We don't talk anymore

Don't wanna text you

Then I won't want to stop

Don't wanna call you

Then I won't want to hang up 

Don't wanna see you

Then I won't want to leave 

Don't wanna think about you 

Then I'll remember 

how much I miss you 

Friends in waves

 I walk along the shore

    kissed by the waves I adore

some stay on longer

    some flit away a stranger

all recede one day or another

    whether they flash by or linger

but each without fail

    bring me a precious pearl

those I gather in a strand

    and hold tightly in my hand

though waves may have gone afar

    the pearls stay close to heart

Castle

Brick by brick

Dream by dream

This palace of mine

Lives on moonbeam

So vast a manor

Stands a mile high

Why is it that 

There's just you and I 

Every nook and corner

Filled with echoes 

Of our lived and loved 

Momentous joys

If I take you by hand

And walk you around

This dear castle mine

Where dreams abound

Will you be so shook

And think me delusional 

Or hearten my soul with 

'Mine is the same, my girl'

Milestone Birthday

 Wishes to a friend who truly shows how fabulous 50 can be!

ஆதவனை அற்புதமாக

ஐம்பது முறை சுற்றி விட்டாய்!

கால ஒட்டத்தை கொண்டாடும் இவ்வேளையில்

நினைவோட்டங்களில் சற்று சிலிர்ப்போமே!

அருமையான பொழுதுகள் ஆயிரம் உண்டன்றோ?

கொலு என்றால் பொம்மைகள் ஆவோம்!

கச்சேரி என்றால் பாடகியர் ஆவோம்!

மேடை என்றால் நர்த்தகியர் ஆவோம்!

Party என்றால் பட்டையை கிளப்புவோம்!

ஆமாம்….. அதெப்படி?

சந்திக்கும்போதெல்லாம்

சந்தோஷம் மட்டுமே காண்கிறோம்?

அழகான தருணங்கள் அமைந்த நம் நட்பில்

அகவையின் இடைவெளியை அன்பால் அளந்தோம்!

எதிர்ப்பார்ப்பில்லா அடித்தளம் கொண்ட 

இந்நேசத்தை என்றென்றும் தொடருவோம்! 

பெயர்களில் மட்டுமல்ல -

வாழ்விலும் பல கலைகளில் சிறந்தவளே!

ஆனந்தத்தை உருவாய்க் கொண்டவளே!

தோழி… நீ பல்லாண்டு வாழி!!

காலை எழுந்தவுடன்...

புலருகையில் புல் முத்தமிடும் புதுக்காலையில்

பூங்காற்று பூச்சொரியும் இளவேனிலின் இதத்தை
மிதச்சூட்டில் மனம் வருடும் தெளித் தேநீரின்
உதடு படா உள்செல்லலில் உணர்ந்ததுண்டோ?

அருந்துகையில் அகம் நனைக்கும் அந்நீரில்
இழையோடும் இனிப்பு உன்னதம் உணர்த்தும்
அந்நாளின் அல்லல், ஆவல், ஆக்கங்களை
ஆர்வமாய் எதிர்கொள ஆற்றல் தரும் அவ்வமிர்தம்!

Obsession

my hook sways; slow like death
searching for a prey constantly
you land on it and latch on firmly
oh.. why did you end up being my prey

the prey doesn't know it's caught
but for the hook it's all it has
whole of it's being consumed by
torturous thoughts of its prey

the prey still swims free
unaware that the hook shudders;
twist and turn I may
letting go, moving on is the hardest

my hook lives only here
the farthest deepest trench
that i'm fated to call the mind
so far from the reality it shall never see

in that reality our worlds collide
when you are you and I am me
but those moments are so far and few
they fade so quickly as dusk to night

a different world comes to light
i know it to be unreal; imaginary but
there we've lived a thousand lives
light years removed from what is true

as reality recedes, then comes the hook
impaling the prey in its metal claws
the agony and anguish are not for the prey
but for the mind that possesses the hook

மினுக்கு

பனிமூட்டம் படர்ந்த பின்னிரவு
பார்வைக்கு படவில்லை பனிநிலவு

ஆ!
பளிச்சென தோன்றி மறைந்ததென்ன?
விழி கண்ட பொழுதில் விரைந்ததென்ன?
அலற வைக்கும் ஆவியோ
உறைய வைக்கும் உருவமோ
நிலை கொள்ளா நினைவுத் துகளோ
திடுக்கிடச் செய் தீப் பிழம்போ
இல்லை
இல்லை
மின்னி மறைவது மின்மினி ஒன்று
அண்டத்தின் ஆதித் தீயைத் தன்
அங்கத்தில் அழகாய் அடக்கி
கட்டுக்கடங்கா என் கற்பனையோட்டத்தை
கண நேரத்தில் கட்டியிழுத்து
ஞானச் சுடரேற்றிச் செல்லும் ஒளி அது!

Are you for real?

People from your past never grow old do they? They are stuck in the same place you last saw them.

The problem is, they continue to live and grow in your mind. You imagine them living and behaving as you wish. They take on an entirely believable life in your mind that when you actually meet them later in life, it comes as a shock to you that they're a whole another person!

But does that revelation stop you from continuing to imagining them? No!
You carry on happily, coming up with little dialogues and run-ins and intimacies that make you so happy inside.
Sometimes though the imagination isn't enough. You begin to crave that person living in your imagination to come and make it all real. Oh you still don't want the real person to be there - no no no. It's your imaginary real person for whom you yearn!

It's at times like these, I wonder what if we had a method of communicating these expectations? Maybe that real person has moved on so far ahead that they can't reconcile themselves to the version you imagined. But what if there's someone else out there that matches the imaginary friend you look for?

Then you meet in real life and make a new friend!

The only problem I see here is that your imagination is probably pretty private and there's no way that you can make it public! Anonymous sharing may help but world being as is now, you'll probably just attract creeps. Without resorting to anonymity, the minute you talk about the imaginary version your people know whom you're talking about and judge you. Worse: that person from your past comes to know that they still live in your imagination but in such an avatar. And worst of all the people in your current life come to know that you are weirder than they thought and may not entirely be happy about your private imaginative life!

What's the point of this rant then, you ask? Sometimes wild thoughts refuse to stay cozily inside the mind vault and insist on being laid out in words.

The Reunion

'Batch of 2009 - 10th reunion' the banner proclaimed gaudily. Sara was thankful to enter the hall with Vini by her side. Being not particularly fond of the majority of her classmates, she felt confident facing them with her best friend by her side.
“There! I see Mina. Come on”, Vini pulled her through the sparsely crowded hall. Sara's eyes were arrested by a familiar face near Mina. She automatically felt her tread slowing down. No, she wasn't as confident as she thought she will be.
Before they could reach her, Mina screeched across the room, “Sara! Vini! Oh my god, how long has it been?”
'So much for a subtle approach', Sara sighed to herself. His head had whipped around at the sound of Mina's welcome. He came forward hesitantly though eagerly, "Hey.... Sara, how you been?”
"Hey Nikil", she managed.
He turned to Vini with an easy smile, "Hey Vini, how's the family?"
The hellos were all done and they had all found seats around the circular tables scattered across the room. Sara was thankful that no formal seat allocation had been done. She found that she still couldn't stand many of her classmates. And also she might not have ended up next to Nikil, as she did now.
"So, what have you been up to?” he asked casually.
"Hacking away at life, one day at a time", she said with a straight face. Seeing his startled face, she smiled her trademark curved smile. “I’m sorry, I knew you wanted to know about job, family etc., but I was feeling particularly philosophical then".
"Wow, you haven't changed at all, have you?” he smiled at her.
"I have, Nikil. I very much have", said she looking intently at him.
The hall had started filling up and the reunion events were starting. This was no place was intent conversations. Nikil knew that until he had had that conversation with her, he cannot leave the town. He was able to turn to his other neighbor only after he had made sure that Sara will meet him, at the cafe that had been a favorite haunt, the next day.
---
“It's a Latte isn't it?” he asked her, desperate to be right.
“Latte would be good”.
He heaved an internal sigh of relief, not knowing that she wanted him to be right and that she gave up coffee ages ago.
“Find us some seats. I’ll get the coffees”, he walked off. Waiting in line, he couldn’t resist sneaking surreptitious glances at her. She was lounging by the window, looking lost in thought. ‘What was she thinking? What will she say now? Is it too soon to talk about…? No’, he decided vehemently. He did not have the luxury of time. This was not college where he had thought, foolishly he added in mental parentheses, there was always going to be next day or next year. It had to happen in the now.

Sara was smart enough to understand the reason behind this meet. Though she came hoping that it might happen, she still found herself pleasantly surprised that it happened. Being of the group of people who always secretly wish for a thing to happen but convince themselves that such a thing cannot happen to save themselves the disappointment, she was cautiously happy to finally be sitting here, looking forward to coffee and conversation – the latter more than the former. Cautious, since she was not sure how they were going to talk about it; And if he knew everything that had happened. This train has to make a lot of stops before it reaches destination.
 He came back with the coffees. “So”, he said settling in. “So”, she smiled. Deep conversations have a tough time taking off. You can’t just dive directly into the deep end. Questions that will change his life were foremost in his mind. So obviously he asked her anything other than them. “How's work?” he started.
“Good, how about yours?” Yes, she was doing it too.
“Pretty good”
She smiled her knowing smile. They both understood they didn't really care about each other’s work.
He gathered up his courage. 10 years of separation and age gives that courage. “Are you ok now?”
“Of cour.... Oh”, she understood him and bit off her conventional reply. “Yes, I really am”.
“When I heard about it, much time had passed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to talk about it. I wasn’t comfortable calling you up out of the blue. Still I wanted to reach out to you many times, but -”
“But didn’t know how I’ll take it?”
“I’m sorry about it, you know. I really am. ”
“Nikil, it’s fine.”
“Are you really fine Sara? It’s not that I’m prying but I need to know. What actually happened?” He needed to understand and it had to come from her.
She looked at him, startled. The Nikil she knew was never this direct. He had usually been a little diffident around her, never really understanding that she always had given him more rights than he had taken. This directness made him more attractive.
“You know about the accident, I suppose”, she said with a slight question. He nodded.
She went on with her calm, measured voice. “It shattered me. It claimed my unborn and kept my husband and me in the hospital for weeks. After a while, we got better. Better in health, though not in mind. We were ridden with guilt. We blamed ourselves for something that had been beyond our control. It was natural to have a lot of ‘what ifs’. We had our fair share. Counseling helped a little.”
She took a sip from her cup. Nikil didn’t move a muscle.
“Well“, she continued, “it had been a little more than a year since our wedding. It was supposed to be the time for a newly married couple to get to know one another. Not to go through a life-shattering experience. This changed us. Completely. He had gotten married during a rebound phase. I had gotten married because it seemed like the right thing to do. But after that, we both realized that we could not find a reason to stay together. Every day, we kept finding reasons to stay away from each other. Divorce was the sane option. A quick wedding, quick death and quick divorce”, she gave a self-deprecating smile. Less because she enjoyed her wit, more to let him know that she really was fine.
“It’s easy to talk about it now. But I kinda withdrew into myself then. If it hadn’t been for Vini, I might still be there. I got a transfer to be near her family and have been there ever since”, she ended with the same smile.
--
There had been silence for about five minutes now – which really is a long time. She had compressed 10 years of her life in just a few minutes. It took Nikil more time than that to process it all. His mind was racing in a million different directions. Above the racing, one thing stood clear – his resolution of asking her to share his life just got infinitely stronger. The experience had emotionally scarred her but she was still the resilient, confident girl he had known. The scar had only increased his respect towards her.
He had always found it a little hard to collect his thoughts and put them into words when he needed to. And he found himself in the same unenviable position now. While he was struggling with his thoughts, she had moved on with hers.
“So, tell me. What have you been doing with yourself?” she asked. Five minutes were all she could give him to respond. When he didn’t, she didn’t get upset. She had been used to not hearing what she wanted to hear from him, that it had stopped bothering her long ago. With a mild shrug, she naturally shifted the focus.
It had always been like this between them. She had usually decided the direction their conversations shall take. ‘But today’, Nikil decided, ‘will be different’. He ignored her question.
“I’m glad you told me about… well… everything. Sara, will you give us a chance?”
This was a very direct and confident and yes, vocal Nikil that Sara was seeing and for a moment she was disconcerted. Though the question was a wonderfully welcome one, there were still many stops the train needed to make.
“What about… what about Nitya?” she asked a little hesitantly.
“Nitya?” he was surprised, “Didn’t you know that we broke up after a few months?”
“No…” she gave a sudden smile, “all I knew was ‘Nikil – Nitya’. It was our college’s version of ‘Ross and Rachel’”.
“She moved out of the city for her work and long distance wasn’t working. We realized that the only reason we got together was because everyone around us expected us to be together. It was a different kind of peer pressure” he sighed.
“If only…” he stopped.
“What?”
“If only things had worked out between us, there wouldn’t have been any ‘Nikil – Nitya’” he looked at her with something like a reproach.
She raised her eyebrows in an ‘are you kidding me’ look. “How could it have worked with us when you were already with her? From the time I knew you, you guys were talked of together”.
“That was all just talk. They took something I said, added their own meaning to it and started talking of it as if it’s a sure thing. I believe all I said was she was hot or something. College kids – what can you expect?” he said ruefully.
“But you never denied it!”
“Didn’t I? I tried really hard to convince you that there was nothing going on between us. But you were not interested. Whenever I tried to talk about her, you changed the topic”
“Nikil,” she was half amused and half frustrated, “didn’t you realize I was jealous?”
Now it was his turn for the look. ”Jealous?” he said unbelievingly, “You?”
“God! Don’t we know anything about each other? Yes. I was jealous. Madly so. I hated hearing of her. When you started talking of her, I was afraid that you might make me your confidant. It was hard enough to see my guy falling for another girl. I couldn’t imagine being a confidant for them too. That’s why I always changed the topic”
“I’m sorry. Did you just say ‘my guy’?” he asked, smiling from ear to ear.
She flushed and bent her head.
“Why didn’t you tell me this Sara? At least shown me that you were interested?”
“Misplaced pride I suppose”, she said shrugging. “I couldn’t show you my interest unless I knew you were free. But that didn’t happen. There was always this girl or that girl...”
“Sara!! You’re making me out to be a Casanova! Which other girl was there?”
“Oh please! How about Varsha?”
“Who..?”
“Varsha, from first year?”
 “Oh… her. Why would you assume there was something going on? I don’t even remember her”
“It was something that you let slip back in the day. Never mind”, she stopped for fear of appearing whiny.
“No. Tell me please” he was insistent.
“Well,” she started half-ashamed, "I had called you at midnight on your birthday. I heard call waiting. When I asked you the next day, you said you had been speaking to her.” She was fully ashamed now. “I got mad that you ignored my call to speak to her. My over-active imagination came into play then – I had you guys married by the end of that semester. Forget it, it doesn’t matter”.
This was a new Sara that he was seeing.
“Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter? If only I had known this, I would’ve come and told you point-blank that you were only girl who mattered. I always found you unwilling to talk about this. I didn’t understand why until now”
“That’s the problem with being a version of the 'strong, independent girl'” she sighed. “I wanted you to make me feel special, feel pampered but my pride always stood in the way. There was no way I was gonna show myself as a jealous girl who needed assurances that she was the most important person in someone’s life.”
She gave herself a little shake and continued. “Now that we have begun the full disclosure I might as well tell you all, I guess. Then there was Neela. I heard her in cafeteria one day, going on about how much in love with you she was, and that she had spoken to you about it and was waiting to hear from you. But I didn’t hear a peep from you about her. I assumed that you didn’t think me close enough to talk to me about her.”
“Wait a minute,” he interrupted, “you got mad I tried to talk to you about Nitya. Then you got mad I didn’t talk to you about Neela? What is a guy to do?”
“Oh they are two different things. You don’t get it”, she said impatiently.
“I have a feeling I never will”, Nikil smiled.
“Anyway, all these things contributed to my thinking that you only just thought me as a good friend and nothing more. That you found me easy to talk to and that’s it.”
“Well, the talking part is right. Out of all the girls in our class, you and Vini were the ones I found easy to talk to”
“There! That exactly is what I mean. See what you just did? When you want to make someone feel special you don’t group them with another person! Vini is my bestie, but when you say things like this, it appears that you put me in the same position as her. Any wonder that I thought I was in your friend zone?”
He sighed, exasperated.
She gave a sudden laugh. “You know what? Forget my stupid complaints. Water under the bridge. Good that we finally cleared it all up”
“Yes,” he said “10 years later!”
“10 or 20, I’m glad it happened Nikil.”
 “I have to agree. I'm really glad we cleared the air today”. He took a deep breath, "You do realize that you really are special to me? That there is a reason I came to this reunion? All through our college life, you were the only one in my mind. Even though we never got together, even after we went our own ways, I just couldn't shake you off my mind. No one else felt right. Not even Nitya", he smilingly answered the question in her eyes.

Her face lighted up. She couldn't believe she was finally hearing what she always wanted to hear. Her college crush, her closest friend was finally confessing his love to her! She had imagined versions of this scene many times in her mind. But never got the confidence to make it a reality because of her misconceptions. But today! Did the long-lost coffee break her reserve? She gave the coffee a sip of thanks.

"I'm sorry I kept these grudges. I should've asked you directly but couldn't quite overcome my ego.  I also must confess - you were the only one that was special to me. No one else mattered. If only I had the courage to tell you this then...", she sighed. 

It was his turn to light up! "Let the past die. What matters now is the future. Will you share yours with me, Sara?”

He held out his hand. She took it.

Lyrics Appreciation Series

There are two kinds of music listeners - those who hear the lyrics and those who hummmmmmmmmmm.
For those of us that belong to the former category, almost all the songs sound like they're written for us and us alone.
Social media has killed that feeling to a certain extent - after you've seen a million TikTok videos for the same exact song that you just swooned over, you get cured of that.

However, recently there was one song that immediately sent a delicious jolt inside of me. This is a song about forbidden love - the girl, who knows her desire is beyond the moral confines, still asks if it can be fulfilled. And the boy replies with his poetic consent.

The questions:
ஏனோ இரவோடு ஒளியாய் கூடும்
உறவொன்று  கேட்கிறேன்
Why do I yearn for a bond
that merges darkness and light

வரை மீறும் இவளின் ஆசை
நிறைவேறப்  பார்க்கிறேன்
I want to fulfill this desire
that bounds across barriers

நதி சேரும் கடலின்மீது
மழை நீராய்  சேருவேன்
I will be the raindrop falling
on a river that joins the ocean

அமுதே பேரமுதே,
பெண் மனதின் கனவின்
ஏக்கம் தீர்க்குமா? ஏற்க்குமா?
my magnificent elixir,
will you sate this girl's desire? will you accept?

மதியை தன் மதியை
இவன் அழகின் பிம்பம்
கண்கள் பார்க்குமா?
தோற்க்குமா?
will his beautiful shadow ever turn an eye to his moon? 
or will it not?

The answers:
மழை வானம் தூறும்போது
மணலென்ன கூசுமோ?
When the rain cloud drizzles
will the sands  shy away?

மலரோடு மலர்கள் கூட
ஊரென்ன தூற்றுமோ?
who would censure 
two flowers coming together?

திரையே திரை கடலே
உன் அதிரும் அன்பு
மதிலை தாண்டுதே
தூண்டுதே.
my glorious ocean!
your shattering love induces me
to cross the barriers

What a beautifully imagined dialog this is!

I raise my hands in appreciation to Ms. Uma Devi, who penned the original song titled Anbey Peyranbey. Thank you for this beauty!