Sunday, October 31, 2010

Love Poems

"I know these days you are reading about something that has no end, at least according to the normal extends of our conscious cognition—love, I mean—in any of the attempts to write about it. But ah! The blessing of physicality of the art of poetry, I am able to content the feeling that in itself is the journey and destination. So with this i-poem the series titled Love is coming to an end. Bless me with Love oh, unknown eye caressing these words…
Lots of Love,"

Anu
9

 
I wrote a poem,

Then another,

Then a third one,

And then paused and read them all,

One at a time;

They meant every thing,

Though written in just three words:

I love you.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Love Sea

"I can see only one way out: You; so that the tears of sorrow in my eyes get transformed into the magical smile of diamonds, in your shining nearness."--Anu
8


Waves are no disorder-

For the sea,

But the sign of its soul.

No pain is pain,

And no tears burn-

In love.


Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Billet Doux

"Everything here is for me and I transform into everything when you are here."--Anu
7
Look at me.

Please talk to me.

Touch me.

I am this poem,

Just before its birth.

Write me down.

You are love.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Negotiations

"I know you are nowhere here, but my eyes still search for the unseen traces you left in the air, knowing the failure in the next blink."--Anu                                                                           
6
I live among mingled shadows,

Of bonds that bind.

Out of the blue you came to me.

I looked down not to lose my way.

Then I saw the distance,

From me to you.

I fell in love with it,

Hoping I would never be bound by you.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Love and the Binary.

"Love denies what is to be spoken. And still there is an undeniable urge to talk about it. But to use words in love is to desecrate it."--Anu
5
I know it is you who is-

Awake in my sleep.

I know it is you who is-

Present in my absence.

I know it is you who

Lives in my death,

My knowledge in ignorance.

I know this too that-

You never know,

How much I desire,

Not to know you.

Friday, October 22, 2010

A.Ayyappan Passed Away.

The Quest.

The poem decided to take birth.
It looked for the poet.
It found him.
But he was buried-
Under the irrevocable presence-
Of his absence.
The poem took birth,
As a red flower on his grave.

Adieu Unknown Poet
Once upon a time, there was a poet. No one knew him. Yet the generations that shared time and space with him admired his poems greatly. They sung those poems and kept those lines in the depths of their hearts. The people did not feel bad or awkward to engrave the poems in the depths of their hearts, to make those lines a part of their existence, because those lines were the same blood and flesh as theirs. Their body and soul, therefore, did not reject the poetic transplantation.

One day the people saw an old man lying on the ground. He was taken to the hospital so that he could find ease in dying. Until some one found from the folded sleeves of his shirt a piece of poem, he was a strange old man devoid of relationships, family and friends. The moment after their realization that he was the poet who consecrated their hearts with his words, thoughts and sighs, the people found it hard to neglect the message the poet had conveyed through his death: he lived free of chains, and confinements that bound human lives known by names such as relations, family, friends. His death made him well known, not his poems, because his death too was a poem written with him as a symbol loaded full with implications if eternal sentimentality. The people had little difficulty to take him to their souls, because he too, like his poems, was of the same blood and flesh as the people.

Today is the day the poet died: A. Ayyappan. Adieu.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Love and Existence

"You gifted me a flower. I smiled. Why didn't it occur to me that the flower is something cut off from its life, the plant, dead, and I smiled at some thing dead?" --Anu.
4
Justify my existence by extending your hand.
Come running to me,
And write something on my soul.
I am a word with four letters;
Let me mean something.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Love and Transformation

“Tell her that there is a person, in the moments of her presence, in the moments in which she takes breath, in every blink of her eyes and, in the movement of her hairs, who lives a lifetime…”--Anu
3



My love is transformed-

Into something I desired:

Distance;

To justify the existence,

Of the words-

I never uttered;

To understand the smiles-

That never bloomed on your lips;

To justify my tears;

And with the flowers of mortal agony to-

Dress my bleeding heart.

[Picture Courtsy: Dustjacket Attic.]

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Love and War

"True love is always unrequited. True love manifests itself in unique ways from individual to individual. And it cannot be understood in the pre-expected eminence about its effects and nature." --Anu
2
I fought the battle and lost.

What met me was your lengthened shadow,

Fear, agony, pain and a life time of bitterness.

But there was a miracle, too:

What I fought the battle for-

Remained with me: love!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Love

"I wanted to ask something to life, but life said: you already know what the answers for your questions are: Love, Love, Love. Then I thought my question would be insufficient, inept. And I kept silence."--Anu 

Love denies what is to be spoken. And still there is an undeniable urge to talk about it. But to use words in love is to desecrate it. It exists in the space between abundance and absence, waiting to be explored and taken in. However, it imprisons you in a space where language of any sort is an unwanted vanity, and understanding any thing including love or the loved ones, doesn’t possess justified existence. In love, that means, nothing is to be understood—neither the partners nor love itself. And there arises the paradox of knowing and still living naïve. Love shows itself to you, but still you are far apart from knowing its true abundance. You live in an awareness of not knowing what you do not have, unable to understand that you possess every thing on earth, when you are in love. I heard from someone that the high intensity of desire to talk about love arises from the feeling of not having what you really want (love) on the other hand behind the veil of your ignorance love floods your soul, your self and you dreams; and perhaps it is love itself that veils your vision from the abundance it offers.

Here are another set of i-poems. They are based on the common theme of Love. These poems are not attempts to understand or to define the indefinable. For fulfilling the inevitable task of giving a logical and linguistically apt definition to these poems, I must say they are reflections—reflections or musings on love, just like getting a glimpse of the spring sun with a frowning eye. Nothing more is to be said. These poems are for all those who at least once in their lives, have took the courage to squint at the sun.

Yours Lovingly,
----
1
Love
You—the undeniable
Persuasion, mirror that reminds-

A persisting vacancy,

The love river;

I did not come to meet you,

But my coming closer to your street,

Transformed my mission into-

What I denied.

I fell into your depths and

I dreamed a long day without a sun to set.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Journey and Destination

There was an unpleasant emotion spurting in my veins as I returned from the unforeseen confrontation. I had confronted disappointment, but the resultant emotion had nothing in common with the usual hormone inducements after a disappointment. The ordinariness from my reflex was surprisingly absent. It was extraordinary. I did not feel dejected, but I counted my money, the cash in my wallet, instead. And that was the reaction I—surprisingly—showed towards the event. I was coming after my hectic visit to the Library where I owed some books to return. But I had found the library closed, there, kilometers away from my real destination, the cinema house in the city centre. I had to travel double distance, to and from, and that too without any crucial gain. It was, in plain terms, just a waste of time and money, or dejection. My bag was too heavy, loaded full with thick volumes of books.

 
I thought of my hunger that a few moments before was suppressed by two dry Porottas. That was not usual too. I eat boiled rise. But there was the question of Acknowledgement. I had to ‘Acknowledge’ my hunger, and should do something in order to be in harmony with the natural in me. I had got into the restaurant I found first, and eaten what I had seen there: Porotta.

I was back in the city, which was always indifferent to emotions, after the entire hustle bustle. The city, contrary to my point of view, was not that indifferent that day. The city too was moving the same road I was. There would be days when we fall out of the usual circle of comfortable effectiveness, and every thing would become increasingly, unbearably out of control. Just like my journey to the Library and the educated notion about the city. I walked a bit lazily towards my unique destination: probably a social uniqueness, now since the whole of the city was moving towards the same destination. I was walking for the movie house, where the film, The Robot was housed. I am still 45 minutes early, and so will in no chance miss the opportunity to get the ticket.

I was tired, exhausted from the journey to the disappointment, and the uncomfortable Porotta lunch. The sun was in hiding, and rain clouds wandered in constant vigilance to throw up the very next moment. But as every one knows, there are no ways for human beings to assess the future, immediate or distant, in a perfect conscious state of being. There might be ways in a different state of consciousness. The sun may show out at any moment and burn me with its firy brightness. As I reached the cinema house, I realized this as an eternal truth. There was a long queue contrary to my expectations, forty five minutes earlier to the start of the show. However, I found my place in the back. I stood there waiting the time of the opening of the ticket counter, waiting for my chance, this time with all the emotion in their exact place, dejection, in being made to standing there. It could take a lot of time for my chance in the ticket hole.

 
I love to write about transformations. It gives me the pleasure of following the routine, of the care free mentality, the complacence of a tamed eventuality. But when they happen in real life, it surprises me greatly. They are beyond calculations and principles of daily wisdom, just like my space in a long queue: embellished with the ultimate sense of acceptable non-order, called relativity. I realized this when I looked back from the last place in the queue where I was standing. I just looked back; perhaps I was giving myself a little stretch; and then I found the surprising enough phenomenon of relativity. The position I was holding was reversed. The queue had extended further and compared to the entirety of the queue, I was almost in the front part of it, now. The queue was long enough to accommodate the relative change in my place. It seemed to fill back my enthusiasm that was drained by the journey before.

 
I entered into the theatre, after the patient submitting to the line, and still going through a mild fit of the queue depression. But it all paid off as I watched the pale gleam of the wide screen lit by the dim light inside the movie theatre. Then the dim lights dimmed again, and again, sinking the thoughts of my tiresome day into the darkness of the dream gleam. It might take some minutes and then something uncontrollable would take me (and every one there) into the magical world of motion picture. I felt a relieving sensation and decided to think of something else: journey and destination.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Freedom

The freedom to read a book ends
When I think.
Thoughts are,
Unwelcome guests in the reading room.
They are intruders, though.
When they peek in,
No book remains a book alone,
And no freedom remains innocent.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Tears: A Reflection.

"Is there any answer for the question what is love? If yes, then you know what tears are."--Anu. [Published in Facebook: 8/08/10]

Tears

The pain is to divide us into you and me,
The rest is just a few drops of tears.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Mario Vargas Llosa: Nobel for Literature-Deserved.

Mario Vargas Llosa is well known for his playful narrative technique and crafty imagination. His personality is marked not just as a novelist but also as a journalist and a politician. A novelist, primarily, his trenchant criticisms on the Communist dictatorships in Latin America, have ultimately reached the day of global recognition through the Literature Nobel, 2010. Swedish Academy in declaring one of the most sensible decisions in the post modern times, has posited an opportunity for readers and students of literature to explore Llosa’s universe more close and with significance haunting beyond the linguistic limits.

“Aunt Julia and the Script Writer” is yet another testimony of his narrative talents. The novel is published in 1977. As in all his major works, the background of the novel is Peru and life in Peru. The novel is set in the 1950s. Llosa consecrates the novel with its pleasant and exuberant openness to possibilities. In other words, the art of fiction in Llosa becomes more rigorous and adventurous. Moreover, “Aunt Julia and the Script Writer” bears a direct connection with Llosa’s life; the novel is semi-autobiographic. The book is based in part on the author's first marriage, to Julia Urquidi. The book also talks about the author's life as a student in the law University.

The structure of the novel offers a refreshing perception. Each chapter is followed by a story from the radio soaps telecasted in the radio channel, owned by the same person who owns Radio Panamerica, the radio channel in which Mario, the protagonist works. Pedro Camacho, the neurotic playwright, who has been hired from Bolivia by the owners of the radio station, draws the public of Peru to their radio sets in storm. That was an era when television was not yet introduced in that country. Mario maintains a good relationship with the script writer. The serials written by Pedro Camacho, forms intermittent pauses in the main story of the novel, with each episode of a new serial following each chapter. These episodes are integrated into the novel by giving chapter counts, and also through occasional references about the story and events in the serials, made by different characters in the main story.

The stillness of social and political life in Peru is often contrasted with vigour and adventure in the lives of the characters. Mario, the protagonist, suspends the moral codes of the society by falling in love with his aunt-in-law, Julia, who is a divorcee. She had returned from Bolivia after her marriage broken, and is ten years older than Mario. Mario is 18 and aunt Julia 32. The novel deals with their secret love affair and the related events. Towards the end, the narrative gets taut and resembles a thriller. And the novel ends with events that are contrary to the ones one meets earlier; just like the temperament in the Pedro Camacho serials. The novel primarily focuses on the life of Mario until his marriage with Julia. They leave Peru after their marriage. Their marital life after leaving Peru is not the least of the worries of Llosa.

Pedro Camacho, who as a result of a nervous break-down, loses his precision and starts mixing his characters and plots, in all his serials. This was first noted as a very complex artistic technique by the owners of the radio station, but later they realized the writer had gone out of his mind. As a result Camacho was sent to an asylum. Mario, after fulfilling his dream to become a writer, years later, now settled in Paris, returns and finds Camacho in a decrepit state who doesn’t even recognize his old friend, Mario. The relationship with Aunt Julia also gets a nasty set back, although it has been presented with a good humoured and witty tone.

                  

In “Aunt Julia and the Script Writer”, unlike other works by Llosa like “The Feast of the Goat”, “The Time of the Hero”, etc.; the politics of the country doesn’t get the upper hand. But still the novel, through the dimensions offered by its thematic alignment, explicitly denies authoritarianism—a recurring concept in Llosa’s works. Here, in “Aunt Julia and the Script Writer”, it is cultural totalitarianism that has been decapitated through Mario’s love affair with Aunt Julia. Also in Pedro Camacho’s serials ample evidences for incest, murder, fratricide etc, can be spotted. Though, these serials represent a pack of violent rebellion against some of the norms of the existing culture, they later dissolves irrevocably into madness, anarchy, and a complete lack of order, as Camacho himself ‘created’—catastrophe and a reign of death—in his serials. This ‘creation’, though is originated from a mind that is hopelessly drowning into the bottom of darkness, the warning that Llosa wants to deliver to the world is clear. A freedom without restrictions could easily become anarchy. And it is the same way insane and dizzying as authoritarianism.

[This post has been chosen as the Editor's Pick in the Open Salon Magazine]

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The Lover of Greece

I was a smart person in the past. But now, it is all gone. I am just all rubbish.”—the young woman said to her neighbour. Her neighbour was a blind old lady. “You love Greece.”—the old lady remarked. The young one with the expectation of the obvious, the consolatory paraphrase of some old cliché, started with the remark of the lady. She could not utter any expression other than a piece --“What?”

“You love Greece.”—the old lady who was blind, but doesn’t seem blind now, smirked and held an open challenge for the young blood: not very common with a blind woman who is supposed to live on others mercy and kindness to play the smart. The young blood got heated, and wanted a reproach but it was wise too, so decided to remain calm. The girl asked—“what do you mean I love Greece? I am born and brought up in India, and I have never been to Greece, ever.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of Greece?”—asked the old lady. “Yea, I have heard of Greece, but I know Greece more for its ancient civilization, like ours, in the Indus valley civilization.”

“That is the reason why I said you love Greece; and not just Greece for that matter, but any other ancient civilization, which stand in the present day on its relics, ruined cupolas and immortal fame from the past, known more or less by the wealth of their ancient name. And not just you, dear little girl, every one who discards their present, the chances they are offered, and the moments of immense possibilities existing only in their present, are all the ‘Lovers of Greece’. Let me tell you one more thing: there is nothing bad in loving Greece. It just means you are a bad connoisseur, who doesn’t know anything about how to appreciate the present of that great nation, and lessons it teaches the world.

Monday, October 4, 2010

The Acknowledgement

                      
The time of the day that we call morning, when we open our eyes and cherish the moment into which we pour our self and which marks the moment of the transformation of sleep into wakefulness, deserves Acknowledgement from us. Morning is a door that exists for us. And that benevolence should be given consideration.

When I was traveling by bus early in the morning towards my daily destination, again the thought of Acknowledgement came to me. I looked outside. It was unique: the nature, as if peeled off from its previous self and bestowed with a novel life, it exerted its luminous presence through blinding my sight to green but every other colour. Then the vision changed into gold and then into the conglomerate bliss of the flowers: Transformation. I looked around outside the bus, in acknowledgement.

We open our eyes to the morning, and we acknowledge the presence of the door, the moment of transformation. In order to acknowledge the benevolence of nature, too, we open our eyes, look around, show our respect through showing our wonder, thinking and reflecting, and thus transforming our thoughts and ourselves into it; into nature. When sleep caresses our foreheads or hunger in its primitive drive often surprises us, we first think about the job we need to finish, the files to check, the home works to be done, the data to be loaded into the office computer. There is one thing that we always forget: Acknowledgement. Sleep, hunger, or any other emotion deserves to be respected. It is the nature in us; the elements that give us the state of being, that we all cherish, of being human.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The Schooner



The schooner moves forward.
It knows what moving forward means.
It is the way; the only way it has,
To show its gratitude to the wind,
To the omen of the seagull,
To the waves that parted for its keel,
To the soul of the sea, that-
Blessed it with signs,
By reflecting upon it its own presence,
By making it, feel its very own existence,
Just like my pen pushing forward,
In your gratitude, my Tia,
Terri.



This poem is a gift to Blooming Ideas, for rewarding me with the Versatile Blogger Award.

Did I miss the moment? Did I delay this post a bit? Perhaps, but I wanted to make it worthwhile, with this little poem. And I would like to share this award too, with some of my Blogger friends. But for sharing this award, as I learned it from Blooming Ideas, I have to confess seven truths about myself. And then only I can propose seven winners for the award. Though it was difficult, I tried to locate seven truths about myself. The truth then could be of two types, too: the ones that I want to disclose publicly and the ones that I do not want to reveal. And I do not like to keep secrets about my personality ever. However, the real problem I encountered here is that I could only address seven truths alone. Still, I decided to attempt this task; embarking on an adventure into myself in seven restricted steps. But I am under the brutal paradox of whether to qualify them, these seven truths, as constant sign posts defining my personality, eternal codes representing the I in me, when I know that no truth in the cosmos buys itself on its own merits, it has to be attributed by another. No truth can exist by itself but in the presence of the external other that perceives it, enjoys its beauty, finds conflict with it, rests in peace in it. God, is that the reason why You created human beings?




The seven truths about me, I think until the moment I publish this post, are:

1. I am working as a lecturer now, but my real passion, the true mission of my life is to become a writer.


2. I love many and want to be loved, but could never tell any of them, how much I love them.


3. Though my family does not understand me, always keep a blind eye towards my dreams, thoughts and personal likes—because they want me to be like them; think like them, live like them, successful like them; and they do all this out of their immense love towards me—hopelessly, often painfully, I understand them.


4. I am open to criticisms, but often in the immediate days it disturbs me. I hate hypocrisy. And I do not know how to say no.


5. I believe in God and in His Son, Jesus, and I believe this too that during every moment of my work, I am worshipping.


6. I am an Indian, but not a Hindu. I am not a Christian or a Muslim, either. But I am a writer.


7. I love privacy and most of the times enjoy loneliness. But here, in my home, I have only the latter with me.



And the seven blogs I chose for the Award are...

 
 
 
 
5.Portia Sisco
 
6.Loud Silence


7....And Another...
 


Congrats Winners!