Many times,
You have said vociferously;

......for all success
and in all failure,
faith is the key.

And many times,
I have tried to reason
against the equation
of ritual and religion.

But,
in the fashion world
of materialist-spiritualism,
where majority conforms to modern tradition,
I have often found it convenient
to ignore the dictates of reason
and still more convenient
to believe in the corollary;

......faith is the key.

Therefore,
I have mostly believed,
......in your faith
and in your prayers
......for me.

The only seminal content that ever arises:
is from existence itself.

All else is borrowed thought.

Trust me,
the sky will not be the same tomorrow.

Originality is one-off.

These words are for me,
For I'm the one who's hurting,
I'm just healing myself.

Liberty is the highest decree.
Independence and opportunity -
the finest, paramount glee.

Certainly indeed!

But are we really
moving towards being free?
Or is it brazen entitlement
that we blatantly feed?

#

You ask of the next catastrophe.

Mass irresponsibility:
that is sadly what
it will be
...smh
That is sadly what it will be.

A crushed Shah Jahan said:
When you behold the memorial,
a sight so masterly, yet sorrowful;
you will inevitably admit
an aching little bisecting wish
that adorns your yearning lips....
parched,
barren,
effete......
And from the world's lid,
the luminaries too
would sob and drip.

#

He could well have been talking
about my beloved's words ;
......so utterly breathtaking
that a sigh poignantly quivers
in my dithering being.

Her words meander.
It is no wonder:
for all of us saunter
in thought and speech
one time or the other.

At times her words are poised and easy.....,
wonderfully jolly, sensationally starry:
They shimmer like the four minarets (1)
on the full moon night;
....brilliant......resplendent.

Then they taper from the dome
and stop halfway between the tomb
and the solemn reflecting pool:
They are calmer, sober,
and you know,
a little factual;
...what they call discriminating
intellectual, rational......

Soon the words leave charbagh (2)
and hit the red sandstone walls (3)
crenellated with flawless wisdom;
spotlessly beautiful
like the lifeless marble
that proudly commemorates
Mr. Shah Jahan's love
in grim, cold blooded grace.

We talk about
riders and scruples,
kith and kin,
restraints and constraints,
fidelity and modesty.......
....and I can not help
but to sadly agree
to the placid logic
in our impeccable scripts.

#

Logic is a wonderful remedy
for the radical and foolhardy
but for every cure,
there is a spin-off.
Deep somewhere,
a delicate,
two-cent sentiment
collapses into atrophy
and.......silently
another part of me
becomes a
meek monument
of disposable history.

----------

(1) The four minarets of the Taj Mahal

(2) The garden that starts from the end of the main gateway and ends near the squared base of the mausoleum is an integral part of the Taj Mahal structure.

(3) The building material used is brick-in-lime mortar veneered with red sandstone and marble and inlay work of precious/semi precious stones. The mosque and the guest house in the Taj Mahal complex are built of red sandstone in contrast to the marble tomb in the center.

Have you ever been amazed,
when a gentle wave
from the sea
softly kisses your feet
and breaks
an unfinished day-dream?

By the time
you look down,
it has already receded
back to its ocean;
taking back
the healing tranquility
it had brought
with it.

You can neither
hold it back,
nor can you become
a part of the ocean;
if you wish to be
and to dream
anymore.

All you can do
is to wait
for another wave
to splash you
with the taste
of the sea.

...and then there are these flowers:
flush with fragility and coloring.

What if I could be them...
utterly mortal, yet dazzling?

What if I could bloom
with nothing to prove?

How would it be
to be like them;
perched on the tree
on a shimmering morning
so faultlessly sunny,
with the breeze...
caressing, ladylike...silky?

Can I be them?

What are the credentials
for homecoming?
or is it
a comprehensive lack of them?