Candle in the wind

I was once staring at a candle trying to light up a little circle around her. Beautiful it did seem but more so I felt I am looking into a mirror. I am not trying to be poetic [more precisely ‘shaayarana’] and get into the ‘shama-parvaana’ syndrome, but I am trying to look into myself as a passionate, vulnerable, volatile and flammable soul which might not just light up something but might as well just burn something up.

I do feel that very often. I feel the heat, the fire, the burning within me. Sometimes this flame stands head held high struggling with the heavy wind....I see it reaching a point of dying and suddenly brightening up. Sometimes I see it serene, content and divine and sometimes it is just full of anger wanting to kill everything that makes it shake.

I want to fuel it with every tear wanting to roll down my eyes...every smile that sees my lips...every lump in my throat...each moment of disappointment...each moment of ecstasy and every moment of rage. I want to keep in burning with every breath I take. I want to fight the winds who try to kill it...and I want to love every breeze that gives it a pat on the back. I seek every darkness that needs it....every vice that needs to be burnt. I fear each moment which might turn it into a fire and burn my hands and those of my loved ones. I fear it becoming my own fright.

I want to shield it. I want it throw itself in the crazy wind. I want it to grow brighter when the eyes can’t see and just go dim when there isn’t much to see. I want it to sometimes be just negligible and not assert its presence and sometimes I want it to just burn down things that come in its way...

I want it to light me up....and all around me...I want it to just keep burning.....

A note unwritten

Every time when I open the door and enter the home that is not built for me, I find a note on the table…a note unwritten. A note that reads that I was remembered, that I was missed.

I hear the melody unsung…

A symphony that was never composed….

A verse that no one conceived…

I hear a promise never uttered…

I feel a hand consoling when my throat has a painful lump…

A cry that I never let out..

The rage that never came out…..

A dream that my eyes will never bear….

A secret that will never be told…

A euphoria that I never imagined..

A path which I have never known…

A bird that never flew….

But..

I feel it all..

I see it all..

I know it all…

I love it all...

Is it the note?

Is it the melody?

Is it the verse?

Or

Is it just my foolish faith....

That one such unwritten note does exist......

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं

माझ्या आईनी अलगद माझ्या ओंजळीत टाकलेलं

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का सिमोन दि बोव्हा च्या तत्वज्ञानातून बरचसं न कळलेलं,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

स्त्रीमुक्तीवादाच्या कचाट्यातून स्वतःला सोडवू पाहणार,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का असमानतेच्या भावनेनी ज्वालेसारख पेटून उठणारं,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

दर महिन्याला वेदना साहून त्रासलेल, विटलेल,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का मातृत्वाच्या देवत्वानी उन्मत्त झालेलं,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

शृंगाराच्या हरक्षणी समर्पित होणारं,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का याचक होऊन अंतिम क्षणाचं दान मागणारं,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

मोगऱ्याच्या वासानी वेडापिस होणारं

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का हिरीरीनी टाकीलाचे shots मोजणार,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

न साहून फुटलेल्या पान्ह्यात भिजणार ,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का उभ्यानी मुतता येत नाही म्हणून वैतागणार,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

त्याच्या नजरेतून मला गवसतं,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

का माझ्या कणाकणातून पाझरत,

ते माझं स्त्रीत्वं?

न सुचलेल्या कवितेचं भूत

माझ्या न सुचलेल्या कवितेचं भूत रोज माझ्या मानगुटीवर बसतं

गोंधळलेल्या,काळ्या,अशांत,जीवघेण्या रात्री.

जेव्हा माझ्या अपुर्या स्वप्नांचे,अतृप्त वासनांचे,फसलेल्या यमकांचे,चुकलेल्या गणितांचे,अस्फुट चित्कारांचे घाव बसतात माझ्या मनावर.

जगण्याच्या चौकटी आखताना आपसूक बाजूला सारलेलं,

आत आत कुठेतरी दाबलेलं,

पचवलंय असं वाटलेलं,

नाकारलंय असं मानलेलं,

'उद्या पाहू' च्या सदरात मोडलेलं.

स्वप्नाळू वगैरे डोळ्यांना न झेपलेलं,

मोडक्या खांद्यांना नं पेललेल

पंख बांधून पदरात लपवलेलं.

साखरेत घोळून पोटात दडवलेलं,

माझं, तुझं, तिचं, त्याचं...

सगळं पिशाच्च्यासारखा उभं ठाकतं समोर.

आणि म्हणतं, 'कविता तरी कर'

पण वांझ गायीसारखी मी मख्ख पहात राहते.

'कविता' नावाच्या याक्षिनिचा धावा करत,

'अजाण कवितेच्या वाटेला जाणाऱ्यांना' दरडावणाऱ्या आरतीप्रभूंचे नामस्मरण करत.

ट ला ट जोडणार्यांच्या नावाने बोटं मोडत,

मेघना पेठेच्या नागड्या, निर्भीड कवितेचा हेवा करत,

मर्ढेकर,कुसुमाग्रज,करंदीकरांचे पाय धरत.

मग स्वतःची समजूत काढते.

'तो फोर्म नाही माझा' असं म्हणत.

मग होते निद्रादेवीच्या आधीन.

सकाळी कोडगेपणाची शाल पांघरून आला दिवस सार्थकी लावते.

'मुलगी,मैत्रीण,बायको,प्रेयसी,आई' ....

सर्व भूमिकात अभिनयाची उंची गाठते.

आणि रोज रात्री त्या नं सुचलेल्या कवितेच्या भुताला बुद्धी नावाच्या मांत्रिकाकडे न्यायचं ठरवते.

पण ते मानगुटीवरून उतरेल तर नं??

A world lost....found within

Yesterday I saw Radha [my 5 year old daughter] talking to herself. Not that it was the first time; she talks to herself very often. Almost all the time when she is not talking to someone. I have never been worried about this. I ask her whom she is talking to. She has a very simple answer each time. She plainly tells me the name of the person she is talking to. She explains the situation, she describes the interaction, subject matter, emotional state..everything that is going on in her tiny head. She has no hesitation, discomfort, embarrassment about having an imaginary give and take with the non existent humans/ghosts/fairies/animals. She is happy and content in living all those moments which she can’t live in her realities.

I never worry…I envy her. Last night I traced back deep inside my own mind. I realized I do exactly what she does. I have a world of my own. A world deep inside me. Sometimes I feel I live more in those unexplored zones than living where I am supposed to live. It’s a world of my dreams, my desires, my fears, my passions, my nightmares, my insecurities. My world of ‘how it should have been’ ..my world of ‘how I want it to be’

I live all that I haven’t lived..I do all that I dare not do..I say all that is ‘not to be said’

I live the love I haven’t got a chance to live. I conquer the fears I have always been obsessed with. I live like one I have always wanted to be. It’s my life unshared…it’s my secret undisclosed. It’s my treasure..I am yet to find.

It’s so sealed deep within that sometimes I can find its traces. Sometimes a ‘fair’ amount of alcohol knocks the locked doors. I get alarmed and I shut myself up further. My friends [who have witnessed such extremely rare occasions] tell me that I become an introvert when I am high. That might be a rare sign of alcohol influence, but I do feel closed down. I get lost in the world lost deep within.

I envy my daughter. She has the courage to live her secret world. She has no fears of that world getting exposed. She caresses her own desires, dreams, and insecurities fearlessly. She has the courage to tell me that she is giving herself a chance to live what she can’t live in the world that I have brought her into. She has no regrets, no complains howsoever. She has the strength to embrace her realities away from this reality. I wish I had this power.

Maybe I have it in my world lost deep within…..

Chicken run

I have been wondering lately..what is it that makes one write a blog? Is it an inner compulsion to express oneself? Is it habit? Is it the feeling of being read/appreciated/acknowledged by those friends in the web world? Or is it re-assuring oneself that one can write? I guess it is all of it. I have not been writing for almost three years now. [Not been writing a blog I mean] I don’t know why? Did I not feel all that I have stated above? Well…I did feel that. Was I too lazy? [well..that I am..always was..] Was I not worried of being forgotten/overlooked/ignored? [Somehow that never worried me]

Bottom line is, I don’t know why I did not write for three years and I don’t know why I am writing now. And I don’t want to know.

Sometimes I feel a little chicken dancing in my head. Imagine you have organized your papers properly on your study table. Travel blogs in one pile, personal writings in another, recipes in another pile, official paper work in one. And a chick starts dancing all over. It is all mixed up, it’s all messed up. You get furious but you can’t be angry on that little thing, you love the way it dances and throws your papers around. You love to see its tiny legs tearing the papers away. You love to see the happiness in its little body.

I feel that in my mind. I get dis-oriented. I get dis-organized. It’s a mess. And I am the little chick messing myself up. I am the one who has organized it all and I am the one dancing on it.

I love this feeling. It scares the hell out of me. I get set to figure out what it is all about. What it is meant to be. I try to find a mirror to look at myself all over again. I struggle to find out what I am looking for. Every time I feel ‘this is it’! Now I know all. But the little chicken re-visits. Thank God for sending him.

Is that why I am blogging?? Dunno…Ask the chicken!!

Vibha can't write

Sometime back, a dear friend scrapped me..[and literally ‘scarpped’ me] saying that I should change my blog name to ‘Vibha doesn’t write’!! Thanks yaar!!! Love u for this upfront ness!! [or can also be called ‘puneripana’]
But then she is right. I haven’t written in ages. I was in Delhi for two months writing a play. I wrote about 6 drafts! I was over and out with it. [ I am damn good at giving excuses eh?] I thought I can’t write no more!
I feel like….I want to..some thing happens…in the heart..and the mind. [ if at all these are two different organs at two different locations] But I just can’t get myself to write. Sometimes there is so much I want to say..it is so much that I feel I am choked. I feel there just aren’t enough words that can say all of it. [Guys……this IS NOT a sign of a poet, or a genius writer…this is just a stupid lazy woman trying to update her blog..and proving her puneri friend wrong]
At times I feel I have gotten into this habit of using the tool of language to write something impressive. Just an attempt to prove that I still write. Just a way of telling myself and others how I am different than the rest. But I sometimes feel do I really have something to say? Do I have to write? And then I don’t.
But then I do..becuase I need to…because probably that is ALL I can do.
I guess I should sign off..I am incoherent…but folks…I did write….
Can Vibha write…..even if she can, she doesn’t!! And I hate her for that!!!!!