Our lives are a collage of a thousand scraps of random, and often irreconcilable, happenstances and mistakes and decisions thrown onto a canvas of existence.

 

Love is often the most decisive happening of our lives, often trooping in unannounced and more often than not, grossly disrupting our lives - and mostly overstaying beyond our comprehension.

 

We are both perpetrators and victims of love, even as we are the helpless receptacles, seeing ourselves change - beyond our own comprehension. All because we are in love.

 

Love makes us reactive, even as we grow generous, imaginative, fiery, beautiful and gentle. It is the only thing in the world which shows us the good and the bad we are perfectly capable of. We become both warriors and gentle creatures. Meek to suggestion, fiery to defend. Beyond ambition, beyond our need for fulfilment, love gives us justification.

 

The question then is never of right or wrong, of the ethics of choice or decision, it's of direction. The question is of being consumed, of being in the shadows and the sunlight.

 

Unbehest to our senses, when love enters our lives, our stars immediately realign - we are then not ourselves but of our destiny.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the quiet advent of love  - 

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Medieval Tabletop Session by Sascha Ende

 

Immersion by Sascha Ende

It's basic good manners they say, possibly one of the first things taught to a child, the most primal form of grace. The importance of, nay, the necessity of saying 'thank you'.

 

But ever so often, we are taught the semantics but not the emotion which needs to go along with it. And there lies the crunch. Because we start noticing the gap, the inadequacy of a formal thank you, particularly in the closest of close relationships.

 

One theory says (in the form of twisting an immortal line) that "Love means never having to say thank you". The other end of the spectrum says that you can't take love for granted - and every little thing done is to be observed, embraced and acknowledged.

 

And I struggle with my thank yous. So I substitute the verbal with the act. A deed for a deed. Maybe immediately - likely not - maybe later. But I keep the memory like a blessing laid on my door - to be embraced, taken home, nurtured, never forgotten. It's not a question of equalising a favour and then moving on as if a debt has been repaid. It's more like a flame, to ensure it keeps on burning in some form or the other - as a 'pay-it-forward', as a habit, as a friend-in-need, as as a karmic credit, as a sign of being the person that I really am.

 

Folded deep in the warm embrace of a thank you, in word or deed, is the gift of accepting that we are complete only with each other, that alone, we are exactly that - alone.

 

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Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/458-dreamsphere-7

I sometimes look at myself and wonder who I am.

 

I surprise myself often with the way I react into situations or the way I say things, and I look back and wonder if it was me there. Sometimes it is something outright unpleasant, and I'm completely ashamed of myself. But I also love the times I surprise myself with my own generosity or wisdom, of what I am capable of saying or doing.

 

And then I sit back and wonder about how, after so many decades of knowing myself, of living in my own skin, of having gone through millions of situations, expected and unexpected, I can still surprise myself.

 

And then the vital realization comes - if I am a stranger to myself, then how can I ever expect anybody to understand me?

 

And that really is a sobering thought, because one of the things which we always struggle with is the question of not being understood by the other.

 

It is a tragedy of a kind that we are strangers to ourselves, but want complete familiarity from the one we love the most.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the pain of loneliness  - 

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Our relationship with the almighty is a complex one.

 

I have grown up with an atheist father (he calls himself agnostic, but the search never ends), and a mother who grew up as an Arya Samaji, so 'believe in yourself, believe in no idols'. Dad was a man of science, well-read, an engineer, hence well versed in his arguments against the presence of god, per se.

 

As a family on holiday, we only visited temples if they were scenic - which of course meant that I have climbed more hills and trekked more miles than any faithful might have done, just to reach a gorgeous temple set on the top of a mountain or of an architecture which could make you swoon.

 

But as time went by, at some level, the serenity of a church or the calmness of a Jain temple or the incredible noisy and emotional faith of the throngs in front of a Hindu temple, got to me. I stopped trying to determine the logic of religion, its genesis of fear or need, and gave into the feeling it evoked.

 

I could somewhat understand what some people could do for god, where their faith came for, and how seductive was the thought that there was somebody who, finally, guided their destiny, irrespective of what they did - and that there was meaning to it all.

Even as a basic philosophy it made sense - do the action, let the fruits evolve.

 

I'm aware of the symbolism embedded in the stories of miracles and victories of gods. But I love stories of piety and sacrifice more. Of gods, of human beings who could be gods.  And I love it when I sit inside a temple, a shrine or a church, and find my thoughts change their tone and tenor. I grow calmer, thoughts of reconciliation start forming. I am a better person just for being there. I feel we are our full-formed thoughts. Our essence sleeps inside us in an amorphous, sometimes inchoate, form. Whatever alchemizes them into being, a fully-alive gentle, generous, forgiving, kind self, is gold. Or maybe god.

 

For me, there's no better reason, or definition. 

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how we struggle with god  - 

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I think if we did a dipstick survey of happy couples, we'd find an overwhelming number who aren't.

 

No surprises.

 

Nobody ever knows what happens behind closed doors. Hurts run deep like rivers which cut through ancient rocks, till you can only see the sunrises above them and not the deep gorges they've created.

 

Our primitive instincts call out to us to conjoin, cohabit. But nature also gives us the complex tapestry of emotions, often irreconcilable, with the uncanny ability to bruise.

And the scars we get reduce us as human beings, because what is revealed is our worst selves, more often than not as enforced derivatives, and not reflections of what we truly are.

 

I'm convinced that some of the terrible things we do, do not always arise out of vestigial truths, but are generated afresh as weaponry against unprovoked attacks.

 

Simply said - there are some people who have the unerring ability to take the worst out of us - a side we don't even know exists.

 

But we are magnificent, because we are humans. We forbear, we camouflage, we often forgive. There's something called the big picture, and in its altar, we also find our best selves.

 

We survive the worst of coupledom, the anarchy often wrought on us, because something inside stands up for us, as an instinct to be more than a merely reactive beast.

In a world of iniquitous battles, we are our own flag-bearers, our national song, our moral compass, our survival guide.

 

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What do you do when a friend dies? The one friend who spoke softly and was beside you in the best and worst of times.

 

What can you say except that's it's just too soon.

 

That, if an end was inevitable, why would someone so sweet and kind ever have to go through the pain he had to go? That why would an affliction like cancer affect someone who had not harmed a fly in his life.

 

I look at his photograph and I think of the times we'd shared. From college, through our respective marriages, to having our kids, to this, now this.

 

Someone in deep sorrow had once said that god is in desperate need of good people up there, that's why the nicest of them all are being called up. I can well believe that. Too many people I've loved have died. All much before their time.

 

But then - when is it too soon? As an individual, in relationships? Is age the criteria or unfinished work? Or the fact that infinite potential suddenly grows cold?

 

Often when I see someone put on ventilators and other desperate means to keep breath going, though it's clear that the person is well nigh gone, I wonder if we should not dignify death and just let it come and take a person away.

 

What is the use of letting pain eat away a good man's soul?

 

We reconcile to every death, because it is the fact we live with, but the hauntings rarely go away. The missed opportunities of shared times, the softness of a smile remembered, the unexpected visit, the phone call when most needed. There is no substitute to the care a good friend can give.

 

There then becomes a life before and a life after.

 

However much the routines of daily life engulf us, loved ones we lose are air pockets of emptiness, which we hit and plunge endlessly. We survive but our existence gets tied into knots, which we spend a lifetime unravelling.

 

Losing someone dear and close is to lose the possibilities of myriad conversations and things we could be. Because we change for and because of the people we love. And when we lose them, there is always a part of us which lies orphaned.

 

As a body grows cold, there's a part of us which also stratifies and freezes into eternal sorrow.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on passing on  - 

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Every morning I walk into a small shrine, housed by Ganesh and Laxmi, and ask for a blessing for someone in my life. It could be anyone who I feel requires the touch of divine that day.

 

It could be for someone passing through a tiring time, someone who is worried about outcomes, a couple which has just hitched, a colleague who has a presentation, a friend grieving, or for someone I know as a happy person and I seek a blessing for her not to lose her joy.

 

I have survived, been saved, been held together, been forgiven, been born. And I've been held in arms whilst in incipient flight, till I could learn how to soar.

And I in turn keep wishing fervently, that I'm the person who can make a difference in the lives of all who are with me, around me, for me, against me, but who need a touch, some wings, some air to find their flight.

 

Otherwise, what are we in this beautiful world for?

 

We are changed and blessed because of a multitude who we don't even realize are working for us, as a collective or individually. Silent partners, as it were, the nameless, the unspeaking.

 

In the midst of turmoil, strife, petty battles, small injuries, unrelenting scars, often it is the smallest of thoughts or deeds which become the benediction and the very direction of our lives.

 

We are blessed because of the blessings of people who don't give up on us.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on love steeped in nostalgia  - 

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We need to walk straight, with our spine erect. There's no other way. We need to know ourselves - what keeps us abreast of ourselves, beyond the bullshit requirements of the world.

 

There's the sinister expectation of people who plant redemption of their failures on us, and coat it in aphorisms both sweet and compelling. We are sold because we love people and hope to keep them happy. We feel it's incumbent that those who reach out to us are a challenge, a benediction, an opportunity, a duty to be addressed.

 

There couldn't be bigger lies.

 

We need to cease being reflected glory. We need to own ourselves.  We need to find our own catastrophes and disasters. The springs and the geysers, the continental drift and the tectonic plates, the fissures and the gush. Because in the entirety of our acceptance lies the way to find new skies. We need to become a bold moon not afraid to challenge the sun in a morning sky.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on moons an d suns  - 

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This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, replayed here with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it!

 

Youth is so wasted on the ones who carry it as a burden. The changes which wreck havoc to the body and heart are later looked back at as the sweetest damnation possible, irreplaceable but never ever lived through fully.

 

We all know and understand the alchemy of a moment richly lived, but still let it  pass us by ruthlessly, unthinkingly. Why do we consider time as a rich man’s wealth, when it can’t be hoarded or spent endlessly? In its strange and beautiful equalities, we realise it is the only thing bequeathed equitably to all.

 

But we are fooled by time’s serene passage, lulled to forget its irrevocability. And in that lassitude we end with half-lives. In our puzzling pursuit of things which finally matter little - lucre instead of light, breath in lieu of breathlessness - we take away the most precious gift we could give ourselves.

 

And when we realize our folly, often it is with nothing left in our banks - not health, not inclination, not circumstances - and what is lost is a glow, and the possibility of finding light - and being it.

 

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Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7522-the-positive-way-of-hope-piano-solo

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I am so engrossed in the theatrics of my mind that I often forgot that there is a world outside which has been gifted to me to revel in, to find pleasure and meaning in.

Getting too intertwined in myself is often the bane of my existence, as I lose purpose in my desperation to resolve the quotidian quibble or the boredom riddle. 

 

Time and again, seeing myself immerse in the labyrinthine issues of daily grind, whilst failing to notice that life is desperately trying to grab my attention, is to also lose a potential way to unravel the knots of my very being.

 

The times serenity descends on me as I see the water boil for my morning tea, or I stand at the window and watch a flawless sunset find its night, or listen to the cadence of a loved one's voice as they talk of normal things or when the doorbell rings and my heart leaps as I know who it is. Suddenly, priorities get sorted out, issues get resolved. 

 

Later, much later, do I realize that the true path to the universe inside me comes through the vagaries outside, as I cut though the noise, and find that the world is much more then a mere domicile for me for my desires and ambitions, and offers a journey of senses and fulfilments.

 

Everything I could ever want is merely a question of merging what's outside to what is inside.

 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on mornings and cities  - 

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