a voice in the wind

Happy New Year and a fond farewell

2007-01-09T11:58:00.000+05:30

First of all let me wish everyone a very Happy New Year. Hope your 2007 has started with as much fun and feverish activity as mine has!

With New Year also comes a time for new resolutions (forget the fact that the old ones may not have yet been fulfilled) and this year I have decided to focus my blogging energy on

Newsmericks
Regional language blogging

So where does that leave this blog, my first, which brought me into the world of blogging? This blog was meant to be a storehouse of my thoughts and feelings about all that I saw, read and much more. However, somewhere down the road, it became a place where I stored some of my hap-hazard poetry and then that too dwindled away into nothingness.

I think it is a time for a voice in the wind to say goodbye. Thank you all who stopped by here. Will let you know if I decide to return in a different avatar. Till then, see you at Newsmericks!

Thought for the day

2006-11-15T18:29:00.000+05:30

Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.

~ Thomas Fuller

Everybody needs a hug sometime...

2006-10-26T19:04:00.000+05:30

Juan Mann - Hugs

The warmth of a hug
Can light up the darkest day
So share one for free...

A matter of perspective

2006-10-18T19:14:00.000+05:30

Walking along the banks of the Seine one evening, I came across this sketch by a street artist. Not quite Escher and perhaps trifle naughty but interesting enough to share.

Wonder what Freud would have had to say about this portrait? :D

Paris, Pujas & Poe

2006-10-07T13:23:00.000+05:30

The world lay asleep
But somewhere in the darkness
A tower shimmered...

So much to write about yet the thoughts refuse to flow. Had a lovely vacation in Paris, followed by another at Darjeeling. Then came the Puja festivities in Kolkata which have not quite died down yet.

No, the picture above is not a puja pandal in Kolkata. It is the real thing (though I won't be surprised to see it being replicated as a puja pandal sometime in the near future!). Here are some photos I took during the pujas...enjoy!

Re-reading Edgar Allen Poe's short stories. Here is one of my all-time favorites.

Will be back soon!

Thought for the day

2006-08-24T11:16:00.000+05:30

"Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is." – Jorge Luis Borges

The rains

2006-07-22T17:33:00.000+05:30

Monsoon showers,
No power for hours,
A city bogged,
Waterlogged...

And yet I love the rains :-)

Happiness formula

2006-07-17T22:00:00.000+05:30

Want to be happy?
Here's my simple formula -
Count every blessing!

:D

An evening with Rumi

2006-07-16T00:50:00.000+05:30

Spent a lazy evening yesterday, reading Rumi. Thought I would share some of my favourite pieces with you.

~0~

You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You.

Nothing seemed right.

What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.

Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.

It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.

So- I've brought you a mirror.

Look at yourself and remember me.

~0~

I wonder

from these thousand of "me's",

which one am I?

Listen to my cry, do not drown my voice

I am completely filled with the thought of you.

Don't lay broken glass on my path

I will crush it into dust.

I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand,

reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger.

If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flower

I will pitch my tent in your shadow.

Only your presence revives my withered heart.

You are the candle that lights the whole world

and I am an empty vessel for your light.

~0~

Inside the Great Mystery that is,

we don't really own anything.

What is this competition we feel then,

before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?

~0~

For years, copying other people,

I tried to know myself.

From within, I couldn't decide what to do.

Unable to see, I heard my name being called.

Then I walked outside.

~0~

Haiku heights!

2006-07-15T15:37:00.000+05:30

What do you say when
A man strips on Everest?
-Height of exposure!

:D

Conversations

2006-06-14T18:08:00.000+05:30

(pic taken from Quantumblog)

Lips watch in silence

As our thumbs chatter non-stop

Via SMS

**DNA Salon 09/06/06

Net Result

2006-06-03T10:49:00.000+05:30

Ended this morning

Hours of search for a soul mate:

A Google success.

:-))

**Published in DNA Salon 02/06/06

Virtual connect

2006-05-20T12:21:00.000+05:30

We meet every day,
In a world without borders.
Webcams are dandy.

**Published in DNA Salon

The nature of love

2006-05-19T20:39:00.000+05:30

A pair of young lovers
Lay under a tree.
On the tree bloomed a flower,
Near it, buzzed a bee.

Heady scent of the flower
Drove the bee wild,
The man pulled her closer-
She sensually smiled.

Hormones were raging
The air filled with tension
And above them the bee
Hung in suspension

The flower starts to sway,
But the bee has it pinned,
The couple embrace tight,
Throwing caution to the wind.

His clothes and hers
Carelessly thrown;
The flower gets ready
To welcome the drone.

The bee rides the flower,
There is music and stuff,
But viewers are now furious -
They are sick of the fluff.

The director chap's helpless
For there is a stricture,
He can only use Nature
To cue sex in the picture!

:D

Written for the 'Comic Erotica' writing exercise on S&C

Hues of Life

2006-05-08T22:28:00.000+05:30

If the colors in our lives
Lacked intricate weave -
Were individually seen,
Then there’d be a yellow
Alongside a blue, but
How would we get the green?

There must be a reason
Why God has made
Life such a kaleidoscope;
Could it be to convey -
'There’s good with the bad',
So that there springs eternal hope?

Safekeeping

2006-04-28T16:38:00.000+05:30

(image courtesy angelfire)

My heart disc is clean.
Auto- protection enabled,
No virus attacks.

**Published in DNA Salon

Shattered

2006-04-26T11:46:00.000+05:30

(image courtesy Vicky Culver)

Her words, gently spoken,
With their ruthlessness shattered
His world into pieces....

... can words put him together again?

Forgotten

2006-04-26T11:18:00.000+05:30

Neglected for years,
Volumes of words now lie silenced
In my dust-laden heart.

...is this how words are forgotten?

I stand corrected

2006-04-26T10:39:00.000+05:30

IndianArchie has expressed a very valid grouse by pointing out to me that I have begun posting limericks on both my blogs.

I agree that it does not make much sense to run two blogs for the same style of writing. Thus the last 2 posts have been moved from here to Newsmericks.

Henceforth all limericks will be posted there. This blog will be reserved for all other kinds of posts (as originally intended).

On not writing

2006-03-15T17:06:00.000+05:30

Yesterday in the morning I said to myself,
"Today I am going to write"
But somehow the day simply floated away,
Leaving me feeling contrite.

Late in the evening, as I sat with my drink,
A voice in the wind I heard.
“Can you explain why no new posts are up?
“What’s the matter?” chirped the bird.

Many hours (of introspection) later,
I remarked with quiet woe,
“I think I have a writer’s block,
My thoughts are refusing to flow!”

However, the voice concluded,
That wasn't a good enough excuse.
It left me feeling embarrassed,
So desperately I turned to my muse.

“Maybe you are trying too hard," he said,
"Just let your thoughts run free.
You’ll soon see how a seed of thought,
Will grow into a giant tree.”

So here I am with my paper and pen,
Waiting for that thought to bloom,
Meanwhile, let me assure you folks,
The posts here will soon resume!

On SMS literature

2006-02-13T23:17:00.000+05:30

An SMS poet was found telling
Readers why his poetry is selling
Smiling (with a dimple)
He said, “It is simple,
Who the hell today knows the real spelling?”

What are your views on SMS poetry that is fast becoming popular today? And then of course there is the promise of the classics being condensed to SMS form. Do share your views on the same.

On destiny

2006-02-09T20:07:00.000+05:30

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must persevere and above all have confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted with something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

~Marie Curie

Beyond fears

2006-01-23T19:18:00.000+05:30

Today, I spent some lovely hours in the afternoon reading Rilke, one of my favourite writers. Thought I'd share a passage from 'Letters to a Young Poet' (letter 8), which talks about the need to look beyond our fears and experience life in its fullness.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The fear of the inexplicable has not only impoverished the reality of the individual; it has also narrowed the relationship between one human being and another, which has as it were been lifted out of the riverbed of infinite possibilities and set down in a fallow place on the bank, where nothing happens. For it is not only indolence that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any new, inconceivable experience, which we don't think we can deal with.

Only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being. For if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security. And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

-------------------------------------------------

Hello 2006!

2005-12-31T23:54:00.000+05:30

Wishing all of you a very Happy New year!

Cheers
Aparna

A morning ritual

2005-12-30T02:44:00.000+05:30

“What took you so long?” She asked
With an impatient toss of her head
He knew it would be death to answer
So he stared at his fingers instead

He had just finished reading
Of a romantic ride across time
So his mood was really mellow,
Heart full of emotions sublime

He had been so preoccupied
With thoughts of the unheard call
That urgency of the voice nearby
He had not heeded at all

Now of course it was clear
There would be hell to pay
He was sure of it because
It happened every other day

He tried hard to focus
To lend her his ear
And then finally her voice
Broke out in the clear

“Everyday it’s the same story, so
If this is what you’ll continue to do
I’m moving in with my parents
Unless you build another loo!”

:-))