Writing, again.

I wasn’t really accurate when I said I hadn’t been writing. It’s not that I haven’t written at all. There’s this sheaf of letters to my father, all written in an adoring hand but no address to send it to. I actually thought I was crazy…writing letters that would never be read. Till I met this other person quite as mad as I am. He keeps writing to his dead wife and actually walks up to the post box and posts them…so here goes, this one’s for you Baba, just like most of all I’ve written the past 17 (?) years………
And cheers!

This Light (your light)

When darkness falls and the day is over
When unnamed sorrows assail my heart
In one corner of my mind you come along
And light your lonely lamp of love.
The lamp is small but gives me light
Turning my darkness into day
It burns with a constant flame and then
When I am comforted it goes away.
So I sit whenever I am hurt
Or sad or lonely or just afraid
Waiting for that little circle of light
To bathe all my cares away.
Even sometimes when I’m happy
From the corner of my eye I watch
For that lamp that gives me hope
And thank you for all your love.
I know that I will see the flame
And find the peace of knowing you care
For each night I feel your smile
Only each night there’s no one there.

If I could make visions out of air
I would have you standing here
Smiling face, indulging eyes,
Encouraging, utterly selfless and wise
There’s so much you have given me
But most of all I have your light
That burns in me a fierce flame
And comforts in the dead of night
Fire purifies the soul and so it is
Each time I suddenly feel you near
All my cares just vanish
All my fears disappear.
I know the day will come when I
Shall not need to see the light
That’s the day I shall see you again
That’s the day that I shall die…..

Poems and other knick knacks!!!

Well, there are things we do not understand and things we are not meant to understand. And sometimes the world asks us to fight for things we do not understand and whose significance we never will discover. And a fight does not necessarily mean going out there guns blazing, we all have our own little battles...which leave us scarred. And the peace we broker is never easy....


LISTEN TO MY HEART

Listen. Can you hear the sound:
vacuous and painful, hollow and loud
it’s music from my heart,
a heart shorn of all desire,
reduced to tears; it’s a start
an escape from the fire
that purifies the soul.
(only then, why is it so cold?)

When you smile your eyes
light into my nights
and when you’re gone the skies
bleed into sunlight
ghastly and bright
filled with disrespectful light.

Give me darkness:
it’s the gift I choose. You
cannot refuse. And send
me your cloak of darkness too
let me hide among the folds,
be it dark, be it cold.

And when this life is over,
let it be known as true:
I had my weaknesses and my faults,
but I was happy. Inspite of you.

Poems and such things

I like to think of each poem I have ever written (and there have been many, I think I'm better with verse than with words...) as a child I have had. And I do not like to share them, for each carries its own angst and its own story...usually morbid. Viz:

Each night…is the same.

Black. The darkest night ever dreamed
Rain clouds hurtle across the skies
Grey are the ashes flying in the wind
Reminders of a love that to you is a game…
You wrench yourself free of my paintings
Dripping bloody footprints on the ground
I reach out to touch you to hold you close
only our eyes meet in the blackness
and the darkness swallows us whole…
as you walk back toward the light
and I watch and wait and wait
in the shadows that assault and tear me apart.
I run and run to catch up with you
My silent pleas are all thwarted
as I grope for you in the dark
my eyes are blinded by the flame
as you light a joint and hand me a drag
I’m dragged into the depths of madness
My head swirls, “water, water..” I gasp
And you are gone leaving a cold smile.
The moons mists up among the clouds
Sings to me “come…into my arms”
I rise only to be torn to death
by night creatures lying in wait.
As I lie bleeding the moon hides
behind tumultuous clouds – you whistle
and the claws disappear.
I fall……
only to find my pillow soaked in tears.
Asphalt morning storms into my night.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

It’s been a while since I last wrote…. Of anything personal, anything that wasn’t newsworthy…save the diary I’ve started keeping this year. This seems a good place to start.....when the fancy catches me!

When I was 10 my dad gave me a diary and asked me to scribble in it…any old nonsense, he said and I wouldn’t have to show it to anyone. That idea really grabbed me, that privacy bit. So day by day I started. At first it was drawings, doodles, even pictures I liked. Then each year got a little complicated. Growing up, secrets shared, first crushes, giggly school friends, the first Harold Robbins (OMG they actually write this stuff!!!), boys, dreams, nightmares, fantasies, fears, anger, resentment, joys…everything came to be chronicled and by the time I left college I could give you a little detail about each day of my life from age ten…..Amazing. And crazy. I had this little cupboard (locked, of course) in my room at home where I stored these diaries….and I would guard it with my life….the keys were well hidden and in my custody even when I was away in college.

Then, one day before I got married I opened that cupboard and spent the better part of the day sitting in front of it. Some of it made me laugh, some made me cry and a lot made me shudder at my own naiveté and idiocy!!! So I burned it all. Dragged out every last bit of loose paper and let it burn. Today I sometimes wonder why I didn’t just seal it all in a carton and bring it with me……but years of my life were gone. I do not know why I did it. Was it to safeguard my own privacy or was it just a ploy to hide what a jackass I could be? And now that I’m older and it has ceased to matter what people think, those are the pages of my life I miss…the humdrum days of a girl growing up slightly confused, slightly crazy and more than slightly rebellious.

No, I don’t think I was either unique or newsworthy but that life was mine.

And now when I sit with a pen in hand I often find my uninspired writing: “…..went to court and came home…clients in the evening…conference at 8” and wonder why I write. Isn’t all of that in my Court diary anyway, and who the hell cares…years later if I read this diary will I enjoy sifting thorough pages of a routine existence…ah but that’s it. It’s our monotony that makes us what we are. And right now more often than not it makes me bored and crabby and difficult to live with.

Which brings me to the second thought of today: Over the weekend a little room on top of the terrace has been made ready. Although I call it mine, it actually isn’t. It’s just an unused empty room used to house servants earlier which now is empty and which I plan to use as my own space to paint…anyone is welcome… yesterday I took pains to make it as nice as I could. So there went my easel and canvases and paints and pretty soon I can begin this tiger that’s growling about in my head…I love painting tigers…. and the moon…. A week earlier I was in Puri. The most beautiful part of that trip was the night we sat on the beach at night, drinks in hand. The full moon was two days old. And the sight of the silver echoed on the dark waters is enough to soothe any soul. So when a friend said poetry, this is, inter alia, what I smsed:

“ Shine on beautiful, the night is still new

call out in the darkness, my reply is in shades

of white…and of nights of black madness

shimmering in the glow

of a heart too drunk to care

and a head too heathen to know……”

Or this:

“Full moon, two nights old

on the vast ocean soothe my soul

Dreams in white reflected in the dark

Call out to you, resident of my heart…”

Crazy? Sure. Until next time….