I just want to travel
Is it too much to ask?
A little wind in my hair
A little dirt coating my shoes
No idea what's behind the next corner
Nose buried in a map
As I walk around in circles
Until the guidance of a friendly local
Saves me from my foolish dance
I just want to travel
Is it too much to ask?
Opening my sleep ridden eyes
to a new city everyday
A different flavor to savor
A different language to comprehend
Mobile, in motion all day
Until I feel that the bed I lie on
also has wheels and I'm on the road
Sailing in my dreams
I just want to travel
Is it too much to ask?
Mountains, oceans, monuments, cows
Merging into one great unknown
and I get to unlock the doors
one by one, I get to unlearn
All that I heard and read
And which now I can see
Form my own images, my own memories
My eyes gulping in the sights hungrily
My soul digesting the new meal
Until I am finally full
Let me into your heart
Let me into your sanctum
I don't need a guide
I can read the signboards
quicker than you can erect them
Let the path become familiar
Until I can walk with my eyes blindfolded
and still find the way
to my favorite destination
I just want to travel into you
Is it too much to ask?
Friday, November 30, 2012
Sunday, November 18, 2012
What is it about Hope?
What is it about Hope?
A stubborn intoxication
that refuses to let go of us
The hangover never goes away
no matter how many bitter aspirin pills
of disappointment we swallow the next morning
Hope clings on hopefully
and we think we'll have a brighter day
receive better news
What is it about Hope?
That even amidst a pile of destruction
we yearn for a newborn's cry
As we watch our heroes die
our dreams disappear
we quickly replace them with new seeds
and we water them everyday
move them towards the sunlight
urging the shoots to grow faster
faster than ever before
Is Hope the basis of being human?
Does a dog expect the next bone to be bigger
tastier than the one before
Or is consistency his canine trait?
Does a deer expect the water in the lake to be sweeter
or the predator to not spot him
as he takes sips from his own reflection
What is it about Hope?
That makes us more human
or less, since we forget all logic
and surrender to the optimism
The cosmic force of faith
The pandora's box of promises
Wise men become fools
and fools become wise
As Hope wraps her blanket around us
closer, tighter, warmer.
A stubborn intoxication
that refuses to let go of us
The hangover never goes away
no matter how many bitter aspirin pills
of disappointment we swallow the next morning
Hope clings on hopefully
and we think we'll have a brighter day
receive better news
What is it about Hope?
That even amidst a pile of destruction
we yearn for a newborn's cry
As we watch our heroes die
our dreams disappear
we quickly replace them with new seeds
and we water them everyday
move them towards the sunlight
urging the shoots to grow faster
faster than ever before
Is Hope the basis of being human?
Does a dog expect the next bone to be bigger
tastier than the one before
Or is consistency his canine trait?
Does a deer expect the water in the lake to be sweeter
or the predator to not spot him
as he takes sips from his own reflection
What is it about Hope?
That makes us more human
or less, since we forget all logic
and surrender to the optimism
The cosmic force of faith
The pandora's box of promises
Wise men become fools
and fools become wise
As Hope wraps her blanket around us
closer, tighter, warmer.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Easy
Close your eyes
and see what cannot exist
but can only be imagined
Purse your lips
and taste the food
that would put ambrosia to shame
Silence your ears
and hear the song
that would make the angels fall
Stop breathing
and feel the pain in your lungs
like you've never felt anything before
Take a step back
An outsider's view into your inner voice
Sleep until you yawn
Run until you are still
Hate until you ache with love
Pull yourself together
until you shatter into a thousand pieces
And finally realize
It is always as easy
As you really want it to be.
and see what cannot exist
but can only be imagined
Purse your lips
and taste the food
that would put ambrosia to shame
Silence your ears
and hear the song
that would make the angels fall
Stop breathing
and feel the pain in your lungs
like you've never felt anything before
Take a step back
An outsider's view into your inner voice
Sleep until you yawn
Run until you are still
Hate until you ache with love
Pull yourself together
until you shatter into a thousand pieces
And finally realize
It is always as easy
As you really want it to be.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Great Balancing Act
Over the last fortnight, for the first time in my short career span of 1 year 4 months, I have had to work on weekends and on festive holidays- as I write this, I am currently taking a break from replying to emails in a bid to retain my sanity. I guess this may be a standard operating procedure for many jobs, but my work has never demanded such a schedule. Up until now. Having experienced it, I can safely say that :
1. It does not make me feel all-important and invaluable if I am woken up from my sleep and told that I need to get cracking on a report or the world will end even before 12/12/12.
2. If someone offers me higher compensation in return for my weekend peace of mind, I wouldn't even bother replying - I would walk away, shaking my head, Gangnam style.
The truth is that I can stay at office for over 10 hours on a weekday and work like a machine that's evolving into a sophisticated Transformer creature. But the moment I step away from a weekday, I switch off. Or for that matter, if I know that it is a declared holiday and all I am doing is sitting at home in my pajamas, I would still run around the house a million times - in an attempt to waste time before I commit the cardinal sin of 'Logging in'.
When we begin our careers, we have a thousand notions of what would or would not matter to us - it is only over a period of time, after being exposed to multiple scenarios, that we can really grasp what is of utmost priority to us. Experts say that it is imperative to have a job that we love but if that 'love' makes it difficult to tear myself away from it, wouldn't I be better off with a job I adored less? While we evolve in our personal spaces, all of us undergo a professional evolution process as well - where we discover ourselves over and over again.And I would disagree with Darwin here and say that in the professional world, it is not about the 'survival of the fittest' but the 'survival of the one who understand his/her priorities well and makes choices accordingly'. You could be earning a salary of 55 lakhs a year but if work-life balance is your greatest motivator and your weekends feel more hectic than your weekdays, you are hardly fit to be happy. You could survive but living would be out of the question.
Every time someone mentions the term work-experience, I do not think about the number of years that an individual has spent in an office or on different assignments. I think about the professional journey that that person has undertaken and all the self-learning obtained. Experience drives confusion away and at the end of it all, if you can identify your own needs with a little more certainty, that would makes you richer. And that's a retirement benefit that you can live on for the rest of your life.
1. It does not make me feel all-important and invaluable if I am woken up from my sleep and told that I need to get cracking on a report or the world will end even before 12/12/12.
2. If someone offers me higher compensation in return for my weekend peace of mind, I wouldn't even bother replying - I would walk away, shaking my head, Gangnam style.
The truth is that I can stay at office for over 10 hours on a weekday and work like a machine that's evolving into a sophisticated Transformer creature. But the moment I step away from a weekday, I switch off. Or for that matter, if I know that it is a declared holiday and all I am doing is sitting at home in my pajamas, I would still run around the house a million times - in an attempt to waste time before I commit the cardinal sin of 'Logging in'.
When we begin our careers, we have a thousand notions of what would or would not matter to us - it is only over a period of time, after being exposed to multiple scenarios, that we can really grasp what is of utmost priority to us. Experts say that it is imperative to have a job that we love but if that 'love' makes it difficult to tear myself away from it, wouldn't I be better off with a job I adored less? While we evolve in our personal spaces, all of us undergo a professional evolution process as well - where we discover ourselves over and over again.And I would disagree with Darwin here and say that in the professional world, it is not about the 'survival of the fittest' but the 'survival of the one who understand his/her priorities well and makes choices accordingly'. You could be earning a salary of 55 lakhs a year but if work-life balance is your greatest motivator and your weekends feel more hectic than your weekdays, you are hardly fit to be happy. You could survive but living would be out of the question.
Every time someone mentions the term work-experience, I do not think about the number of years that an individual has spent in an office or on different assignments. I think about the professional journey that that person has undertaken and all the self-learning obtained. Experience drives confusion away and at the end of it all, if you can identify your own needs with a little more certainty, that would makes you richer. And that's a retirement benefit that you can live on for the rest of your life.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Attention
Standing on a chair, on a table
Standing on my bed, on rock solid ground
Standing on a cliff, unafraid of the height
Standing on a carpet of clouds
This time I’m standing up for me.
Ifs and Buts make a sweet dream
But a Yes is a Yes and never a No
A Maybe could be an exciting proposition
But truth be told, I want it no more
This time I’m standing up for me
Words beckon you to follow suit
They lift you up and spin you around
But words are just a whisper in your ear
The gravity of action is what pulls you down
This time I’m standing up for me
Compromises, surprises - glorify the unexpected
But trust in the trust that you can rely on
Promises make you blind but you can never escape
the revelation that the illusion has gone
This time I'm standing up for me
There is no regret, I feel no rancour
You are who you were and will remain the same
But when your rules stop making sense to me
I'll take my red card and walk out of the game
Saturday, November 10, 2012
An Ode of Gratitude
Against the black of the night it stands
With a golden halo around its head
Soft, pure, white, fragile
With a touch of blue and a shimmer of red
But its beauty is short-lived
As it painfully dies
Drop by drop, till it breathes its last
Leaving behind its warmth and a shadow of its golden light
No, it is not a martyr that I speak about
But one just the same
A sacrifice unmatched
Let me reveal to you its name
This poem in an ode to a candle
'An ordinary candle' - a question no doubt
Losing its life to light a thousand more
Yes, a candle is what I write about.
Note - Dug this out from an old diary, dated 2005. Happy Diwali everyone - may the light within you match the glow of a hundred candles and may you brighten this dark world with your radiance and warmth.
With a golden halo around its head
Soft, pure, white, fragile
With a touch of blue and a shimmer of red
But its beauty is short-lived
As it painfully dies
Drop by drop, till it breathes its last
Leaving behind its warmth and a shadow of its golden light
No, it is not a martyr that I speak about
But one just the same
A sacrifice unmatched
Let me reveal to you its name
This poem in an ode to a candle
'An ordinary candle' - a question no doubt
Losing its life to light a thousand more
Yes, a candle is what I write about.
Note - Dug this out from an old diary, dated 2005. Happy Diwali everyone - may the light within you match the glow of a hundred candles and may you brighten this dark world with your radiance and warmth.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Vows Renewed
I met Dance. He said Hello. I held out my hand. He grabbed it and spun me around! And then we were all over each other - jiving, grooving, hopping, skipping, tripping,laughing. One and a half hours of adrenaline pumping, muscle cramping, head bobbing, sliding, bouncing moves. It felt good to be back in that familiar embrace again - and this time I am not letting go! Hip hop style - I am the newest member in the club. Let's bring DA house down people!
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