Life's Masterpiece.

A broad canvas. One stroke at a time.
Red, blue, green and black
Symmetric, asymmetric…
Move back and behold
The picture I painted.

Look not until I am done
Laugh not at my naivety
Question me not now
There will be answers,
There will be a picture
Once I am done.

There is no time to pause
To draw a deep breath; reflect.
No room for correction
A mark made is made.
Cry for all you want,
Tears do not wash away
The blues nor the greys
Nor the cruel, uncalculated strokes
How I wish I could for once
Hold my hand, stop myself
“Not that one, not there
There is a time and a place.
Wait!” Words I never got to say
To myself.

It is still summer
An occasional drizzle drops in
Once in a while
But soon, everything is bright again.
Red and orange on a yellow background
Drops of green dashes of blue
Rich, colorful, happy.

Soon will come winter
Bonfires lit to bring warmth
Will devour my art
Brown and burnt, reduced to ashes
At the end of a long day’s work.
Maybe a scrap will survive
Bearing my fingerprint
Someone, somewhere (maybe yet to come) is sure
To chance upon it
Will she take heed?
To look at it for one long, lone moment;
Try to hear what I tried to say?
Or, will she throw it into the heap
To join the unnamed junk?

Life-giver you are, my fate rests on your eyes
Read me!
Give my strokes your voice,
A new life; the chance to live
Another summer, maybe yet another.
Grant me the elixir
To live on and on
To see me looked at with reverence,
Disgust, criticism or even cluelessly
Don’t leave me to the tides of time
To take me into its forgetful bosom.

There is no world but this
And I yearn to remain.
To see someone similarly inclined
Speak out what I would’ve said.
You give me my life
I rest on your hands
Don’t toss me away.

Years down the lane,
The paper will perish
The colors will fade away
My strokes will be illegible
Photograph me in your memory
Display it on your showcase
There let it lure a vacant stare
To ponder upon all that is life.
Then it will become I
An individual.

Here, I have paused too long
Reflecting on what this canvas will offer
A century from now.
It is time to clasp that brush
And that palette with a determined hand
Thinking not of what you are to be.
I will give you my best
All that my teachers taught me
And those forbidden that I saw
There will be no dilution
For this is not for the faint at heart
This is for rebels who dare to read.
This is for anarchists who can’t help speaking up.
This is for you, standing on the edge
Precariously, waiting to break out
Of your chrysalis.
Spread your wings, awe the world
With your beauty,
There will be a few
Who frown upon those speckles and spots
But they define you, that is your beauty.
A day is all you have
Make a difference however small.
Generously gift happy curves
For they will turn upside-down
Once you are gone.

Journey Of the Magi

Poets do speak for all of us. They make us feel that the poem is written for and about us. As I read T.S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’, I find that I can relate to it to a very great extent that I am surprised that it was not written by or about me. ‘Journey of the Magi’ is about the journey that the three wise men of the east (the magi) undertook to pay their respects to the new-born, the son of god, Jesus Christ. They regretted leaving behind the comforts and luxuries of their kingdom and embarking on such a difficult journey which presented them with huge hurdles by the minute. When they finally reached the place where Jesus was born the spectacle for which they had suffered all the hardships of the journey seemed only ‘satisfactory’. Though they had witnessed the birth of Christianity, an introduction to a new faith, it was not easy for them to be able to give up their old beliefs and values. On their return to their kingdoms they found themselves ‘no longer at ease’ there. Their people seemed so primitive and pagan with their many gods and they felt like intruders, strangers. They were neither here nor there.

It is a bit ironic that I should use this journey to describe my situation because what I witnessed was not the birth of a new faith but the death of my old beliefs and maybe, you can say, the advent of rationality. The journey was not so pleasant. I tried clinging to what I had known and believed in for so long. I tried defending the irrationality that was my faith. Finally, there reached a point where I could no longer make a fool of myself and speak for something which I myself was so uncertain about. As god disappeared from my life, I could feel the liberation, the limitless freedom which was exciting and at the same time frightening. There were no taboos, it was my way. Everything was up to me and my “rational mind” to decide. Soon, I began to cope with it. I found out that I did not need a set of dogmas or the fear of someone watching me from up above to do what was right. I have a frigging brain for crying out loud!

The tough part was coming back home and defending why I am no longer the simple god-fearing girl who left for IIT. Everybody seemed to be convinced that I was under the spell of some evil demon. There would be debates daily which did not even for a moment make me doubt my stand. The last straw was when I was dragged to the temple on my birthday and it ruined the one day people usually try to make me happy. Everything seemed so primitive and pagan. I could feel the resistance building up inside me. Not one particle in my body wanted to be there and I felt my rebellious best. Forcing someone who does not have faith is not the way to bring them over to your side, it will only convince them that they are right. I still have some respect for religion for it brings people together even those who do not have time to eat proper meal and the morals that it tries to impart to people using figures, symbols and stories so that the layman can understand. One more forced outing to a temple and even that may go down the drain.

To sum up my situation, I will have to borrow a few lines from Matthew Arnold’s "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse"

        Wandering between two worlds, one dead
        The other powerless to be born,
        With nowhere yet to rest my head
        Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.

A Mirage

Vert-hued you are, I behold,

Sapphire tinged to bards,

Lacking in loneliness.

What are you?

Green, blue or neither.

Pure you are; maiden's tears

Speckled you are by

The naughty sun

You dance, you walk

We talk. Glow you

Sparkling, shimmering silk

Vainly I gaze at the horizon

Origins? Question thus put

Grimly, towering ancestors frown

At me. You belong

To them, the hands that

Caress you, pat you as

You run your solitary race.

Restored unto me the deserter

That on a meandering course

You stole from a brother

In art. Gratitude flows

In torrents. Mirror we

Each other, crystal clear!