The Lost Mountain

I saw a mountain from a distance. It was blue and mystical. It looked like a perfect work of art. I wanted to touch the mountain; hold the mountain in my hands. I wanted to experience and possess the mountain.

There was something inconsumable about the mountain. More you desired it, the more desirous you became. I swaggered toward the mountain. Walked, walked, and walked. After many days of physical pain and mental disquiet, I finally reached the fence that separated the mountain from the plains. I infringed it to touch with my feet the mountain’s mystical surface.

I was there. No, I was not!

Where was the mountain? It was just the rocks and wild plants. The blue and mystical figure disappeared. I kept looking for it desperately. But in time I surrendered, and a serene silence followed my agitation. It seemed to me that the serenity of the silence conquered my desire too. It was just not there. And just when I was ready to bid goodbye to the rocks and wild plants, I heard a voice, “You lost the mountain the moment you desired it. Because your desire led you to experience the mountain with your senses, and you grew closer to it. What you found or felt from the closeness was not what you had desired from the distance.”

When you reach the mountain, it disappears.

Filed under: Life

Kleptomaniac Humor

Scene 1:

(It’s 3 am. The cab driver honks outside the gate of huge corner bungalow. A giant figure opens the gate quietly, making little sound and pulls two bulky suitcases. The cab driver quickly opens the boot and dumps two suitcases.)

Giant figure (GF) to driver: You are already late! Drive fast now.

GF murmurs: These cab drivers will remain drivers all their lives…lazy bum!

Driver: What Ma?

GF: nothing, just thinking you can never become a pilot!

Driver: Why Ma?

GF: Because you can’t fly your car, how will your fly a plane.

Scene 2:

3.15 am: Footsteps on the stairs that lead to the drawing room. A fat lady (aunty) with a dirty night gown climbs the stairs and then there is some noise in the bathroom.

Aunty: Wears the bucket like a crown and screams…hahaha another one…

Scene 3:

7.30 am:

Indarani: Oh my God, where did the second bucket go? God, I need to soak my clothes and leave for office. Us Chudhel nein kuch kiya hoga? Is aurat ko shrap lagega, narak mein jaegi ye!

Priyanka: Don’t panic yaar. Why don’t you take someone else’s bucket?

Scene 4:

9 am:

Aunty: Ah, all girls left. Now I must do some cleaning in the house.

She goes to the kitchen and starts taking out wheat floor, tomatoes and other stuff.

Aunty calls her daugther-in-law: Aree Amu, jaara wo bucket le kar aa jo maine aaj subah kaamaya tha.

Dauther In Law: Kamaya tha ya churaya tha. Ma, wo uska tha na jo aaj PG chor kar chali gayi.

Aunty: Haan haan wohi. Get it quickly beta, I need to put this stuff in it to carry it to the storeroom upstairs.

Scene 5:

8 pm:

Aunty to girls: I work very hard, beta! I spend from morning to evening cleaning these beds.

Indrani murmurs: Well, who knows you spend those hours cleaning our beds, sweeping Your floor with our detergent, cleaning Your toilet with our disinfectant, cooking Your lunch using our LPG. Who knows?

aunty while pulling up her dingy, stinky gown and showing her extra wide legs: Look at my legs beta.

Do you see those bandages, beta? Now you can imagine how difficult it is to work all the day in this condition. I don’t charge any money for all the work I do, beta. We are honest people beta, we are not after money.”

Indrani murmurs: oh yes, why would you charge money for all this sweeping. You are paid in kinds, although you think we don’t know this fact.

Aunty: What beta, are you calling me chor beta? You can leave my PG right now! Girls are waiting to come to my PG. You don’t know. Go out and see the world beta. I don’t do this for money. I just want to help all of you.

Indrani: Yes, I’ll vacate your PG tomorrow, or I’ll have to part with m all my combs, buckets, soaps, and shampoos.

Aunty: Go, Go!

And yes, I will not return your advance. You didn’t give me one month notice.

Filed under: Drama

Souls Uncovered

Illusion:
Don’t cover your nakedness
My Inner Eye that pierces through
False Layers of covering–
Begs a question:
What are you concealing?

Chimera (poor soul, tries tries again):

Concealed
in the immortality of a soul-
Follies of the mind
Sins of the body

***

Vulgar is the nudity
Of our souls
Bodies only bare

Clothes are for bodies
Masks for the follies of soul

***

Behind the bright robe
A soul lurks-
Can I face the world?
No, you don’t belong here
Mind whispers

Filed under: Poetry

Twin Perspectives

Illusion:
Missed the Last Step on the
Stairs leading to your Heart’s Abode.
Just a step;
I drift in my own Desert,
Lost my way in your quest.

Chimera:
I didn’t reach
Where the other did
Your heart-
My salvation

Illusion:
The step I missed didn’t exist
Nor did any stairs to
Your heart, but an open door
The Scorching Mirage alas,
Had Blinded Me.

Chimera:
I lost the sign of the door
Leading from your heart
to eternal love
Traversed labyrinths
in my yearning to find you
trespassed the boundaries
with no sign of return

Illusion:

The Mirage is Real
Like You–
A brimming Well of Water
Nary quenches my Thirst.

Chimera:
Bit by bit I meet life
In the corners of circular buildings
In the circumference of edgy structures
It pledges you
In return for my spirit

I somersault without my body
I fly without wings
I breathe without breath
I die without being

Illusion:

I soared directionless towards you
Found a wing clipped–
‘Twas yours–
You, the Wingless One;
‘Twas but my Illusion.

I soared more, higher,
Found ‘nother clipped wing –
‘Twas ‘gain, yours!
Not an illusion ‘gain.

I gave in to my Senses,
Listened to Reason,
Descended, quickly, lower
Damn Reason!

You, the Wingless One,
Could you fly?
You were always There
Waiting for me,
Speaking through Silence
My Soaring was but in Vain.

Chimera:
In the dew-drops
that adorned green leaves
I saw you smiling at me
A damp illusion

I tried to hold you
The dew-drops merged -
I lost you
Illusion remained

I plucked the wet leaves–
A dry illusion,
Lost you–
Again.

Chimera:
My wings flew
In the space that led to you
I flew till the end
Not a single atom
Sans you
What to cherish
What to let go

Filed under: Poetry

You!

Meaning of my life
Shown through your eyes
Under the waxing moon
It can never wane—
The sky draped it
In the robe of zillion stars
That shine every night 
   ***
 
Faded the castle of my dreams
In the beam of the worldly sun
That dawned on your senses    

***

Emanate through the moist grass
Memories of the splendor
nipped in the bud

Filed under: Poetry

Morning Raga

On the footpath to my left, a little girl was walking briskly; trying to keep pace with her father who was carrying her toddler brother. Her shoulder-length hair was untidy and soaked in oil.  She was wearing her school uniform. Perhaps she was marching to her school. Perhaps not. I didn’t see a school bag on her, or her father. Where was she going? Why was she wearing her school uniform, if she was not going to the school? Maybe she didn’t have another pair of clothes. The government school must have given her free uniform. She gets some free meal as well, I’m sure. The sarkari schools do that much for students, I know.

I was engrossed over a matter, which didn’t exist except in the realm of my thoughts, and she was hurried to some destination that I don’t know of. She would never worry over matters that keep me immersed, because the matter of food and shelter will keep her busy most of her life.

 Isn’t poverty a boon?

Filed under: Life