When the night is long,
Just sing the old song,
When the fog is deep,
And the climb is steep,
Sing it loud,
Sing it long,
Just sing along.
When the night is long,
Just sing the old song,
When the fog is deep,
And the climb is steep,
Sing it loud,
Sing it long,
Just sing along.
February is short,
Most welcome it,
For spring is not far behind.
And, those in the death row ask,
Why is February short?
He called out her name
When things were still unsettled,
Her name echoed
Across hills and vales.
And since things were still
A bit unsettled,
He got buried
In an avalanche of love.
As he used up the pockets of air,
The pockets of life,
He wondered how it would be
To die of love.
She heard him, of course.
She threw her axe into the volcano,
That it be baked, and be wrought,
She outstretched her arm,
And caught the lightning in her fist,
And strode towards land,
Leaving a tsunami in her wake.
The lightning would show her the way,
The axe would dig up all her love.
But, it was one thing
To give all your love,
Quite another to find your Love.
Thursday gyan:
May your love boomerang.
For, what is unrequited love?
Love, that did not boomerang.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the Wednesday before the start of Lent. TS Eliot concluded his poem Ash Wednesday with these lines:
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
Today is Ashish's Wednesday too. And, he wrote a few years (plus a few days) before:
तुम्हारे और मेरे बीच
इतने जन्मों का फासला तो होना ही था,
किसी जन्म में तुमने हाँ कहा,
किसी जन्म मेंने ना कहा,
जिस जन्म में तुम रो पड़ी,
उस जन्म में मैं हँस पड़ा,
इस जन्म में तुम्हारा स्पर्श हुआ ,
पर मैं जाने किस à¤ँवर में खो गया।
और कुछ जन्म तो बीतेगें ही,
मेरे देश में वह मुश्किल मिलता है।
-25 Feb '86
On finding classmates after half a century:
Half a century is a long time.
And the spaces between us
Has filled an eon.
And I shake the dust off me,
And I try to look sharp.
Lest you don't remember me.
And you look at me quizzically,
And say:
What's with you, mate?
Let's rush to the Class,
Recess is over.
It was reported in the press that Susan Wojcicki is stepping down. I ruminated on some questions:
From where is Susan
Stepping down?
Is it the Mount Everest?
Is it the pulpit?
Or, is it the podium
Where there is no silver or bronze?
Or, is it from the altar
Of truth and untruth,
From the binaries
Of zeroes and ones,
From the binaries
Of light and shadow?
Why is it so difficult
For me to say zero?
When I have nothing
I say, I have zilch,
When with zero doubt,
I say, not an iota of doubt,
When I begin a Game,
I say, love all.
Today's Wednesday is God sent,
Coz it's the last ere Lent.
Many a dreg may your liver rent,
For, next Wednesday onwards
Will be Shudh Paani from Kent.
*Shudh Paani: Pure Water
**Kent: is the brand name of a water purifier in India
Dear God,
How will you find me?
In this vast expanse
Of multiverses?
I am just a tiny tot
In a small planet called earth,
In one such Universe.
It must be so difficult
To find me in the debris.
But come fast
Before the day is over,
For, you are my Valentine.
Let's not be daunted
If it's the thirteenth,
For, tomorrow is the fourteenth
Who knows what
February, the fourteenth
Holds for us.
This too shall pass.
Today, 11 Feb 2023, I received this post:
Dear Residents
Today is the last date for paying half of traffic fine.
Please give wide publicity
Regards
Col
This is in consonance with the current philosophy of buying things: Violate traffic rules now, pay fine later.
She walked into the night,
And left breadcrumbs
In her wake.
The gusty wind
Blew away the crumbs,
Leaving no wake behind.
But who will blow away
The tiny red blobs of love,
That she left behind?
He followed the blobs of love
Into the night,
Into his peril.
Why does the earth shiver?
Is it because of cold,
Or, is it out of fear?
There is a hole
In the heart of the earth,
Because of the oil and gas,
We pumped out,
And the oysters we foraged
From the deep seas,
Yet we know that
All the oil is hanging
In the air now,
Like a halo.
And all the insides of oysters
Are hanging around dainty necks now.
So, no mass was lost.
Then, was it the wrath of the gods
That made the earth quiver?
Made the earth quake?
Is there such a thing as
Collateral Karma?
Eight thousand met the Maker
In a similar way:
Buried and asphyxiated.
Did Karma visit a lonely sinner
But Karma's wrath also visited
The other seven thousand odd?
And did the epicentre radiate
Collateral Karma?
What I have to say,
I have to say today.
Tomorrow will be another day,
When artificial intelligence,
Will artificially inseminate
My mind,
And chatGPT,
And Google's Bard,
Will have something to say,
On whatever I say.
Won't be no copyleft,
Nor copyright,
Bot will be left,
And only bot will write.
Days are made of many hours,
One, my finest,
Some are happy,
Few are sad.
Nights are made of many hours,
Some are long,
Some are very long.