chimes of a forgotten melody

'Life is but a collection of memories, grouped effectively before death.' -  A silly child, who mocked and rejected the meaningless musings of a world that ebbed into enduring autumns and dark winters, came to sit beside me. With his hands ridden in mud, but without the roughness that life would grant it with, he asks me to cherish the purity of his words and the radiance of his smile. Replacing the child is a lad whose shine continue to whisper what the child shouted, He hid emotions somewhere inside his eyes which seemed to deepen into an oblivion, Where fragile thoughts were shattered by awkward words. With a pace that guides his motives, he wastes no time to point my senses onto his frank smiles and a relentless heart. A person who looks more like me could be seen, experience (rather torments) of living has smothered his eyes and haunted his mind. His hands seem weary, legs tired and through the long walk, his head st...

Hamartia - the flaw in character which leads to the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy When my mind thrust all its vigor Into the nerves of my framework, I crunched with envy as the villain Of the unfinished novel in my attic Slowly brought himself on the threshold And barked violently, I noticed how he Looked upon with lust at the glorious Image of her. And how as a pigeon Watches a crumb of bread, she kept Her gaze firmly fixed on his silhouette. He never held her, he never promised A life in the folds of my imagination, He was thoughtful with each word, Cunning with his vivid expressionism, and  Roguish at every act of love. With An overwhelming force of pain and wrath I first gifted her the pangs of my torture. She wept the whole day, while I took My pen and disfigured the villain's face. Soon, she took her life away from mine, The promise of never separating from my Anxiousness was shattered in front Of my realm, but to...

Courtesy : The Mag 197 By a sweep of unison, They waited for her to Take her first bite into The offering made in Part delight and mostly Love. After her humbled beaks Quickly closed on each Other, a sound, not Of the crunch, but of Waves of shared cries Were heard striking The bare and rocky Shores. Amidst those cries they Danced wildly, encircling The divine rendezvous As if casting a mystic Splendor which transcended Slowly. All the while her eyes Grew moist with affection And the hand that fed her Swayed with the wind, It were guided carefully in Between. And when they bid the hand A final farewell, no Words were shared, but it Moved steadily towards Those eyes and removed A drop of tear. Cause after all It was the only thing they Cherished.

'Ocean of Dreams' Courtesy : abstract.desktopnexus.com Wave after wave of constant ordeal, And it took her a dream To let herself dissolve Into the narrow corners Of her surreal field, Designed thoughts And immersed strife. There she met the comfort Of sharing griefs, Of planting love And hanging on shoulders When the walk became Tedious and long. She met a comrade, A loving creator of her destiny, Who danced to her appraisal, And granted all her minimal wishes. She felt life. She paced to find places Where her memories could be planted. When her swivels cease The only life Worthy enough to be thought about Is the life in her dreams. The dreams capsized one morn, She woke up with her mind torn, Her laughs echoed from within, But her lips never curled with joy, In the world, sans the spread Of her wishes, she struggled. The darkness was blinding, The silence was deafening And the moments were sta...

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”  - Nelson Mandela In life, when I faced odds, the image of this man always helped to recover my hope. Having spent most of his lifetime in jail, he never came out with vengeance. Rather he had a saga of forgiveness to be prophesied and a life filled with sacrifices to give for a struggling world. The skies turned mild gray, My mind remained rustled amidst, Hopelessly I gazed at the setting Sun, A million prostrations were paid, As he slowly disappeared into the sea. J...

"You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming" - Pablo Neruda  - Tonight, my mind shall not let the torridness Of sleep torment my senses. Keeping together My thoughts become violently difficult, words Like a gust of formidable vengeance pour all Over my perpetual lethargy which until today Shackled my intellect with visions of peace. Tonight, my legs shall not give away to exhaustion, For it shall march, left leg after the right, into  The indomitable resting place of my contained Rage. The nails of the coffin which with it Was buried, under layers of contrived emotions, Shall be pulled back with my bleeding teeth, and Along with the taste of blood that shall drip, I shall know the taste of its colors too. Tonight, my heart shall not sink into its Calm tedium, but seek the exasperated Sentiment with which the revolution, that was Planted somewhere inside my thoughts sprouted Into a self-sustaining spring...

Opening the doors, that spent all their life gently serving My feeble egoism, though taking none of my gratitude. Eyes were then training to devour the flash of light and To define the tangled threads of a motherly nature's love. The light seemed offending at first, but my search for Miracles found me hopping merrily behind the granter Of  joy, an old lizard! As I searched the sparks of my Vision, the moments were summed up by the words                       I discovered myself

I dedicate this poem to all Pakistanis. You are all as much a kin to me as Indians. One of the many images of partition that moved me emotionally. It was also the cover photo of  Yasmin Khan's book, The Great Partition  The second column of Muslims passed, Not a soul in our side had the strength, To shower them with our words; cursed, Along they passed as silent as us, Drifting with the hot and wild wind, That very often burns our face, As we cut through this desert; wretched. O lovely dawn of freedom, while you showered purple and gold, half of us never knew what future held, Singing and dancing beneath the relentless sun, we hugged and kissed the conspirator's arms. The line drawn that sliced Punjab, The surgical tool that dissected Bengal, Never seemed more poignant, Till it ripped us apart from Lahore, And made us to savor this journey. Guided by a false pretense of safety, Moving onto a false notion of liberty, Living on the narrow ver...

The sober winds of a rather warm November Blew steadily towards the East. From the seas They traveled, and the people they subdued Under their severe show of power, they also Took a brief moment to share a poignant story: 'From the fields of a nation where red flags flew With sparks of gold radiating from its corners In passion and unwavering ecstasy, we speak of Puerile minds who were offended of being Abused by destiny which kept them hungry Each morning, while we (the winds) ate their Fragile (yet tasty) homes and drank their sweat. Is it offending to be favored by birth? Anarchism Proliferated among them, their withheld bodies Ached for freedom and the legend of a man, who Cut though winds in his motorcycle, gave them aid! To be stupid and to be outraged is a mortal sin, And it must be said with sadness, they paid! How do you define a common man? What is it That makes a man uncommon? Is it the luxury That keeps him li...

Chastity of the world rose like dead fish and The smell of un-cremated emotions stealthily polluted The waters that flew patiently beneath the core. Feeling the warmth of the decaying carcass, the poet Laundered ceaselessly his stained outfit presented By his mother at the revered hour when poetry was Implanted in him with the surge of 'bili' lights. He never slept again, waking up with a start, Forgetting the jaundice which killed his better half, Which continued to haunt him when he tried to move his limbs. A stammer never escaped his speech, but his poems Overflowed with the love that his mother lacked When she left him alone with the blue lights, which He revived unerringly, each time with a silent disgust! On a day when apathy crept through his quiescent half, He found a crushed chrysalis in his garden, he looked At it and wrote the poem which you have just strode on!

Somewhere I have read a banner that said about Sachin Tendulkar, 'Many compare Sachin with God. I mean he maybe great, but not as great as Sachin'. Having left the field for one final time today, I try to pay a small tribute for everything this cricketing legend did for the country in the past 24 years of his career. To my audience who may not know of him, I must say, he is more than just a cricketer, but truly the most loved person in India. And that indeed is the reason why he was awarded Bharat Ratna (the highest civilian honor in India) and also became the youngest person (at 40) and the first sportsperson to receive the award. When Sachin showed up in the cover of the TIME magazine Along the unfathomable walks through Streets that overwhelmed my vehement Desires to keep track of the moments That a nation forgets to take a breath, I found devotees of a God that proclaimed Neither of the miracles he performed, nor Of the souls he led onto salvation, but A...

I. It is a clock, a clock as old as the antique hotel, Which ascertained the abominable fact that Two certain hours stood before me for sunrise, I searched for Earthly motions, for a rustle of bats Or the incessant chirp of a sleepless cricket, but The blessed streets of Benares remained in a world Filled with dreams, desperation and divinity. In an hour where even Gods in the temples Took a nod tired out of their daily chores of Hearing swears and prayers, I stepped out of The hotel that remained as dead as my thoughts. Feathers you find on wings of pigeons were falling From the skies, I shivered at the thought of dead Pigeons flying around for salvation, a suspicious eye Searched for answers of a meaningless sight, My body ached with the rush of adrenaline, my Legs found the pace that it forgot after the genuine Rush of hormones during an unforgettable youth, I ran where my feet led me to and dismantled all Directions pumped by a frigid brain. II. The clock i...

Each passing second of a prosaic life Showered me with scorns for not stopping by At abodes where dreams flew like feathers. I'm an eternal traveler now, through orbits of Dreams, on top of balloons made out of canvas Stitched tight with threads of noxious hope. An artist was born amidst, he pricked the balloons With a pin, taking out the strands of hope, And sinking my life on seas of random celebrations. Notes Prompted by Kim Nelson on Verse First at Poets United . The noun artist ended up with celebrations.

This is an old one, written probably a year back. Sharing it now. I always believed that the problem with an average Indian is his addiction to alcohol and exhibition of religion. A hungry stomach burned, The drop that sustains life Remained mutilated, Smog hid the Sun From a weeping slum. To feed her child, A mother unbuttoned her gown, A covetous mosquito flew about, Sucked the mother's last drops Of blood with pride. The child stood alone in the hash, He gazed at a world up high, Amazed at the sight of flight, An eagle soured to greater heights, The world of clouds he caressed. His father wriggled in at night, One of his hands held the drink That ceased all earthly strife, The other grasped faithfully On a jade Buddha, Covered in pure gold and fat, With lips that forever sneered.!

Rahul Dravid a.k.a The Wall : Indian Cricketer He retired from cricket recently Since the time when I developed the intelligence to count, I remember counting the balls this man has guarded off during his selfless workmanship that many adorn by the meager word 'batting' in cricket. And to think that I would no longer see him play again shatters my heart. I know the heart is no longer guarded by the Wall, but, I am sure the memories shall live on. Back when the motto of the days Where fun and endless hours of Undisturbed attention on the screen Where men clothed in whites or blue Would be seen submerged in a crusade Against falling chances to salvage Pride, I saw a man who looked Behest with faith. Sometimes, the Moment you remember forever is not The one that made you cry, Nor is it your last smile, for me It is when I realized I found a person Who could lift me up whenever I fall. His battles where won and lost Within his mind, his skil...

This picture is drawn and painted by my friend Aishidha Rajeev. Thanks to her sincere efforts I could pen the poem which almost came as an inspiration from the painting. Kudos to her and her subliminal effort. Killed once and dead thrice, pain is no longer Rushing through my frozen veins, it has stopped Somewhere between the terribly broken heart And the viciously cleaved head. Thinking out On the torridly lonesome after-life, it is not Hatred that comes into the unscathed nerves, Which still relay protected feelings of coming Back to a human abode and living a new life, Rather it is an ethereal passion to forgive and Thank the destiny which made the evenings Longer, days calmer and feelings narrower. The worlds I travel are distant, the people I meet are few. I searched forever on the shores Where dead souls come to see rare cosmic Lights that for a moment bring colors from Earth, but never found a single face that I laid upon in my disturbing ...

Artwork : 'Metamorphosis' by Cris Vector on Deviant Art People pass beside me with an imagination Drowned into a shallow pool of vestigial thoughts, Induced emotions relentlessly fluctuate in their Illustrative faces which when colored by lies Gives you a mightier weapon than camouflage. I see proclamations of fake monsters beside me, I stop, look and fall apart as a worshiper of evil, I utter profanity that the hero was always a coward Who grew devoted to the laws of an insane world, And destroys the monsters before they break away Both from within and outside the unbearable inertia. Keep moving along and the scent of flowers, grown By a thankless woman who puts her uterus for sale Every once in a year, greets me back to Earth, Where stories mix evenly onto the air like the Unmistakable melancholy of the forgetful scent. People complain when the innate depression In their shallow pools are brought onto the surface Buoyed by my nonchalant...

The Mag 188 Photo by Mark Haley Duty bounds all men with a rope That pierce the flesh and plants The seeds of labor. At the end Of it all what we see is a light That spots the faint dis-beliefs We had in ourselves. The glory Of life is when the light fails To capture even the smallest Prowess of dusty grooves in Our limitless soul. A path to Salvation is a walk we make All by ourselves, without the Pride that carried us around, Without the happiness which We hunted down, without the Momentary discomforts that We regret all along. A walk to Meet the savior of all human Souls, and the conqueror of all Worlds which exist within us.

Happiness, An Abstract Credits : www.bidorbuy.co.za What is happiness but a touch from A word that calms your soul, when You want to weep sorely on words That forever remain unsaid. What is happiness but the tricks of A clown that jumps you off With laughter and fills his starved Dreams with a hope of life. What is happiness but the magic That fills the air from a masterful Hand, and creates strokes of mystical Finesse which made breaths and smiles. What is happiness but the thoughts Of a philosopher which resounds that 'Happiness is a shadow that creates A blackout in our miserly memories'

DEDICATED TO PINK FLOYD, A BAND THAT OVERPOWERED MY HEART I was listening to 'Coming back to Life' by Pink Floyd (video above) just now when this poem came into my mind : Here, where the bleeding rose overruns The boundaries of a garden nurtured in My limitless infinities of imagination, I am thrown into a stupor by the breath Of life that emanate from his firm voice. The dark rains, that followed me since The day I took my path away from the Nomadic followers, slowly eased into Oblivious chants of support that the Singer got from the deep stretches of My solitary existence. Standing on a land that smells of Blood and unaccounted 'sarin', I heard cries of battles I never fought, I saw lost lives that I never known, They danced frantically along with me, Death may have liberated them, but Music have granted them salvation! I kept walking, I kept running, I made pace onto the gravity that pulled Me towards it, like...

Picture taken during our college trip to Goa (India) last week When I look back at the 20 years of experience I had on living in this lone planet which is found to harbor life, I find a lot of images passing by like a moving picture. Some faces stay on longer on my memory screen, I prefer to watch them forever.! This poem is dedicated to everyone you see in the picture, and to anyone whom I find staying a second longer in my memory. Without you life seems a lot less colorful. A melancholy poem of loss got stuck Between my pen and paper last night, In a vain struggle to untie the knots That choked my words, I injected A dope of fresh prompts, quite Unaware of the loneliness that slept Undisturbed in my rusted mind. Without knowing the reason why, I wrote, 'How shall you describe friendship?'. Just as a faithful dog whines when A master dies, my pen made a noise Which killed seven different powers That blocked me from my words, I wrote about seven seas an...

Credits : abstract.desktopnexus.com You shall surely see the grace of a bird in fight, But I see a mother's desperation to fly home to her hungry young-ones. You may then praise the art of the setting Sun, When I fear the fading shadows that unite stealthily with the night. You laugh at a running saint being chased by a 'mad' dog, I cry for the dog, cause he shall face the wrath of a mindless 'God'. You shiver at the howl of a wolf, magnified by the silence around, I smile with the symphony which gives me an illusion of company. You see the moon rise steadily in the East, I feel its webs of attractive aura making me walk into it. Now, do you see a lonely poet juggling with words and missing many? Because he sees you like a classic painting, while I continue the scrawl.

Before the days of customary depression, Joys of nature blossomed secretly like A garden which was gifted with hard-work. Credits be to the cycle of existence, all The passions of youth merges finely into The senseless devotion of adulthood! We search for keys to happiness more On the outside than the inside, as we step Into an illusion of inflicted feelings. Boarding a vehicle that guides you And leaves no option for choice Makes me think who is making the travel? Is the path left to us? Or are we followers? Why do we prefer a visit to the zoo, More than a survival at the deepest forests? Answers that float like an unguided missile May breach any of our insane limits. Between the momentary thoughts that pour, A glance at the unleashed power of nature, Left me in a state of chronic awe. Notes   A poetic rendering of thoughts that sprang on into my mind during my visit to Jog Falls , Karnataka yesterday. Standing underneath the falls and looking stra...

Artwork by Jeanie Tomanek Courtesy : The Mag Angelic psalms of care often deprives The pleasure of waiting for your God, A noble crime is to forget the divine, And rest assure in a miraculous drive. It is sane to wait outside, when ghosts Of hungry men waits to rape even after Their lust has broken down into fine dust, There you cradle your fear and drink The burning blood that drains through. Yet with a misplaced anklet that adorned Her one leg, she swung upon branches, (An image of love flew for the ghosts to see) She left herself for the heavens to free. Measured glances of hope dripped her Fragile face, she was a daughter, a lover A mother, a saint and a believer, She planted herself onto the tree And sat forever with her bare basket, For the ghosts and the Gods to see. Wings of faith were never too large To lift her off, crowns of thorns Were never too sharp to keep her down, A bird which ceased the desire to fly Now gav...

Image : 'I hate humans' Courtesy : bendragon.blogspot.com   Buried in a self created grave Where the world lay in deep sleep, Between undiluted wrath which Pours pangs of targeted grief, Our habits are allowed for torture. What we retrieve as memoirs are Uneventful days of passionate dreams, When Eros flew around to spread a Golden weave of lust, to entrap Our innocent thoughts and poison It with a dark potion of grudge. As the poison spread, we fall Into a trance devoid of charm, Which we later coin as a slip Towards the gorges of love, But what the mind let pass, Is the slow death of a comrade. Can we cipher the unwritten Words out of our past? Could we pen it down like A poet? Maybe then we would Glimpse the grave where we lie, and Rediscover our thoughts before they die.  

אחד Dear God, It is not that I need to say, But my heart is not giving a way, You are the one who knows it all (Cause after all you made it all), Meager is it to converse on me, When you are the architect of Each and every one of my cell. Sometimes whilst I sleep, I see Lights that blind me with radiance, I feel my head shake with violence, I hear the sounds of an ebullient bang, Then I see me flying like a drop in the night, A whole world of people join me, We settle near our homes in a bubble. Like all dreamers, I wish to know What it meant? Hope to hear a reply. With love and account, A fellow born out of your hand. שנים Dearest God, It is only after I ceased the anxious Spread of words last time, I realised I never knew whom to send to (Never have I known where you live), This is why I kept it beneath a statue of Christ, Which I am sure you would have got. It is to be noted that I never got answers, Maybe some an...

India celebrates her 67th Independence Day today. But for me, Independence is now reduced to a word. We are still bound by rules that makes us dependent on a government which cannot be even termed democratic. The great Indian Parliament has forgotten the days when it functioned properly. States are struggling to be split apart. Some struggling to counter natural disasters, even more waiting to be falling into the list. Curfews imposed in various parts confuses one with the mere notion of freedom. And then we have a group of politicians accusing each other and campaigning for a distant election. It is true we have made flee the British on this day 66 years ago, but still a long way to go for us to be free. Independence is a state of mind, It is challenged on counts of thought. Brought about by an Eastern notion Of scurrying the Queen and her zest. Like a married Indian woman, freedom Is forced to remain silent. To remain unknown. Break out of the though...