S

Touch me, ever so softly
heal me, ever so deftly

When your fingers
move through my hair
a calm spreads within
ever so lightly

When the darkness
mounts all around,
and silence reverberates
in the closing walls,
you wave that
wand of magic,
that guileless smile,
and change my world,
ever so brightly

When your head
rests on my shoulders,
and your hair
caress my cheeks,
your faith, it touches me
ever so deeply

And I hold on
to this dream
ever so tightly

---

S: This year, I don’t want to keep it for the last minute.

Das Leben der Anderen

The lives of others. 1:20 AM, The End.

Lost for words. Do watch it.

Hillary Who?

I’m making an exception and putting this on my main blog instead of KanadaBatata where it rightfully belongs. So I’ll make this into a contest. I got this photo on Times of India site, and just could not not put words into Mrs. Clinton’s mouth. I’m sure the others will not be able to resist the temptation either. So go ahead! Enter “what she said” contest by posting a comment to this post.

The contest ends on Saturday. On Sunday I’ll use the prize winning entry (which I’ll substitute in the picture) for a KandaBatata post. What’s the prize, you ask? That was the prize — being featured in India’s most unknown news portal that serves news like hot spongy besan cakes.

So what are you waiting for? Here is my entry (which will win ONLY if no other entry is submitted).

Rules:

1. Be short — 1 line. As few words as possible.
2. Avoid vulgarity (yes, that’ some asking, but ….)
3. Avoid abusive language

That’s it.

The Skeletons

[This is a translation of my first real poem. It was written in Marathi (will shortly upload the original on my marathi blog, which needs some attention anyways), and although there is no date on the first (and only) draft that I found recently while sifting through my notebooks, as far as I can remember it was written while I was in junior college. That's 1992-93 time frame. Phew! So I've been writing crap for 15 years now]

Just the skeletons remains now
the ashes have half dispersed
and sparks have long extinguished

Why expect revolution from these skeletons,
when the bodies were never alive, even
we are the progenies of the padavas
stoically watching Draupadi’s public stripping

Why feel sad, about these skeletons?
at least they don’t give a false hope …
one cannot get angry
at their inertness

PS: Well, as the luck goes, I got my first critical feedback on this poem too. It was a much older cousin who read it and said, “it will be much better if the poem’s meaning is translated into action too”. No prizes for guessing I didn’t heed it. Even back then I believed in “art for art’s sake”, I guess .

PS2: I’ve taken liberties while translating, given that it’s my own work, so I am goddamn supposed to know what the poem wanted to say.