shhh

on a day that came after seven stretched out days, a minute that was preceded by forty five minutes of waiting and a moment that appeared after a million agonising moments... i felt her head on my shoulder and nothing else matterred anymore.

chhuo mat,
bikhar jayega ye,
simat jayega apne khol mein kahin,
ya beh jayega yaad ban ke…
saans ka jajba hai
saans rok ke jiyo ise…

don’t touch,
it will scatter,
hide into its shell
or turning into a memory, will flow away
it’s a feeling of breath
live it, holding your breath...

isn't it amusing, that after a whole week of preparation, of careful selection of clothes to look like i haven't bothered about what to wear and a more particular preparation of what to say & what to do when i'll meet her...i found myself again without words & gestures.

just outside the delhi university metro station, the sunday afternoon sun found me settled beneath a slightly wrinkled, but shaded tree. i feel, it will see me there a little often these days :)

onion skins

pyaaz

bahut samay pehle
dil, dimaag, jism aur rooh
sab alag hua karte thhe
pyaaz ke chilkon ki tarah
parat dar parat
kitne tukde hua karte thhe mere
phir ek din pyaar aaya
aur pighla kar ek kar gaya mujhe
ab to sirf tu hi bacha hai bus

onion

a long time ago
heart, mind, body and soul
everything was separate
like onion skins
layers upon layers
so many different parts i had
then one day, love arrived
and melt me in to one being
now, only 'you' are left

still no words, adi?

it is strange, when I’d no words, the world came by and listened.

thanks to everyone who came around to delhidreams, sat with me and heard whatever i'd to say. why i'm writing this. because delhidreams is a year old now.

more so, at a time when i do not feel like posting anything. so many poems are written, lying abandoned, rusting in the notebooks, because i want to post something special for one individual.

life has closed one chapter, and a fresh one has begun. and this all took form recently. perhaps, the process was on for some time, only i didn't realize the world changing around me. yes hagrid, god does exists, and it exists in your very shadows. it existed there all the time. how foolish i could have been. and bugs, yes i've been naive enough to ignore everything, whether gift or abuse, fault or purpose, perhaps not this one, not this time.

am feeling very calm. at ease with myself and the world around. everything has a new beauty, like the old landlord couple above. it is something felt, till the very pores of these fingers.

and this time too, nothing except words for you, my teacher.

main roun to mere aansu nahi
main muskuraun to main nahi
main kya likhun, main kya padhun
mere shabd ye mere nahi
ye kaise tujhko bataun main
meri har main me, samayi hai tu hi

a translation attempt for starry and others,

if i cry, the tears are not mine
if i smile, i'm not the one smiling
what do i write, what do i read
these words are not mine
how do i tell you
you are the one, merged in my every 'me'

can't find an end to this post
no full-stops here
its a journey, and the journey needs no end
just three dots would do here,

welcome to delhidreams...

no words

i'm at a loss with words today.

although i can tell you in detail about my diwali or my sunday spent in the company of friends. and i can tell you about the weather, the light drizzle i soaked in yesterday with sun shining over the central park in connaught place. i can tell you about my desperate search for a rainbow then, as i'd read the science about the sun, the rain and a particular angle which forms them.

i can talk about this morning when i was late for no real reason at all. i can talk about this blank page which is not blank anymore, with little blue scribbles in blue ink and the pen that i hold in my hand writing all this. i can look deeply at the fingers holding this pen, the pores of these fingers and 'the lines' forming my varied destinies.

i've completed work, i've smiled at colleagues, i've co-operated with clients and heard whatever boss had to say. i've felt sun on my eyelashes and seen wind rustle the rusted leaves. i've heard ghalib and gulzar, lived lata and jagjit. i've been a poet, a philosopher, a writer, a child today, but however much i try, i can't explain what i'm feeling.

i can tell, talk, hear, see, touch a lot of things, but somehow i'm not these, i almost am not present here.

no poem, no prose, no rhyme, but still everything, so much, but still nothing. just a feeling of calm and a silent joy within. just a deep desire to stop someone from boarding a bus somewhere in the sunday that was yesterday.

and i still have no words to say what i'm feeling today.

because a lover knows, says osho, here. and this, perhaps would be the answer dwaipayan is looking for.
Soul Steps II by Pam Ingalls; Image courtsey: corbis.com

Shubh Deepawali