Knots of Musical Notes

सुनो! तुम कहा करते थे

इन उंगलियों और सिलवटों के

बीच की दूरियों में

गुनगुने कई अहसास

बसा करते हैं.

तरंग की लहरें यूँ ही नहीं

उठती, थमती और गिरती है

नज़दीकियों के पागलपन को 

इसी का सहारा जो हैं 

बौराई सी तेरी याद में 

जब सागर लहरे बावरे कुछ 

अफ़साने ढूंड लेती है 

बारिश की बूँदों का शोर 

कहा रास आता है 

तुम कहते हो 

शोर भी संगीत है 

और कभी खामोशी मे भी कविता. 

पर जब यादों के आँगन मे बस जाते हो 

एक एक करके मेरी सारी रुसवाइयों 

में भी नया कोई गीत ढूंड लेते हो 

आज ज़िद है अपने आप से कि 

तुम्हारी एक ना सुनूँगी 

इन दूरियों को तुम्हारे अनकहे 

गीतो के धुनो मे ना पिरौंगी 

तुम भले ही हर संगीत में मुझे पा लो 

तेरे आने तक मैं कोई अब नया 

धुन न बुनूँगी. 

This is a story of a girl who is waiting for her beloved to come back. They have decided and promised that he would write songs about the faces, places, and the traces he encounters and she would give music to his words and vice-versa. Hence even amid this temporary separation, this way they would find each other in their very own magical realms. Which can be referred as their Home. 

But a woman's mood has a brain of its own and thus there are times when she proudly adorns her crown of a  Drama Queen. So this lady in question, in order to want her beloved to come back soon, innocently (?) declares that she would not write any new song nor would she create new tunes till he comes back.

Only to do that yet again. And again.

For music and the words bind them Together- Mighty and Strong. 

She can be termed as a true Indiblogeshwari with all the नाज़ and नखरा embedded in her in all their glories.

~*~

This post is written for Indiblogeswari's #ThatTuesdayThingy contest 1- an attempt to stop by and challenge ourselves to go that extra mile to tell our tales! 

In this week's prompt I have to write about how Rahul Sharma's 'Time Traveller' has spoken to my soul. I hope I am able to connect to it in my own unique way. Wish me Good luck.

Firefly.

In the realms of my negligible existence, there are some miniature moments when I shine bright from some light within. You were lucky to catch that glimpse of me. And I was fortunate to hold you responsible for that silver lining on my bare heart. You did not notice and I did not realize that in you, I, on that very day, atop the sunset point, saw the man with whom my subconscious mind has always been in dire love. 

You were my Neruda that day. 

And thus with the setting sun behind us, I lived many hundred lives--- Together. 

~*~

“As if you were on fire from within. 

 The moon lives in the lining of your skin.” 

 ― Pablo Neruda

Rag Doll is all I am

Ripped apart I am, again and again
Rag doll I become, for you to play
Robbed of my soul and my innocence
Ravaged I am, by you forever

Ravenous you are O! You Men!
Ripples of pleasure for you get
Raked by you from inside out
Repressed of life and everything I deserved

Rapist you are, still supported
Recluse I become for rest of my life
Ruptured, rummaged, and ransacked
Rumpled paper is what I become

Reduced I am to scavenged flesh
Rebuked forever by one and all
Rivers of emotions, not a tear to drop
Reprimanded I am for being born a girl

Ruthless behavior inflicted upon
Ruined, I repay for deeds of your
Rusted-I am considered so
Rutted road my future becomes

Rejoice, O! You Men! by changing dolls
Ruffians and rouges, you live long! For this
Rotten society will never reform
‘Rest in Peace’ is where I belong.

~*~

~My heart goes out to the brutally raped five your old girl. I don't know how to extend by help to her. I cried uncontrollably while penning this poem. It's 3:00 A.M now and I am unable to sleep. I just do not know what else to say. She became my muse tonight but I hate this to the core of my heart. I can only wish for a day when no such poem will be written. No human being deserves this. O! you Men! Please become a Human now else it will be too late...too late.

~Laxmi, You are the inspiration. Thanks for all your love, blessings, and wishes. But I am sorry as I could not gift you a happy poem. I feel terribly disturbed, miserable, and weak.

Signing off with a feeble hope that the girl will recover and would be able to lead a normal life again. But I am not sure how will she will be healed of her emotional and mental pain. I wonder will this society ever change? No matter how hard I try to think otherwise, the only answer I repeatedly get is a 'No'.

I better try to sleep now.

Jim Morrison- The Lounge Bar.

Sharp at 21:00 my eyes wander away from everything and the Table no. 8 becomes the center of my Universe. I could never remember anything about her other than her smudged eyes and red lips. She is never dressed up in anything remarkable. What seems to be her only possession is a watch that has got two golden strings to it. Just a single glass of red wine and an ashtray full of cigarette butts adorn her table. She seems to enjoy this corner of her while her eyes always tells a remarkable brand new story to me. You can never exactly tell when exactly she enters and leaves the lounge. And what sets her apart is this eeriness about her. It’s like she can touch you and flip your soul around. But even when you are just close enough to touch her brown skin, she is nowhere to be found. Like a sudden waif of air she is gone. And someday when you locate her again, she is always engulfed by the haze of smoke that her sullen lips puff away. 

I have seen some random men taking chances on her. On given days, she even shares a smoke with some of the lucky few. But I have never seen her repeating them. Luck favored me and it was my chance that night. I noticed her eyes always have this sleep-deprived feel to it. Her watch always tells the same time and foreseeing my curiosity she quipped that that is how she has successfully managed to stop her world at 04:00. Her aura made her so unattainable to me that I was afraid to speak anything at all. Lest she vanishes again! I don’t know whether to believe on her or not but while shifting between sip of wine and a puff of smoke she told me that in the day time she juggles between Corporate Finance and a Home. But she loves night and everything obscure that this lounge bar offers her. Here she is free and no one puts a tag on her fleeting relationships with the random men around. And that in the dirtiest corners of her mind, she sleeps with Jim Morrison. She laughed at the hibiscus printed shirt I was wearing and said that I seem to be a man wrapped up in layers of poetry. I did not know how it was to be taken— as a compliment or sarcasm. She understood my confusion and I could see her looking me from the corners of her smudged eyes. While I was going all cold due to her glint of smile dabbled in mystery, she leaned back with her glass of red wine in one hand and an almost finished cigarette to her sullen lips. Next, what all I could see of her was from the layers of smoke separating the two of us. I knew my time with her was over. And I also knew it would not be repeated again. While other men in the wake were certainly jealous of me, I was unsure of my feelings. But a tinge of pain circulated in my veins to realize that it’s over. Mystery within mystery was all I was left with. 

She came tonight again with her signature smudged eyes and red lips. I could also notice her chipped purple nails. Her watch dangling on her wrist telling another unspoken story shrouded in mystery. A glass of red wine and a notebook adorning her table no. 8. And She- lost amid the layers and layers of smoke. 

Unattainable as much as she is, I felt a feeble string of my heart does connect to hers. I hastily moved on, lest it breaks. For the first time, I asked the DJ to play my choice of song. The DJ nodded with a smile. And as the song continued, like her, I too was sleeping with Jim Morrison in some dirtiest corner of my mind. 

What are they doing in the Hyacinth House? 

What are they doing in the Hyacinth House? 

To please the lions in this day. 

I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me.

I need a brand new friend who doesn't trouble me.

I need somebody who doesn't need me. 

I feel the bathroom is clear.

I know that someone's near.

I feel that somebody’s following me, oh yeah!

Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away?

Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away?

Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away? 

It was the only card in the deck that I had left to play.

What are they doing in the Hyacinth House? 

To please the lions in this day.

But I’ll say it again, 

I need a brand new friend

But I'll say it again, 

I need a brand new friend, 

The End. 

P.S: The Song is Hyacinth House by The Doors.

Music inspires me to weave stories around them and hence this post is my entry to Indiblogger's The#Connected Music Experience sponsored by HP Connected Music India .

 

Embracing Ecstasy

I so feel like crashing down on your bare chest-
Disheveled.
Your hands on my bare back-
Pristine.
A Linen that Failed to cover us.
Nothing but the light of our eyes.
Breathes. Heartbeats.

Every thing in Silence.
Everything in Dark.

Baby, I allow you to light a cigarette. For the aura of smoke and the light it would add.

Dreamcatcher

While I stir my tea with that li’l silver spoon, I miss you no more. The only thing it reminds me now is of the man with stained teeth, who how easily convinced us to buy it from him. I also vaguely remember the corner table where we crooned over the spoon forgetting entirely about our mud-cake in that nameless bakery point. He claimed it to be an antique piece capable of bringing good luck to us whenever we stir our tea with it. Lucky charm! Is not that we called it? And in between the layers of all these vagaries, I realized again that I truly miss you no more. Still few left-over memories, just like the design intricately carved on the spoon, are etched forever on the handle of my heart. But what about the love that vaporized leaving nothing but drops of lemon in the tea cup?

~*~ 

No, the past does not haunt me any longer. It’s just that I have lost the art of trusting. Or the way I see it now, it is the unceremonious inability to trust my own heart anymore that still evokes zillions of feelings and emotions. At one moment happiness brims me up. And the next it’s the incorrigible tears that fight to escape their negligible existences. 

You came in my life just like a scented waif of air. Amidst the cacophony of modern madness that whistles in and around the concrete jungle of Delhi-NCR, your eyes caught the doleful me who tried her best to put up a happy face. And every time you wipe those invisible tears that fall from my eyes…. I feel my heart reaching one step nearer to you. It becomes a huge task to have a control over the heart-beats that go mad and thrive to tear the heart apart. 

But I am afraid of the love that my soul encounters in your deep eyes. Unlike mine, your eyes are of darker brown color… a shade towards black almost. I see the element of love swimming there …gleefully giving birth to hope, aspirations and uncountable starry dreams. I am afraid of them for I don’t trust my own emotions anymore… for I am afraid to have that power in my hands to hurt you in any possible way. 

When your hands subtly touch me… I experience ripples of emotions in me. As if the li’l silver spoon has stir me from within. And then…my heart speaks in the language of poetry…verse after verse I fall in love with you. But suddenly in the mid of this entire cosmos I feel myself drowning. The ripples contract and suck me in. And at that very moment of oscillating stubborn memories, word by word the poetry fades, the love ebbs and all there is left to experience is a dappled blank paper. I am afraid to be that blank paper in your life devoid of feelings, emotions, and colors for you. The silver spoon fails to stir me anymore. 

When at night, you shield me in your arms… leaving just the enough space to breath heavily. I hallucinate under the spell of your magical voice. I see a field of blooming sunflowers… swaying with the wind and laughing with the sun. For some miniscule moments… I just want to break all the self-made shackles that adorn me and run towards the Unknown with you. But I am afraid… for I know the sunflowers will wither and I won’t have anything left in me to love you with. Just like disposable tea-cups I am afraid to abandon you there. Silly tea-spoons are not meant for stirring love. 

It’s not that I don’t understand your love for me. It’s just that the magic of the Tea-cups and the Tea-spoons don’t work on me anymore. I guess I have grown up and these things are best left to the small girls to play with. 

Unlike him, on this birthday of mine you should gift me a Dream-catcher instead. 

April and the Autumn Leaves

And somewhere at the corners of the road when the leaves rustle, I run to my window with the hope to see you knocking the door. Leaves, Autumns, and Aprils! How the three of these connected the dots of our life together. How over a heap of fallen leaves you taught me to find April in the midst of barren autumn. 

It’s been twelve years since I ran away from my so called home. As my mother breathed her last I gathered every bit of my breath to run for my life. Even though I had nothing left with me, not even the leftovers of hope...still I wanted to have a life of my own. A yearning for a home where there was no existence of selfish discord of my very own father, took me to places and at last to You. 

I was born in the month of April. No one remembered the date. As someone rightly said, why to remember the dates that are ominous enough for generations to come. I was born a girl, enough for my father to despise me to death. Added was the curse of my partial blindness. Sometimes I wonder what did they do when they discovered that I am to be found no where? Or did they at all search for me? What would have happen to me had I not taken the decision to run away? Clueless and aimless, I decided just to run...only to meet you at the very end of the world. 

Can you hear her playing the piano? Her fingers fall like feather on the keys and move like a humming bird’s wings. And as she sings the very song that you used to sing for me, drops of honey sprinkle around. Dad! Did you again catch the tears in my eyes? I am sorry but I do cry when I miss you. Out of sadness, out of happiness and out of everything you are to me, yes! I do cry. 

Remember! When sitting on that heap of fallen leaves while you wiped my tears away, I promised you to never cry again? But some promises are meant to be broken while the love lasts forever. I was no one to you. I did not even have a name. Back home I was just a nameless object devoid of everything that made me a human. The ways the world run is uncanny and beyond my understanding. There are people who do not value their own child just because she is a girl and at the same time there are people who do not think twice before adopting a homeless girl child. Even my partial blindness could not deter you from giving me an eternal place in your heart. 

It’s 6th of April again dad! Come, wish me Happy Birthday. Come, hold me close to your chest Dad and rock me to sleep. The lemon cheesecake that I have made today lacks the dust of your wrinkled sun-burned hands. Twelve years ago on this very day, holding my li’l hand you took me to the country church. As the Father sprinkled the holy water on me, dear dad, do you remember how your heart got filled with pride, love and hope? I was finally commemorated with a name. April! That’s what you named your darling daughter. That day you broke your promise too to never cry again. Some promises are meant to be broken. Did not I always tell you this? Come, hold my feeble yet strong hands once more dad and let’s go to the church again. Let us pray together for one more beautiful year ahead. Dad! See, I have got few wrinkles too! Just like yours, line after line, they tell stories too. And how amazing is that! 

Dad! I wish you were here today to see your darling grand-daughter sing for you. It is the same song that you used to sing to me in remembrance of your wife. Dad, I never told you this but even in her absence I have always felt her motherly presence on the skin of my soul. I have never seen her but I have known her through your songs and stories. Dad, thank you for giving me a Mother too. 

Dagny right now has completely immersed herself. No! This time I am not going to hide my tears anymore. I will let them to fall down. Let her see how precious her grandpa is for her mom. This time I will join her and will sing my heart out. Dad! Can you hear your April singing?

Daddy, Come, sit, while your li'l April takes the charge of the piano keys, 

The falling leaves, drift by my window 

The autumn leaves, of red and gold 

I see your lips, the summer kisses 

The sun-burned hands, I used to hold. 

Since you went away, the days grow long 

And soon I’ll hear, old winter’s song 

But I miss you, most of all, my darling 

When autumn leaves start to fall. 

Yes I miss you, most of all, my darling 

When autumn leaves start to fall. 

P.S: The Song is Autumn Leaves by Eric Clapton.


Music inspires me to weave stories around them and hence this post is my entry to Indiblogger's The#Connected Music Experience sponsored by HP Connected Music India 

~Don't threaten me with Love, baby. Let's just go walking in the Rain.~

There is something about rain you know. Something so inexpressible. How come these li’l rain drops when they fall on my window glass leave behind a trail of different stories to linger on for time unknown? Each it's own. Told and untold. Subsequently they join and unjoin and at last fall down forming a pool of some mysterious saga waiting to be unearthed. Pressing my warm body deep against this moist window, I for once again break the equilibrium of peace and mystery that was co-residing in each of these pools when detached from the border of the window pane. Softly enough I annihilate all such mystery pools. How come! They can hold so many emotions in them? Each a world in itself? Anyways!

I look through the window. Towards the other side. So very different from this side of the world. My world. It’s good that there is this glass between you and me. With so much of ease you have crystallized yourself with that other world. Fast and furious. Bright and shinning. I for that matter could never keep my pace up with the world out there. I stumbled every time. All the time. But every time I fell you were there to hold me on. I still feel I can fall again and again even if it means I have to bruise my knees, only if you are there to hold me in your arms. Those kisses, I tell you, were magical.

Baby! Why does rain have to have an element of gloom in it? When the fact is that when it rains my love for you grows manifold! Rain nourishes the earth. And Love is earthy. May be that’s why I enjoy watching the rainfall from this side of the window more. I wonder! What if I can’t hold it back anymore? After all it’s reciprocal. I know you would come running towards me shattering the glass barrier in between.

For one last time, I press myself harder against the glass barrier as if it will give me the warmth of you. Silly, no? Yes! You are right there. Those eyes! Ah! Those twinkling eyes! I know I can always locate them even if you are lost in a crowd. For me you are such an entity... a world in itself of which I was a part. Perhaps still.

Even amid separation we stay close. Could I ask for more?

~*~

But wait! Listen! Do you still have that scrap paper safely tucked in somewhere? I vaguely remember those lines by someone unknown, ‘when we pray to God we must be seeking nothing. Nothing.’

***Photograph used is the original work of the Blog Author.