I do remember myself becoming better interested in the amphibian life after accidentally pondering upon the possibilities of Mr Charming disguising as the not so charming green frog. Life of the frog is indispensable for the life of the ecosystem  it dwells in, and yet the creature has seldom been given its rightful place in the human realm of imagination and creativity.Kissing a frog seems repulsive and yet the task becomes necessary to bring out the Prince once cursed.So when I heard a friend cry out for her Prince to carry her off from the stubborn traffic & she was ready to kiss a frog for it and yet another friend gasping at his credit card bills and willing to turn into a green frog if sure to be kissed by a RICH damsel in mild distress that doesn’t involve money or muscled men..I just felt that the fairy tale frog isn’t that repulsive after all. On second thoughts, I remember saving a frog myself from my environmentally unfriendly cousin, not exactly coz of my love for nature but for fairy tales   and green frogs who just might be….

I could have sworn

that a tear had run down

I knew she was strong

but how long could she

hold on?

A mother of two

a boy & a girl

a wife so devoted

a woman who cared.

Now,she remains all

alone

her womb is empty

so is her heart & soul.

For is there any life left

for a widow or a mother

who loses her kids

to death?

But she is strong,

she held on…

I knew it from the winds

they were harsh and my flowers

flew into dust

I knew it from the trees

who refused to let me in to

their shade

For I had a fight

and he had walked out

I could have apologized

but my darker self stood tight

I had no tears

I stood still,watching him dying somewhere

I couldn’t hold his hand

neither ,could sing a sorry

to his retreating ears

I just died, and he just left…

pinched my lips

held my breath

let the world go by

I wouldn’t cry

I wouldn’t fail

myself  for them to play

I watched the sky

and saw clouds form a smile

I got the meaning

the world never goes by

It never stops too

yesterday night

when the stars looked

charred and the world in

restless slumber.

I had blue wings

shiny electric blue wings

with black borders and hazy pink

I was flying, amidst clouds of blue

again.

I looked down and saw no one,

none saw me too in blissful flight.

I saw rainbows and clouds blanketed

in dews

I saw birds in myriads looking at me

in wondered gaze.

I flew away, with winds growing strong

and an eminent hurricane lost me

in chaos.

My dream then turned black

and I could no longer see my blue wings

I never saw me flying

and I kept searching for my blue wings

with black borders and hazy pink !

Nature showed us once again who is the boss. By producing sources of energy, which could turn lethal in a blink of  an eye, the risk surmounts to extreme levels. Today the debate regarding the use and necessity  of nuclear power is doing serious rounds amidst environmentalists, intellectuals,politicians and even lay-men.

Our earth is becoming potentially hostile day by day. With interpretations of phenomenons like the super moon, or Dec 21,2012, people world around are  paranoid.Threat of an earthquake, or a possible tsunami hit is not something unimaginable even for a country like India. So, in the wake of hope-crushing disaster, should we add to further dangers by producing nuclear technology? Do we really need it? Can we afford the catastrophe that might arise under a natural disaster ? Questions are strong and many. Answers don’t suffice, for it might still be too late or a bit early. It all depends not on our knowledge, but on our wisdom. Now, are we wise??

when the goats were slaughtered

chickens butchered

and she was being raped.

Men laughed when the earth

grew silent

when the green-less pastures

wailed like an infant.

Men laughed when her bangles

got broken

when she was begging,when

her insides were being plundered

And those who were silent

gazed at her in castrated  stillness

then there were men and eunuchs

and she was dead.

I started the book, I finished it. I asked myself what would I do ? We always tend to put others before us so much that the question of ‘what I want ” is always given minimum priority. But when this woman, Gilbert,took to healing herself through food, prayer and love, it seems possible for women to self-heal.

I’m not here to tell the story or comment on the book. But the book contains a key and I have discovered it. I opened the resources to my self-healing once in a while to realize the simplicity and magic of this three elementary words..eat..pray…love.

windows closed

I lost the key

in a furore

now,I”m alone

I look out

I shout

“lemme out”

“somebody”

and I get my calls back.

Corners beckon me

I sit on all four

each corner giving me

thoughts

I’m alone,cornered and alone

“lemme out”

“somebody”!

cracking laughter

now that I’m alone

I’m alive

so please don’t knock again

I won’t let you in

to wreck me again.

Sweet memories are nil

and smiles never left me

so don’t knock at my door

for I’m through you

once and forever!

the life, the love and the laughter

We could have smelt the first roses

in our lawns of life

We could have walked on the rainbows

in our dreams

When the world sleeps, with us

thrown together

splurging our passions on sheets

of wrath, I could have held you

to sleep.

But my love, I do not hold bouquet

of roses anymore

the knife hides beneath my lashes

and your smile is not enough to freeze

it,

go on in the game of love, I’m right behind

my knife points not at you for the moment,

just for the moment….

He was old, his gray streaked hair always shone in the sunlight and during the rains they stuck to each other as if glued. His glasses were black rimmed and cracked. His wrinkled fingers seldom leafed through his green book. One day I got to sit near him. And I looked at his book anxiously and when he mutely passed it over to me, I simply took it to realize that it was the Bible. He never talked and those few times when the crowded bus allowed me a seat near him, he seldom spoke anything. Our friendship started and ended with a smile everyday.

When one fine day, he disappeared and my day began without the smile. I didn’t mind. But when I missed four days of smiles continuously I sensed something was wrong. Upon inquiring with the bus conductor I got to know that the old man who sat on the 5th seat everyday, had no particular destination. He got in with the bus’ first trip everyday and got down at the last stop. No body knew his where abouts and I felt helpless and intrigued. The next day however, he was promptly on his seat. I kicked and pushed through the suffocating crowd to get near him. When I asked him about his absence, he smiled and simply thanked me   for noticing. As I got down I felt foolish and strange for being concerned. When the old lady who got down with me stopped me to tell me that this old man had lost his wife during a bomb blast in a bus 7yrs ago and since then has been travelling everyday like this, I felt all the more strange. A man with no destinations and every journey a new search for his lost love. Strange are the ways of love…

When once I sat in front of my computer and waited for the divine Muse to smile upon me, I never knew it was going to be my first tryst with the ‘block’. I remember surfing the net for quite sometime not recognizing my clogged thoughts. And then it became frustrating because all I could think of was my upcoming graduation result. Well, there is always a reason for the ‘block’.Its good enough if one can recognize the reason behind the frozen mind but sometimes there seem to be no reason at all and if there is a dead line to meet, one becomes desperate for ideas to flow out.

‘Breaking’ the ‘block’ is by no means easy since one will have to break the reason responsible for it. Of course unwinding sessions like yoga  or hanging out with friends, helps. Most of all, its about ‘cooling off’ one’s mind.Too many thoughts stresses out and blocks our creative side. When the mind senses threat, creativity flies out of the window first.

A writer has to be conscious about this situation where he/she could just blow out like a fused bulb, even when they are at a zenith in their writing career. When that happens, its best to let things flow and let the mind rest.Pitfalls are usual, blocks are common but true spirit is rare… a true writer’s spirit!

powder my wounds

The blur in your eyes

makes my ways unclear.

I know those wounds

that you hide beneath

scratched with my nails

scars that run deep,

and yet I never stopped!

I should have known

the love that I often  tasted

in your blood.

You were in agony and yet

you came back for more.

Now that, the road has to come

to an end,

and my hand is left unheld

I wish I could undo

all that I have done to you.

If words could convey my tears,

my fears and my pains

I would never speak, for

I’m nothing without you!

I love you, more than my

imagination can stretch, more

than your 6 feet can reach. For

all the blood that I have drawn

I could give more.

For now take a sorry and love me

so that, I could love you more…..

as salty as blood

running into my mouth

filling me with despair

I try to flush it out

yet,it needs to be in my insides

I blink a few times,yet

the salt tastes saltier.

Lines on my palms

seemed to run no where

I press them to my eyes

salt runs everywhere.

Withering sighs,left me

to fly

away,so very far away

or perhaps to erase

somebody’s smiles.

sugar & spice

all for his delight

her hands in love

pinched tenderly

all for a dish, for his relish.

A man’s love is through

his mouth,

so she would feed him

all she can.

Love needs to be found

through the morsels from

his insides.

So she baked & cooked & fried

until she felt satisfied

& setting a table for two

she waited all night.

When the moon began to bid

goodbye

she heard footsteps outside

& burping all the while

She closed her eyes

It OK, for tomorrow  she would try

for the love of a man

is not in his heart…

Maybe, there is no point anymore in repentance and reminiscences. They did have good times and they had been through hell. A love story of so many years. They played hide & seek through  out their childhood. Youth threw them apart in its early years. And when she had received a call on that fateful afternoon, she never realized that she would mistake it for a hand of escape. It never was, she should have remained there, deep down, alone in her exile.

Demons, she carried them inside and loved them too. For they were her sole companions when everyone else had discarded her, when she had left. Life in a lonely city and then life with him.The sun seemed to draw nearer, its going to happen soon now. She caressed her tummy, in a few months the bulge would have been visible. In a few months, if she was still pregnant, still alive…

He loved her and she loved him back, but sometimes love can wreck lives. Her possessiveness threw them apart. She had no one, except him and so she clung. To the extend of  breaking the chord. And now,when she would have happily disclosed, he shut her up with a proposal of mutual divorce. So she watched the sun rise, with her baby. And a drop of poison in her steaming coffee. When he came behind her and kissed her, all she did was remain numb. When he showed her the pregnancy test papers, all smiles, she couldn’t blink. When her eyes closed, all that she could hear

were his sorry s and she died of having won the last battle, with her baby inside.

I never saw his smirk

I never felt his smile

I walked away, towards light.

I have been in the sun since

with my tears dying in shadows

until none flowed, none left

but smiles..never had to see smirks

I got a hand to hold, lips to graze

eyes to shy away from, life to behold.

But on a dark day

when the sun had shied away

I saw him again, without the smirk

but with love

a love that took too long

to realize.

& I …smirked

in tears.

a faint laughter

from the ground beneath

echoed into my womb

tingled my heart

and flashed through my eyes.

A whisper, a tickle

a corny secret, all blushes

the call of the Woman

to sway herself  to the tunes

of life.

To walk in high heels

to redden my cheeks

to bat my lashes, to paint my toes

I could be all

& still be muddy, and in moss

I could be the earth

I could be all

for I have the call of Her inside

echoing all through

the call of The Woman!