Musings, out of context - III

Once in a while, we wake up wearily, and worry out of wariness, whether the world within us has withered away under a window of wizardry, or warped into a wonderland.

An effort at enlightening everybody on the eternal enigma:

Full Stop?

An assembly of aspirations and aberrations

Age accustomed to adsorb and annul all alone

Allowing annihilation aplenty; away and afar

Breathing beyond boredom, barely being banished

Bystanders moved on, bearing no testimony

Burrowed to break the back of a banal bubble

Creeping and climbing, with callous chaos

Chateaux of calm, a crafty connoisseur

Carving clichés and uncovering cocoons

Daunted by dawn or dusk? - I doubt

Deeds dimmed all the dreary dialogue

Dumbfounded, deceived and damned, was I

Eerie euphoria, earthly epochal emancipation

Epilogue-like it echoed, enervating with ebbs and flows

Elusive as ever, eking out ephemeral existence

Finished, fallen, furthering futility of failure

Facing the facets of foes and flatterers

Finally, was it a full stop or first blood?

Ayyoh 🤦🏾‍♂

2 syllables I screamed in agony

Revealing my origins, like nothing else could

Adding spice was the tint of Melanin

Determined to define and demean me

Scorching summers were spent

Munching mango and lemon pickles

Preparations and drying

Of Pappadams and the like

Of ghee soaked Mysurpaks

And Pullareddy paper sweets

Of milky Kovas from Srivilliputhur

Or the flour laden Kundas

Devotion has its way and say

In camphor smeared Tirupathi laddus

In the sticky Aravana from Sabarimala hills

Where faith interspersed with cuisine

Morning ears attuned to Suprabhatham

Rendered mellifluously, unfailingly

By the revered M S Subbulakshmi

At the peak of her vocal powers

Ramanavami concerts at Fort High School

Or the kutcheri filled Margazhi Decembers

Or Yakshagana prasangas extending into dawn

Or the chariot thronging streets at the fairs

The cities named, nicknamed and renamed

After queens, beans, demons and Gods

Stemming from tiny words like Rajamahendravaram

Or adorned with pleasing qualifiers like "Singaara"

Warmth and relief in the facade

And shade of coconut palms

Not so benign, challenging trails

In lush greenery of the Ghats and valleys

Soothing solace, I find

In tiled roofs and red-oxide floors

Might as well gasp in awe

Of the lengthy temple corridors

Some of these are memories

Some, goals to look forward to

All I can do, is mince and wince

Uttering, as I sigh, AYYOH!

Questions, deep within

How do we manage to trust some unlikeliest people with our most brittle secrets and darkest fears?
Why do we become a party to someone else's insecurities?
Do we, by becoming mute witnesses to stories someone shares, become a part of those stories?
Does being a confidante to someone special, mean that narrowest crevices of our minds are stuffed with a far greater amount of information, which we are seldom able to process?
Why is it that more than the regular folks in our lives, it's the chatter we have with strangers, that creates such a flutter, wreaking havoc in our minds, which on most days, are an epitome of all the calmness, the world has to offer?
At what point do we make peace with silence that precedes the key decisions?
Why do we get fascinated when someone, with all the passion in the world, narrates their dreams and makes us wish we become an accomplice to their aspirations?

Sometimes we need to dig deep, either to find life sustaining water or life altering glittering Gold. If only it's all worth the effort!

Dream On!

A tinge of purple sprayed amidst clear skies:
kind of stuff Midsummer day dreams are made of.
Good omens through unending hours of darkness, it seemed
Reiterating that, every blessing needs to be counted

Seems trivial right?
They say good things happen at least expected times.
Being haunted by nightmares for a while, forget good stuff, I couldn't even dare to have neutral thoughts in my dreams.
Lazing around at odd times, thanks to a mundane and random sleep pattern, with nothing but boredom and solitude for company, I had an unexpected intruder to my siesta.
There I was, on the terrace back home, soaking in the violet/purple sprayed around in between all the whites and blues of the skies. It exuded a sense of calmness, in total contrast to the previously prevalent chaos. It was a pleasant surprise, indeed.

I know I digress, but let me evoke the most hopeful of vibes: Even the darkest of the clouds have a silver lining, you just need to give dreams a chance :)

Tipping Point: Real to Virtual

"### friends on Facebook, ### Twitter followers, ### Instagram followers, ### LinkedIn contacts, but none to tend to at the hospital, while he/she lay unconscious in the ICU"

One can see thousands of similar sentiments echoed by people, ironically shared on social media.

It's high time people stop assuming moral high ground to slut shame the ones who strive to make friends in the virtual world.

There's no denying the importance of relationships in the real world. But, what the self-acclaimed social crusaders fail to notice is, a person who's surrounded by well-wishers and true friends, doesn't need to look elsewhere to forge relationships. The people who make such reckless remarks have zero empathy for others.

The truth could well be that the person is surrounded by shitty, ungrateful people who the person doesn't resonate with. He/she may be subject to discrimination on the grounds of age, physical appearance or even food habits. He/she may not satisfy the norms of socializability set by the majority. Continuously falling short of societal expectations could force one to connect to people beyond their immediate vicinity. Add to that the sheer curiosity to meet and know new people, in the everlasting hope of finding those that make life a tad easier.

So, next time you click that share/retweet/up-vote button to spread such thoughts, take a moment to realize that each person is fighting his/her own damn battles, and learn to respect individual choices.

Cheers :)