Unnamed.

Like a volcano
Bubbling to erupt
Something in the stomach churns
Creates a ripple effect.
The heat expands the heart
Spreads to the head
And makes us lose our cool,
Reason.
Makes us unruly beasts
Our tongues utter un-meant words
Our eyes shower ambers of hurt
Anger takes us nowhere.
Just alters us from inside
And changes who we are.
Forgiving Does!

Animation

Transform me, O take me
To an Eneimone or an Apartment in Paris
Over looking the Eiffel.
Make me Remy, the culinary expert
Or Nemo, with the lucky little fin!!
Give me a magical touch
With Gossamer wings and a wand.
Let me make a castle out of normal land.
Fiona's thick long braid
And the Donkey's funny bone
Should transform me into a class of my own.
Let me oh let me be
Timon the meerkat
And make my comedy timing
The talk of the town.
My own little space,
Under the vast blue sky
Limitless, flawless and filled with adventure
Where good prevails
And love wins
And All creatures act like human beings.
Make me a little girl again
Make me simple, make me innocent
Make me a part of the make believe world
Make me carefree -
And as free as can be!

Sly

Tip toeing on dainty feet
Carrying the burden of a mature thought
Like a performer trying to balance
But still looking effortless.
Tip toeing to relieve
Tired winter feet
From the added pressure of a weighty thought -
Shielding the soft flesh
From being extra bruised -
Never knew, thoughts add to weight
And glide to a physical form.

Color

From Crayons to water color cakes
From Spice racks to eyeshadows
From flowers to Birds
From visions to words -
Color colors my every little wish
To express my inmost desires
Be it to create or just admire
The numerous shades that beautify
Every virtual lane my thoughts tread.
Am I just trying to give it in black and white
As to what color means?

Clusters.

Verses like misfortunes
Come in clusters.
Dangling half baked, half formed visions
Enticing me to capture their essence
Devour their presence.
Bunches of sceneries
Of music like words
Dancing like agile ballerinas
Play hide and seek
Disappearing the moment
My senses grapple to have a clear look.
Clusters of thoughts, Bunches of them
Dangle above me.
Sometimes I just give up
Capturing them in verbal strokes
On my mind's canvas
Convincing myself
That they are way too sour
To justify the effort:-)

Forgotten.

Last night
An image flashed
Admist the ambiguity of semi-conscious sleep.
I wrote down a verse
An eloquent one
Almost typed it
Blogged it
And felt accomplished.
Why does it not flash again?

Some things take for ever:-)

Does it not happen to you sometimes? You seem to be stuck with something and it never gets done. The "work in progress" sign hangs way too long that it gets dull, jaded, tarnished and sometime the sign itself is obliterated form memory - The figurative sign that is. Happens to me all the time. The day I started painting Winnie the pooh and friends on the walls of our then formal dining space to make it our now Aarti's play space, I was all charged and possessed to complete it - like a woman on a mission. I did it too...except for the fine detail edging that was supposed to painted in the cranny where the wall starts and the foot board ends. No one notices it as incomplete. But to my own perfectionist eye, that is the first thing I notice every time I look at the painting. Yeah, my first of the infinite entries on the forever list.
I have a friend from my growing years. A very special, landmark friend of my life. He moved out of the place we grew up in. He comes and visits my parents every time he's in town. He makes sure that I am updated about the new kids on the block and all that progress his life is making. Ever since I had Aarti I wanted to trace him down and send him a picture of my lil angel. Sarat has his number stored in Sarat's cell. It takes me forever to make that call that can re bridge the gap between me and my best friend.
I have this smashing new idea of making my portfolio for my dream job. I have the details planned out meticulously in my minds eye. Ever night after I lie down in an attempt to sleep, I create - painstakingly, carefully - my portfolio. A sure shot gateway to my dream career. I know - but, it never gets done making my own intentions of getting in my dream career questionable. May be I am way to cozy in my 'homemaker' shoes and never want to work. Why don't I darn well admit that???
I never get charged enough to lose those 10 crucial pounds that would make me fit into half of my existing wardrobe without getting conscious about the spill of fat that would bulge and make me look like 'work in early progress' to make Aarti a big sister. Every time someone takes a second glance at my tummy even just like that, I announce that it is just long piled up baby fat and not really a baby. LOL.
Right now, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is taking for ever. Aarti goes to bed and I could comfortably slip into my luxury threadsheet laiden down comforter and get at reading the book. I don't. Instead I get trapped in the world wide web and browse ebay, samachar.com, delphi forums or the good ole Orkut jumping from profile to profile to find Kiranmai, my long lost childhood friend. Edgar Sawtelle is here to keep me company for ever - it looks like at least for now.
Why do somethings take for ever? Because we blame it on our mood? Because we are not motivated enough? Because we don't want to do them?
Somethings take for ever if we let them.

Unconditional.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-- William Shakespeare

This one was one of my most favourite poems and works of Shakespeare when I was a teenager. My cousin once wrote this to me in the numerous letters we exchanged as Friends, literature lovers and pen pals. She used to send me poems in English and Hindi literature and even lyrics form movie songs that were dripping with love. She and I - both fantasized to find true love the way Shakespeare, Akthar and Bachchan (the senior poet Bachchan!:-)) described it - without impediments, without alterations and all that:-)

I grew out of romantic lyrics, verses and Mills and Boons but found Love similar to what Shakespeare perceived it to be. Now , fifteen years from when I first read and fell in love with the sonnet, I feel that my own perception and scope of love has broadened, matured and evolved enough to see that Shakespeare was talking about the marriage of true "minds" and the love here is not the romantic and amorous kind alone that exists between a lover and love. Now I look at Love more as an underlying universal emotion that keeps the lives of all living creatures going - including trees, animals and human beings. Yeah, I said trees. Dating back to middle school, I did read a lesson in English where a scientist proved that trees that are loved thrived better. And I actually performed his experiment on the December plants(with flowers that bloom in December , named after the month:-) in our backyard. I would say to one plant aloud " I love you" and turn to the plant adjacent to it and say " I don't love you" Eventually, it could be my imagination, but the hated plant bloomed less.

So the point here is to love. And also the point extends to loving without admitting impediments, alterations and any other hindrances love might encounter. Love, be it the one we share with a close friend, a sibling, a significant other, our own child or ourselves should be unconditional. It should give room for mistakes, heartbreaks, imperfections and still keep on at loving and rising above all these things. I know of great friendships that were ruined because one of the friends caused the other some pain. I know of broken marriages since one cannot accommodate the mistakes/shortcomings of the other and I know of perfectionist parents who disowned their kids because they chose their partners against the parents' wishes. So are all these actually love or something else? It is one thing to not budge from loving when we have external factors involved but true love is something that accepts the other person as he or she is without trying to change them the way we want him or her to be. Aarti is unruly sometimes. I have a back ache and she wants me to carry her. She doesn't let me go to the toilet peacefully and wants to go poop the minute I server myself my meal. I get irritated but never cease to love her. She is my baby and I bend the way she wants me to bend. Eventually I'll have discipline come in but I am sure I'll forgive her for all her known and unknown mistakes and I'll not nurture the hope that she'll grow up to be the person I like her to be. I think that is mother's love and that is the purest of all.
If I ever have a problem with a friend or a sibling or any person that I remotely love, I'll have to love them in the purest possible way - like I would love my child. Impediments, alterations and heartbreaks should look for adobes somewhere else. And I will be more forgiving on myself and be faithfully in love with the soul that lives in my body as well.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.
Love is not love which alters when it alterations finds:-)

Acceptance.

Just the other day, I was catching up on Entertainment E! television while flipping channels to find Barney and I saw a program about plastic surgeries on celebrities. Ashley Simpson's nose job was highlighted and then there was this hoopla about how Ashley said she was comfortable with who she is and how she looks time and again till she got her nose chiseled. And then, voila, Ms.Simpson has this perfect profile:-) and she stopped talking about being comfortable with herself (owing to obvious reasons!)
I look at people around me and also at myself - we all seem to have things, physical things - that we'd change about ourselves. My sis G always wanted to be a tad bit fairer since everyone back home used to tell her that she and I look exactly alike except for her darker skin tone :-)) I used to tell her (honestly) that I'd trade my complexion in a blink for her perfect nose. (and I seriously don't understand why people think we look alike - I think I am a mediocre version of her, no false modesty or inferiority complex here - just telling things as they are)
S wants to be a little taller, another female S wants to get rid of her "pear" silhouette. Another S wants a better nose, P wants a fairer skin tone. K hates the "apple" bod. Another female S ( I know my life is full of S es...Phew...! No pun there!) hates her heavy arms. A thinks she is way too short. T hates her thighs. S (again) thinks she has a weird mouth and chinky eyes. U loathes her nose. R wants a head of hair real bad. A hates her butt and K hates his height.
So anyway, the point here is that we all have our own vanity and at least one thing that we'd like to change about our appearance. We take aid of cremes, knives (in extreme cases), braces, trimming undergarments etcetera and satisfy partially our efforts to look perfect. I am sure Aamir khan would have loved to be a little taller, Shahrukh would have loved a better nose and Sridevi...well, did she not surgically enhance her nose? So the so called perfect stars have their share of pet-peeves too about the way they look.
How does it matter if our teeth are not aligned perfectly and you are balding thanks to your maternal granddad and uncle? How does being a darker shade of brown or wearing a bigger size of pants matter? Does it to the people around you? Or does it matter to the person in the body alone? I never look at a bald guy and go..."how would he look with a full head of hair?" No, not even when I look at Akshay Khanna. I think he looks hot with or without a full head of hair. The other day I saw a pic of the yesteryear actor Kirshna wearing an obvious, dense and obnoxiously black wig that stood out like an eye sore. I'd have appreciated him more if he'd acted his age.

A few years ago I fixed a little gap in my front teeth. Ever since my permanent teeth came out, I always loathed the un-alignment of my otherwise tooth-paste commercial perfect teeth. The day I fixed it, I was so glad and couldn't stop admiring my perfect smile in the mirror. But looking back, I miss my little aperture. It probably made me more cute - more believable, human and one of a kind. I got over that thing I wanted to change and now I seem to hate the way I gain weight on my face. My chipmunk cheeks as I call them are dying to get back my high cheekbones exposed and the distinct jawline out. I know, we are never happy cause we are way too vain! My cheeks never make a difference to my hubby. He thinks I have a cute, child-like face. My lil girl tells me time and again that I am very pretty. (though she just repeats to me what I tell to her!)
I wish to be like Rajni Kanth - his own self off screen and very comfortable being who he is. I wish I would like myself, accept myself that way I am made - one of a kind, unique and special - apertures, chipmunk cheeks and all that:-) I wish. I wish.

What's your pledge?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqcPA1ysSbw

I thought it was a wonderful video. Off topic, but have'nt seen a cuter couple than Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher in the recent past.

My pledge is to be a better person. To use my time well and to be of service to someone other than my little circle of family and friends.

What's Yours?

Forgive

Back in school we had a school prayer - a typical catholic hymn kind of a prayer that said "give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins - as we forgive those who hurt/sin against us" And then the choir would hit the hi c and go "Oh, forgive us our sins" again. I liked the sound of this tune, the feel of it as well. It was like I could be forgiven for lying to my teacher about homework or faking a stomach ache to miss PT. I always felt good about the bail out option God had for me. He would forgive me for all my sins. Little did I know that real forgiving actually takes a lot of character and it is as Godly as it gets.

I see a lot of my friends crib constantly about something some relative had said that made them mad. They would discuss about come-back lines, revenges and 'paying- it- back- in- their- own coin' remedies. These are the petty vengeance we carry in our day to day lives. Something the neighbor said about the dog poop in their front lawn, some naive comment about our weight or someone making our accomplishments look common/trivial are some of the silly things we might never forgive. We seem to be caught in our own web of un-forgiveness and nurture a slow poison that consumes us form the inside. For that matter, forgiving is more important to us than to the person in question that needs to be forgiven - since our unforgiven baggage make us vile, hurtful and most importantly the victims of our own hatred.
As with everything, forgiving does take time in different occasions. Now, if someone called you something you are not - you could just shrug, smile and go ahead with your life, but someone causing hurt to your family, your lively hood or something more precious will probably take time. Little by little, we heal with time and let go of the hard feelings we nurture for the person that caused them. So, sooner or later, forgiving is the only way out to keep our sanity intact and lead our lives with less complication.

We should probably look into ourselves and try to find the umpteen number of times we'd have said or done something unkind and it might become a little more evident to us that to err is after all human.

Imagine how a lot of heart breaks would have been saved by simply letting go of our hurt and forgiving whole heatedly. The idea here is not to be divine but just to be human and let love spread:-) Like Gandhi said - if we get eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind. A lot of human suffering big and small would have been saved if the policy to forgive would have been exercised. And the best part is when you forgive you let go and alight from the vehicle of revenge and suffering. God Almighty forgives us for everything they say! We should probably let go too... to imitate our creator and better yet, to save our own selves form a vicious circle of pain, suffering and revenge!

So...let's ask Him to give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins along with granting us the strength and character to forgive and hopefully, forget!