I have gambled my everything. My whole life. To be what I am.
By birth I am my parent’s child. By nature I am a gambler.
And the Old Man’s favorite playmate.
As far back as my memories go, He has always loved playing the dice with me.
And even as a lonely little child I always played along. With a smile.
The results have always been the same.
He always wins.
And I always smile.
We always play at His den. With His dice. And His rules.
There have been times when I have challenged Him. Quite often after I grew up.
I have waged my love to Him. I have waged my heart to Him.
The Old Man doesn’t wager money.
You can’t tempt Him with anything at all except your love and your soul.
Yes. Your soul.
And now He asks me to wager my soul.
And I know I will. Though I know it’s a losing game.
But this time the loser will win it all. With his smile still intact.
For it’s only if I lose my soul that I’ll win His den.
The Old Man smiles.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The opaque seasons of the heart
I oscillate between being juvenile and profound like all lovers. For what is love if not purely sublime or downrightly stupid. There is nothing in the middle.
Last week I went through my blog and read all that I have posted in the past year and a half and couldn’t help but laugh at most of them. Especially the one’s written on the spur of the moment[which incidentally is the only way I know to write!!]. Certain posts are utterly mediocre and banal.
But then there are certain lines that are poetry at its best. Lines that literally slash your heart and make you cry tears of blood which in turn gives birth to the reddest of roses you’ll ever see blossom on your lips.
Like- “ I am the moon of her apathy.” Or “ Her absence is the lullaby that cradles my dream.”
These are gems. Lines that would make even a Tagore or a Rilke smile.
Now, I don not have any delusion of my self as a poet. In fact, I have always looked upon these things I write as scribbles. And hence call myself a scribbler. For I write mostly out of compulsion. And without a thought. Its more like automatic writing. There have been times when it has taken me a few days to understand certain things that I have written and certain lines are still beyond the realm of my own understanding as of today.
Certain posts I wanted to erase. Certain posts I wanted to edit. But then decided against it. For my blog is ME. And hence it should reveal me as I am. Why pretend that I am some God damn poet when I am nothing but an ordinary man recounting his experiences and recording his feelings.
So if by some stroke of mistake you do trespass into my blog and read it out of curiosity, remember- what you read here is what I am. With all my inconsistencies. The only consistent factor being LOVE. And ironically, human love has its own inconsistencies.
And a vagrant thought passes over the edge of my morning cup of tea.
“ Love is the greatest cook in the world.
It makes the best soul curry.”
Last week I went through my blog and read all that I have posted in the past year and a half and couldn’t help but laugh at most of them. Especially the one’s written on the spur of the moment[which incidentally is the only way I know to write!!]. Certain posts are utterly mediocre and banal.
But then there are certain lines that are poetry at its best. Lines that literally slash your heart and make you cry tears of blood which in turn gives birth to the reddest of roses you’ll ever see blossom on your lips.
Like- “ I am the moon of her apathy.” Or “ Her absence is the lullaby that cradles my dream.”
These are gems. Lines that would make even a Tagore or a Rilke smile.
Now, I don not have any delusion of my self as a poet. In fact, I have always looked upon these things I write as scribbles. And hence call myself a scribbler. For I write mostly out of compulsion. And without a thought. Its more like automatic writing. There have been times when it has taken me a few days to understand certain things that I have written and certain lines are still beyond the realm of my own understanding as of today.
Certain posts I wanted to erase. Certain posts I wanted to edit. But then decided against it. For my blog is ME. And hence it should reveal me as I am. Why pretend that I am some God damn poet when I am nothing but an ordinary man recounting his experiences and recording his feelings.
So if by some stroke of mistake you do trespass into my blog and read it out of curiosity, remember- what you read here is what I am. With all my inconsistencies. The only consistent factor being LOVE. And ironically, human love has its own inconsistencies.
And a vagrant thought passes over the edge of my morning cup of tea.
“ Love is the greatest cook in the world.
It makes the best soul curry.”
The lure of moments
My heart sails on the waves of the silent night
Sails with the mast of the moon
Bound from my heart to your heart
Around the mount of Venus
To the shores of boon.
Ferry me to the land of fairy!
Ferry me to the land of fairy!
I hear my little star hum a song
In her mellifluous voice
Bound from her soul to my soul
Across the reverberating space
To the house of rejoice!
Carry me to the land of fairy!
Carry me to the land of fairy!
The snake dances to the rhythm of the horse
Oh! the nimble lotus treat!
Bound from this life to the other
With the grace of God
back, back to His feet.
Accept me to the land of fairy!
Accept me to the land of fairy!
Sails with the mast of the moon
Bound from my heart to your heart
Around the mount of Venus
To the shores of boon.
Ferry me to the land of fairy!
Ferry me to the land of fairy!
I hear my little star hum a song
In her mellifluous voice
Bound from her soul to my soul
Across the reverberating space
To the house of rejoice!
Carry me to the land of fairy!
Carry me to the land of fairy!
The snake dances to the rhythm of the horse
Oh! the nimble lotus treat!
Bound from this life to the other
With the grace of God
back, back to His feet.
Accept me to the land of fairy!
Accept me to the land of fairy!
God of the smile
The weight of her smile is heavier than the weight of my tear.
With a flourish she paints
On the blank canvas of my solitude
All the colors of her abundant laughter.
Look at that beautiful mole on her God like face!
That’s my present address.
I have painted my inner walls red
Wherein silent echoes whisper
A blue song
Against the backdrop of a pink horizon
An orange drops into a crystal bowl
And illuminates the stars
So that the moon doesn’t
Lose her way
in the dark black tresses of the night.
Her absence is the lullaby that cradles my dream.
The sweetness of her silence makes
My heart soar heavenward
And place at God’s feet
The purest, colorless pearl
Of my love.
God smiles.
“Oh! How much does He resemble my little princess!”
He smiles again.
And I become the everything
In the nothing
And the nothing
In the everything.
With a flourish she paints
On the blank canvas of my solitude
All the colors of her abundant laughter.
Look at that beautiful mole on her God like face!
That’s my present address.
I have painted my inner walls red
Wherein silent echoes whisper
A blue song
Against the backdrop of a pink horizon
An orange drops into a crystal bowl
And illuminates the stars
So that the moon doesn’t
Lose her way
in the dark black tresses of the night.
Her absence is the lullaby that cradles my dream.
The sweetness of her silence makes
My heart soar heavenward
And place at God’s feet
The purest, colorless pearl
Of my love.
God smiles.
“Oh! How much does He resemble my little princess!”
He smiles again.
And I become the everything
In the nothing
And the nothing
In the everything.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The pursuit for impermanence
Reality is always a stranger with an ugly face. So grotesque that one feels like running away.
But run away from what? Can you run away from your own shadow?
We live such pretentious lives, where ones mask takes over ones face.
Look in the mirror? Oh! Its such a beautiful face!
But whose face is it?
Close your eyes and reflect.
The hell is within you.
So you open your eyes and turn blind. Once again.
Beauty is not a visual medium.
Truth lurks around like a ghost around you. In a mansion of desires.
Where the difference between a dream and a nightmare is a thin line.
You wake up not sure of what you did see.
Truth snaps when you least expect it to. It pounces on you like a tiger on its prey.
Tears you apart. And leaves you bleeding.
Yet not a single drop of blood is visible.
You may be in a crowd and yet there will not be one witness to stand by you and tell the world of the massacre.
Your tears are your own. The ones that cleanses your gut.
Who cares for the tears that flow from your eyes?
Who cares for what happens to the oceans?
We destroy everything in the name of love.
Love.
In love we suffer.
Out of love we suffer.
What in the God’s name is this love?
A true lover is a loner.
All other “loves” are merely relationships.
Has anyone ever loved truly?
Has anyone ever been loved truly?
Yet we all talk “in the name of love”. Without understanding its true meaning.
For the true meaning of love is understanding.
And who wants to live alone?
At least “lies” live in communities!
So let’s lie and be friends.
So let’s fake a relationship.
Like we have faked our lives.
We like to believe that “ life has been unfair”.
How many of us can say with all honesty that “ I have been fair to life”.
Show me that man and I will show you God.
For He is God.
Or else what is divinity?
We are all living a stranger’s life. Blind and oblivious.
The pursuit for God is nothing but the pursuit for one's own true self.
But run away from what? Can you run away from your own shadow?
We live such pretentious lives, where ones mask takes over ones face.
Look in the mirror? Oh! Its such a beautiful face!
But whose face is it?
Close your eyes and reflect.
The hell is within you.
So you open your eyes and turn blind. Once again.
Beauty is not a visual medium.
Truth lurks around like a ghost around you. In a mansion of desires.
Where the difference between a dream and a nightmare is a thin line.
You wake up not sure of what you did see.
Truth snaps when you least expect it to. It pounces on you like a tiger on its prey.
Tears you apart. And leaves you bleeding.
Yet not a single drop of blood is visible.
You may be in a crowd and yet there will not be one witness to stand by you and tell the world of the massacre.
Your tears are your own. The ones that cleanses your gut.
Who cares for the tears that flow from your eyes?
Who cares for what happens to the oceans?
We destroy everything in the name of love.
Love.
In love we suffer.
Out of love we suffer.
What in the God’s name is this love?
A true lover is a loner.
All other “loves” are merely relationships.
Has anyone ever loved truly?
Has anyone ever been loved truly?
Yet we all talk “in the name of love”. Without understanding its true meaning.
For the true meaning of love is understanding.
And who wants to live alone?
At least “lies” live in communities!
So let’s lie and be friends.
So let’s fake a relationship.
Like we have faked our lives.
We like to believe that “ life has been unfair”.
How many of us can say with all honesty that “ I have been fair to life”.
Show me that man and I will show you God.
For He is God.
Or else what is divinity?
We are all living a stranger’s life. Blind and oblivious.
The pursuit for God is nothing but the pursuit for one's own true self.
golden twilight
Her smile is orange
Tulip under a blue sky
Golden reflection of her eye
Swindler sun seize
Puritan clouds gossip
Her wild playful tresses
Uncoordinated dresses
Petal dew drop lips
The wind is bedazzled
Her luminous flowing feet
Home bound birds greet
My little star eyed gazelle.
Tulip under a blue sky
Golden reflection of her eye
Swindler sun seize
Puritan clouds gossip
Her wild playful tresses
Uncoordinated dresses
Petal dew drop lips
The wind is bedazzled
Her luminous flowing feet
Home bound birds greet
My little star eyed gazelle.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Beethoven's Immortal Beloved Letters
Beethoven wrote a set of mysterious letters that created numerous commentaries and assumptions among Beethoven scholars. The letters are known as “The Immortal Beloved Letters”
there are a number of preferred candidates for the Immortal Beloved title.These are Giulieta Guicciardi, Thereza von Brunswick, Amalia Seebald and Antonie Brentano. All of these women are known to have been the object of Beethoven’s affection at one time or another. However, recent research has lead to the conclusion that the immortal beloved is almost certaintly the last of the candidates presented above, Antonie Brentano.
The letters were found in his effects after his death.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 6, in the morning
My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -
Your faithful LUDWIG
Evening, Monday, July 6
You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays to Thursdays - the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, there you are also - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?
Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I nedd a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a clam consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours
there are a number of preferred candidates for the Immortal Beloved title.These are Giulieta Guicciardi, Thereza von Brunswick, Amalia Seebald and Antonie Brentano. All of these women are known to have been the object of Beethoven’s affection at one time or another. However, recent research has lead to the conclusion that the immortal beloved is almost certaintly the last of the candidates presented above, Antonie Brentano.
The letters were found in his effects after his death.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 6, in the morning
My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -
Your faithful LUDWIG
Evening, Monday, July 6
You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays to Thursdays - the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, there you are also - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?
Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I nedd a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a clam consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours
On S’s birthday eve
There has been a certain victory in all my defeats. Battle scarred as I am, I still can stand erect and look into the eye of fate. As Cyrano de Bergerac said-“ I still have my white plume intact!”
With all my mental and emotional losses, the sole gainer has been my soul. The anguish, agony and all the sufferings have been followed by great ecstasy and an unexplainable happiness. [ A psychiatrist may term it bi-polar! But that’s another story.]
Your suffering is your own. Your happiness is public property.
On your worst days the whole world is hyper active. Even your maid wont turn up on such days. Is it a state of mind or is it some kind of conspiracy master minded by time?
I am still wondering.
Last night I enacted my own death scene and cried a lot seeing all the people who turned up for those last moments with me. I had not planned it. I was standing in my balcony when I suddenly started crying and the next thing I know I was witnessing my own death sequence.
As I was saying, I cried at the turn up. For included in the visitor’s list were people I would hardly acknowledge today. So it was not merely my loved ones who were around me but some guys I would hardly imagine would shed a tear for me. But yes, they were all there. But the icing on the cake was of course the arrival of my “little princess”.
The moment I saw her I breathed my last telling her-“ I love you!”
How completely filimi ?
And that was it. But then not really. For even after my death, I could see her moist eyes.
Coming back to my senses, I tried to re create that death scene. Especially the part where she arrives to see me on my death bed.
It was of all people, K whose voice I first heard.
“ Rajiv Sir…..dekhiye aap ko milne kaun aaya hai?”
I slowly open my eyes and see Kamil and as usual call him-“ Kaminey!”
He turns his head sideways and my gaze follow. Et voila, there she is. Staring at me. All weak and bald. [ Oh! I forgot to tell you, I am dying from brain tumor.”
I take a deep breath and smile. The effort would have won me the “ Tour de France.”
She says-“Hi”
And once again I win the “ Tour de France” and request her to replace that with her “hello”.
She has a very peculiar way of saying hello.
She tries saying it but her voice fails her. I close my eyes and think of the first time I had seen her.
“ Hello….S!”-She had introduced herself.
“ Am sorry.” – I tell her.
And then completing my hat trick of victories at the“ Tour de France” tell her that I am sorry for troubling her with all those SMS’s. And the " sorry" did not at all mean that I did regret ever falling in love with her.
“ I promise you….no more SMS’s in my lifetime …..anyway…..I have erased your number from my cell….”
It takes me great effort to speak so much. And with greater effort, I once again smile at her. Her eyes are moist. And I can detect a small smile somewhere in the corner of her petal like lips.
“ I wish it had been that easy to erase you from the memory of my soul!...... Ek dum chipak gayee ho….Fevicol ki tarah!”
And I laugh. And its like bowling 91 pins down with one ball.
And then even in my almost dying breath I turn sarcastic.
“ Why have you come to see me? Oh!.....I get it….its to make sure that I am really gone!!! Isn’t it?....”
My own stench of arrogance suffocates me. I feel like shit. And for some strange reason feel my inside ripped apart by the dagger of my own sarcasm. Some gland inside my body throws out some kind of caustic substance. Burning my tongue. My mouth. I feel my tears betraying me.
She hugs me in a flash. Taking me by surprise. And holds me longer than she had held me three years ago on a spring morning in Lonavala.
And my soul merges with her soul.
With all my mental and emotional losses, the sole gainer has been my soul. The anguish, agony and all the sufferings have been followed by great ecstasy and an unexplainable happiness. [ A psychiatrist may term it bi-polar! But that’s another story.]
Your suffering is your own. Your happiness is public property.
On your worst days the whole world is hyper active. Even your maid wont turn up on such days. Is it a state of mind or is it some kind of conspiracy master minded by time?
I am still wondering.
Last night I enacted my own death scene and cried a lot seeing all the people who turned up for those last moments with me. I had not planned it. I was standing in my balcony when I suddenly started crying and the next thing I know I was witnessing my own death sequence.
As I was saying, I cried at the turn up. For included in the visitor’s list were people I would hardly acknowledge today. So it was not merely my loved ones who were around me but some guys I would hardly imagine would shed a tear for me. But yes, they were all there. But the icing on the cake was of course the arrival of my “little princess”.
The moment I saw her I breathed my last telling her-“ I love you!”
How completely filimi ?
And that was it. But then not really. For even after my death, I could see her moist eyes.
Coming back to my senses, I tried to re create that death scene. Especially the part where she arrives to see me on my death bed.
It was of all people, K whose voice I first heard.
“ Rajiv Sir…..dekhiye aap ko milne kaun aaya hai?”
I slowly open my eyes and see Kamil and as usual call him-“ Kaminey!”
He turns his head sideways and my gaze follow. Et voila, there she is. Staring at me. All weak and bald. [ Oh! I forgot to tell you, I am dying from brain tumor.”
I take a deep breath and smile. The effort would have won me the “ Tour de France.”
She says-“Hi”
And once again I win the “ Tour de France” and request her to replace that with her “hello”.
She has a very peculiar way of saying hello.
She tries saying it but her voice fails her. I close my eyes and think of the first time I had seen her.
“ Hello….S!”-She had introduced herself.
“ Am sorry.” – I tell her.
And then completing my hat trick of victories at the“ Tour de France” tell her that I am sorry for troubling her with all those SMS’s. And the " sorry" did not at all mean that I did regret ever falling in love with her.
“ I promise you….no more SMS’s in my lifetime …..anyway…..I have erased your number from my cell….”
It takes me great effort to speak so much. And with greater effort, I once again smile at her. Her eyes are moist. And I can detect a small smile somewhere in the corner of her petal like lips.
“ I wish it had been that easy to erase you from the memory of my soul!...... Ek dum chipak gayee ho….Fevicol ki tarah!”
And I laugh. And its like bowling 91 pins down with one ball.
And then even in my almost dying breath I turn sarcastic.
“ Why have you come to see me? Oh!.....I get it….its to make sure that I am really gone!!! Isn’t it?....”
My own stench of arrogance suffocates me. I feel like shit. And for some strange reason feel my inside ripped apart by the dagger of my own sarcasm. Some gland inside my body throws out some kind of caustic substance. Burning my tongue. My mouth. I feel my tears betraying me.
She hugs me in a flash. Taking me by surprise. And holds me longer than she had held me three years ago on a spring morning in Lonavala.
And my soul merges with her soul.
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