Babloozz Poetry

I want to write at ease.
To write without bleeding and freezing

To travel without begging and kneeling.
To love without hating and hurting

To read without choking and panting
To jump without the memory of parachutes

To learn without knocking at every vain door
Which can't get over the wonder that it is made of wood

....

Some times all the efforts you have put in, all the grains you have gathered like a diligent ant is not enough.
All the hours put in, doing a day job and then slogging through stolen hours at night is not enough. The gray hair strands and the smell of sleep over dogeared books isn't enough. It just hangs some where like an unread manuscript.
.....
You need to have color coded swipe cards to enter the places where knowledge is veiled like a highly guarded secret. Oh, you could take the other way and try to disregard them. Be the Ekalavya, whose knowledge is worthless without the correct stamps.

Have been trying to do the full Harry Porter routine and enter the castle for a while. When a kind Dumbledore opens a door, you realise that there isn't enough money to make the journey. You didn't win the yearly jackpot by the rein deers. This year they are giving it to the birds and not ants. The endless wait in the cold, to avoid delete buttons, trash folders, spam bins-to arrive at a place where an actual pair of eyes will glance through the manuscript...

Might just never make it. But is an ant. If the castle remains unreachable will one day go ahead and prove it wrong all the long long way.

Of Seminars

Is a vagabond traveller in a spice connoisseurs' meeting. As the smell wafts in and people spread their wares, I try to collect a word here, a word there.

Is more of a chilly farmer. There is never enough money to farm. And when  money, blood, sweat, tears and heartbreak finally blooms as some kind of quirky chillies, there are almost never any buyers. Long stretches of time and life is spent in smelling other gardens, walking through un known stretches, waiting in patience at alien doors- for the kind of seeds which will grow the quirkiest chillies.

……….

Have decided not to farm for a while. As a friend said, need to recover from the wounds of last harvest.
So is here, an onlooker at the spice connoisseur's meeting. As the words float higher and higher, I try to conjure up the ghost of long dead Foucault , who looks like a ghost who will know the uncertainties of those who float amidst the surety of words. He drops in for a nano second and then goes away saying that he needs to use his time more judiciously and cannot drop in for each personal anxiety or perspiration.

So, I switch back to the lecture of a connoisseur who talks about the moods of high end spice market. The speech ends and the crowd wafts around. Self tries to act like one who fits in and ends up looking like a bad groupie.

….

There is no land anywhere in sight. Not more money than to get by. But, is still collecting the seeds. One day in a piece of land some learning house will be kind enough to lend, words will grow side by side with the quirkiest of chillies. The words will learn uncertainty and will waft with the smell of chillies. Till then, will be the vagabond traveller, moving from door to door, learning to respect the silence of uncertainities

….

"Life is no less difficult than Pi's " -the gem was from a very dear friend currently typing away from a far off land.

How come the new year has to start with stinging cold? It adds a bit of blue on to all the collective disappointments. One has to start the year with a song on lips, cheer in heart and all that jazz.

But, self has used up most of coffee powder hope. So, going against the grain to start off the year with a  whiny post:p

………

There is a broken mirror, a broken sail. All the work and sweat didn't go anywhere. It is still stuck in land. The sea visits routinely, all salty and taunting and giggly and wavy. Was supposed to ride over and go some where.

Love alias whatever they call it  died, of natural causes in extreme old age. Have been an extremely pesky emotion to carry, a betaal on your shoulder. Even the ventilator gave off after long years, tired and harassed.  Funeral was peaceful and disco lights gave their blessings.

The wind drops in regularly, blowing away the very few possessions; like the idea of a warm fire side. Is back to collecting logs of wood. The lone torch for times like these is in another continent.

 Mortality arrives as crabs packed in carefully worded message bottles at usual intervals. Used to throw them away in some memory attic. Now, the crabs are all over. Their fiery orangeness covering the calm mellow of  sand.

May be need to hit the mountains and wear the robes of the monk for a while. To stock up on the depleting provision of zen. So as to be able to wear the anklets of the dancer again, the hardiness of the maker of sails, the tranquility of one who floats broken bits in the river, with a candle on top to guide them on their way to eternity.

….

Haven't walked with the wise one..haven't stopped collecting mustard seeds of desire from red and blue doors. Haven't stopped  free falling with the recklessness of an emotional fool on imaginary wings.

………….

Yesterday the priest left the  loneliness of the temple -  stones with silly makeup,wild flowers with the strange smell of obscurity,  water which can never stay still anywhere. Left every thing for the mountains, to find the atheist God.

…….

Am a box maker, forever packing and re packing, waiting for buses, trams, planes, cycles..which may or may not arrive. That is a nice little bag, will sit across the shoulders. Can walk miles and miles and miles till a headlight decides to shine somewhere. Put those rocks of hope inside, though they will break my back. The bag will be feather light without them. But should believe that one day, right on the top of an icy morning, they will fly out of the bag to become little stars across a small balcony, drenching every thing around in rainbow colors. 

Each journey brings you back to your own door.

Bus rides which lets you know that the trusted 'gut feeling' is just some random fear which masquerades in glittery robes... Yellow fields, dirty alleys, deep fried charms, green trails which will move with you till your legs collapse, best chaat in the world served with a hint of stomach bug…

They let you in, merge with your story and then just seep in to become footnotes. They aren't there to clean the broken bits, to throw out the trash, to fill in gaps.

May be the most incorrigible bits of the story are also the most interesting. That which we feel which is beyond comprehension of most might be the most experimental parts in life's installation piece.

Filming Blues (Indie Kind)

Mom used to say that there is a secret to house work-it never never ENDS.

Filmmaking must be a cousin to housekeeping. It also has the propensity to be elastic, far long after you have burnt out.

Technically it is all done. But then the sound plumbing needs a re look. The visuals need to be re touched to bring out the best color. And, then there is the basic carpentry work of taking the film to a higher resolution. Not to mention the endless dusting, cleaning and polishing of the same old images. However much hard you may have tried; on each new day that you sit on the edit, you will find that the film has acquired a thin coat of dust at some nook or corner that you  have over looked. Then there is the stress that the carpenter at the editing studio may not have a free time slot. But then, how do you take it to the carpenter without fixing the plumbing first?

And, then there is the commissioner who is complaining about the unnecesary delay. After all, how long should it take to set up a functional kitchen?

....

And, then at times self gets into the fantasy that most housewives run into at regular intervals. To drop it all for a while and run to the hills. But then, you know that guilt will never let you fully breath the beauty of far away hills.

And, when you reach back, it will all be waiting for you- with thick wads of dust and then, you will have to start all over again. Meanwhile, the carpenter would have run away and you might have to look for a new painter as well. And, of course, the commissioner would have reached a crescendo of frenzy.

...

So you move, carrying work on your back like a snail- counting hours, minutes,seconds, frames. All focused at times; on other occasions just doodling purposelessly at the edit machine...

....

May be need to send a bouquet of flowers to myself to remind that it is all for love.

"If you cannot work  with love..it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms from those who work with joy"