The house of words

Through the many doored house
My song walks through,
One
door
at
a
time

It knocks on an ivory door
and opens it with laughter
A word comes out of it
Pleasure.

It knocks on a silver door
and opens it with a smile
A word comes out of it
Wisdom.

It knocks on a sandalwood door
and opens it with pride
A word comes out of it
Elixir

It knocks on a golden door
and opens it with silence
A word comes out of it
Truth

It knocks on a glass door
and opens it with tears
A word comes out of it
Love

It stands in front of an open door
Laden with all the words
No word comes out
No
word

The unstrung bow

Timid thoughts, do not be afraid of me. I am a poet. - Stray Birds, Tagore

These silent thoughts,
ruffling behind my closed eyes
like pretty feet
running behind closed doors...

Where do they go?
Whence do they come
What do they say
in their footsteps of silence?

How do they stand
and stare at the sky,
while i scratch my head
in the grind of the night

How do they dream
of dreams and sleep,
while i stroll along
listening to the street lamps

How do they run
over the hills; under the dale,
while my feet stay
grounded to the clay

How do they speed
arrows to an unknown target,
while my mind lies
an unused bow

Arrows have sped.
The bow lies on the ground.

The valley of dreams

Illusions are sometimes the most safest of refuges. A refuge which we would never move, if only reality did not pull us away, like an angry mother pulling a child away from the delicious earth. Like a play acted out behind closed curtains, they unfurl, the dreams...in different colours - red passion, white love, saffron games, violet fears. And in all those dreams, there is a single thread. The crystal thread of hope. Hope of a union, a touch, a look. Hope of you.

Perhaps these dreams are mere aching of the limbs; chemicals in the veins fuming at their inability to vent. Perhaps these dreams...are mere aching of the heart. Emotions raging through like a kid lost in the fair. Or, perhaps these dreams are mere aching of a soul. The thirst of the simple joy that one finds in the unspoken word. Perhaps, these dreams and the pain of separation can be explained. But then, the chirping of the sparrows, too could be explained.

Love is an enchanted forest. Today I have lost my way in the chasm of separation. With closed eyes I hear, the murmur of dreams, a stream not faraway. Sometimes, in these dreams, I look back. I see the distance that spans dream and reality. It is the width of an eyelid, but what a chasm lies between the two. It is two inches between the hills of hope and death, but if the valley stretches to infinity under them, would you jump?

Dedicated to JAB and the Pied Piper of Hamlin!!

Where is this chap?
Not seen him no sign
Is this what you wonder?
Then let me tell you tender

Off I'm gone
off to a wedding
And I got no cause to whine
Cause the wedding is but mine

So if you feel like it
and if you feel so good
Then what I would suggest
is that you become my guest

10th June 2007, Seshadri Mahal Coimbatore
1st July 2007, Belson Taj Hotel Coimbatore

Born again...

I was pretty young when I began this particular journey. Almost underage, for something like this. I remember almost all incidents that pushed my life in a particular direction. But this one I can never recall.

But it is this that made me write, write truly and passionately. It is this that made my life living. It is this that burned as the fire in my soul. A simple philosophy, an ideal, not entirely mine. Borrowed, a bit from Bharathiyar, a bit from Guna, a bit from here and a bit from there. But it has now become mine.

It was not easy following this path. I have never got a word of encouragement - for everything else that I tried, I have received some encouragement, but for this, there has been nothing but dissent. Friends, foes, relatives, everybody. Even from those who were once the idols in this journey.

To love a woman, to love and worship Her. To hold Her as the living Goddess, the muse who will grant the boon of immortality. To find one, who shall fulfill the prophecy in the words 'kAthal manaiviyE sakthi kaNdIr kadavuL nilai avaLal eythal vENdum'.

It seemed a simple quest - most of my close friends corroborated it. Women after all want to be a muse, want to belong to a man who has passion. But then it wasn't that easy.

My wrong decisions, failures, disappointments were many, I will say unashamedly. I've made decision that were blatantly wrong. There were some that seemed like the morning sunshine before they turned dismal. Rudeness, indifference, warm and sad denials, heartless desertions...all of it. Of course it is not like I'm some honourable martyr either. I too have for my share played with hearts, been wicked, stony. After all its a full circle.

And every time I was broken and beaten, I heard the same ideas. "Why do you keep getting hurt?" "No woman is worth so much." "Your parents will find you a nice pretty girl anyways." "Maybe you are not cut out for it..." Sometimes sympathetic, sometimes indignant, sometime angry, sometimes sinister. I never could answer any of them. I listened as if I agreed and in a few months, it was the same old story again.

And then, one day, I had to travel, to Hyderabad, a pilgrimage. Even on the eve of that day, I heard the same old lines. "You should stay away from women, you tend to get hurt invariably. I'm telling you its nothing very great...in a woman." But I walked on.

And I never looked back. Today I can stand here, from this blog and say to each one of my friends, who with whatever intentions dissuaded me and to the few who are still skeptical - "I believed and was rewarded. and I shall be rewarded even more." Even as the bhattar's words were made true by Abhirami the night She threw Her ear-ring into the skies, my own faith shines true as the full moon on a new moon night. Defying logic and convention. Even as the rules were bent that day because of Her infinite love, so they are bent today.

For what I hold in my heart today is not a precious gem, but a pure and simple drop of the rain, the smell of the fresh earth, the life of the wild breeze, the light of a brazen sun. A single drop of life, fashioned by chance, crafted by time into a fire that burns in me, keeping me alive. What I hold in my heart today is not the stony, stiff, fixed idols that now lie broken in their false temples, but the Goddess of dust and sand and rain and life. A true Goddess, who does not sit in Her high throne, but instead dances and plays and sings and frolics. A Goddess who has no false bearing or grace but laughs at Her own faults and creates a new world of shimmering joy everyday.

Now I bow to you, my Goddess, my love. I offer to you all my thoughts, my heart, my life, my soul and blood in a single kiss that shall stretch from the beginning of time to eternity. I offer to you all that I have in this single simple kiss that is pure as a dew and is filled with nothing but the sunshine of your love. I seek no more knowledge, no more wisdom. I do not seek words or art or the ways of the wise. I seek no more absolution, no teacher, no path, no truth. For I have gained you now and here...and I shall gain you with every living moment of mine.

Life

Tiny plant in pot
Has two new yellow flowers
And dead leaves below.

P.S. First post from Hyderabad! :)

Varali

Dark convoluted locks reaching out like night's fingers. That is how she first appears. Utterly dark, dark like the shadow of a moonless night. Only hair, copious waves of it. They screech against the void like dark nails against a darker board. At the same time, the cascade of locks echoes the melody of a violent sea...noiselessly.

And then, a gentle hum, a drone of the bee - the kind of bee that occupied the imagination of Appar[1] and the Lord Sundareshwarar Himself [2]. A gentle hum, of a bee that is seeking the honey.

And then in a flash, the locks fall back and her face breaks out like a thousand suns. Its the face of a queen, a regal face with a royal nose. Her smile is like twin serpents - coiled in mercy and contempt at the same time. The forehead bears a mark, a dark crimson circle. It’s a spiral, the dark locks, then the refulgent face and then the dark kungumam. She mesmerizes, not by her living features but by the dead signs.

The hum again. Here the bee is a queen drinking from the divine lotus; there a dancer giving life to an imaginary bee with her hands and eyes. The hum dances wildly, one feet grounded in reality, the other raised to illusion. And yet, the grounded feet seem to hover and the raised feet firmly ensconced in the sky.

The lips now come to the center stage. They shine in the hypnotizing red of a bride's hand with too much marudhAni. Look now, they are repulsive, repulsive because of the desire that is worn ostentatiously. Now shut and open your eyes, they draw you, with their regal command to do their bidding.

The bee rises now, the queen bee. The queen of the honey bees, the dark ill-tempered blackbee. Say it now, slowly, roll your tongue over the words - karuvaNdu, ka-ru-vaNdu, an involuntary quiver just as you say vaNdu. That is how the queen rises, from the eyes of the brilliant face with a quiver when you least expect it.

She flutters near the eyelashes, takes a fancy to the dark locks and merges with them before being enticed by the dark lips. There is a quiver again, this time the quiver of desire, a tremble as the blood rushes through her body. In one flutter, before you could blink your eyes, she lands on the lip.

Then there is a gentle sigh, a sigh of relief, of satisfaction. And then, after she has been satiated, she unfurls her thin proboscis to drink the nectar. The queen bee drinking nectar from the lips of the queen... reality filling its void with illusion.

She can be seen here.

(Corrected after Viji's comment)

She can be seen here.

[1] - mAsil vInaiyum mAlai mathiyamum/vIsu thenRalum vInggiLavEnilum/mUsu vaNdaRaip poigaiyum pOnRathE/Isan enththai iNaiyadi nizalE - Appar's thEvAram
[2] - konggu thEr vAzkkai anciRaith thumbi - 1st song in kuRunthogai written by iRaiyanAr or God Himself.

P.S. I couldn't find a picture to go with this post...maybe I can get a sketch done someday, of a dark bee sitting on a darker lip.