Oh! Just let it free uh... Really?

An acquaintance of mine keeps sending me forwards on LOVE, PYAAR, ISHQ, blah blah blah.....

Not that I condemn this but here you go look at this: I just recieved it:

I once had a friend who grew to be very close to me.Once when we were sitting at the edge of a swimming pool; she filled the palm of her hand with some water and held it before me, and said this:

"You see this water carefully contained in my hand? It symbolizes Love."

This was how I saw it: As long as you keep your hand caringly open and allow it to remain there, it will always be there.

However, if you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to posses it, it will spill through the first crack it finds. This is the greatest mistake that people do when they meet love... they try to posses it, they demand, they expect... and just like the water spilling out of your hand, love will retrieve from you. For love is meant to be free, you cannot change its nature. If there are people you love, allow them to be free beings.

# Give and don't expect.

# Advise, but don't order.

# Ask, but never demand.

It might sound simple, but it is a lesson that may take a lifetime to truly practice. It is the secret to true love. To truly practice it, you must sincerely feel no expectations from those who you love, and yet an unconditional caring."Passing thought... Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take; but by the moments that take our breath away...

WOW!!! that was Swami Vivekananda, one of the forwarded mails... Beautiful to know but painful to realize. Are we all so selfless to love anyone so much that we find beauty in actions of love and walk over our ego?

You know this right...? Gone are the days when love was spiritual, magical, magnanimous, ungrudging-admiration, idolizing, devotion...!!! Days of the sort even existed? Whoever says they did... oh well lovely legendary tales... Are they? Oh did I sound craggy... Ooops... well that wasn't my intention at all.

But sure obviosuly one is always happy to read and feel happy about the recorded scriptures on LOVE or rather LUUUHV..... that they can go to any extent with it but when it comes to functioning the way... snap and they are gone, so would I be.... OK by now, I am in stitches...

But well even I enjoyed reading this. Laxmi yes... what a hypocrite!!! Sorry I cannot lobour for LOVE or whatever it is called.

Contemplating

Trip back from Bangkok via Srilanka- transit... stay over in Colombo's Browns Beach Hotel... least asked for!!! Getting back seemed far-flung. But did I actually want to be back? May be I did... exhausted, anxious, jittery... yet longing to get back to see your loved ones smile. But of course not all are your loved ones... and there are those who make you frown, yeeeuuw just their presence... Can one possibly escape anything? so just GRIN AND BEAR!

How can a day be longer than 24 hours? Trust me it was... No seriously... it was!!! The thought of staying over was baneful and for all the sublime days I spent in Thailand, this stop over... definitely wasn't needed at all.

But Irony!!! Browns Beach Hotel was quite a neat place, yes NEAT as my dear friend would put it... and I had forgotten it was a transit and was lost or may be even rapt to even know I was heading home... home did I say? HOUSE rather.

I once told Nic: "home for me isn't any place in particular... but it is when I am with the right kind of people." I was applauded for it. I was quite proud of what I had said. But was it to the right kind of people I was coming back to? I could nod when I thought of some and then quell at the thought of many... not just people but troubles and situations...

Moving on... I had a wonderful evening in Colombo and couldn't remember when I fell off to sleep... wake up call from the reception and there I was getting ready to leave...

A pleasant trip back with a warm and benevolent couple flying down with me to Bangalore. They looked really happy together... even in their 60s or 70s!!! The man spoke to me with such warmth and love, something so mesmerizing about him and every time he mentioned something to me... he would look to his right where his wife was sat as if to get a confirmation nod from her of the facts he was delivering... and that to me was a reassuring fact about relationships. Whoever did that now???

She had a gentle smile and did I become their someone for a minute... or throughout the trip without them realizing and was it just me secretly? A sense of belonging. It felt great... reminded me of times and occasions I had lived and wished it would manifest again. How daft!!! Surprisingly, it was difficult to say bye to the two... like they had become someone close in just an hour and 10 minutes. I sped up ahead of them... immigration, baggage claim and off I was gone. Prayed hard and wished to see them again... why? Strange feeling... it lasts though.

Our state of normalcy is a term that does not occur. At times I feel I question if I am living at the mercy of my parents’ early departure from my life? It is said, “whatever happens or whatever has happened is for the good.” So is this what it is? Am I meant to enjoy their absence in my life and dwell on sympathies? Do I do that? I think I do... shamelessly fall prey to pseudo love and affection. I gaze at intimacy... a child in her mother's arms, little girls clinging on to their father's fingers, walking the streets... why does it hurt? Why don't I be happy about it?

Wander away mind and rest placidly. You are stronger than I am... so let us take this joyous ride together... but don't lose me... or else I will sob.

QuIXotIsM

Dwelt in a conch
By the shingle of the beach
Snoozing day and night
No wayfarer did pay her any heed

Hi-jacked into the novel lands
She lay in her dream painted conch wall
Chafed against the sand and waves
Her home lost its shine and lustre

Many a passerby did kick her past
Her abode like a mother's womb guarded
Buried in the sandy beach, shrieked and wailed
Dream painted walls darkened into nightmares

Perishing under the sandy beach, choked and suffocated
But ebbs and flows were to her rescue
Updrew her, where she laid; the Insomniac
Neither dreams nor fantasies abducted her any longer.

Sun seeped into her conch another day
Unlike before she gleamed
A loony traveller did spent some time there that day
His compassion enclasped her and along he carried her

Spiritless

She laid in her bed unperturbed of anything
She knew her days were counted
Her smile endured all kins' tears
They swarm around as though to guard

The verdict of the practitioner was impertinent
"allopathy fails but homoeopathy and ayurveda?"so said her kith
She was enslaved by love, her will betrayed her
Her smile waned like she sensed a tempest brewing

First was homoeo then ayurveda,
One by one she laboured the fate of remedies
Reduced to skin and bones she laid in her death bed
Her eyes pondered through to meet her posterity's

Lot seemed to be said but words were few
Drawing the two closer she said she wanted to be freed

Freed from her bleeding bosom,

From the clasp of the oxygen cylinder,like a cattle tethered down

Days were done, my leave grew to a close
She pleaded me to stay till her soul was freed
Took no notice, taken her love for granted,walked away to parent my life
To hear she was gone, she was spiritless...and am I too?

Cliched Love...

Lakhs lavish their love on me,
Lakhs tarnish their love on me.

Infinite are the reasons to love,
Infinite are the lessons to love.

My birth forces the parental love
bound to parental duty,
concern and care, affection and affinity
Was that what I craved for?

My activities and fame causes the laity’s love
a break from the social chaos and worries,
admiration and appreciation, blessings and blisses.
Was that what I craved for?

My bubbly self and transient moods bind up the love of friendship
Out of gratitude to disentangled problems and timely amusements,
fun and faith, gossips and grins.
Was that what I craved for?

My accidents and mischances arouses the well wisher love
solacing gestures provoking sympathy,
pats and paxes, altruism and advices.
Was that what I craved for?

Comprehend my disconsolated identity, fondle my exhausted spirit.
Aloof me from my vengeful enemy, he follows me like a hound.
He poisons my breathing space, suffocating my air.
So harsh is my enemy, so brutal is my enemy.

A master of witchery and witchcraft,
cast an evil spell on my future and present.

My enemy’s triumphant smile at my frenzied state,
My relinquished smile at my defeated state.
My enemy and the disgruntled me soon signed an alliance
Allies for life, my love for life
I love my enemy
I love my past!

My suppressed cries and dry tears,
cant be seen by the lakhs,
cant be heard by the lakhs.

Lakhs lavish their love on me,
Lakhs tarnish their love on me.

Why Gulmohar ?

In quietude and squally, dewy, drizzly entourage I am tucked away into ever widening thoughts. How can a picture, an image, an ambiance bring you fond memories? I have often wondered. Sometimes I open my old albums or dig out old letters and cards and I am transported into those days and times in my life which I have cradled fondly.

It is strange, every time I see or envision a Gulmohar tree (The Flame tree/Royal Poinciana) in full blossom I become extremely nostalgic. The magical crimson red and orange flowers enveloping the lush green leaves remind me of the warm hugs and protection one is blest with during their youth and yesteryears or childhood; where you live under the canopy of love and affection of your family and elders.

Now as I document this; one incident takes me back to my childhood days. I was walking down an alley alongside my grandmother clinging on to her forefinger making plans to go to the temple in the evening for she had said there will be "aanamama" [elephant(child speech form in Malayalam)] and she could get me permission to feed and touch the elephant. I was delighted because I knew she always kept her promises unlike my parents who would bribe me with luring promises to get me to do my home work and then forget about it unanimously. My grandmother, was a very influential and respectable lady. She was a retired head teacher and nobody refused her anything. Everywhere we went her old students and people greeted her and tenderly pulled my cheek and petted me.

Needless to say I felt on top of the world and secretly proud. I felt like a little princess. I kept looking at my grandmother and she would smile back at me as if to say "its OK, you are fine." We stepped out of the alley way which led to a bridge above a brook. We sat down by the bridge and enjoyed the cool breeze while I peered down to watch the fish underneath, and my grandmother took out her paan box and made herself a paan. Chewing her paan she asked me if I wanted to catch them and take them home?

My eyes gleamed impishly and she stepped down and picked me up and carried me down. She set me down in the cool and crystal clear water of the brook and pulled off her "pallu" (the loose end of a sari) and gave me the loose end and she held on to her side. We waited quietly as instructed by her and the minute we saw a fish we would dip one edge and then slowly immerse the rest of the pallu and quickly scoop up the entire pallu when we were sure the fish is nearly captured but many a times they dodged us and as I grew impatient my grandmother would cuddled me and would reassure me telling me "try try till you succeed" and I obliged. Finally, we caught two at once and I wondered how to take them along? Of course, wasn't I fascinated to see my grandmother make a cone out of a colocasia leaf and she ladled in some water and as we put our catch of the day into the leaf cone with water, she kissed my forehead with her paan stained lips.

We walked back home and on our way back once in a while I would pull on my grandmother's sari and she would lower the cone down and I would be happy to see the fish swimming around in there. The cool breeze was even more enjoyable in my wet frock and sandals. As we approached home, I ran up ahead of my grandmother calling out to my cousins "meemi meemi!! "[fish fish!! (child speech form in Malayalam)]. We all ran back to my grandmother as she walked up to us, there was no end to my explanations and how "I" had caught them.

We later put them in the pond by the house and watched and fed them without fail for two days and forgot about it as we got busy with other adventures my grandmother had led us to.

When I returned to my parents after the glorious vacation I told them all about my days and how good it would be to go back there. Little did I know then how hard my parents had to work to make both ends meet.

A Balmy Evening

Beckoned by the bewitching brook
my dotty soul followed dancing
dancing down the alley to the brook
my crazy fancy hooked me there.

The bidding sky dressed in twilight
blushing, she bashfully awaits her demon lover
for day long she sat knitting her gown
Dare! Jinx her ineffable beauty.

In a jiffy did he steal my attention
a gust, hugging me, kissing me
twirling my hair, brushing it against my face
naughty as ever, ne'er will he change.

He moves away humming softly
he dances, he whistles, he sways
swept my scarlet scarf
waggling impishly into the brook.

Hurriedly I grabbed my scarlet scarf
lo! watch her, the gorgeous lady now in her jewel studded gown
romancing with her demon lover
she is lost, she is rapt
this mirror flowing endlessly beneath her, paints it live.

Twinkling stars and glow worms reign the night;
competing against each other, not letting the darkness swallow the ecstatic sight.

Oh Time! Please please wait.
Pause! Stop there!