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.

_____________

`

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.
_____________

`

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

I

`
Translated from the poem "Aami" in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore
`
In the colour of my consciousness the emerald became green

The ruby turned red
I cast my eyes on the sky,
And lights lit up
In the east and the west
Looking at the rose I said "beautiful,"
And beautiful she became.


You will say, This is philosophy,
This is not a poet's message.
I shall say, This is truth,
Hence this is poetry.
This is my ego,
Ego on behalf of all humanity.
And on man's canvas of ego
Lies the Creator's divine art.

The philosopher is meditating within his every breath
No no no --
No emeralds, no rubies, no light, no rose,
No I, no you.
And there, He, the endless, has Himself meditated
At the edge of Man's horizon
That is called "I".

In the depths of that I, light and darkness got united,
Beauty emerged, art awoke
And unnoticed, "no" flowered into "yes" in the spell of illusion
In lines, hues, pleasure, and gloom.
Don't call this philosophy;
My mind has become delighted
In the painting of this universal I
Brush in hand, colours in my palette.

The scholar is saying --
The old moon, his smile is cruel and cunning,
Like the messenger of death he crouches
Near the Earth's ribs.
And one day, will register a sudden heave, on its mountains and oceans;
In the new chronicles of the world
A void shall descend across the whole page,
Gulping down its diurnal records of expense and deposit;
Man's deeds shall get lost in the feigning of immortality,
His history shall be smeared
With soot of the endless night.

And the eye of man's departing day
Shall wring out every colour from the world,
His departing day's mind
Shall squeeze out its juices.
The tremors of power will reverberate from sky to sky,
Lights shall not glow anywhere
In the veena-less court, the musicians fingers shall dance,
But no tune will play.
And on that day, poetry-less, the almighty will remain seated alone,
Under colourless skies
With the mathematics of a personality-less existence.

And then, in the immense skies of the world,
In its farthest corner, among the eternal, innumerable masses
Nowhere shall this voice echo:
"You are beautiful,"
"I love you."
Will the Almighty sit again in meditation
Through the ages.
Will He meditate in the tempestuous dusk --
"Speak up, speak up,"
Will He say, "Say, you are beautiful"
Will He say, "Say, I love you?"
`

Minneapolis, MN,

May, 2009

Purple river

`
Tonight, I will run away,
Into the distant dark
Beyond the hushed and weary silence
Where all things sleep,
To visit my purple river.

Shawl clad, and lamp in hand,
Where they lie in whispers
Behind their doubting doors,
I will tiptoe past.
And when a trembling voice calls out:
"Who goes there?"
I will not answer.
Tonight, I have to visit my purple river.


Barefoot, through the crumbling dust,
When I reach her edge, I will blow out my lamp,
That I may see her again.
And I will whisper to her:
"Tonight, purple river, I have come to listen."

Tonight, purple river, I will not say: "Stop your flimsy tale!
And hear me talk, I have so much to say."
Tonight I will listen
To your purple voice
Undulating, in the distant dark.

Purple river, tell me all those secrets tonight
Of little farmer girls in red frocks
That only your naughty ripples know of.
Of the fisherman's son, and the barber's wife,
Of the shepherd who lost his flute,
Who plays no more his lost tune.

Purple river, make me giggle tonight,
Make me laugh, and make me cry,
And make me smile just the way you do
Rippling as you flow by.

Purple river, I too have tales to tell,
But they are flimsy, and they are gray;
And I have run and come to you
To hear of your coloured day
Of a coloured life, and of coloured people,
In your simple, purple way.
`

Minneapolis, MN,

March, 2008

Fall

`
Leaves
Now gold and orange,
and red
Shimmer in the sun.

They look beautiful.
Excited
and full of mirth.
And I so like the way
They sing and they sway.

Yet, I cannot love them.

Pretty they may be
But they do not belong to me.
`

Minneapolis, MN,

October, 2007

Sakhi bhabona kahare bole

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`

Translated from the original song in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore

`

Dear, what do you call thought
Dear, what do you name pain

All of you talk day and night
So much about 'love' –

Dear, what do you call ‘love’!
Is it only filled with hurt?

Is it only the teardrops?
Is it only the sad sighs?

Why then do they
Seeking what pleasure
Hope for such gloom?

To my eye, all seems beautiful

All young, all chaste,
The deep blue sky, the green groves,

The profound moonlight, and tender bloom –
They all are like me.

They just laugh away, and sing aloud,
Laughing and playing, they wish to die –

They know not pain, they know not tear,
They know not the aches of affection.

The flower cheerfully wilts away,
The moonlight gaily fades off,

Laughing in a sea of light
The stars slowly lose their form.

Who is more content than me.
Come dear, o come to me –

The blissful song of this content heart
Shall fill your mind, and balm your soul.

If you will merely cry each day
Just this one day then laugh aloud –

Just this one day, forgetting your grief
Let's all sing in unison

Dear, what do you call thought
Dear, what do you name pain

All of you talk day and night
So much about 'love' –

Dear, what do you call ‘love’!

`

Bengaluru, KA,

July, 2007

Eavesdropper

`
Grave grooves
Of dark, grave hills.

The rain slithers down
Crawling along broad shoulders
Of tall, shadowy trees,

An ancient, familiar rendezvous.

The rain whispers
In dappled notes;
The trees answer back,
Witnessed by the dark
Silence
Of the hills.

The exchange is patient
Yet restless.


' wonder what it is!
' wonder what plans they have
For man…
`

Chandannagar, WB,

July, 2007

`
I am small and insignificant.

Yet, when I laugh
In the timbre of that laughter dances all the happiness of the world;
And when I weep
In every teardrop lies concealed all of its sorrow.

I am small and insignificant,
Yet my master has entrusted within me all the vastness of his creations.
`

Bengaluru, KA,

April, 2007

Untitled

`
I saw,
Early in the morning,
A green leaf,
On a green tree.
The sun wasn’t yet out;
A caterpillar
Nibbled at the leaf’s edge,
The leaf didn’t speak though
A bird
Fluttered,
And hovered round,
It spotted the green caterpillar,
On the green leaf
Of the green tree…

The bird satisfied its hunger
The leaf was still quiet.
`

Pilani, RJ,

November, 2003

Apoptosis

`
Life said, “Let’s kill Mr. Death!”
“I’ll never suicide, dear Mr. Life,
I’m all-powerful, I am too strong,
Hardened by my business” ---
the narrow incandescent eyes glare at Life...
“Ha!” Life smiled aloud,
“You forget, you are naught but my parasite dear,
If need be, I’ll destroy myself to destroy you,
For your methods are most sadistic, cruel,
That make a mockery of my creative genius...”
Death had sprung up,
Utter joy written all over the dark face,
“Characteristic weakness Life, your characteristic weakness,
That you can never overcome,
Self-destruction in the end, what a joke,
To kill me, what a peach of a joke...Ha! Ha! Ha! ...”

[Exeunt]
`

Pilani, RJ,

November, 2003