Wednesday 16 December 2015

Desert Rain



It is an unusual weather. But rain in Dubai is beautiful. The mind glides into a deep journey of thoughtful contemplation and tranquillity. It is a delightful world. Like many others, I have stepped out into my balcony wielding the video camera to capture a few moments of the glory. These are one of the rarest and the most ecstatic moments in the cloudless, arid regions of the world. I am as exuberant as my little child when I look out. As for her, she is witnessing the first rains of her lifetime after she has started getting the smell of the world around her. She was born in the mid summer of our native land where the clouds simply open up and pour down in the monsoon. Ironically, she had missed the delightful sight, for we had moved out in search of greener pastures abroad, to these rainless regions of Arabia, a week before the onset of the first beautiful monsoon of her life. But perhaps she is lucky, for these showers are the first of its kind in years in Dubai.

The rains have always been fascinating. Back home, in God's own country,the aesthetic mind gets to relish much more of the beauty of the rain.The pitter patter , the muddy puddles, the veritable vegetation and floral bounties standing washed as if painted in the brightest hue, all excites the heart.  Peering out of the window on a sunless day  the murky skies lend a balmy delight to the eye.  . The rain clouds seem to be the pouting little child ready to burst into tears. The thunders and lightenings may be the taunting elders. Soon the rain would pour down and the little brats of the neighbourhood  run out in joy splashing in the little puddles . The dreamy adolescent stands in a trance gazing on for hours at the nature around standing washed in rain  . Night rains are  passionate. The tiny silver drops of water on the blades of grasses shimmering in the street light adorns them like the christmas tree and fills the heart with an inexplicable sensation. All is dark and still outside and the mind dances to the rhythm of the rain .With a pen and paper, like the blind in the dark, the poet gropes for words to get rid of the ache in the heart but to no avail.  The  wearied man amidst the din of the city ,  sits back and listens to the music of the rain that soaks in as a soothing balm to his strained nerves. Long drives in monsoon are charming. The car  streams on. Water forms  weird designs on the windshield. . Looking out, the vision gets distorted in the heavy rain. The trees, the buildings and the signboards  appear like the half done painting on the artist's canvas.

In arid deserts , where the sunbeams burn like fires and the earth sweeps in the whirling dust, the light showers cool the eyes and soothe the being.  People are madly rushing out grateful for the little drizzles the heavens have showered on this parched land. The red hot ground that throws needles right into the eyes now stands damp, the fiery fury vanishing in the ecstasy of a beautiful shower. Water is dripping from some dusty windows drawing strange designs.  Someone drives amidst the rain with the windows rolled down. The scent of the air is refreshing. No umbrellas are visible. All stand emotionally involved with the nature round. Emotional myself, I put my little one's hands outside. Her starry eyes twinkle at the first drop of the desert rain on her palm...

Wednesday 18 November 2015

I saw the wind, the invisible wind
Dancing wild in this country town
Howling, whistling, piercing the night
with its haunting lamentation!
I saw the wind, the wild screaming wind
Pounding on earth with all its might,
Bending and tossing the willows with its arms
Tearing down trees and the last leaves
I saw the wind , the cold November wind
whirling the freezing windmills
Twirling the tall clouds and sending them
Fleeing down the dark green vales
I saw the wind, the beautiful catastrophic wind
Raining stories of love and war
Enduring paradoxes, consoling, alarming
Emptying and filling!


Thursday 5 November 2015

Your canvas of grey and green inspired... In the quietness of a rainy solitude.....I painted these lines like a child....




On placid dawns such as this...
I still dwell 
on the realms of another dream....
For my night was sleepless 
in thoughts of rain!!! 

Pale & pallid through the window way
even as the slant of sunlight crosses my way
With quiet steps tentative &  warm 
My eyes are still dreamy today
In thoughts of rain that lashed yesterday 


Through the dark nights the heart flies
till the break of the next rainy dawn
Slow inclinations to fall back again
to the pallid charms of a dark rainy morn....



Sunday 4 October 2015




 The springs and summers have gone by....The greens have lost their lustre, the freshness fading into the interior of the cells...one would think it were the eyes that got accustomed to seeing the greens
.....but indeed the yellows are looming large each day.....the oranges running along the fringes.

Colours seep out....a little each day....the eyes watch her expose new colours....her last sunshines , the slant of the last evening rays on the walls...the last splendour she throws around, draped in a brilliant sheen...loving hard ...loving deep...until the wind falls and lifts a ripened leaf to the empty skies.....









Wednesday 16 September 2015

Summer shades

"Gulmohar is a human" I said ….My daughter burst into fits of laughter..But then Gulmohar is indeed so ; a warm, passionate human with love running through the veins and reaching out to my mind like a soft and benevolent shade in the mid summers when the heat saps all liquids and desires from the being.

I garrulously talk to my family members about Gulmohar when the summer draws close. I talk about it the whole of April and May. It is like waiting for a family member’s coming home for summer vacation. . I wait for its arrival as soon as the rays of the sun get warmer and fades the green by the hedgerows. I know they bud and the first flowers appear by the end of April. It is full bloom during May. It is a feast to the eyes and one of the ecstasies of summer. .

."Incredible!” says my daughter when talks of Gulmohar
ensue out of nowhere in the midst of a different conversation.

The best part of a long walk is getting to see the Gulmohar ; appearing everywhere..  along the dusty pavements, along a breezy walkway, peeping from behind buildings, looming large clearly outlined against the blue summer sky...  The soft slant of the evening sun plays on the heap of orange red flowers …yellows, oranges and  reds paint in deep tones the dusty lane and the mind's canvas.

Bright flames of passion suddenly burst forth on an unassuming tree that had stood all the year just green like the next one beside it and then it is colours that swing before the eye in a long walk or a lazy drive... deep orange...red..the flamboyant flame of the forest interspersed with green leaves standing up in all crowning glory..

Images swing to the mind.. the summer rain of childhood, the wet streets strewn with the orange blossoms knocked down by the rain... the trees bending down with the weight of the water... the flowers scattered across and the flooding gurgling waters carrying the blooms down the lane…

Every dream had an orange bloom appearing in some corner of the mind…


Last year I planted a Gulmohar in the backyard of my home... the same month I realised I had conceived my younger daughter. It has grown tall now....probably some years from now I shall see one morning, a spurt of orange suddenly appearing amidst the green jungle of trees behind my home….probably it might take longer... and my younger daughter will have become a girl and my older daughter a maiden... I shall wait….wait for them all to ripe, for their flamboyant colours to fill my eyes, with all love and passion in the heart. 

Tuesday 16 June 2015

( From my first book of poems 'The divine hand in the dark' published in August 2010)



Rain

The day ebbs slow,
fading into an orange glow,
with an amber glint of sunlight on leaves
and a peculiar slant of rays on trees
and then I think of rains
and strangely the heart pains
The sun has not gone down
still it grew dark outside
and I wondered if it was the heart inside
or was it really cloudy on the skies?
I can hear the footfall of the rain
For I was close in nature's lane
Where she couldn't but hear the heart cry
So she really brought the clouds on the sky!
And then the mind eases in bliss
as the first rain seeps to the insides
the balmy wind plants a kiss
and sweeps by the sides
and then through the silence ripping fast
the clouds open and drop down wild
upon the trees thrashing and tearing down
the eyes in the pouring rain looking through
to the skies behind the clouds
and below to the clustering trees
appearing like patches of green
The hours pass by and I find I can love
this kind of a coloured desolation of the mind.
The drops that array in queue
like a multimillion pearls in a pale hue
studding over the edges of roof
now changes patterns collecting all
and streams down like a limpid fall.
The rain wraps me around in its arm
whispering secrets of love
casting a mystic spell of charm
to the being thrilled in every nerve
And when its night and sleep builds
vision still hangs in the eyelids
of the rain that pour from the roofy top
filling images in the eyes
and transferring them to the heart
I look out miles and miles
while the mind sleeps cosy again
immobile in the arms of the rain.
http://www.writersezine.com/2015/01/adrift.html


Poem 'Adrift' in Writer's Ezine got chosen for their Exceptional poem award.

Happiness is ....getting a prize when you never thought of even entering a contest..Getting published itself was happiness.The second email containing a certificate was a surprise to say the least.Writer's Ezine deserves a lot of good words for 'making heard', new voices and new thoughts...And of course to think of compiling the collections every few months into a print version.



                                                                         Adrift

 I sailed, I sailed
Like a little boat adrift
Sailing away from streets, cities, homes;
Far from the fake love of mortals
The waters were taught by the master
To carry with true love and placid joy

I sailed, I sailed
On his wondrous sea
To the silent shore;
I sang, with all my heart, I sang
I breathed enough air on this wondrous sea,
Till the green shores appeared,
With its peacock colored hills
And white jagged rocks;
I felt the people giving a funeral behind
Superfluous, for I was proud to die,
To untie the strings of my soul 
And to drift, adrift! 
In the little boat to sail!