എരിഞ്ഞു കത്തുന്ന ചിരാതുക്കളാണവർ
വെളിച്ചം ചൊരിഞ്ഞു ഇരുട്ടിലേക്ക് പ്രയാണം ചെയ്യുന്നവർ
കരിഞ്ഞ തിരിനാളത്തിലേക്കു സ്വയം ഹോമിക്കുന്നവർ
ആത്മാക്കളുടെ തീക്ഷണമായ മോഹജ്വാലത്തിൽ
തന്നെ തന്നെ മറന്നവർ എന്തായിരിക്കും ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നത്
തന്ടെ സ്വപ്നങ്ങൾക്ക് വാക്കുകൾ കൊടുക്കാൻ സാധിക്കാതെ വരുമ്പോൾ
എന്തായിരിക്കും അവരുടെ നിശബ്ദതകൾ പറയാൻ മോഹിച്ചത്
എന്തിനെയും പുൽകാൻ തയാറായിരുന്നു മരണവും അവരിൽ നിന്ന് മുഖ മറച്ചുവോ?
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Sometimes, just sometimes then
go sit with yourself with a mug of coffee
spreading its aroma in the room and filling
your nostrils with an other worldliness
sometimes, just sometimes, go take yourself out
dress up and put on that dash of a lipstick
and admire yourself, feel beautiful
go saunter in the malls, stand and watch
its ok to do that alone, you are aware of it
for the onlookers you are just having a ball
so just have a heluva time with yourself
sit down at the restraunt and watch
and smile sometimes at random strangers
and be surprised when they smile back
the world is not all that bad or brooding nor dull
be your own good company, remember to love yourself
before you find someone to love you as your own.
Go pick up a cycle, barge into a dance class, enter a pub
do whatever that your heart calls for.
Cluck your heels, show your skirts short, long whatever
put on that pant, and that top and don’t be shy of showing
some skin, its ok, coz you know what Maya Angelou said
Coz in yourself, in your own true self, you are phenomenal too
go embrace yourself and put out a pic, don’t be afraid of judgement
after much living, what is with so much thinking
if in 50’s you are as you were in 20’s then what for
were the life changing experiences for you
what did you unravel, what layers did you shed
look yourself in the eye and the world looks up to you
Just go girl! Just go!
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Dear long distance runner
who doth thou run to
what doth thou run for
whither whither is thy post
wherefore the shores that cry for thy conquest
will thou not sit for a moment to check
to catch a breath and smile a bit
shall thou not look behind and turn around
or will thy footsteps be thy only company
what then of the shifting goal posts
what then of the shifting shores
dear long distance runner
chase the glory
capture the cup
sip the chamagne
hold the moment
in the palm of a beloved
go then, set the sails
raise the mast
wind will carry thee far
beyond thy wildest dreams
come , take a snapshot
post it and get some likes atleast!
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‘Tell me a story, please,’ I pestered any adult around me and sort of button holed the person and forced him or her to share stories. And I was lucky too, coz my father despite his ‘I don’t know anything, I am only 10 std’ stance, is a smart performer with several one-liners and theatrical tricks up his sleeve. Several of my relatives, elders, uncles and aunts had to cough up stories real or imaginary at my persistence or just to get rid of me and they did it with elan, sometimes while grazing the cow, or while out on a walk or just lying down waiting for the sleep to set in.
More than anything that I learnt during my graduation at the famed Govt. Victoria College, Palakkad, what I remember the most is Dr. Vijayan Nair’s elaborate descriptions of his travels in Italy, the gondolas, the piazza and of course the story of how a young impressionable Mary Godwin, eloped with PB Shelley to become Mary Shelley and later, the author of ‘Frankenstein’.
In the classrooms,as a teacher myself, I never lose a chance to tell a story, having learnt a trick or two from the experience of listening to Dakshayani Teacher’s, ‘ Do you know this story? followed by animated narrations from the Mahabharatha or the Ramayana or any other literary text’. That is where, we , the blessed students at LSN Convent, Ottapalam, listened enamoured of how women were supposed to be or how the princes wooed the beauties of yesteryears and travelled to many lands of fantastical imagination.
Those were times when stories seemed to fill my world from books and from the narrations and somehow it seemed that everyone was a ‘walking talking story machine’, if only you sat down to listen to them, giving more food for fantasy to my already ‘very wandering mind.’
Yet, in these days when I struggle to write and batter my brain with the process of ‘phd-iation’, I am regularly asked to set aside time in an authoritative tone, ‘ you better make time for me ok, girl! Once I go back, what will you do!’ followed by a smirk and an eye roll.
And that does it. i forget work and we create the ambience to sit down and watch movies curated by her highness, who is very well versed about movies as she is about restaurants.
Nothing is more swee than this experience of sharing a movie time with my girl, every day, day in and day out And she never tires of showing to those in her circle, the movies of her choice. So we sit down for a good time and time flies, till I fret, ‘I also got to go to work!’.
Somehow I am reminded of my good friend at Victoria, Dhanya Ramachandran who was such a compulsive movie watcher that not a day was spent without watching atleast 2 movies with DVDs lent from the nearby shop.
And yes, my little girl must have watched ‘ Chathikkatha Chandu’ atleast 50 times and it only stopped when the shopkeeper who was well acquainted with her, shrugged rather helplessly, ‘ child, it is out of stock, we don’t have it anymore!’
The love for stories runs deep, I guess, and well, if no one said it before, let me say that ‘ a story a day, keeps the smiles intact and the dreams as well.
So, keep watching movies, reading and telling stories, keep the child alive in you, and your eyes will twinkle no matter what!
Just saying 🙂
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Across the horizon
blue and bright
where dreams blend into reality
a search light will still be found
and when you walk up and shake hands
she will ask you to sit down and have a cup of coffee
stories of now and yonder will then be shared
know that it is your test of endurance
hold your yawn and keep the smile
a little giltter in your eyes will help!
cracking and being cranky she shall up the game
just be patient if you are in for the long run
or jump and scoot and don’t leave a trace behind
if you so think otherwise, god speed!
the howling winds will take you farther
to your dreamland and fantasies soon
till such time go catch the butterfly
the glow worms and the secret santas of the world
her time is around, so is yours
stay put, stay proud, storms strengthen
resolves regain vigour and a vengeance
to find, to know, to hold, to be
so it shall be, said the Satyr
and the zephyr blowing by.
Ps: vacuum is a good place to begin with!
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സമ്പന്നതയുടെ ദാരിദ്ര്യം അത് ആരോടും പങ്കുവെക്കാനില്ല എന്നതായിരിക്കണം
സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെയും അല്ലെ
ഒരു പക്ഷെ സ്നേഹത്തിന്റെയുംഅടി പൊളി
രമേശൻ ഒന്ന് ഉറക്കെ ചിരിച്ചു. കവിത എന്റെ ജീവാത്മാവാണ്, ജീവിതവും.
ചേട്ടാ, എന്ന രണ്ടു തേങ്ങയും കൂടെ പൊളിച്ചോ, കവി പിന്നിൽ നിന്ന് ഒച്ച വച്ചു.
ആഹാ, തേങ്ങാ, അത് തന്നെ.
ചക്കയിലും ഇടാം മാങ്ങാ കറിയും വെക്കാം. തേങ്ങാ തന്നെ നല്ലതു. ഒരു മൂത്തതൊന്നു ഇവളുടെ തലയിൽ വീണെങ്കില്, ഒരു കലക്ക് കലക്കമായിരുന്നു.
അല്ല, കഴിഞ്ഞില്ലേ
ദാ, വരുന്നു പെണ്ണെ
#Pauperisms of love, life and living
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love flooded in through
the crevices of her soul
filling bits of bright sky
in the corners of her heart
and streaming out into
her glistening eyes
smiles grew warmer
in the winter
the sky nonchalant, lost and shy
for long, so far woke up to her
and reached out in joy
‘you look happy, shall I join?’
but there were new friends
visitors and the light breeze
a few birds and the cat that meowed
thronging into her life
as she stood up to dance
thinking, ‘why I did not know this?
why did I stop the music within?
why did I silence the chatter of dreams
reams of fantasties, giggles and laughter rolls
and look for light elsewhere hiding the lamp within!
‘Now, you know’, said the universe.
Ps: Be your own champion!
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Be with me, will you
she told the sky and he smiled
she asked for a moment
And he turned around
Out against the raging storms
the rising oceans
the smouldering clouds
her heart waned and waxed
in love and pain and hurt
in moments of gloom
he sometimes became a twinkling star
yet so far so far so far
she feared the heart that yearned so much
the tongue that spelt
the thoughts that felt
deep imprints on the soul
but the voice,ah, the voice
like none she found
called out in dreams
and lonely nights
bewildering and soothing all at once
fearful of showing
and tearing to break
the dreams strecth asking for courage
travelling on sighs the tears swell
the spirit though looked on and laughed
as if she were a stranger far
so gathering cold spread from
outside in or inside out
thus, she thought and held silence!
Ps: thoughts that rise
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Would you hear my song
sung in my native tongue
sweeter than honey
would you know of my pain
when my home was wrecked
by machines that ran amok
would you stop to think
what you have done to me
my home of children five
our need for food, sleep and shelter too
if only, dear love, you had come
to see me as your own
you would have known
how precarious the trees
are as my haven
how insufficient the berries
that grow for us and you
how little of our thirst
is ever quenched
how our existence is a mere blotch
but first, love, you will have
to own yourself and yours’
maybe then you will start to think of me
till such time I am doomed
and so are my kind.
Ps: What a tailed friend said!