The Truth behind the Rhyme

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown,
On pushing, Jill couldn't control her laughter.

Life - Just this and that

A dash of mad passion

And its occasional suppression



A blind leap into the air; drop to the abyss

And a wait for the doom; return to the surface



A speck of apprehension

And its usual suspension



A seasoned flight of fancy, in search of ecstasy

And the crashing culmination in reasoned apostasy



An entanglement of questions

And a chain of comprehension



A mutilation through stabs; tearing away by tensions

And a sudden release into nothingness, without anticipation



That's all that life is

Or maybe a bit more

I'm not yet sure

And so I explore...



AN ADDICTION

[One of the very spontaneous (and unambiguous) poems that I have written. Written in less than 20 min. So there would be 'logical' flaws, indeed. :)


Another impulsive poem by me, which I would like to share is One Moment of Clarity (click)

Title of this poem was inspired by the name of a fellow blogger's blog (click), whose poetry I greatly admire.]

YOU

When I'd first seen, YOU were a tall wall I wanted to scale.

YOU were too tall, too formidable.

Since long, YOU had been accumulating soot and dust, and what was contained within became invisible to the eye.

Beauty does not always inspire open eyed gawking. I became curious. I explored. I might have tickled YOU, scratched YOU, palpated YOU. YOU might have liked it, found it funny, or irritating, or plain ridiculous,

I saw, YOU were not just a wall, but had a most honest heart, and a most beautiful mind, somewhere hiding within.

And YOU stopped being a wall, though YOU look like one. And want to look like one.

People might have laughed with you, laughed at you, been bad to you, but they could never understand YOU.

My conceit tells me, maybe, just maybe, had I discovered YOU earlier, I would've dusted off all the dirt, not allowed that soot to settle heavily on YOU. Not allowed your heart and mind to go into a hiding. Not allowed YOU to start loving that soot. Not allowed YOU to just become another facade.

But still I was blind. I could see YOU were formidable. Formidable to me. But not formidable to all the things wrong with this World.

YOU are not just a wall, but the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Something, I had dreamed of finding. Something, I had wanted everything to be. YOU are THAT beautiful.

I don't know how come this happens. This badness that happened to YOU.

YOU showed me YOU had developed cracks. YOU told me it was alright if YOU collapse.

YOU are tearing into those cracks. Trying to deepen them lengthen them, only so that YOU could crumble?

Why? Why? Why?

I know, I've not seen every side of YOU, yet. How your foundation was laid, and if it still hurts YOU there, where I can never reach. I don't even know how many more sides YOU have!

I can't give you reasons to live, to be happy. Happiness is maybe an end in itself. And to be happy, one needs to LIVE.

Life had never promised us, that all our dreams would come true. Nor even if a single one would.

YOU are much taller than me, and can see farther. YOU know, happiness is about small-small things, and they never cease.

YOU may on reading this decide to cover yourself with yet another blanket of soot.

Or YOU may well not even read!

And the biggest lie I will tell myself is, well YOU are just a 3"x2" phone screen.

My first poem that does not rhyme. YOU made me write it. :(

PS: YOU will know who YOU is.

Kya jaanoon sajan?...

I have incidentally never discussed music on my blog, and apart from this one, I do have a few other posts in my mind, which I might publish subject to availability of time!

Through this post, I want to express my unsurpassed admiration for one song--'Kya janoon sajan'. Apart from having a most hauntingly painful melody, what I like the best about this song is its sensitive, yet teasing lyrics. This song has my favorite lyrics of all the Bollywood songs that I know of.

So, I'll be largely discussing the lyrics of this song, and my interpretation of them. I'll be giving a very literal English translation of the song, so no wonder, the lyrics will sound weird! ;) Also, since I've heard more often the newer version of the song from the movie--"Dil vil Pyaar vyaar", so would be discussing here the verses in the same sequence as in the newer version, in which the order of stanzas has been changed.

क्या जानूं सजन | Kyaa jaanoon saja | What do I know
होती है क्या ग़म की श्याम |Hoti hai kya gham ki shyaam | What is a dusk of despair
जल उठे सौ दिए | jal uthe sau diye | A hundred lamps got lit up
जब लिया तेरा नाम... | jab liya tera naam... | When I uttered your name...

I believe the above stanza is quite self-explanatory!

जब से मिली नज़र | Jab se milee nazar | Since when we had exchanged glances
माथे पे बन गए | maathe pe ban gaye | have become on my forehead
बिंदिया नयन तेरे | Bindiya nayan tere | Bindi (click) your eyes
देखो सजाना | Dekho sajana | Oh see, my dear!

Since, your eyes have fallen on me, your love has become a constant presence in my conscious, and just like a Bindi can be made out by any onlooker!

धर ली जो प्यार से | Dhar li jo pyaar se | When you had held with love
मेरी कलाइयां | Meri kalaaiyaan | My wrists
पिया, तेरी उंगलियाँ | Piya, teri ungaliyaan | Dear, your fingers
हो गई कंगना | Ho gaee kanganaa | Have become bracelet

Beloved, since when you had held my hand, I can constantly feel your presence in everything I do, though not restraining me in any way.

Kya janoon sajan...

-----

काँटों में मैं खड़ी | Kaanton mein main khadi | Standing in thorns
नैनों के द्वार पे | Nainon ke dwaar pe | At the threshold of my eyes
निसदिन बहार के | Nis din bahaar ke | Every day, of spring
देखूं सपने | Dekhoon sapne | Do I watch dreams

Standing in a barren land (that is, without anyone's love), among thorns (eyelashes?), I dream of spring (your love) with utmost eagerness (at the threshold of eyes--indicating the eagerness of wait?)


The following lines are most ambiguous and difficult to interpret because of a very unusual kind of inversion:

चेहरे की धूल क्या | Chehre ki dhool kya | The dust on my face [1]
चंदा की चांदनी | Chanda ki chaandni | The radiance of Moon [2]
उतरी तो रह गई | Utari to reh gayi | Persisted, when dropped off [3]
मुख पे अपनी | Mukh pe apni | On my face [4]

The ambiguity arises because line 3 can be associated with either 1 or 2.

Clubbing 3 with 1 gives:

The moment the dust on my face dropped off, the radiance of Moon was left on my face. This can be interpreted to mean, that " O' beloved, the moment I stopped looking at my barren surroundings and thought about you, my entire being had become a reflection of, and my face reflected your radiance."


Clubbing 3 and 2 gives:

"O' beloved, the moment I stopped mooning over you, I realized my stark reality, and my entire being was covered in the thirst that the desert around has come to represent--the dust that settled on my face."


By the way, another blogger had done a post on her interpretation of this song here (click).

Duel

Tonight, I see you standing with him.
Hand-in-hand.
Ever so slightly do you squirm.
Only I understand.

That to him now you belong,
Is for a fact.
And for you I will not long,
With me was a pact.

Had I known what this would be to see--
You and him...
But then, never could I foresee;
It was a whim.



As I mildly enjoy your unease
Like your soul do a striptease...

You look away
You look around
Your eyes sway
Dig into the ground

So wildly you gyrate to try to conceal
All you manage yet is only to reveal

Your tattered demeanor is a curtain
I can see through you're certain.

Your smile is, but a decorative frond
And you know, I can see the grimace beyond.



In your weakness, you want to surrender
Firmly you clutch him, your only anchor.

You look at my shoe
And now, my tie
You look at me
But, beyond my eye

You, my eyes shamelessly violate
My eyes, yours suddenly collate

Unbearable is the silence in that one moment
Stillness is the violence of your maddened movement

A part of you, that was me, you dismember
Yet all you do is make me remember...



That:

Once had I seen you stand with him.
Hand-in-hand.
You were the center, and he your rim,
Did he understand?

That you were the note that made him a song
That was perfect.
That he was the deity to who your being did throng.
He--your only sect.

Had he known what it'd be to be free,
You not holding him...
But blinded he was, never could he see,
That, I were to be that him.



But for me, you think, is it any consolation
That I was the one, who chose your desolation?

That maybe for a moment
I wanted to be free
To free my breath off your scent
To be not us, but only me?

You were embedded
Deep into my soul
The me in me was dead
Our love was the Ghoul.

But did I ever know,
For good you'd go away?
That slow death you'd sow,
And rest all you'd flay?



Yet since eternity, I had made myself believe
Another ray of reason to live shall I find...

Yet tonight,

A moment under your shadow, did I live,
And a thousand deaths have I died.



[It's after over three-and-a-half years that I've tried my hand at poetry. I've no idea if as a poet have I grown or regressed. Simply click on the tag 'poetry' below, and do let me know what you think. :)

The poem is pretty much self-explanatory; an elaboration would be undue.

Challenge with poetry, if one's to stay sincere, is to constantly live the poetry while writing despite having not lived it (at least recently).]

One Moment of Clarity

Voices are muzzled

Noise gets drizzled.

Sight is scattered

Darkness gets gathered.

Sensations are profuse,

But senses left confused;

And, hallucinations encroach upon

Realms of reality.

Then it befalls-

One moment of clarity.



A new reality unfolds

And guessing put on hold

Stacked layer-upon-layer

Is answer upon every problem;

One-by-one all

You can solve them.

And fall into place

All things of gravity.

You owe it all

(to) One moment of clarity.



Nothing is of permanence,

And even that of sense

Does not make sense.

Whispers turn into hiss,

Up to your eyes rise

Smokes of darkness.

And before sense, in response

Falls a veil of vanity.

All you want is to recall

(that) One moment of clarity.



Know I do not

It takes what.

To hear every voice

Where there is noise.

To see what is hidden

Beyond one’s tunnel of vision.

And to ever make sense

Of every sensation.

But, one thing I know,

And state it with brevity-

This is, may be short, but not small-

One moment of clarity.

(This poem is about those moments when we're very deeply involved in solving some problem--be it trying to understand something about the world around us, or why someone behaved the way they did, or we stand in life vis-a-vis where we always wanted to stand, and suddenly everything makes such perfect sense! We can see everything so clearly, in a perspective in which we'd never seen things before. And we draw our conclusions. We feel elevated to some new intellectual level. But then, this poem is also about how those moments are shortlived, and far in between. The clarity goes away, so does the moment, but we retain our conclusions, and the memory of such moments as if they [the moments] would always stay with us.)

The Desert-River in a Sinister Spring

I kneel-bent am, in a gorge, in a desert parched perennially

And see you running towards me—a stream of humming happiness.

In your waters, myriad colours, they mingle madly.

I see around; a desert dances in its green grace.

The spring’s here, and it’s here to stay, to myself I say.

My hands fold and bow down in a thirsty desperate dip,

But your (river’s) drops, by distances unseen, but felt, keep away.

The drops do drown down my sight, but sans settling in a single sip.

Each dancing drop passing in its leap, ever ecstatic

Greets my green grace (desert)-grazing gaze, and I surmise

That the happiness face-to-face is a fantasy far fantastic.

And away you meander leaving moist only one trace- that in my eyes.

I then faint in that gorge, in a green garden parched as ever

And see you running away from me—a stream of pampered pain.

In your waters mocking at me is a mob of colors, clever,

Which was invigorating, variegated, vibrant, and now—VANISHING and VAIN.



(A poem on what happens when love means too much to you, and loving, too much for the one you love)

Time Table

Yes, true it is, however much be I bored,

that I’ve to keep walking on this road.

But, how can I not stop and gaze,

smiling by the road, a beautiful red rose?

Its petals spread in full expanse

catch my attention in complete trance.

“You’re so beautiful”, to the rose I say,

and that “thanks for being on my way”

I forget that the hurrying sun,

desperately is headed for the horizon.

Someone a friend of mine says,

“Throw as many a gaze as you can,

when you reach your destination.”

Someone a fiend of mine says,

“Not everyone under the sun can

for that rose’s beauty have such an appreciation.”

I know that latter is nothing, but sarcasm.

So, I ponder and like my friend and fiend choose to move on.

***

Yes, true it is, however much be I bored

that I’ve to keep walking on this road.

But, how can I not stop and trace

ignominy bleeding out of injuries on a stranger’s face?

His downcast eyes bathed in tears of defeat and shame

catch my sympathy in midst of a worldly game.

To him I say, “Cry not and let dreams in your eyes shine,

For the path to your dreams is his, mine and also thine.”

I forget that the hands of clock, swift and slim

incessantly are dancing within the clock’s round rim.

Someone a friend of mine says,

“Wipe many a tear as you can

once you reach your destination.”

Someone a fiend of mine says,

“Not everyone in this world can

for that face have same compassion.”

But, I know that the latter is truth’s great aberration.

So, annoyed, like my friend and fiend unwillingly, I move on.

***

Yes, true it is however much be I bored

that I’ve to keep walking on this road.

But, how can I not stop and bend down

to pick from the surface a sadistic thorn?

The thorn giving the journeymen nothing, but trouble,

would have not broken, been it less egoistic and more flexible.

To the thorn I say, “I’m very sorry for that,

but for your deeds that was your fate.”

I forget through how many chimes have passed the winds of time,

and sonority been thrown about without any rhythm nor any rhyme.

Someone a friend of mine says,

“Pick as many a thorn as you can,

but that’s once you’ve reached your destination.”

Someone a fiend of mine says.

“Not everyone always can

for such trivia, as a thorn have an observation.”

I know the latter is nothing, but mockery’s euphemistic culmination.

So, I spare the broken thorn, and like my friend and fiend, move on.

***

But I see:

That the hurrying sun

drowns into the horizon.

That the hour-hands of clocks

dance twice and at me mock.

And that winds of time

have not left untouched a single chime.

So, a day is finally over,

and on this endless road have moved just a bit, moreover.

So, I close my eyes before sleep in the hope

that tomorrow, rather than walking I’ll gallop,

and to not see any rose, any face or pick any thorn

so as to invite this world’s ever so concealed scorn.

So, to myself I say,

“Yes, true it is, however much be I bored

that I’ve to keep walking on the very same road.”

But, How can I not stop and …

(Written in the first year, when I’ was torn between what I thought was "living" the life--reflecting, observing, influencing, and academics, something that would have amounted to postponing "living").