Quiver,
shiver, shy and shudder,
peek and yet recoil...
Breeze
blows, bend and bow,
gently sway and smile...
Dewdrops
twinkle, trail and trickle,
a shimmer divine and solemn...
Now
bold, fold and unfold,
the bright blue blossom.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,
I had decided to stay away from Orkut, Ryze, Blog and chats for a month atleast. And its been two weeks... and I cant take it any longer. In the interim, I have not been sincere in my resolve. I sneaked into my blog and typed this little poem, but didnt publish it. I visited all your blogs too... just that I didnt comment. :-) I logged on to Orkut and read all messages. I chatted with friends a couple of times in the last 2 weeks, though most of the times I remained logged out. The temptation was too much and I did my best to resist it. And then I realized, the time I was spending on resisting the temptation, I could as well give in and spend much lesser time.
So I am back... and I am sorry... that last post was so dramatic as if I was quitting blogging for ever... and I am ashamed it turned out to be such a small duration. And I did not learn anything great in the meantime. But yes, I did watch a play at Rangashankara after ages... I initiated the Manuscripts blog that I was planning for a long time... and guess what? I met my first prospective initiator for the practical side of Manuscripts. so now it will begin soon. :-)
hmmmm and about the significance of these last too weeks on my internal atmosphere... well I cant say I have grown any wiser, but I realized or should I say... I "accepted" some of the reasons behind those conflicts that I had. No major conclusion reached, but a few observations, afew postulates made, which might be a step further towards the goal... I will talk about it in detail sometime.
So thats about it... Hope you all had a nice time.
Cheers!
Meenakshi
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Auto-reply
Dear reader,
I am going on a vacation. A vacation to some far away land that I am yet to find. I am preparing to set out on a long voyage and I dont know when I would be ashore. But I know I will come back... and come back fresh and re-energized. I hope I will learn a lot on this voyage. I will be a bit wiser, a bit more practical, a bit more real when I come back. It is something like a treasure hunt I am setting on, hoping to find the riches of beauty and happiness.
This small island has been like a home turf for me and I will miss it. Its like a choking feeling... I feel bad on severing myself from these beloved grounds, even for a small duration. But it is a necessary seperation. I dont know what triggered this long-pending need, but I knew it was in-store for sometime now.
I will miss all you lovely people who have been here with me and I am afraid when I come back, I will find all of you lost in your own worlds, having forgotten me. You know how when you leave a place, your idea of the place stagnates, and when you come back to find it changed, you cannot accept the change, because you were not part of that change when it happened. You yourself might have changed in the interim, but not having witnessed or experienced the change in the place, you tend to resist it.
I dont know why I am going and in search of what... but I hope I find what I seek. And I know all your best wishes would be with me. Thank You for everything and please wait for me. I will come back :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This sounds so dramatic... ;-)
Oh its nothing. I will be away for sometime, I dont know how long. There are just a few other things I need to look into... some serious decisions. While this poor blog did nothing to stop me from pursuing those other things, I still feel like saying a dramatic bye before I go... hence, I subjected you to the above torture.
You all have fun and keep writing and enjoy life. I will come back and read all your posts {and give my expert comments ;-)} Till then take care and "Hooooold Tiiime" {I am saying it like Shaan used to in that TV serial Saregama} :-)
Ok enough now... take care
Cheers!
Minakshi...... no... Meenakshi :-)
I am going on a vacation. A vacation to some far away land that I am yet to find. I am preparing to set out on a long voyage and I dont know when I would be ashore. But I know I will come back... and come back fresh and re-energized. I hope I will learn a lot on this voyage. I will be a bit wiser, a bit more practical, a bit more real when I come back. It is something like a treasure hunt I am setting on, hoping to find the riches of beauty and happiness.
This small island has been like a home turf for me and I will miss it. Its like a choking feeling... I feel bad on severing myself from these beloved grounds, even for a small duration. But it is a necessary seperation. I dont know what triggered this long-pending need, but I knew it was in-store for sometime now.
I will miss all you lovely people who have been here with me and I am afraid when I come back, I will find all of you lost in your own worlds, having forgotten me. You know how when you leave a place, your idea of the place stagnates, and when you come back to find it changed, you cannot accept the change, because you were not part of that change when it happened. You yourself might have changed in the interim, but not having witnessed or experienced the change in the place, you tend to resist it.
I dont know why I am going and in search of what... but I hope I find what I seek. And I know all your best wishes would be with me. Thank You for everything and please wait for me. I will come back :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This sounds so dramatic... ;-)
Oh its nothing. I will be away for sometime, I dont know how long. There are just a few other things I need to look into... some serious decisions. While this poor blog did nothing to stop me from pursuing those other things, I still feel like saying a dramatic bye before I go... hence, I subjected you to the above torture.
You all have fun and keep writing and enjoy life. I will come back and read all your posts {and give my expert comments ;-)} Till then take care and "Hooooold Tiiime" {I am saying it like Shaan used to in that TV serial Saregama} :-)
Ok enough now... take care
Cheers!
Minakshi...... no... Meenakshi :-)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The Cardamom of Love - Happy Valentines Day
Its Valentines Day and this story here looks too sad on the joyous occasion. So here let me add a light note on the brighter side of love... Let it act as a prologue to this story... though with a clear disconnect :-)
Iqraar-e-ishq bayaan karne ke liye nazrana,
Yun toh bazaar mein bahut bikta hai...
Bheja aaiyne mein kaidkar dil apna,
Jo unki har ek jhalak par dhadakta hai...
Ishq ka paakar yeh nazrana ajeeb,
Mehboob mera khat mein likhta hai...
"Aaiyne ka hum kya karen sahib,
Kisiki aankhon hi mein apna aks dikhta hai".
hmmm okay... and now for the original story...
The Cardamom of Love
She set out on her daily expedition. A walk, that was a routine affair with no particular destination. A practice of more than a decade and yet was not mundane in its regularity. A ritual that still held a meaning and was not devoid of reason. An activity that still had a certain pleasure in its repetition. She enjoyed her solitary walks in the bright, chirpy mornings and in the dark, starlit nights. A walk that helped her transcend into a peaceful, blissful trance, that was sanjivni to her battered restless soul and prepared it for yet another day filled with anxiety, for the boredom, for success, for rejection, for the happy delightful squeals, for the depressing mood swings and prepared her even for a practiced indifference. The few moments of solitude that helped her connect with herself, the self that was represented by something lying deep within her. This was the only real conversation that she had, the conversation with solitude.
That night was no different, identical to its several predecessors… There was nothing in its origin to mark it as unique. Yet, if there is something called destiny, it would have seen the uniqueness in the evenness of the night. The secret intent of the night, hidden beneath the black sheet of the dead sky. For destiny knows everything… and knew that it was not the ordinary nights of nothingness… it was a night that would evoke some ripples, a night that would awaken several dormant energies, that would set into motion certain powers that have it in them to move the stagnant mountains or stagnate the flowing rivers, powers that have it in them to affect the deity and the demon equally, powers that are capable of building and destroying civilizations…
She walked the usual road taking the usual turn at the end of the road, lost in conversation with her inner-self, when suddenly she froze. She felt like her solitude was invaded by a presence, a presence that was not evident yet definitely remained masked in the darkness. A presence that was disturbing, unnerving, because it unleashed those fears she had never known… the fear of the unknown. And then something emerged out of the darkness. It was a shadow that she could see falling on her own shadow on the street. For a moment the two shadows merged, united and could be seen as one. And this heaviness of another shadow on her own, somehow exasperated her and she broke into a run. Did not stop or halt to confirm her fears, to stamp the feeling with reality, to even see if the shadow followed. She just ran as fast as she could, as never before. She just wanted to escape from that shadow for no reason. No… the shadow was not evil, did not threaten her, did nothing to her. She was not even sure if it existed, if there was a substance, a voice, some matter attached to the shadow. She just wanted to go away to her safe den. And even after reaching her den, the safe abode of her bodily existence, she was anxious. She did not sleep that night... kept thinking about the sudden emergence of the shadow from nowhere, about the intentions of the shadow and about her own surprising response to it, till the few saffron rays and the chirping of the birds, announced the dawn.
For the first time in the many years, something happened. A stimulus strong enough to upset, to jumble up the unquestioned, fixed patterns of the life that she was leading. The bright dawn transformed into a scorching noon and she remained tied up to her bed, thinking about the night before. Then past noon somehow pushed herself towards normalcy. And in the same attempt of restoring normalcy, she coxed herself to go for her walk that night. But she was cautious. There was a fear deep within her that made her start at the rustling of the leaves, at the ticking of the lizard, at the sound of a siren in a close-by factory. Slowly, she walked and reached the same turn where she had met the shadow last night. And the feeling of someone following returned. She felt the same heaviness of a shadow on her own, the same presence. But today she did not freeze. She did not even turn back or run ahead. She kept her normal pace and the shadow walked with her in her solitude, without uttering a word. They walked together like strangers that day and for the next few days to come. The company of the shadow began to seem normal to her. She learnt not to fear it, and to get used to it… in-fact she slowly even learnt to like it, to look forward to that turn where it joined her. And yet she did not want to turn back and look at the substance behind the shadow… she was scared of some revelation, she was scared of something unknown, she was scared of breaking the trance, and most of all, she was scared of losing the shadow in anticipation of some substance which may or may not exist.
Days passed by and she became attached to the shadow. It became a part of her life. The silence between them was long since broken and a comfort of sharing words, sharing her thoughts, dreams, fears, happiness took over. The shadow was now an extended part of herself, no more a heaviness she despised, but the weight that comforted her. She let the shadow through the smallest crevices of her dark past, through the bright sunshines of her life… through everything that was ever hers or ever would be a part of her. The shadow was her companion for life, the soulmate she was unconsciously seeking for, the love of her life. Yet she feared this fact being ascertained, feared that the surety would be something like a writing on the stone, that would somehow turn her life dead like a stone. The certainty would somehow destroy the beauty of this trance and so she never sought to look back and ascertain.
Life was now beautiful. She lived the beauty of the orange sky at dawn, she sang with the birds the song of mirth, she reflected the shine of the crystalline dew drops, she flourished in the green of the leaves, she drenched in the life-like showers of rain, she filled her soul with the smell of the wet earth and all this she did holding the hands of the shadow, the love of her life and held it till dusk and it was time to go back to her abode and wish for another beautiful dawn to break so she could revel in the company of her newly found love.
One fine evening as she was on her way, she suddenly felt an urge to see her companion. To stamp the romance with the seal of reality. And enthused with the surety of her own thoughts and believing in her instincts, she closed her eyes and turned back, hoping that as she would slowly open her eyes, she would fill her vision with the image of the man she knew so well. Whose shadow she could identify in a crowd, whose voice she could trace in chaos, whose breath was mingled in her own. And preparing herself for the immense happiness she was about to receive, to find herself completed, she slowly opened her dreamy eyes. But, her vision froze as she saw the shadow moving away from her. The fear of parting returned like a loud scream in her mind and she held out her outstretched arm wishing the shadow would grasp it. But the shadow was drifting, as if pulled away by some unseen force, pulled away from her forever. She called out to him. But there was no response… only the length of the shadow kept diminishing till it was only a speck on the horizon and without a sound, just vanished, dissolved in that meeting point of the land and the sky.
She remained standing there for a while… alone, a solitary figure at dusk. A lonely shadow suspended at the centre of the earth and around her everything revolved in circular motion. Then she started walking homewards. She walked the twists and turns of the road, lost in nothingness, seeing yet not seeing, hearing yet not listening, feeling yet numb, thoughts that never registered in her consciousness. She walked with her eyes fixed on some distant horizon, a horizon that was a myth, just as insubstantial as her existence seemed at that point of time.
Love deserted her, left her in the middle of a journey to an unknown destination, in the middle of nowhere… Now again she was with her solitude. But the solitude now was not peaceful. There was a yearning, a restlessness, a quest attached to the solitude. She was now estranged from her inner-self, estranged with the pleasant conversations she had with that inner self… and what remained now was only the reminiscence of a few broken sounds, a few incomplete sentences and a few suspended emotions. Love touched her life and left an impression that would last for sometime. Like the seeds of a cardamom after dissolving in the mouth, leave behind a lingering scent, a flavour, an essence. Thus was her life flavoured by the cardamom of love.
Note: Dear reader, this was a slightly longish post... Hope it did not render you impatient. :-)
Love touches all our lives at some point of time and we all react differently to it. Initially we are afraid of love, afraid of the change, of accepting it and then after accepting it, there is a constant fear of losing it.
Sometimes love attains its end in the form of companionship for life... while at other times, love just touches your life briefly and then vanishes. Yet even after it ceases to exist, it leaves behind a sweetness that reminds me of the flavour of cardamom that lingers in your breath for some time... just like love lingers in your life... :-)
Iqraar-e-ishq bayaan karne ke liye nazrana,
Yun toh bazaar mein bahut bikta hai...
Bheja aaiyne mein kaidkar dil apna,
Jo unki har ek jhalak par dhadakta hai...
Ishq ka paakar yeh nazrana ajeeb,
Mehboob mera khat mein likhta hai...
"Aaiyne ka hum kya karen sahib,
Kisiki aankhon hi mein apna aks dikhta hai".
hmmm okay... and now for the original story...
The Cardamom of Love
She set out on her daily expedition. A walk, that was a routine affair with no particular destination. A practice of more than a decade and yet was not mundane in its regularity. A ritual that still held a meaning and was not devoid of reason. An activity that still had a certain pleasure in its repetition. She enjoyed her solitary walks in the bright, chirpy mornings and in the dark, starlit nights. A walk that helped her transcend into a peaceful, blissful trance, that was sanjivni to her battered restless soul and prepared it for yet another day filled with anxiety, for the boredom, for success, for rejection, for the happy delightful squeals, for the depressing mood swings and prepared her even for a practiced indifference. The few moments of solitude that helped her connect with herself, the self that was represented by something lying deep within her. This was the only real conversation that she had, the conversation with solitude.
That night was no different, identical to its several predecessors… There was nothing in its origin to mark it as unique. Yet, if there is something called destiny, it would have seen the uniqueness in the evenness of the night. The secret intent of the night, hidden beneath the black sheet of the dead sky. For destiny knows everything… and knew that it was not the ordinary nights of nothingness… it was a night that would evoke some ripples, a night that would awaken several dormant energies, that would set into motion certain powers that have it in them to move the stagnant mountains or stagnate the flowing rivers, powers that have it in them to affect the deity and the demon equally, powers that are capable of building and destroying civilizations…
She walked the usual road taking the usual turn at the end of the road, lost in conversation with her inner-self, when suddenly she froze. She felt like her solitude was invaded by a presence, a presence that was not evident yet definitely remained masked in the darkness. A presence that was disturbing, unnerving, because it unleashed those fears she had never known… the fear of the unknown. And then something emerged out of the darkness. It was a shadow that she could see falling on her own shadow on the street. For a moment the two shadows merged, united and could be seen as one. And this heaviness of another shadow on her own, somehow exasperated her and she broke into a run. Did not stop or halt to confirm her fears, to stamp the feeling with reality, to even see if the shadow followed. She just ran as fast as she could, as never before. She just wanted to escape from that shadow for no reason. No… the shadow was not evil, did not threaten her, did nothing to her. She was not even sure if it existed, if there was a substance, a voice, some matter attached to the shadow. She just wanted to go away to her safe den. And even after reaching her den, the safe abode of her bodily existence, she was anxious. She did not sleep that night... kept thinking about the sudden emergence of the shadow from nowhere, about the intentions of the shadow and about her own surprising response to it, till the few saffron rays and the chirping of the birds, announced the dawn.
For the first time in the many years, something happened. A stimulus strong enough to upset, to jumble up the unquestioned, fixed patterns of the life that she was leading. The bright dawn transformed into a scorching noon and she remained tied up to her bed, thinking about the night before. Then past noon somehow pushed herself towards normalcy. And in the same attempt of restoring normalcy, she coxed herself to go for her walk that night. But she was cautious. There was a fear deep within her that made her start at the rustling of the leaves, at the ticking of the lizard, at the sound of a siren in a close-by factory. Slowly, she walked and reached the same turn where she had met the shadow last night. And the feeling of someone following returned. She felt the same heaviness of a shadow on her own, the same presence. But today she did not freeze. She did not even turn back or run ahead. She kept her normal pace and the shadow walked with her in her solitude, without uttering a word. They walked together like strangers that day and for the next few days to come. The company of the shadow began to seem normal to her. She learnt not to fear it, and to get used to it… in-fact she slowly even learnt to like it, to look forward to that turn where it joined her. And yet she did not want to turn back and look at the substance behind the shadow… she was scared of some revelation, she was scared of something unknown, she was scared of breaking the trance, and most of all, she was scared of losing the shadow in anticipation of some substance which may or may not exist.
Days passed by and she became attached to the shadow. It became a part of her life. The silence between them was long since broken and a comfort of sharing words, sharing her thoughts, dreams, fears, happiness took over. The shadow was now an extended part of herself, no more a heaviness she despised, but the weight that comforted her. She let the shadow through the smallest crevices of her dark past, through the bright sunshines of her life… through everything that was ever hers or ever would be a part of her. The shadow was her companion for life, the soulmate she was unconsciously seeking for, the love of her life. Yet she feared this fact being ascertained, feared that the surety would be something like a writing on the stone, that would somehow turn her life dead like a stone. The certainty would somehow destroy the beauty of this trance and so she never sought to look back and ascertain.
Life was now beautiful. She lived the beauty of the orange sky at dawn, she sang with the birds the song of mirth, she reflected the shine of the crystalline dew drops, she flourished in the green of the leaves, she drenched in the life-like showers of rain, she filled her soul with the smell of the wet earth and all this she did holding the hands of the shadow, the love of her life and held it till dusk and it was time to go back to her abode and wish for another beautiful dawn to break so she could revel in the company of her newly found love.
One fine evening as she was on her way, she suddenly felt an urge to see her companion. To stamp the romance with the seal of reality. And enthused with the surety of her own thoughts and believing in her instincts, she closed her eyes and turned back, hoping that as she would slowly open her eyes, she would fill her vision with the image of the man she knew so well. Whose shadow she could identify in a crowd, whose voice she could trace in chaos, whose breath was mingled in her own. And preparing herself for the immense happiness she was about to receive, to find herself completed, she slowly opened her dreamy eyes. But, her vision froze as she saw the shadow moving away from her. The fear of parting returned like a loud scream in her mind and she held out her outstretched arm wishing the shadow would grasp it. But the shadow was drifting, as if pulled away by some unseen force, pulled away from her forever. She called out to him. But there was no response… only the length of the shadow kept diminishing till it was only a speck on the horizon and without a sound, just vanished, dissolved in that meeting point of the land and the sky.
She remained standing there for a while… alone, a solitary figure at dusk. A lonely shadow suspended at the centre of the earth and around her everything revolved in circular motion. Then she started walking homewards. She walked the twists and turns of the road, lost in nothingness, seeing yet not seeing, hearing yet not listening, feeling yet numb, thoughts that never registered in her consciousness. She walked with her eyes fixed on some distant horizon, a horizon that was a myth, just as insubstantial as her existence seemed at that point of time.
Love deserted her, left her in the middle of a journey to an unknown destination, in the middle of nowhere… Now again she was with her solitude. But the solitude now was not peaceful. There was a yearning, a restlessness, a quest attached to the solitude. She was now estranged from her inner-self, estranged with the pleasant conversations she had with that inner self… and what remained now was only the reminiscence of a few broken sounds, a few incomplete sentences and a few suspended emotions. Love touched her life and left an impression that would last for sometime. Like the seeds of a cardamom after dissolving in the mouth, leave behind a lingering scent, a flavour, an essence. Thus was her life flavoured by the cardamom of love.
Note: Dear reader, this was a slightly longish post... Hope it did not render you impatient. :-)
Love touches all our lives at some point of time and we all react differently to it. Initially we are afraid of love, afraid of the change, of accepting it and then after accepting it, there is a constant fear of losing it.
Sometimes love attains its end in the form of companionship for life... while at other times, love just touches your life briefly and then vanishes. Yet even after it ceases to exist, it leaves behind a sweetness that reminds me of the flavour of cardamom that lingers in your breath for some time... just like love lingers in your life... :-)
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