Learning space

Learning space

I have got a place from where
I weave my world of fun sans despair;
You came unto me when the sun was gone,
I embraced you with my arms forlorn.

My arms are mine but they are not me
I learnt from you with ecstasy;
If they are depressed I can change their esprit,
By humming with my lips under the black warm tree.

The space I left just a little while ago
Is children’s den who refuse to grow;
I love them all with all my heart,
If only they could see their juvenile art.

I’m not done have to learn a lot
To tailor the whole with a winsome knot;
Those kids have eyes and ears like me,
Who am I to teach first let me be free.

For days and nights I shall learn to weave
At my own man’s pace without a single grimace; 
Learn from you until the night I leave,
To know who I am in this human’s race.

What a call!

Between me and Sarmila, it has been a friendship of more than thirty years. I know her parents, her relatives, and her family as closely as she knows mine. We grew up in Kolkata. Now she is in Delhi and I in Hyderabad. Back in Kolkata, every year our birthdays on 15^th June and 18^th August would be celebrated in Kowloon, our most favorite restaurant in New Alipore. Birthdays were always very special to us. Even today, we don’t miss each other's birthdays. But mine this year was very special because of what she said on the eve of my birthday, on 17^th August:

 -  Sorry, I didn't call you for about a month because I was frightfully busy with my mom.  Just listen. On 16^th of July, I was chatting up with my neighbor in their flat. Suddenly, with the weather beginning to change, slightly overcast. I remembered I had left the windows open and that my mom was alone in the flat. She had not been keeping well for quite some time you know that. 
- Yes, I do.
- By the time I could enter my flat, it started pouring. I rushed in and was shocked to find my mother lying flat in the living room bleeding profusely from the head. Not knowing what to do, I shouted Ma, ma please don’t die, please be alive, and kept on closing the windows to stop the rains gushing in. I called my neighbor, called the emergency, called Amit (her husband) who was in office, Nipa (her sister in Navi Mumbai) and asked them to come asap. When we admitted her to FORTIS Noida, the doctors informed that due to high BP, she fell on the ground and had a brain hemorrhage! By then, Amit was there, I called Argha (her son) from Pune, and Nipa was with me with Arka and Titli (Nipa's two children). Will never forget that fateful night Unto (my pet name). We said no to surgery simply because of her age. However, they tried hard to see what could be done and after four days in ICU, the neurosurgeons gave up all hopes and said it was just a matter of some few hours. When I asked how few it was, they said three to four. It was on Saturday 20^th July I came to know that ma was leaving us. You know we had a gurubaba who used to rescue us from all difficult situations? 
- Yes I know!
- He had given us a mala with his mantra and had asked us to apply during bad times. I remembered that and had it brought from home and touched that on my mom’s broken head, wished she left us without pain. Doctors had asked us to give her ‘ganga jal’ (water of the Ganges) per our ritual. Amit went to gangotri few days ago, and brought water from the gangotri. We gave her that, though she wasn't able to take that in. It was flowing from her stiff mouth. We started calling up people, and was deciding on which cremation ground to take her to. The next morning we got a call from the hospital and believe you me, we learnt that she was convalescing! Imagine brain hemorrhage! Amit and Nipa were awake the whole night at the hospital. I rushed in to know that although she was recovering she'd gone into coma. Doctors said it might take months for her to come out of it. After about an hour or so, Argha shouted in her ears, O dida! Dida! Cholo bari jabo (Hello Granny, come, let’s go home!)…and the miracle which had begun continued...within a minute my mom’s right eye opened for a second and closed. Vigilant doctors were surprised with literally eggs on their faces. They said they had never witnessed something as strange as this before! What they did after that was remarkable and unheard of Unto! They got an ear phone and asked Argha, Arka, and Titli to call out Dida, dida, and only dida as loudly as they could! Desperate grand-children did a pretty good job Unto!

-  So what happened?

-  Well, well, well, within a couple of hours she recovered and we brought her home…and now she’s up and about! That’s what happened. Doctors say it’s a miracle. Though she has a huge mark in her head…that will take time to heal, but she’s here with us!

-   Did you tell Mashima (that’s how bongs call their friends’ moms) you guys gave her gangajal?

-   No, are you mad? Anyway, happy birthday Unto!

-   Thank you for this wonderful birthday wish. You take care!

-  You too. 

word to word

word to word

Values, beliefs, ethics, principles are words,

Breathing through the nerves, hitting it round and again

For growth, profit, and bargain;

Of profiles and professions, of assets and possessions,

What travels commonly through the veins is grief.

Wonderful as the tailored flower, fruit and littlest leaf,

When two selves meet in a palace or on street

Fresh as the sweat drools for a treat;

Same is the lust and same the relief,

Then what is the seed, is it the diamond or the rice?

To those who are unlike we have ceased to be nice,

To clear it away all price is less

It has no brains, needs a heart without mess;

For us it is to search as we grow in our worlds,

Feelings warm that hide behind those frozen words!

Step by step

Step by step

Your feet remind me of my defeat,

Promised not to let them touch the ground,

Heard them tired working, running, walking around,

Garden threw up to a lonely meet.

Of how and what I couldn’t see,

Hurt you fell, and fell again,

Your belief still in the moon and rain,

Mesmerized a humming bee.

My poem if ever it gave a chance,

To clear away the core grievance,

Feet so meant to sing in dance,

Mind could take a step advance.

No bar

It seemed everyone knew it was not going to work,

Except us

Yes nevertheless.

Now threads are tearing in order

We see us so like others,

More or less

How has the divide been stronger than dividing the pain?

The profit power and all the ruling brain,

Meaningless – nevertheless.

We failed to remain with our other

Beside, failed as countries as neighbors

Pushed aside, yet in the blue firmament

Couples like us

Still talk of their feat, their achievement!

No ground to stretch our hand,

Up in arms to shoot the breathing air,

Waves of friendship ash in the sand,

Enemies come out in dancing despair.

Different we are on a raging ridge

Neighbors are we on a hanging bridge.

Land and sand, on which we grew,

Are leaving past we hold so true.

If only for us we act and think,

Perhaps to feel the missing link!

sacred words are not scared

if the word means surrender
i don't know
if the word means peace so tender
i am at ease it is to show
if the word means self perfection to render
i have no gumption high or low

words that are crying day and night
are shelved had lost the missing sight
words that could build the world tired and bored
are in the woods between the knife and the sword

who is to surrender who is to yield
if there is no one around none in the field
what we see out there is not true not true
words will show the way to me them and you

landing on the mind

I was walking in my mind

When the outside was clear with facts,

Didn’t even know was walking fast or slow

If sessions going on were short or long;

I had to be right to be so correctly wrong,

Feelings played on words hurt and cracked,

The past and more of past a glass of island.

I was outside but wasn’t much there

A little shake or two, took me unaware,

The laughter and the cry was the same as any guy

Living long ago with nowhere to fly;

The walks became long with no one along,

Breathing in and out yet refusing the time,

Bygones flashed like a lasting childhood crime!

With no structured line hollowed and malign,

It went on and on and on,

Facts so bored forlorn.

I heard the sound of dew

In early morning lake

The walks so silly flew

And washed inside so fake.

Sure it didn’t stay for long

Calendar back again, the walk ran in even strong,

Not willing to leave grounded on the floor

I tried to mop it clean from the bottom to the core;

It’s such a daunting task have no one for to ask,

Everyone’s in the game with a splendid pretty mask,

Huh there we are the same, are we not the same!

The name inside is not erring any shame,

Being in this game of cleaning time inside,

Outside’s mystery free and without any pride.

Return

I am into you,

I say things not experienced,

About someone or something not witnessed;

With eyes of someone just unknown,

The snowy brain in the meadows blown,

The language I never speak,

The beliefs I never seek.

                               

Sailing on the sea or driving down the lane

The turn makes a sense yet so much insane.

I am with you,

I write things you did,

The spine of self, broken splendid;

No parents, no foods, no language of me,

Dancing are others’ songs of agony ecstasy,

I write about flowers and trees,

I haven’t smelt or felt their breeze.

The scratch in the frame appears and creates

Song, right or wrong, fascinates and forgets.

King

Duncan killed, could not make him the king;

The murdered sleep unable to sing,

Dhritarastra blind, urged the brothers to fight;

The drudgery within lost the lasting pretty sight.

Of what use are these players, acting out the death;

Agonies of hatred with thoughtless length and breadth,

Hunger for anger, where in fact there is none;

Ground oozing lives that poem into fun.

Writers write to them, and talkers go on and on;

Action hides in us, when the king’s suddenly born,

Killing the wars in us, all we need to do;

Losing it on stage, winning it anew.

Entitled

A name is just a name,

A style anybody’s style;

Call a namesake,

Mirror falls on the ground,faking a cracking sound;

A set of broken beliefs pretending the wooden shelf,

Of what it is known when all a part of self.

Words are here to fail, lie and confuse,

Falter every time, of little or no use;

The patient page is yearning to sleep,

With all names and styles,been guarding the sheep;

In sameness, difference steals a place,

Desperate show in the blank resides a space.

Shameless rootless root that did not break the gene,

Names, actions of a kind can a style imagine.