its only words, and words are all I have

all our lives, we keep on collecting dreams; beautiful, colorful dreams; our most cherished gay asset in our grey worlds. and like a still moment encased in a glass pebble, these dreams adorn our lives; very much the same way. held in. Still.

When In Love .........

And when he casts his spell,

as if,

lulling the sounds,

quelling the world;

as if,

making the sky bury into the stillness

of the slowly falling, innocent, soft flakes of snow.

And thus, when he casts his spell,

as if,

voicing only what throbs in;

speaking all that flows in,

as if,

telling all the tales from the depth of bosom

to the depth of eyes,

in a language that writes off all its words,

in the sheer beauty of a world 

that went still.

And lo! when he casts his spell,

as if,

brightening the blaze that pours in warmth,

amidst 

slowly falling, innocent, soft flakes of snow.

Self & Architecture.

Its pretty sunny outside. Sunny to the extent of being Warm. But thanks to the architecture of this apartment building, I'm penning these lines down in the light of the energy savers :)

Its the same with human self. As we grow, we develop a personality that is so much like the architecture of buildings! There are certain things that we want to be noticed more, so we put them on a more accessible public display, like high lighting a particular feature of a building, putting a spotlight in front of a Mughal arch; and there are others which we try to make not-so-public like the drainage pipes in the back alley. There are dark recesses and sun rooms, all within the confinement of what we call the personality. And time to time all of us invariably return to them for either running away from the realities of life, or else to gather courage from, to face these realities upfront.
When we have more dark nooks in our personality than the sunny galleries, it gets hard for the natural glee of life to reach us easily and consequently, slowly and gradually, the self, just like a building, begins to fall a victim to dampness. Mould reeks in.
A little more time passes and the plaster begins to peel off, leaving the walls naked and ugly. A little more time, and even passing by close to such a building you are forced to hold your breath for the fear of smelling that rotten smell that is so peculiar to dampness, rust and mould.

When we pull down the blinds on the windows of our soul, we not only cut off from the world outside but also ensure that there appears no new horizon. On the other hand, when you open up your doors, place your comfy zone in the sunlit veranda, the soul not only nourishes because of the sunbeams of the life but also relishes the cool quietness of a starry night.

(My mind is straying in too many directions right now, so I'm not finding myself successful in putting down this idea as emphatically as I would like to. )

So, in a nutshell, just don't harbour ill feelings. They ruin your self; deteriorate your personality. The anguish, sadness, all the fruits of bearing this mould of your personality, come to show on your face in a few years time. The Taj Mahal becomes a haunted house.
Don't confine your self within yourself, seek interaction with the world around. Otherwise, the mites and mould spores would cause the growth of fungus within this precious self. Open your doors, roll up your blinds. Let air, light and noise drop in. They mark life. After all, you do want your Taj Mahal to be something more than a cemetery!

Setting life free with Rumi :)

A little while back, I was going through my not-so-regularly-maintained online posts, I came across a thought I had jotted down a couple of weeks ago. The interesting thing was, however, that after I had finished reading it, the very next thing I came across (on someone else's page)was a poem of Rumi. It was a very pleasing coincidence, to say the least. :)

Setting Life Free

I just so much want to believe that we do not interpret the one cherished bit of our imagined "should-be's", as Life. The thought of being obsessed with a fragment of my own imagination, however intellect I believe it to be, so much so that it creates a fanciful burlesque fantasy for me, freaks me out to the bones. Since the real life, the one that flows all around, and even within and without us, does not comply to the diction of our assumed versions of life, we end up feeling disappointed, betrayed and wronged.

Let life be free from the compulsion of an essential pursuit of happiness. Let life come to you as it is. Let it embrace you with open arms just like that and let us all celebrate the beauty of it as it is. 

We stop seeing the true colour of life when all what we do is wait, or want, or whine about missing the rosy happy-faced life. We limit our vision by not permitting our self to cherish every shade of life. We become colour blind and thus let so many precious moments of life slip through our fingers: moments , each of which could suffice the entire length of our existence. Moments which, if we had not turned blind to, could change the course of our lives. Moments, that could teach us so many new paths leading to so many new horizons, opening up so many new vistas.Only if we stop looking for happiness and start living each day as it is. Only if we allow ourselves the luxury of letting ourself free from the self imposed compulsions!!!

The Guest House....By Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

(Rumi~translation by Coleman Barks)

جی چاہے تو شیشہ بن جا، جی چاہے پیمانہ بن

Its 240 in the morning and I am up. Not quite sure why. Perhaps its some unushered dream, or a demon from the past. And how about if its just the restlessness of a soul in exile? After all, who knows!

Maybe its the spell of the verse that I kept listening to the whole day, well, almost the whole day. Every once in a while you come across an assembly of words, a few sentences, that transform the entire landscape of your intellectual world, or at the very least, help you in getting just another, altogether different view of the life around you. These are life enriching words. Even the oh-so-similar things too, take a different shape, pick up a different hue. Some words leave you drenched in an aura of ecstasy. And some bring with them a background score of soft rhythm to keep company to your wandering soul.

جی چاہے تو شیشہ بن جا، جی چاہے پیمانہ بن جا

شیشہ پیمانہ کیا بننا، مئے بن جا، مےخانہ بن جا

مئے بن کر، مئےخانہ بن کر، مستی کا افسانہ بن جا

مستی کا افسانہ بن کر، ہستی سے بیگانہ بن جا

ہستی سے بیگانہ ہونا، مستی کا افسانہ بننا

اس ہونے سے، اس بننے سے، اچھا ہے دیوانہ بن جا

دیوانہ بن جانے سے بھی، دیوانہ ہونا اچھا ہے

دیوانہ ہونے سے اچھا، خاکِ درِ جاناناں بن جا

خاکِ درِ جاناناں کیا ہے، اہلِ دل کی آنکھ کا سرمہ

شمع کے دل کی ٹھنڈک بن جا، نورِ دلِ پروانہ بن جا

سیکھ ذہین کے دل سے جلنا، کاہے کو ہر شمع پر جلنا

اپنی آگ میں خود جل جاۓ، تو ایسا پروانہ بن جا

Shunning the Other!

One question that I ask myself every so often is, why dont I write as much as I would want to? Well .... the answer seems somehow wrapped in the haze of an inadvertent lethargy, or probably in the dire pessimism that has crawled under my skin for quite a while now, and which i would rather prefer to term as the knowledge that comes after knowing the little difference either you, or your presence/absence would make to this world!

ooops... see? there it peeks its head again! darn!

Not that I dont have anything to say, however, the futility of whatever I think is just all too strong a reason for me to be the same extrovert I used to be. Hey, wait, mmmm.... well lets see.... did I not just a little while back performed 'the exercise of the Other' (thanks mr. Coelho).

So here it goes ..... :)

I have a very strong interest in paranormal communications. Sounds wierd? Well, to start off, have you ever thought about various electronic signals that establish all this present day modern communication systems?

Well... if not, think about it. Meanwhile I sign off because my little prince is all too eager to watch his 'hickory dickory dock' with me :)

ciao

take care