A Mad Poet.....

Goddess Saraswati played the veena and the poet’s room which was profusely leaking because of a dilapidated roof and sinking walls was now effulgent with a divine glow. Waves after waves of supernaturally beautiful melody gripped the environment there. And the place now looked temple-like, pure in spirit and glowing in divine. But the roof was still leaking and the walls were still sinking

.

It was true that there was no splendor of wealth but there was the conscience and the splendor of wisdom.

The Poet who was so frustrated and who had withstood all the kicks and death-blows of the mercenary world for so many years now felt a divine calmness of the supreme order. It was the flower of his life-long pursuit of connoting the transcendental. His quest to realize a new direction of thought and life’s movement was at last garlanded with a divine spark……..And he sat with his pen with a view to signifying the transcendental vision that had now awakened him. But he stopped his restless poetic pen and became absolutely silent because he could sense very well that any display of a transcendental spiritual experience was utterly valueless to the world around him. He put his pen in a plastic case and felt more liberated and blest. 

It was raining for the last 20 days and the sun was caged in thick clouds. The day looked like the evening. Gloominess prevailed all over. And the poet now strongly felt that his inner spiritual wealth had qualified him for a higher world. In other words he had now learnt to live by the standards of a divine world. He now felt that he was a member of another world that is ever pure and esoteric.

With all these inner changes, he suffered many outward changes too. Now he felt everything so intensely that he would cry often……He would feel happiness so intensely that he would smile, then giggle and then roar in laughter. He got a spark of divine knowledge and that was beyond the comprehension of people around him. He would see that the world is transitory. And he would cry at the modern men’s frantic and breathless run for material comfort…….His feelings and emotions were now unpredictable just like the forces of Nature …….. He tended to become a part of Nature. Moreover his very nature attained Nature-hood. He became more and more like the waves of a sea or like an unpredictable river or like a sudden/violent gust of wind. And he achieved that state of consciousness-TO BE ONE WITH NATURE……….AND he was amazingly happy in his inward world. He now belonged to the nature and the complicacies and the anxieties of a modern man were no way traceable in him………He lived by the standards of a divine world and the people around him now called him: A MAD POET.

A friendship day awakening....

Friendship is a flower of the soul,

A rare Spontaneity and sparkle

Of letting yourself known

In the heart and eyes of someone till unknown.

It suddenly starts with a genuine smile  

Speaks in life’s most melodious style

And says, ‘I love and care always for you

Because I understand life with you.’

A friend is who sits with you for a while

Speaks not anything but gives a smile

And slowly one river mingles with another

Flowing together limitlessly, just farther and farther………

An inward Journey

Already 5 hours had passed by. And it was the 6^th hour. Mr. Jyoti was still inside his room. And all the doors and windows of his house were bolted from inside. That day, something had happened to Sri. Jyoti Shankar and as a result he locked himself in his house. He locked himself out from the world.

When the world is hot like a frying pen and it roasts us like fish fillet, we turn to divine intervention or withdrawing ourselves inward. And today he had set out in an inward journey. His eyes were closed and he sat in a meditative mood. He sat alone. He had closed himself within himself because he saw only pitch darkness outside. Behind all his obsequious/glamorous smiles he could discover only the pangs of a shattered heart. So he needed a healing from inside. Outer consolation was utterly ineffective because inner hollowness never fills up by outer consolations.  

So He dived into the innermost pool of his life. . The inner journey was not tiresome. It was rather refreshing. The journey watered his roots with the elixir of life. And he felt light like a flying butterfly. He found an inner treasure of love. He loved himself because numberless times he had been broken into pieces and all the times he had risen like the phoenix bird. Gathering the scattered fragments he had always reconstructed his former form. 

Today that reconstruction took place so there was the TURNING IN. And this turning in had always enriched life. The clouds of confusion subsided. He felt no more dependent on the delights and consolations from others. He understood the inner splendor of his soul. And that turned him into a SOURCE of joy. He was no more a beggar who begs the largesse of others.   

He thanked the SUPREME for endowing him this amazing inner strength of resilience. He felt the aura of an inner light which lit him up with the realization that he was an undying spirit and the infernal machinations of the world could never hurt him.  

He slowly opened his eyes and got a heart which was now full of happiness. The springs of self-appreciation had made his heart fertile and he now opened the doors and windows to spread light although there was pitch darkness outside.          

A Genie of Happiness...

I am old. My skin has wrinkled. Expensive Cosmetics and thick make up can also no more fill the gap. My hair is all grey. Now a grinning ghost of loneliness dreadfully haunts me. That I am old is constantly reminded by my shaky limbs. I will go to the dust soon and the wait will end soon. But none is there to carry the bag of bone when my days are numbered.

Now I desperately want a “May-I-help-you-genie”. Where can I get it?  

I carried my old and decrepit body to the biggest store in the city to get a QUICK GENIE of that sort. But I was late. The store was closed and a huge invulnerable lock was dangling on the doors. But the shop keeper was there. He was sitting on one of the steps that led to the shop. Looking at me he asked, “Have you come for that wonderful GENIE?” I nodded my head in affirmation. Now he smilingly extended his hands at me and asked for the keys of the shop. I was astonished and confused. “How can I have the keys? You are the shop owner and you ask for the keys to me.” I bafflingly reacted.

He was surprised and told, “Don’t you know this special shop having the genies of HAPPINESS opens by the keys of the customers only.” I was bewildered and stupefied. He continued, “The people who adopt KISSING instead of BITING, who adopt COUNTING their BLESSINGS instead of ENVYING and who adopt HELPING instead of HURTING are presented with THE KEY that opens the door.”

I now looked at the dangling lock on the shop and understood that MY PAST WAS IMPERFECT and so the remaining FUTURE IS INDEFINITE. And all it happened because I did not PRESENT the BEST in me to the world around me when it was possible. And now the world showed me THE LOCK and did not give the KEY of HAPPINESS.

On my return I looked back and gave a last look to that amazing shop with that ever-waiting shopkeeper. My eyes now fell on the glowing sign board of that shop and it told, “AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP.”

AN ANGRY WRITER REPENTS……….

Today I genuinely repent. I repent because I scolded a young girl and she cried. I caused someone cry and now I feel horribly guilty. I did not commit suicide but I felt suicide-like suffocation……..Those hot lava-like tears from an injured heart snatched my spark.

All know that it is a deadly sin to hurt the sentiments of a fellow human being because all human tears have their roots in a bruised heart. I knew the simple truth but I became a fool. My anger made me an absolute fool. I got intoxicated with the opium of superiority and was mad with ANGER. My tongue spoke faster than my mind and conscience was thrown to the ditch. 

ANGER is one word short of ‘DANGER’.

It was too late when I realized my failing. Apologetically, I hugged the girl, consoled her, and wiped her tears. She told me that she was alright. But the matter did not end here. Wherever I went I saw her crying face haunting me like a demon. Her tearful eyes and anguished expressions attested HOW BAD I AM. I was eaten up internally. And I could not be at peace. I lost my balance. I lost my balance because humanity and love are the foundation of a happy life but today I had given a death blow to my roots. And the result was a restless, haunted, ghoulish, hollow man. The clear life-enriching waters of a divine spring called CONSCIENCE was embittered with the POISON of ANGER. 

AND THE ABOVE FEW LINES ARE AN ATTEMPT TO PURIFY THE CONSCIENCE ANEW………..by the writer himself.

The heart is a bloody think

UNINTERRUPTED TEARS OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD

He is my colleague. 

That day he came into the office out of the rain. He was wet but I embraced him with an open heart and a warm welcoming smile. My emotions were running high because, yesterday, I had read an article on the universal Fatherhood of a loving God and the universal Brotherhood of human beings. I attempted just to put that great ideal into practice. I mean, I wanted to be a little human.  

The effect was wonderful!

He also smiled and was grateful for my gesture of love. We sat together for a while. Now, he opened up his box of miseries (a common tendency among all to tell your woes when we are around listening ears). And he told me that he was unwell and had caught a terrible flu but he had to come to the office because the boss was relentless. And the worst thing was that he had been also infected with conjunctivitis. I saw her swollen red eyes and felt sad. I wished him sooner recovery from his ailments and left him doing his office work.

Next day when I got up from bed I had my eyes swollen and terribly red. And now the idea of universal brother-hood and Fatherhood of God was really bringing uninterrupted tears to my eyes…….. 

It took 30 years to understand a contestant.....

A glamorous trophy was shining in a bookcase in a living room and a father’s sparkling eyes were fixed on it out of sheer appreciation. It was his daughter’s first success. His daughter, a spring of clear water, has now turned into a cascading river that keeps the world alive. Truly, his daughter was now his life. And he felt proud to be a daughter’s father and not a son’s.

Mr. Shankar  was that day the most contented father. He inwardly thanked his wife for giving him such a smiling beautiful flower who calls and orders, “DADY, I want this. And I won’t talk if…….”

Thinking about his daughter, who now studies in a distant land, he looked out of the window and saw the golden rays of the afternoon sun. He imagined a sun-shine-like bright future for his daughter. And he prayed all the happiness of world for her. And felt that perhaps a father’s heart was most tender…..

Now, he remembered an incident which dated 30 years back………

He was a student in a college. He had all the natural qualities of a leader but he loved to stay aloof from student-politics. But one incident changed his college-life. A girl, who was well-to-do and was from an English Medium School background, eclipsed all boy-students. The existence of boys dimmed before her charisma and that day he had thought that he should accept the challenge as a boy. Soon it was found that the girl was contesting for the post of General Secretary with him……..

The election-battle saw the fiercest ever campaign and the toughest ever competition. And a feather was added to his cap. The girl lost the battle. After the declaration of election result he had offered some sweets to that girl but she did not take the sweets with the words, “You won in the election for that I have no pains but I won’t take sweets from you because my defeat has given a lot of pain to my father. And all this shit happened because of you.” That day, he had thought that because of the hang-over of defeat that girl was babbling the name of his father.

But…..but…..but…..

Today he understood what a daughter means to a father and a father to a daughter. It took 30 years to understand the reason why that girl had not taken sweets that day.

SWEET PAST, JUST A SHADOW

I was on my way…..

Through a beautiful forest called LOVE

Where happy birds of HOPE sang soothingly  

And the enchanting sky glimmered above.

Then a turn….. And you appeared

You appeared with the most terrific smile

Lovingly You held my arms

And we crossed the river called FRIENDSHIP

.

But then I moved hurriedly

Leaving you behind

Risking all the beauty & magic

That life had gifted me.

And see! Most unkindly,

The last 5 years have dubbed me LOSER

And the sweet PAST is now a memory

Nothing but just a shadow……..