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Sunday, September 30, 2012

परिवर्तन

परिवर्तन तो है तय मगर
क्या जर्जरता से अभिशप्त  हैं

सारे सपने
कविता,कला और जीवन भी

जैसे बुड्ढी होती आँखों
के काले घेरों की परतों
को दिन की चमक
भी बेमानी है

क्या वैसे ही
घुल जाना ही
सर्वस्व का अर्थ
है परिवर्तन 

Friday, September 28, 2012

Redemption

exhumed from a carton
they lie scattered--
moments and experiences
some filed,dated,remembered

others just there-
as random afterthoughts

papers,books,poems
word-souls

waiting to be redeemed !

Thursday, September 27, 2012

moment

the moon on the
hammock of
the azure autumn sky

looking at
whatever looks back at it

no word,no poem
can define this moment !



Sunday, September 23, 2012

Daughter and Mother

Time flows by
on one bank
I am rooted in my mom

on the other
attempting to stand firm
for her- my daughter

two shores
ages apart

I am the bridge
that creaks and sways
but holds on
because she is the link.

Friday, September 21, 2012

CURRENCY

Sentiment or language
or a bit of both

meaning or ambiguity
or a tug of both

conclusion versus confusions
the line is often blurred

This is who I am
This is what I do

my currency is poetry
what is yours?

Thursday, September 20, 2012

READING POETRY

The jargon is out there
and so are the terms

reading,re-reading
close-reading
over-reading
reading words and rhymes
and in between the lines

the poem staggers,
a huge load
of critical analysis
on its back

the essence dissolved
in a thousand watery
imitations of
a divine sip of verse !!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

back to school

Having experienced both the teacher and the student roles in the traditional classrooms for years and also brief stints with conventional distance education programs,very recently I hopped onto a new mode- MOCC(Massive Open Online Courses) at Coursera .

The apprehensions of relearning and unlearning were huge but so was the anticipation of going back to academics after so long.As most of my close friends would know me and technology don't function well in each other's company this was a real challenge.

For me being a learner is not difficult ,that is my mode most of the times even when as an adult and especially a parent to an equally curious pre-schooler I pretend to have all the answers.

There are no final answers always was one of the lessons poetry taught me long back,and there is more meaning in every meaning that we perceive is what I have always believed.

In a class of of thousands of people across nationalities,age-groups and even purposes of coming to a poetry class I kind of got back in touch with a very subtle part of me that had gone missing as an adult- the thrill of sharpening a new pencil and writing in a new notebook,the expectation of discovering something new with a teacher and peers.The adrenaline rush of deadlines,the hurried joy of being on schedule for a class.

I have always been a literature student and I believe that literature just doesn't stop where the poem or the text ends,that is where it begins for the reader.We can't learn poetry like arithmetic but poetry helps us to learn life,to see things from another point of view or to see different things from the same point of view.

Similarly I believe every new experience is not just that it might be just another piece in your puzzle,it might be overwhelming,taxing or plain confusing sometimes even disappointing but its worth taking just to know the difference.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Word Crutches

The chicken and egg riddle it is
I guess of the literary world

did word follow meaning
or meaning followed word

a thought without
the words to express
is it a valid thought

or a word without
a valid intention
is it really a word

this tough terrain of poetry
baffles my soul so much

there are no fixed directions
and words my only crutch !

Thursday, September 13, 2012

I COMMIT POETRY

It is like
an invisible worm
gnawing at the core

digging words,memories
making mountains from
mole hills of meanings

when the flood
becomes difficult
to contain
in the closed
chambers of the soul

I commit poetry !

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

To Emily*

They use big words
in the class
proto-modernists, transcendentalists

and call for a close reading
of her art
they tear her words apart
to get a fleeting glimpse
into her elusive charm

I speak only to her-
Emily I am there
only because
I understand your 'slant',

and am the nobody
just like you
- the one you looked for !


* Emily Dickinson the famous American Poet.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Resilience

the ant
carries the load
dutifully to the hole

from where I see
the grain
rolls the ant
helplessly
round and round
the same spot

ant tests life
life tests ant
we put labels -
resilience !

Thursday, September 6, 2012

रेसिपी

लेबल लगे डिब्बे-बोतलों  में 
काश भर सकते 
सपने  तमाम 
सारे अनुभव भरे जा  सकते 
इनमे ग्राम और लीटर  
के हिसाब 

सब पर लिखी जा सकती 
स्पष्ट , सटीक समापन तिथि 
और एक निपुण भंडारी जैसे 
सजा सकते सब 
अपनी जीवन-पाकशाला 

जब जो चाहा 
संघटक निकला 
तिथि जाँची ,मापा मसाला 
प्रयोग किया 
और यथावत निश्चित 
स्थान पे उसको 
वापिस संभाला 

जीवन प्रयोगशाला में 
हर व्यंजन की
कसौटी है 
शायद उसकी जटिलता .

Monday, September 3, 2012

A Gold Nugget from Melbourne


Once not very long ago a young girl in India had her first close brush with the mystical land far away in the southern hemisphere -Australia.She was a scholar required to write a thesis about Australian aboriginal women writers.
Surprisingly her fascination with this amazing country and its multicultural heritage didn't end there.Any link,book,article with the mention of Australia or its cities,people and culture would catch her attention and she would hope and imagine to travel there some day.

The very fact that this island nation was initially perceived as a very difficult place to live in,but had now some of the most sought after destinations in the world,increased its charm for her manifold.Sydney was the poster city of Australia and Canberra was its political center but what intrigued her artistic soul much more than these two was the cultural capital - Melbourne.

As an avid cricket fan she had often seen glimpses of Melbourne skyline and landscape during matches there.She couldn't help but dream being there one day to watch a Test match live; sitting right under the highest light towers in the world at the Melbourne cricket ground.

The Melbourne Commonwealth Games  in 2006 secured Melbourne's place on her list of places to visit before she died.Its diverse population,multilingual communities,and multicultural feel made its magnetism unbeaten.The interesting and heady mix of cultures in Melbourne's architecture,cuisine and landscape was so alluring.

Sadly the monotony of common life jaded some of these ambitons but they kept simmering and she never completely gave up on them.A summer Christmas was what she asked Santa Claus to give her soon !

Her job as a writer offered little time and almost no money to have dreams of listening to the loud chatter of seals in Phillip Island.Yet she would often conjure up images of herself beating the waves or watching the sunset from the sky deck at eureka towers, riding a bike along the Yarra river,or watching dawn unfold its wings from a hot air balloon ride across the city.

In the most live able city of the world and the city of literature,she was sure she would find a lot to explore and devour along with the wide variety of cuisines in its small discreet cafes and elite restaurants.

She would picture sitting among the highly charged up crowd at the Australian grand prix or the quiet and tense one at the finals of the Australian Open.In this veritable melting pot of world cultures she would fill her bags with artifacts and gifts for people back home,and her heart with memories for a lifetime.

Every morning she would wake up and believe '' it's your time to go to Melbourne NOW!" and hope that in her quest she may even find a gold nugget ! !

The girl here is almost me and the story may come true courtesy Tourism Victoria

Keywords

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COMPANIONS CALLED BOOKS

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Catcher in the Rye
Animal Farm
The Alchemist
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Romeo and Juliet
Frankenstein
The Odyssey
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Count of Monte Cristo
Eat, Pray, Love
Lolita
The Da Vinci Code
The Kite Runner
The Silence of the Lambs
The Diary of a Young Girl
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Notebook
Gone With the Wind
}

The Human Bean Cafe, Ontario

The Human Bean Cafe, Ontario
my work on display there !!!!!