A Few Beautiful Minds...

It has possessed the correct proportions of yellows and greens and has grayed its hairs over time. It has seen the nineteenth century stealthily zooming past, witnessed the 1900s arrive and depart. Perceived the springs and falls of ages and has stood as a colosseum with spirits wretchedly watching men getting metamorphosized to animals. It has stood tall bearing the testimony of times when knowledge got oppressed and beamed with pride whenever enlightenment overshadowed a fraction of the dark. And cradled in its palms a thousand lives, nursing a million hopes of dreaming high. It has seen surrealism coming true and has lived a 149-year-old life.

It has sustained the virility of the revered spot it has replaced..the collapsed theatre that stood in the same address as it stands now. The legendary Sans Souci theatre that we can only strive to fathom a blurred impression of. Handsome limousines and elegant women in dainty evening gowns carrying artistic parasols..ornate staircases leading to the stage..Shakespearean plays being unwound out. And the debacle that destroyed it all.

It has put in vain the best efforts made to mix accurate proportions of the yellows and greens with a paintbrush in an elaborate attempt to bring its image into an approximation of life. I figure out that the innate divinity with which it had embarked upon is as hard to create an artefact of as it is to reach out.

It has started living its 150th year now and is counting days to celebrate its post-centenary golden jubilee completion. It has worn out in parts many a times and has undergone crude surgeries to retain its vigour. It saw children treading into its lap and men walk out. It has seen its siblings cropping up in and around its fences and shared rendezvous with the older kids in gray hairs. It has continued to spellbind people with its opulence and the brightly hued avalanches of glory it carries forward as its legacy. And its 150 year-old stories that still stupefies us.

It has written a chapter named 'St. Xaviers'. Nurtured a few beautiful minds and linked the term 'Xaverian' with a tinge of pride. And rendered meaning to the abstract and abrupt essence of the word 'beautiful' that still prevails in pieces between us.

Through a tinted glass...

I know when moonlight casts its spell..
And the streets turn sharply towards the gale..
I know it just when you step home
As my thoughts get lost on a nameless trail..

I'll flow to your deepest depths,
You, the current of my waves..
I'll sway to wherever you lead
To your ebb tides I’ll cede..

Are you the dream, yet to be seen?
Are you the way life should have been?
Are you my hopes, in a cocoon?
Are you that long awaited monsoon?

Are you the wings to set me free?
Are you the horizon beckoning me?
Are you the rest of my story?
Are you the muse of my untold poetry?

The closing ceremony of 2008...

It has been long, since you came new,
Bundled with blessings for a countable few
As you depart tonight with the year's last dew
Up comes the morning Sun, with hopes and dreams anew..

.....And as the horizon juggles between sunset and sunrise, night and morning, 2008 and 2009, we refuse to be harsh to the year bidding goodbye. Save for the handful of smiles and blessings it has bestowed, on this last night of its stay with us, we readily fail to notice the blues through which it has made us suffer, the tears it has brought about within us. Though the apprehension over mass killings at random corners of the country fails to get blurred by a coveted mission to the moon, a 50,000 pound valued booker couldn't help the global market crashdown and the first gold medal couldn't moderate our grief over losing Dada, still we owe our bags full of gratitude to the year bygone for the tad bit of goodness it has done for us...a booker prize, an Olympic gold medal, victory of the Democrats...and yet a few unnoticed fleeting smiles it fruitfully brought about for a while or two among us.

On a personal note, it has been less of flower beds and more of thorns, being the most challenging year in my girlhood of eighteen years.
And despite taking him miles away from me, it eventually kept bringing us together.

And as 2008 wraps itself up...we, in our own accord, spare another hope and tear for Mumbai, Guwahati, Delhi, Agartala, Ahmedabad...and unconditionally thank all the Abhinav Bindras and Aravind Adigas around the world who, amidst all this, made an exchange of smiles possible between us.

P.S.- Happy New Year to everyone out there. Have a great year ahead.

Christmas hues...And Us

Its us who fight through the nights and days. And leave the damp blankets and pillows to rot.

Its us who bring about those undue tussles. And cry out an entire night.

Its us who make those innumerable promises. And break them now and then.

Yet its us, again us, to make those same old vows.

Its us who spoil each other's day. And walk off our own ways.

Its us who blame each other for all. And feel guilty for the same.

Its us who make the other one cry. And cry ourselves no less.

Yet its us, again us, who wait for each other, for days on end.

Its us who fret over the distance between us. And strive on killing it through love.

Its us who wait for the rains to arrive. And share the same umbrella despite having two.

Its us who reach out to each other for help. And hold hands at vulnerable crossroads.

Its us who await the winters through the year. And cling close to keep the warmth alive.

Its us who yearn to see the colours of sunset.

And us, who paint the world green during fall.

Its us who celebrate the essence of winter.

And us, who incessantly pray for it all.

Its us who hold breath for another Christmas,

With the bliss with which it last year came..

And its Christmas which brings back all those together

On another celebration in our name.

Its for Us. And for all those shuffled colours and muffled delight we've brought into each other's lives.

P.S.- Merry Christmas to you. And Us.

In Your spirits...

I woke up with Your age-old spirit

As You broke the night into dawn

Amidst jingling bells and mingling prayers

You re-wore Your thorny crown.

With the break of another winter sunrise

You brought back Your fragrance and hues

And the livened up bells and re-bloomed roses

Marked another Christmas anew.

I waited awake throughout last night

To hear Your bells being rung

In the dead hour of another midnight

I heard Your carols sung.

I longed to see Your eyes before mine

I lit up my candle for You

I yearned to touch Your worshipped divinity

To know what's strong, pure and true..

You have perceived us through the last year long

Through times of green and blue

You have guided us through vicious waters

As You captained our crew.

Its another Christmas in Your name

Another toast, and a treat

For when the rejoicing world forgets the same,

I thank You for this Yuletide spirit.

P.S.- Merry Christmas to all of you..

Failure..

Words have kept twittering inside,
clinging onto crutches, of my feeble kind
until another day, they stumbled upon
the baffling maze engraved upon my mind.

They couldn't trace their way out;
perplexed and captivated, as curses unwind
Crying for another life, another dream, another light..
They were left to rot in the shambles of a mind.

Words kept betraying at bedside,
when incessant tears dampened my pillow
as I rummaged through some darkened alleys
Groping for words, that abandoned me hollow..

Last night I treaded the lanes and bylanes of hope
Revisiting every dream you taught me to see
And goes with me the hollow you left
On a holiday with failure by the side of the sea...

To the City of Joy...

I look out of my window pane
this sulky winter morning
As my eyeballs meander through
the imminent fog,
the upcoming mist,
and the dew that promised with it another tryst..
And they meander towards the defeated Sun,
wait, not the Sun, nor the baring trees
but the fragments of my city
these black balls can perceive,
within their limited boundaries..
And how many such fragments went unnoticed.
Some distant bustling thoroughfare
A few dwellers off the street ..
Somewhere a crammed yellow brick road
Dealing with God's unkind treat.
A few fleeting smiles
and some equally morbid tears ;
Some forged consolations
And some hard-to-defy fears.
I hear someone screaming for life
before me a nightmare flashes..
As I see glimpses of my country
getting reduced to ashes.
I look back towards my city
The happy, selfish lives thriving in it ..
Happy to be blessed,
Selfish to be untouched,
sitting on the nation's safest seat.
And that unnamed yellow brick road,
Shivering with this omnipresent terror
Shrouded in the wrath of a blanket
To beat this heat, uncalled for. ..
And a despising vision of the city
With no more of this prejudice, that havoc can destroy.
And with the timeless prayer
to that unkind Almighty
To keep this haven the City of Joy..