In Search of a Sign

The Lonely Star

There thou art today again,

Twinkling just to draw it,

The same lonely cast vacant

Missing every poetic sign

That reveals thy true depth.

Unimaginable the hardship taken,

There twinkling ominously overcast

To skim o’er it a tender grace,

Unfelt, bereft of a live vein,

Palled a void crammed—

Still it sees thou up there.

As a grey smog wreathes,

It feels embedded, chained.

If a drop of its absurdity fated

Be of any for thy condolence,

It has it, only, a medium. 

A Sadhu at my door

Namo Shiva, the familiar mantra,

I was prompted out with a coin

Both to save my after-lunch nap

And for his struggled blessing—

His thick dark woollen outfit

Suffocated him further the blazing heat.

Wielding his Tirshu, the holy symbol,

The authorization bestowed to beg on…

His shaggy hair straw-stiff,

The tri white lines on forehead,

Those tangling necklaces, holy amulets,

Especially the long rosary dangling—

Of bigger beads naturally carved grooves—

His head plunged forward,

The frail outline fully symbolized;

The twisted countenance brutalized.

His promised blessings showered then

From his distant hermitage, the Himalaya alike.

Lo, his mantra coherent—

Letting me withhold a single question.

As he departed, his magic followed too;

And so left me here—

Sticking to my own static trend:

Do thus, harvest so, the interplay. 

Here

Taxi Drivers

Their cotton garbs vary

As their bleached countenances—

From frisky indulgence to dullness;

As their household carriages—

From welcoming to near-broken.

Wielding their whip-keys,

Each one, idly, mounts, whips

To one’s turn of houseful chore.

Monday

The weekly recess hits so:

The taxi-stand the kind tree-roofed;

The smooth plastered round concrete-base,

The lounge base smoothened shiny

Countless bottoms polished it—

Twice at a time, sit and stand.

The day to idle out to the camps and bazaar,

The piazzas scorching, dusty among melees.

Gayu Restaurant

The paunchy one’s domain,

Packed by his grace of two tools:

Welcoming jolly mood, pranks

And real high cholesterol serves

That many prefer even these days.

The air gives off an imagery,

How a Chinese rest may look like

Filled with his loud mediocre Chinese. 

Old People Home

The institution merit borne
The air exudes seclusion-taken…

Those smiling loungers stare,

A polished-smooth dark rosary

Held by each busy lips quivering,

A rhythmical low grunt chanting,

Each bead rolled back to it.

A crumpled face bears what?

The blinding heatwave undulates

Over the pasture of dried bushes;

The bending coco fronds yellow-bleached,

Swaying fanning themselves desperately.

The busy lips lounge in vacant muse

The verandas shaded by mango trees;

The cool breezes fan intermittently

Monitoring their assignments continued.

I find the bath-room corner

A breathing one on a piece of rag

Lounging as it’s the place.

Like a charred log it lies;

A furless old dog in rashes

So severe but taken amid moans.

Nursed and taken in it belongs,

A caring hand reached it.

Taking the grey dust-matted road,

I leave visiting it again this time.

(After visiting Old People Home Mundgod Tibetan Settlement a couple of days back; the impression etched on my memory.)

Phantasmagoria

Found but yet to find how far...,

The futility this grey nebula-sensitivity,

The way it fades into hues and tastes—

Only to the whiff of a stimulus encountered.

And to find, only a wisp, its disenchanted angle,

Along the fated courses it meanders;

A lurking predator’s prey, victimized,

The price for its futility proved…

Now say enlightened but doomed then—

Like a strip of cloud the coloration metamorphoses;

Its true shape to be honed against how many odds,

How many endless winters to escape through…?

So to find is to suffer; to suffer is to learn,

But why tending to fall again the same pit

Welcoming, to it, like a smiling host, trainer.

Lo, it lumbers on to the whiff of illusory breezes!

*

How it's here now (South India):

As of being terribly hot these days and so it would be till the start of the upcoming monsoon, I learned from some guys here that even a crow can’t caw these days as drained by the heat but remain gaping—numbed and choked. It looks like real. I haven’t heard cawing since I returned here from Dhasa a fortnight ago. 

An Evening Scene for You

For you:

Rather out of the blue I came across this aesthetic natural grandeur of evening scene…….the overlapping rib-like cloud-patterns, the template of hue-strokes, the setting sun I gaped with admiration but be able to get struck with the thought of capturing the natural canvas-work for you with my cell phone camera. 

Call it a poetic capture as this sense happens to get mingled with the absorption of admiring such gorgeous natural presentation before a pair of dull eyes. To stumble over such a view is to tickle a hibernated emotion into its play...

A Sepia Splendour

This gifted picture must haven been taken by Acha Dolma la on a fine crisp evening from Dhasa upper TCV Home # 3, the moment caught in time with precision. A sun set splendor I like for its aesthetic values spared in such gorgeous way by our Mother Nature, free of charge if one has time to take in its medium..........we are still together on this life-supporting planet under the same azure sky--then think we are blessed! 


A lofty goal I haven't;
A grandiose plan I can't devise;
To sense a true beauty I deserve
To maintain this dainty-emotion fervent.