Meeting

On the other side of the glass

There's a world

May be a whole entire Galaxy

Swimming and swirling

Gliding and swaying

Like stars in space

Like comets in sky.

Forests of kelp

Spread like curtains of silk

Through which, Sharks in tiger grab

Pirouette around like trained ballerinas.

On this side of the glass

I stare in awe

At the galaxy of life

Immersed under water.

Sea stars grazing the sand

Like stars graze the dream land

King crabs maneuvering around

Like robots on remotes.

Sea horses sway 

In a mock gallop in the ocean abound

I gape bemused

Bedazzled in the aqua swirls.

On the other side of the glass

I see a looking glass

Wherein my form seems like a fleck of dirt

My existences blurs in these waves of wonder.

Surrendered to the mastercraft

My eyes well up in bliss

In a meeting of a fleck and the formidable

A perspective is born, and an ego is blurred.

In between Lines

She paces down the corridor in anticipation. She has taken care of  every last detail. There are bright Chrysanthemums in the vase - the enticing smell of blue berry muffins wafting through the length and breadth of their eclectic home. She thinks of his obscene sweet tooth and smiles while filling the candy dish with the gourmet dark chocolate truffles she got from his favorite shop in the downtown. 

wood wick candles make crackling sounds in the background illuminating the fireplace mantle. She loves candle light and the sound of water. The table top fountain sprays a mist as it gurgles in glee. 

The door bell rings. Her smile blooms ear to ear. She adjusts her hair and opens the door. Their eyes meet. He lugs his bag into the house. "How was the flight?" she asks. "Not bad. But the trip was hectic. I could barely sleep zooming past so many timezones"

"Lunch is ready" she offers "Take a shower, eat something and go to bed"

He nods in agreement, smiling and holding her from the side. She awkwardly places her head on his shoulder and says "Hurry up. You look famished"

As she sets the table he approaches from behind "Look what I got you!" This is an announcement she doesn't like to hear. The smile from her face disappears. He pulls out a sleek case and puts it infront of her, offering her to take it from his hands."What is this?" she asks looking blank. He senses what's about to come. "Open it" he urges. You might like it.

She opens the case and finds a mother of pearl watch with a silver chain. Her taut face stays nonchalant. She snaps the case close and looks at him annoyed. Her features shrink into a frown "And why do you think I need another watch added to the two dozen watches I already hoard? Do I look like I have a lifestyle for a watch wardrobe?" 

"But you like mother of pearl" He pleads "And this one is going to look so good on your wrist. You can wear it as a bracelet if not as a time piece"

She looses her cool "How many watches, purses and scarfs do I need? You know I don't know how to respect these expensive accessories. I  don't like what you bring home time and again. It is negative energy in the home when I hoard them and have no use for these gifts. Didn't I tell you I don't like or need gifts? When would you really honor my wish and not impose your own preferences on me?"

Her voice becomes shrill. She loses all her natural cool and darts out of the nook. He follows her with the case in his hand "But I wanted to bring you something. As a token of love. You are on my mind when I travel and I feel good when I get you something"

"And how about you think about how I feel for a minute? You just keep at it no matter how many times I forbid you from splurging on things that don't matter or indicate anything to me. How about you, for a flash, think of what I want instead of what you want me to want??"

She knows how these episodes go. She makes mental notes before he comes to not react to these regular occurrences. She writes down lines in her journal ' 'accept what he brings you, don't fuss about them' - But the moment she sees those gifts something inside of her transforms into a momentary alien that doesn't in the least behaves like how she actually is. It is amusing how these triggers slay her and make her succumb to the emotion, to the loss of temper. She looks cross, flashing her meanest best look in his direction and walks into her study, closing the door after her. He stands outside gently calling out to her "Honey - I know you don't like these, the next time around, I'll make sure I'll get you something you love"

"I don't love anything, and please give up on searching to find and bring home the things I love, now leave me alone" She yells back, settling on the floor, leaning into the wall. An awkward silence fills the space and he walks away to take a shower.

She sits there for a while, losing track of time and losing grip on herself. She leans into her knees and sobs silently. Letting out all the stress of missing him, of being this wonder woman juggling work and home, being his pillar of strength. The wonder woman jumps out the window and she is time and again face to face with the inner child that cannot really extract into words all the relief she feels and the release of all the missing she undergoes while he is away.

She walks out of the room, gathering herself, setting the table and serving the food. He comes in like a reprimanded child. 

"Next time around, I won't bring you anything you don't like" He assures her. She stays mum and serves him food. But a part of her wants to scream out that it is not the gift that makes her react, it is not the irrelevance of it. It is just the fact that she misses him so sorely and her brave act fails her. She just needs a pretext to cry and wash that pain away - his gifts offer her the perfect domino effect. She wishes to tell him that no materials can compare to the comfort he brings her and he really doesn't need to put any thought to choose what she loves - cause when he arrives, he has taken care of it.

The silly woman doesn't want to take the aid of her words to convey this simple fact. It is probably because she wants to be understood without a word being uttered. The peekaboo of their communication gaps surface in these gift bringing rituals. 

He holds her hand and draws her close to him. They hug tenderly in silence where the unspoken angst melts and love fills in the space between them. But the unsaid words linger in between the lines.

 Blessed are souls that understand the unspoken language of the heart.

Quest

One day I set out to find a trinket

A pick me up to brighten my day

May be I would display it on my desk

To offer me a flash of inspiration 

When the block smashes the blog

And I sit feeling abandoned by the creative Gods.

I looked far and wide

Near and here 

The world is an overflow of things that stir

Only if the coolers you wear don't become the blinders

Only if the universe isn't fit into the blind spot in this Ego ride.

What if the brains fail? We do have jump-starters for asking

So I set out, armed with my irises and a lens

And looked to open the treasure trove of revelations.

I spot lush foliage

With etched edges and pronounced outlines

If the creator worked his magic on each humble leaf

I must after all be able to recreate a small heap of words

To imitate his craftsmanship, I thought.

And I thought well I suppose.

As I catch a humming bird hovering above a bloom

Looking like machinery in motion, suspended in mid air

His lurid wings holding me hostage

In mesmerized awe, I freeze.

The penalty, or reward I know not what

Was a capture of the bird on a well timed lens.

I marvel at the detail, swoon at the vibrancy

The thought of the trinket escapes the confines.

Who needs idols when the ideals shine bright?

Who needs ornaments to adorn and spruce

When expression tumbles down in a wordy jumble

I throw blocks to wind and weave a repose

Of something in between a verse and prose.

I know not to write odes - I am no Keats

Each time I attempt to praise I face many defeats.

But sincere reverence stages a sentiment of its own

And sings praise of the creation, discovering the unknown.

Verse

Oh where oh were are you running?

In a wild goose chase

Securing the unknown tomorrow

Squandering away the today.

Oh where oh were are you heading?

What does your agenda contain?

The future out there, where dreams dwell

Into fine realities.

That utopia, it cannot be in reach

Right here.

It's got to be in the distant future

Like a horizon, a mirage, a phantom

How can it be in the now? 

The tangible moments

That spread their course

Look infinite in the optical illusion.

What apparition - this anticipation

Where oh where does this infatuation lead

Into the facades of a hallucination.

Stop and breath.

The hunt is a misconception

Cause the treasure lies 

Under the soil you stand upon

Over the sky shading your being.

Be here, it might disappear

Over there, where it is a deceit

In the now, is your treat!

View

Along the sunny path, the green expanse

Life unfolds in leisure.

Like ladybugs crawling on tender leaves

The world passes by

Now there's a couple in their twilight years

Holding hands and walking like they are fused

I wonder what that fusion had seen

Had undergone, living through in sickness and health.

I marvel at how love grows within

Amid struggles, let downs and let gos

Always sprouting again like blooms in spring

Resilient, all encompassing

Enduring life's brutal winter chills.

Kids swing in absolute glee

Raising their feet up, like they are grazing the sky

Mothers push them and join their laughter.

I catch the glimpse of a dad teaching a daughter to bike,

Holding her secure, while the tot cautiously pedals

These very lanes see a role reversal

As I watch another man holding his mother's hand 

While she walks with a stick in tow

Taking steps in slow motion.

The tenderness between the space they share

Vibrates like a shield of love

Sprinkling some on me, as I pass by

What a blessed sight to behold.

Along this path roses bloom in unison

The grass beams in a lush shade of green

Fitness freaks jog by like energizer bunnies

I trace their paths, looking to see when they'd stop to catch their breath.

A small group of kids run to the ice cream truck parked nearby

The highlight of their summers perhaps,

 To get a bite into those frozen delights

As their parents lounge in their picnic chairs

Talking of life, work or the book they are reading.

Retro music blasts in a nearby spot

I see aged uncles and aunties swinging their hips

What yearning to keep their spirits up

What grit to keep their energies high

Age is just a number - I remember

As they wave at me and wish flashing bright smiles.

On this trails I see splashes of laughter

Tender loving care in snapshots of little moments

That make up the collage of the lives meaningfully lived.

In these very moments, trivial and tiny

Is probably where true joy dwells. 

I walk back and forth inhaling the breeze

And the little details of fulfilling souvenirs

That we all would display on our hearts mantles

As days roll by and  decades become past tense.

Along this bright walk way

Life's meaning unfolds

And I stop and stare, a smile curving my lips

And marvel at the simplicity of the anatomy of bliss.

Exploring Taj

Years ago, I visited the Taj with the spouse and his cousins from Delhi - It was the first week of January and I experienced first hand, the romanticism and the ruthlessness of what Indians describe as "Delhi's winter" and amusingly enough, I found it more intense than the one we experience in Northern Ca. 'It could be due to lack of central heating system' - The husband and I concluded much later, upon looking back.

As we entered into the Taj - I felt dwarfed in the truest sense. The edifice was so surreal, that it indeed looked like something afloat in a dreamscape. When we started off from Delhi, the cousin's missus made sure I was wrapped head to toe in protective gear - Monkey cap, sweater, scarf, socks and shoes. I am somehow very intolerant to wearing socks as my warm blooded body refuses the added insulation on my feet with a vengeance. That day, as I peeled the socks off to feel the chill of the marble under my feet, the cousin cautioned me - "It is like walking on ice now" he warned "Don't take your socks off" - "This isn't any marble, this is the Taj and I want to feel her chill grazing against my skin" I told him and he nodded with a smile and followed suit :) Soon the four of us were walking around the Taj barefeet feeling the gentle sting of the cold on our skin. It was perhaps one of the most wonderful sensory experiences I had in my life. A tinge of the cold under feet, a larger than life monument looming infront of the gaze - This is something legends and wonders are made of and I figured what the hoopla was all about, first hand. Or I thought I did - until I read Timeri Murari's historical work - Taj - A story of Moghul India.

I am trying to read fiction lately - blame in on the steady overdose of everything non fiction I'd gotten used to reading , that holding my attention span onto a piece of fiction had become near impossible. I wanted to flex my fiction tolerance and at the same time look at it as a launch pad to my imagination and studying different voices and styles of authors from a technical perspective and picked up the Taj - a real piece of history narrated in a novel format. I'd read another of Murari's books a full on fiction and feel in love with how he deals with his narration and Taj isn't different or disappointing. Murari held my interest into the last word of the last page. It was Shahjahan and Arjumand that kind of irritated me in between, but the author did his job, anchoring me to the book with his brilliant narrative streaming across different perspectives of the main characters of the story.

There's one thing I'd observed about couples in love or in relationships - there's always an imbalance. And the imbalance could vary from very subtle to very intense - and the imbalance lies in how one part of the unit always loves more, gives more and adjusts more. Seldom, if that, have I seen couples who have a perfect, flawless balance in the way they love - with equal intensity, yearning and passion for the one another and I am talking about the most loving and successful of couplings that I'd seen over the years. But when I read the story of Shahjahan and Arjumand, I was in a way irritated at how the couple magically managed to balance the love and yearning to perfection. We see a twelve year old Arjumand banu selling her wares in the famous Meena Bazar of the Moughal empire and a fourteen year old Shahjahan falling head over heels - a love that is to inspire everlasting physical evidence that Indians would wear with pride on their diverse landscape - One of the seven wonders of the planet - now what lies behind the Taj that is there to see in the modern day one might wonder, and if one reads this book, one would know beyond doubt and go "aha, no wonder the wonder stands there today" :( cheesy much huh? Not if you read the legendary love story, I assure you you'd discount my cheesiness.

There were times when I got so irritated at Shahjahan's fuss over the monument that I'd put the book down and vow not to read any further. "Dude, we get you love her" I'd mutter under my breath "Now stop making so many lives miserable over creating the perfect tombstone" But in spite of knowing the history, I'd find myself unable to cut it off and dismiss Shahjahan and his shenanigans with a curiosity to know as much detail as I can of this monumental love.

The narrative shuttles between several perspectives in two time lines - One set as a prologue and another as an epilogue of sorts but both interwoven  and seamlessly connecting entirely unconnected stories. The saga skips from one era to another - lingering around love, passion, power, politics and raw emotions of mad love, lust, jealousy, resentment and vengeance. It's a whole buffet of emotions that is served so scrumptiously leaving the reader devouring a very layered experience of a legendary real life epic. 

So we see a heir apparent to one of the biggest monarchies of the universe and his love for an almost commoner Arjumand and how subtly his love trumps over the luxuries, privileges and prerogatives of an emperor. It sometimes gracefully and sometimes ruthlessly puts forth the brutal truth of love and sex - the former so pure and rare, the latter so easy and available - social status, and crown on the head are really optional if you ask me. The former fulfilling and the latter just satiating a primal hunger that doesn't penetrate beyond the flesh and blood. The former quenching the thirst of the soul and making one complete and the later being a momentary high that plummets the being into an non evolved animal. And in a very delightful irony, the story obliterates the fine line between both, often leaving the reader experiencing an evolved and broadened outlook on the matters of the heart.

We see Taj through the lens of an artisan Murthi and the eyes of a mad in love Shahjahan. We examine it through a two dimensional drawing translating into a multi dimensional monument, standing on the work and toil of thousands of skilled laborers spawning over several years. We let out sighs of awe and sighs of despair and disbelief flipping through the pages of the narrative. We see it as an epitome of love, as a paradigm of loathe once Aurangzeb takes hold of the reign. We see the unconscious biases we put ourselves through and realize how we fail ourselves and the people around us in the name of love or lack thereof.

I can go on and on. I have to say, reading this book was one of the highs I felt in the recent past.  I am busy contemplating another trip to the Taj. This time I know I'd see the Mausoleum in a new light  and I have a feeling I might see and sense beyond  what my five senses would render me.

Verse

Periwinkle perfect

Unleashed above

Having a play date

With the visible fluff of white

While the invisible accomplice 

Sways with the trees

Dancing to the unheard tunes of ecstasy.

The road leads to an array of green

Harbored over with the vastness of deep blue

Appearing like the irises of the eyes I fell in love with.

Senses swim in the color play

In the breezy sway

The heart skips a beat

May be several beats

Treating itself to the splendid view unfolding before

Like a bright future foretold by a smart psychic.

This is the road to rhapsodies

That sprinkles props of inspiration

Of reason and rhyme

Into a meager existence

Lending verse to the adverse

Granting a whiff of life

To the living.