on a Saturday..

On Saturdays, i invariably find myself in a mood to write...
invariably...

why , God alone knows but the fact is that a Saturday almost invariably provides me with the chance of writing out my thoughts...putting pen to paper...or rather fingertips to keyboard..

what is the perfect recipe to make a writer? what ingredients go in to make up a person that can give shapes and forms to our hopes and aspirations, our deepest desires and attitudes, our feelings and perversions, our dreams and our manifold fantasies....what person can put down into words what all of us see, hear, say, want, think, feel, do, suffer, debate, reject, agonize, vilify, protest and support, live and die for...what people bring all this to life through their words?

...there is a certain feel about a saturday that makes me like it better than the rest of the days in a week...
and that is the feel of ennui....

of languor, ... boredom...

weariness of the world.

Relaxation... and Peace.

on which other day can i feel like this?

on all other days i have to live a certain way.
on all other days i have to remind myself to do this, to do that.
on all other days i have to pump myself up for the battles ahead.
on all other days i must fight to exist, must battle to survive.

but on a saturday, i just laugh at all this and be.
i just Be.
i just let be.....

i just like that.

and i really am just like that.

when do i wake up, when do i sleep?
damn all the work and all the appointments to keep.
i am lost in my world and i'm lost in my dreams
i am a part of this world, not the one that seems.
everything is an illusion . or maybe not.
my joys may be imaginary,.. or not.
when i grieve, it can be real, or self begot.
on a saturday, i am simply happy with my own lot.

Ennui. not laziness. not brash idling. just a calm sense of being, a feeling that things are as they should be and that true enjoyment can be found only if one learns to accept and be at peace. when one learns to observe and listen and sense that this world of ours is talking to us. our Gods and devils are talking to us. Our angels are guiding us in our paths. our temptations are not evil, only helpful in our explortion of the Self. that we are all united and yet each have our own paths to choose, our own destinies to follow. each of us has the power to do and alter the course of our lives, and the lives of people around us, but each of us is also simply fulfiling our pact with God, by which we give shape to his grand design. we are the doer and the done.

on a saturday, i find it impossible to ignore the sights sounds and smells that hitherto went unnoticed thru the week. On a saturday i have memories coming back to me, recollections of old times and friends and people whom i knew. i have visions and dreams which i know will be real one day. i enjoy a quiet feeling of confidence.. that all this has a meaning. somehow, my existence was not a fluke of nature, that it was willed.. by me and beyond me. that i am really peaceful. that in reality i am happy.
on a saturday i slowly realize that the world is a beautiful place to be in.
and i smile.
and then decide to write.
to write just for pleasure. to write just for God,..and just for myself.
to write just for me.
to just write.
just TO... because i have to.

HAPPY HAPPY DAYS TO ME...

HAPPY HAPPY TIMES TO ME...!!!
wherever i may be
climbing atop a tree
or with a bumble bee
or fumbling with a key
buying a purple Tee
sparring with Bruce Lee
inside a big melee
acting a bit silly
riding a young filly
dallying on the dilly
milking my goat Billy
feeling a bit chilly
chatting up with Lily
munching a green chilli
oh come on now really....

but HAPPY HAPPY TIMES TO ME....
come on now say it HAPPY HAPPY TIMES TO ME...

...ITS JUST YOURSELF WHOM U HAVETA BE..
SO COME ON NOW AND SAY IT FREELY
HAPPY HAPPY TIMES TO ME....

...HAPPY HAPPY TIMES TO ME....

...write a lil happy rhymeeeeeeeee......
heehee heehee heehee heehee heeeeeeeeee.....

... u know, there's so much that goes on inside my head...
voices, noises...some subtle, some boisterous...
its like so many so many people resided in my head
that make so much sound that i wonder what they are all up to
...and do i know them all.. even at all?...
why is there so much commotion inside my head?
that i am unable to control myself despite me
that i cannot comprehend my inner self
that i cannot manage the several voices that cry out at the same time from deep inside me..
why do i cry like this?
outwardly it is so still so serene and calm and peaceful
and inside it is a boiler rrom of emotions that threaten to spill out the disastrous energy that lurks within the deepest recesses within my soul
like some dark cavernous route taken by hot boiling lava that spills forth from my guts and erupts in adevastating show of courage and fury...
courage and fury how cynical and hypocritical it is and can be so hilariously hilarious..
i mean what kind of neo modern poetry is this that i am writing on this moment now..
how???
i never felt like this before...
what u are hearing is what i am hearing my mind speak to me via my leaden fin gers that draw a window to my soul wherefrom u peer inside the being that is me...so shrouded within deep blackness that i wonder if he, the real me, ever saw the daylight that i feel on my skin and see with my eyes...
oh what is all this that i am doing..?...
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
that felt better...
oh that felt great, the relief was just oooooooooooohhhhhhhh so oo enormously rtelieving and relaxing
Relaaaaaaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...............................
breathe easy my friend...my lonesome handsome baby friend....
you who i know are there and one day will be me..
but till then let me begin this charade once more, more longer than before...and continue dwelling the way i did till a few moments ago...
strange that i feel so very peaceful now that i am so empty... i feel rejuvenated and hey...
may be i could just lie down and be...
i am losing my clarity...
again...there will be again..'until next time
bye myself...bye.

Lone

...loneliness...is a strange bird..
so high in the sky..
flying ...
from nowhere..going to who knows where..
in absolute silence...following its own destiny as if...
and in this freedom in the truest sense..
somewhere there is a void...
trapped in its own freedom...
sometimes i wonder...
what is it that i want...
its so liberating to be free thus...
and yet i feel unfulfilled...
...for a friend..a true one,.. to be by my side..
then the journey would not seem so monotonous...
then there would be no destination to reach or wait for...
'coz that would be our hearts....
..then there would be true freedom....
coz' i wouldn't be lonely anymore....
even if there was only one who travelled with me...
my true friend....

....

At long last.....

At long last.....

...at long last.....




mum once said to me - Dolu, tui lekh...tui ja likhish sheita maanusher bhetore githe jaaye, manusher aattae giye laage...tor moton kore aar onno keu likhte paare na. tai shobai tor lekha ta porte chaye..aeto pochhondo kore. Dekhbi ek din....


...i stopped myself from translating all that....some words are not meant to be translated....these are a few of the many things my mother and i often spoke about....now that she is no more all i have are her pictures, her memories, her belongings...and her words....

................


i write well.
everybody knows that.
...in fact a few of the everybody who know me better than the rest of the everybody tell me almost decidedly that writing is what i should be doing.
Maybe they're right....

But why long last??...

....i was a happy child. Honestly. When i think of childhood now, i'm amazed at how i was always bright eyed, eager and so very imaginative as a kid. As an adult i look at the bleaker side of things more than the brighter. As mum said - the older u grew, the sadder u've become.Why so?...look back to when u were a kid, always so happy and always smiling despite adversities. Things are far better now but u're mind has changed....I agree with her. I believe it was that happiness that was the source of all that was good in me. The ability to be happy, to dream, to imagine, to live and experience my own imagination, to feel everything i wanted to ... so completely and so honestly....i kinda miss that. It was then that i think i'd started to venture into what we refer to as writing.
...i admit i was crazy...i wanted to start a magazine for kids and be its publisher, editor...the works. Maybe i knew it was crazy but that never stopped me from thinking about it, from dreaming about it. Thats what it was - how to imagine, how to dream. How to wish, how to lapse into a reverie..a daydream.. and enjoy it...and resolve to make it true. I started writing,...for me it wasnt an effort, it was just...writing. I wrote well, i liked writing well. Life was fun. Writing was fun. I wrote beautiful poems, witty pieces, smart compositions..the works.... and it was effortless, it was fun...

...then why at long last?!?!?!...
...somewhere in the years that intervened, .... something happened. I was still good at what i was doing, only now, i was kinda ... making an effort. don't ask me why, coz i really dont know. I guess i started to look at things differently....thats about the best i can put it down. I dont know...but it wasnt fun anymore...life wasnt fun anymore u see......now that i look at it, it was a mistake on my part to react the way i did and well,....i regret saying that as a person i would have turned out a lot better had i not given in to my insecurities, complexes and a host of other negative things.....i was weak, i knew that then, i know that now.....but things happened and i changed into another kind of being.....so while i thought i was gaining in the matters that count, i was not in reality ..... worse, i was slowly (and perhaps, willingly, in the very negative sense of the word) losing touch with the purest part of me.
...and writing became an arduous task for me.
...the beauty that flowed from the pen without me ever expending a second to ponder, now that beauty had disappeared,...and even the ugly prose that i turned out was after much headache and heartburn.

...i should've listened to Mum,..she'd seen the rot setting in long before i even thought about it. I don't remember the exact words but yeah, she'd said these - Aar tor lekha porte bhaalo laagena. Tui ja likheesh aar onno keu jaeta lekhe tar modhe kono parthokko nayee.
....She'd warned me about the kind of person i was becoming. She'd told me not to.
quite frankly, my mum had told me - U dont write the way u could. u've lost the touch. its no different from what the next guy turns out.
...and she'd told me to quit writing rather than turn out the apologies that i was.
.....had i listened to her, things would've been better.
Now she's no more....


Why at long last??....
....life has taken so many unexpected turns and taught me so many lessons that..i dont know quite what to say.....but somewhere something has given way.....when my mother died, i was there.... i cried...i cried for the first time in many years....many many years. one of the things, a fear, that would make me paranoid as a small kid was what would happen if my mum died...what would i do?....and here she was, dead. her eyes........looking at me.....tui kicchhu korte parli na re Dolu,.....u let me die
I'm sorry mama. i know u're not coming back but i am sorry.
.........when the person u love the most dies and goes away, i've realized that the one thing i miss the most is her loving touch......i can still feel it tho'...when i feel like i want mama to stroke my head its almost by magic that i can feel her hand on my head.

words cant describe everything. but i've realized that if i have to be true to myself and my mother and to God, then i have to write.

...so at long last.....
atleast it is something.....

.....and this time around mama, u'll be happy. and i'll be happy. and we'll all be happy...
at long last......