Clouds in the valley...

  Too many dandelions in my backyard, Yellow flowers tall, No space for weeds in my garden On this side of the wall   I had to mow them down, the weeds But my daughter asks me why, Not roses they are at all, I say But my answer made her cry   ‘They are still flowers, aren’t they? Perfumed they maybe none, But don’t they add the brightly hues Yellow as the sun?’   Oh bright the many blooms of day Dancing with the grass, Yellow green, what a pair Beauty in the mass!     ‘And look at them thereafter, Fluffy balls of whites, One raspy breath of wind will launch A thousand feathery kites’   ‘Do you really need to tag them then, As a weed upon the green? Joyous flowers dancing all Forlorn but still a queen’   What wondrous ways to see the world, I cannot help but smile, Let all the dandelions survive Mile after earthy mile   The eyes with which you see the earth Gives us hope a...

  ‘Why do you seek pumpkin flowers?’ My friend asked, wondering why ‘Fritters…is that it?’ He wouldn’t understand, so I nodded - a terse reply ‘They make zucchini fritters here, Can those not suffice?’ Any replacement works when you are removed, Survival, existence – the way of the wise   Deep inside, you know It’s neither taste of fritter or flower; Rather, the flavour of memories Of childhood days, long ago and very far   Nothing left to reap and sow, A poor man’s food makes a rich man now….   28 th December, 2022

Years ago, in my ambles in the hills, I met a traveller on a pass, Not in search of ice white peaks Or even solitude, like few of us But in the mountain quest to seek The elusive brahma kamal bud, No, not for commerce or botany His quest in rain and mud   Why then? I asked him on that day ‘So that I don’t find the bloom at all’ Seeing my surprise, he smiled, ‘So that I keep walking in these mountains tall’ The flower that blooms a single night In the wait of an entire year, And on its pilgrimage trail, a soul With neither yearning nor a fear     What was then, the purpose in those endless trails? Not to find, neither to seek But just to see you make your prints On an ice-melt stream or creek Perhaps, in the brahma kamal’s trail, he sought The mountains’ blessing in a very heavy odd And then one day in heaven’s steps - Find flower, man and god…

  The rickety bus chugs along, The clogged veins in the City of Joy, Hazra, Rashbehari passes by, While lost is a dreamy-eyed college boy He yearns for the space, the skies and the seas The cities in the books he roam, But one deep breath of alstonia, And he smiles of the land that is always home   October’s Chhatim, as Durga beckons, Whenever else would you rather bloom? That timeless scent of an autumn dusk Rich enough to hide all gloom – The flowers usurp in all their white The city’s grime, the noise, the dirt In the rhythm of the dhaaki’s beat All you smell is the city’s mirth   That umbilical cord severs not Matters not wherever you go, Every autumn, the heartstrings tug The chhatim blooms and time runs slow; If you step there and smell that autumn’s dusk You’ll find that dreamy boy even today, A bit in you, and a bit in me – Smiling in a flower’s whitened way…   18 th December, 2022

  In Temi’s tea, a sea of green Looks to the mighty Kanchenjunga; While Rangeet runs far below, In his eternal quest for Teesta The cherries bloom in Autumn, The prayer flags all year round, While joins the crispy winter sun The lost with all the found   Lost, this vagrant soul returns To the silence of the hills, And in a cup of blackened tea His emptiness, he fills The hills attach to a cup of tea, Something to take along, Though the real peace is left behind In the silent mountains’ song   Now every time, a cup is brewed Even if miles away, Happiness rises with the steam, As if the vale clouds say – That wherever you are, what be your day In tea leaves used or new, If you can find a memory Can you lose the mountains inside you?   17 th December, 2022   Lines written in fond memory of the Temi Tea Gardens, Sikkim, where I was blessed with the views of the snow clad Himalaya, crowned by the Kanchenjun...

Keep the memories, They don’t come up very often these days - Not because there is no petrichor Nor paler is the   sunset blaze   Just that, the pages in our daily diaries Have all become too full, Perhaps a scribble here, a squiggle there, But then, who do we try to fool?   How about then, cleaning the dust Off the musty notebooks few? Stored in a shadowy corner; There keep the memories, can you?   I know you’ll find a dogeared page Left blank, a long time back Bookmarked in days when you were white And I was dreamy black   Could you see the emptiness then Though starry was the Milky Way? Did you know we’ll see the sunlight pour In the midnight of a wintry day?   When I would ask to ink and store A shard of memory light, And you would smile, for none would have A pen with which to write…   14 th December, 2022

  Spring arrives, And in a single blink - The meadowy Farm gets washed - In a sea of clovers Dancing in white and blushing pink   The carpet of flowers Reminds of vales I have never been, They call me, but I have to wait The weeds in the meadow For now are all, that I will have seen   They are no brahma kamal , But the clovers bring peace, A bridge to the past that never was, And link to the future – Of alpine dreams that never cease   It is my pensive place – A spark of the past that ebbs and flows; Left behind a Valley Now faraway, this meadow large Is all that I could have happily chose   Do I then love this green For it brings back to us the mountains' lore? The clovers sway in the windy day, You, green grass and indigo skies What need there is, to ask for more? Inspired by walks to the historic Farm in Sydney, remnant of the earliest farms established in a fledgling colony and the birthplace of Austr...

  I see red blooms in the morning mist, In Illawarra’s shaded slope, This fine cold, the mizzled skies And the flowers grow with hope   Denizens of the highland homes, The hills are where they thrive, But not just they, my memories too In the escarpment comes alive   For I have seen them in a chapter past, In the Himalayan whites of snow, In the hills of Shingba, Varsey where They shine in their own alpenglow   And spring becomes a palette mix, Bubbling with new-born streams, Untamed yaks in sanctuaries Awash with rhododendron dreams     Sleet drapes the reds and pinks Yet, a warbler flits with joy A fire-tailed sunbird seeks some wine Awestruck stands a vagrant boy   Awestruck still today am I, Just as it was all yesterday, That my dormant dreams have woken up In these emerald hills of faraway   To remind as if that time has passed I hear a kookaburra’s laughing sound Yet in the peta...

  From within the folds Of all our memories deep - (Those musty brown newspapers Some of which are still asleep)   Emerge dried petals Stored safely from a yesterday Wildflowers picked and gathered From beside a weary way   Some in happiness, some in joy Others in melancholy lost And yet some more, gifted, and taken not - When Spring arrived beyond the frost   Dried petals, leaves, stamens and all That had crumbled long time back Forgotten most as days passed by Lost beneath the memory stack   Yet, look at them thus framed in time The picture’s perfect all, All the colours now make sense Through winter, summer, fall   And even if they don’t, we have A painting of our broken times Nectar, fragrance lost and gone Left behind the petalled rhymes   A western breeze blows them all The flowers are all free, To be born again, anew afresh To be someone else’s memory…   1 st October’22 ...

    All the songs we never sung, Were written with love, perhaps long ago, In un-creased pages, stored with care Waiting for the perfect sun to glow   All the notes we never hummed, Were tuned with the best of you and me So soothing to burnt heart and soul Broken cages, all set free   But the perfection stayed in sheaves of hope Neatly boxed and shelved and stored, No voice imperfect gave them life - Like an empty river without a ford   Perhaps, if you could right the notes all wronged, And sing even with a raspy voice, The imperfect stars of dusk would tell The brightest sun was never a choice   Perhaps, if I could fold and crease and mark The albums that I saved instead This world would have more songs to sing, And all this music would not fade…   21 st September, 2022      

  The dark shroud wraps us all In gasps of breathlessness We look up in choking eyes And pray And the tears float up in the night sky Like wisps of hopelessness And singe the clouds With day   From the pores pour Streams of starlight And in those spangles, peace comes Without the slightest fight Then you understand the wonders Of a starry spangled night…

  The rest of the world Melts and drips as in Dali’s art - Here a vanished soul, there a dissipated heart Sulking away in April’s rage Everyone playing their broken part   The only glimmer brighter Than this parching hot summer’s day – The Golden showers, as if they say, Look at us, we contain the sun And hence we are in mirthful play   Unscathed by dust of a gasping loo, The empty heat gets them to glow, Shimmering scales of the seasons’ flow But who has time for burning hues, A today lost in a tomorrow   Yet, tomorrow when the world calms down (A different shower heals in turn), One busy soul may stop to run, And ask, were there not few colours here? But the golden showers long left the sun…

As if, the clouds would drift From the Airport Control Tower crew In a modern dystopian version Of yesterday’s Meghdoot written anew   Knowing perhaps, I would sit there alone, Watching clouds broodier than me, Drifting past, going beyond Into the invisible hall of melancholy   Floor 13, in this newfound exiled land of mine I, in my bitter-sweetness looked out Staring – at the worlds above and far away Lost in despair, dismay, doubt   Until I looked down like a satrap snob Upon the peasants of my kingdom land Urchins dancing in the rain, Yet somehow, a joy that only they could understand   I descended from Swarga to the Martya lands As in another one of Vishnu’s dream Drenched in a second from head to toe, The rains falling like a cascade stream   That day, the city woke up from its sepia tones And seemed livelier than a marionette play It was there in the drenched cesspool of the lands You could see the ...

  Sakura season burst one day In a balmy scent of spring As more than winter thawed and dripped Perhaps deep within   Pastel soft, purpled and pink, Beneath the pensive blues Melting the moods of melancholy In the last of frozen hues   In the breath of a single, northern wind The blossoms came and went, Seen by a handful, lonesome eyes For which perhaps they were meant   The unseen eyes did forlorn cry, Why did they go so soon? Petalled wings glide like a swarm One hurried afternoon   But for those who saw, all time was stilled And nothing left to chance, As Sakura’s spring bloomed and died, Eternity in a glance…   07 th August. 2022   As a chilly winter limps away, first signs of spring arrived as cherry blossoms seem to have blossomed hurriedly - this afternoon, I looked them in their eyes and an entire evening passed away…