Sands of Time

Sands of Time

The river of Time

Is not kind to all.

Some stones, it lovingly crafts

And polishes in to distinctive shapes;

Others it erodes and leaves behind

With cruel marks of its passage 

And the rest it mercilessly grinds

In to sands of time.

The candle

The candle

My body was the candle

That I began burning at both ends

In trying to know more (just for the heck of it)

broaden my understanding, my horizon,

do more, live more meaningfully.

Exploring the world of books, arts, cinema

From philosophy to pornography.

Now it is payback time and

My body wants its revenge!

The mind aspires skywards, vertically

The deprived body wants to catch up on lost sleep,

 horizontally

And what have you- sleep apnoea

The consequent embarrassment of nodding off

At inopportune moments, the well-meaning prods,

The commiserating, even empathetic smiles 

Words of advice and the derisive smirks,

And compounded ignominy of explaining it all!

Old man who stares at mountains

Old man who stares at mountains

Sitting here on Debu-Nandita’s balcony

I feel

The late Spring sun on my back

I hear

The distant cow-bells

As stunted cattle go out to graze

The melodious mating call of the mountain mynah

The sibilant whisper of the breeze

Caressing the fronds of cheerh trees

I watch

The frenetic flight of the swifts

The languorous lammergeyer on its wings

The hurried fluttering of the hummingbird

Competing with the butterflies

Raiding the red rhododendrons.

And with my focussed-unfocussed eyes, see

The rolling hills, terraced fields and verdant valleys,

Distant Trishul and Nanda Ghunti

Playing hide-and-seek,

Perfectly content

With the evanescent frames and unchanging vista.

Harvard, oh!

Harvard, Oh!

Object of wet dreams in callow youth

Far, faraway, unattainable, 
Object of desire in middle-age

Still far away, too far for sparse means

Finally there, at the end of life

Desires cling to the red walls like ivy.

Spires that inspire

Intellect that astounds

Sincerity that surprises

Beauty that captivates

And memories to carry away

And cherish.

Biker’s song: Nameless Pleasure 1

Biker’s song: Nameless Pleasure 1

I love

the wind’s roar in my ears,

the sting of its lash on my face,

as I hurtle down the highway.

From the tiny bits of rubber,

that grab and scrabble

 with the tarmac and win,

the flickering needle on the tachometer,

the inanimate hunk of throbbing metal,

and me,

I am one.

The exhausts beat a transient tattoo

on the walls of silence.

A whiff of scorched rubber,

 a thinning trail of smoke,

Proclaim, even though for a moment,

I was here.

Biker's Song: Nameless Pleasure 2

Biker's  Song: Nameless Pleasure 2

My inherent liking for unstable equilibrium,

Where you cannot take status quo for granted,

The titillation of flirting

With the immutable laws of physics,

Specially on mountain roads

Where bleed the speed, brake, downshift, take the turn

Build up speed, up-shift become a litany for the limbs,

Where the mind is a coordinator, focused and

Concentrating its powers on a point

Twenty odd metres ahead.

Eyes remain focused/unfocussed;

Ears revel in the comfortable chawanni-athhanni in my pocket

  cadence of the valve-train,

Overlaying a sewing machine buzz,

offset by the bass burble of the exhaust on engine braking

and banshee scream on acceleration

a divine orchestra!

You exist in a flow, moment by moment,

Conscious of nothing but that moment.

Surely beats meditation!

Caveat: Biker’s Song

Flirting with the immutable laws of physics

Is fine till it lasts.

Daring Newton often, Bernoulli sometimes is OK, but

Law of averages has the tendency of catching up!