TEA JOINT IN THE SHAPE OF A TEA CUP

My learned colleague, who is also my e mail friend, forwarded a mail with photographs of various buildings in the shape of a tea-pot. I wrote back to him saying that it would be a brilliant idea to go in jointly for a tea-joint in the shape of a tea-pot which will sell fragrant, best quality tea minus the calorie ridden snacks. He agreed but was a little distraught as to how the arrangement would be brought about as he would be retiring much before me. So I would either have to take a premature voluntary retirement or join him later after my timely superannuation. The discussion remained inconclusive but the outline of a poem germinated quite easily there from:

A tea joint in the shape of a tea-pot
A cottage with a red-brick wall
Big French windows and a trimmed lawn
The roof would look like the lid atop
The hall would look like the stout pot
The kitchen would have the chimney spout
The handle would laze by the side ground
Cute, warm, pretty, plump and inviting
Filled with aroma of steaming, swirling
Pot of giggling gurgling leafy liquid buoyant
A Cool, cozy, sunny, rosy tea joint

Where time stops with the flavour of tea
Where the birds chirp and hum the bees
Where the windows open to a blue sky
Valley of blushing blossoms sighs
Happily, merriment fills the air around
No hurry, flurry, worry, scurry, surround
Mere blissful gleeful peace abound
A calm, quiet, sitting or a meeting point
A Cool, cozy, sunny, rosy tea joint

Spring would bring in fragrance of the bloom
Autumn would allow a pale sun to swoon
Winter would burn a friendly fire aglow
Summer would let the days be idle and slow
A tea-joint where oldies would while away
Time with a news paper or a book in hand
Youth would raise their voices in mirth
Vivacious, vibrant, exuberant, birth
Of many romances and sublime love’s anoint
A Cool, cozy, sunny, rosy tea joint

We’d stand by the counter & welcome smiling
Wish everyone a good morning or good evening
There’d be of course no good byes
No leaving, no parting any au revoire
The colour of the tea would be golden brown
The flavour, the fragrance, the brewing super fine
And the tea-pots would be flowery and fragile
The cups and saucers to match and agile
Shall we be in attendance, forever
Solicitous, engaging, endearing and never
Shall we be short of patience, groan or frown
And be honest to the penny we’d make it a point
A Cool, cozy, sunny, rosy tea joint

Mothers would bring in babies in prams
Fathers would indulgently follow; crammed
Would be the place from morn to night
Visitors to the valley would soon alight
With friends, cousins, aunts and uncles,
Nieces, nephews; those would be very far & few
Who’d claim they haven’t heard of the joint
A Cool, cozy, sunny, rosy tea joint

Oh! How I wish the days stroll fast by
And soon we say to all good by
And fly away to the abode of peace
Far from the maddening crowd & seize
Moments of wishful, fanciful delights
And of course have in our pockets the right
Amount of moolah to say with pride
We are soon to open and welcome to all
To our heavenly, haven of fragrance and froth
Where splash of gold spills over while serving
Which we consider not waste but tiding of more
To come & mop it up chiding in mock anger
With a hand embroidered chequered cloth
Thus would be our bright, bountiful, beverage point
A Cool, cozy, sunny, rosy tea joint

ARTISAN OF THOUGHTS

The Artisan of Thoughts clutches a handful of dust and breathes in life and lo! Begins the creation of thoughts, pure, unpolluted, unbridled and not adulterated by human emotions, expectations and exaggerated oeuvre. He clutches them in his hands and ponders which cerebral cells to permeate. Whose cytoplasm will jell the most with the purity of these golden white silken threads?

He cannot make up his mind and throws them up in the air like an indulgent father throws a child up in the air and catches him back again in the crook of his arms. The Artisan of Thoughts does the same but does not pull them back again but just lets them go.

The thoughts, innocent, innocuous, owner less, thoughts vacillate in air in joyful journey with an unknown destination! The humans pick up their tentacles and catch these thoughts in a random, sporadic, haphazard manner and stow them away in their gray cellular compartments so that these may resurface again scratched, scarred and badgered by notorious pandering.

The Artisan of Thoughts
Breathes in life
Into a handful of dust
And lo! Begins the
Wondrous creation of thoughts
Pure, prosaic, unpampered
Unsolicited thoughts
He throws them in air
With a whispered wish
That they reach their
Fitting abode without a glitch
And do not fall prey to
Aimless snitch

Humans pick up their tentacles high
Grab, grope, grip, gulp these thoughts
Soaring high
And stow them away in
Their cerebral crevice
And when in leisure
Idle and unwise
They mangle, meddle
Muddle, scratch, scar,
Rob, rape, crumple, crush, mar
The virgin beauty of these
Golden white threads
The Artisan of Thoughts sits agape
Doleful, mournful, tearful He sighs
Where are my thoughts
Which I had gifted to the sky!

COMING TO TERMS WITH LIFE

As usual, Mr. Boots woke me up dutifully early morning with his plaintive whines. It was 04.30 am. After the initial preparations, we went for a short morning walk inside the block and came back to settle down to daily routine.

It was 05.00 am and Saturday. So things could be taken a little lightly. I lay down again in bed to take a post walk nap. As is my habit before sleep stole away my conscious musings, I thought I’d peep in a little bit to see what’s bothering me this morning. Surprisingly, there was nothing of consequence to dwell upon. No worry. Nor tension. No pain. No tortuous alleyway into the past. No disturbing present. No stressful apprehension of the future. Nothing! How could it be? Was I at last one with my own self? Was I at last in peace? The ever-eluding contentment which everybody seeks and fails and disgustingly discards in the long run as a Utopian paean! Have I unexpectedly achieved that? Unknowingly so? And spontaneously these words sneaked out of my cerebral crevices:

In the meandering alleys of mind
No thoughts wander alive
No lugubrious musings of the past
No exaggerated worries of the present
No dreadful demands of the future
No buried dreams tug the shores of sanity
No litany of woes drones the broken heart
No crushed and crumpled vanity
No venomous vengeful raging ruse
No pilferage of agony-hangover let loose
No angst, no meaningless consolation
No vehement protests; no turning away from reality
A vacuum, a void, a vivid nothingness perhaps
No not even that; just me and myself
In oneness in peace with my own innermost self,
(Atonement they say it is)
Agile, active, sprightly, agog, wondrous
Perhaps joyous too in a calm and quiet way
A stoic? A transformation probably
To saintly cogitation; almost God-like in
Manifestation, no expectations either
Of lucrative proposition, temptations too scurry past
Apotheosis ? Oh is this? A true, triumphal cross-over
From human to being supra-human?
I do not know what it is, but may be in simple
Parlance, I have come to terms with life

This was a fleeing, fleeting, momentary, transient feeling which was soon taken over by the mundane, routine, usual mental vagaries and delights. I just wanted to catch the ephemeral moment in the crooks of my palms and tie a noose around and make it my own. This is just an attempt towards the same.

RANDOM (Continued)

“Reality is not a myth

It is ‘now’

The tangible truth

The present

And tomorrow it shall

Become the past

A bygone reality

Recorded in history

Recalled in moments

Of nostalgia,”

I said with conviction.

She agreed

“We are caught in time

And weigh life

In terms of past, present

And future

We forget we created time

For our convenience

It never existed by itself

Measured to its infinitesimal count

Constrained, tied, bound

We defined

What is what was and what will be

And put a noose around

The incessant forward flow

And made it our own

And what we cannot foresee

We call it Utopia.”

She looked disdainful

“Obsolete philosophy,”

She mocked.

I decreed,

“Life is infinite

So is death

A vicious circle

With no beginning or end

And mind you, my friend

Infinity is just not a

Numerical expression

It is human inability

To conjure a digit

Past a certain limit,”

She laughed.

“Is it?”

Came the retort

Laced with sarcasm

I shrugged.

“The genesis”, I said,

“Was an infinitely dense entity

Sucking in the Eternity

In a dark cesspool

Whole, a Nothing, a Nullity

And the end will be the same

Does it ring a bell?”

She said “Oh hell!”

Exasperated

“We, God’s children

With our feeble, frail faculty

Claim immortality

We, mere specks of dust

In the vastness of creation

Aspire divinity

Like spoilt brats

Compete with Him

And incur His wrath.”

She looked pensive.

I looked eager

For an affirmative,

None came in return

She said at last

“You’re cruel to yourself

See how we create beauty

Melody, colour, ingenuity

Sculpt, sketch, play, pen

Works of genius

With numbered

Hues, lyrics and strains

We create multitude

Ruins we substitute

With sprawling sensations

We immortalize Him

Through our creations

We encompass, we embrace

With love and affection

Our fellow brethren

Is it not enough?

Proof of prowess,

Power, wisdom

Compassion”

“I dissent,

We also draw lines,

We divide,

We deprive,

Others of their own

We have disgraced

Our own kind

We enjoy anarchy

Destroy Kingdoms

And Civilizations

Endless blood baths and

Ruthless conquests

We have plunged

In darkness, doom

And satanic decoy

We have wreaked havoc

Wrestled with Nature’s

Forces and deploy

We have played God

We have vitiated His Plans

Negated his Existence

We have celebrated victory

Of lustful, vengeful employ

We have invited our end.”

She said, “My friend,

You forget

Decay and destruction

Are parts of the game

From dust is gained

A new beginning

A dawn of joy and hope

As darkness gives way.”

I said, “Nope

Not this way,

We have gone too far

There is no regain or return

We wait with bated breath

Our own extinction.”

She said, “Never say no

There are infinite

Permutations combinations

We did not create Infinity

Remember

It was always there

And it shall forever remain

We are a part of it

Though minuscule

But without us

The circle is not complete.”

I said, “No, no more again”

She said, “Yes”

I said, “No”

She said, “Why?”

I said, “How?”

Doubts were raised

Doubts were quelled

Reasons supplied

Lost faith regained

Paving the way for

Questions afresh

Suspicions anew

And minutes flew by……………………..

Yet, the debate still continues…………..

MY WATER LILIES

Soft

Snowy

Supple

Smooth

Slender

Seductive

My water lilies

Swaying

Sashaying

Sighing

Singing

Simpering

Soothing

Staring

Skyward

My water lilies

Sweet

Simple

Subtle

Summery

Shimmering &

Sizzling in the

Sunshine

Scintillating

Symphony of Nature

My Water Lilies

Saucy

Savvy

Sassy

Sensuous

Savouring the

Songs of the bees

Synchrony of gaiety

My Water Lilies

Stimulating

Soporific; as I wake up in the morn, they

Smile and greet me and

Some other times, as though

Spying on me

Synonym for happiness and joy

My Water Lilies

HONING YOUR SKILLS

Writing is a habit. An every day habit. I have often heard writers going into prolonged state of inaction and inertia on the pretext that the creative bug has stopped chasing/bugging them. Creative bug? That means a writer's writing skill is dependent upon insect bite? Ridiculous!

A writer should be driven by one's own passion and pursuit and not by external influences. The source of inspiration is within and not without. Therefore, gear yourself up and write a little everyday. A paragraph. A page. Any length. Anytime. So that the machinery of the brain remains well oiled - ideating, assimilating, churning, chewing. stimulated and in turn stimulating, inspired and above all, inspiring others through creative outpours. These little, daily dosages shall one day be the cause of a mammoth construct. Who knows ? Knowledge has not come to us in a giffy. Nature has given us its gifts measure by measure with the passage of time. So shall we pour back drop by drop, little by little, day by day till we are drained of all that can be given back.

Hone your skills otherwise you may go barren if you forget to water your own soil!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy writing!!!!!!!!!!!

HE LISTENS

He listens.............

When silence deepens on a dying day

Dusk descends with a stealthy gait

The moon crops up with a plaintive smile

the landscape dons a sombre shade

He listens.............

The breeze is stilled & the birds don't sing

The rain tiptoes and thunder breaks in

The lightening strikes with a smashing roar

Slashing the sky and blazing the shore

He listens.................

Silence echoes and silence hears

Words get choked and unshed tears

Spill over the brim & slither down

The naked contour and a brazen frown

Fights undaunted with despair

He listens...............

Impending doom knocks the door

Grief stalks in a marauding haze

Tramples treads and tears apart

Tempest rises in a swirling maze

Savagely lashing on the weakling heart

He listens.................

There sits still a lonely figure

Stooped and broken lost of vigor

He neither stirs nor does he speak

But his scorched lips move in a silent prayer

Sightless, dreamless eyes that stare

In the distant horizon not with fear

But with the last morsel of sheer

Courage that he can muster and gear

Beyond the tumultous treacherous surround

In the distance he looks afar

And he dares

To listen......................

WANDERLUST

I am a wandering soul

With half etched footprints

On the sands of time

Seeking what

I know not, perhaps

Just saunter by

Like the soft, snowy, clouds

On the azure sky

In aimless bliss

DEFEATED

I cannot keep pace

With the jostling feet

The marauding haste

The trampling zest

Of the winning race

The cruel streak

The passionate chase

The smouldering blaze

Of the power freak

The tempting lure

The groping claws

The grabbing craze

Oozing hate

The cunning moves

The bluffing guise

The facade of love

The charming snides

The stab behind

The growing pain

Cloaked in vain

In dazzling smile

Of fake delight

Deceptive disdain

The lonely nights

The smothered cries

The shattered dreams

The battered heart

The abject plight

Gift of spite

Malice, insane

The macabre sport

The illegitimate gains

The legitimate hoax

The insatiable thirst

Of reaching first

Remaining atop

Immortal conquest

I cannot keep pace

With this endless quest

Of lost sunshine

And mediocre jest

SENSITIVITY OF CREATION

I am more than often branded as "super sensitive" by my foes and friends alike. I realize that being touchy is somewhat of a deterrent in life and work. But as one of my wellwishers has advised me more recently that I should try and shed off some of my "porkupinish" reaction to stimulii and be a little more thick skinned, I suppose, I find that difficult as well.

My sensitivities are very much a part of me, of who I am. They have grown and stayed with me for so long, it seems almost fatal to my personality, to shrug them off consciously and forget about them overnight. I also have this disturbing feeling that if I loose my sensitivity I shall loose my creativity as well ( my "cerebralness" as I call it) and be a "vegetable" of sorts which again is an exaggerated fear or may be an apathy to change, a recalcitrant, reactionary element vey common and natural to human species. I know I may be clinging to a misnomer.

Some of these sensitivities have been genetically inherited; the rest acquired, socially transmitted, default "aftermath(?)" or consequence of education and upbringing.

I also strongly believe that a person who claims to be involved in creative or cerebral pursuit should nurture a certain amount of sensitivity - be sensitized to environs and people around and influence them to be so.

Creativity confined to narrow domains of personal indulgence, looses its intrinsic value. Thus, being a creative person in all its completeness, also entails social responsibilities. We must reach out, touch people's hearts, make them think, try to improve upon the status quo and bring in change if possible. Creativity should not just be and exercise in word craftsmanship and a bundle of ill fated emotions. It has to be much more than that!

I am a thinking animal. I ponder and cud chew. I dissent and cherish strong opinions. Sometimes, foolishly voice them as strongly, to the chagrin of many. I choose to take stand and sometimes even banish people out of my arena of social exchange if they do not conform to my ways and means (which of course is a bit extreme!)

What I mean to say is that sensitivity has its own advantages and disadvantages, given its usage, application and utilitarian value.

We should wake up to the fact that we are sensitive that is why we are able to create and vice versa, we are creative therefore sensitive.