Going Deep & Flying High

The highlight of the concrete jungle that is the buildings in our colony, is a huge almond tree, nearly the height of our five storey building. Home to many a creature, from squirrels to exquisite birds, the tree is a wealth of lilting music in the wee hours of the morning when its feathered residents cheerily herald a new day. That certainly beats the harsh beep of the finest alarm clock! While filtering life-giving sunlight into my patio, the foliage of the large green leaves shelter my bedroom from the scorching heat of the midday sun. The robust, lush green tree is my refuge, my quiet friend whenever I feel defeated by life.

During stormy monsoon weather, the tree sways menacingly, its leaves rustling and hustling, sending a shiver down my spine. Heavens forbid, if it falls, it will land straight on our building! In spite of the shadow of fear lurking, I love to watch the sight – the howling wind winding its way between the branches, tickling and shaking every leaf and fruit. It is as though the tree and the wind are deeply engrossed in an intelligent conversation on weighty topics of universal importance. I listen in, losing myself in the hushed sounds. Thoughts cease and time stands still. Effortless meditation is what is experienced.

One fine morning I woke up to the sound of hacking and falling of branches. Looking out of the window, my heart ached and I shed silent tears, for the once lustrous tree now stood bare, fruitless, leafless, stripped off its beauty.

My morning ritual of watching the tree and its various residents had ended. I just didn’t have the heart to open the windows in the mornings, because the sight of the sad, barren tree was heart wrenching... no chirping birds, no screeching squirrels…just solemn silence.

When I returned from vacation a week later, I dreaded looking out of the window at the thought of finding a miserable looking, barren tree trunk. But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Tiny green shoots were sprouting from a number of spots on the tree trunk. The splashes of bright green of the new tender leaves promised a new start, a new life.

I watched in wonder, smiling at the hope it signalled. Though it was stripped bare, denuded off every leaf and branch, it had come around and started afresh – because it was firmly, deeply rooted. Had its roots not gone deep, it would have given way and probably withered to death.

While it gave me renewed hope that I too could start afresh, it reminded me of the necessity of being rooted in one’s core values. That alone would help me withstand the crazy, unexpected storms of life and get back to my feet every time life served a hard blow. No wonder the Beatles sang, ‘The deeper you go, the higher you fly.’

The Smell of Good Times

 

Ah! The whiff of freshly brewed coffee while lazing in bed.

Hmm…the aroma of oven fresh cake.

Oof! The stink of garbage as you cross the garbage dump.

Oh no! The odour of leaking gas!

The olfactory sense is not one that gets much attention. It may not even be considered an important one, in comparison to the rest. Yet, think about it…lack of the smelling sense could take the fragrance out of our lives, literally!

We can learn a lot by the smell of things, probably more than by the visual or textural experience. Smells allow us an experience – both pleasant and otherwise, before it becomes concrete and tangible. For e.g., a red-coloured powder could be anything. But a single sniff will warn you that it’s chilli powder, without having to suffer its sting on your tongue. Colourless toxic gases that have a smell can be sniffed out even by a layman, in the absence of scientific tools. It’s not uncommon to have people smell something burning, much before they spot the source.

Often, we are led by our nose to sniff out danger before we see or feel it. What a catastrophe it would be, if we couldn’t smell the gas leaking in our kitchen! Or the bread burning in the oven! Or… (eeew!) the queer smell of food gone bad before we take a bite! Recent research studies show that fear reactions can occur at the sensory level, even before the brain has had the opportunity to interpret that the odour could mean trouble. No wonder that the English language has an idiom, ‘to smell out danger’.

Let’s think of our childhood. Most of our memories are accompanied by a particular smell. My first thoughts are full of the light floral fragrance of my mum’s Yardley talcum powder as I rested my head on her shoulder, the Old Spice cologne when I snuggled up with my Dad, the peculiar comforting smell of my nanny, the smell of earth as we entered my mother’s village… Sigh… the sweet scent of memories. On the flip side, smells can bring back painful, fearful memories too! For instance, the smell of diesel fumes for a soldier or the smell of smoke for a burns victim. Would memories be as intense, in the absence of smells?

Kumar chetta, the cook at Chinmaya Heritage Centre in Chennai, knows just by the aroma, whether the coffee has enough sugar or not! Unbelievable but true! My favourite Aunt Rekha, was such a skilled cook, she could rattle out the ingredients of a dish with just a sniff. Knowing whether a dish is ready by the aroma is one thing, but to guess all the ingredients? Mind-blowing!

Observe shoppers in the marketplace. Many will sniff a fruit to know whether it is ready for consumption. My Dad knows the variety of a mango and its ripeness with a whiff. Now that’s one skill I have kind of developed by sniffing around with him! Does that mean this is a skill that can be refined with practice? Certainly. In the movie ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’, it is interesting to watch how the protagonist’s mother trains him to cook, with much focus on the olfactory sense, more than any other.

An Ache in the Heart

An ache in the heart
Tears streaming down the cheeks
Enveloped in loneliness, No one in sight
Do you ever feel what I feel?

No one to turn to
None to share what you feel
So many around
But not one within reach.

Friends & family, names to play with
Lovers & sweethearts sugary sweet
Many to share your joys with
Sorrow you’re left alone to deal with.

Words of solace,
A warm embrace
Can’t change your world
Or fill up empty space.

Harsh but true, these are lessons to learn
But alas! We’re stuck in a vicious circle
You aren’t there for others to turn to,
How do you expect them to be there for you?

Thus your pain is your pain alone
The gift of loneliness forever yours
The ache in the heart is here to stay
The tears will just not go away.

- Rukma

The Puppet

The Puppet

Tears of blood flowed down her cheek
Her heart was broken into tiny bits
Though feebly, it continued to beat.
Everything had changed at once
What was a lovely evening
Was reduced to a morose one.
The stars twinkling in the sky
Seemed to mock at her plight
At the mercy of her beloved
His actions had tremendous power
At once elating, at once painful
Being a puppet is definitely not gleeful.

Colours of the World

See green
Feel green
Eat green
Drink green
Think green
It’s green, green, green all over the world

See red
Eat red
Drink red
Flow red
Think red
It’s red, red, red all over the world.

See black
Think black
Feel black
Eat black
Drink black
It’s black, black, black all over the world.

The end.
No more rainbows or flowers...

Life Lost

Grains of sand slipped from her hands
Her life had gone by as easily
Nothing gained, much lost
Not really anything worth remembering.

One more soul had passed through life
Eat, drink, sleep, cry, rarely a smile
No path to follow, no goal to achieve
Wandering along, lost totally.

Why she was born, she wondered at times
Finding no answer, she’d brush it aside
The right to query, ponder and discover
Is not the right of many she’d learnt.

The soft breeze caressed her face
Her tangled hair covering her eyes
Through the gaps she gazed at the sea
One vast, silvery, glimmering stretch.

The sun slipped below the horizon
Her life had ebbed away as silently
She would leave behind not a mark
That she’d ever lived wouldn’t make history.

What romance the poets found in nature
It made little sense to her
Everywhere she looked all she found was sorrow
Even nature was in pain, not just she alone.

The water disappeared into the sand
Her life had gone by as easily
Nothing gained, much lost
Not really anything worth remembering.

- Rukma

White Canvas

White canvas
A splatter of yellow and pink
Shades of green all over
Ugly blotches of black
Oozing through the cracks streams of crimson red.

Wails in the background
Screams in the foreground
Pain shooting through the chest
As metal finds its mark.
Their good deed done for the day
But they continue on their way
The vision is high
The good Lord will applaud
They will win accolades…or so they say.

- Rukma

The Death

Broken promises, shattered dreams
A heart crushed into a zillion pieces
No sound was heard, not even a clink,
All that was seen was a red stream.
Deep, dark, drops of red trickling down the chin
In the silence of the night, a heart wrenching scream.
The wounds were deep, the knife had come out clean
Made of sugar, it was sickening sweet.
No sutures worked, bandages in vain
The pain she said was excruciating.
Is there a cure, can she be mended again
Is it possible to feel whole again?
She slinked into the bed, pulled up her knees
Hugging herself she tried to sleep
There hung a silence, deathly and still
You could cut through the air, it was sad, ominous.
Minutes ticked, the white sheet turned red
The shadow of death was felt
Life slowly ebbed away, a look of peace returning on her face.
What life had failed to give her, she had found in death.

No more promises, to give or take
No more dreams, to paint or erase
No more people, near or far
No more longing for the one that she loved
No more pain, causing tears of red
No more life, just peaceful death.
She had finally reached the end of the end.

- Rukma

Without Him

With all due respect to Feminists (well, I too qualify to be one, but not an extreme case. At least I hope I'm not. Only friends n fly would be able to confirm that) here's a poem on what it is to be without Him. Yes, you can also say Her, or even It for that matter; for now lets go beyond the grammar & punctuation and focus on the essence of the poem.

Who is 'Him' you ask? Well, you are free to relate to the 'Him' in way you like. It can be God, father, mother, friend, lover, brother, sister..... the choice is yours!

Without Him

The night without its stars
The morning without the sun
The brook without its gurgle
Like the snow in the sun.

The bird without its chirp
The flower without its scent
The grass without its colour
Like a spider without its web.

The guitar without its strings
The drum without its beat
The flute without its music
Like the trumpet without a peep.

The air without the wind
The thunder without its roar
The dog without its tail
Like a fish out of water.

Like a canvas without paint
Like a monsoon without the rains
Like a tree without roots
Like a dry leaf in the sun.