Song of our life

 Eventually, 

the spotlight shines on us.

Jingles resonate, 

excerpts from life. '' '' 

Mayhaps symphonic sonnets... 

perchance dissonant dribblings...

... 

we decide our echoes. 

Linking with Weekend Writing Prompt #259

Welfare unto all 

Rab rakha 

Thy name, my refuge

As you walk with Guru, you walk in the light of existence, away from the darkness of ignorance, you leave behind all the problems of your life.
A haiku inspired from this thought... Heartiest greetings for Gurupurab...


Thy name’s holy thread,
mends my tattered and frayed soul,
in thee, my refuge.

Satnam Sri Waheguru

Linking with Modest Mondays

Welfare unto all 

Rab rakha 🤗 🤗 🤗 

Skindeep

Underneath the silken layers,
sans the make-up and the hair-do,
without the dash of code red lipstick
and perfectly lined eyes,
beyond the glowing radiant skin,
your soul painted in perfection.
So come to me, as you are,
minus all these masks.
You, with all your scars and flaws,
pure, authentic and real,
glowing from somewhere deep inside.
And I shall love you sweetheart,
with all my heart,
for how you are made up.

Linking with Friday Fictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT COURTESY Ronda del Boccio
Welfare unto all
Rab rakha 🤗 🤗 🤗

Love heals

Shattered to pieces,
love comes shining through the cracks.
And our soul is healed.

Prompt by @baffled

Welfare unto all
Rab rakha 🤗 🤗 🤗 

Meandrous

Over the river and through deep dark woods, 

yonder the city skyline, 

spread of winding roadways.

Linking with RonovanWrites : River and Path

Linking with yeahwrite.me weekly poetry challenge

Welfare unto all
Rab rakha 🤗 🤗 🤗 

Welcome winters

Winter’s wailing winds. 

We wake up to dark outside. 

That snuggling in quilts!!!

Welfare unto all 

Rab rakha 🤗 🤗 🤗 

Yesterdays and yonder

With yesterdays gone,
now and yonder's all you have,
yeasayers yap.

Linking with Blogging from A to Z April Challenge 

Gift of grinning

The gift of grinning,
gala glimmery grandeur,
the good foreboding.

Linking with Blogging from A to Z April Challenge 

Day-begin

Deliberately she wipes the clothesline,
with a dusting cloth,
to remove the specks of dust that might have gathered
on the thin iron wires
drawn taut and tight between three angeled iron holders.
But sitting in my balcony and leafing through case file,
I sense her anxiety.
Her daughter has been standing at the corner of road,
for over 15 minutes now
and that rickety yellow school bus has not picked her up yet.
The girl's school bag is sagging with the weight of curriculum
and shoulders, perhaps with the weight of expectations.
She sneaks another look at her daughter,
her hands pausing for a moment
and then she returns inside,
probably to attend to her laundry,
only to come back in less than a minute
and peep again.
Her visit this time is synchronized
with a screeching halt of Tata Winger.
Her daughter boards the bus,
just as she hangs the first cloth to dry,
grey skirt from her daughter's school uniform.

The rickshaw-wallah

The scorching sun was bidding goodbye. Laden with files, a handbag and a lunch bag, and swallowing the pain of shoebite, I made it through the subway. And then I lavishly boarded a rickshaw. The rickshaw-puller, a summer-tanned boy of 18-20 years, eagerly accepted the tour for a measely 20 bucks. His dirty sweat sodden vest and sinewy arms talked of day well-labored. He often wiped the burden of responsibilities with his red cotton stole. When I reached, I thanked him but he pretended not to hear. Silently, he turned his cab towards main road in anticipation of new customers.

Linking with Thin Spiral Notebook: 100 words: Pretend

Peeping past

The sidewalks littered
With innocent footsteps
Outrunning each other
To find the best hiding place.
The IT counting till hundred
Occasionally peeping across
And seeing the silhouettes
Sliding behind the cobwebbed niches.
The pretence of
Making the search
Calling out,
Winning, loosing,
Playing and replaying
The childhood laughing
And celebrating
The festival of life,
Thoroughly.
The spectres of
Good old days
Peeping now and then
Only to find
The ruckus of tiddlers
Silenced
By shadows of youth
Wandering through this labyrinth
Confounded,
Blinded by dimes and dollars.
Fractured bodies
Supplanted by
Fractured souls.
Life left behind
In
Unfrequented dusty alleys.

Image by Bill Brandt, 1934

Linking with Light and Shade Challenge

Musings from farms

Farmhands moved away,

Lured by the glitz of cities,

hopes of better work.

Mother earth left deserted,

Coffee and jobs both erased.

Wild weeds aplenty,

Travails lost to empty nests.

The bosom, untilled,

Several genus trampled.

Empty percolators stare.

Reminiscent farmlands abound.

Uncaffeinated collaborations

Our regular

Long distance call

Rings

With a tone of urgency.

Dad and I collaborate,

Telephonically,

Working out solutions

To some technical glitches

That faze him.

He, narrates the specs

I, jury-rig the solutions

For a 11-year old desktop

That still sits proudly

On my study, back home.

He sounds alert,

Like a sentinel on his duty,

With mom’s best iced coffee

Working through

The complex mesh of

His veins and arteries,

While

The woolly-headed me,

Occasionally drifts off.

Concerned, he asks me

If I need to sleep.

A nonchalant

“Oh, All I need is coffee”

Is what I tell him,

But he chooses to listen instead

To the unsaid

“But somewhere in between

Office and cooking

And laundry,

I forgot to

Purchase the staples.

Again”.

A pause,

Longer than expected,

And it dawns on me,

Muzzy as I am,

That the parent in him

Will worry at

The prospects

Of my sustenance and subsistence.

Luckily, I have the solution

By now.

A dampened

“Good work”

And we chaffer a little

Before saying goodbyes

And goodnights.

A few hours,

And we will be talking again,

Greeting each other

Refreshed good mornings

And embracing

With our words.

Sometimes,

Home has a caller tune.

K is for ... Kites

Rhombic paper-mache of dreams
Dancing aloft in wind currents.
Undulating in the infinity.
Conquering the crested iris.
A distant silhouette
Tasting the skies,
Inspiring to look
Further and higher.
Tangled reins
Locked in trance.
Behold! Their rhythm,
Ceaselessly goading.
The unruly stringless wanderer
Scaling the silver skylines.
Skilled hands mastering
The string, now loose, now taut,
Willing it in to a smooth glide,
Urging and encouraging the flight.
Wide-eyed innocence
Mesmerized,
Their young beating heart,
Reaching for stars,
Untiringly, chasing the kites.

Linking with :Alphabet Salad

The prophesier

Slender fingers,
Held my tea-cup.
Purple voice
Poured prophecies.
Something would hit me.
I kept thinking car.
But Cupid's Arrow!
Cagey, Christine.
You didn't tell me that.
Or perhaps you did.
But the voice died in jangle
Of bangles on your wrist.

Hunger pangs

The cans were all empty. Three hungry stomachs growling and not a grain to feed them.
It had been raining for three days now. And she had not been able to make her daily rounds, exchanging utensils for old, worn out clothes and then reselling them for paltry amounts to villagers and even poor.
But she was not poor. She was beggarly. She and her three kids. It had not occurred to her husband in the moments of his physical wantonness to worry about providing for them. He had planted his seeds in her life and drunk his way to an early death, leaving her alone to fight daily battles of survival. And fighting she was. With every single fiber of her being. A relentless daily fight to win over the hardships. The pitter-patter rain drops harshly reminded her of the hollowness of food cans. Rumination could wait. She would have to forage first.
She picked up a torn plastic bag and wrapped it around her head before stepping out of her lean-to. She drew back the bright blue patched tarpaulin to afford some privacy and security to her family before marching away.
Vegetables tend to go pricey in rains. Or may be she felt the brunt only because she had so little money with her. One single coin with 5 embossed on it. She held it endearingly and ran her rough fingers over the stamping. Many times over. It could buy them absolutely nothing. Such a waste of metal and minting.
They could all sleep hungry tonight. Like countless nights of past. One more night without food would not harm much. Or perhaps it would. She was not sure. For a moment there, her mind wavered between begging and stealing, and then rejected the options. Too despicable. No, they would sleep hungry tonight.
Drenched to her skin, she turned back. She walked past the market and its luxuries like they were not there. She had reached the outer-most limits. A little walk from here and she would be back with her kids, feeding them the imagination of her mind and lulling them to sleep.
The smell of fish wafted from nearby in the moist air. Even her own hunger, repressed for the sake of her kids, surged and leapt at the prospect. She had always found it difficult to cross this area, primarily because she was vegetarian and she found the smell revolting. Not today. Today the smell held the promise of a full stomach. No wonder, she found it difficult to cross the area this time too.
Her feet stayed rooted in the morassy puddle, her saree clinging to her like second skin while her mind and heart and every other sense fought with each other. Hesitant, debating, dithery. She willed herself to walk and then willed to enter the roadside eatery.
She looked ahead, seemingly where her shanty was. And then she looked up at the orangish steaks hanging above the counter. Behind the steaks was hanging a roughly scribbled pricetag - Rs.5/-. Catchpenny but affordable.
The battle was over. She entered the nameless eatery, handed out the coin, took the parcel wrapped in newspaper, and stepped out, holding her breath all this while.
She portioned out the steaks equally in three plates with shivering hands. Her kids ate in silence while she stared out at the incessant rain. They didn't question. She didn't volunteer. But as they bit into the flesh, she closed her eyes. A tear trickled down her cheek. Or perhaps it was a raindrop. It didn't matter. At least, her kids were not going to bed hungry.



Linking with Picture it and write

Date with my quill

From the recycled quire,
Fresh, clammy, and
Heady with
Wood and bleach,
A blank A4 sheet
Posed au naturel,
Shivered slightly,
Restive, yet patient.
Teasing caresses
Of my quill,
Pregnant pause,
Brazen coquet,
Relenting gradually.
The osculations left
An indelible inky-blue trail.

H is for ...

Not the roof above,
Or hills yonder; roots nowhere;
Home i take with me.

Good morning!!!

The faint fragrance drifts,
Pears and coconut oil,
Chiffon draped across her skin,
Still moist from shower,
Streak of fair waist
Glistening against crimson red,
Her umpteenth attempt to wake me up.
I pull her in my embrace,
The cooler,
Buzzing somewhere.

The Tease

A tiny drop, resting for a while, on your bare shoulder
And then travelling down your soft and supple arm
Leaving behind a moist trail
And a growing rivulet of unsaid desires.
Oh! The burning ache of the pleasure
Allowed to that aqueous pearl.
And as if I wasn't ablaze already,
Another bead followed the lead
Melting teasingly over the undraped cutis.
One more and yet another, until they poured torrentially
Enveloping you in their bedewed embrace.
The sun relenting,
Cedeing to the enticing invitation of
The first showers of monsoon.