Mired

Walk away now -
I said -
before time and tide have their way with you
and the compulsions of strangers become your own;
before you sense your feet twitching to rhythms
that your mind is unfamiliar with,
but which your heart
refuses to forsake.

lift

stretch

Heave yourself out of these labels,
fantastic plans,
presumptions
that swirl, swill around
your indecisive thighs,
and all your self proclaiming lies

अगर मैं तुम्हे अपनी सारी ताकत दे दूँ,
तो मैं अपनी ताकत कहाँ से लाऊंगी?

रूह देखी है कभी?

"जिस्म सौ बार जले तब भी वही मिट्टी का ढोला
रूह इक बार जलेगी तो वो कुंदन होगी "

- गुलज़ार

Silver Shoes!

a happy Diwali of love and hope to everyone

Gateway

Dream 25sep08

e e cummings

Peeping Through Windows

Full Moon Night Revelry

Dancing Diyas

The Walled City

Quoting Don Pablo

My Little Incense Stick

It is a ritual that I enact everyday -
every working day -
in which I take off my market slippers outside the door to my pink room
and arrange them neatly to one side.

As I step onto the wooden floor threshold,
my feet take up the blue rubber chappals that have been waiting patiently for me
since the last time I said goodbye.

I turn on the electricity to all my machines and devices,
pressing a little button
that buzzes into blue life as my computer powers on.
I then open the windows, and,
even before I sit down,
pull out a stick of incense
to light on the violet flame of grandma's gas stove.

With one quick flick,
the stick comes to rest in its wooden stand
and begins to tell its story for the day:

Sometimes
in its spicy smoke I smell amber
and myrrh and frankinscence.
Although I can't say with certainty
what amber or myrrh or frankinscence smell like,
I imagine that when I find them
and sniff them
one summer's day in Constantinople,
that they will remind me
of my little incense stick in my pink little room in Bombay.

On other days
it diffuses cinnamon and cardamom
and honey around our empty house -
almost like the ittar my mother bought in Dubai,
which I wear on lonely days,
and whose bottle - to my dismay -
rests in a scandalously shaped box
that imitates the Ka'aba in Mecca.

Today I am reminded -
in the midst of a ylang ylang, patchouli, Flame of the Forest haze -
of the Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain:
the thought of spiced cookies and mulled wine
and the little girl who's face can never be painted
because the artist isn't quite sure what she feels like
or where she ought to be looking
while everyone around her is picknicking.

I wonder what she's thinking of
in the Sunday sunshine warmth
surrounded by the French paysage,
and I wonder about her day.

Confucious says...

Watching

I Believe, therefore I am

and if I thought so much
as to keep you
these grains of the sands of time
might seep through
my fingers entwined
in silent mine
in wordless deed
and heedless mind
- epiphany-
in a moment
of subliminal rhyme