Month: July 2021

The Resistance is strong today.
It wants me not to make my art.
It tells me no one really cares,
So why show them my fragile heart?

Some wish for my failure, and
Others think I have lost my mind.
And when I know I am a fraud,
Will the others be far behind?

Why waste such a lovely morning,
Why not just sit and meditate?
Why bother with this useless craft
In which my days just dissipate?

Can’t I see the signs, it asks me,
The ink is dry and paper wet,
With power gone throughout the night,
There’s no device, no internet.

Head is splitting from sleeplessness,
The cold is pricking up the gout,
And say these signs had not been there,
What will I even write about?

I smile at my dear Resistance,
And it frowns for a bit, before…
“Oh no, no no, You better not!
It’s not funny at all, señor!”

From where I am, there is a tale
Of Krutya, the great architect.
He left his pregnant wife behind
When the king called him to inspect
The capital temple, with its cracks,
That threatened to fall on his head
And if it was beyond repair,
To build a new one in its stead.

Krutya, knowing no fame there was
In repairing a temple old,
Showed the king a grand design:
A temple made of marble, gold.
The king, knowing no fame there was
In repairing a temple cracked,
Handed him the keys to where
Marble and the gold were stacked.

In seven years and seven months,
The temple stood shining new.
The king, so happy, granted him
Titles, land, and a mansion too.
Happy, Krutya called his wife:
“Come here and see how grand it looks
It’ll stand so centuries to come
And make me part of history books.”
Overjoyed to hear from him,
A-running to Husband she came.
With her had come their little son
Abhikrutya had been his name.

When she went for a simple bath,
The father sat beside the son,
And asked him, “Do you know your Dad?”
The son said, “Yes, you’re not the one.”
“Then who is it?” he asked enraged.
“He comes each night,” said the son.
“He sleeps when Mother sleeps at night
And goes out later with the sun.”

Krutya stood waiting, spear in hand,
When the wife came out, scent in hair.
And as she lay down motionless,
The son, pointing, shouted, “There!
“That’s my father who lies with her.”
The child said of the shadow cast.
“He’s ever there with us, together.”
Krutya stood shivering, aghast.
When the village had asked the son
“Who is your father? Where is he?”
His mother had shown him the wall
“He’s with us, son, don’t you see?”

That night, Krutya, went to his God,
Sitting in the cracked temple old.
Driving his spear into a spot,
He waited till the rocks had rolled.
The king, hearing this tragedy,
Took Abhikrutya as his scribe.
Thus, in history, Krutya comes:
A murderer of his wife.

Though I’m no stranger to deaths these days,
Though this year alone I’ve lost so many,
My mind goes into a darkened maze,
The moment I come to know of any
Demises of people I used to know,
Of people with whom I have spent some time,
Of the little ones who were yet to grow,
And the grown ones who were in their prime.

“Valar Morghulis,” I have often heard,
“Memento Mori,” as the Stoics said.
I often repeat Lord Krishna’s word:
“Don’t cherish the living, don’t mourn the dead.”
And yet the sight of a person hanging,
The quiet violence of a suicide,
Had the bells inside my temples clanging;
I stood there stricken and dewy-eyed.

What is the trigger that provoked me so?
Is it things I try to forget but can’t?
“Suicide runs in the family, you know,”
Frivolous words of a garrulous aunt?
Is it that pictured newspaper clipping
Of Grandpa hanging from a banyan tree?
Or Uncle’s letter, with creases ripping,
Penned while poppies set him free?

No matter! No more of my sanity
Can I spare for this tumult inside.
Despair, like hope, is a vanity
To indulge in either, a sin of pride.
No point in dwelling in this darkness deep,
No point in spending this moment in fright.
I am grateful for every night I sleep.
I am grateful for every day I write.

When the page stays empty
Despite the mind being full,
Don’t push the mind too hard,
But use the page to pull.

Removing all structure,
Form and meter and theme,
Prepare the page for flood
And make your pen a stream.
Every errant feeling,
Every truant thought,
Write them down; don’t worry
If sense they make or not.

At first, you may be stiff:
Mind at odds with body.
Your words will feel leaden
Your lines will feel shoddy.
You’ll get your spellings wrong,
Forget your grammar rules.
Ideas will eddy,
And whirl down into pools.

Or your hand will struggle
To match the speed of mind
You’ll keep finding much that
You have to leave behind.
Yet, all you carry out
Just seems to be more muck,
Choking all the flow points,
That could get you unstuck.

A page in, you will feel
How pointless all this is,
And curse your muse for not
Showing that face of his.
You will want to give up,
And guise it as a ‘break’,
Although it is one that
You have been forced to take.

This moment is the key.
Your action here will say
If you can break through now
Or be stuck for the day.

So, don’t let your pen stop.
It must keep flowing on.
Till all the muck is pulled
And all the chokes are gone.
Beyond all the purging,
Beyond all the scours,
You will, after minutes
Or maybe after hours,
Feel your focus sharpen,
Awareness clarify.
Cloudy doubts will fade and
Reveal a quiet sky.

Your structure will come back
Before you realise,
Consciousness will boil,
Ideas crystallize.
Pick these gems by theme,
Cut edges with your form,
Set them in a meter,
On strings of feelings warm.
You have a poem now
Where there were none at all.
So, do this every time
Your muse ignores your call.

Today, my ink is grey, not black.
Perhaps it felt the cold seep in.
The grey words seem a little dull.
Perhaps they wanted to sleep in.

Morning has quieted everything.
Perhaps I’ll hear the needle drop,
Were it to slip from Mother’s hand,
‘Tween the strides of the ticking clock.

Her flowers look a brighter white;
She is threading them for her God.
Devotion, never wavering.
Submission, filled in every thought.

And here I sit, so distracted.
So easily, I’m losing hope.
Complaining of some dried ink,
Lingering on a slipping slope.

Mother, grinning, calls out to me,
“See how pretty the garland is.”
I go to take a closer look
Only to find a lot amiss.

Petals are curling up like hooks,
Many are beaten by the rain.
And yet, they look so beautiful,
Their Dharma shining through their pain.

And what is this that holds them so
Resolute in their will to pray?
Is it my mother’s Bhakti now?
Yes, it surely seems that way.

Perhaps, then, greying words can too
Perform their Dharma, as they are,
If I can pour some Bhakti more
Beyond what I have poured so far.

Again they’re out on stickered bikes:
A rose on fearless Bullet, he;
A flame on gearless Scooty, she.
And they will park and disembark
At every corner, every street.
To sweep it, he. To wash it, she.
No money charged, no bonus asked,
The morning after Diwali.

As he is sweeping, she is washing,
We get to see a glimpse of why
In marks of burning on his hands,
In scars of burning on her face.
Reminders both of mornings past,
Of mornings twenty years ago,
When he had sweeped into his hands
Some cracker powder leftover,
Unburned and strewn across the street
To make a pot of Kumbh-Anaar
To gift his sister crying loud
Accusing him of breaking hers,
The one that held her painted rose.

Of course, he was no crackersmith.
Of course, it burst up in her face.
Of course, he cried as she had cried.
Of course, he knew not what to do
Except to take his guilty hands
And burn them on a charcoal flame.

“Push your horizons,”
My class teacher said
In farewell after
We graduated.
“Don’t lose your head in
Stacking up a score
Beating each other,
Till you’re blue and sore.
Find your own mountain,
Climb it at your pace.
When no one’s watching,
Why fear losing face?
With each new height,
You’ll slowly wisen,
See how you have a
Wider horizon.”

As I didn’t like her,
I didn’t heed her word.
Proceeded, instead,
To join a new herd.
I stacked up a score,
And always fell short,
Saw the world around
Crumple, distort.
At last, when I knew
I’ll lose my mind,
I sought the horizon,
Only to find
It so close that I
Felt suffocated.
For many days thereon,
Simply debated
Whether any of this
Had any Meaning
And soon realised,
Shit needed cleaning.

On a whim, next month,
During winter break,
I went on a trip
To a mountain lake.
Thirteen thousand feet,
Above sea level,
Our camp chose to have
A late-night revel.
From where we’d camped,
Few feet to the side,
A viewpoint opened
To a valley wide.
The vista was large,
The horizon far,
The night-sky crystal
With many a star.
I sat there looking
Into the moonlight,
Hoping for a sign
Or a small insight.
I did feel free with
All the space around.
Eyes had perspective
And the mind was sound.
“This is what she meant
All those years ago,”
I thought as my tears
Just started to flow.
“If you could somehow
Make your mind expand
As large and wide as
This stretch of land,
You’d have more freedom
To be the real you,
And find some Meaning
In whatever you do.”

I let my mind then
Adjust to the change,
But soon enough, I
Found a thing strange:
Wider horizons
Changed not just the land,
I had not noticed
The night-sky expand.
“The higher you climb,
The thinner the air,
The easier then
To locate the rare
Stars that were hidden
By gases and light,”
My mind was shouting
This divine insight.

The insight gave birth
To no neurons new.
But stronger ties were
Forged among a few
That had been around
For many years now
Helping me discern
The what, why, and how.
While I say this with
No authority,
Some anonymous
New maturity,
Declaring itself
To me, it revealed:
“The mind is more than
A widening field.
It is, in fact, if
Properly treated,
Jigsaws awaiting
To be completed.
Ideas, as countless
As luminous stars,
Can be connected
With enlightened bars,
Forging so many
Constellations new,
Changing however
You command them to.”

Here was my Meaning,
I marvelled with tears.
“A worthy Journey,
To be on for years.
Always keep seeking
For something to learn.
Something that stirs you
To wonder and yearn.
Keep finding new stars,
New dots to connect.
Keep challenging your
Current intellect.”

Seven years since, and
A few months ago,
This insight came back
Like a wake-up blow,
As I sat _zazen_,
Quieting my voices,
Evaluating
Some of my choices.
I knew why I was
In such a furore:
I had been again
Stacking up a score.
I’d strayed so much
I could no longer see
The Journey that had
Been revealed to me.
I opened my eyes,
I took up my pen,
And again resolved
To return, in Zen,
To the Journey that,
For me, holds Meaning,
Where every step is
A new beginning.

At ten, I was writing
For all the right reasons.
Out of love for the stars,
Wonder for the seasons.
In tiny words, often,
Arranged in awkward lines.
If you’d squint just enough
You’d see they were rhymes.
Some I’d show to Mummy,
Her smile would light my day.
Some I’d keep for my own
Hidden safely away.

At school, I was silent,
Never had a voice.
Drowned by the bustle
Of those other boys.
Notebooks were my haven,
Didn’t beat me when I spoke.
The ruled pages told me,
I didn’t have to choke.
And then a teacher said
That I was writing well,
That I should keep writing
And break out of my shell.
So, as I turned fourteen,
I passed my poems around,
To the satisfaction
Of seeing them astound
The same boys who’d beat me,
Calling me retarded.
Their envy made me feel
Thoroughly rewarded.

At fourteen, thus, I wrote
For all the wrong reasons.
Gone were the starry skies
Gone the mango seasons.
I wrote fire and brimstone
And I wrote so I could
Make the others jealous
And make me feel good.
I thought I’d be famous.
I thought I’d be so rich
I could lay with the girl
Who I had called a b___.

Soon I was afraid, though,
Of who I had become.
Pride took a Dumpty fall,
When Karma came to hum.
I knew not what it was
When first the darkness struck
Was this an Act of God
Or just my shitty luck?
Writing took a new role:
It soon became my light
At the top of the well
And bottom of my plight.
Heartbreaks and failures too
Took their turns with me.
So, writing then became
My inner harmony.

And now I wonder why
I chose to make it more.
To forge a “career”
Out of my very core.
Showing the world my heart,
Showing where it pains,
What will I accomplish
And what will be my gains?
At thirty, I’m writing
For all the wrong reasons
That change with my moods,
That change with the seasons.
Money, fame, and power?
What does one do with those?
They too shall pass before
My life comes to close.
And then there’s that motive
That’s stayed with me throughout:
A wish for living on
After my time is out.
What is this ambition?
What arrogance at play:
To think my words matter,
To think they won’t decay.
Often my obsession
With this posterity
Stands in the way of
Sincere poetry.
Did Jane Taylor know that
Her simple lullaby,
Will shine on Mozart’s tune
“Above the world so high”?
Or did A. A. Milne,
That scribe of prophesy,
Know that a teddy bear
Will be his legacy?
So, why bother thinking
What work of mine will stay
In the hands of readers
After I pass away?

Only thing that matters
That I should take to heart:
To always stay present
And honest to my art.
Writing is my Bhakti.
My writing is my Tao.
My writing is my Zen.
It’s always here and now.

It’s always here and now.

I’m still only a pampered kid.
I throw a tantrum when I can’t
Arise to challenges I face
Or wrap my head around my fate.
Amor fati, I say and write.
Amor fati, I don’t enact.
I was not present when today
I was the most relied upon.
I still keep thinking, “Why me, why?”
I still keep complaining a lot.
Is this not complaining as well?
Is this the clarity I sought?

One broom of reedy grasses,
One broom of coconut hair,
One broom of plastic bristles,
One pan for the dust out there.

One mop of braided cotton,
One mop of raggedy jute,
One mop of microfibres,
One pail for the water too.

One arms herself with these,
Mom: Astabhuja Kali,
Dusting down and cleaning up
Our home for a Diwali.