Pebbles

`
Choice:
Many roads forked out. I asked the road-keeper, "Where do each of these lead?"
"They all lead to the same place," he said. "Therefore, choose wisely."
_____________

Identity:
A small brook meets a river. 
A few miles downstream, a tree on the bank asks, "Whose water are you?"
_____________
  
Purpose:
The nimbus thinks the cumulus is useless. 
_____________
   
Ego:
If the sun-rays had not allowed themselves to be broken by the tiny droplets of mist, the rainbow would not have become.
_____________

Sanctum:
The bird believes the tree is its home. 
The tree believes the bird is its home.
_____________
  
Luxury:
The larger your mansion, the larger the hollow it houses.
_____________
  
Perfection:
Even spring water isn't pure. 
It isn't supposed to be.
_____________
  
Enlightenment:
I know who I am, 
Only not yet.
_____________
  
Brahma:
The apple falls from the ground to the tree. 
And back.
_____________ 

Time:
Life is like that. The faster you run, the faster it will outrun you.
_____________

`

Taj


Agra, UP,
December, 2011 

Love on the evening train

`
You sit 'cross me on the evening train
In your dark denims, and gray cardigan.

Your lips flush red with red lipstick.
You glance at me, and smile once, quick.

When he calls up – you hardly speak:
Your eyes are tired, your voice is weak.

The phone call done, you close your eyes.
The train chugs on, amidst your sighs.

Lovely you look, in your gray and blue,
Your dark red lips, large eyes and you.

How he must love those lips, those eyes,
That lovely nose, those eyebrows wise!

Yet does he really understand you?
Your lips, your eyes, your gray and blue?

Why let me love you while you sleep
For these few moments, for me to keep,

Before we part strangers again,
Who sat across on an evening train.

No, not your lips, or eyes, or hair –
He loves all that, and you do not care.

Instead, let me love your empty sigh,
The infinite tiredness in your eye,

The yearnings of your lonely heart,
And these three long feet that keep us apart.
`
Grand Central Station, NY, 
November, 2011

Water lillies

`
As it stands now, we need to speak only every third sentence in our conversations. We choose the most beautiful ones. That's our secret.
_____________

As we crossed the road, she casually clutched my arm.
As if it was the most natural thing for her to do.
_____________

She pulled the veil gently across her face, bowed her head down, and from her hiding, stole a long glance at him. He was still smiling.
_____________

Did you notice?
Just when I caressed her ivory white petal, the flower smiled!
Did you notice?
_____________

`

Monsoon

`
The monsoon frogs croak the language of my lost childhood.
_____________

Do not love my talents. 
Love instead my infinite loneliness.
_____________

All the songs I had learned to sing
It seems were for this day;
All those poems I'd read as a child
They seem so perfect today.
_____________

Do not hate me so;
You and I are one and the same,
Especially that part of me you hate so much.
_____________

When I finally gathered the courage, you turned me down. 
And I thought, this is what I had been waiting for so long.
_____________

You wait for me on the other bank. 
The river flows, and I do not have the courage to swim.
_____________

Do not agree with me. 
Accept me. 
_____________

I look at the moon; and all is well with the world.
_____________

The boy dashed into the room excited: “There was this flash of lightning,” he blurted out. 
“For a moment I thought it was daylight.”
_____________

And when at last I reached the top, I realized I was scared of heights.
_____________

`

অসম্পূর্ণ (Incomplete)

`
ঠিক এমনি করেই, আর একটি ক্লান্ত দিন 
ঢলে পরে আরও একটি রাতের বুকে  –
নিঃশেষিত, তবু অসম্পূর্ণ |

(And in some such way, another tired day 
Collapses onto yet another night  –
Exhausted, yet incomplete.)
`
White Plains, NY,
October, 2011

gWait

`
For you to turn green
I've been waiting all day,
Even red you could've been
But you've chosen to be gray!
`
Minneapolis, MN,
July, 2011

Returning

`
I am tired now and need returning
Back where I grew up in,
Where they sing in a tongue I used to know
But such a long time it has been.

I've been too cold and been too dry
Too far away too long,
Will you not fill my cup again
So once more I may belong?

Your wind rustles the leaves up high
Can't it rustle me too,
Return me my voice again
That I may sing with you?

The city has kept painting me
With a myriad hues,
Won't your rain now heal away
The scars of that abuse?

The world's too big and I too lonely
I've earned too much to own.
Come, wash away this loneliness
While I sit with you alone.
`
Crystal Ridge, NY,
June, 2011

Man's search for meaning

`
Over the ages, I have meditated
Relentlessly
Searching for a meaning;
An answer to the why
That glues this endless matrix
Of matter and of consciousness.

And how defeated I have felt!
This earnest quest,
Over hundreds and thousands of years,
Has revealed nothing.
Nothing.

On the contrary,
I have understood much.
I have discovered in wonderment
So many hows to the universe's inner workings.
I have revealed a universe full of breathtaking order
I have revealed laws,
And in the courtroom of that universal lawmaker
Everything, from the tiniest atom to the mightiest galaxy,
Is held equal.
Through my seeking
I have continually squeezed out
The magic from the universe,
And like an excited child
Replaced it with fancy contraptions of my own.

And yet, even with all the momentary joys
These have provided me with,
I have remained unquenched.
This ever-growing knowledge of material existence
Has remained shorn of meaning:
Exciting but purposeless.

Yearning for meaning,
I have taken recourse to well-crafted lies;
I have invented religions, and fabricated fairytales
Trying hard to pacify the unrest within
With falsehood.
Again and again, I have devised pre-occupations
To busy myself into forgetfulness.
I have invented innumerable toys
To distract myself.
But eventually, everything has begun to dry up
And the thirst for a purpose
Has become more and more fundamental,
More and more unrelenting.

And now, I have begun to wonder,
Can it be that I will really never know
What all this meant, means, will mean?
The why to all my questions
The why of all hows?

Will I not discover, some day
By chance or by meditation
The eternal, ultimate purpose?
Can it not simply be revealed,
Can I not be that chosen one?

Or will I discover,
To my devastation
That there is no meaning to be found?
That in all this how there is no why!
That my search
Over hundreds of millenia
Was but for the non-existent?

Or maybe, I will discover
That there is a meaning
That I cannot know
Or cannot comprehend
A meaning, not meant for me!
Will my existence
Be then reduced
To the intelligence and the innocence
Of a mere robot
In a greater orchestra?

How would I,
My ego
Accept such an eventuality?
Would I then rise in revolt
Against my master?
Or, would I then,
Finally
Become a believer?
`
White Plains, NY,
June, 2011

Habits

`
Back when I was young
I was excited all the time
I would dart about, or laugh, or cry
Without reason, without rhyme

But then they all told me,
"You're restless, calm down.
Sit here, learn some manners
And stop being a clown."

I was a nuisance (I thought)
I needed to be calm
I practised being patient
So calm I could become

And slowly as I grew
Ever calm, I tried to be
I made a thorough habit of it
And that habit became me.


Thus goes on this list
Of what (I thought) I ought to be
And a potful of these habits now
Is what has become me

And tonight it seems so funny
This myth I've lived in:
Believing I cannot be
What my habits haven't been.
`
Baltimore, MD,
October 2011

Withered Hopes


Chandannagar, WB,
March, 2011
`
Much of what I have achieved had once been just a dream. Yet, I remain unable to trust myself with my dreaming.

Help me entrust myself with my dreams master, and I shall change the world.
`
Minneapolis, MN,
January, 2010
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