Basking in the memory

I stroll for a mile

eyes heavy

head bent low

yet a faded smile

at the corner of my lips

and an arch on my brow

Leaves changed, green to yellow

yellow to orange and back to green

mono to dialogue to conversations

black to red my hair, though nothing lack

I walk picking stones that before I have seen

am I retracing or going farther away

reach out and hold my capricious heart

and turn away, away from that insipid shack

Life is handed to us in waves,

alternating high and low.

After plummeting

my heart soared

and now back at equilibrium.

A tender calm.

No more screams within.

A moment,

when heartbeat is in sync

with the mind.

The breath is deep

and slow and I can feel it

complementing my heartbeat.

A tender yet rare serene moment

to focus on my internal peace.

Before life hits

the next high or a low again.

A moment to re-connect with my soul.

In stillness,

I live it, lest this too shall pass!

This moment floats over each one of us

once in a while,

and it’s up to us to relish or to relinquish!

Opulence of inner peace

is a state of perfection

set by our own mind

I want to evolve today

evolve tomorrow

and forever…

I hold myself

embrace and caress

my own mind

Life feels too short

Today maybe forever

Forever may never be

So I ignite a thought

soak self with hues

within and all around

a state of peace

not just perceived

but strongly

believed with here and now

Till I completed my novel URMA, I was sure of having spent my entire childhood in Iran, a country I have extreme adulation for. This is a given I grew up with. And then, came questions for interviews and I had to answer questions about my childhood never raised before. Never had to be answered accurately. I remember my parents returned when I had completed 12^th and I came to India when I was in year 4. I left India when I was in year 1. Other than this, I did not calculate much. Was never needed. Never thought numbers were of any importance.  But when I counted years on my fingers, they didn’t seem as much as I had always felt them to be. I was confused, yet I brushed it aside. Then, a dear friend shot me point blank saying what are you talking so much about your childhood in Iran? Count on your fingers and they aren’t even double figures. After all, you stayed 3 years initially and then if you calculate all holidays together – still they do not add up to a double figure. I didn’t have much to offer in explanation. I just let it pass. But I couldn’t take it off my mind. I just couldn’t detach. It was like a bullet had hit right through my heart. No one had ever questioned my devotion to the country I love. I had never questioned so much myself as to why I had such feelings myself, right up till that moment.

But my friend was right in a sense. For a normal human being it might not be such a big deal as may be it was in my case. A few things are extremely personal. And one does not want to justify them either. However, it just weighs too much on your heart to let it pass.

I know of one of our Iranian friend who got married to an Indian and stays in India now with her sons. Though she is an Iranian herself, her sons do not speak Persian and I do not think, visited Iran again. I would think, and maybe I am wrong, do not have any memories of Iran though they also spent childhood in Iran and their own mother is Iranian. Why me then? I wondered. I sat and revisited my childhood again. I was restless and I needed an answer for my own peace.

I got an answer in my childhood, in the way I was separated from my parents. I read a lot after my friend had posed that question to me and had added to it that I do not remember such details of that age. I read research papers on childhood memory and amnesia and its clear that a child’s earliest memories can be way back till the age of 3 years and prior to that is called childhood amnesia. Also, it’s an individual capacity to remember specific details. Another factor is gender. Females score higher on details remembered. More important is the parent-child relationship.

I sat and thought with a heavy heart. A part of me that I had killed and buried, I revisited. All my holidays spent in mountains of Iran. I remember a car journey of over a 1000 km every holiday. The rest of the days in India, I would only strike the days off the calendar to go back again. We as a family were extremely influenced by Iran’s culture. When we returned, the culture was kept alive in our home. My sister who was born in Iran, but brought-up in India, speaks Persian fluently. We mostly speak Persian at home. Mom prepares Persian food at home and the only anecdotes and stories we have heard are those of Iran and Iranians. You can call it obsession or whatever. We truly are a unique lot, I must say and my husband is a witness to it and I am sure, it took him a while to adjust to us. Now he also speaks a few phrases of Persian and we eat the Persian food. Not only that, my daughter has a fancy for the language and is learning from me because she is fascinated when I speak with my sister and mom and she wants to join the conversation. And all this happened much before my novel, URMA took shape.

Today, I come across as an extrovert. I remember that I was depressed as a child. Then, couple of years back, I dug my old diaries and stumbled upon one which was dated 1989 and in that, besides the pages of Urma dated back then, I found a part of me. It was like re-introduction with my old self. I had been so depressed that I had no hope from my life. Life really is like waves – low and high, low and high again.

In my diary, I found a child who found the most beautiful life and just when it was perfect, it got snatched away from her. I found a child who scribbled with that state of mind. Being an obedient child, she could not express her displeasure. She adapted. After every summer holiday she returned to the country to attend school without her family and without her sisters. That pain can be only experienced and not expressed. And again, this is different to different people. One might not be so affected. I had forgotten how affected I was – till I found myself in those pages dated back, in 1984, 1986, 1989.

Grandparents were never harsh, they were wonderful and the most loving people one could imagine and I was under the best care possible. Will be indebted for all the values they have ingrained in me. However, here we are talking of an internal vacuum for parental love alone that cannot be compensated by anything else.

I hope someday my friend reads this and realizes that one discussion raised a tsunami of questions in my mind and I couldn’t concentrate on anything till I satisfied my quest for my past.

I also learnt, love and attachments do not have a reason and one should topple things in the way trying to justify them. What is, will remain – etched. We just select a part of our memory – a drop at a time. Sometimes a part that soothes us and at others a part that perturbs us. That’s how sometimes we have happy dreams and at others nightmares.

May we have lovely dreams ahead to cherish and look back upon 10 years hence?

(P.S.: Images are not mine and courtesy image owners and for illustration purposes only)

A voice in my ears…

a thump in my heart

an aura around

yet all hazy

right from the start.

Yet was mendable

I thought.

I saw its gleam

and felt salvo in my veins.

But was anything ever there?

or was it only in my tears?

Did anything ever exist ?

or only in my mind it persist?

I raise my hand

and close my eyes

and I feel it there…

But that is all,

I chose to live with.

Vague halos, vague forms

That is all…

yet that’s more than a myth…

A mind form complete

for an elusive me.

Floating in the sky

From ground zero straight up high

Palms facing up, head held high

Smog all around

Till I entered the clouds

And then

As I stretched my empty hands

Felt nothing.

As all was lost

Finger tips ached to hold

Yet were left empty to fold

I opened my eyes and felt

Reality is far too cold

From straight up high

Back to ground zero in rain

Euphoria is over

Time to peg away again

Sick of pointee that I’m in clover!

Words form in my mind yet elude me

they take a stroll besides me

before they interlock to form

feelings

giving a meaning to the forbidden storm.

Words form as I tap blankly on my keyboard

to bring a smile or a tear

as they strum chords

that I have snatched and stowed away

all that is meant to be buried to keep me sane

all that is supposed to have died with that hurricane.

Yet,

words form and evaporate again…

I let them fly

I do not want to see them any more.

The raw heat of June –

no I do not want to store

I morph back to the soft caress of September

I clear the mist

and force my mind to get back to my task list !

Image source: Google

Time elapsed

left its trace

what once was just a lavender field

now mapped with a deep ravine

and just an empty time

since we drew a line.

Memory’s stuck

of mist, fragrance and you

of those moments few

I turn around and glance

on those days of prance.

Moments rolled on

yet has still got me trapped

I do not want to see

that you are not you

and me is not me.

You are you

what time has made you

Me is me

what time has made me.

I stir, yell and scream

to free me and to restore

awake from my dream

and erase this lingering scent.

Yet, I just want to be

just stuck in that lavender field

where you are just you

and me is just me.

Today again I feel restless and know that though there is no clear thought, yet, there are a lot of words that need a vent.

Not mere words, disjointed, but deep thoughts. Might not mean anything to many, but may make some sense to a few. Some wanders out there, who connect through words and chords. I feel, as if someone has strummed a guitar somewhere, and it resonates in my head. There is so much vibration that I cannot concentrate anywhere. I need to find that character. I need to give him a name. I need to create that face. Give some definition. Does he have wrinkles? Does he have a mole? Is his voice soul-stirring? I know nothing. Nothing yet. But I am restless to find. To create. I am restless to see him take shape. Why do I feel there is no time? Why do I feel I am racing against time? But for a fact, shaping of characters does take time!

As I fight with the vibrations in my head, the night sleeps, the household sleeps. A gentle calm prevails. Let me close my eyes and try to get some to sleep too.

Good Night

There are days when I walk around in daze. Things get done. But my heart is not in it. There is a haze in my eyes. The alphabets glide and trickle down my brows and into my eyes and roll down my cheeks.

What is it that drives me into that state? Well, I think, when I put off writing a bit too long and the thoughts crowd my mind. When the tussle in my mind is:  weather to give the next two hours to my work deadline or to settle in my corner all cuddled up with a cup of coffee to pen down my thoughts. A moment when I am too close to my thoughts to make any sense of them, yet I know that they would make sense in time and usually they do, when they fit within the larger picture.

For now, I have to just keep moving… in directions apparently random, blindly guided by my own steps and not sure of the destination. Many destinations and all appear hazy and crisscrossed. But the fire in me, I am sure, would melt the waste around the core! I hope one day I can see the core, shining in my eyes… bright like a diamond!