a year and one day,
now I seek you
in the scattered sunshine
golden shower on green
gentle, illuminating
rock strewn paths.

also in
orange lanterns, chinese
bobbing on a giant tree
light bedecked sky
ushering in the new year

as also in
the graceful arc of a perfect star
as it balances on velvet black
then dips into the surf
clamoring on rocky shore
ever so gently

from light unto light
as the hymn says
pass now
ever so gently

Bhimashankar
That a place on earth could be as speechless.
Until I find the words

Amazing how you continue to reach out and bless me from beyond the pale.Stunned. Been so long since you went your way to the skies-- I was five then, am forty- six (and some) now. Once “your” dining table from 1950? was stripped of that faded formica marked with the lines and stains of the decades, magic! A gleaming sheet of burma teak-- three huge planks joined seamlessly, that left the carpenter dazed, he’d not seen something like this, he refused to re-size it. So now I have a spare door for someday. Baba had often recounted the pride with which you’d bought this table, the first time formica was introduced in the country.
Amazing, and not only the teak.

In class 4, I took myself to boarding school, inspired by Enid Blyton—the adventurous soul I was those days. (Of course reality was very different, much growing up happened, and I thrived on the days spent at my uncle’s house.) Now, the school on a hill was a place where culture and art were very important. As preparation for the Spring Festival (before Navnirman revolution intervened and cut the semester short) we were taught a poem, the lines of which have often resonated, half forgotten. These lines were to have been sung as we presented a volume of handwritten poems and stories to the King of Spring.
Was stunned to find madurashtakam online, thanks to google devta. The words felt so good—and I remembered the words right, specially the refrain.

Teak. Beautiful wood. lines, swirls, patterns I don't know the names of, deeply ingrained in the wood, weathered and aged over the years
Once the color was stripped off, the layers of grime and dust and grubby fingerprints and whatnot of the decades scraped off, the magic of the wood beneath—just wondrous , breathtaking. To watch sunlight seep into the wood-- what a treasure.

**

So grateful for the near misses, the regrets one has been handed on a silver platter with a flourish, the ugly thanks-but-no-thanks. Yes, of course I wasn’t grateful then, cried and flailed my arms about and stomped my feet and roared—figuratively speaking, but of course, and some literally speaking too, if I must be honest.
But in retrospect—what a gift. What a brilliant gift. For a hurting, ugly state I would have been in, if not for this gratis bonus—broken and despairing…or adjusting, giving up little bits of myself being nice till it hurt and till the cows came home.

Who said I was nice?

Reading this later, I saw that in the words above, gratitude was missing, overtaken by the hurt but-- the overwhelming residual is gratitude, for life events, for roles played no matter how finite, for the lessons learned, insights into self, and yes,soul connect that one had only read about. Perhaps it is like teak,this scraping and stripping,bootcamp, raw treatment before what is essentially you, your self is revealed.

Soon it will be time for you to go, and I say this with a strange throttling at my throat. Although you have been an inhabitant of another plane for months, I have oftentimes felt your presence hovering, comforting, even in my worst periods of mourning and silence. We spoke without language so often, reading each other, father and daughter--we did in the days past, and so we do now. I sense this--soon it will be time for you to go, to move on, into the light, part of a million dancing sunrays showering this earth every morning. Perhaps you sense I do not need those training wheels of your invisible presence as much. Perhaps you’ll be part of a view that you’d delight in, national geo style. Soon it will be time for you to go, and again I feel the despair of a young child in the dark, the scare of a young girl who’s forgotten her lines and stands blank, petrified, before an audience.
Or perhaps time for you to inhabit another lifetime, take baby steps again, learn to coo and lisp and in time, talk and run, and in thinking so-- see my own selfishness, in the hope that our paths should some day , but for certain,cross. And I know probably not, for you’d paid too many dues and learned too deeply in the real sense of the word, you’d taken the essence of the scriptures and instilled it in your life, to ever have to relive the ups and downs of a life cycle again.
You will go on, but what ever shall I do?

What color is it?
Quick!
Would you know?

glittering sunlight
streaming on green
that translucence that filters
beneath--

shimmery opal
holding a huge full moon in place
smoky radiance swirls
just close your eyes tight
and peer--

the horizon at dusk
several purples, mauves and dark
irregular bands race above
highway lights--

Would you know
What color it is?

At the Ramakrishna Mission
Durga Puja is celebrated
the old fashioned way
with flowers, lamps and age-old prayers
perfectly recited by the monks
Sanskrit words resounding in the hall where
A perfectly featured image of the Mother
benevolent
Bedecked in red silk and gold
Her eyes large, all-seeing and kind, stands
The weapons of destruction and deliverance, in her many hands
blesses the crowd in their traditional finery
The flower decked altar also holds the Lord Ganpati, the remover of obstacles,
And the Goddess of wealth and the Goddess of learning
And Lord Kartikeyan, patron of the arts
Between them covering the four stages of a lifespan
The four aspirations of human living
Their realms
the throb and surge of life-energy
Manifestations, also of the same spirit, Shakti,
That moves and sustains, and occasionally, shakes up, overturns
the world.
I’ve returned renewed
Certain that the many interventions
The strangers who’ve been kinder, more gracious than family
fortunate chance but more often than not
The uncertainties, the many misses
That shape one’s life story
Played out too, to a celestial rhythm
Unheard.

RIP
1972-1991
once,
suddenly the earth trembled.
now
I peel off the scab, keep this wound raw
feels right.

The mountains are not what they seem—docile, gentle and green and generous. Trails that begin like a walk in the park soon turn into inclines that gets your heart thudding hard. There—some one’s spotted a half eaten snake, and ahead, a cheetah scat. In the quest for the next step, the next boulder, you forget you’re here to view the raw beauty of the forest. Balanced precariously on a ledge, you wonder why Reeboks have such a flimsy grip. I went on an easy trail with a nature group, but the forest guide ended up taking us into the core area of SGNP on a moderate-grade trek. I’m still shaky. But adrenalin-charged. Next time, I’ll see the view.

a year older
just as besotted by
crisp word
dappled green
peach-lined skies
and you.

Exploring gold spun
This nine day festival of the Mother Goddess
Grace is in the air.
Lights,
the drum faint in the distance
A celebration
Also a time to ponder upon
Chance and happenstance
mysteries and gifts
the benedictions of our lives
such as this
and not

The Stories in the Songs

A musical, seen this Sunday
Performed with minimal props
featured performances that gleam
burnished with years of rigorous classical training
Pitch perfect, the notes quiver and turn and float in the air
In the quiet amphitheater
No room for improvisation
The audience a scarce inch away

Vignettes
That traced the evolution of Indian classical music
Through the ages
Even as the country was overrun with invaders of various vintage
From the Mughals to the British
Thumri, tappa, chaiti, hori, kajri
Derived from the classical,
giving lifebreath to the classical
Forms that survived, thrived,
A thread inching, meandering,
Insistent, full throated
Through these centuries

From the rendition of a dancing girl
Who sneaked in a freedom song in her performance
At the behest of the Mahatma
To the sincere if fumbling, warbling
Of Lady Elizabeth Hastings
Who tried to learn this difficult form of entertainment
From a polished native performer of the arts.
And so many other tales.

Even as I clapped to the beat, and hummed and cheered and laughed
Flashes of yesterday
Crept in unannounced;
Of notes filtering past the heat haze
Of voices in unison, rising skywards
A fun duet, now competing, now out-doing
In the manner of the young
I blinked.

This afternoon
The child who wandered by the roadside
Looked out of place in this maze of industrial-office blocks
Even as cars zipped by
to drop important personage to important meetings.
Was not a slum kid, not a beggar
Her face clean
Dress neat
Pretty bangles on her wrist
Blue flip flops
She willingly gives me her hand
As I take her to a nearby construction site
That I presume she’s wandered off from
“Where’s mummy?” I ask, looking around for a laborer, maybe the mason’s wife
She points to an office block next door
“Biscuit” she lisps.
And even as I peel off the glittery wrapping
I can only wonder
At the compulsions
And life story
Of a woman who’d perforce leave her child
Wandering by the roadside
Some sun-dappled afternoon

On your birthday

I stare at my face in the mirror
And wonder about you
My nose is like yours, they say.
And demeanor
(but only when I’m good)
I stare at my face in the mirror
Trace fine lines
And think
About lifetimes, crisscrossing paths, DNA imprints
And wonder about
Free choice, chance, fate
And other unknowns
Like you.

My lesson for this week
(for a life time)
Is that dreams can come true
Even impossible ones
Crazy ones
That young girl from a remote village in the Himalayas
Made it to Prague film school
Winged it!
Sponsored by unnamed strangers
Who chipped in, piecemeal
Penny by penny
Like that ad says,
keep your head down, and keep walking.

Because I must not forget.
That early morning awakening
After checking the clock every hour past midnight
Leaving home at 4, determined, devout
The journey, traffic on the road
The twenty minute walk to find the end of the line
Past vendors, children, trinket-sellers, crowds
With trumpets, balloons, toys to sell.
The rush rush rush to hold on to your place
as the line winds past the lanes of Byculla
Negotiating a tricky maze, and then again
Just holding on, nudging, jostling in that few thousand strong crowd
For a glimpse of the deity, but fleeting
Before you’re pushed out
Yet, something’s changed,
you know your year’s moved to a new plane.

*Set free*, my translation of Shri Pravinsinh Chavda's Gujarati short story *Mukti*, features in the Sept.- Oct. issue of Reading Hour.
There is a Dhara in each of us, in the choices that we make. Sometimes the only redeeming feature of life is, that life goes on.

Where does the faith come from, he asked.
From having the faith battered a few hundred times, like an old tin can
From hitting ground zero with no where to go
Once too often
from knowing edge-of-the-mind distraught
And coming full circle.
From coincidences that fall in place, Oh… like that.
And missing catastrophe by a whisker’s breadth.
So often.
For the lessons of a bitter decade, in retrospect, amazing grace.
From glittering empty roads that you try to master, literally and figuratively,
fumbling, heart a-thunder
From the clatter of shrouded gurneys that pass by your head as you do ICU vigil
From trembling courage as you gather piles of new clothes now useless, for charity
From events that seem life shattering, but a boon in retrospect
From the people you meet. Over and over again.

You are the rhythm underlying the world,
Or so the prayer’s verse goes.
This is what I see:
The cycle of seasons, of rain pelting earth
Of the pulsating beat of colors and echoes that rebound
Exploding volcanoes, and crashing trees, red hot magma surging
In a blink of an eye, a lifespan, the three ages
The rise and collapse of civilizations, and crumbling ruins of Mohenjodaro
Wind ruffles the grass as it flows past
A heart thudding, lifeblood coursing through infinite channels
Traced by a machine beep
The swell of tides under a moonlit sky
Of the howl of wind across a bare desert
Magna throbbing in the center of the earth
That surge of green as sap gushes skywards
Pulsating stars in the deepest void
That intricate dance of infinite city lights
Of traffic rushing, blending, diverging, through
The world’s freeways
Of intellect, of a man’s grasp exceeding his reach,
Verily, you are this.