EVOLUTION OF (MY) POETRY-PART-2

THE VERSES GET A BIT LONGER…………..

The second stage came while I was in my  +2 classes. The pressure of peers and studies were bogging me down..It was not so much about letting down the expectations of near ones as much as the fear that all your friends might make it and you might be left out that was pressurizing. Looking back it is surprising that we had so little choice then.There were choices but somehow it was kind of “follow the leader” kind of game. Everyone who was doing science was expected to try for medicine and surgery. Students now are more resourceful and gutsy to try out new things.

            One thing making up verses did to me was it made me more sensitive to my surroundings. The quality of verses had nothing to do with it. I was becoming more receptive to nature, noticing small things around me, personifying objects.everything was live, communicating to me. May be that’s the reason why meditators all round the world supported artistic qualities. Painting,poetry,music,dance all was nothing short of meditation.It made you more alive more aware. Incorporating these in their meditation techniques new age “guru”s have made millions.

          
The verses I wrote had a depressive feel about it it seems but I had tried to end it often on a hopeful note. Hope was created with some imagination though. The back ground of each verses  I don’t clearly remember,but vague images are there.

It was winter in Faridabad. The evenings were cold and silent. Our garden was in full bloom but standing alone there made you a bit melancholy:

THE WINTER WINDS WERE RAGING

THE COLD SWORDS OF NATURE PIERCING

AND I AMIDST THE FOG AND MIST

WAS WONDERING FOR WANT OF LIGHT AND WARMTH

AND THEN PERCHANCE I CAME UPON YOUR DOOR

TO BEHOLD YOUR SMILING FACE BEAMING ON ME

YOUR EYES HAD ALL THE LIGHT OF THE SHINING STARS

IN YOUR BENIGN PRESENCE THE WARMTH MY HEART LONGED FOR

     Reading it now I am reminded of Raj Kapoor’s “jaagtey raho “ last scene. May be that inspired me in the dreary winter.

         
 In our eleventh class  we were supposed to do a project  in each of our science subject. I had selected “ash analysis” as my  chemistry project. It required me to collect leaves of plants ,dry it and then burn it. Collect the ashes and do salt analysis on it to find what it contained.Each sample was labeled as after it is reduced to ash it was hard to say which was a rose and which was from the "ber" tree. I had then written:

ASHES SHOULD I CRY OVER YOU

YOUR PAST UNKNOWN ,YOUR FUTURE UNCERTAIN,

NO ONE TO PRAISE ,NOR ANYONE TO ADMIRE,

BUT THEN SOME SAY YOU DO HAVE HOPE

WHEN YOU WED THE SOIL TO BECOME ALIVE AGAIN.

           

                I came across a feather  in the play ground. If you watch the texture of a feather you can but admire it. But I pondered:

 FEATHERS DROP

  OR ARE THEY DROPPED?

   THAT THEY MAY NOT HAMPER THE FLIGHT

   THEY DROP WHEN “THEY” FIGHT

    OR DURING A SUDDEN TAKE OFF

    AND SOMETIMES WITH NO REASON.

    HOW HARD IS THE PARTING

    ON THE FEATHER OF THE BODY

    NEVER DOES THE BODY WAIT TO PONDER.”

            At the school we used to go to the play ground with our lunch boxes during our recess. Sit in the shade of some tree and eat together. After finishing the lunch we just loitered around. Sitting in the grass my eyes came upon  a tiny flower in the grass just in front of where I was sitting. It was a single flower. Tiny that it was hidden by the grass. Perhaps the purpose of the flower to be there at that moment was to trigger the following lines:

THERE UNDER THE BRIGHT SUN

IS A SPOT OF DARKNESS

NO ONE SEES IT ECLIPSED BY THE LIGHT

BUT NEVERTHELESS THE SPOT IS DARK

DARK AS THE DARKEST OF THE NIGHTS

BENEATH THE SPOT HIDDEN BY THE GRASS

IS A TINY PINK FLOWER

CRUSHED AND BRUISED ARE ITS PETALS

NOT KNOWING IF TO CURSE THE FEET THAT CRUSHED

  
           I came across the following lines-DUM SPIRO SPERO—While I breathe,I hope I wrote under those lines:

“Hope never dies

It just goes below the surface

Only to pop up again

With greater vigour and vitality.”

                   I don’t really remember why I wrote the following lines. It was written in 1993.That is clear from my diary. Something had hurt me. Isn’t it strange the same things which hurts us so strongly  become so trivial that we do not even remember them after a while. If only we could whenever we are hurt, stop and think how we would rate an incident 20 years later  we would be a forgiving race of human beings.----

LOST ARE THE TIMES

A CHAPTER OF MY LIFE CLOSED

LEAVING ME WOUNDED,BLEEDING AND SHATTERED

NO DOUBT THEY WILL HEAL

FOR LONG IS THE ROAD I TREAD

BUT SCARS WOULD REMAIN

TO REMIND ME OF THE TIMES

BUT GREAT ARE MY HOPES FOR THE MORROW.

Funny thing is now even the scars are not there and I was never hence reminded of the "times". I might  have made the same mistake twice ……since I did not remember…."the times".

                                                      WITH THE FOSSIL(S)( TREE)