Breaking Up

"Don't you think we know?"

She asked him

"When someone loves us and doesn't convey?"

He looked ahead and nodded in a agreement.

"Don't you think we also know

When someone doesn't and they don't convey?

Don't you think our actions betray us more than our words?"

He smiled and nodded this time.

"So there is someone, or something

That makes it clear to us.

Downloading bytes of knowing, of wisdom

Just for seeking, for peeking into the 

Obvious and the obviously concealed!"

"Yes" He added.

"What's this randomness about?"

He asked.

"Its about breaking up" 

She chuckled.

"Nice try" he played  along.

"You are mine"

"NO, You are mine" She challenged him.

"But I am breaking up with sorrow"

"With this constant yearning to know, to be, to live"

"These apprehensions, these yearnings to be loved, to be owned"

"That's a brilliant idea" He said

"I have my arms open, for you to run into and embrace"

"Look inside, I am there"

"Like a beam of light, tracing your soul"

"You are the being, I am the bliss"

"A match, fused and tied forever"

"Of course, you need to dump Sorrow, The delusional bad boy"

This is a door, a camouflage, a trick

That leads not to the outdoors.

Sure, do the honors,

Dump the dude unceremoniously

Kick his backside, 

Kiss him goodbye!

And take the stroll within to this divine union.

Be here, be now, be bliss, be me!

And Let's celebrate the homecoming

Never ever looking back to the outside

Let's close the door on sorrow,

He can exist or may be he doesn't need to exist

Unless we house him and douse him in attention

In reverence.

Let's be irreverent. Let's rebel

And bask for ever in this treasure inside.

You within me, and I within you

Life and Joy, Being and bliss!

All else, on them, the curtains down.

Let the new Magnum opus unveil"

Verse

As I walk the life's streets

And watch the sunset

I realize

That one day this I the identity

Will leave these lanes

Flying away to a nowhere, no one that has seen

Had been seen.

I wonder over the sentiment

"The Show must go on"

And imagine a sunrise and a sunset

In these very streets

One melting the haze setting up sheets of backgrounds

One curdling the light into a dim darkness.

Both would be there, I wouldn't.

But My knowing gives the knowledge a twist.

Will I go on

More than this make believe prop

That is there but isn't?

"Just close your eyes, you'll find proof!"

The inner voice whispers.

I see the dusk in a new light

More illuminated than any dawn

For the smog has risen

Over my being!

Letting the peace in.

I'll go on - Like an eternal show

In an eternal moment.

The props look like they are going on...

I have no issues with them.

I let them serenade me with their charm

I let me not slip away in their chase.

I am an infinite light

Passing through a finite sight!

And The show, I know :)

Verse

Over the indigo canopy
Amid the streaks of clouds
The dipping Sun dribbles
Gripping brush strokes.
Down under, the earth mattes
Into a pitch black void
Every existence, the living and the still
Dissolves in the darkness
Existing but no existent
Perhaps in helpless surrender
Or wondrous awe.
As the gaze traces the magnificence
The insides smile in awareness
Little cares dwindled into the illusion
Existing but non existent
Just like the ground below sucked out of illumination !
But here, the light of  knowing
Alights the darkness of the know all self
Dissipating every triviality
Into transcendent bliss!

Ponder - Toilet paper to Treasure

Some Costco employee out there, shout out to you Bro - Chutzpah and all :)

As soon as the Covid19 scare hit the planet, I was kind of contemplating whether or not to jump on the panic band wagon - but whatever they say about 'rub on effect' especially in a crisis situation is true as it can get, and I am sure if there's readership in here during this time, you are probably doing the 'Indian nod' in agreement. So, the panic, slowly and surely hit me as well. As I took a long look at the 'pantry' situation and cogitated deeply about the groceries that need to be replenished to do a starvation free sheltering at place, I realized that I ain't a hoarder. At all. So the daily necessities be it milk or sugar, flour or rice, fruits or veggies were brought in, in short regular intervals and I didn't in the least see a need to buy anything in bulk though the package deals in the US famous warehouse aren't being counted in here. I did have six 2 pound packs of dry pasta, a 20 lb bag of Indian rice and a 20 lb bag of wheat flour to make the Indian flat bread. That's pretty much it if I'd not counted the tubs of tomatoes that were froze from last  year's yield. For the amount of gravies I make, they do come handy though they occupy major real estate in the freezer side of my Sub Zero beauty meets beast of a refrigerator. 

But there are other things that seem to be flying off of the shelves. Toilet paper, sanitizing wipes / sprays and hand sanitizers occupy the top three slots in that order. The last time I bought toilet paper was sometime in December, a time when this virus is kind of visible but the effect it was to take in the coming months isn't.  I somehow did end up having a good supply of it, but not in any monumental proportions the average hoarder today might have - I did have an extra supply as we were expecting house guest in clusters during winter. Thank God for little blessings that amid the scare of having enough food to eat, this having enough to wipe the backside wasn't even an issue. Even if it were, it would have been a 'not such a burning issue' in my 'take life as it comes' philosophy - "toilet paper wasn't ever going to be a thing I'd panic about", I said to myself as I looked at the stark empty corner of the warehouse that housed this endangered item. Suddenly, I felt a slight sink in the gut, like the one you experience when you are being free dropped from a height on a very twisted roller coaster.  The plan B scenarios swarmed above my head - I'll not elucidate all of them here, but yes - When one grows up in the Indian subcontinent where water is supposed to the the holy grail cleanser - one doesn't panic till there's a drought - and drought I hope never hits us like Covid19  managed to hit - and I wish this in all earnestness.

So the trips to grocery stores did happen. I did dress up like a ninja - In head gear, browsing through eerie looking grocery store isles that looked more like whole businesses dressed in Halloween costumes than they looked like grocery stores. I carefully doused my hands and elbows in hand sanitizers that promised to kill 99.9% of the germs and prayed secretly that the .1% is just there for effect and it actually kills 100% of them - actually I said this as an artistic liberty ;) I did have a healthy fear, but wasn't really subscribing to this whole 'mental crisis' thing the pandemic brought along like a Siamese twin. So the dreaded trip to Costco happened as well and I was in the line, distanced by 10 feet from the person before and behind me. As we moved closer to entering the warehouse, a euphoria swept over me, akin to the one someone might experience upon winning the mega million lottery. The second time around, most of the items that were swept clean without evidence during my previous trip, made a contained but prominent appearance. Some items had limits on how many one could buy and rightly so I thought or the late, leisure bird that moi was, moi would be going around with an empty cart and brimming anxiety looking for daily necessities. 

What didn't change at all was the starkness of the toilet paper corner. It was as thread bare as a freshly delivered baby. the price displays telling the only tell tale signs of the existence of Toilet paper in the first place. This time around, my gut didn't do the cartwheel on the roller coaster, instead it thanked its lucky stars that it found the cooking oil I badly needed to keep the food on the dinner table, cooked n all :) But somehow, the supply/demand monster did get to the cool composed me, if not in an obvious way. As rolls dwindled in the household, the cool did too. But I wasn't going to sweat small things. I wasn't. What's the used of being a seasoned, disciplined meditator if it didn't come handy when it had to come handy?? So, the subtle yearning to find toilet paper did persist - though Plan Bs were a plenty.

The next trip was made by the handy husband ( I said handy in the spirit of artistic liberty too. This dude is as handy as a grand piano smack dab in the center of a tight living room where no one ever played the instrument. Enuf said ;)) and I for one thing, made ridiculously meticulous notes about what needed to be bought. So if I had to write Onions I'd write Onions (Red, non sweet ones. Check for mold and rotting ones at the bottom and stay clear) - So you get the idea. The shopping list's first item was toilet paper - it read "Toilet paper, any brand, any count - if it is available. If it isn't don't go around looking for it all over the length and breath of the warehouse like you do when you lose your way and don't want to ask for directions" ) I am sure he gave a chuckle when he read the list or may be he didn't. This dude is the love child of Katrina Kaif (poker faced no matter what the scene and situation demands emotion wise) and Elon Musk - (Ever heard about how his employees have mental issues and he finds it hard to stay married? He is a workaholic brothers and sisters - that's why! :-O

As I head the garage open, I walked out, wondering what all of the necessities made it to the house form the warehouse - and guess what I spot as I help the husband unload the loot! " Costoc's storebrand toilet paper. I in all honesty and zero artistic liberty, felt like meeting J K Rowling in person. It really felt that precious and blessed. I carefully unloaded the bundle onto the garage floor and ran my hands over the plastic having a very gratified moment. That dearies, is what crisis is supposed to put you through. It is supposed to take something as trivial and taken for granted as a toilet paper roll and escalate it to the capacity of a treasure.

Life dearies, is a treasure and so are everything that aid us to live it. Now, all the more, along with the global village, I realize  how interwoven we are and how there's lessons thrown at us so we become better human beings in the rush of living lives. Toilet paper did its job, The figurative one that is ;) - I am more evolved already. I swear. Now get this pandemic out of the way Dear God - Don't be on a time off! Please, pretty, please, with a cherry on top!

:)

 (This is being published in its first draft glory, please condone the typos and spelling atrocities )

Inspired!

Life of the party

That lady in red

Ruffles of scarlet encasing her grace

She treads in measured steps

Making the bystanders envy her stilettos 

For kissing and casing her feet!

She tips her green gloved hands

Offering the greeter a chance

To peck on her fingers 

As her sweet fragrance lingers

Captured in their breath!

And she dips her head bidding a bye!

“Camellia, come hither”

Her beau the butterfly signals

She turns around and pouts..

Spreading her palm before her face

And pulling the lover towards her 

As she pulls her finger back and forth!

Does she have strings wrapped around her tips

Maneuvering lovers like puppets?

I know not!

All I know is that she swirls around in that red  ruffles  

Making me twirl a ribbon of words

Watching her in awe, as she treads the garden party

In rockstar aplomb!

“Camellia, stay where you are, how you are”

I’ll come thither

And capture you on my lens and sense

Letting out a sigh and letting in your sighting!

A love not(e)

As you tread on the vagaries 

Of these heart lanes

And stop to stare

At the juxtapose

Of the fallen and the rising

Freeze not, and freeze my senses!

Under you feet, the margin of that path

Aligning the ever evolving

Textures of these soul planes

Lie the pavers to my perception.

Beneath your glide, gleams my muse

Unearthing the inspirations, imaginations.

As you take the road, cruising through the unknown

Greeted by the imagined

Daunted by the unexpected

Walk assured

Of my ever abiding presence

Tucked away in the unconscious insides

Of your psyche!

Pause if you must, well up if you should

But keep going

Aided by the crutches of my invisible support.

Let me revel in that perseverance

And knit cozy poems

Proclaiming my enamor.

As it is abstract, this attendance, so it is absolute!

Verse

As she looks out of the window

Through the things of this inside 

She spots not one

Not two

But many!

She smiles like she found out a secret

To eternal joy.

A smug security settles on her content being

She tries to count those many

Those many that color her life

Breath a new meaning, fulfillment

Even peace 

Upon her blessed existence 

She tries to count them

Those perspectives 

That broaden her world view

That widen her prospects

To find happiness 

Everywhere she treads.

This, That and Whatnot

As I sit here in my living room couch and feel this strange sense of leisure, I think of all the people around me that are such go-getters. The spouse for instance - this man wastes no time in thought to execution to a point where his spontaneity and urge to extract every intention into action puts the 'let's take life easy' other half through mild anxiety. While hydrating myself in this weird spring weather that is kind of putting up a competition with the weirdness this specimen that is typing out this baloney has, I sit and wonder where my 'take it easy' attitude has emerged out of. Is it an innate factory defect or is it something that I had acquired over the past few years? 

There were times, as hard as it is for me to believe at the juncture I am at right now, where yours truly was the poster child of 'do it and now' but somehow down the line of growing up and growing old and raising rugrats and playing Martha Stewart, the spontaneous 'little miss do it and now' became the boring big missus 'ah, we'll do it tomorrow' :-D and The boring big missus wants to do something about it and do in all earnestness.

The other day, while I was killing time on my one and only social media presence, in my  feed popped up the screenshot I shared above. Now Shri Amitabh Bachchan needs no introduction in the subcontinent - He is the superstar that had stayed relevant from his prime somewhere in the seventies through 2020. Bravo Mr.Timeless, take a bow! With the attention span the current world has, it is indeed a feat that you stay glued and put in the hearts and minds of the ever evolving and distracted Indian junta. The current generation might not know about the pedigree of Big B - His dad Shri Harivanshrai Bachchan was a prolific poet of his times. I started noticing Amitji after I read some of his father's works and a decade ago, I chanced upon Big B's blog - there were a few times he responded to my comments directly. On one instance, I asked him if he writes the blogs himself or has them ghost written!  - (Pat came the reply "I write them myself Laxmi, and it is such a pleasure.") So I'll put my trust issues aside for argument's sake and get to the point and believe my fatherly figure and his commitment to blog by himself without delegating it to a staff member . 

So this superstar of India had been blogging for fourteen years now! That's not the wow for me. The 'wow' is the over 4000 posts he had written to date. Apparently 'Mr.Indian Demi God of the Indian silver screen' never, ever took a break from his blog. Nope - not even a single day went without him writing! 

Now what's a humble homemaker with < 1% of the business of Amitji to do now, with this tidbit of information? Feel small? Feel stupid? Feel like an utter waste of oxygen? Feel inspired? Feel the pinch of taking things too easy? Feel all of the above and a truck load more?

Yes on all counts. Actually, a resonating, confident yes on all counts! So, the virtual cosmos whipped my lazy backside into check (for how long, I know not) and here I am, forcing myself to write and not give the pretext of a dinner prep or a full kitchen sink to skip doing what I should be doing. 

In the other news, I read that Irfan Khan, one of India's finest actors who passed recently and too soon said something on the lines of God patting you on the back and asking you to get down at the next stop while you are busy having a jolly good time on this ride called life! That's probably a supplementary inspiration to the Grand and wise senior Mr.Bachchan. And the universe, the sweet, felicitating force that it is, shall always give us cues to take ourselves a step ahead. Only when we keep our senses open and receptive. I am sure there isn't any dysfunction in that department.  And wherever else the repair work is to be done, I'll get to it in my overalls and the tool kit, tinkering away and looking for that reprimanding hint wherever the need pops up.

For now, It's a post alright! I better take a print out of the screen shot and stick it on my fridge door, cause that's the only spot I am not really doing my social distancing with, and it might come handy to deliver the relearning whenever the mojo derails.

:)

Ponder

May rolls in, so does another month of sheltering in place and so do the allergies in the air though moi is confined to the safe spaces inside the home. Lack of routine is a daunting pleasure. As I work from home, adjust to a 'pretend' routine and act as 'in routine' as I can, I also find it harder than ever to keep up my deadlines.  "I can do it tomorrow"a little reassuring, procrastinating, 'you are here to stay and your time is unlimited' delusional voice coaxes me to take it easy. And, every now and then, I end up taking it easy.

But sometimes I get the memo. 'I am not here to stay' the arch nemesis to the duality speaks up and I do. like really, get the memo. Over half a decade ago, when Marie Kondo wasn't as main stream as she is today, thanks to her Netflix gig, I made her one of my spiritual masters upon chancing on her book 'The life changing magic of tidying up. Nothing spoke to me like she did during my gestation stage, with that intense nesting phase I went through while I carried my second born. I always keep saying this in my head but anything that speaks to me, invariably ends up having a spiritual after taste to it and Konmari as she calls herself, isn't any different. Though I had been a non hoarder all my life, Kondo's advice about tidying up read like a spiritual scripture and I for once was so excited with the allegory of actual tiding up of my space. So during this time of unrest and leisure, I once again decided to look through each nook and cranny of my home *and my heart* wondering what there is that I want to keep and what there is that I want to let go.

I am glad to admit, that I didn't find much of a baggage at least without (now, the within is falling into place as well, and it better do that!) So here I am, rearranging my pantry, cleaning all my condiment and spice jars and re labeling them and going through all my clothes, holding them close and asking the universe "Does this spark joy?"  - Konmari says 'Pay attention to the tremor in your heart - you'll know when u love something and don't focus on what you want to discard, instead focus on what you want to keep!' So "Do I want to keep this?" is a more powerful and meaningful question to ask ourselves if we are confronted with the ever confusing task of 'let go'

And like every ponder, this has to lead to the culmination too. Cleaning is like meditation. It is like choosing what to keep in that heap of thoughts that cross our minds. Which one to give traction to? Which one to hang on to? Which one to fuel and which one to let fizz out? And in the end, the Zen of what stays, what matters and what counts is where the beauty lies. It all boils down to the simple act of choosing what to keep! :)
So giddy up, tidy up and live it up!

Reverse

Through the sheet of glass

Through the stack of blinds 

Through the invisible air

And visible greens

The sight travels

The heart follows

Resting now, on sprouting life

Newness peeking through the stagnation 

Bringing in prospect 

And like magic, out of nowhere 

Materializes the miracle of creation 

The same omniscience that settles inside 

Below the rubble of intellect

The bubble of ego.

Reassures the restless thought

To snooze a bit

And let in the glow!

For what can the eyes behold 

In the absence of light

And what can the being perceive 

In the presence of the identity

With this vessel.

Let go the sticking 

Let in the  bliss!

A-Z April - Day 26 - Z for Ze Obvious :)

Hey Stripey, stupendous little feller

Do you ever marvel at your garb

Like Moi does?

Tracing every black stripe

Tickled silly in awe

At the symmetry

Geometry

Stark complementary coloring

That inspires fashion ramp walks

Crazy clickers

Pseudo Poets

Stung on life nature lovers

Looking to capture your perfection

To be displayed under the title

"Inspiration."

Hey magnificent beast

What takes to make you?

What strokes, what skill, what palette it takes

 To bake you

In that mixed media

Releasing the prototype of nature's magnum opus

Into the wheat fields of wonder!

Hey Missus, Or Mister!

That is a pretty benevolent look you cast

In my direction.

The visual froze the senses, charmed the consciousness

Knitting wordage in homage!

Hey you Art, posing as an animal

I wish you could see you

Like I do!

Photo by Jeff Griffith on Unsplash

Mara Triangle - Maasai Mara National Reserve - Kenya.