An intro to pyaar...

Aaj mai aapko woh bayaan karne jaa rahi hoon,

jo bayaan ho chukka hai mehfil mein baar kaee,

jiske har pehlu ko keh-keh ke bhi

main kahoongi ki yaar kuch bayaan kam hua

aur jo mere kuch na kehne se bhi

aap kahoge maine dil ki awaaz se sun liya.

Baat hai hi aisi,

Ki bas kaano mein tab padti hai

Jab dil ki nase dimaag ke hone ko bhool jaayein….

Baat hai hi aisi,

Ki yun phisalti hai

Jab dil ki taarien dimaag se jud jaayein…

Ji aap kuch to samajh hi gaye honge,

ki na samajh aane waali yeh raat hai,

Ji aap kuch to samajh hi gaye honge,

zaroor aaj kahin pyaar ki baat hai!

A flight gone missing

Dec, 2014

"How did this happen?

when we were sleeping so peaceful inflight

Our journey was a short vacation

To the sunny side of life

How did this happen

We couldnt have expected .."

My heart feels bound

By the energy pulling me inside it

It feels like a deep deep gorge

And I’m endlessly falling

Till my mind cannot imagine a fall anymore

And I feel dizzy and want to lose my sense

My head hurts with the heaviness

And deep breaths come intermittently

To tell me I’m alive

I cannot understand

Cannot sleep

With knowing these innocent souls

Were on their way to a holiday

On a short flight

To a new horizon

And they well knew their last minutes

Not sudden

Not abrupt

They lived to see their approaching end

I don’t know why

But I see a calm on their faces

Like this is fate

And we must accept it

But even so

I still cant sleep

Knowing that these lives

Dint deserve to go this way

Written on account of AirAsia flight QZ8501 which went missing on Dec. 28th later found to have crashed in the Java Sea.

Hidden veils

Feb, 2015

Today I saw a dignified shame

Hiding behind my couch all stern

She smiled and maintained a distance between

Her honour was in being, a being of none

She thought her silence

Was her gift of love

She respected, she mentored,

In her own house, she served..

Her dreams were many

But her reach not too far

Never showing disappointment

She kept raising the bar ..

Day passed to night,

Night passed on to day,

Obstacles were tackled

Routine followed away

Still little were her remains

Things she could call her own

Her sacrifices were too many

But who would a listen show…

And then one day suddenly

When they asked her

‘What would your longing be?’

She crept beneath the carpet

That answer she couldn’t see

She could have wished she had a better home

With garlands and posies and play

She could have wished she had more time

To watch their childhood not grow away

She could have wished more time with dear husband

To rejoice in the world they were building so neat

She could have wished to have never left her mother

This path was dreary, and without her being, incomplete..

But in that moment when she really sat to think,

What she could call her own

What belonged to her soul within..

The answer had been growing

Only with age blinded away

And if today was the time to speak

There was a lot the heart had to say.

She would like those treacherous years back please

With precious solitude that had been in tow

She would like back the respect for all done

And this time it must show

She would like to live again those days

In a way befitting her life

She would like to put aside all else

And go on, on an identity flight.

She would like to discover

What else she could do,

Had it not been for a perfect house on display

She would like to know

What a timetable could be

Outside the tick-tock of someone else’ days

She would like to know what was there to achieve

Had she not cocooned in the inward shell

She would like to see the life outside

Beyond four walls and companions of dismay..

She would like to free herself of the guilt

Of having left behind those things undone,

She would like herself a freedom to think

Outside the unforgiving long daily rung

She would like her mornings to begin

Only when she was ready to start

She would want respect along with love

For all the happiness rested in your heart

She would want someone to realize

how difficult it was to breathe each day…

The suffocation of being stuck in someone elses life…

To succumb every day to an unknown prey..

But to much of it she knows,

there isn’t anyone else to play that part,

Having left it to another,

This house, this peace wouldn’t be at heart.

Whether duty belongs here,

Or its in a matter of pride to say,

Whatever be the reason,

She has nurtured well enough,

To know these seeds will grow away.

That satisfaction could do a lot

Had this cross road not come her way,

Had somebody not asked again,

‘What of you, has become today?’

This is a tale which is layered with several aspects of being in essence what a woman is – a giver, a provider. Primarily on the grounds of what we have seen of our first generation expat mothers experience in an unknown land where their identity is reduced to being a mere caretaker. The travel from the innate giver to becoming one of whom a submittance is expected, in the same breath losing what they could call unique to themselves in a matrix of circumstances, need of the hour and building a household. Somewhere this is the story of every mother, every home- maker, every woman, who wishes to willingly let go off a bit of her ‘self’ to discover the joy in giving, not knowing when she runs into an endless wheel of produce and is left with much little of her own to linger on.  

Strength – an understanding

Nov, 2014

What is struggle?

Strength has too many characters as they say..

Is strength my willingness to carry on

Or the struggle to fall into that place of solace?

Was strength the solitude

‘when that little hand first lay on my chest

quietly baring our being to each other,

choosing no restraint, we dreamt, we stayed...’

Never once I think

would any mother let go

When that first touch holds

when tears just flow…

Not once does your ‘self’,

Remind you of responsibility ahead

Jittering over doubt

Or difficulty unsaid.

In that hold stands a time

Of eternity, of endless love..

Of the willingness to let go,

Of the willingness to serve.

A time of confidence,

of being with a  you outside yourself,

of giving up a part of you,

and holding a treasure no else can fend.

We surely must be a special breed,

To reinvent, to be reborn,

To re-cast our being and mould around new ends..

For strength to me is nothing but

the willingness to fall, to get up once again!

Written in the context of a ‘First time mother’s’ experience.

testing twitterfeed

this is a test

Draupadi

Theatrical Musical under Malhaar on 23-24th May 2014
As the production was divided into five acts, below is the poetry of being her, by act :

Act 1 : Birth

From the kund of conspiracy,
Was born this baton of change
A mere catalyst as nature would have it,
But with a mind, a soul, a desire in place.
Emerging to a destiny,
More often one of faith,
Through her faith she fought her battles,
With her faith she measured her gains.
For embers burning in full might,
And darkness shun across in the bright,
Her birth, one of thousand sacrifices,
Burnt out the dark for a long long night..

Back story :

Yajnaseni emerges in the bloom of youth from Yajnasena-Drupada’s yajna vedi, sacrificial fire-altar, which is repeatedly cited as a simile for her hour-glass figure. Her manifestation does not require the matrix of a human womb and ignores the absence of Drupada’s queen.

Draupadi emerges out of a rite performed on non-shrauta (sacred) tradition, and partakes of the nature of abhichara (black-magic), mainly as an unintended bonus for Drupada who performed the rite for obtaining a son to kill Drona. It is significant that she emerges as a kritya(a woman created by sorcery to slay an enemy) with a skiey heavenly announcement that this lovely, dark lady will destroy all Kshatriyas. She appears, therefore, to fulfill not Drupada’s purpose but that of the gods, responding to the Earth’s anguished prayer to lighten her burden of oppressive Kshatriyas.

“Panchali,” as she is called, is pregnant with double meaning: “of Panchala” and “puppet.” Her other names include Krsna Draupadi, for her color some say, for her faith as say others, while some others believe she was the reincarnation of Shri, Lord Vishnus wife. This presages how she lives her entire life, acting out not just her father’s vengeful obsession but as an instrument of the gods, Krishna here, her sakha, to bring back death to the world.

------------------------------------------

Act 2 : Swayamvar

In a time when ‘her’ future,

was only a sell,

between ‘his’ ambition,
Or perhaps an alliance,
Or anothers ego

Or someone elses’ expel..

She stood ready a timeless beauty

Unknowing of this cruel game,

dreaming of a new reality,
Ah, that blissfully illusionary dame.

“I look up at Him,
As my contest begins
He guides me through

And ensures I choose 'right',

I forego a future that could have been,
Knowing little how my life, holds a divide
Soon I'm strewn into parts five,
Holding my mettle, striving to survive…

I'm meant to obey, but not all on their terms,
I'm meant to fulfill, but just to that I shall not succumb.
I build my household, my rules, my truth,
Cause I'm told I behold within me the Greater Good.”

Backstory :
Her Swayamvar was a contest set to identify Arjun, to ensure the rumor that the Pandavs had perished at war was not true. Her father choreographed a contest which by its nature had only two true contenders, Karna and Arjun.

Krishna, knowing well, that Karna could easily win Draupadi and thus change the course of history to be, instructed her at the last minute to prohibit him from contesting. Reason given that the contest is between the Kshatriyas, the upper caste, and a soot-putra, the son of a charioteer cannot hope for a princess's hand. This incident paved way for the epic as we know it and The Pandavs disguised as Brahmins, came, contested and won, as planned. It seemed a perfect ending till her mother in laws ignorance had her divided into 5 households, one for each brother.

Having pledged to fulfill her duties equally, gifted with an ever-renewing virginity, absolutely unbiased, with an acutely intelligent and forceful personality, Draupadi, took on as her image of a kritya, which by nature is ‘one-who-must-be-obeyed.’ Her faith as her guide, she soon won accolades and Kunti herself described Draupadi to Krishna as sarvadharmopacayinam (fosterer of all virtues), the reigning queen of five households unparalleled and the bearer of their heirs.

------------------------------------------

Act 3 : Cheerharan

No one need entail
A woman's plight when at stake,
I was punished for my crime,
Of having devoted... now defamed.
For those who thought me their prize,
Who were they to put up my price,
Were they bearers of their own dignity
When they thought putting me up an entity


The stalwarts of integrity
Stand heads hung in shame
The pioneers of justice
Strung far and wide their names
Where are their answers
To My questions so simple
Where is their truth
To my dilemmas so trivial.
Being from their own blood,
They dare not defy
They better uplift a mans word
As a denial can go awry

To those who cannot but meet my eyes,
Whose muse I am but responsibility denied,
The question is not of who my rescue shall be
It is about your owning up to a reality.

‘You never owned me beyond owning yourself

You severed a righteousness today, 
As you ready to see me bare..
You who are known as a pillar of the dharma
Whose meaning entails justice, and duty beyond karma
You have failed in me, generations to come..
As when truth gets spoken, your legacy shall return
And crippled those fools might fight their case
But your silence today will trail them fall on their face’

For me, I worry not of a body ashamed,
Nor do I weaken in morality so vain
I know my standing as my Faith shall hold armour
But to resort to that, is that my final honour?

Backstory :

As she is being dragged by her hair wrapped in a single piece of cloth into a court full of men, Draupadi learns she has been staked by her husbands at a greedy game of dice.
Defying the elders and breaking the boundaries of tradition, she questions the understanding of Dharma to all present including the elders of the house, and how Yudhistir could put her at stake having already lost himself. Dually also questioning if duty allows a man to stake his woman when he is infact her protector by definition.
As she sees the respectables all tightlipped over this injustice, she finally calls upon her Krishna, to protect her dignity and reinforce her faith.

------------------------------------------

Act 4 : Kurukshetra

Revenge is my honour

Revenge is my Faith

Revenge is my being now

Shall nothing avenge their death

A time when a naked thigh wanted me sit

And the bearers of wisdom, heard nothing of it

When the first lady of this household was defamed 
Was called a prostitute by a charioteers’ name

When the virtuous of the court stood by

Hearing the pearls of insult unclaimed.

My dignity being lost lowered no ones esteem

Everyone in that court seemed a higher being

The laughs at those wins over an unfair game

The elders of this house never once ashamed

When their son put up the pride of their clan

Not a woman nor a man questioned this demand.

To a woman these men

Make her virtue her worth

Then guarding her honour

Isnt that a first.

'Let peace instead be pursued', they said

'As that earns better good than her pleas

Who cares much over spilt milk

We have here bigger business to weave.'

But O the righteous one!

And Krishna, You my faith!

I shall not weep or plead any more

If war be what brings their blood to my plate

And let history write this as my win,

Let me be the cause of losing all my kin,

As for a man it would be much to ask

To take on the burden, of destruction so vast.

And so I shall shoulder this pain

But you tell the world that my arrogance reigned..

Backstory :
Having lost all at the game of dice and been exiled for 14 years, both Krishna and righteous Yudhistir take on their return as a time to call peace for the common good of both clans. At his point Draupadi coaxes and reminds them of the injustice done to her and the First Lady of the house cannot be humiliated as it were. She knows peace is the right means, but only if Krishna promises this would be done to no woman ever again. An obvious silence follows and the resultant war ensues..

------------------------------------------

Act 5 : The end - Nirvana

An abandoned wife
An abandoned lover
An abandoned daughter
An abandoned mother

My identity You had created
To end all evil as You said
But in the bargain
Was it your plan
To create these monsters
Holding an upper hand?

Today you are gone before me my sakha
Leaving me alone to decide my fate
As the last moments come
I'll stand on the crossroad
And look back at what's left on my slate
What was, what will be I shall never know
But what I lived

My tangible treasure

Is a look back to an empty burrow.

My household strewn,

No kith or kin to despair

Husbanded, yet unprotected

My final moments for, I prepare.

We destroyed adharm together

And You will be written down Lord

Whereas I shall be the sorceress

Recorded not even as the pawn.

So when You offer so kindly,

For me to be liberated with You

As my deeds, my five husbands dint see,

And left me on the foothills a strew..

I instead ask of You a favor,

Please rid me off this desire to be free,

Id rather pain in this existence

And breathe in every woman’s fight for humanity.

Backstory :

It is said that when their final time came, all six took off to the hills on their journey to liberation. As time progressed each one fell off and barring Yudhistir no one made it to heaven, all possessing vices of one nature or another. The first one to fall was Draupadi, and at such time none of her husbands bothered so much as a look, except Bheem, who only enquired with Yudhistir why she shouldn't be accepted by the heavens. On which he replied since she did not love all of us equally and preferred Arjun over the rest, hence she meets her fate. Krishna later pulls her up and offers liberation but she prefers to linger on between the two worlds to tell her story over and over again.