If you will let me

If you will let me be brave
I will make a confession

Suffering lovers

Lovers find their way by insights and confidences. They're the stars we use to navigate our ocean of desire. And the brightest of these stars are the heartbreaks and sorrows. The most precious gift you can give to your lover is your suffering.

- shantaram

Challenge, Accepted

There is, sometimes,
A little bit of teasing
In the things he says
That could be seen as
A whole lot of love,
Lying in shadow,
Wanting to play
Or as a little bit of challenge,
Waiting to bait

She will always, always
Choose to notice the challenge
And respond only to it
For her blood flows too quick

She wishes it was otherwise

Especially after she realizes
What a lot of love she has missed

But she knows
That it will never be otherwise
Even if she was given a chance
To do it all over again

The happiest moments

Take me so deep into
My own sadness
That my face makes you wonder
If i am even happy at all

But i assure you, i am
And only with you
Who can take me there

The day my heart was broken

My monthly horoscope said
Was an excellent month for love

Horoscope today

He's going to be charming
Go ahead and fall for it
(Because, it is the most
Lovely moment in your life)

Then he is going to
Break your heart.
Be prepapred for it
(But go ahead and
Fall for it all the same.
Because it is still
The loveliest moment in you life
And despite the heartbreak
You would rather remember it
Than not)

Cure

Some feelings sink so deep into the heart
That only loneliness can help you find them again
Some truths about yourself are so painful
That only shame can help you live with them

- shantaram

Truth, extempore

I love you, he said
And that is
The only truth i know
At the moment

That was why it was true
And that was why
It did not last forever

High expectations

She didn't imagine
That it could go wrong

After all,
He had gone down
On both knees

Pursuit of inmortality

You must write my dear,
Says he,
Wishing me the best on dashain,
You must be creative,
For that is the only thing
That remains when we are gone

Born among men who pursue
Fame and immortality, am i

And i think of the men and women
Who, having no such dreams
(And cannot even have
Delusions to such grandeur),
Pursue fleeting moments
The only thing they can pursue

Wealth belongs to the king
And life belongs to death
They sing,
And only love,
Belongs to you and me

Ingredients

Just how much sugar
Does a cup of tea need?
If i put one grain more
Is it going to be cloying?
But if i put one teaspoon less
It will surely be blanf

Just how much butter in a cake?

Just how many brush strokes
In a painting of a bird
Will make it look like a bird?
If there is one brush stroke less
Is it going to be any less realistic?
Or three or four?
And when does it cease to be a bird
And is a collection of random strokes?

And what about the curlicues
On the dress i like?
What if they had been
Grapevines instead of orchids
Apples instead of mangoes
Paisleys instead of kalash
With the same amount of
Black and white
Would i notice the difference?
Would i like it all the same?

And i often wonder
What makes me me
What makes you you
And if there was just a little bit
More or less of this or that
If we would be the same

Life spiral

And so the first generation
Will strive for money
Respect, fame, security
Everything to raise themselves
From the doldrums
Everything the world praises

And so the second will see how
They forgot to enjoy life
In the pursuit
And try to inject
More and more enjoyment
Into the life of hardships
Dictated by their ancestors

And so the third generation
Born into luxury
Questions the need for hard work at all
Wonder why their predecessors
Feel so guilty about a little indulgement
And giving in wholly to hedonism
Degenrates into uselessness

The right path

It was all about curing his loneliness,
Of course,
Everything he did in his life

But he assumed life would take care of it
If he took the right path
If he did exactly as he was told,
As he was supposed to do

But he wouldn't admit that
It was about his loneliness
He made the world believe that
It was about his grand intention
To do the right things
By everyone

And so this earnest man
Spent his life in duty
Never taking a break
Never enjoying himself
Assuming life would reward him
For his path of righteousness

Reward him it did,
But not in the way he expected

He surpassed the expectations
Of those who told him what to do

And now he resents
That life did not reward him
With love

Walking over eggshells

Wondering if he will think her clingy
For calling too much
Or indifferent for calling too little

#how do people make it seem so easy

Light

As if you face
is the other end
of the infernal tunnel

Of the fog of confusion
and mess that surrounds me

The moment that was

How can a moment
Last eternity

And instead of fading
With every rememberance
Yields deeper and newer meanings

Pre-emptive

And so that she would not
Appear too eager
Or not be too disappointed
If she was rejected

She would always ask the men
About movies she had already seen
Events she had already been to

So that there would be no question
Of her being disappointed
If he never wanted to see it with her

Lost sights

Ripples of rice fields
Swaying in the wind
Alĺuring glimpses
Of lush rivers and valleys

It wud take me months to walk

And now it takes barely two days
As hills as wide as countries
Flash in and out of my vision
In a matter of hours

It was not meant to be this way

The awe i would have felt
Upon finally arriving
At a lake shrouded in mystery
At the holy home of a fabled goddess
On top of a difficult mountain

After drinking in the flowers,
The trees, the grass,
The sounds, the sights,
The healing herbs and wild fruits,
The songs, the stories, the people
The blue sky, lit up from an unlit ground
And the very air of the rarest kind

Was not meant to be diluted
By photographs
Videos
And hurried sightseeing through
Tinted windows

Elephant in the room

We keep things hidden
Assuming the worst
If we let them out

Only to be proved wrong
If and when we choose
To express

Whatever happens
May not always be pleasant
But is almost always
An improvement

Sly

That nice way some people have
Of asking seemingly simple
Or even well intentioned questions
For a hidden purpose
Of gathering information
To furnish plots and conspiracies
That have devastating ends

I know i can never hope
To master that skill

But will i,
In this lifetime,
Learn to ever recognize it,
At least?
Or is even that
Too much to hope for?

Generation angst

If i could be born today
As the daughter of my generation
How much fun would i have
Born to technology
Born to travels
I would be smart and confident and
Navigate this world with ease
Unfettered by the concerns
Of a dead worldview

Or if i was born much earlier
In the age of explorers and pioneers
When the world still had
Much to explore and pioneer
How much more productive
I could have been

Instead of being born
At the worst possible time
When i can do neither

The shifting floor beneath

Back when i was little and i didnt know
How you were supposed to eat bread and jam,
She reminisces,
Maybe you are supposed to dip the bread in jam,
I thought
And then i learnt,
By watching people spread the jam on the bread
At a picnic

And so they learnt the ways
Of the changing world
Bit by bit
Learning not just the material
But the emotional and spiritual things
That we so take for granted today
That you should not open
Someone else's birthday presents,
For example,
Or letters or greeting cards
And that book and movie endings are sacred,
To be closely guarded and
Not to be revealed casually

We learnt along with them,
The ways of this fast spreading world
But we learnt when we were young
And had our whole lives ahead of us
To make use of the learning
To take that learning for granted
To take it for the base of our world
And to make leaps from that base

While they felt constantly behind
Constantly flummoxed
Constantly trying to catch up
And never succeding
And becoming simply tired

And so she always was unsure
Unsure of how to step
Unsure if she should hold on to
The beliefs that her roots gave her
Or let go of them, and if so, how
Apprehensive that her attachment
To her roots, that she cannot explain
That seem to have no logic behind them
Will be mocked as superstition, gaucheness

Why mustn't we cut our nails at night, mamma?
Why should we not enter the house after shower
With our wet hair in a bun?
Why should we greet some people with folded hands,
Some people with forehead on their feet,
And yet some others with an obeisance
To the floor in front of them, hands fisted?
Why can you eat wheat bread and jaggery
But not rice on your fast day?
Why can you use the same serving spoon
For everything but the rice?
Why can't you use soap and must
Drape yourself in rags when
You are mourning a close one?

She defends it at times,
With an appeal to morals or common sense
She explains it away at other times
As primitive logic of an uneducated people
Who did not think for the future
She is unable to hold on to them
In the face of the onslaught of
Modern logic, most times
But is still scared to let go
Of the only thing she knows
And trade it  for the unknown,
Associated with moral decreptitude

And finally, she is envious
Of the moral, spiritual and practical compass
Of her foremothers
Which always, surely, pointed home
(Not envious of their lives per se,
Only of the certainty with which they lived it)

She makes compromises they never did
She says we can do as we please
And enter the kitchen when we are bleeding
That is, after she is gone
And even now she lets me sit
On the same room, the same carpet
The same bed and sofa as the men
Even when im bleeding.
She protests, in a voice she knows
Will be ignored at best
And derided at worst
That we leave no clean space in the house
(Clean as in ritually, spiritually clean.
No, she doesn't have to deal with
Physical uncleanness)
But she does give away ground
(Or is forced to)
Sometimes slowly, by inches
And nowadays more and more suddenly
(Those foremothers in her memory
Would have skinned me alive
For suggesting it)

And for this and many others compromises
She feels compromised
Her spirit constantly beaten
Until she learns to underestimate
Everything she knew

And she feels torn,
Between her mothers and daughters
(Both equally demanding)

She thinks we live our lives
With the same certainty
As her mothers
Feet firmly on the grounds of the reality
That had shifted beneath her

Maybe we do
Maybe we do stand on the shifting floor
More firmly than she ever did or will
And even though the floor still shifts
We know we will take it in our stride

But still we are as torn as her
Torn between our loyalty
To our newly found brains and voice
And the old loyalty to her
We would like to go
Where the new world takes us
Where our newfound thoughts
And dreams point us
We would like to be unfettered
By rules we do  not understand
But even more than this
We would like you to be happy
We would like you to have your dignity
To be respected at home
For after all it is your home too,
More so than mine

Growing up, it was a victory
To win these arguments by logic
But grown up i see
That then, i had not paused
To examine your life
(That i now know
Is the life i am expected to lead)
And when i do examine your life
I realize that it is no fun
To win those arguments

In fact, it is lose lose on every side
Your dignity versus my liberty

And so i clip my wings
A little bit every day
To compensate for wounding you
Exasperating you, walling you in
All those years

And I'm not even sure if you notice

For there are days when i still rail
Days when i refuse to cede more ground
Days when i realize that the cycle repeats
And yours is the life i am supposed lead now

And i know i have not
Your strength and perseverance
To live and laugh within that life
And so i rail one more time
To make that future easier for myself

A lose-lose everyday it is,
The battle of your dignity
Versus my liberty

At peace

Anyone else would have
Called me reckless
Or careless at the very least

And in your words i saw
That i was simply at ease
With myself and the world

Unburdened of what did not concern me
Accounting of the bare minimum
Necessary in every situation

I was simply trying
To etch out a little bit of freedom
In a world full of cares that bind

But i believed in it
In the way i wanted to see myself
Only when you said so

Eye contact

After hours of feeling
Antsy and fidgety in the lounge
She entered the room
Walked in hesitantly
Looking anywhere but at him
Acknowledging his offer to sit
With a glance towards
The crook of his elbow

Throughout their conversation
She got to know
The intimate details of
The whorls of wood
On the table between them
And every contour of her own nails
Which she knew very well anyways

And after she was done
Giving earnest answers
To the bookcase behind him
He wouldn't say she could go

She waited
And he seemed to wait as well
And when the wait gre unbearable
She looked at him

"When you talk to someone"
He said
"Look at their face"

(After which she developed a manner
Of looking people straight in the eye
- the very centre of the iris, exactly-
And disconcerting them within five seconds.

But that is a story for another day)