The life you have forgotten to live.

Whatever lies between
- the ocean and the desert -
- your jumping up and hitting the ground -
- between fear and love -
is calling you.

Go live it.

"साँस लेने की तेरे, वजह और भी हैं 

तेरी इस ज़मी पर,जहां और भी हैं 

तू जो जी रहा है,तू क्यों जी रहा है ?

पूछने आने वाले , इम्तेहां और भी हैं। "

photographed clicked at: Uttarkashi, India

What goes on in the heart of the city...

" कुछ बेलफ़्ज़ों- सी बातें हैं ,

कुछ लफ़्ज़ों-सी है ख़ामोशी 

कैसे मै कागज़ पर लिख दूँ 

है कौन यहाँ किसका दोषी?"

To mountains, with love.

Far away on those mountains, I see a small chalet, and there, a woman smiling at me with limpid eyes. She looks familiar. Like I can see myself in her, just a little older and wiser. 

Her eyes tell me she has traversed these paths before, and felt their soul. I can sense stories reeking out of her enchanting smile. Stories of love and loss, despondency and hope, of trust, of laughter, of togetherness, written right here, amidst these hills.

Stories deprived of language, but containing within them all that music is. Stories sans alphabet. For all that was to be said, had been spoken amidst these mountains once. And understood. Absorbed. Between dusk and night. Between coffee and wine. Between sound and meaning. Between emotion and embrace.

As these stories reach me, a strange mountain breeze blows from somewhere and my hair and scarf drift me ahead. I feel myself borne onward along a force whose source seems to be in all that is, in the very beginning of things, in the core which sustains us. I am drawn towards the mountains and as the breeze reaches my ears, I can hear what those two brown wise eyes and one enchanting smile on the other side have to say to me -

" Live. All that is here and now, is yours. Nothing more. Nothing less. Live. One day, you'll understand. And you'll smile, with wet limpid eyes. That day, you'll melt in these mountains, become one with them. After all, its for the molten magma inside, that the mountains rise. Live. "

"इन पहाड़ों में लिपटी हुई 

एक सुबह है यहाँ,

और एक शाम है 

मै इसी का तो हूँ,

इसमें खो जाऊंगा। 

इसका हो जाऊंगा। 

क्यों धुआं हैं यहाँ ?,क्या हुआ है यहाँ ?

क्या मेरा आसमाँ, मुझसे नाराज़ है?

क्या ये मेरी ज़मीं, मुझसे नासाज़ है?

मै इसी का तो हूँ,

इसमें खो जाऊंगा। 

इसका हो जाऊंगा। 

आसमाँ जब मिलेगा धरा से,

कुछ बारिशों में कहीं,

हाँ इसी का तो हूँ ,

मै बरस जाऊँगा  

तुझमें बस जाऊँगा। 

तुझमें सो जाऊँगा 

तेरा हो जाऊँगा। "

PS: wrote prose after a long time. Got reminded of something I wrote years back... Those two brown twinkling eyes.

The world made me cold...

"कुछ खोयी हुई, कुछ दबी हुई 
सीली, ठंडी, अनकही सभी 
- उड़ानों का  -
तू साखी है...  
जिनका लेकिन, मुझमें अब भी 
बस इक एहसास, बाकी है., 
हाँ बाकी है,,,

उड़ जाता है, जुगनू की तरह, फिर क्यों ?
मेरी पलकों से, तू यूँ 
- उजालों सा -

पर घुला भी है, हर्फ़ों की तरह, फिर क्यों?
मेरी आँखों में, तू यूँ 
- सवालों सा -

तू कौन है, तेरा नाम है क्या ?

तेरा मुझमें कहीं एहतराम है क्या ?

तू मिल जाए तो क्या होगा ?

घुल जाए मुझमे तो क्या होगा ?

क्या होगा ?"

ps: "The world made me cold.

You made me water.

Someday we'll be clouds"

- Ian Thomas

(The previous night a conversation reminded me of these three lines by Ian Thomas and they are still reverberating in my mind.)

Two minutes more..

When I touched You the last time,

I did not know, it was going to be the last.

Else, I would have stolen You from this world,

after every one-twenty seconds,

asking from you,

Two minutes more.

But, You were TIME.

You slipped away...

Photograph borrowed from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/491525746808016178/

The matter collides with the antimatter.

The universe bends. Time curves.
I will again meet YOU.

But, by then my love, I will not remain ME.
Will YOU be YOU?
photograph borowed from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/491525746807849781/

Festival.

It was 'our' Festival.
'We' created.
'We' would nurture...
'We' would live its each moment...

It was 'our' festival.
To dawn upon 'Us' each year.
It was 'our' laughter.
'Our' Mirth.
'Our' belief...

It was 'our' festival.
And it dawns yet again.
But this time.
I stand here incomplete.
In the same air, the same ambience...
Under the same sky.
I wonder what has changed.
And Why....

THE CHANGE:
All these years.
'WE' defined the festival.
Today.
The festival defines 'US'....

The Sprouting LIFE.

It rained last night.
Inundating my soul.
Somehow it managed to penetrate so deep.
To wash 'it' all...

And sprouts this morning in me,
This life.
Innocent, tender and green.
And I am changed.
I had never in my life felt this before.
This 'tender life' in me, I had never realised or seen...

This tender 'life'.
Is not for prudence to smother.
Is not for any past or 'those people' to bother..
This life.
Is to grow...
To breathe, to bloom, to survive.
This 'life' is to set me free.
It is to tell me that I AM ALIVE...