happiness is to marry the same girl/guy after twelve years of courtship. At 50, Happiness is to have made it “this” far in the journey of life.

Am sure, most of you would have got what I am trying to say here. Man is never happy 'coz he always wants more. That is not greed, that’s human nature. So, Camus (incidentally, Albert Camus wrote the Sisyphus book) said that we got to imagine Sisyphus happy. Sounds weird, but that is what we must imagine to be happy ourselves. Life’s a struggle, a meaningless one and we must try to find meaning out of it. All we must do is be clones of Sisyphus and do what we must. Or in other words, what we enjoy doing. Sisyphus must have enjoyed what he did.

What is death then? Sartre said, “Death is an always possible possibility to end all possibilities that are always possible.” Sartre, I tell you, was crazy. Took me three days to get the entire meaning of the line when I first read it. Guys, its not rocket science. Trust me (that makes me an idiot, then). Just read the line carefully and you will get the meaning. Death puts an end to all possible things which are always possible by man and death might come anytime. Got it? I am sure you didn’t. But this translucence is what makes Existentialism interesting. It absorbs you. It makes u defy god. It makes u all powerful and it makes u all responsible. So, man finally becomes what he is. Man, after all!!!

Ah… before I stop abusing the keyboard anymore, ONE LAST PIECE OF INTERESTING INFO. Sartre is the only person who refused to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was awarded the prize in 1964. He declined not because he wanted to prove to everyone how different he was but because he didn’t want people to brand him as a writer or a philosopher. He didn’t want to be-what he called-“institutionalized”. He believed that he was many things, first a human and not just a writer. Takes real conviction to decline the Nobel. If u have understood Existentialism even the tiniest bit, then u have not even begun to fathom Sartre’s psyche. Will tell you about Camus the next time I put my fingers to the keyboard. Right now, is the time for me to get a replacement and for you folks to get a cuppa coffee or a smoke or possibly a shot of Vodka. This is heavy stuff, man!!! Waiting for your “critical” comments. S’long!!!