Renewing, restoring

I have been away for more than a month, though it feels much more longer than that. It has been ages since I've created anything or given shape to any of my countless mute ramblings. Words, other people's, are all I have these days, across which I splosh copious amounts of digital red ink. At times it feels strange, even a little cruel, to be striking out ambitions so ruthlessly, to tweak thoughts so mercilessly that someone would have spent hours constructing. But that is how the world works.

What does it take to realize that there's always, always a little corner somewhere where days recycle themselves and things start afresh? That there's still a world of splendour waiting on the earth that we haven't seen? A walk to the nearest plant nursery. A stroll amid the stoic, old tombs. The palm-sized, sun-hued hibiscus tells you that; it's velvety petals tickle you with life and joy, rubbing some of that magic on you. The inviting archway of the tombs that have been standing there forever and are currently undergoing a much-needed face-lift, say it too.
With the tropical winter breathing its last, well almost, and a very short-lived, confused spring blooming here and there, it's time to start afresh. To renew the yearly stack of hopes, to air the room full of dreams, and to get cracking before summer takes over our lives. Here's to hope. And to more blogging!

Blossoms and blessings

"But listen to me. For one moment
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you."

~ Rumi

Sometimes it's just mystifying, how things fall into place out of nowhere, almost nothing. Perhaps even more so than how they had fallen apart in the first place. But they just do, one by one, fragment by fragment.
Going through some archived folders of photographs, I chanced upon the Qutub Shahi tombs and like always, inched toward that instinct to post-process some. Although I've already written about these magnificent old tombs last August, I hadn't seen a certain connection between some pictures, not even when I was clicking them - that of the bougainvillea trails and the tombs. From a series of clicks, emerges a grand, ethereal view - first the minaret, then the dome and finally the whole tomb unfolds from the gossamer embrace of the papery pink blossoms. Photographic epiphany, perhaps?

Also, it has been a time to feel blessed. A time to trust that old, feathered thing called hope. The last week was quite unexpected, choked with tumultuous emotions. My Aja, maternal grandfather, was suddenly taken ill and the doctors suspected something rather bad. I was afraid we won't see that surprised, foggy-eyed smile that greets us every time at the clank of the big old gate. I was afraid there would be no constant gardener digging away obsessively and marveling at his own hard work. I was afraid how a tiny yet significant corner of our lives would change forever. And the worst of all - I was afraid how my dearest Aai will cope with it all, after some fifty odd years of steady togetherness. But surprisingly, during all this, the eighty-year-old Mathematics professor who has already braved three massive strokes refused to bow down, astonishing all with his beaming optimism. So, after a series of tests and doubts, the results came yesterday - he is alright! A flood of relief washed away the accumulated fear from our hearts, and I could hear the blessings dropping around us, in soft, blossomy paws.

To newness

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s what part of it means to be alive. But inside our heads — at least that’s where I imagine it — there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let fresh air in, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live for ever in your own private library.”

— Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

And with that brave sentiment borrowed from Murakami's ethereal prose and this feisty cluster of palash (how very aptly named 'flame of the forest'), I wish you all a wonderful new year filled with much love, laughter, and sunshine. Stay blessed.

Eat, Pray, Love

"This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something."

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

This was one confusing read for me, apart from the occasional nuggets of wisdom like in the above quoted lines. I swung between hatred and love and then sometimes it was just unadulterated disenchantment. Now before I plunge deeper into my regrets, I must confess of being somewhat of a literary snob. Almost a decade of studying and a year of teaching literature has done this to me. But I did stray many times and found pleasure being on the other side, my most favorite being Bridget Jones, for I could actually identify with so many of her blunders.
Coming back to Elizabeth Gilbert's journey, I finally fell prey to it despite the years of resistance, ever since its stellar release. The reason - having watched the movie Eat, Pray, Love for the second time recently, and being once again moved by Julia Robert's brilliant performance (when has she ever been dull?!). My other reason for picking it up - I hoped it would have a cure for my personal disillusionment with life at the present moment, and that I would get to mend certain aspects of my writhing and wringing world. But this was one of those rarest of times, when the film adaptation stirs you more than the book itself. May be it was the superficial tone or the effect of too many bad, needy jokes, but a large part of it felt like reading out of the diary of a troubled teenager often obsessing over something as trivial as her first pimple.

Having said that, no one can take away the writer's courage and faith for embarking upon this remarkable journey, both physically and spiritually. Kudos to her for learning the daunting Sanskrit scriptures and mastering the art of meditation, which, I am sure, many of us Hindus haven't dared to and probably never will. But I just failed to make a connection with her predicament, or to get inspired from her experiences. I even went back to Goodreads to check out a few more reviews and was relieved to find that nothing was wrong with me. Well, not here, at least.

And when I was too distracted by the overwhelming self-love in the book, I chose instead to stare at this Buddha bookmark and draw from the pool of serenity cascading from that eternally radiant face.

Old garden

"If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden."

~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

An old garden. A rickety, old chair sits amid a jungle of unkempt grass. Its frame veiled by a disheveled vine of common pea. The white star-like flowers light up the surrounding wilderness. Just a few steps away, clumps of pink bougainvillea adorn a rusted gate, crisscrossing homes and boundaries.
As the thunder clouds clap and roar in the distance, I wait for the dainty dance of rain. The garden commands my attention taking up a chunk of my lazy afternoon. A hint of symmetry in asymmetry, a sudden flash of beauty in waywardness. In this dazed, unsure state of life, this old garden inspires me to hope. And today I shall hope for the rain. Some rain.

Flight

A black-headed gull in flight on Liberty Island, NYC

Last night Rumi spoke to me, in my dreams... "I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think." Or was it the wee bit o' crack between sleep and consciousness?

I wake up and wonder - how hard is it to be a bird? To fly? Just spread your faith and glide on it, as if you belong there. As if the sky is yours and its feathery, fathomless infinity your clothes. Wear the engulfing yet liberating azure.

At times the brisk air catches you unaware, shaking a string of stories and songs. You might waver and fall, but fall you must. For as a phoenix you will be reborn, shedding the ashes of rejection and rise again from the very embers that had gulped you so thoughtlessly once.

And when in mid air, just remember - the ominous land and the embracing skies are balanced by you, within you. Soar higher or crash. It is just you.

Miles to go...

"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing."
~ Sylvia Plath

Just when I was submitting a creative writing assignment yesterday, something hit me with a quiet yet brutal force. Why is it so hard to believe in oneself? This question does not just ring in my doubt-prone ever fretting head, but the each one of us who has tried to be creative in whichever way. There are times when we just fall flat on our faces refusing to get up. But then we always do, for so huge is the urge to carry on, on this never-ending journey of dejection and lucklessness. The in-between moments, the ones between applaud and despair, are the ones where we question, fear and sometimes lose all hope. For someone like me who suffers from chronic pessimism, that 'sometimes' becomes most of the times. I don't know how good or bad a writer I am (or if I am a 'writer' at all!), but I do want to be someone some day. Even if it is through just one story. Just once. Thus the battle must continue, for how long who can say.

A tiny fragment from a lost moment (it just flew in while I was halfway my rant!):

"She was late that day. Again. Bus no. 256 had left. For someone as blindly confident as a race horse when amid friends, she often found herself miserably vulnerable in such situations. Standing neat in a cerulean dress and black heels, she could sense her flagging self clam up like a morning glory at night. The bus would not be here before another hour. Even the hands of her watch crawled labouriously, ticking reluctantly. Her eager eyes scoured the almost empty bus-stop hoping for someone to appear, for a flicker of that sudden surprise, like a deer appearing on the middle of the road out of green nothingness. She fumbled inside her trendy taupe tote, fidgeting through the tangled mass of keys, Kleenex and cosmetics, fishing out a book. It was a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood. Books had always comforted her like a mother comforts her bruised child. Words gave her strength, cleared the clutter of emotions in her doubting head. The nagging unease receded into the background like a stale story of the past. She was a lover of words, after all."

Flashback

There was once a heart inside me.

I remember swallowing it on a cold, rainy day

For warmth to feel snug and protected,

For a demon-fire to burn the wishful desires.

It was a Saturday I think.

A weekend for a perfect end

of Hope and a heap of other useless abstract nouns.

The fire remained, but only for a while.

Since then it has been dark and cold there.

A lump, perhaps of flesh, still beats feebly...

In its own mad rhythm, which I fail to understand.

Anyway, I never understood much.

A summer rain

Pomegranate blossom in rain

The rain waltzes in with the august company of myriad hopes.

The oozing odour of the wet earth
unhinges my complete being.
I strip myself of the much accumulated worldliness
to partake in nature's pagan celebration.
My thoughts march ahead and rest on the rain drenched greenery.
Green... the harbinger of optimism!
Isn't rain cathartic?

I watch the quivering leaves flinch,
feverish with the weight of the promiscuous rain drops on them.
The droplets dangle precariously,
queued on the edge of the leaf,
as if to leave would mean the end of the world!
But, isn't life all about holding fast?
To someone, to something?

I can hear the rain seeping into my head.
I can feel my vision blur.