Prayer

Every time we pray, we ask. For strength or happiness or health or success. Sometimes our asking is directed toward an idol in front of us. We go into a temple or church and kneel and bow our heads. For we feel that whatever this idol symbolizes, controls things that are out of our very human control.
We give our god a form by looking at him/her through messengers or deities that imbibe the powers that we do not ( or we think we do not) hold so that he/she becomes more comprehensible to our limited(or so we think) intellect!
And then some of us decide that if we can't even understand what god is, we shouldn't assign a form to that god. The form only gets in they way of what we really want. I agree with that

But then what do we want from life in the end? Really. How long will our material acquisitions keep us happy? And aren't we perhaps being greedy by continuously asking? And when our wishes are fulfilled, how do we give back to god? Burn incense, donate our time or money to charitable causes?
Maybe god sees it as a good thing to do, but has anyone asked god what he/she really wants?
I mean supposedly there is an entire universe to take care of, does he/she need any help with that besides our little charitable attempts?
Hindu's believe that the divine is responsible for creation, sustenance and destruction. It's a cycle that gets repeated over and over again. And the whole point of that is...? God knows...I sure don't!
I guess we are really giving a hand with the destruction part for now though.

All I know is that I was born and now I have to live until I die. If some good comes out of my life...that's good. And if I die uncared for or unloved or unrecognised...that's just fine.
Will I be happy? I think so
Does it really matter? No
Will any one really care? Not really besides me!
Feel free to share your opinion.
In the meanwhile here is a Sikh prayer (with translation)that I really really really like, because it doesn't ask for anything. These are the opening lines to the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
In my mind they are beautiful and no matter how many times I repeat it, when I get to the end, I want to repeat it again and again and again (sometimes my brain is like a gramophone stuck on a record). If you're wondering whether I'm Sikh, I'm not and it doesn't matter. Just like idols can get in the way of what is really important, many times the same is true of religion.

Mool Mantar

Ik Onkaar

There is only one God

Sat Naam

His Name is Truth

Karta Purkh

He is the Creator

Nir Bhau

He is without fear

Nir Vair

He is without hate

Akaal Moorat

He is beyond time (Immortal)

Ajooni

He is beyond birth and death

Saibhang

He is self-existent

Gur Parsaad

He is realised by the Guru's grace.

Jap

Recite this prayer

Aad Sach

He existed in the beginning and was the Truth

Jugad Sach

He has been existing through the ages as the Truth

Haibhi Sach

Even now he Is . The truth

Nanak ho se bhi sach

Nanak says that this Truth shall forever be.

Sochai soch na hovayi je sochi lakhvaar.

Cleansing the body cannot make the mind clean.

Chupai chup na hovayi je laye rahaa livtaar.

The mind cannot be silenced by remaining silence continuously.

Bhukheya bhukh na utari je banna puriya bhaar.

Greed cannot be ended by being given an abundance of wealth.

Sehas syanpaa lakh hohe ta ik na chalai naal.

Even if ones cleverness was to become infinite, this intelligence and shrewdness is not the way to God.

Kiv sacheyara hoyiyai kiv koode tuttai paal.

How can one be true and pure enough to be on the path to God?

Hukam rajaee challnaa Nanak likheya naal.

By leading life according to God's will.

PS: I've added a link to YouTube for the song from the movie Rang de Basanti. If you missed it in the text, here it is again:

This little poem feels more like prose to me. It just doesn't feel good enough to me. But I've been working on it since September 2005. I give up. This is it and I'm not really happy with it.

Sometimes

Sometimes. It hurts.
Like plucking a flower or
Trapping a butterfly.
Words come before thought
To look at a crowd and see no smile.
To see people laugh
only so they don't cry
When people speak
Only to feel alive

A friendly hand seems a trap
Every good deed only an opportunity
It hurts.
When friendship is nurtured by the material
And love is guided by the cynical.
When it feels selfish to give
Or impolite to help.

Scaling mountains for happiness
But never content.
Arrogant, we build our lives
Like castles in the air.
Ignorant enough to believe
They will hold
Through all Time.
But to know that this will not last
That the spirit is caught
In so much that shall be lost
But that glorious loss is the goal.
It hurts
Sometimes that we will never understand.
----Megha (09/25/05)

This, once again was on my old blog on yahoo:

"Gratitude"

The sweetest thing anyone ever said to me was,”Be careful. You are a nice person and I don’t want to see you get hurt.” (And no, he wasn't drunk; at least not yet.)

Sitting here, alone in my apartment, jazz streaming through my windows from the club situated a block away, I wonder. In a society where almost every lavish word feels hollow and is usually just payback for assistance rendered what does it take to earn such a complement? Something so sincere and pure and without expectation. So giving in its nature. It touched me.

Someone thinks I’m nice. I am flattered.

NO. no.

I’m grateful

Grateful, that in your company I've learned much; that you chose to share your joys and sorrows and were more than willing to listen to mine; and that indeed though we might be people of few words, that we still understand. For all your help, I’m grateful.

And yes, for the priceless advice you have always given me; dear friend like the one above, I shall forever be grateful.

----------Megha
I'm happy today because I have a friend

Well that was two and a half years ago. And that friend (when he wasn't getting on my nerves) taught me a lot more since then. Then he graduated and got his PhD, then he did an awesome job teaching an O Chem class. In the meanwhile he got a postdoc...and today he left. We hugged, I cried. I usually don't cry at goodbyes. He means that much (inspite of being irritating :-))

My overworked head has too many words in it. And playing with words has kept me occupied through many a boring times. Funnily the only time I ever get bored is if I have to talk.
Any way so I came up with some thing...I feel like it's still incomplete, but I started it 2 weeks ago and 4 lines in, I had nothing more to say. Today I stumbled over those lines in my forgotten notes somewhere and added a few more lines...and I don't think I'm done. Yet I'm done with it for now.
That's why I'm calling it infinity, because I'm not sure which verse it should start with and where it should end..and if it should end at all

Here goes:

Infinity

Am I trapped in the whims of the stars?
Between thin lines on palms am I?
A child of the earth born to live
Bound by dates and numbers,
Mere mortal am I?
Timeless life has no time for me then?
What meaning has it for my troubles or joys?

In deep waters,
What storm will brew
If this droplet seeks
Becomes a cloud?
The sea will come and go in waves.
And with its ebbs and flows,
We add some and we take some
Or we think we do
And still it remains as is, as was
And as ever will be.

If I was born
Out of eternity
Then was I ever really born?
And when was it that I lived?
Before or after infinity?
And when I was
An animal perhaps...where then were
The lines on my palms?
And when the stars
Were not born yet
Whose whims made my destiny?
What makes me...me
If I am or if I ever was?
---Megha (03/20/08)

Gazals

I LOVE gazals. The first time I was really intrigued by a gazal was when I heard Jagjit Singh sing "Kal chaudhavin ki raat thi". I was struck by the sheer helplessness of the writer with respect to the beauty of his beloved. Of course what followed was listening to my dad's collection of tapes by the usual Gulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan.
Sung in the more popular style with a chorus that is repeated after every couplet to keep the audience going and the couplets sung a tad faster than normal and the language tended to be more hindi than urdu.

Then one day my father put on a CD that I think he bought. The artiste was Begum Akhtar. I was stunned. What was she doing? She hardly had a chorus to repeat and wait she took her time with the verses. She knew her power lay in the delivery of the essential couplet and she NEVER rushed through. What drew me in further was that I couldn't understand a lot of the language she used.
Urdu sounds sooooo beautiful, especially when you don't understand it. Makes you want to say words like, uzr, ibtela or ahzaan.

Anyway so finally a few days ago I decided that it was time I understood 100% of what the Begum was trying to say to me. One of my favourite gazals sung by her is called "Unki berukhi mein bhi" . So I hit the urdu-english dictionary to figure what was going on. Heres what I found

उनकी बेरुखी में भी-(Ameer)

उन कि बेरुखी में भी, इल्तेफात शामिल है
आज कल मेरी हालत, देखने के काबिल है

Even in his indifference, there is mercy (Iltefaat actually also means kindness and friendship, so I'm not sure but I think the word mercy fits best here)
My situation these days is worth seeing

क़त्ल हो तो मेरा सा, मौत हो तो मेरी सी
मेरे सोग्वारों में, आज मीरा कातिल है

If one were to be murdered it should be like me, if one should die it should be like me
For amongst my mourners sits my murderer

मुज्तिर्ब हैं मौजें क्यूं, उठ रहे हैं तूफ़ान क्यों
क्या किसी सफीनी को, आरजू -- ऐ - साहिल है

Why are the waves (ecstasy) impatient? Why are storms brewing?
Is there a boat out there that desires the shore?

सिर्फ़ राह्ज़ंही से, क्यूँ अमीर * शिकवा हो
मंजिलों की राहों में राह्बर भी शामिल है

Why is Ameer- (the poet) complaining about the robbery during his travels
When in the routes to the destination the guide is also involved?

If you get a chance listen to it here

PS : This stuff doesn't translate very well into english
PPS: WTF do all my "इ's" appear after the consonant they are supposed to be attached to.

I had this on my old blog. I can't believe I didn't put it up here. I had been in the US for about 5 months when I wrote this. Not homesick, but as a daddy's girl, I had just realized how much I loved my mom. As I flew out of the nest, I never once looked back. Didn't see her anxious face. But many months later, this little ode came quite naturally.

Sleep Content

-----For my mother-----

These starry nights, are they the same that shine at home.
Tell me they twinkle the same and sing the same lullaby I hear each night.
Tell me Ma, it is the sweet music you whisper to them that rocks me in its soft melody.
Gently each night as I look up at this space and ask the Moon of its travels that day,
It tells me it has seen the place where I was born
And that it knows of the people I love
Tell me Ma that someday soon,
I will gaze at these same stars
And hear that old lullaby
My head in your lap
As I sleeep content
After many a dreamless night
--------Megha (02/05/06)

The stuff of dreams

I used to dream that I was flying. I'd take off down the secluded street that started at the end of the driveway of the house that I associate with my childhood. I could fly only as long as I believed in it and if there was even a sliver of doubt, I'd fall and break a few bones. Also for some reason I believed that I could only fly if I was a kid, the day I grew up, I would lose that power. So I kept trying to practice flying..in my dreams. Soaring above the trees feeling the high of laving gravity behind and occasionally being skeptical about flying and (hence) dropping from the sky but the trees underneath me always caught my fall.

It taught me belief. I know it's weird, but I apply it to my everyday work i.e. doing reactions. No skepticism allowed not even in my dreams about work! Mostly it works (but comes with a don't try this at home caveat). I mean things don't work just because you believe them...right?
Working in a chemistry lab has taught me however that there exists something which is the equivalent of "bad juju" called the lab gnomes or lab-mates peeing in your reaction problem ( this would of course be very difficult for a woman to do!).
And then there is nothing worse than believing in something all the time and then loosing that belief at a critical point.

After I was grown up a little, my flying dreams continued...I was however taking off in arizona near the canyons. I'd take off with great strength and be soaring and then I'd look underneath me (bad idea since I'm scared of heights) and realize I was over the canyon and loose all faith instantly with no trees underneath!
Fortunately dreams can be woken up from. It's what I'm hoping for with life.
---Megha (03/05/08)
P.S.: Maybe this says something

Destiny

The ink is red
In destiny's book
It tells us things
And we'd rather not look

Deeds to be done
Words to be said
Wonder if they will be
Just as we dread

We gain to lose
When we could lose to gain
So put our heads on ice
Let go of this vise
And this grip of belief

Will we love our Life
When She chooses to desert us
Standing at the threshold
She looks a little cautious

With all our trappings and baggage
She strips from us our pride
And she turns to the other side
And if we accept and accede
Bow down and vanish already
These things we fear
Wouldn't seem so dreary

----Megha (02/29/08)

I hate it when it takes me forever to finish a poem. I never stop thinking about it. The words keep turning in my head back and forth adjectives mixed up and I'm never sure where I'm going or when it will end. Many times I start on one topic and the words seem to take a life of their own and weave something quite different. I leaves me...dissatisfied, to say the least. The epiphany of having found something or learnt an important concept about life ( or what ever it is I'm trying to learn about), it never comes.
Ironically this is when my brain is thinking and my heart has given up.

Mindful?

Easy, Unfeeling, Dead,
Mindless
Without teacher or guide
Awareness is rare.
Yet, when I ask
I am answered and I receive
To open my heart
Be fearless
Know compassion
Oh but to keep from hurt also
Watch as it swells
In its joys and delights
And shrivels in anger and misery
How quickly this wretched mind
It barges in
And tramples what little
In my garden grew

Must this ship be tossed and turned
With every beat it begs be returned
Wishes this mind withdrew
Ashore perhaps
or into the profound and tranquil blue
----Megha (02/20/08)

I feel like a poem named "Perhaps" sounds so cliche'd. But I could not think of a better word. Also, I feel like I've heard some of the lines before. But I might just be dreaming.

So Perhaps
Perhaps it is not love I know.
For on a bed of pins,
My wounded heart you stow.
Perhaps it is not meant to be.
But I believe,
Love (Man) is beyond destiny.

So in spite of all that was,
In our own separate lives,
Separate paths we chose

So perhaps we will be lovers
Or perhaps be friends.
And perhaps, I will see you someday again.
Or maybe I will walk
Away from you today
And this will be the beginning of the end
----Megha (02/05/08)

For sorrow that lies beyond tears.

Still
I cry not for your father or brothers
For they still have your life in them
I cry in hope that you may be fulfilled.
Be happy.

Even though I may not be perfect,
Here, hold my heart and feel content

I know that souls live their own life paths.
And there is nothing I can do about yours now.
But I wish I had tried. I wish I had known.
Hold my heart now in your cold hands and
In the stillness feel the warmth.
----Megha (02/01/08)

I often wonder why most all my poems are about me. I feel selfish for thinking only about myself. But then I think...there is nothing I can write about better. When a poet writes about anything, are they not writing about how they feel. I rarely write in the second person.
Maybe because I try and feel what the other feels and write it as if I was the object on whom the life experiment was being performed....I think it fulfills me to feel another persons experience. And so I write as if that person was me...although I write a lot about myself also.

Explaining poems is on the list of my non-fun things. But I should because it makes me think more and maybe better the writing. So here goes.
Being a person with an unassuming and contented personality can have its cons. One of them is that people often think that you are not driven or dedicated or passionate about anything.
But such people often have very deep convictions about life. One of them is that they do not need to show off their love or drive for something in order to be successful. Another is that they find happiness in the more subtle realms of life....such as just being.
What good are the wants of life that drive other people (into the frenzy of life) anyway?
These are people with the blue flame....the people that look beyond life and at times its pettyness and seek to fulfill a greater vision. The person in this little poem is trying hard to understand this flame and fulfill it while it rages inside. The irony being: "But it asks for nothing, and I cannot give"

My fire

Why are you happy?

Must I answer? …..Because I am.

No, why? Truly?

......I have no answer.

Why?

Must I reason?

I am where I want to be

Why is it here that you and to be?

It is here that I want to breathe.

But… it is not what I want to be

The fire has fizzled and burned out then?

I want to be….nothing.

Of no consequence

With no reason, no cause

No beginning or end

Empty.

Is what I want to be.

Empty is where I want to be.

My fire, it has not burned out.

It lies there waiting to rage.

It lies in my nothing, in my empty shell

My blue flame, it stings and mocks me.

Because it asks for nothing.

And I cannot give.

It asks for something I may not achieve.

For I have tried but it is not enough.

And so I lay as if I am content.

As if my passion is lost and forgotten.

I am happy. I must be

-----Megha

This is when I fought with myself. I don't know much about love. And in May of 2006..I was probably absolutely puzzled by it. It pulled me in one direction when I wanted to go in another equally important direction. The dance in the end at that point was a wish to be free of this tug-o-war and to go in the second direction that I had longed for all my life. In hind sight, I believe that when truth cuts the tether that I will not struggle between the two things, instead I will see them as one and it will be like a delicate dance of the two. Here's my fight and dance.

Dance

Love is for the strong hearted and feeble minded.
And as my heart takes flight,
This miserable mind stays strong.

I cry
because I pity myself.
Not because I see
that love is better but because
I must.

Not because I believe
That I should be happy
to Live, but because
I must.

I cry,
Trapped in the conventionality of
Life
I’m expected to
Live.

I cry
Trapped but actually free
I can pack my follies
and walk out with nothing.
Cry
because I know I will not
…….not yet…not yet
I’m still bound
With each passing day
I entangle myself even more.
Some day
Truth
Will cut this tether.
It will pull the strings
Of my heart
And I will dance with abandon.

-------Megha (05/20/06)

I realized that quite a few of my poems remain in the lala land of yahoo 360. I'm going to start publishing them here.
Starting with my first poem that I actually felt like sharing with others. :)

Run Free

Run away,
From East to West,
Run towards the setting Sun
Catch it before it drowns into the ocean
Colour yourself in hues of blue and gold.
Watch, as the Sun dips itself into the inkpot of the ocean
And writes our fate in red

Defy fate, rewrite your destiny
Reach tomorrow before the light does
Believe you can and you will.

Stop Time
Bring Past and Future to the Present

Run….Run Away
Become Free from the clutches
Of Day and Night
Free from the circle of Life and Death
Independent of your destiny
Free to do as your Soul desires
Free to transcend above space and time
Free…

---Megha

One is Not Enough

One is not enough
For some reason makes it worse.
Maybe two, maybe ten
Maybe it’ll deaden my senses
I still want to stay drunk
I want to stay high
I just don’t want to cry

One just makes it bad.
Everything I keep sealed
Comes flooding out.
Need to stop feeling what I feel
Will it kill everything if I do?
Will it kill me if I don’t?

How far will I go?
Just to be tied?
Just to be loved?
How will I pull through?
Or do I want to?

Just don’t want
Anymore.

-----Megha (10/08/07)

Lost

Is it not silly,
To cry over things
That do not last?
Like Life.
Like Love.

Is it, that we live
Or are we lived?
What we hold on to
Always lost.
Like Years.
Like Tears.

It's not depressing.
It's just meant
To be that way.
What do we earn
From our struggles?
What we treasure,
In the end
Must give.

Why? Why cry?
It's a dream
Like the morning fog.
It burns away
With approaching dawn.

"Is there a meaning,
to all this?"
Left unanswered

But...
Why pull at my strings
And make music that must die.
Why live,
Just because I am alive


-----Megha (09/22/07)

Little Girls

It's 47 F , the wind is blowing so it's chilly. I'm on the phone walking to work asking someone if they are happy.
See a young woman with dark curly hair standing with her back to a wall. A little girl on the wall 3 years old waiting for an unusual ride. I watch as her mother, with her back still to the wall bends forward and little bundle of joy gets on her back, balancing herself on her tummy while mommy tries to secure her by tying a red shawl around both of them.
Big mysterious eyes on a small face lock on to mine as I walk by...unruly locks of hair sway in the wind as she enjoys her little balancing act...maybe it tickles her tummy;maybe she anticipates a joyride; maybe she just loves life. I smile at her, she smiles back not taking her eyes off of me. I walk a few steps past them and turn around...shes still looking at me; smiling.
Being happy is so simple...I may be prejudiced, but I think little girls know this better than little boys. :-)
They secretly know about Maya that veils the Truth....it shows in their eyes that cut through all Illusion and show contentment and joy that is unaffected by circumstance.
They know how the spiritual world is actually connected to the sensible world.
They know that we very easily forget this as we grow up and begin to believe that only the sensible world is real. That only circumstance(a sensible concept) can make us happy(a spiritual concept).
We forget that the sensible world is a manifestation of the spiritual world and therefore an illusion....Maya.
Its all that keeps us from giving our most genuine smile to strangers.
But little girls know...they really do!
---Megha

Waiting for the Bus

“I wonder where the bus is?” she said.

“It’ll be here soon.”

“I’m wearing four layers and mittens and I’m cold. Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m okay.”

“Do you know where I can turn in an ID card? My friend found it and it has a UPASS sticker on it, so he gave it to me and asked me to use it. I don’t want to use it you know. Maybe this person needs it.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure she’s got a new card by now. It won’t hurt anyone if you use it.”

“But I don’t want to use something that doesn’t belong to me you know. It’s not right. Can I turn it in at Oodegard Library?”

“If you know where that is, I’m sure you can.”

“I’ve been to Oodegard. My friend and I sneaked in after hours. You actually aren’t supposed to do that, you have to have an ID to do it. But we needed a place to stay for the night. So we stayed there and slept on the floor once it became empty. It got really hot though. Never did it again. Have you been to Oodegard?”

“Yes, but never at night”

“I’m tired and sleepy and cold. I just want a place to sleep. Look at those people; I’m sure they have a place to go to at night. You probably have a place to go to at night.”

I smile politely and I say in my head “I do.”

“I’m sorry. Am I annoying you? I’m just upset. I must sound like I’m just rambling on and on.”

“It’s alright. I understand. It is cold. It is late. You probably don’t want to be at a bus stop right now.”

I thought…..”one talks when one cannot be at peace within themselves”

“Yeah. I’m 21 by the way and I’m homeless. They drew me out of the shelter you know. Now I have to go to down town. But it’s late and I should be in bed right now. That kid should be sleeping!! What are his parents thinking by taking him out at night?!”

It was 9:45 pm.

“Have you ever been in a shelter?”

I shake my head.

“You’ve never been homeless? Ever volunteered at one?”

Shake. “I’m not from here and haven’t been here long enough to do that.”

“Where are you from?”

“India”

“Don’t women have to cover their faces there?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But women in rural areas, villages, often do. I don’t. Is there a homeless shelter around here? Where are you coming from?”

“There is one at the Episcopal Church. But they have so many people come in that they have a draw for who wont be allowed to stay for the night. It’s a nice place and I like it. But they kicked me out. It’s happened 3 times this month. Now I have to go down town to this special women’s shelter. I know they will take me but it’s so late.”

“My friend complains about being homeless all the time. I don’t like that. If you don’t like it then do something about it. Don’t just sit there and complain.”

The bus comes along we get on it. I sit next to someone so that I don’t have to talk to her. I didn’t ask her if she was trying to do something about being homeless…or did she just rely on social security money and homeless shelters to get her by. It seemed to me that she was much too disturbed and I would not be much help.

21 and homeless. I couldn’t see dreams in her eyes….only needs….the need to be warm and sleep.

She was fed, clothed, and sheltered for the night, fulfilled at the very basic level maybe…but left with a mind starved of the will to fight. Bereft of desire to be more. Maybe one needs to be only a little more than human to be happy.

What a pity! If I had access to a library; provided I had eaten and was rested and not on drugs, would I not be fascinated by atleast one of those books?

At 21, most of us with an education were in college and looked forward to doing something with a newly acquired degree. I wonder what sapped her of the drive to live a fulfilling life. And I don’t mean that she should have a bottomless bank account and a mansion in Mercer Island.

The fact is that this is her life. She gets one chance to live it. Does she really want to spend it on the street waiting for a bus to pick her up?

“But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.”

---Megha

"Spirit"

These tears will not fall

This spirit will not buckle

blade of grass braving a storm

Inconsequential…. this little life

a design billions of years old….

why would I care for a weeping heart

one day I will die...wont matter if I cried

a leaf falling off a tree…don’t matter.. coz its free

don’t crave for better things

or a different life…

Won’t fight myself…

This one chance I have, I give, I love

----Megha

Wow its been more than 3 months since I've written ANYTHING on my blog....thats not to say that i havent been writing....it mostly wasnt polished enough or yeah whatever

"Rebellion"

Can't be tied down
Can't just walk around
Hands behind my back
Swimming through quicksand
Chains on my feet
Sometimes it hurts to be me

Want to start running
Walk on water and take off
Just dont want to belong
Dont want your time on me
Cant see where my heart is
Or dont like what my eyes are seeing

I'm not a pretty flame
Here to light you up
I won't just burn and die
But I'm going out soon
Bursting into a blaze
Making sun and moon

Dont amuse yourself
Feel the flutter with me
Dare to take wing
Touch me...come touch me....burn with me
----Megha