All through the sunny days of childhood

I kept nurturing my brain

Looking after the minutest needs

Toning it with the best lubricants

To excel in tasks given to me

Flattering it with all buttery phrases

So that it gives me all the pleasure

the world asks for.

Poured in almonds

Tuned it to the finest stores of knowledge –

To find one fine morning

That it had its reins tied to the heart

That would not listen to its pleas-

Logical and empirical.

Heart measuring distances

Finding ways to squeeze them

To grab them

And keep in its wrist

Deciphering new scriptures of love

Hidden in sands of time.

Wanting to unravel

All that the world does not want

Lest its pursuit of pleasure is hampered.

Heart knows no petty pleasures

Carries an appetite

For ecstasies

Rare and unfound.

Gyres of thoughts

Spiraling up and down,

Rottening the whole being

Earned in births,

Karmas and sanskaras

Like coins of gold and silver,

Rattling,

Awakening the being from slumber,

Thoughts intoxicating

to sink deep into the abyss,

Where one can’t find oneself

What is lost? No idea.

Mind can think

Heart can feel

What is lost? No idea.

Senses perceive sumptuous sights

so full of life.

What is lost? No idea.

The small crevices
The tiny holes
The broken lines 
in the wall of my life

are now being filled 
with amorous  poems,
Roses and lilies, 
Some savoury recipes,
Never relished before,
A  couple of honest readers
Who would hold my book in hand
And sleep in peace.

How would a man know
the pain of a koel
singing doleful melodies on a branch?
Its shrill piercing the skies
shoving all other birds to the ground,
Its words stirring
the deep rooted rocks of the sea,
Breeze carries the heaviness
of the plaintive voice,
Sun pacified in its intensity.
The pain of separation
of a tiny koel from its lover
spreads like an uncontrolled cyclone
drenching trees around
to invoke blessings from heavens
to let a glimpse at least.

The entire gamut of knowledge
flew away in smoke,
When pangs of separation
clasped hands and feet,
shackled in thick chains
with innumerable needles,
piercing through the delicate skin
to declare all other things perfectly futile.
Such is the journey of the heart,
Not many travelers on side
moving on in camaraderie
of subtle souls,
Nodding silently at the selection,
Books of facts refuse to reveal
the roadmaps to such journeys.
Heart draws its own roadmaps,
Colours it with myriad emotions,
Invents its own signboards,
Departs from the roads of life
to sketch its own passages
on the arc of the heavenly rainbow.

 Surrender

The preconscious debts

aggrandize the realm of karmas,

Nature holds the neck tight

Expeditiously dragging one

to obey its orders.

You scorn and it berates,

whips hard enough to make you weep.

One cajoles

Falls at the feet

Addled

Not knowing being dragged for which karma!

It adjures to let know the reasons at least,

for acumen fails.

But ways of destiny stay abstruse.

Compunction leads to nowhere.

One has to bow the head low

So low that the need to comprehend remains no more,

Needs remain no more.

Surrender is the ultimate poultice.