God's Handiwork...

The beauty of a golden sunrise,
is impossible to describe,to collect,to capture
It has to be seen,with the mind's inner eyes
And felt,in all its imperious rapture...
Many such creations, of God's holy might
A tiger's cub,an eagle's flight,
An elephant,an ant,
an owl in the night...
In the ocean's blue,swim a hundred whales,
A butterfly's rainbow,
A millipede's walk,
And yet we know not a million other tales...
Of snow-capped mountains,of ravines,
of a calm glittering lake,
And swift flowing rivers, and the rivulets they make,
Of acres of orchards, and flowers in bloom
Of soft velvet moss, just woven in God's loom...
Like dewdrops, like fine mist,like a falling snowflake,
Like the sun kissed sands of a beach,like the summer rain;
We see His unseen hands, every moment awake
These are moments to rejoice, to praise Him again...

Christmas time...

I sing with hope,
a merry song
That happy tidings may come,
And hope I get to stay up long
Long enough to see Santa come...
Red ribbons, wrapping, mistletoe
And cake,and cookies,and so much more
'Tis time to rejoice, to let everyone know
The season's joys, to raid a candy store!
'Tis Christmas time, all happiness surrounds
The world,in pure white snow;
'Tis Christmas time,when love abounds;
And comes wrapped up in a neat little bow...
Its the time when families re-unite,
Come together to feast and pray,
But it tears my heart,to see an orphan's eyes
Oh woe,to be alone on Christmas day...
07:07pm, Wed 15-12-2010

NIGHT

Night,she walks on silent stones,
Through the misty quilted sky
And slips into my weary bones
She wipes my tears dry...
Beside my bedside, she sings a song,
She sings an endearing lullaby;
And tells me stories, fantastic,long,
Of treasures golden,of days gone by...
She tells my mind, to rest awhile
Rejuvenate, tomorrow be whole
For today,i'd walked a hundred mile
To reclaim my stolen soul...
And believe the stars that hold my plight,
To rest my head in her bosom, to sleep
Until She no longer sees me weep;
She slowly slips away,into daylight...

New York

Sau Gram Zindagi….

This title from the Guzaarish film track somehow finds a chord in my heart on many levels..

All the happy moments in life can be compressed and saved into 100gms, but these 100gms would be the most precious thing we all would have.

Sweet, sour, teary-eyed, hysterical,thoughtful, all the emotions we have ever gone through, all the pictures of vivid colour, all the great days when we thought it couldn’t get any better, or worse.

100gms of life. What a concept. Hats off to the guy who thought of it.

We all try, hard enough as it can get to find some meaning in our life. Why?

Can’t life be just about collecting all those moments that we could say we can not do without adding to the 100gms of life? Can’t it be just about spending time with someone you love, just being there to watch them smile, to hold their hands when they cry, to have someone do the same for you….

The sad part about life is people go about it wishing to leave their stamp on the pages of history. Instead, leaving an indelible mark on people’s hearts is a much better way to be remembered.

The best thing about life is not having done everything you write down in a bucket list… It is looking back at the 100gms of life, and wishing that you had the opportunity to do some beautiful thing over again, just so that you could feel the same emotion, the same rush of life that you felt then…

At least, that’s what I think.

Florida

In the US of A

Sometimes you write just out of a compulsion to write, sometimes there are a thousand words inside you just wanting to come out....
I have been in the US of A for more than a week now. I would think that this is kind of a pretty major milestone in my life, but it doesnt feel that way.
It feels much like everyday life, except for the food. With all due respect, the food here sucks bigtime!
I haven't started cooking yet, but give me time and I can mess that up too with equal aplomb and talent.
Getting here was another big jhol.I hated the 25 hours of travelling, more than anything. Counting the hours,watching endless miles tick away on the monitor, and pretending to sleep,trying to fool my body into thinking things that are far from the truth...What a way to start off an important journey...
I didnt get the time to roam around in Schiphol airport, I had always wanted to look around when in Europe... still, there's always next time.
There is so much I want to say, but somehow, I cant find the right words for what I am feeling. Maybe I am not supposed to say it out loud,maybe I am just supposed to feel that feeling, to experience it,to know it but not say it out loud.
Maybe, the right words will find me, some day.
Till then, these words will have to do.
Till then, au revoir!!

Peace

And so peace descends tonight
tranquil,serene,like moonlight
like softly falling snow,upon the earth
Like ripples on a lake, glistening in mirth
Like a warm blanket, a yellow hearth
It brings strange thoughts to mind
Like the soft rolling bells,of a distant church,
Makes you leave your worries behind...
And the waxing,gibbous moon delights
in showing you the way
Through whistling trees,where insects star in raucous fights,
like silhouettes in black and gray
And slowly crawls that wisp of light
Through the inky black of night
And soon 'tis time for a clear blue sky
When peace leaves you,makes you wanna cry...

A song for you...

I know this sounds crazy,
but i know that its true
I thought it was an angel,
but baby it was only you...

I saw those blue eyes look at me,
and i froze,deep down inside
And I don't know what came over me
But baby i knew it felt right.

When fate brought us together,when fate took me higher
For a single moment, it felt,that night
Like the world was on fire,
And yet,it felt alright...

You had me waiting for that minute,
You had me waiting all my life
But baby i knew,i knew it was worth it
When i knew how you felt,when you smiled...

I was blown away,when you said my name
I felt in my heart,that we'd be together
I knew that moment, it wasn't a game
That baby you'd be mine,only mine forever...

TIME

Time began counting backwards to start,
So slowly for me,
the breaths i took,
With the beats of my heart...

T'was the moment I was born into this world,
T'was when I was freed, yet enslaved to time,
Ticking away,till the earth swirled,
And listening to none,nor reason nor rhyme...

And its been ticking,like a waiting bomb;
Unwavering,resolute, yet without aplomb;
And many a time, I thought I heard it say,
"Pack up buddy,lets get on our way..."

Yet i've hung on,another moment,another day
And realised this, for as long as I stay;
As long as I don't think or worry about it,
Time,that rascal,won't hurt me one bit...
Aigis T Nalian

A little bit of anxiety, some excitement, an adrenaline rush, the antsy feeling of a hundred millipedes marching up and down his spine to a funeral tune, and a hundred others doing the salsa and lambada together in his stomach, etc., etc.
These were some of the vivid descriptions he was trying to form in his mind to describe his current situation but he felt that he had failed in this mission miserably.

There was a time for monstrous words and unparalleled eloquence, but this was not it.
He felt that this would probably be a time for him to pray; but being an atheist, he found himself on a side of the fence that he did not really care to be on with regard to religious beliefs.

He looked out through the tiny plastic window and found the cotton clouds zooming by him, unaware of his predicament, or the effect they were having on him and his psyche.

If there was anything else that existed in that small steel gray cabin, it did not matter to him. What mattered was that small red light that did not turn green, despite all his best efforts at mentally willing it to change.

Telekinesis, it seemed was not made for him.

Wanting to break the hypnotic effect of the small red light, he looked around that cabin one more time and caught the eye of his best friend standing behind him; and immediately he wished that he hadn't.

That languid grin, half jeering, half encouraging from a man who was accustomed to such vagaries of life did nothing to increase his confidence.
He gave a weak nod, and a watery soupy smile, the kind you give your dentist when you see the drill in his hand and you wish you were a few hundred longitudes eastwards.

He got a thumbs-up sign in return. "What bloody good is that?", he thought.

And suddenly, without warning, within a few milliseconds, the atmosphere changed. Some sixth sense, or a highly improved sense of survival told him that the light was now green. He did not want to look, but he did. It was his death knell, he thought and rightly so.

The light was now a sickeningly lime green color, one that Halloween would be proud of.

Muscles tensed, knees together, he stepped out of the door into thin air and he was gone. Just another parachute jumper, making another jump again.

Only the guns, bombs and detonators strapped to his back told him he may never get the chance to fly again.

The war was still on and he was just another soldier.....

Dreams...

The pain of waking up,
The pain of letting go
Of leaving your dreams behind;
To drink from reality's cup.

'Tis such a sweet pain
Of suffering till the night doth come
'Til we lapse into dreams again;
'Til our reality doth that become...

And we find new ways,
To dream and dream again
And spin silver threads connecting them all,
Till they vanish,like vapour,like the morning rain...

To drown in the sea,to fall endlessly
To meet your true love, or a fleeting glance to see
These dreams that you know,they come,they go.
Only to come again,
and only to bring more pain...

3 Years ago....On a hot rainy day in July, I embarked on a journey that I knew would change my life forever....Just how much, I never knew.
It was on the 2nd of July 2007, that I joined my first (and still the only) company as an employee at Accenture.
Those were moments of wonder that day, when I thought of all the big monsters that people made office out to be, and of the heroic moments when I would be standing over the same slayed monsters, proud shoulders held aloft.
Some of those moments never materialised, some exceeded my wildest expectations, and there were moments in these past three years that made me think "What the bloody hell was I thinking when I got myself into this mess....?". But that first salary, that first smell of my own money, the first time somebody actually treats you for the individual talents you possess are all great aphrodisiacs that leave you breathless with its sheer power and ability to cling to you....

All said and done however, nothing and absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the fabulous culture, work ethic and people that I have met over the years in the organisation that is now my second home.... ( Indeed there have been times when I did not know what my actual home looked like during daytime....!!)Infallible I was not(now i'd like to believe in that illusion!), yet I too fell into that old trap of trying to prove myself to all and sundry. I fell prey to disappointment. I felt like a million dollars were riding on me, and for the first time in my life,I felt responsible enough for my own actions. I felt the rush of adrenaline when success came unbidden, and when it waved at me from afar, even when I felt i deserved it. All this in three years! What does the future behold for me? Who knows?But what fun lies in knowing?
The fun lies in the journey you decide to take,your choices, the road less travelled that you may or may not want to take... Here's looking forward to the rest of my life!!

Spring

Through spring’s sweet serenity
Doth your yet sullen heart embrace
Sweet Mother Nature’s maternity
Immaculate, immeasurably intricate…

And feel within your heart
The blooming flower’s song
And riveting colors red, blue and green
Ask you to sing along…

With birds aloft, in sunlit skies
Of the palest clearest blue and white
When bumble-bees and butterflies
Call out your name in mid-flight…

‘Tis spring, that’s here, when life springs anew
And Mother Earth is bedecked with a slew
Of a shimmering spread of luscious green
And when she brings her beauty to you…

Remembering…

Every little breeze, brings with it
A whiff of you, unforgettable, unsaid;
It’s hard to let go, to say goodbye
To the sweet little roses, so lovely, so red…

Each teardrop is a memory
Of a moment we had together
Of a time when we played, cried, laughed
Of the rain and of the sunny weather…

When we agreed to disagree on everything,
And shared our sorrows, our grief, our joys
When we fought together, when we fought one another
When we sang together, as one voice…

It’s hard to forget, to say ‘tis the end,
Of the relationship that we had…
They say parting is such sweet sorrow
For who knows, we may meet but tomorrow…

A Nightmare to remember....

I had a scary nightmare once,
What a horrible one it was
Where numbers loomed, and figures danced
And christened me a dunce…

With sickles sharp, they rushed at me
Drowned me in acids rare;
And formulae that cracked my head
That left me dry and bare…

A nightmare about a test ahead,
Is a bad one, oh never again!
Where my mind refused to yield
Everything I’d ever read…

I then awoke, with a scream and a start
To the scary sounds of a bell;
And found myself sweating, ‘twas but a dream
But ‘twas one that shook my heart…

Bubbles

From a child’s little stick
Burst forth a hundred bubbles new
Set forth each, with a mind of its own
To conquer the skies as it flew…

Set apart was this one bubble
Higher than the rest it flew to see
It carried the rainbow on its back,
Higher and higher it went in glee…

It looked below, and saw beneath
The beauty of panoramic green,
Meadows and leas and fair blue streams
And people and animals, ‘twas such a scene…

That filled its heart with so much love
And joy and calm and peace,
Till it burst, to spread into the air
That happiness, across the seas…

Night....

The setting sun, in brilliant gold,
Sets awash the sky azure
For night’s armies to march on, take hold
To bring a cool breeze, lilting, pure…

And starry skies, dimpled in silver,
With stars, so far, but clear
Fills my heart with emotions new
And lends it some new songs to hear…

The cries of birds returning,
The gurgling ballads of the streams,
The crickets and cicadas call in yearning
To meet the love of their dreams…

And thus passes the night, again
Begins the sun another day, new
I wait again for Mother Earth to embrace
Another night, to cure me of my pain…

Today....

Today I understand, what I missed so long
Today I realize, what could have been,
Today went by, like a forgotten song
Today I felt saddened, yet serene…

It could have been another moment
Today, when our eyes met again
And stopped me giving you as you went
My love for you, my pain…

My mind swept back to you, today
Like it did a million times before
That swirling mist, that cloudy day
When our eyes first met but once, no more

My madness, without rhyme or reason
Held back within a grasp so brittle
Burst out today, with that old season
Today, when came the rain, a little…

Gushed forth in flood, my tears, today
I saw you drenched in summer’s rain
Today I know how much I missed you,
And today, I’m in love with you again…

Summer...

Under the wilting, boiling heat of May,

When the sun beats down in furious rage;

And mankind can do naught but pray

For deliverance, for succour, for peace, for rain...

When a few drops sprayed, like manna from above,

Are just not enough, and not many are relieved

When weeks still pass, like hell, yet how

The sun, still infuriated, still looking peeved...

Parches the land, dries out its face,

Burns up the grass, empties the lakes,

And witness is man to its wrath, to erase

Any semblance of sanity, as summer awakes...

Oh for some water, a deluge today...

To slake our thirsts, to ease our fevered pain,

Oh for some water, to send our way...

What must we do, to be blessed with some rain?

The Pain of No Words...

What if a poet were to lose his words,

what if he could see nothing in his heart,

to express the pain or the joy he feels

when he woos his love, who is miles apart...

It would be sad, to not see the world,

In colours that only a poet could bring,

Those hundred rainbows, 'twere mixed and swirled,

In words that only a poet could sing...

In misery, in joy, in a mundane day's sunset,

To look for those miracle words, in the rain so wet;

Upon the parched earth, upon the flooding lanes,

In the flight of the birds, as the yellow moon wanes...

Like dewdrops and snowflakes, and all things so pure,

What if the words evaporate, what if they disappear,

There'd be so many wounds to heal, afflictions to cure

And the world would be poorer, and we'd shed a tear....

Books

After eons and ages,
and hundreds of pages,
of rifling through the storybooks
Of all the little dramas, played out on stages
Of good versus evil, and the war therein wages
Of kings,goblins, golems and crooks
And nature's green beauty,of rivers and brooks
These beautiful stories, they remain, haunting memories
Of a night or a noon, spent in a cocoon
With a book in my hand, I could understand
My need to escape,to a world unknown
But now that i am older,now that i've grown
The need is still there, but the time is not
I'm afraid i've let my books go rot

Sachin Tendulkar (also known as GOD)

This is probably the most amazing day in all my life. Today is the day Sachin Tendulkar( also known as GOD) made history by being the first person in the history of the game of cricket to hit 200 runs in one day internationals.
WOW!
Nothing more needs to be said. That in itself is testament to how we Indians have taken Sachin ( also known as GOD) for granted, like everything else in typical Mumbai fashion. Who else could have set the parameters for being superhuman than the one person who has time and again proven everyone else to be less than mere mortals by his sheer dint of talent and dedication to the sport that has given us life and love for more than two decades.
Sachin( also known as GOD), we love you. Period.
And we know you love us too, or else you wouldn't have showered us with your blessings in the form of so many amazing moments, so many amazing days when we have prayed to other Gods to please let Sachin ( also known as GOD, i keep saying this don't I?) play at his best.

What people really want...

The first epiphany of the new year 2010 goes like this -
After so many years, and after so many hours of doing what I do best in life(NOTHING...!) I have come to realize one very important thing. I have realized what it is that people really want from the people around them. They don't want money, they don't want a lot of claps and backslapping and what have you...All they want is to be heard!
All they want is for you to listen. All they want is for you to stop whining about your life, to stop being selfish, to stop thinking of yourself as the center of your world, and to give them that opportunity,albeit for a little while.
With this accomplished, they want to vent out their feelings, they want an outlet for their pain, they want somebody to say

"Hey there, I know what you are going through, but hang in there..things will be all right..."

And that I think is the basic premise for what is becoming one of the most catchy phrases of this new decade -

"ALL IZ WELL!"

Once you give yourself to listening, you realise that it is not all that difficult.You realise that being a friend and a companion and a good conversationalist is not all it is made out to be, all you have to do is to listen,and with your heart.
(And once you can fake that, you've got it made :) !!!)
So listen, for once. Maybe you will come across a kindred soul in need of a friend, in need of a shoulder to cry upon, or maybe you will come back with a funny anecdote to regale the rest of your friends...It can't hurt you, so what's the harm?