A poem I wrote

Here’s a poem I wrote in French today. I am also giving the English translation below the original French one.


Vide

Beaucoup d'alimentation pour me bourrer.
Tant de vêtements pour m'habiller.
Mais mon cœur est vide.


Tas de choses que je fais pour occuper mes jours.
Tant de livres pour remplir mes étagères.
Mais ma tête est vide.


Beaucoup de personnes pour occuper ma vie.
Et un peu plus pour me manquer après ma mort.
Mais mon âme est vide.


Tout est vide.
Tout est vide.
Tout est complètement vide.


Empty


A lot of food to stuff myself with.
So many clothes to dress myself up.
But my heart is empty.


So many things that I do to fill my days.
So many books to fill my shelves.
But my mind is empty.


A lot of people to fill my life.
And some more to miss me after my death.
But my soul is empty.


Everything is empty.
Everything is empty.
Everything is completely empty.

Funny Telephone-Encounters

I seem to have an unusually high number of funny telephone-encounters ! In fact, long ago, I had written a post on telephone manners. What happened a short while ago is yet another incident in the growing list :)


My cell phone rang. I saw a cousin's name flash on it. We haven't spoken for ages. In fact we usually meet and chat only at family functions...the usual reason being busy schedules etc. So, I received the call and very cheerily said, "Bol S!"


There was this heavy silence for about 10 seconds...during which a thousand thoughts came to my mind...ranging from...is there any sad news and did I sound too cheery for that...to...perhaps she's called to invite me to some function.


The 10-second silence seemed a wee bit too long and I heard myself say uncomfortably, "Kay ga ?" ("What's up ?)


Then she said, "Oh wow ! Its you ! For a second I wondered why my bai's daughter is sounding like this !"


To this, I could only burst into loud fits of laughter much to the surprise of my colleagues :)

Animals are more human !

I got this as a forward...the source is mentioned as National Geographic.


A female leopard hunts a pregnant female baboon. While the leopard is dragging the dead baboon, she notices a day-old baboon baby... Leopard leaves the hunted mother and starts taking care of the newborn baboon.


When I shared it with my colleagues, one colleague RP remarked, "As some humans are turning into animals day by day in our society, somebody needed to compensate !"

Heart and head, hand-in-hand…

I have observed that, at some point of time or the other, in any in-depth discussion, particularly regarding a decision, already made or to be made, the issue of heart versus head comes into focus. It is as if they are two things opposed to each other, an either-or option, mutually exclusive. I too have my moments of ‘what I must do’ versus what I want to do’…in other words head versus heart. It is a difficult to handle dichotomy.


I have wondered why the head and heart are always pitched against each other. Why can’t they complement each other…participate equally in a decision, for example ?


This morning I was just flicking through channels and on one I saw a small part of a scene that set me thinking about this.


This 5 year old little girl and her mother are walking back from school. The mother’s sandal’s thumb-strap gives way. But she continues walking since there is no other option. Mother is limping now and Daughter is watching her and imitating the mother. After a while Mother removes her sandals and carries them in her hands. Some distance away, Mother sits down on the footpath and starts massaging her aching feet. Daughter looks at Mother massaging her aching feet. Daughter looks at Mothers feet without sandals and looks at her own with school shoes. Then Daughter removes her shoes and attempts to make her mother wear them.


At this point I switched off the TV as I had to leave. But the scene got me thinking. The scene played over in my mind as I drove to office. In my understanding, this is how the head-heart scenario worked in this one at indecipherable, inseparable, minute levels: Daughter sees (information input through a sensory organ – action governed by brain), understands what ‘aching’ is (head function), compares her feet to the mother’s feet (head function), understands the difference (head function), correlates ‘aching’ with ‘missing footwear’ (head function), then feels compassion (emotion = heart function) and attempts to put her shoes on her mother’s feet (head function).


Some would argue that emotion too is just some chemical activity or brain function. However, for the average human, emotion is associated with heart and rationality with head. I choose to follow that line of thought.


Here, I believe, the head and heart behaved as team-mates.


I have always wished them to be good friends with each other and more often than not, I have found them to be at loggerheads with each other. Life would be so much strife-free, decisions so much more appropriate, errors so few, if they were to be in tandem !

Happy Diwali :)

Of friends and friendships

There must be about a million quotes that describe, some with great precision, what friends are and what friendships are. When I read them, I identify with most of them and think about the ones that I don’t identify with. But none manage to touch the core of my heart. My heart ‘knows’ only when it experiences.


I have always been super-sensitive towards and about my friends and friendships. It is only of late that I have become totally secure. I do not know how and when the realisation came from within that, true friends and friendships are beyond any small upheavals that may happen in our individual or collective lives. I believe this realisation came as I became clearer in my mind that my involvement in my friends and my friendships is unshakeable, no matter what; And also with the realisation that like everything else, relationships and people change and thus if some friends or friendships don’t last, they no longer are. It is alright. However, for certain friends or friendships, there is a continuous, uninterrupted flow…like some rivers…sometimes over the ground and sometimes under…but, continuous, uninterrupted.


A very close friend has just gone away for a year across the seas for higher studies. For a brief while my mind took over and my focus shifted to the short-term…the year when he will be away and how and how much I shall miss him…and I was distraught. Then my heart barged in with its wisdom gathered from experience and I became secure again in the knowledge that distance and time spent apart are inconsequential, that friendship remains, that what we feel for each other remains.


On the long weekend that just passed, I contacted a very close friend after ages. She too was free on Sunday. We spent a very satisfying and lazy day bonding, sharing and catching up. There was no pressure, neither of time, nor of work, nor of the missing months of conversations and connection. I experienced again what I have come to believe and trust in…that this friendship is so deep that distance and time spent apart are inconsequential, that friendship remains, that what we feel for each other remains.


It is like knowing that the core will always remain despite anything that happens on the surface. Quite like the spirit, the soul, that is indestructible.

Nature’s poetry

It was bright and sunny. Hot, in fact.
Suddenly the skies became dark.
An army of galloping horses of dark clouds had invaded the skies.
Everything took on a grey hue…the trees, the houses, the river, the people.
A cool breeze began to blow.
The kind that blows into your face, pushing back your hair and makes you wish you could fill your wings with it and take off into the sky.
The kind that makes you pine for something unknown…pulls you towards something indescribable.
The kind that makes you forget everything…even yourself.
Slowly the wind gathered strength.
It cornered the clouds, surrounded them from all directions and began to push them.
The confused clouds ran helter-skelter. They collided with each other. They were startled to hear deafening thunder…their eyes blinded by lightning.
A huge tear drop escaped from the eye and fell to the ground. Then another and yet another…till their hearts poured out all the grief.
Just as suddenly as it had begun, it all ended.
Tear-drops now glistening through a smile. Freshly washed and dried, clean and empty skies…brighter than before…more luminescent.
Like the inner light spilling through.