Fall off...

The days would flow on and on, unnoticed. I would wither slurping the drink of the dead that lulls my body to grow beyond the senses. My eyes, out of sleeplessness, get accustomed to having an unrealistic look and outlook. Day by day they would grow heavily red, giving out an evidence of having no solace and peace in the heart. In the noise of thoughts, imaginations, plans, dreams and conclusions, the weight of a decision lurks on the shoulders, but never settles down, never pushing me ahead. In a swing of experiences, hallucinations go unfiltered and reality remains undistinguished. There I find myself running out of all these, trying to find an expression at its best, trying to get a purpose at its cleanest to walk for. Waiting to be caught by an idea. Struck hysterically by a love for the ideal. Trying to have a hold on the draining perseverance. Trying to find an art to vent my anguish out, only to realize that I lost the sensitivity that any form of art needs, for its manifestation. Here I withdraw….! I withdraw from celebrating this bitter chocolate.

shades of love

Not a drop of tear would roll,
Down through the lane of memories,
Nor a rose, nor a thorn;
Nothingness remains…all for my ease.

Another grey morning; As the thoughts cloud over my heart as they ever do, I sit on my bed beside the window, watching through it, the flowers of the laburnum in my garden falling down, onto the waters pooled by the last night’s rain in the cool winds giving a breath of fresh air with a whiff of wet soil. I take my time, leisurely over a cup of coffee. My cup of black coffee with a dash of milk over it. The aroma takes me into the warmer corners of my heart through the seemingly hazy clutter of thoughts that surround it.
I see that everything is simply drenched in rain; the wetness gives to things around, a new shade. At times, adding new colors to them. The leaves shine with shades of silvery green, with each one passing over the left over pearls of rain to the one below it, finally losing them to the brick red waters on the wet dark red soil of my garden. The yellow laburnum petals seem no way in a sorrow for falling off their branches in the wind. They gaily sail through the water pools towards the awaiting harbors. I deeply fall in love with the shades of earth at this moment.
Sip by sip, my thoughts grow moist, and I hang over those warm corners of my heart. The warm corners of my heart sweetened with love that I brewed through times. Love, my love for the life around and within me. My love for the colors, tastes, tune and rhythm in my life. Looking at my love for the new shades that my garden acquired in the rain, I realize that every emotion in my heart, good or bad is either love in disguise or a feeling drenched with love, seen in a new shade just like that of the things in rain. This infuses me with thoughts over how things work on love for something. Holding my cup of coffee tight, I examine the ethereal vapors coming out of it. They look as if they were dancing with themselves deriving and giving to some unseen spectator a transient pleasure and finally disappearing into nothingness after their performance. It is then that rain droplets in the stiff breeze shower on my face through the window, leaving behind a strong sense of déjà vu.
Earth is inspiringly full of so many beautiful things that even “love” that I brew, loves to be earthly. “Love” would be pleased to have a bunch of roses on its table as long as they are in a bloom! If not forever. The tempting wetness of the earthly soil attracts love to come away from the roof of eternity and the unconditional, just to play with it for a while. The word “short-lived” loses its meaning as long as it is all about the joy in the play, like the falling laburnum petals and drops of rain. All that I see, I feel and I here, seem to be drenched wet if love were rain. May it be for a short while, I like it wet. Call it my pain that is otherwise my love in the form of an expectation, call it the pun that I crack at times which otherwise love taken for granted or call my crush which is otherwise love short-lived in the form of a human attraction. This way, I simply feel soaked in rain, come what may!
As the aura of the weather deeply sinks into my heart along with the aroma of coffee, I can feel my thoughts trickling down into those warm corners of heart, adding more shades to love that I contain. Giving reasons for the happenings good or bad, leaving space for no drop of tear, filling in solace, leaving behind nothingness……the mystic shades of love.

when going gets tough

Are you in a state when everything seems to be falling apart in your life? You do not like anybody in your class or is it the other way round? You look at the mirror and realize that your nose is too chubby. And you are getting pimples of all sizes on your face. In short, unpleasant things happening and you just can’t cope.
Well, meet someone who is literally, physically falling apart and still coping… wonderfully surviving against the toughest odds. Meet B.P. crow, who lives in a lush green Badam tree opposite my house. B.P. is not blood pressure , but bits and pieces. Here is a crow that seems to be made of bits and pieces and assembled all wrong. Some of these bits and pieces keep falling off. Yet B.P. crow survives and seems happy about it.
To begin with ,B.P. crow lost all the toes and claws of one leg, when perched on an electric transformer an year ago. Next, he lost the stump of a leg in a violent fight with a raven twice his size. Now he stands on his belly. His head doesn’t have the neat back combed look all crows have. The few feathers he has, stick out in all directions as if someone had crudely stuck them on him.
And there was the day he fought a dog over some crumbs. B.P. crow was the winner though his eye took a swipe from the dog’s sharp claws during the fight. That was also when his voice changed. so, when he caws, it sounds like he is being strangled, startling other birds who stare at him in horror. But his spirit was not dampened by all these things.
And then, last week, B.P. crow vanished. I took round in the surroundings to see if he was lying down wounded somewhere. But, no traces of him and I assumed he must have died somewhere! Afterall, it is amazing that he had survived this long with all his disabilities, with no one to protect him.
And then this morning he suddenly reappeared. And he no longer looked like a crow. I had thought it was impossible for B.P. crow to become more battered than he already was, but he had managed to become worse! Now his tough vulture beak had broken half way up and now he had a longer lower beak and a half-upper beak. As I threw a piece of milk soaked bread at him, he ate it digging his lower beak into the food and tilting his beak head backwards to let it all go in. all the feathers in his back were gone. And one wing was clearly broken. His single eye shone like a star.
So inspired was I by B.P. crow’s surviving skills that I went back to the mirror to replace my grumpy sad face with a smiling one, I then looked at B.P. crow again out of window, and this time my smile became laugh of admiration. Do you know why?
Because in that broken beak, B.P. crow was now holding a twig tightly. He was building a nest! Yes, when ‘the going gets tough, the tough gets going’!
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