Got up and went to sleep again
Which kingdom have I to gain?
Life is best with none to question
Wife is best where none to answer
Knife is best when nothing to cut
Strife is best when none on street
With none to question, none to answer
How long will last this dancer?
Buzzzzzz one day should go up me
But till then, enjoy honeybee 🐝 !
The penance of an young mother
From whose hands, the Fate, like a predator,
Scooped up her first son,
Was fulfilled
When another son was born.
He is eighty plus two today
Vrichikam, Hastham, his Star day.
He was happy then,
As he made his parents happy,
He is happy today
As he makes his own kappy!
He’s neither a Muni nor a Sani
From God’s garden, he says, he receives honey !
God alone knows whether he paid any money!
He is not crazy, not fussy
Ever breezy, as he takes life easy.
Happy birthday, SP
You’re really lucky!
Kids get ice cream without asking, but not me
So, I cried like a kid, argued like an young son
Pestered like an old man
And earned my ice cream!
Unique is the happiness of sharing
Ice cream with kids,
Secret with a trusted friend
House with own family
Life with own woman!
Sorrows ?
Grief and pains, I share with God
I pour them as Ahoothi
In the Agnikundam
Of my heart.
Saw a picture one day
While pouring the ghee of my pains
May be dream, may be my imagination.
A boy with a pencil in hand
An eraser attached pencil
Dancing on the tongues of fire.
He draws sketches
And He erases.
He makes the wounds
And He heals.
He makes me to swim
And when I was washed away by floods
He was at the end not as a boy with a pencil
But as the ocean to receive me!
All the pencil sketches will be erased
All waters will join sea
Till then,
Let me share with kids my ice cream
Let me enjoy the life’s cream!
This is not a dream, this is not a dream
Why scream?
Emptied all my boxes, bags and baggages
Emptied totally.
Will I be able to empty my mind
Of my desires, longings,
Sorrows, regrets?
Things, my own
Things not my own?
And empty totally?
And where do I keep the unloaded stuff
They are not clothes or books
They are thoughts.
How to transfer, whom to transfer
My desires, sorrows, regrets, longings?
I emptied many boxes
Don’t know how to empty a small pouch
Inside me, but beyond my reach!
Leave it, let it remain as such
When I can’t do much!
Thanks my Lord, my inner guard!
For your blessings in abundance
For giving me children with fondness,
For giving a body that obeys
A mind that shows correct ways!
Enough money for day’s charm,
Enough peace to stay calm.
What do I lack in life?
Nothing.
Let me be relaxed
Like the kids.
Problems will come,
Problems will go
Time gone is gone
Way back not known.
No head, no headache
I have a head, so headache!
Glad that I have a head.
Gods have no problem.
You’re joking!
Let me be relaxed
Like the kids.
My head- load is increasing
Ammalu, please stop teasing.
You weren’t a pumpkin as now
When I first carried you on my head,
You were a ripe plantain peel
Shot at me by your mom,
Expecting you to pull my legs
Wisely placing you on my head
I handled you like a kid;
Now you handle me like a kite!
Then I carried your mom on my shoulder
The heavy -weight boulder
She pressed and changed my head shape
I too pressed back,
Poor thing had no escape!
Then I carried my children and grand children!
Happily as my dad used to.
The music from the anklets
When their tiny legs kicked my chest
Flows in my soul still
Continue ever it will.
My dad too would have had that thrill
While crossing the river,
Me on his shoulder,
To watch the chariots rolling.
Knee -deep and hip- deep was the water
My water -chariot waded out to the shore.
No push, no pull
When love is full.
Comes to mind alive
Not the shining gods ,
Not their dazzling chariots
But the street vendors
With half opened bags of puffed rice
Pushcart loads of halva and dates.
Comes to mind alive
Not the big drums or long pipes
But the tickling sound of little toys
Some rolled on the ground
Some creaked when moved.
And the little paper fans
In the hand of the street vendor
Turned and turned, I laughed.
I’m now crossing a river
Like my dad, with a head load.
My affection carries the weight
Not my head, so it is light.
Help me to wade and reach the shore
God, who lifted the earth, as a wild bore!
Back home, my own sweet home,
But what a mess, all things amiss.
The mess will go in no time
Thank god, not the memories.
Many a time, I painted the walls,
Everyday, I wash the floor
Glad not gone my kids’ palm prints
And their mom’s food prints.
Is therein’t a little one, look, behind a doll
Showing her face and smiling
Like the dew on a morning flower?
If my kids are no more kids
How do I see them playing here,
Like spinning tops, all around
Or spreading moonlight on my lap?
If not at home their mother
How did she open the door?
And move behind the curtain
She did, I’m certain
Like a tiny star, behind clouds
Festivals we had, failures too
Rising we did, sliding too
This house witnessed all the drama
But we were never in a comma
We lived in this house
And our house is living.
Oh, man! A silly twist in my knee muscle
Twisted and turned my life into a tussle
Till now, at the sight of a beauty I used to whistle
Sorry, no more, let me face the body’s wrestle!
The moment my right leg touches the ground
A flash of lightning, in the brain goes around
And I need Megh’s help even to board the car
Is this the bugle sound of beginning of a war?
Beware of the twists and turns of life
A sudden flash, may spark the mood of your wife
‘While going to bed she was the sound of a piano’
Says a guy, ‘and early morning a volcano!’
‘Aru, manamae, aru’, means Wait, my mind, wait
Let me first straighten my knee twist
Before probing how my friend’s moonlight
Turned into wildfire , overnight.
Banana peels, orange peels
Discard, after eating fruits
Even books and clothes, if torn
Even utensils and shoes if dented
But, man, how can you discard
Your sick wife or old parents!
My reason is simple:
They didn’t cut your tube
When you wet their robe!
Megh, with a mini computer in her brain, mentioned when she was driving us back home from Stamford:
“Appa, exactly 14 years before, on 11-08-2004, you landed in the USA, for the first time. Atchu was with you”
She further added that I’m now on my tenth visit and so far, in total, spent more than ten years in this country.
That made me to look back. But for the two tragedies in my extended families, one recent and another two years ago, I have only pleasant memories during the past ten years’ stay here. Baby births, birthdays, Grahapraveshams, weddings, seemanthams, family gatherings, foreign trips,frequent assembly of relatives, many, many happy events. But the passing away of my two nephews, at their prime time, submerged all my happiness and then I thought about the meaningless ambitions, setting and achieving goals, blooming in life and vanishing in no time, such thoughts, went deep and deep, reached no where .
At last, I rolled up all those philosophical thoughts, dumped deep into my heart well, and sitting in the front seat of the car, wrote these verses.
Please don’t look for any literary values in these lines, the only purpose of which was to forget my worries and establish the truth that world is mithya as our great Guru Adi Sankara said and truth, sathyam, is only koorkai upperi and other eatables as I’m saying below. That is the only mahat tatwam I have learned in my life. And my life is not a small pool, it is an ocean, which has witnessed many sunrises, sunsets, tsunamis also.
And after all those experiences when I say, ‘You’re what you eat!’, there should be some meaning in it.
Now to my poetry
While driving back home from Stamford.
Oh, come on my children
Anja, Atchu,Kunju
Anusha, Aarav, Suresh
All kids for me, only age varies
Anusha’s food was awesome
Poori, cholai, payasam
Chenai and koorkai
Chenai a fat guy
Koorkai a cute shy
Anusha picked that jodi
And made upperi
Good she did that
Or else, the fatty fool, yam
Would have made her jam.
“Size counts in war
In lovemaking too?”
I don’t know that tathwam
Ammalu, please tell them.
Mango pickle, pulikAtchal
Bahooth acha, Matchi.
Pickles trickles insides
Inchipuli kichu, kichu.
“Trickles, I know, Machi.
What is kichu, kichu?”
I don’t know that tatwam
Ammalu, please tell them!