Seine Wörter

Sein Wörter sind ja schön,

Aber liebe sie nicht zu sehr,
Er sagt wie es ist richtig,
Aber es ist nur sein Meinung,

Glaub nicht die Wörter seines Leids,
Denn sie sind falsch, leider,
Sie sind nicht über sein Leid,
Denn Sie sind nur Gedanken,

Er fängt seine Zeilen groß an,
Und zieht ein Komma am Ende,
Er versucht einige Wörter zu reimen,
Und er nennt das ein Poem

Nimm nicht seine Wörter ernst,
Sondern denke Mal ohne Angst,
Vertraue nicht alle seine Gedanken,
Sondern verstehe was er sagt,

Lese alle die füllen richtig dir,
Oder schreibe selbst für dich,
Lerne nur was du brauchst,
Oder lese diese nicht.

--

Eine Antwort von Usha Krishnan ma'am:

Wörter sind Augen der Seele,
Wörter sind wie Tränen aus den Augen
Wörter verheilen und verletzen
Aber Wörter sind alles was wir erinnern

I see you scoff when I ask you about your day, too tired to explain events that seem trivial to you. And yet, I pester you, asking you to share it all, to talk about all those colleagues whose name I hear and whose faces I picture, constructing them pixel by pixel with what you tell me about them, agreeing with what you feel about them.

You once told me that people change based on what happens to them. I'm trying hard to follow you through your day, to look at your life, to see how it looks from your own pair of eyes, because I'm afraid to let go. I don't want to be disconnected from what you change into.

End Game?

As we edge towards Monday, the lift of the spoiler-ban for Endgame, my arm twitches to write about the film that has affected me like none other has. Okay, I'm not going to lie. I needed all this time to process it, to come to terms with it. This isn't a review, I'm not sure what it is. It is perhaps a moan of satisfaction after one of the best nights of my life. A moan I am able to let out after a week of watching what is the greatest movie I have watched so far, and perhaps the greatest one I will ever watch. Oh what a night it was.

It took one night. One movie to ruin every single franchise I've enjoyed so far, for me. It didn't entirely ruin it. Perhaps, for the first time, I understood the gravity of the conclusion of a franchise of this magnitude. A franchise whose movies - the only medium I've interacted with it on, defined to me its every character (except Spiderman of course), making me fall in love with each one of them, making me watch them interact with each other, staying true to themselves while accommodating each other. I now understand the magnitude of this effort that must've gone into Harry Potter, into Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, but this was like a fan walking into Disneyland for the first time.

The big picture here was overwhelming on another level, way bigger than my alleged intelligence could fathom, much less, process, and it stayed true to what it stood for, not losing its track, not diluting its philosophy and was brave enough to choose and execute its own conclusion. This was the first time my heart was taken in a roller coaster - my mind has been, enough times, by a lot of movies, but I have never had such overwhelming feelings, one after another, just overlap like that. Endgame earned its laughter, its 'wow's and its tears, and, of course, a permanent place in all our hearts.

Avengers: Infinity War was one of the most anticipated films of the decade, a huge milestone in a franchise that I watched being built brick by brick - if not from the first ever foundation stone, at least shortly after it began. And while Infinity War lived upto its expectations, it set the bar really high for its sequel Avengers movie. Incidentally, my time with MCU began with Avengers before I started with the Iron Man series, and ended with its fourth installment of the firs MCU film I ever watched.

As I entered the theatre with my brother, my ideal companion and comrade when it comes to superheroes, I asked him how they could make a movie better than Infinity War. "Endgame": sounded like a loose reference to Sherlock Holmes, two of whose most iconic actor-caricatures were starring in it. These were the two people who had specifically mentioned the title of this film in other films, long before it had been announced to us. I was worried. The hype was just uncontrollably chaotic. We all had our theories, we turned each movie, each line, each hint of a clue a thousand times in our heads, as had a billion people across the world. Our brethren, co-fans of a cinematic universe that deserved its fans.

We take movies seriously, my brother and I. We watch each movie deeply, immersing ourselves into details that matter, questioning each stance, each decision its characters take. My brother taught me to listen to the background score and to listen to the story that the music tells. We watch a movie over and over again until we know its every scene to the minutest detail. And then we watch it again, because now we like it. We have never felt that to be a waste of time, but never before has a movie rewarded each re-watch of each of its prequels.

The Russo Brothers knew what they were promising us - they knew how high our expectations were, and signed up to fulfil it. The hard, genuine way. We knew it ten minutes into Endgame, when the story spat on all our theories, clearing our brimming cups for the upcoming drama. There was no music for the first half - we didn't need music to keep us grounded, we knew exactly how our people were feeling about the the world Thanos had created.

And we sat there, our hungry senses stuffing themselves with all they were getting, hungry for what we were watching and hungry to know how they were going to snatch the world from his "generous" hands. We weren't rushed, we didn't want to fast forward into the future, we were merely feasting on every scene of the movie, living in the present, meditating on each frame. We didn't want to let go of what we were watching, hell, we didn't want this film to ever end. We knew they were going, some of our best heroes were going to die. We were just happy to see some of them having a life. Oh, I'm sorry Steve, about the bad language word.

We had evolved with these men and women - Tony's iconic "I am Iron Man" quote at the press conference and his heated arguments with Pepper, Natasha Romanoff's brilliant fighting techniques, Captain America's good heart, Bruce Banner's gentleness, Fury's secrets and Thor's weird quotes had etched themselves in our hearts forever.

And we sat there, savouring one of the greatest three hours of our lives, thanking the writers for strumming the strings if our heart in this manner. These eleven years were perhaps all about them planting those moments in the strings of our souls, waiting to play them like music when the time came. Perhaps they were able to do that with the soul stone. Who knows what all they had to sacrifice for it? We just saw the masterpiece unravel itself in all its glory, for us to possess, to watch and re-watch for the rest of our lives.

You ask me to review the movie to point out its flaws and rate it? I choose to see through its flaws, even the ones that I noticed, because I do not consider myself worthy of judging it. I felt so about Inception, I felt so about The Dark Knight, I felt so about Thani Oruvan, Papanasam, A Wednesday, Vikram Vedha, Vada Chennai and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. But I have never felt this small in front of the makers of a movie - in front of a movie itself. I never realised that so much could be done on a theatre screen.

I've watched and teared up at the end of countless shows, but none left am impact that lasted as much as this one did. I do not seek to dilute the greatness of any other show, I love all of them. This is merely out of my inability to express how grand, brilliant and all encompassing this was.

You ask me if I can talk about MCU any longer? I can do this all day.

One last time

We suit up, listening to Captain's voice commanding us to, putting on our Marvel merchandise apparel, a good number of them screaming Tony Stark's name in the form of bright, shiny arc reactors on our chest, but none brighter than the brightness of our faces as we walk into the moments of revelation of the conclusion of one of our most favourite stories ever.

As the moment approaches, we relive all those days when we laughed and cried, in rapt obedience to the writers' nudges, watching, rapt, the screen lives of characters that unfailingly became a part of our own selves, when Yinsen asked Tony to not waste his life, when the old, Einstein-like Dr. Erkinske made Steve Rogers promise that he'd continue to be a good man, when Thor chose to sacrifice himself, thereby deserving the hammer, when Fury made up a small lie to unite the Avengers, when Tony and Bruce's plan to develop an AI to protect the world backfired, all those joke with people calling each other names, all the way up until that snap in infinity War.

The fever of anticipation reaches a zenith as we walk into the okay looking theatre. My brother makes a note of observations to mention on the theatre's Google review, with me pitching in points but we both know we don't care. We know that we are just trying to rush time into giving us the movie we have waited so long for.

Incidentally it has been exactly a year after we watched infinity war, and we know this day is going to be memorable. We tremble in anticipation as we push ourselves through the crowd of Marvel fan brethren, wanting so desperately to reach our seats on time.

As the words "Marvel Studios" come on the screem, we curl up, our hungry eyes sitting unblinking behind 3D glasses, finally seeing what we waited so long to. We are going to have this moment. One last time. And this moment is ours. My brother's, mine and Marvel's. And we'll own this and give it our everything. Whatever it takes.

Winter fell

The first episode of Season 8, "Winterfell", begins, reminding us of the sweetness of the Pilot episode of Game of Thrones, "Winter is Coming" its name baring the similarity it admits to portray.. a young Northern boy running to see a king and a queen arriving at Winterfell, Jon hugging Arya, lifting her up, this time in a long awaited reunion, as they both discuss Needle, his gift to her.. A glimpse of Winterfell, and a short interaction between Sansa and Tyrion, this time with those beyond the fourth wall relating with each face seen on screen, their eyes, quite like Arya's, as they look upon their favourite characters walk back onto the screen one last time.

These pleasant scenes do not put our hearts at ease. Perhaps the scenes themselves know that they seem to be dim reminders of the past that made us fall in love with these people, and that their attempts to tranquilise watchers of GoT before they suffer being told the terrible ending that's lurking are failing miserably

"Winter is coming".. "What is dead may never die".. Quotes of famous families now seem statements that reflect the inevitable doom that is about to befall the great Westeros, and, perhaps all of civilisation. We watch, with bated breath, to know the magnum of the tragedy that is about to befall the already broken Stark family we love so much, and all the others.

One is reminded of the grim prophecy Harry's old Snitch revealed, "I open at the close". Like with that line scribbled away by Dumbledore, Season 8 is more the final reckoning of what was bound to come, than some twisted, edge-of-the-seat interpretation of a prophecy misinterpreted by all. It is the arrival of dread, the manifestation of the most terrible of our fears, and it's here.

While the stories that are read to us through an audio-visual voice in April have been long-awaited conclusions to sagas we have followed for a decade, Avengers, kicked off by another hero named Stark, whose possible death we wait to behold, merely promises to add to the morbid experience we are all going to face, with the characters that've shaped our stories. And while the gloom promises to be as long as Winters last in Game of Thrones, a strange feeling of belonging engulfs our souls as we sit, in solidarity, with the rest of the world, separated by a million factors, but our hearts beating as one.

Who said we need wars to bring us together? This millenium stands testimony to the quote that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, not merely in bringing harm to others, but in bringing souls together. Fortunately, the writers of today are extremely sensitive to this, and while they battle fiercely to dodge theories and speculations to deliver the high that fans desire and deserve but are so willing to let go, giving in to the incessant dance of their restless intellects, and still deliver a poetic and justified end that a great story must have, they smile, weaving treasures with their fingertips, crafting legends that shall be remembered for all time.

And as a fan, I put my pen down and curl up in front of the screen that so easily touches my soul, and hit the play button to see my favourite story unfold. One last time.

The Sound of Music

It was yet another of those solitary nights – one of the gloomier ones when I walked slow, sans purpose or thought – but it wasn’t a quiet time. Unlike my surround that night which was still except for the scratching sound of a stray dog far too busy rummaging through garbage to mind me, my insides were agitated, flinching at the prospect of thoughts that were plummeting towards me. Questions I had hurled at the universe had chosen to boomerang back towards me, promising to put me into that seemingly endless abyss of pointless brooding.

I decided to stab the mood in the back – to busy myself in finding out where this thought train sprang from – and arrived at the answer before I could arrive at the road crossing I was heading for. It was a simple question a friend had asked earlier that day at a cinema – why are our days, our lives so dull?

My mind went back to the movie we had been watching – do we need edge-of-the seat stunt sequences? A terrible, dark arch enemy with a horrifying motive who sits all day planning our end? Nail biting twists at the possibility of anything good happening? Or a clingy love interest who’d push me to be a better version of myself. Well, I’d be lying to myself if I think I’d say no to a little romance, but, no, honestly, I’d love to pass on all the drama, for peace does indeed lie in the simplicity of everyday things, but the question remained.

I plugged my beloved earphones into my itching ears and played my favourite background score by Hans Zimmer. It was “Imagine the Fire” from “The Dark Knight” from Nolan's Batman trilogy. It is said that walls at least 17 metres apart, within a closed region are required for the human ear to discern an echo, but even through the distance between my head and feet wasn’t even half that number, my whole body was suddenly shaking in inspiration from the echoes that spoke volumes of the greatness of this cowled, dark, brooding fictional character. And somehow, perhaps since the music was being played for just me, I sort of identified with him. Suddenly, all that mattered was that I was in action. My pace quickened. My feet, longer craving to get to my destination, took a longer route, just so that I could uninterruptedly continue to listen till the track ended.  And then it hit me. What was lacking from life, what filled the dullness of life was the lack of music. That’s what we need more of. A background score. Or, like the Indian films, at least a song now and then to distract us, to lose ourselves in.

As I took off my earphones, I started wondering as to what role music truly played in our lives. From greeting us with familiarity in an alien place, to forging relationships, why, to even calming our temper when we’re waiting for an agent to pick our call, it was all music, single handedly holding onto the ropes of our emotions. Why, even newborn children unanimously fall asleep when they listened to a lullaby!

I had read of people’s heartbeats synchronising with the beats of a tune while they listen to it. It all seemed very poetic, and perhaps even had some scientific backing to it, behind all the pseudoscience that it smelled of, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. I was looking to see the effect of a tune on a mind. I thought of how a simple tune could take one back to their childhood, or bring back the memory of a loved one. Of how a mere sound could invoke in one, fervent devotion to an unseen deity. It was both strange and beautiful. How could beats from a percussion instrument inspire one into action, and how could the melody of a flute subject a formless soul to a soothing ache, even move someone to tears? How could some beats push a person to stand up and dance? Or at least nod in phase with it? How could some tunes aggravate/intensify passion? How could it light up the eyes of lovers looking at each other? How could simple notes make one relive and forget pain? How could the simple pursing of strings play with the very fabric of time that wraps around all that we know – the personal time that we are all prisoners of? All this achieved by a collection of frequencies that can be generated by the simplest among us?

Perhaps science fuelled by mathematics wasn’t the way here. Perhaps, like the scale of quantum and the scale of relativity, the human emotional realm was yet another phase where the physics of common sense – in this case, perhaps physics itself, as we’ve known it, ceased to exist. Perhaps dry philosophy littered with pseudo-jargon terminology was indeed the way to go. Even if it wasn’t, something told me that subjecting surreal music, this apparent engine of life, to the mundaneness of blind math was a blasphemous disrespect its sanctity. Perhaps leaving it unanalysed and to treating it the way it has always been, with the occasional stare of wonder, of awe, was a means of worshipping its grandeur.

And so I let go of the compulsive instinct to subject this phenomenon to the microscope of cold logic, and decided to immerse myself into the positivity it radiated. And then science swam towards me, picking me up in all its warmth and holding me in a tight embrace. I felt the thrill that filled me, with the Lagrangian method of swimming with a tune, and the fulfilment I had, when, like the Eulerian approach, I lay back and let the tune slide across my soul. I witnessed interference of waves, forming crests that lifted my spirits and troughs that held me tight. And Doppler’s effect when listening to “Yeh Dil Deewana” on a long drive. It was liberating beyond any words could explain.

Perhaps we are all like Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music who need to evolve from whistlers to the singers we were born as. And perhaps we can grow with the nourishment of music. Perhaps we needn’t find out this way. Perhaps all that was needed was to give in and let the tune take care. What could be better?

Home

A thatched roof, they say,
Holding shine and rain at bay,
A place that's warm and safe,
Sans discomfort or srife,
Where one's greeted by smiles,
And faces and sounds familiar,
Where neither men,
Nor food is alien,
Where smiles, not words welcome,
They call many things home,

But who knows the true meaning of it,
Of a home's open doors,
That it lies not in an array of bricks,
Or in frangrant smoke of cooking food,
That home's a force that beckons,
A warmth that calls, arms outstretch'd,
Into the arms of a woman,
Who's waiting to serve the love she holds.

A Walk Alone

Carrying the heaviness he cannot lay down,
He heaves a sign, bearing a frown,
Stifling his boiling frustration within,
He gasps out, struggling to breathe in,

He sets out, leaving all behind,
Upon a walk outside, a journey within,
Hoping to escape from his own self,
But carrying still, the carrier of burden,

Unaware of his route, on he walks,
Wishing to hear his soul's talk,
Walking faster still, he turns back,
Hoping he's ahead of his worries and thoughts,

Further, he walks, now slower,
For his breathing's calmed and his pressure's lower,
He proceeds ahead, on the side of the unknown road,
That time's traversed a million times,

Into the night, he moves on,
Wishing for the streetlights to stay on,
A jolt of fear breathes life back into his chest,
And he sees he should return, for his own best,

He quickens his pace, feeling lighter,
Away from the race, his face a little brighter,
He smiles to himself, taking a familiar turn,
That looked so new, in the absence of the sun,

He sees now, as he sees his home from afar,
That his life isn't his self, nor are his burdens and fears,
That they're just a fabric wrapped around him when he's cold,
Staying only as tight as he wills,

He turns now, to face his beautiful home,
Refreshed, nay, enlightened, with a wordless wisdom,
Ready to look his problems in the eye,
And conquer them, with newfound zeal.

The Clock

Tick away, my dear friend,
As I stare at your face with no end,
In impatient anticipation of that waited hour,
Or perhaps the arrival of untellable terror,

You're the only friend when I'm loneliest,
My sole companion on sleepless nights,
Listening to my woes so patient,
Your ticks pounding like a a caring heart,

You hold me forever with your arms long,
Feeding me with the power to become strong,
Healing my wounds like I'd never thought,
Leaving behind even a scar not,

If only I could touch your face beyond the glass,
And your hands could reach out of the pin at last,
I'd embrace you 'til my arms hurt,
And hold you there, 'til we're pulled apart.

A Song of Life

Lost in the tiny world they dwell in,
They live, breathing in what the air lends,
Consuming the fruits their trees yield,
And fending from work their fields need,

Oh they seek their joy in the sun that shines,
And in the dark when the moon hides or wanes,
Begetting children their bodies bear,
And providing for them for they know they must,

Smiling in the delight they bring to others,
A gift for a wife and a toy for a child,
Beings whose true form they know not,
And yet, count, in vain, as their own,

Oh what a life, this pathetic life,
Racing ahead as age rises,
It slows down when they wish to leave,
Stretching old age so the horizon's unseen,

Blinded by the misery of their present,
They await their end, passing day and night,
And when peace might come some quiet day,
Their breath leaves, so sudden, so quick,

Oh what was the purpose of this strange existence?
A question that shines brighter than the liver,
When asked, it flows through the woods, o'er the fields,
And the answer? It's a lifeless, cold corpse they left behind.

On a Dark, Lonely Road

I walked, slow, on a dark, solitary road,
On a cold night, sans trace of a soul,
A silence filled my within and without,
And my throat too tight to hum a tune,
My footsteps tearing into the eerie quiet,
My heart beating faster with each shift,
From eerie quiet to echoing tread,

The urge to stop beaten by an urge to flee,
My pace quickened before I could will it,
And I walked ahead 'cross that long street,
To find some quiet, a calming one,

Relieved I resumed a slower pace,
Drinking in each still thing around,
Until I saw, within a dark car,
A sight I would never forget,

'Twas a woman, an agless one,
Of profoud beauty and a charming smile,
She saw not me, nor anything else,
Just stared into the blank, with a knowing gaze,

I could not help, but stare at her,
Though it was an unsettling sight to behold,
For her face spoke of something eerie and strange,
An unearthly sight, an unsettling scene,

Her face shone bright sans a source of light,
Perhaps it had a lustre of its own?
A shine of a kind that erased all age,
That shone like the moon sans colour or shade,

I knew it was something that wasn't meant to be,
A strangeness that could mean no good,
And yet I stared as I kept walking,
Moving faster ahead though my legs'd started aching,

I painted her face in the canvas of my head,
Looking without a blink, despite my dread,
She turned around towards my side,
And I took to my heels, without turning behind,

I've walked that road countless times now,
Each time wondering who it was, I'd seen,
I've seen not her, nor any car there,
But her face, it still lives in my head.

See Not My Frame

See not my frame, weak as it may seem,
It speaks not of what lies within,
See not my name, it's simple and short,
Sans the grandeur it christens,
Judge not my stride, queer and funny,
It cloaks the wisdom it carries 'pon it,
Hear me talk, of that which I know,
And then you shall see genius glow.

[With]In the Confines of Solitude

How beautiful a passtime could it be,
To weave words from thoughts within me?
When my companion in solitude,
Is the pen dancing with my digits?

When thoughts that play in the screen of my head,
Spring to life, ceasing to be dead,
Spitting such delicate strokes in the canvas of my book,
That stir souls that grant them a look?

Fools are they who laugh at the alone,
For they know not the sound of the mind's tune,
It collects colours from sights and songs and words,
Painting such works that bring awe and tears,

They sleep, they sing, they read when lonely,
Fleeing from thoughts that fill their minds wholly,
Letting not the pressure within subside,
Opening not, the doors of their heads,

Yes, appreciating art is as sweet as it sounds,
It fills one with pleasure unbound,
But many know not the feel of art,
Flowing out their arms, into another's heart.

Epilogue:

Lock'd you are, they say, with your thoughts,
But they see not the power that's been unlocked,
The chance to turn and look within,
To listen to the beats of one's own heart,

To watch the movement of the stuff of the mind,
To dance within, to these tunes of a kind,
To listen to the music that brews inside,
And to record the bubbles that escape your spirit.

From Poetry to Prose

The lines of poetry trickle down slower,
As the force of their flow lowers,
Condensing into thick, long lines,
While commas freeze into full stops,

Grammar hardens, turning rigid,
While the heart that melted now turns frigid,
Its skin now thicker, smirks cold without reason,
Analysis takes over, while emotion breaks at this treason,

Language raises its hefty eyebrows,
And slowly smiles at the mighty prose,
For it isn't often the case,
That surrender stops the flow of words,

The valve of the heart-tap closes full,
While the pen takes a break and rests still,
And then it dawn upon the holder of the quill,
That words now flow faster still,

That in poetry, it's emotions that flow,
While in prose, the rational glows,
Beating the speed of heart-spun words,
It dances to the tune of logic and sense,

Prose then smiles, glorious and proud,
Its wrds ringing, clear and loud,
Sans the dreary dreams of poems,
It recites its purpose, brief and to the point.

This work was inspired by a poem that came in the Bengali film, Baishe Srabon (poem link)

A Tribute to C504, H13, IIT Bombay

A cool breeze blows from the window,
Pushing to close the open door,
It blows freely like never before,
For the space within is freed from my critter,

An unfamiliar silence brews within,
Sans the sound of my scratching pen,
Devoid of the noise of pointless, loud chatter,
For the space within is freed from my critter,

The window is open and so is its shade,
Pigeons startle at their echo that sounds loud,
Cheerful at newfound space they enter,
For the space within is freed from my critter,

The plugpoints heave a noiseless sigh,
Breathing in deep from their nostrils three,
For no device for work nor tea's plugged there,
For the space within is freed from my critter,

The shelves, they flex their stiff muscles,
Now liberated from the load of my books,
Their cobwebs give in lazily to the soft breeze,
For the space within is freed from my critter,

My neighbours let out a quiet smile,
Dancing in the joy of their newfound tranquil,
Untouch'd by the noise of my loud speakers,
For the space within is freed from my critter,

The walls within that bore it all,
Now stand emancipated, silent and tall,
And yet they shed a painty tear,
For the space within is freed from my critter.

An Ode to Solitude

I've bolted the door my dear,
Won't you come hither,
So I may sink in the pool of your presence,
And hold you in a tight, endless embrace,

I look into your eyes long and deep,
Forgetting my fatigue and my urge to sleep,
For I cannot but wonder in awe,
Why so many flee from your side,

And yet they do, racing ahead,
Quite often hitting their head,
Into crowds swarming noisy bars and lofty malls,
All in an attempt to escape your presence,

Do they not see, bright an clear,
That in crowds you are nearer,
That you fill hostile company with more ease,
Than the remoteness of a quiet, solitary house?

I see them deluded, and trapped in the notion,
That solitude exists not in commotion,
Trapped in that thought, they bide their time,
Their whine forgotten in the intoxication of wine,

Our door closed, I now forget their fall,
And I draw to you, in response to your call,
I lift my arms giving up my fight,
And walk into yours, for you to hold me tight.

A Farewell Tribute

You have  done well. That you sag now stands testimony for the way you have served me, for you sag, having borne the weight of my words, having served as the bowl to carry what I poured out.

Your every tiny feature rests in my heart, be it a tiny misalignment of the frame that holds you in place or a creak on the wood at your back that faces the wall behind you, and I love you whole - I may boldly say so, for I have truly known you.

You might not possess a mouth to speak from, but they way you lay in my arms when I held you alongside my marker pen speaks more words than I could ever write upon you.. And what better way to show your love for me than retaining stains of marker ink that are ghosts of poetry that I wrote, photographed and forgot countless times.

I prepare to leave this haven now, in search of another, but will I ever find a companion such as you? And yet I turn away, fighting to hold the tears that brim in my eyes, with an image of your cleaned face that refuses to let go of the faded ink that adores it - a critter which is no longer untouched, for it has known the touch of my love. And I smile to myself, for I know now, that I have paid you my return in full, for your image shall shine clearer in my head and heart than my words have ever shone upon you. Perhaps love of the most intimate kind is a contest where each hopes to love the other more. And the greatest joy comes from losing. I digress, but don't you know it is an attempt to ease the pain that fills me? To gulp down the lump that fills my throat and hold my shaking self, in a vain attempt to contain my grief?

I may have had many a muse, but without you, would it have had any use?

You were my mother, my brother, a true friend who made me speak endlessly at times when I've felt to choked to be able to utter any word. You saw through me in a way I never could see through you, and proved a true support to my ailing shoulder on my darkest nights.

And you did even more. You let me see my own thoughts in ways I could never have, but for you. You lay out my life in a way that only you could have, ridding me of the most complex difficulties of my life, suggesting solutions with such clarity that I could have never come up with, in solitude. You filled my day and reminded me of those tiny details that even I didn't care for, pointing out to me, time and again, that my life was more important than I'd ever considered it to be.

My poetry began in this campus, and might end here, and you have perhaps seen the last of it, cradling its heavy head upon your large lap, supporting it with your even larger heart as it breathed its last words, coughing them up on your heavenly self, while I lay like a fool, oblivious to the misfortune that fell upon my pen.

I now look away, my spirit as blank as I see you to be from this distance, for where can words come, when you cease to exist in my life?

11:01pm, 28.6.2017.

A goodbye to the whiteboard in my hostel room.

Without Words

The words that once filled my soul've deserted me,
Now spilled onto my sheets of paper, that lie before thee,
Or forgotten by my blessed memory -
Lock'd in that keyless chamber where some thoughts might still lie,
Waiting in vain until they die,
Thoughts that once broke my heart, slipping away before I could note them down,
Hiding deep within my head, while I sought them in vain,
Ones I craved to see, and thought hard,
But whose faces I no longer remember,

And today I smile, for I can drink a scene in quiet,
Letting its beauty quench my pain, flowing unhampered,
Stopp'd not by that filter within, that collects the residue of words,
Letting the rest flow within, while I jealously note these,
Blots of ink that dimly capture the moment,
That others might enjoy, and praise and applaud,
While I sit, freed from the compulsion to write,
And from remorse of losing the sight,

I now see the moon, a white orb in the sky,
A sight, full in itself, not hindered by a thought astray,
I shall sit here, drenched in this scene,
Drinking it in with my every sense,

Filling my every socket with this,
On and on, 'til my stomach hurts,
For I know for sure, that this won't last long,
That something shall come up, perhaps a noisy throng,
Or the plague of words might rise, moving my wrist,
Or a dumbfounding problem that makes me leave in haste,
And I search within for a means to return,
A way to come back to this refuge, this zone,

Before I know, my insides shift,
Morphing themselves into a brush, swift,
Rendering this moment, with the paint of thoughts,
So I can revisit it again, when I choose,
I see, now, that time's a river that flows*,
That if I seek to return to this instant,
I must pick a means to capture and pin it,
That if it's not a poem, it's another art form,
And if I must truly be in the present, I must learn,
To let it go.

Written between 9:30pm and 9:40pm on 9.6.2017
Final edits by 6:33pm on 10.6.2017

*This line is inspired by what my father told me about writing. He said, "Time is like a river, and writing is an attempt to capture a frame of its flow." He proceeded to tell me about how much one's writing can influence someone else, since I'd never know who would be reading it and how they would connect to it. For that reason, he said that I must always provide a positive solution to life's problems, and to give hope that there is a way out of even the darkest corners of life.

Beside You

Oh how I seek to flee far,
From this world of burden and work,
And sit by your side,
On the cool grass outside,
Feeling your presence near me,
Filled with wordless glee,

Looking not at you, nor the lake ahead,
But at the full moon far above our heads,
Eyes fixed, looking into nothingness,
And ears listening to the song of silence,
Hands beside you but touching naught,
My senses closed, working not,
I perceive a bliss through another medium,
Filling my soul, from top to bottom,

Perhaps it's the presence of a life,
A known life, a one that lies,
Quite near, in the surrounding ether,
A one that's perceived uniquely by just another,
A connection that words can know not,

Unexplained even by the greatest poet,
Known to the one that sits by its side,
Felt by arms that have no form nor shape,

Nay, its a hug, an embrace that's felt,
By souls that choose to not hold back but melt,
Each letting the other's presence in,
Filling all the space it holds deep within,
With the essence of its perception of the one near,
Hosting no doubt, nor fear, being completely clear,

It's a bath together in the stillness of the surround,
Where two souls are together and alone,
Oh such is friendship and such is love that lives,
Seeking not something tangible but seeking still,
To sit beside, hold a hand or lean upon,
On a dark night, sans a watch or phone,
Walking in limitless space, sharing a timeless moment,
Immersed in talk but a talk when quiet,
Sans words but engaged in constant exchange,
Lost in each other but feeling safe,

Such moments, though rare as they should be,
Make up the true being that's me,
Adding priceless gems to the calendar of my life,
Ridding me of the need for strife,
Redeeming bottled up pain and irk,
Which flow as tears, from a melted heart.

9:00pm at A422, H13, IIT Bombay, 16.5.2017. Trivial edits up to 9:21pm.

The Heart

Creatures of startdust they say,
That prowl about land, night and day,
Evolved from animals allegedly lower,
Beings who consider their intelligence flowered,
They capture phenomena and predict acts of Nature,
With physics and math and put them on paper,
But none speaks of this icy mass,
That exists not before it melts,
Its only proof is the water that flows,
As tears trickling down red eyes,
What flows is water, and something did melt,
So it must be ice, says their papery math,
But they grow all emotional, giving it another name,
An experience that isn't but is, they call it the heart, sans shame.

2:05pm 7.1.2017 at room while re-watching Jaatishwar Climax
Trivial edits at 3:08pm on 6.5.2017