Benumbed... maybe since ages...
only the mind works.... occasionally...
feeling only the most extreme of the sensations.....
overwhelming delight or intense pain.
and in between them lies a vast abyss which is disturbingly overcrowded,
and dreadfully bright.

Butterfly!!

Your friendship is special

Like the flowers that bloom,

Or when a butterfly emerges

From within its cocoon...

You remind me of that butterfly,

Loving and free,

Bright and colorful,

For the world to see...

We will share sunshine and rainbows;

Sometimes, the rain and the snow;

We'll stand together through it,

While the cold winds blow...

When the time is right,We won't stop to ask "Why?

"Our friendship will take flight

On the wings of a butterfly ...

I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me.

I'd like to be the help that you've been always glad to be;

I'd like to mean as much to you each minute of the day,

as you have meant, my friend, to me along the way.

Absurd may be the tale i tell,

Ill suited to the marching times,

I loved the lips from which it fell,

so let it stand among my rhymes.

...never came

Again on the shores of ocean...

i look for you..

you look for me..

i look for what is not their...

you never came..

never came through...

... :)

Alone in my room..standing near the window..dim lights..i can see a silent lane..its making me sad..i draw the curtains...sitting on my bed..a book shelf in front of me..door of the room shut...blanket pulled upto my chest..i stare at the shelf..thinking of what to think..i feel the need to feel happy...blissfully happy. Its been a long time since I felt that way. Think think think think…

Whose memories make me really happy? Friends? My heart sinks, my eyes tear up..m starting to think of person i feel i was closest to and can feel his absence...i imagine..wht he must be doin..i guess in office...i imagine him working..i smile.. i remeber his smile...it makes me smile :) i smile. My other friend in mumbai..i frown. She must be busy studying, becoming a doctor. I scrunch up my nose, contemplate giving her a call. I check the balance in my cell- Rs 18.34. I frown. Rs 2 per minute, 9 minutes of talking, 1 month of catching up to do. I flare my nostrils n disgust…no possibility of a call to mumbai.fine then, back to the shelf. Think think think think...

i feel the need to feel happy and its growing stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. Mum enters the room without knocking, switches the light on, sees my tear streaked face...she backs out of the room. Overwhelming embarrassment. Im sure I shall be bombarded with questions, when I finally come out of my room. Back to the shelf. Think think think think.

I think of my childhood. It reminds me of mini, my friend who passed away. I stop thinking of my childhood. I feel the need to feel happy grow stronger. I know my mind is wandering towards where I don’t want it to go. I think of my school years...i think of my first crush..he was cute..i smile.. my mind goes 2 years back..n thinking of someone now...why? tears roll down..Suddenly, its almost as if I can see my self from afar, sitting on the bed in the dark. I think of him. I think…I know…I’m sure, I wouldn’t have sat like this ALONE, while there was a ‘he’, while there was an ‘us’. I remember I felt immensely happy, like a bubble of happiness burst somewhere deep in my heart, when he told me he loved me. That is what I want. Still.. cold..silent.. i miss him! i dont knw where he is today..the thought hurts me..i feel a physical pain inside me..i think if he thinks of me ? the pain in the heart continues..He was the one i loved..i smile.... :)

In times of need...

There are times in life when you have no one, just no one to turn to for help…and recently life has been giving me a heavy dose of such situations! It’s not like I don’t have any one to call on for help, or that there is no one around who loves me, or that there is no one who wishes to help. Fortunately for me there are many people in my life who satisfy these conditions and plenty more…my parents who have never for once let me feel less precious than a diamond mine( I haven’t ever even been whacked once!) and my friends all of whom I can proudly say are my best friends, none of them just “a” friend…they are people who I’m sure will be with me for the rest of my life, no matter where we go, no matter what we end up becoming in our lives and no matter how many fights we have. We share relationships that would remain untouched by all of these!!!

I love them all so deeply that perhaps that is the reason, which holds me back from bothering them by telling them about my problems! God has gifted me with an extra sensitive sense of guilt that is always on a high alert! I have this superpower to feel guilty for things, even when I am not at fault and for things I need not feel guilty about! Like for instance, if I have a fight with a friend I will be the first person to break the aftermath of silence that generally follows a fight! Why?…because I would feel terribly guilty about spoiling the other person’s mood, or for over-reacting to a situation (even if my reaction is justified) or for just saying rude things (even if what I said was the absolute truth!). so when I’m in a situation where I desperately need to talk to some one, when all I need is probably just a hug, for some one to show me the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel and for some one to just tell me that things would be okay, I become choosy! I make myself run out of choices of people to turn to for help!

If the situation involves my parents in even the slightest and smallest of all ways, I will not tell them any thing about what it is, that’s bothering me…because I do not wish to put them in a sticky situation, where they would have to chose between what they subjectively feel is right and my comfort! I do not wish to make it tougher for them than it already is! In other words “superpower-guilt” kicks in! So with my parents counted out, I’m left with the option of my friends.Now, since I was a kid I have had trouble being even remotely nice to people who are not intelligent! And by intelligent I don’t mean academically intelligent, I mean emotionally intelligent! All my friends have a very high emotional intelligence, which means that they are able to recognize and comprehend their own and others’ emotions well and provide help at a deeper, stronger, “coming straight from the heart” kinda level, rather than just a superficial one. But then again, “superpower-guilt” kicks in and I wonder why I would want to waste any of my friends time by pouring my heart out to them, eating away the little extra time they have, which they might want to use for some other purpose rather than just listen to a woman bawl over what may seem to many, a frivolous problem! Besides, every one has their own fair share of problems to handle, so why should they have to handle mine in addition to their own?

So now that I am out of all options ...i turn to GOD..

God papa is what I call my God, it just somehow makes him seem more approachable, gives him a personal touch, if I may say so! And I don’t pray to God papa, I talk to him ...I speak my heart out to him and tell him everything...tell everything to my God papa, who does not belong to any religion, without a drop of shame running through my blood!!!And when I’m done with my chat with God papa, there is a strange kind of peace, calm and quiet that envelops me, one that is greater than any amount of comfort, human help could have given me and then suddenly having no one, just no one to turn to is not half as bad as it had seemed!!!

The Darkness Lasts...

In our gazes,

of presents and pasts

darkness lasts—

as far as where horizons

tell ends from the starts

darkness lasts—

We hear footsteps,

approaching us and leaving us

we hear things falling

and breaking into parts.

We sit helplessly

in the cold chest of blindness

with hands on our hearts

where darkness lasts—

We listen to marching warriors,

to bugles and to hollers.

We listen to the echoes

from pulpits and from bars

We listen to the whispers

of earth, seas and forests

we hear claps and praises

for some magician’s crafts

and moans from hospital wards

with hands on our hearts

where darkness lasts—

Now and then we venture,

to stand on our fee

twe take on the adventure

of stepping into unseen lands

on our way we stumble

over others still sitting

in the cold chest of blindness

on our invisible paths

with hands on their hearts

where darkness lasts—