A few from the collections...

I had been reading Vikram Seth's collected poems recently. Although I admit this is my first encounter with his writings I did like going through some of his works. In this post, I am mentioning some of his octates and quatrains. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do. By the way, this is certainly not exhaustive list, there are some more, but i will try and keep my post shorter. :)

GOD'S LOVE

God loves us all, I'm pleased to say -
Or those who love him anyway -
Or those who love him and are good.
Or so they say. Or so he should.

CONDITION

I have to speak - I must - I should - I ought...
I'd tell you how much I love you if I thought
The world would end tomorrow afternoon.
But short of that... well, it might be too soon.

INTERPRETATION

Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.

PASSAGE

Your eyes, my understanding, all will rot;
The trees we see, the books we read, will go;
The way that we use words, as like as not,
And we are fortunate that this is so.

VOICES

Voices in my head,
Chanting, 'Kisses. Bread.
Prove yourself. Fight. Shove.
Learn. Earn. Look for love,'

Drown a leser voice.
Silent now of choice;
'Breathe in peace, and be
Still, for once, like me.'

ALL YOU WHO SLEEP TONIGHT

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the onces you love,
No habd to left or right,
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

LAST NIGHT
(Translated from the urdu of Faiz Ahmed Faiz)

Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the deser moves the breeze,
As, to a sick men, without cause, comes peace.

DISTRESSFUL HOMONYMS

Since for me now you have no warmth to spare
I sense I must adopt a sane and spare

Philosophy to ease a restless state
Fuelled by this uncaring. It will state

A very meagre truth: love, like the rest
Of our emotions, sometimes needs a rest.

Happiness, too, no doubt; and so, why even
Hope that the course of true love' could run even?

(Notice the rhyming words above!!!)

PROTOCOLS

What can I say to you? How can I now retract
All that that fool, my voice has spoken -
Now that the facts are plain, the placid surface cracked,
The protocols of friendship broken?

I cannot walk by day as now I walk by dawn
Past the still house where you lie sleeping
May the sun burn away these footprints on the lawn
And hold you in its warmth and keeping.

ACROSS

Across the miles I wish you well.
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep.
May you not sense what I don't tell
may you not dream, or doubt, or weep.

May what my pen this peaceless day
Writes on this page not reach your view
Till its deferred print lets you say
It speaks to someone else than you.


Each of them is complete in itself. I couldn't finding anything to add or comment. Just read and think it over. :)

Some more seashells

I never thought, when I will open my closed fist to see the shells that I treasured so much, I will find nothing but trifles from my childhood. [refer my post Seashells]

And I never thought that one day I would be still taking pleasure in collecting those trifles just as I did some 10 years back. Yes, thats what I did today. May be they never were trifles and never will be, not for me.

My treasure :)

So here I was, on the other side of the river Ganges with Shilpi, Arpita, Cherry and sands all round. For a moment my whole being was transferred to the beaches of my childhood. But I soon managed to come back to cherish the present with as much pleasure as I had then. It was not just the sand or the shells, there was so much more. The pony-ride for example in which Cherry continuosly coaxed and cajoled the pony to run but he was just too indifferent to her wishes and took a very relaxed stroll. Or my race with cherry which always stopped halfway because Cherry would say "Anki, nahi main yahan nahi daud sakti" and then she would reach me and start running again indicating the race has started again. Or the just sitting on the sand and laughing or talking absolute nonsense. Or the boat ride. In short we just had fun.

In the end weall had a shell to remind us of today. The white one you can see on the top the heap in my hand is Cherry's and is being mentioned here specially on her request.

:)

Its not time...

"Its not time that is passing by, its you and I..."

This line has been taken from one of the short stories of Ruskin Bond. (It so happened that I had the chance to find a penguin publication that includes "all" his short stories and novellas and thats what is keeping me busy these days :D... Well, there are some others to give it company as well)

An apt line for the time when I am writing. Not only because the year has just turned "new" but because we did pass by the tenure that takes to make a engg. graduate out of us. I know I am late and had been so careless to have ignored the new year in my blog for 2 whole weeks. So first of all, a very happy new year to all my readers who had the patience to cope with my irregular pace as well as random posts :).

It is difficult to tell what caused the delay. Did this new year pass away so quickly that I had no time to stop and contemplate? If this was the case then I should stop and think what is that had kept me so busy and yet I cannot even remember it! Or the other reason may well be that somewhere in my unconscious, I did not want to mould my blogging into a routine, however vaguely defined.

So coming back to this year, whats special this year. Well, for me, this year holds an end and a beginning. For all those who might be thinking that the rest of this post may consist of some "senti" stuff on my last three years here then I would suggest you come back to reality at once. Because after some long and thorough self-analysis, I have concluded that I have not been bestowed with the intrinsic characteristics required for getting attached to a place or may be even people as much and as easily as others do. And this I find has been very favourable for me as I had the opportunity of place-hopping since my childhood. Of my future, of course I have no more to say than you.

Still, although I may not be sentimental enough to feel nostalgic but I do realise that a transition in my journey awaits me and this transition further testifies the truth of the statement I began this writing with - "Its not time that is passing by, its you and I... "

Anki

ei.. emni bhabchhilaam...

"bos-e bos-e bhabchho ki
ohe matir phool
bhabna manei sopno jeno
sopno manei bhool"

onek din aage chhotobelaye porechhilam, ek baar. tobuo, keno jeno baar baar chhondo ta mone pore jaye. mone hoye keu jeno mana korchhe - bhabte, sopno dekhte... tobuo parini. aamar protidin jeno, sopno dekha diye-i shuru-o hoye aar shehsh-o. ei to bhabchhilam, tai likhe phellam.

bos-e bos-e bhabchhi aami
mon jeno maneni
bhabna bhool, sopno mitthye
tobuo chharte parini

aage konodin ei byapare bhabini je nijer bhashaye-o likhte pari. ei kichu din aage koyekta blog dekhe prothom baar ichhe holo. Sayantini-r comment ta pore bhablam chesta kora jaak, ek baar ontoto. Actually, friends-e baa readers-e keu-i bujhte paarbena, taai lekha ta kono din hoyeni. Answerable howar ichheta chhilo na. kintu blog ta to sobsomoye nijer jonyo-i lekha, tai aajke ei post ta likhlam.

:)

Anki