Dedication To Photograph Of A Beauty

I am feminine in my youth; and this is my game.

Like a child I play. Just to feel my power growing, just to keep me familiarised with my burnished weapons. 

These are the days of hunt. There is no blood, but wounded men moan, as I walk among them seemingly unaware but counting my trophies. 

Not to kill, and yet wound mortally is a sublime art; to tie everything in which beats a masculine heart with me, and yet to keep it at bay is a sublime art; I am natural at it like all artists, and yet the work is needed to refine the art, for my weapons are deadly, if not wielded in practiced hands. 

So, I practice my pose.

Is smile taut enough! Or need I give away a bit more. Though, lustre of my lips should not betray the rush of blood in my veins-give it away. Is glint in the eyes almost a glow-hinting desire? It must be wrapped well in the innocence, eliminating all expression of desire’s shape and form, and yet not obscure the idea of desire completely, for its fragrance must seep out. 

But, allow only the fragrance-the intangible; a tangible desire is nothing but a need, and ‘to need’ is to cease to have full control.

I may allow control to him, but I never ever lose it. That, again, is a sublime art- to keep real control but transfer the real responsibility, a trade in the currency of semblance, by never displaying fully formed goods of my desire. 

And so, my eyes, perhaps, need a little more work with curiosity and scrutiny, the right balance of them; my lips, perhaps, should resist the affinity of moistness with them a bit more. Perhaps, a duller sheath for my potent armaments is needed, to keep them concealed. 

These tresses! A million black vines, glowing well nourished on my brimming youth, these bearer of flowers of darkness! How many nights of passion, of fire and sweet heat will blossom in them. And yet, this forest of ripe desires should not invite its visitors, for they have to wander in to it themselves, and be lost for ever. Beauty can not sustain it self on guilt, guilt withers it down; to blossom it needs to devour its victim innocently. 

Oh! This virtuous cycle of feminine divinity in peak youth, not easy to master, how just feeling my power makes my power grow manifold. 

-Pulastya 

(Dedicated to photograph of a beauty)

Poetry and Truth

Poetry is highest form of truth. Ability of a poet lies in seeing it. The purity of poem is slave to the integrity of its poet in expressing the truth as he has seen it in its natural habitat. Natural habitat is critical component because no truth is complete without its context. That is the reason a poet speaks in terms of allegory, similes, references, and linguistic parallels- to capture the truth in its habitat, to increases its accuracy. Mentioning beauty  as ‘beauty’ is not enough, its colour, its smell, the hour of its being, and as many more details, all add to complete truth of the beauty-like a jigsaw puzzle. Poet always looks for words and phrases, references, and similes to complete that picture as accurately as possible. 

However, If there is only one truth then only one poem would be possible. Therefore, all poets must believe that there is no permanent truth that holds time together as a continuum, but time is forming its continuum with innumerable moments stuffed together, flowing from past to future via present, and each moment containing its own truth. The life mission of poet is to describe the truth in its completeness, with its context, but only in that moment. 

A poet captures a moment exactly, as it unfolds, not only visually, but also perceptively. Labour of a poet is not to superimpose the lens of his perception on what he sees, but to train himself to continuously destroy this extremely regenerative creature of perception and directly talk to the unfolding moment to figure out the perspective of the moment itself.  When humans fly they are merely mimicking the bird like a poet who is describing what he see with his own perspective, true poet doesn’t mimic but becomes a bird himself. 

Brodsky said that a poem is not built around a theme. Theme is not even necessary, only incidental, if it emerges at all. Theme, mostly, is nothing but interference of perspective in truth. Its only very rarely that the truth and perspective of poet are in complete alignment. When that happens theme becomes the crowning glory of a poem. 

Poetry is essentially language trying to abandon limitations of its structure and morphing itself into a fluidity which can hold truth in its original shape; rather than compressing, corner cutting, and reshaping it to fit it into structure of language. And, that is the reason why poetry is the supreme achievement of the language; and by Implication, of human race. Poetry is what comes closest to the intellectual conception of god, without endowing god the power of imposing itself on us.

Ironically, means themselves turn in to obstacle. The way wings set the limit to flight, language itself restricts how much truth- untainted by perception- a poet can capture. Therefore, all poets endeavour to minimise the use of language by only picking up the strongest of symbolism that the language has to offer. That is the sign of growth of a poet- words starts reducing to symbols. This puts immense pressure on the reader who also has to keep growing to keep up with the poet. To think of it, the poet and his reader are both essentially poets varying only in degree, and laziness- reader is lazier because he looks for someone else, the poet, to supply the sensation rather than taking it directly. Truth, not in its pristine form, not as it is seen by the poet, but for the benefit of the lazy preserved in words and reduced in the process. 

In ideal form poetry should be wordless. A flow of truth without a medium, and thus without the distortion caused by limitation of the medium. Akin to love.-whose joy, in purest form, is independent of even the object of that love. It comes from inside- though began with one object- encompasses all. In fact, restricting it to only the object of love destroys it, why else so many real world stories will turn sour? Same is the relation between language and poetry. True love is free of love object, not a slave of it, true poem should be free of language, not a slave of it.  A true poet will not blemish poetry with limitations of language, and thus will be alone his own reader. What we readers have read so far are poets who have failed in various degrees in reaching this perfection. As mere readers we may perhaps never know about true poets as they would be the ones who would eventually develop ability to express without a medium. In such a world, if it ever exists, there can be no difference in poet and readers, they will have to be but one because medium (language) that separates the two will be lost for ever.

You are a poet no doubt. Within the limitation of what can be. I have spent time carefully reading your poems. Poignancy that they generate while expressing some of the feelings guarantees that they have backing of truth i.e. poet is attempting to express them as she has seen them. In your lines I have sensed a tenderness of feelings that strangely forced one to close the eyes fearing hurting those feeling even by looking at the words expressing them. Sometimes even closing the eyes doesn’t feel enough and I end up clinching my fists to steady my breath lest slightest of stir may disturb the most gentle vibration that those words have caused in my mind. But, then, in the same poem, a few lines down, you make sure to hide a knife, sharp and bloody. There always follow the lines which break the ascent of tenderness with a shrill cry of slaughter and gore. Why your poems always begins with the tenderness of a mother’s lament who fears that next moment she may have to slaughter her own child? Is there a method to it! Is it that this tenderness of lament is borne out of fear of slaughter. This is such a love that it takes root only in dark soil of fear of death, slaughter, and separation? Is love nothing but an antidote to fear of death? If so then the world it inhabits is indeed a very dark place.  

-Pulastya

For a bride in her trousseau

It is hard to imagine
that so much more beauty lies hidden in everyday you,
But, then, the fault lies with imagination,
Which needs to be on a high of either love or longing
to see beauty,
For, a flower is a flower in any season
But it is the spring time of desires
that makes it bloom...
In the eyes of the beholder.

-Pulastya

Alive vs Living

Billion years ago
we all started the same
in the world ruled by death
and learned to fear it,
but some feared more than others,
and those who dreaded it the most
evolved into humans.

Animals recognise death
only when they are
face to face with it,
they are blessed not to have allowed It
displaced living out of their hearts,
they live open to the world
embracing it,
they live free.

In humans fear of deaths hides
deep inside their souls
behind the hard shell of cruelty of fearful;
eyes so trained to look inwards
that they have forgotten that there is a world outside-
which sets our soul free by pouring beauty into our eyes,
a billion years of fear of death have made us blind to its very antidote-
the beauty of the world around us.

We worry too much about being alive than living,
heightened consciousness is our true curse:
for It is nothing but knowing fear of death.

Perhaps the reward of ultimate consciousness
will be dying every moment with unbearable fear of death,
but having an infinite life span.

What good that would be, I wonder!


-Pulastya

Winter: some impressions

 Sweet smelling winter chill
in the air that carries the rhythmic sound of hammers
(breaking bricks at a distant construction site)
from afar,
giving a melodious beat
to the noise made by children playing outside
in colourful dresses-
that seem extra bright in winter sun.

In my study, twirling my toes
to ward off the flirtatious tickles of  young chill,
I delight in the arrival of winter;
for, colour, sound, and smell
all carry amicable strangers,
of brighter hues, unheard sounds, and newer fragrances, from afar;
the time for these guests
to arrive from far away places is here-
these beautiful winter days.

-Pulastya

Fragrance of heart...

In the garden,
mesmerised by  roses,
all I can think of
is your eyes,

At work,
when, accidentally, your eyes meet mine,
even in a concrete jungle
I smell roses.

-Pulastya

Eyes....

Eyes!
Power of those eyes!
Just a look at me
and I melt
like snow- when kissed by a sunbeam,
ready and willing
as if fulfilling a destiny foretold.

There is a strange joy
in getting annihilated by a power that is bereft of ego-
the brute force of innocence,
that saps away your strength to resist,
freeing you of responsibility of self preservation;
and makes you complicit in planning your own downfall,
to an enemy who lures your soul first,
by disguising as a mirror- truthful and pure,
opening you up,
willingly,
in to a surrender called 'falling in love'-
A stratagem where you willingly share chinks in your walls
and hope that she invades
till you lie in ruins,
grateful for annihilation,
and still longing for one more look from those eyes.....

-Pulastya

Love shackle

I love you
so that I can shrink my world into you
then hold it close to my chest
tied in my love,
And feel safety of being in control?

Love as a shackle!
A bird in the cage, rather than in sky!
Feed it and take care of it,
Have to - for,
we become responsible for what we enslave.

-Pulastya

Loss of imagination

My exalted imagination
rejected every claim of true beauty
in the real world,
till, one day, it sees you and realises
it does exist in the world.

You are my imagination’s limit incarnated.....

There is a strange hopelessness and sense of loss
for poet in knowing that
what was a gift to only my imagination
exists in the real world too,
and my exclusivity on it is no more.

What is a poet who loses  ability to improve upon god’s creation......

With you only in my imagination
I felt strength and fulfilment of a poet-you were born of me,
now, with you in real world
I feel weak in my knees and deprivation of hungry-to make you of me.

That’s the thing about beauty:
in thought it blooms, and with it the thinker,
on touching it decays, and with it the touch.....

-Pulastya

On Ageing

A life is spent, or
a life well spent....?
Future,
or legacy....?
Into eternal darkness (death),
or away from darkness ( wisdom)....?
Or perhaps, a moment
When all of it is true- if truth exists...!
Or, perhaps, as it should be,
Ageing, a sublimation of life
into a fragrance:
a nothing that livens up everything.

-Pulastya

Thrill And Living

O bird of prey! I miss you,
For I never felt more alive
But when I was being hunted by you......

-Pulastya

Poet’s Musings

It’s like I am collecting too much water but there is no outlet to let it flow....through hard work I can only collect, but flow is on the mercy of inspiration...a cry of burning hot pain, blackness of a frozen river of sadness, a drop of innocence still preserved in the midst of harshness of existence, a smile unaware of its potency, a sidewise look of a feminine eye-reaffirming the hope woven from illusion that life is beautiful; anything. Anything that breaches the hard shell of intellect made of thick rationalisation ( and cynicism) to overwhelm and to drown the pot in its own content. I read to be weak and vulnerable for that’s where sensitivity takes root, not to be poisoned with rationality. Otherwise there is no point for pot to collect- or for intellect to know-if it can’t feel joy and sadness deeper and deeper. For, poetry is the final condensate of emotional distillation of man, a few drops left of a whole universe inside-in form of few lines of poetry on paper. I am making my universe ready, but heat for distillation: I can only pray for.....

-Pulastya

Festival Spirit

The true underlying spirit of the festival is that it elevates the mood. The singularity of purpose of large human collection, i.e. of being happy for a day at least, moves as a contagion and sweeps everyone off in a flood of happy moods, as if all life problems are only perceptions and with turn of mood they simply evaporate. Perhaps festivals are culture’s way of telling its members, “ here is a perception that weaves magic in to reality and makes world an enchanting place, take it, wear it for a day, and take a break from living”. And with upsurge in the mood world changes its colour from dull grey to scarlet, to magenta, to aquamarine, to any colour that human spirit wants to drape in when it feels beautiful and ready for happiness. 

Today, a day after of being taken, these pictures seem gaudy and people in them little less real- for if you compare them with their every day; but on the day, when these pictures were taken, they were nothing less- these people. In fact still camera freezes only one particular moment in time, which, also, may not be their peak. And, more than peak it is the build up to that peak, the rise of a person from ‘dull ordinary’ to ‘uninhabited oozing with joy of life’ soul, that tells the magic of the mood of the day on individuals, which still camera largely fails to capture. Allowance should also be made for the fact that the man behind the camera is at best a charlatan claiming to be a photographer; though in his defence I would like to say that his actions as pretend photographer were perfectly in line with the spirit of the day- freedom to live your fantasy; and thus, audacious but pardonable.

It is amazing to note though how, under the influence of mood of the moment, people are transformed. It’s like an explosion. A hidden fire cracker wrapped everyday in faded blue and depressing grey, or in any outcast colour (expelled from the spectrum for having weakest of hues), barely noticed in the sea of official homogeneity, showing the glorious colours of its true spirit in the backdrop of festive air. It leaves you awestruck and wondering about a blindness induced by monotony of daily routine-how it makes whole garden remain hidden in the plain sight, and how a wonderful view from the window turns in to a wall paper. 

With eye behind the view finder photographer’s job is quite mechanical on such public occasion. While shooting in an uncontrolled environment one tries to hedge the risk of suboptimal output by shooting relentlessly, taking as many pictures of a moment as possible, hoping that at least in few of them he will be able to find beauty of symmetry, structure, and most importantly, expressions-which, in terms of photography, is called composition. Hope for this discovery of beauty is what keeps him going with pressing the finger and straining the eye looking at a constrained and distant view through one square inch of glass; of course, apart from the fact, that it was the craving for attention (even if notional) which made us pick up the camera in first place. Though, speaking primarily for self, some of us can tolerate so many eyes looking in our direction only from behind the safety of a view finder. 

And discovery of beauty comes from most unexpected quarters; as if there are things- even from very subjective perspective- that only camera ( a machine!) can see first hand, human eye has to borrow the picture from it to notice them. Or, is it that we never pay attention to those things (people as well!) distracted by our biases, but camera- at least in the direction it is pointed- soaks in the unbiased view. In the pictures below I came across many such revealing moments where beauty of an unassuming smile, the gracefulness of holding a posture, the shear appeal of an attitude, the colour of a dress, taunted my artistic sense (presupposition that I have some) for being oblivious to their presence though they are there so close to me. A nose ring, a pair of ear rings, a bracelet, an embroidered jacket, all of them a universe of beauty waiting for the discerning eye. With discovery of these I feel generously rewarded for my effort. 

-Pulastya

Beauty

From afar I yearn for you-

Your curious but vulnerable eyes are
danger wrapped in misty allure, 

face, glows like a bronze moon,
giving black tresses sheen
of night trying to conceal a forest burning in distance;

Curves and arches of your being,
As if all the definitions of bodily elements of beauty
have come together to define ‘perfection of form’-
all senses consenting to the highest state of elation;

But, Someone said,
‘Beauty is nothing but beginning of terror,
which we still are just able to endure.’

In coming closer,
I fear my annihilation!
But,
worst still!
What if you serenely disdained to annihilate me!

-Pulastya

Earthy Beauty

Everything- road, car, the backdrop of greenery- looks brighter bejewelled with your beauty; and one can never be really sure if it is the smile enhancing the colour of dress and glow of skin or it is the opposite! Or it is just that poet’s eyes are blessed. And, that skin tone leaves no doubt about the earthiness of your beauty, I can smell the petrichor; as if earth has literally risen for few precious moments to dress up in fabric and colour. 

-Pulastya

Polka

Polka dots...on a polka girl,
a hundred moons displayed on rose petal,
rose in full bloom
and in the rose tenderly wrapped black pearl....

-Pulastya

Thought strings strummed by a photograph:

Corporeal beauty (beauty of form) will always have this advantage over incorporeal beauty (beauty of intellect) that it gets easy chance at dazzling the observer. It can operate with very superficial means (a photograph is enough to captivate) without needing much prerequisites/qualifications on the part of observer; and in cases, where endowments accorded by creator to the form (too!) are generous, it ( beauty of form) creates a serious interference in perceiving the dazzle of incorporeal beauty by completely sapping the observational energy of observer. I sense that kind of situation here. But then, gift of form is a special blessing of feminine, for they are the sole carriers of seed of “beauty of form”; masculine, on the other hand, is blessed with fertile eye, where this type of beauty grows. 

-Pulastya

A poet:

A poet
is like smouldering charcoal :
half fire half ash,
half light half darkness...

-Pulastya

Remembering the early youth....

In the midst of old flames and past crushes
relapsing into slow burning and tender aches,
Tossing turning whole night,
What a delight! What a delight!
Inflamed by untouched desire
pains of passions that never caught fire,
Returning wind of past feelings does to me,
What springtime does to a flower tree!

-Pulastya

On Ageing:

As the lugubrious day has gone by,
In wrinkled silk evening cocoons my tired body,
Soon darkness will begin its lullaby,
Its wordless song, eternal solitude’s sweet melody.

-Pulastya

Note on a Picture

Eager, shy, self-conscious, in control- so many hues of  beauty on display.

All of you are creations favourite, for, to be able to add colourfulness to colour, luminescence to light, tenderness to softness, melody to music, divine form to fabric- by wearing it, and meaning and means ( everything for you, and from you) to existence, are ultimate blessings that you all possess  (A burden too! For you bear, therefore, you also have to nurture). Feminine is the essence of everything that is beautiful; without you nothing can ever be beautiful.

All of you ( women) are the mirrors to our souls, only through you we can locate the joy and happiness in us ( men).

And, two of you my boys!, you are doing a great job guarding what is most precious. As I can see you have the flanks well covered, with right posture ( hands in the pockets). Blushing a little less though, may perhaps be more appropriate to the job undertaken, unless, of course, serving with smile is part of the job contract.

-Pulastya 

Eyes.....

To be “Lucky” is to discover beauty;
to wander on Facebook and end up admiring your photograph-
a beauty event that shrinks time between two distinct moments-
one before it, and one after it- and make them one.
And, what so captivated me in the picture were two lotuses!
How lovely they were-
a thousand times more flower than flowers could ever be,
They engulfed me in a tenderness, even without kissing them,
and made me radiant in light of life, pouring out of them;
though they were merely an image,
but of unimaginable beauty;
And, when, long after, senses returned
and my asphyxiated body resumed breathing,
I realised, they were eyes.

Your eyes,
glowing in the sun of your life giving smile.

Your eyes,
transcend time and space,
for they are perfect-
nothing of them lost in the translation of picture,
or, it is that I have discovered them only in my imagination, through your picture.

-Pulastya

Eyes..

“To be Lucky” is to discover beauty; to wander on Facebook and end up admiring your photograph- a beauty event that shrinks time in to two dots- one before it, and one after it. And, what so captivated me in the picture were two roses! How lovely they were-a thousand times more flower than roses could ever be. They engulfed me in tenderness even without kissing them, and made me radiant in light of life, pouring out of them; though they were merely an image, but of unimaginable beauty. And, when, long after, senses returned and my asphyxiated body resumed breathing, I realised, they were eyes. Your eyes, glowing in the sun of your life giving smile. 

On Narcissism

The thought ‘ I am beautiful’ is the beginning of everything. It is the seed. Love grows from it. Love, the perspective that is the only way to make sense of reality of life, love, a light emitted to reflect and make world visible to you without its cruelties. To emit love you have to love your self first; you love self you love the world. And, ’I am beautiful’ is beginning of it all.

What is narcissism if not sharing your beauty with mirror. In mirror souls become visible. The reflection you see there is actually soul of your beauty becoming visible. And, what beauty is more worthy if not the one which infuses life into  a shiny piece of molten sand by giving it a soul. You make mirror alive with your beauty.

I suspect the greatest narcissist of all would be someone we call “God”; how else would you explain his power to give life, and ability for limitless love.

-Pulastya

To a lonely Cypress, atop a rock by the beach:

O! lonely Cypress, from your vantage point atop of this mighty rock that rises like a toe nail of sea, you watch over the world. And, what is it that you have not seen! You have seen the heart of this very rock, where your roots have made their beginnings- Your seed is an essence of infinite emptiness of stone filled with nothing but itself. But, even emptiness is not devoid of time; in fact nothing holds time better than emptiness. And stagnant time, like water- which perhaps is a condensed form of time, stinks; giving away an unbearable stench called loneliness. So, eventually, and inevitably, when this empty rock felt lonely, amidst the pulsating life of sea and shore, and began to long for life, a tear rolled down its stoned face and turned in to a seed, your seed Cypress!

The power of death lies in an instant. In that one moment it is the most powerful. But, except for that one moment, rest of the time is a tool in the hands of life. And life is an indefatigable artist, with delicate hands and intricate fingers and eyes of a lover who can sense longing for him self in the slightest of weariness of beloved and is more than willing to plant the kiss of life. Your lonely existence in the heart of a rock is a proof of that Cypress; and, for the same reason, rest assured that your loneliness is also not everlasting, there is another longing for life hidden somewhere nearby is waiting for that kiss of life. It has to be, for life’s supremacy over death is the ultimate truth of the existence on Earth, and there is no other way of upholding that truth.

And being a child of life’s ultimate yearning for itself has its own reward Cypress. Lonely though you may be- and no doubt it may enhance your pain a thousand time- you in your birth itself have known the desire in its purest form. And, so, you know that at the cores all desires are laced with love, and cores of all love is tainted by desire. So, you affectionately smile on land and sea who are lying side by side in those still nights, hand in hand with fingers interlaced, watching stars with contentment, only occasionally stirred by gentle breeze of playfulness. You have also dance filled with voyeuristic passion, and I don't judge you for that, when sea storms the land, passionate and fiery, and land receives it moaning; and for days together in unremitting wetness they make love. Earth quivering, shaking, embracing the eager and aggressive sea without fear- of love bites, and sea rolling and churning, swelling and falling, as a man making love should. You have also shared, with same joyfulness, the subsequent weary tiredness of ravaged but radiant earth breathing deeply and humming from inside, and placid contentment of sea, who would keep feeling larger than itself for many days to come- for that's the proof that at the core of desire lies love, for it is love’s property to make recipient feel larger than self.

So, despite your endless loneliness, there is at least one way in which you are truly blessed Cypress, for heightened sensitivity to desire, passion, and love are unique gifts of loneliness.

-Pulastya

Your effect on me....

In your eyes
burning ever so intensely
a fire,
passion it is: eternal sun, on inexhaustible fuel of lust for life....

On your lips
quivering ever so restlessly
a thirst,
desire it is: ocean, wanting to be seeded with life…

And rest of you
generous and laden with fruits
of youth,
blessing it is: earth, lying in complete surrender…

This is how you elevate my imagination,
you do to me what windstorm does to a speck of dust:
make it see the world from a higher perspective.

-Pulastya

Letter to a Young colleague....

Well, this morning what caught my attention was your DP, in that small circle of a space that the FB messenger provides for DPs, with that flowery top of yours and that wire meshed feathery summer hat, the image that came to my mind was of a butterfly atop a flower in bloom, and your smile further added to the effervescence of happy thoughts which might have coaxed my eyes to see the world more colourful and  wild, sitting in a concrete jungle. And thus I got curious to know how such a delighting person feels from inside. Overall, a trespassing in to someone's private space, more so in case of a lady- as private is more private there, but than as they say  curiosity is sometimes it's own master.

Being human who won't delight in the praise, however unfounded it may be, specially when it comes in form of idolisation; and so am I. Though, with difficulty, I can not forget that idol in the temple is elevated to its status by the essential need of man to visualise in physical form even the most personal and intimate of their own strengths; otherwise that idol is nothing more than a carved stone ( and even the carving is done by another human being). 

Carrier growth, above the level of basics, is nothing but being at the right place at right time. So it's not the time spent on it which is important but those few moments when a fearless decision is made ( me moving to a fledgling bank was one such decision, and at that time it was difficult to figure out if it was brave or foolish one- all such terms, brave or foolish, always lean back on crutches of hindsight to stand up). 

Strong personality, to share a secret with you, is nothing but to know all you flaws in advance and practice to hide them well, even when you have many of them. In essence, between confidence and bravado, it is closer to bravado. 

Congrats on your promotion. Please be assured that all of it is based on you deserving it. If I deserve thank for anything linked to it is for not messing up with my duty and not overlooking the deserving. Congratulations again, and enjoy it thoroughly for whatever it is worth. Also, therefore, it should be yourself who should come first in your thoughts after a promotion; I would be equally delighted being second.

Please always feel free to say/or message. Nothing of my reaction should dissuade you, because you are entitled to relay a message solely for your own pleasure; I talk to god all the time and never hear back- and perhaps thankfully so because the kind of stuff I talk with him, if he ever chooses to respond back, he is bound to kick my ass for all the crap I throw on him assuming that I have the brains to actually have a conversation with him. But, in our case there is no doubt about that parity and I will be delighted to receive, and respond to my best.

Ups and downs are how life makes sense. It is the gap between two consecutive up and down which measure the life lived. All ups, or all downs, will never make sense as life. The small trick though is to find something which you can do completely alone for your own pleasure ( in my case reading does that).

Pleasant state of mind is good. As I sometime suspect that happiness is more about state of being, rather than meaning of thing, and, therefore, can be improved by practice, and if you can add little foolishness to it even the requirement of practice goes down significantly. So keep practicing and don't be afraid of being foolish.

Well, knowing about other's life experience does help, only to the extent that it prepares you to get the maximum from your own life experience, like preparing the lesson the previous night for next day's class.

As for your Sunday mood, I am truly delighted to have added to it; hope it has augmented the joy of whatever your senses are delighted to receive for pleasure- the food, the drink, the music, the solitude, friends, or a combination thereof.

May joy be always in the driver’s seat in you..

Watching with delight,

I 

Free

These pictures of you! All three of you in Goa. There is something liberating about them. They infuse in the viewer a sensation of exhilaration, that comes from sudden and extreme shift in the perception about the goodness of life. Three young girls, on their own, pursuing pleasures of life, and not afraid of displaying it; it turns on in mind an image of the world, benign, green and lush, where three butterflies in full glory of their bright colours glide in tandem towards washed sunshine falling on earth, from a breach in clouds in a rainbow sky. I can imagine sunshine, breeze, and waves in Goa singing songs of joy in their new found voices, voices of you three beautiful ladies.

Enjoy.

To solitary lady in swimming pool ( in black costume)......

Emerald filigree of liquid wire,
master’s strokes etching you
in white Amber and black Sapphire,
merely a mermaid in the water?
Only to the half blind!
To beating heart in flesh and blood:
pool of Tequila on raging fire!

-Pulastya

(With due apologies....)

To a good man....

Dear sir,

One good thing about daily ritual of coming to office is your presence there, it exudes a feeling that a true patriarch is presiding over a large family. Strong and gentle, as only a father can be. A father figure to whom one can go for gentle comfort of understanding, or a sugary pinch of crystallised wisdom- that all seasoned surfers of life keep in the invisible pockets of their robes, and sometimes for that bitter pill of harsh advice to cure the headaches of work- and life too.

Sir, when you are little self absorbed, busy with one of your own things and walking to the printer at the far end of the office floor, your tall and powerful body frame moving with firm and measured steps, and that rhythmic oscillation of your head to left and right, gives an impression of gently swaying giant banyan tree in the courtyard of a house, and we all feel like kids playing under its protective shade.

There is no doubt that you are a veteran of many battles of corporate war game and you know your way around in the battle field. In fact, I suspect, you still enjoy them and look forward to them. The way you walk to those meetings with your fists clinched and arms moving in a well drilled readiness of purpose makes it more than obvious. So does your willingness to stand up for what you believe is just, fair, and necessary to achieve an objective. This despite you having no direct responsibility of delivery; still it is like, on many occasion, that you are almost on the verge of taking charge directly. I swear having seen glimpses of that beast of a warrior almost resurrecting it self in your eyes when corporate war machine starts to languish. The General has aged but the warrior inside is not fully tamed yet, and still tends to draw its claws out when survival throws a challenge. You prove that being a fighter undoubtedly is an instinct which time can only hone, but can never age.

I cherish, with immense fondness, those discussions that we often have about life and times. And let me confess to you that I use your log book of life events, which you gladly and openly share with me, as a study in dos and don’ts in many aspect of my life. It has enriched me for my life to come. Also, your ability for critical self analysis is admirable, as, sometimes, it is brutal. To admit one’s errors in life is surest sign of courage, and willingness to take effort to rectify them is purest form of integrity; and it is these two traits that largely define you. One more thing that I may want to add to these is “addiction” to hard work. I use word “addiction” because at times it appears, to me, that it is more of a craving and it controls you (another hint to cut down your daily meeting schedule), rather than you judiciously using it as only a tool.

I am not personally very enthusiastic about my own birthday, as for me it is nothing more than a yearly reminder set to tell me that I have lived, and still do. However, birthdays of those who we care about, love, and respect can certainly serve an extremely useful purpose of an occasion to wish and pray for long, healthy and fulfilling life to them. And that I wish to you sir with all my heart. You are our window to the future life, a window that gives us glimpses of life a part of which we all are bound to live ( if we are lucky!) when we reach your age; and life that you have lived and are living makes these glimpses nothing less than bright sunshine and a pleasant breeze. I look forward to it, really.

Vijay

Hi,

I know morning has already whispered in your ear how beautiful the day is going to be. Share bits with me, for your rising is my dawn.

Good morning.

Towards death

What she was searching could not be found,
for, it was time, and it had passed,
and with it the world...

All the determination she showed to find it
helped only in finding but
the higher level of determination.....

Strange battle it was,
where terms of surrender demanded
that she should never give up….

And so the final breath was the mightiest!

-Pulastya

Hope- the Enemy

It is so cruel!
How those who have achieved
deceive the upstarts,
when they glorify their path to success  
by giving it a structure, of a struggle to deserve ( to extract more from their success!)
And, mask the cruel sense of humour
of random heartless fate, that gifted it to them -Just to crack a joke, or to lure its other countless victims to mutilate,
or how they snatched it from the hands of deserving, out of turn,

All in the name of hope!

We all are complicit in violence of our enemy- called hope!

It is so cruel!
How wannabe mothers
let babies carved out of stone
to be shoved in to their wombs
in the hope of giving them life.

Hope always grows in to a monster
who inverts the process of life and death
In to death before life..

-Pulastya

Evening, on the beach

O! Dusk, bare feet on the beach
you play with baby waves,
who tickle your toes and runaway,
and sneak back again, and again, giggling;
ancient ocean chuckles with gentle joy watching its grand children play with a fairy…..

Smiling, and casual, you stretch slowly, playfully,
arms open: to embrace the whole world,
or, perhaps, a sparrow, having swallowed the sun,
readying to take off to its nest in God's heart…..

In that one moment of carefree expansion
you shrink to be a tinny soul: my soul,
and, also expend like eternity,
sun hiding behind your silhouette…..

Soaking in all the sunlight
to set free a silky evening in the world,
light emits from you like tender gold mist
in a smoky evening,
bathed in your body fragrance……

I will treasure this moment of pure radiating glow in my heart for ever-
a precious nose pin of most beautiful evening ever……

-Pulastya

Love for dusky shade

All my amorous longings are fixated on your dusky shade...it is perhaps the mystery of dark which fuels the fire of my fantasies.

Or, perhaps, because darkness is sensitive and private. In complete darkness you can be with someone and still be in solitude, by merging that someone in yourself; darkness makes merging easy by erasing the boundaries. Darkness allows my imagination to project that someone in the form and shape of my desire. Light, on the other hand, is invasive, insensitive to the point of being cruel, and stabs imagination with reality. In darkness, one good thing that can ride on darkness and travel to me is complete image of that someone, nothing else matters -a beautiful voice is complete person in darkness, complete and beautiful, unaffected by picky judgement of sight (light)on the rest; but, in light be sure of getting humiliated till the point of your last shortcoming.

Darkness embraces, light exposes. Darkness is tender, light harsh. Why else dark nights would be amorous and bright days laborious!Might be so with dusky beauties too, I always believed.

-Pulastya

To Dusky Lady

O! Dear Lady ( Of my favourite Dusky Shade),

I strayed to some of your pictures, and now I am grappling with same eager sensation as when one hears whispers full of sultry tone but can't catch the words. In my head sensual tone of a poem is resonating but befitting words elude me. It's exactly like being soaked without rain, arousal of senses by mere thought; I can feel this even more than myself but can not put my trembling finger on it....

Cloudy sky outside, with goddess nature spraying cool colloid drizzle, and lady masseuse of perfumed breeze jumping into my room from open window to caress myself...I don't know if I am feeling the divine or going nuts. I don't know if it were your vivacious eyes and dusky glow of your face in the images or the silvery dark rain clouds; blaming both seems to me most alluring, as the high I am in right now is bigger than individual kicks of both of you, apparently weather and you thrive together, one enhancing the effect of the other.

Greedy thought of adding some wine to this mix is nagging me; but I am afraid that a mix of rain, wine, and you, will kill me with an overdose of joy.

-Pulastya

Birthdays

Though often drowned in the cacophony of celebration,
birthday, unlike others, is the most personal occasion.
It is about only you, and for you;
no partnership, or companionship should be required;
though an invisible shoulder or silent affectionate embrace is most welcome.

It is yearly reminder set to tell you that you have existed,
and still do.

I believe, that whole act of celebrating birthday
doesn't reflect well on the remainder of the days
of the year gone by, or to follow.
In some way 364 days should be of festivities,
and birthday should be a day of reckoning.

A day of contemplation and solitude,
where you kiss the tender moments
of the year gone by on forehead
for having made that visit to your life.

On this day, in the noise of celebration, I often hear the eco of void, filling the uncelebrated lost time.

-Pulastya

Love Making

My whole body is numb, but
something, inside me, silently resonates, in a divine rhythm.
I am sure it is my soul, dancing with joy.
If you listen closely,
it is like inside of earth still humming,
long after an earthquake.

I can't feel myself anymore,
as if all my senses have crashed,
with an overload of joy,
what remains of me is just a sensation,
not even a thought,
but only a sensation, of joy, floating in the air-
how different soul could be, from this sensation of joy!

In your embrace, my love!
having merged my self in you physically,
my soul gets released from the shackles of my body,
and becomes one with the completeness
of endless universe.
But, what is strange is that,
it is the experience of my body that frees my soul-the path to freedom passes through the shackle itself! Always.

-Pulastya

Beauty In Thoughts

Your beauty can be conceived
only in the womb of my thoughts,
it gestates there, away from reality of death and decay,
just an essence,
pure- as only a figment of imagination can be.

Your beauty, a fragrance in mind
that strays freely like a child
and livens up all my thoughts with its kisses,
is born of a longing;
a longing woven during intimate conversations
of my soul and mind, about beauty.

I often retreat into my solitude
chanting words and phrases,
in labour of delivering you in to the world
through my poetry,
exactly as you are in my head: an amorphous sensation,
for those who have an eye for beauty in any thing.

So that, even in real world,
your beauty not bound by shape and form,
will be free from death and decay,
to last for ever; and
with it a part of me: my name.

-Pulastya

Goodbyes

Some goodbyes
humiliate death,
They make it merely a formality
that you crave to discharge,
And, death exacts its revenge
by avoiding you,

Some goodbyes
change meaning of being alive,
They freeze time for you,
Converting you into a frozen river:
a continuum without flow.

-Pulastya

Beauty and you...

Dear you,

I look at you and think- Oh, this is what beauty is!

In your shape and form.

Everything that claims beauty surrenders to you. A clear sunny morning dawns in your eyes, everyday. Two fruits of your lips, with life brewing in them, are fecund nature in peak youth flaunting itself. Smooth lines of your neck are a thousand years of caressing of river-bed by passionate stream. A reviving breeze is nothing but your tender touch, of love. Moon would have been  another rock in the endless universe if not for glow of your skin. It is your scent that makes air breath for me. Sea and sun laboured for eternity to lay the valleys and rises of the earth of your body. And, after first rain of season, nubile again earth has that intoxicating fragrance of your virginity.

For me, beauty is how everything relates to you, glows in your light, reminds me of you.

Even today.

Everyday, forever.

-Pulastya

What is beauty!

What is beauty!
Those moments of which I recall nothing
but a joyous, featherlight, blank;
and when those moments end
the last glimpse of that sweet feeling,
as if from a closing door comes a slit of light,
an utterance: oh, that was beautiful!
Those moments when death loses all its power
and with that the idea of time becomes meaningless,
with no need to separate
one moments from thousand others;
where length, as a dimension, is lost
and it is the depth, the final dimension,
that rises like a wave,
when it is not fear but desire
that makes me feel alive.
But, then love could be described similarly?
Yes.
Perhaps, beauty and love are like mother and child:
they originate from each other,
who from whom,
and who is who,
impossible to know.

-Pulastya

Secrets

You are right about all having secrets, as all have carcasses of dead desires which if not buried in time and in the deep dark places will start stinking and declaring their presence. Human existence is not about knowing a path and following it, it's about that random movement of chasing desires. Desires of body, of mind; desires borne of fighting the persistent sense of insecurity, where our own mortality weighing on us and desires working both as a distraction and purpose of life.

I wonder though, what a beautiful thing desire is? In its pure, basic and most complete i.e. 'not fulfilled yet' form (like virginity is ' not fulfilled yet' form of motherhood), completely away from any blemish of reality, much before the onset of decay- which starts when one goes on to fulfil a desire in real world. In its purest form, in the head as a thought, desire lives as filtered essence, so pure that there is no difference in fuel and fire, they are one and the same.

Man is compulsive about converting an alluring thought into action, about transporting a beautiful desire into real world. And the curse of real world is that here nothing can exist in pure form, to survive beauty has to mix with mess, fragrance with stink, joy with irony..after all real world is a world owned by death and it doesn't allow entry without seeding itself in to everything. And death is a creeper, it spreads, devouring the whole eventually, and leaving only a carcass behind, carcasses of dead thoughts, dead desires and dead things. And all carcasses demand to be buried, in dark places, in the abyss.

-Pulastya

Fatal love....

Marooned in the deep end of love
I drift with the tender winds,
that carry your scent,
towards the deepest end.....

Love,
having given me eyes to absorb all the beauty in the world,
has now gently blinded me
with this desire to climax,
thus sealed my fate:
one day, to be drowned
without leaving a trace.....

-Pulastya

Happiness

Dear Friend,

While age is on your side, you have the biggest gift, the gift of possibilities. Numerous possibilities of vocation, daily routine, love, and legacy. And " possibilities" are the only source of happiness. Any action/ achievement that doesn't bring in more possibilities will not make you happy. Class rank brings in possibilities ( of "bright!" future), "good" job  brings in possibilities ( of a "fulfilling!" future), love brings in possibilities (of companionship, of joy, of children), and therefore, they are source of happiness, to that extent.

So choose your actions wisely, understanding fully well what kind of possibilities you want to create, and whether these possibilities will create base for more, or the chain is going to terminate at some point. Please also be aware that once you choose you forfeit all other choices in the category available at that time, because choice needs to be worked upon for a period of time to covert it into actualised possibility, and by the time you realise that you made a wrong choice the time for  picking up another option has passed. If you don't find MBA worth while now you can't go back in time and start over? Not impossible, but only at the cost of precious time.

Biggest mistake people make is to keep repeating the act which brought them happiness when they did it the first time. Possibility, once attained doesn't remain a possibility any more, it becomes achievement, a trophy, and trophies are always the past. In past lies only a memory of happiness, and only thing it causes in present is the melancholy. Happiness is always a thing of future, never past. A thing of possibilities, not trophies. A good possibility, which once attained, will explode in to new possibilities for sustained happiness.

One big trick for sustained happiness is to run after a long term possibility. And " run" here means to structure your daily life in alignment with what is necessary for achieving that possibility.  Of course breaking it down into a few landmark events will help in assessing the progress and realigning the course.

Most of us become accustomed, by way of daily practice, to certain kind of actions and find it easy repeating them.  Such as doing our job, social behaviour, and to some extent our emotional life is governed by such actions. We need to remind ourselves that these actions were means to an end, not the end itself. People start tricking themselves in believing that possibilities borne of only these  actions will make them happy. That's a big mistake. You should never let ease of performing a practiced action be the reason for chasing a possibility.

 And, that's the biggest harm that a daily job does to you. It becomes easy to do and thus lures you to build possibilities only around it; such possibilities which you may not even want.

I wish you a very happy birthday and a future filled with sustained possibilities of your choice. One can use birthday to actually count one's possibilities; and, in case, if you choose to do that, I wish you an endless list.

With love and best wishes,

-Pulastya

Made of only you

My burning desire,
My languid relief,
My baby like sleep,
My irrational hope,

My wrenching heartache,
My bleeding sorrow,
My unending insomnia,
My lonely dread,

With you,
after you,

I am made of
Only You.

-Pulastya

Surrender of love

You sprawl 

right beside me, awake,

dressed only in the splendour 

of naked earth on full moon night,

your expanse marks boundaries

of the radiant world I live in,

your eyes shine 

like two infinitely deep 

lakes of clear water, 

with moon slowly dissolving in to them without a stir,

as if journeying back home through this portal to another world,

purified by hot fire of passion just doused

Your eyes transmit luminescence of the world of bliss,

I always glimpse heaven looking into them

when you stretch like this, next to me,

in complete surrender of love. 

-Pulastya 

Dance Divine

Your firm legs,
from the embrace of
Your stilettos,
Rise and sway like two flames,
When you dance.

Two white flames
riding wild passionate wind
and rising to the core of universe
concealed in your narrow red dress-
Your heart,
And fuelling it.

Gentle calf lines
of your rhythm drunk legs,
Forming and disappearing,
As if a perfection greedy artist
chiselling them with practiced strokes,
Ever unsatisfied.

Smooth movement of your hips,
A moon swinging in the sky
as a bob of a pendulum that moves time,
And how I crave to put my trembling hand
around your waist, to control time, to be eternal.

Even with eyes shut your face glows,
And closed lips are shimmering,
As if you have distilled the essence
of alcohol, flowing in your blood,
and stored in your lips,
for offering immortality
to the one who kisses you.

Oh Beauty!
At this moment, to me,
On twenty by twenty of dance floor,
Your are more potent than God.

-Pulastya

Relationship

The real despair about living truly sets in when the dread of loneliness becomes equal to the dread of relationship. Then, death starts appearing to be a fair option.

-Pulastya

Your charm

You really have it in you,
not just the physical charm
but the attitude of a flower swaying in the wind,
which augments the abundance of your charm a thousand times....
Poet will be honoured to feel its sweetness on his tongue,
and, spread its fragrance to the world,
through words he speaks under its influence....

-Pulastya

Tender lips

Dew dripping
of a rose petal,
green shoots of life
sprouting of a seed,
a piece of warm bread
to the hungry, or
first drop of rain
on eternally thirsty desert....
nothing,
absolutely nothing,
is as tender
as your lips.

Lips, of moonlight
coated with honey of essence of life
and fragrance of my desires.

-Pulastya

Dusky

Like mist,
concealing full moon in it,
your dusky skin glows
because of love....

-Pulastya

To a shadow

I could get only a glimpse of her. In the backdrop of blazing light a fleeting shadow. But, this shadow was not hollow. If one could only touch it, a purpose was hidden there, for a tender heart: to fill in it colour of one's own fire, to chisel features to one's own desire, and outline the shape to one's own perfection. A shadow, every heart got yearning for but no eye. My heart saw it. To heart, that pours gift of light in to eyes but lives in the darkness of chest, this shadow was most beautiful thing. A mellow darkness in the midst of blinding light where it could live and bleed till it is extinguished by death and yet remain eternally preserved in the layers and layers of buried passion of those saddest eyes. To ooze out on to the world in that crescent moon smile; below those sad eyes a smile that felt like a gash in the body of dark night, bleeding silver. In there my heart saw another abode. A better home than me, and took off. Never to return.

-Pulastya

Words

Words do not love me! Not yet. When I begin to write and look for them, they run away. They go into hiding. I have to search for them, chase them, and catch them, to put them to the page. Many a times I can hear their whispers in my head. I know that they are there, somewhere. But they elude me. Some other times they play pranks on me, specially the twin ones. When I am looking for "elude" "allude" will silently appear from some crevasse of brain and will start walking with me, obediently, holding my hand. And, when I will open a dictionary looking for a birth mark, it will suddenly burst into laughter and mock me.

-Pulastya

Annihilation of beauty

Your descent,
O bewitching goddess!
is a wicked game
of evil creator
to annihilate beauty
from my world....

Now, you
will be the only light in my eyes
forever,
like blindness.....

Blindness, caused by
kissing the sun
with eyes open....

-Pulastya

Topaz moon

Topaz moon
is dressed in black satin cloud,
what is revealed of it
has left me awestruck,
about the magnificence of
what isn't.

Full-moon of your beauty
rises tide of my imagination,
and, like ocean,
I desire to fly
and kiss the moon,
on the wings of a mere swell.

-Pulastya

Light and darkness

My share of light, and darkness,
In the eyes there is nothing else,
but you....

-Pulastya

Your memory

Unlike others,
your memory is stuck in my head like a splinter.
It pains.
Non-stop.
Non-stop like breathing,
but more relentless.
Is sole marker of my being alive.

-Pulastya

चाँद का तलाव

ऐ मेरी कल्पना!
आधे चाँद के तालाव के
ठोर पे बैठ
जब तुम ख़ुद को
चाँदनी में निहारती हो
तो न जाने कितने सितारे
तुम्हारा अक्स बनने की होड़ में
चाँद मे कूद पड़ते हैं,
और जब चाँद
सितारों से लबालब भर जाता है
तो सतह पे चमकता
तुम्हारा चेहरा
पूर्णिमा कहलाता है ।

-पुलस्तय

You

With hot desire
burning on my lips,
I crawl the earth of your body,
kissing it,
igniting a thousand fires....
to illuminate dark night of life,
in red glow of your flaming passion....

-Pulastya

Woman

Sunshine kisses your body,
glows in radiance of your beauty,
Sunshine bears warmth,
you my woman! have
warmth of love, and
heat of passion,
Sunshine nourishes body,
you my love! heart and soul,
your beauty, a cure for ailment called living,
is like delight of a perfect sin.....

-Pulastya

You

You fill me,
You occupy everything in me:
The blood, the breath,
and, as you can see,
even the words,
and thoughts......

You are the warmth in my blood,
the rhythm of my breath,
my words are you,
you are the origin and infinite of my thoughts,
you are, now, my soul.....

Oh dear!
I thrive on nourishment of your love.....

Never stop loving me,
for, without your love
I will be a void, like a stone:
cold, mute, finite, soulless,
full of only itself,
and seemingly, forever....

-Pulastya

You

You my dear!
Silent and lost,
Like a valley covered in clouds:
So much depth hiding underneath...
So many flowers to be discovered..
So many falls and streams singing..
So many butterflies preening for day ahead...

I would love to:
Descend and discover..
Touch and kiss all those flowers...
Drink life from those streams with songs..
And, open my heart to lend more colour to the rainbow of your hidden thoughts....

-Pulastya

A child

Every child,
is birth of a dream
so powerful
that it can create
a world out of a grain of sand,
Like another child, we call God,
did, by rolling a lump of mud
in to our home: the Earth.

-Pulastya

Why I write!

I write to create a possibility that a part of me will outlive me.

-Pulastya

Flirting

And, by the way, flirting is most beautiful and very healthy. It's a source of immense joy and happiness. Nothing is more pleasurable than knowing that one is desirable. That's minimum that both, men and women, can do to mutual pleasure without harm. And, to make sure it is done skilfully, without ever going out of control, it needs practice and respect for the art. Like poetry ( unlike food!), of which one should feel the taste, but should not eat.

-Pulastya

Woman!

O Woman!
Your are the antidote
to the brute in man,
You wield the tender feminine
fruits of desire,
the ooze of passion,
that halts the savage man in his steps,
make him go weak in the knees,
and bow to you, to life...

-Pulastya

You under my skin...

I have you
under my skin.
I always will.
As long as I live.
Because, it's not breath that I take
but, the memory of a thousand sensations
rippling on my body,
stirred by touch of your fingers on my face
as prelude to a kiss,
which makes me feel alive.

-Pulastya

Taste of moon

Bless, the moonlit night,
Bless, the grace of your naked body by the window
soaked in the melting silver of full moon,
Bless, my greedy fingers sweetly shaking
on touching your feminine heat.....
And, above all,
Bless, my nibbling kiss
on your glowing shoulder
unleashing a surge of ultimate delight
in my mouth-
the taste of a moonbeam.....

-Pulastya

Promise of a morning

Ah!
Standing in my balcony
I am witnessing the birth of a new day.....
Believe me
It is ascending with the ultimate promise-
That, today, every ray of light
That reaches my eyes
Will first kiss you, all over,
That, today, the air
That enters my breath
Will first kiss you, all over,
That, today, every thought
That rises in my head
Will first kiss you, all over,
And, before the day ends
My soul illuminated with your light
Wrapped in your fragrance
And reciting your name, as its last words
Will be face to face with the God.

-Pulastya

On birthday of a poetess

A life is built, and destroyed Infinitesimally each day,
Cell by cell, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat,
A sum total of experiences,
with one experience silting over the other:
layer by layer, of joy, of pain, of loss, of assimilation;
in a wave, with crescendo of exaltation and the steep falls of desperation;
moment by moment,
With each moment worth the whole life,
and whole life wrapped in a moment.
Then why celebrate birthday! Only once a year?
Isn't every second giving birth to a new you,
and burying your old self!

As poetess,
you are a flow,
with no beginning, or end,
You are a continuum
from first poet who sang long before sun was lit,
to the one who will outlast this earth itself
and will recite alone in unbroken silence of the universe,
With your words
you transcend the time and space
And kiss the foreheads of poets of past and future
And touch, with distance itself, the hearts of other distant poets of your time
Who are in love with you
And who you love too,
Poets never take birth or die
but only change form,
And thus have no birthdays
or funerals.

-Pulastya

Fire in loins

There is no fire more intense
than one hidden inside a woman's loins,
A fire that fuels the universe,
And keeps a man simmering even without ever touching it....

And, if ever, he gets to touch it
he burns,
Not to turn into ash
but into a sun of brilliant radiance....

And, to hide such a fire
the temple of woman body is created:
covered in golden vines of shyness,
laden with sweetest fruits of passion,
fruits with same pious fire as seeds in heart.

-Pulastya

Kiss

The blood in my veins
flows in hue of your face,
Light of my life
shines bright in the glow of your love-drunk eyes,
My heart beats
wildly at your fingertips,
My soul, as still as eternal universe
as we unite in joy of  love,
When my lips touch yours
to drink life....

-Pulastya

Passion

Darkest passion hides behind the deadest eyes, and moans as sensual love poetry. Bubbles and boils, trapped, unabated, to distill such essence of passion which reality can only dream of bearing. To be able to burn, relentlessly, without melting, must be the only way to flame the fire to a temperature where coarse passion opens its pods to pearls of refined one, the love poetry.
Perhaps a blessing, and a curse too, of a poet of love.

Makes me envious.

-Pulastya

Shadow

O'my shadow!
Never doubt my love for you...
Why else would I hide you beneath myself
If not to protect you from the blazing fury of noon sun....

-Pulastya

( Inspired by lines of a Poetess)

Withering flowers

Discard them!
Before, withering flowers
Start stealing fragrance from you,
Instead of giving...

Discard them!
Before, withering flowers
Take root in your heart,
They will still wither,
And your heart with them....

-Pulastya

Watery Darkness

Hope of a poet:
Watery darkness.....
Like, bottom of a deep sea:
still, peaceful, content,
a watery grave.....
Place for eternal residence
of essence of all poetry,
universe hums in that pristine silence
reciting....
Lucky you
To be there in birth,
Others can aspire
To be there
By only mercy of Death....

-Pulastya

You

You, a tiny spark of life-
called beauty,
Once touched my inflammable soul
Through my eyes....
Ever-since
I have been ablaze......

-Pulastya

On birthday

Birthday and marriage anniversary on the same day! It's like being twice born on the same day, once in the world and once in the love. Rare it is that in someone's life a particular day assumes so much importance ( except for the days when one's children are born). Perhaps It is such a day which is called " auspicious". And I pray that this auspicious day endures for you to eternity. May you, and all your loved ones, be ever blessed.

There are days, on week ends mostly ( other days mind is already hijacked by chores of the coming day) , when, by force of habit, me and my wife wake up early in the morning and kids are still sleeping. In usual fashion of kick starting a day, she goes to the kitchen to prepare some tea, and I to kid's room to check on them  ( I have two boys, one is fourteen and other one is four); and as I enter I would be gripped by this strange tenderness- which weakens and strengthens me at the same time. It could be triggered by almost any thing about them, their blissful sleep, or some time the awkwardness of their sleeping posture ( like younger one's feet on the face of the elder). Sweet weakness Comes from the realisation that how important it is that they are there; even without expectation, even without purpose of their own lives, their being is a purpose in itself, and It is to fulfil the purpose of my life. In their bliss lies my glory. It fills my chest with pride so intense that it reaches to the brim of my eyes. On even more kinder days, I might also hear my wife humming, even at that early hour, in the kitchen. It compounds my joy so much that only thing I want from all the blessings is to live such a day one more time. All else seem so futile. One man to another, I wish you that your every day be a similar day. A truly blessed man deserves nothing less in this world.

Wish you a happy birthday and a fulfilling wedding anniversary; and many many happy returns of the day. Please also convey my regards to your better half on the occasion of the day.

For receiving your birthday gift don't forget to hug your loved ones tightly.

-Pulastya

Dusky Girl

The other day
I saw a dusky girl
In a yellow dress,
Like a sapphire was
tenderly wrapped
In a foil of gold.....
A black pearl
Radiating a golden aura
of mellow winter sun.....

And,
that dress was complemented
By a single ornament she wore-
Her life Oozing smile,

She was a crescent moon night in the wee hours:
The beauty of silvery grey night still at peak but
Augmented by shine of a bright day gently seeping in.

-Pulastya

ख़ुशबू

लोग कहते हैं
मेरे अल्फ़ाज़ों से ऐक खूशबू सी आती है.....
कैसे बताऊँ
तेरे बदन के सोने में ढली है कविता मेरी.....

-पुलस्त्य

ख़्वाब

गर तू बस ऐक ख़्वाब थी
जो मैंने कभी देखा है........
तो फिर मैं ये कैसे बताऊँ
के मेरी हथेली पे
ये तेरी चूड़ी का टुकड़ा है
या हाथ की रेखा है?.......

-पुलस्त्य

हद

हर बार, तेरी अनदेखी जब हद से गुज़रने लगी,
टूटते दिल की कराहों से मेरी रूह भी डरने लगी,
तो इस ऐक ख़्याल से दिल को बहला लिया मैंने
तेरी तोहमतों के पैरों के निशाँ को ही
आँखों से लगा लिया मैंने,
के शायद तुम मगरूर नहीं, बस मेरी चाहत की हद ढूँढ रही हो..........

और ये गुनाह मेरे दिल का है
की मेरी मोहब्बत मेरे दिल की गहराइयों में जन्मी है,
तुम मेरे ईश्क़ की गरमी को
अपनी ऊँगलियों से  छूँ कर परख सको
इसके ख़ातिर, मेरे दिल का टुकड़ों में टूटना लाज़िमी है...........

-पुलस्त्य

शहर

तंग गलियों में उफनता सरों का सैलाब
शहर की रगों में लहू बनके दौड़ता था कभी........
अब जमने लगा है ।

कैन्सर जैसी भीड़ मौत बन पनप रही है
थके हुऐ शहर की रवानगी को निगल रही है........
अब ये शहर मरने लगा है ।

-पुलस्त्य

क्या होगा

हाय होंठों पे सुलगती रहे प्यास,  पीने में वरना मज़ा क्या होगा,
हांसिल तो ये के मौत हमसफ़र है, जीने में वरना मज़ा क्या होगा,
बस हर ऐक घड़ी साँस लेना ही नहीं होता किसीका ज़िन्दा होना,
शबो-रोज़ घुटते रहें यूँ ही अरमाँ, सीने में वरना मज़ा क्या होगा।

--पुलस्त्य