Here WIth Me ( in this place)

there is this place

under a huge peepal tree

just a little ways

away from

the monotony

of life and work

I spend my afternoons

lying down

on the grass covered ground

with ants crawling 

behind my ears, and

dogs, sleeping at my feet 

i look at the leaves

swish and sway

with the gentle breeze

as light flickers through

and i hear the gentle sounds 

of the day going on

and as i look

at the hypnotic sway 

of the leaves,

i wish you were here

with me under this tree

on the grass, and

this gentle breeze

giving us company

i wish you were here with me

under this tree 

making mindless conversation

and overstuffing 

awkward silences 

with too many words

we would never remember.

Like a Frozen Lake

There is a beauty in numbness. Like the reflective surface of a frozen lake - calm, quiet, serene and peaceful. The quiet itself is appealing, but add all the rest and it becomes nigh irresistible. But under that beautiful visage lies cold cold freezing water. it is fatal for anyone who falls or dares to take a dip. Of course there are a few fishies underneath all that cold but they live far down below in the deep fathoms where the cold doesn't quite reach. These fishies will always be there, its their home and the cold is comfortable.

But up at the surface the cold is the worst and no one lingers for too long (for fear of hypothermia). Because no one lingers, these frozen lakes always look s very lonesome in the pictures, despite the sense of peace they convey. the vast expanse is empty - without a stir in the air.

And when the seasons change and the sun works its magic and spreads its heat, the frozen lake begins to melt. The melting lake is much more dangerous than the frozen one because though the ice has melted, the water is still as cold, still as deadly.

The lake takes life - unwittingly. It despises the sun for its heat, for making it more vulnerable than it already is and breaking past layers of  charms and protection.

There is a certain comfort in numbness. And when someone comes along and makes you feel, you're like the lake -  a danger to both. But this is life affirming danger. Revel in it. In the essence of life.

Where I Belong

Home. Just one word and yet it manages to soothe you to the very core of the soul. There is relief and joy and pure bliss at the thought of home. But what happens when you lose that? Lose that sense of relief, the welcoming embrace of the home you knew as your, that which is a part of you, defines you and makes you who you are? What happens then? What happens to you?

What happens to you as a person when something that you have held on to for so long, preserved in your heart and soul, merged with the very blood and flesh that make you up is no longer yours to call your own?

What happens when everything you believed in as a child, as a teenager growing up, as a young adult slowly coming to terms with the realities of life is shaken because one of the fundamental truths in your life is no longer true?

People say home is where the heart is. Others say home is wherever family is, friends are, where there are people who love you. True all of them.

Home is also where you grow up, where you learn life’s lessons, whose hills and valleys you scour, whose orchards you plunder and in whose loving lap you grow from child to adult. Home is the land of your father and his father before you, the people and its culture. Home is where you will always feel like the child you once were. Home is the place you know like the back of your hand, yet have never completely uncovered. It’s the one place where you are not the outsider in someone else’s world. It’s your own piece of the universe.

And that’s why its home. That’s why it welcomes you like a mother welcoming a child, why you find endless comfort in its folds and relief and joy. Because you can call it your own - because it is.

No one teaches you what to feel for what you call home. You just do. Institutions try to instill patriotism in you of course, but that’s not love, the love for home. But maybe after having travelled enough and lived enough places to have left a part of you in each of those places, you may be able to call the whole world your home. but for those who don’t have such lives, it’s their own little piece of the universe that’s home and the love for that universe is like none other. Irreplaceable.

Imagine losing that home. It isn't pleasant. It’s painful. It’s heart wrenchingly painful. You question what to call your own. If the home you knew was never yours, then what about everything else in it? Is no one yours? What about the people? Are they not yours either? Have you never truly been theirs and they yours?

There is rage, a rage at the ways of men and the world. Rage at the injustice of it all. Rage at the helplessness. Rage at being orphaned at one single stroke.

What happens when you lose your home? You lose yourself. You lose that bit of you that you held at the very core. You lose your identity. And it feels like you've lost everything.