What to Name it

The world, unchanged, just took its turn.

And somewhere, quietly,

as he perched, he learned

that warmth can die,

and still leave light 

the night a child

was orphaned

by night.

My Wor(l)d Walks with Strangers

The book is gone.

Lost or left behind… 

Somewhere, in someone’s hold.

Running fingers across verses 

that once trembled my soul.

Will they read them as I wrote or will they read them as told(?)

There was one poem written without ink

Whoever finds that will never know 

That it holds what I couldn’t hold within.

So, if you see my words wandering here and there

on torn leaves or rehearsed lines, 

know this...

They once belonged to a man

who loved so hard, he forgot to lock the door.

தலைப்பில்லா கவிதைகள்

மெல்லத் திறந்த பக்கங்களில்

மௌனமாக வைக்கப்பட்ட என் நெஞ்சம் இருந்தது…

ஒரு ஒரு வரியும் என் புலம்பல்தான்

ஆனால் யாருக்கும் தெரியாத மொழியில் எழுதப்பட்டிருந்தது.

தலைப்பில்லா சில கவிதைகள்,

அத்தாள்கள் தான் என் தோள்களில் உறங்கிய இரவுகள்…

இப்போது அந்த கவிதைத்திரட்டு என்னிடம் இல்லை.

ஒளிந்திருக்கலாம்,

யாரோ திறந்திருக்கலாம்,

பகிர்ந்திருக்கலாம்... புரியாமல்.

அக்கவிதைகள், ஒரு மனிதனின் உள்ளம் உடைந்த பிம்பங்கள்.

ஒரு பெண்ணின் பெயர் கூட எழுதாத அத்தாள்களை,

இப்போது யார் கைகள் மெதுவாக கிழிக்கிறதோ(?)

மறக்க முடியவில்லை.

ஏனெனில், அவை தொலைந்த என் வரிகள் அல்ல, என் சிதறிய வலிகள்...

என் வாழ்வின் உடைந்த நொடிகள்.

தொலைத்து விட்டேன்.

இன்று நான் எழுதும் ஒவ்வொரு வரிக்கும்

அந்த பிழை ஒரு பிளவாகவே நிற்கிறது.

Final Hour

The sun sets low upon this field of woe,

Where years have bled like wounds upon the ground.

What joy, what youth, what dreams I’ll never know...

All buried beneath the war drum’s hollow sound.

Alone I tread where death his banner spread,

The soil yet warm with blood of friend and foe.

Around me lie the brave, the silent dead...

Yet in my soul, thy voice begins to grow.

Thy letters, worn and pressed against my chest,

Were stars that lit my path through the darkest nights.

Yet time stole more than life from those who rest

It robbed the bloom of love - the heart’s delight.

Upon this hallow’d field where brave men fell,

I stand alone with the breath of war now still.

The smoke ascends like ghosts with tales to tell

As silence weeps upon the crimson hill.

Nimirndhu Nil

Tamil'il kavidhai kor'ka aasai-thaan

aanaal... en Tamil kavidhai'yai keduthuvidummo endra ach-chum'mum kooda...

Kudhi-thu sellum kaagam'mum, thaliraadhu thudikum elai'galum, asaindhu aadum may'ga kavasamum

Pagalum, iravum, paruvamum, karumamum

pin-thodarum nizhal'laga

Kaatrum, mazhai'um, satrai sudum kaneer thulium

thudikum narambum, ambum, vaalum

Sindhanaigal'il aval mugamum kasaiyum...

Irumbhai valaikka pogum poraali'yin kalgalay thulaitha thurumbhai pola

Katri'yaval piditha tholgal'in pin nindru kuth'thiya mudhigin eerum kasai'ya

Adi'thalam mariya pinnum - kaalam, nayrum, paavum, puththi - sat-rai sutri varah

iru sottu kurudhee villundhadhu oru kuttai puzhudhiyil...

Arthamay illadha unarchigalil vaalum valkai pola.

Av-vun vali'ku alum vurimai avalukku mattum vundu

Andha vali'yeh aval kodukka neyrgayil alugai vunarndhu vuraindhu ponadhu.

Kuridhi'ya(?) Kanneer'ah(?) Idhil edhu manidhanay adakkum(?)

Viyarvai sindhum nerathil sindhanaikku id-dum illai ippoludhu

Pagazhil maraiyum idhayathirku iravil vudhithu payan-edharku...  

  

Que Sera Sera

Time is such a precious thing. It is not about metaphysical questions like who invented it(?) or on what basis it was invented(?) or whether it is the same for everyone(?)... This is more about the changes that happen around us when we are too adamant not to change or too stubborn with the thought of changing ourselves while assuming that the things around us remain constant in the mean time or worse still, attempting to change others as we change ourselves or decide to remain unchanged in the process.

In this process of change, undeniable is the fact that time runs by... 

The fact that every seed and every child grows, every sin is realized and regretted, every lesson has been learnt and unlearnt in the process does not count at the end of the day when the toll is seen as a punishment on one's own body and skin. Of late I read about a popular and beautiful actress from a couple of years ago lamenting over why she is not offered any roles in movies like before - especially after her marriage and two kids... well, she might not see it but, things have changed. Her innocence is replaced with the very fact that she is beginning to see and question the facts and realities of life. We get to read about women killing their husbands to be with their lovers and in the process landing in custody and losing their life as well as those around them. This in fact is not new. A few decades ago I remember a young couple who were quite close during their college days. The girl was seriously involved; the boy, not quite so. As usual, the family drama stepped in and she was told that parents knew what was best for their child and they had found a better option and a brighter future in the promised land - the U.S of A. - with a proposal that could be sealed through a holy matrimony. With her lover backing out, she took the proposal and did take off to the promised land - but not for a promised life. She declared to her new husband her affair from the past and inundated him with punctuated clauses about reasons why she would be lost in her past memories even if she were to li(v)e with him. As any self-respecting man would do, he wanted to wash himself clean from this mess as well and sent her back home for good. This time, the former lover had no chance to escape. To cut the long story short, there was a divorce, a second marriage for her and a first for the lover-turned-second husband, they have two kids and are living happily or miserably ever after. What was lost in all this drama was 'time'. What was established was the fact that what must happen will happen - que sera sera...

Sons grow, daughters grow, marriages grow old and sour, people yearn for rest and respect as much as they earn to rest and be respected, we spend so much time conceiving plans to destroy others when the same could have been invested to create something better for oneself and those around, we fight only when it comes to losing what we have and stay comfortably unbothered with pretentious emotions when we see someone else struggle or fight, we highlight the mistakes of others as we delight in our own eccentricities as we underplay our atrocities - as we begin to think and think of beginning a new chapter in our life. Yet, it moves...    

Price Tags

A few years back, I recall a conversation with one of the greatest 'kanjoos' (miser) who told me about his minimalistic approach to life and how he and his family were existing off handed-over clothes; on the parallel I also happened to meet a spendthrift who was giving off clothes from his wardrobes so that he can fill them up again for the season and to suit the latest fashion to align with his family's taste. There are people who save on food and end up spending on medicines. People who spend on luxuries and yet feel empty within. People who save and save every penny. every dollar and every paisa and finally end up in their old age watching their money squandered when shared. 

Money and how we approach it - as a means to an end or as an end in itself - quite metaphysically encompasses one's ego that needs to be satiated. Tell me what you do with your money and I will tell you where your ego (self) bloats and where it shrinks - the things you so desperately procure to feel full and the things you let go to establish yourself. Money defends the ego. 

If our ego can alter the way we use, misuse or abuse money, money too has a fair chance to use, misuse and abuse our ego - with and without its presence. 

During our discussions, my kids told me that they observed that people who speak with price tags attached to every thing they possess, are rather poor or nouveau riche. They lack class. They usually hold and never use what they have the way it is supposed to be. These are the kinds that buy an expensive carpet and hang it on the wall, buy four-wheel drives that they do not even know how to roll out of the store and end up being gaudy, greedy and jealous burning with envy in their eyes when they pry something new over their neighbour's wall. They are an easy spot at weddings, birthday parties and any such social events where they deck-up their image in a futile attempt to hide their plunging egos. Note: They should not be mistaken for the unnecessarily scanty, irrevocably transparent, miserably revealing histrionic personalities that may be floating around. Those are the attention-seeking kind.

At the end of the day, whether you wish to be flashy or wish to be subtle, you reveal more than you intend to hide.        

 

The Serpent'sTea Cup

Late into the night, I received a call from a friend of mine to announce that a common friend of ours, had just had twins - a boy and a girl. They had baked a huge double-decker cake and had celebrated the event. 

As a friend of mine once asked, 'What is the big excitement in the birth of a child(?) When a virile man and a fertile woman join, conception and birth of a new life are bound to follow... what is the big excitement about it and the need to be congratulating(?!)'

Well, I did agree to him when he told me that. But, this celebration yesterday night was different. This friend of ours was with the merchant navy; newly married, he had to return to the sea to make money for the new expenses they were starting to have. He was in the waters when he heard about his wife being pregnant. The wife had told him that she could take care of the pregnancy as his mother was with her and there was nothing to worry and all he had to do was keep working and send home the money which she promised to save on land for him. The child was born; he couldn't come. His excitement of becoming a father was saved for only the sea to witness. Two years later when he returned, he met his little boy for the first time. He was so excited that he showered all that he earned on the mother and the child. He knew that there was a lifetime ahead and the sea could meet all their needs. After a short break, they knew that he had to return to keep the home running with promises to keep as a provider. This time, it was a five-year contract that he signed. That sacrifice would be worth enough to refurnish the house, spike the bank balance and provide the little luxuries for his loved ones - he thought. He went. 

Everything went smoothly as planned and he received regular photos of new things filling the house - a new car, a new couch, a new set of jewellery... everything that would make his return to land a joy once he landed - after all his life and savings were in his good wife's good hands. 

One day, when he was still in the sea, his mother sent him an SOS and wanted to talk to him. She soon came on a video call with him and showed him the house - it seemed reduced. There was almost nothing - save for the stool left for his mother to sit and weep on. The brilliant wife had skilfully taken off with their son and every bit of investment he had made monetarily. He felt more emotionally drained than financially. He returned.

The house was empty as his mother had shown. She was being taken care of by the neighbours till his return. There was nothing. Everything purchased that he got to see only on the photos were like they never were even there; the bank balance that he was told was his savings was all saved in the woman's name. The car she drove away in, the bags she packed everything into, the child she took away... everything that she said was 'theirs', were now 'her's' to keep. Every woman who does something as vulgar as this must have a family to back her up in such a deal; in this case, it was her father stood by this angel's side - who got a case filed at the police station to keep our man at a distance and a divorce filed at the family court soon after, to seal the deal. Benefit: A daughter to take care of him in his old age with a bag full of free goodies got out of her shrewd investments made with the sweat and blood of another soul. 

When I first met this man, he had just returned from a Tea Shop. It had become his usual routine to go sit there - not for the tea - but to see his son being taken to school on that route in a closed car - who he could see only from a distance. He looked shaken, stirred and sunk - like a ship being rattled in a storm - when he narrated these incidents with his chin on his chest. 

Soon, the nasty divorce battle began; the lawyers fought over the lies, the liars fought alongside the lawyers and finally the judge for whom these battles were not fought for a reason, declared peace and granted at the end the best thing the man had ever received - a divorce. The very same evening, he got married (again) to someone much younger, more beautiful and far more healthier and started a new life cleaning up his dirty slate. This incident made me chuckle at the seaman's unpredictability. Soon, we heard that his new wife had conceived and as things were expected to naturally turnout, delivered twins - doubling his happiness - that like most men, he deserved. 

While talking to him this time, he seemed so calm and collected. He was talking about how busy he is at times that he can't answer the phone like before - times when he would be doing the dishes or changing diapers for the new lives. Life had become calm after the storm and as a sailor knows best, no matter how far a man sails into the deep, he only moves closer to his heart on land.     

Questioning the Answer

This time lets play a brain game. This is about the most dangerous question in the world. A set in fact - but, it begins with this simple one: 'Are you happy?'

To which anyone would retort with an impulsive-compulsive-response, 'Yes(!)'. Just hold them there. The quicker the response, the more preconditioned and thoughtless they are. Catch them there; tell them that you really want them to know how happy they really are. Shoot Question two: 'What makes you happy(?)'

Remember: You still haven't got the answer for Q.1.

Allow the person to reflect. Let them list. It may include the normal, regular and boring: music, books, games, food and a long list of other B.S. Look interested, keep listening all the while exploring and wondering why these things - each thing - on their list makes them happy. If you are a seasoned mind reader or a gifted psychoanalyst, you must have already started to understand the subconscious drives and subliminal desires of the person; if not, understand that the tip of the iceberg reveals only a bit of the mountain it hides.

Remember: Q.2 is still inconclusive. 

This is when Question three touches the bottomline: 'Would you still manage to be happy doing the things that you do that really don't make you happy(?)' 

This is the point when retrospection really sets in when the person will try to recollect and count the things that are mundane, an unescapable list of tasks and ritualistic endeavours undertaken to be validated. Most of us do what we do just for validation without gratitude. We do things, wear things, speak things and pretend to like or even dislike something to avoid being named, labeled, branded and sealed as 'misfits' and the 'unfits'. In short, we pledge our life to be drafted according to other's opinion. And in it lies our unhappiness. 

Remember: Q.3 cannot be answered.

So when we clear off this smoggy vision of self-created illusion of happiness, we tend to see in bits, pieces and fragments the ruthlessly guiltless, shamelessly raw and fearlessly liberated parts of ourselves - caged, confined and battered over the years manifests. In these fragments across the maze lies the puzzle of who we are. In it lies the undeniable self - only if we dare to see. 

The best resort for those who don't wish to see... don't take the question.        

Check Mate

 

Chess has a ginormous monster, a legend called Magnus Carlsen and there is another legend who blew off his top cracking the game as if it were a war - none other than Bobby Fischer. Of course there others like the magical Mikhail Tal and the refined Capablanca - my daughter's favourites. These are people who were fighters; who made up their own moves, who explore and explode the board with their limitless calculations and strategies. 

Then there are the others, those who learn chess like it were a set of algorithms, patterns that are limited to their theoretical understanding of openings, middle game strategies and end game finishers and maybe a couple of gambits and traps they pull out once in a while like snipers. These are our 'memory boxes' created in the likes of factory-manufactured products going in and coming out of mushrooming chess academies. They go to tournaments with calculated moves and if the counter move is different, they panic and are lost. 

There are 960 ways in which a chess board can be arranged; still, in classical chess, often promoted by the Federation Internationale Des Echecs (FIDE) - the International Chess Federation, there is only one way, the right way of setting the board. With the chess board set in the 'right' way, there is a possibility of anywhere between 1327 (recorded openings) to 3000 possible openings - giving a fair chance to memorize and replicate openings and counter defence based on successful moves previously played. When the chess pieces are randomized and set in 960 possible ways, the number of possible openings can be multiplied 3000 times 960 that makes the game unmemorizable, unpredictable and exciting. For Fischer and other legends, this unpredictability is what makes the game fun to play instead of matching algorithms with the opponent that they feel makes the game mechanical, tiring and (yawnnn!) boring. This has led to a clash between the conservatives and the radicals and at times the classical chess conservatives taking up the challenge to fight the liberal radicals of freestyle chess over the board only to run screaming the other way in panic and horror when they realize that their memory boxes are unable to think beyond the boxes and squares they have been trained to play within. Needless to say, Fischer must be smiling with ease (at least) now. 

Chess apart, this also figuratively showcases our parenting styles. Hands down I would agree that today's parents are more involved, concerned and evolved in parenting than our predecessors. However, do they pick the box of conservative and traditional parenting methods, suggestions and ideologies or are they exploring possibilities rather differently(?) Are we trapped within our own acquired knowledge or do we challenge the norms and give unpredictability a chance(?) Our kids may be ready for the mundane with trackable answers from the reserves of encyclopaedias... yet, are they ready for the unpredictable and unpardoning challenges in the discourse of life(?) 

Like chess, only time will tell who wins, who loses, who resigns and who berserks at the end of the game when a thin line is drawn between a checkmate and a stalemate. It's your move now...