The Aftermath .... to the three days

It was a roller-coaster ride.

With a soaring spirit and a strange lightness of mind and body the moments slipped by in unending waves. The slip-stream was everywhere. It was as if one was being carried on a gentle whirlwind that had a joyous direction of its very own.

The fabric of a moment fades and unravels if not shared. And those three days had been shared by more than a hundred and seventy. In the days that followed the memory of each moment became the moment itself. It either throbbed in the remembered pain or bubbled in its laughter.

And the words too flowed on.....

November 26th, '95

The aftermath....

to three days in November

The joy of writing

'Three days in November'.

And the aftermath:

The sudden prick of tears

And a fullness in the heart.

Then

A bubble of laughter

At the remembrances.

The 'Guest Session'

And distribution of copies of the poem.

Felicitations!

Suddenly drained and hollow,

Floating in a vacuum.

And then

The slow birth of a glow within

Becoming brighter every day,

And the urge to hug and love and share

This glow;

The urge to let all within gush out

In a stream pouring into everyone

To become a part of them.

The doubt

"Can - will they understand?"

A creeping up on the blind side

Of logic;

A desire to analyse...

And yet when I shared

The culmination of those three days in November

Each memory, purged of all pain,

Consciously unremembered,

Coalesced into its essence

And came flowing out in a joyous flow of words

Describing only the outcome.

The glow reached out enveloping them

And touched within, a portion

They retained.

And the glow was not diminished.

It pulsed and danced within

And was brighter.

* * * *

The river still flows on, but without tears.

Someday it will become a river

Of innocence,

Of vulnerability without fear,

Of love without reason,

Of not reliving old moments of spontaneity

But creating new ones;

Of slowly probing the unknown

Without fear or need

Only to feel, to touch

And to be more.

A river within which i

Will feel the texture of each color,

Caress it and let it become a part of me.

For then I will slowly

Merge with the sunsets

And be a part of the dappled sunlight

On the wooded hills.

And the river within will flow

Into the mountain streams.

Then

I will be one with the flowing stream

And become a part of timelessness.

Rushing

Without knowledge, without logic,

Spontaneous, gurgling through rising rocks

And plunging playfully over the pebbled riverbed.

And one day

Without learning

Will come to know

The essence of being......

(photograph courtesy : www.bigfoto.com)

Anu - a particle + Usha - the shimmering pink early morning light

The world welcomed her with a storm followed by an earthquake!!

It seems such a long time ago.

Her grandfather loved carrying her on his shoulders. When she, all of one and a half feet tall, posed dressed in a pagdi, salwar and kurti carrying a toy gun, he named her 'Sultana Daku'.

At the airport she stood docilely by her mother next to the carousel waiting for the luggage. When her mother pointed to me waiting outside the passenger area, she came running with the yellow frock flying behind her and then having over-shot, stopped suddenly, looking up at that crowd of grown-ups, trying to find me in that crowd.

Standing there looking up she looked so tiny!

She throbbed with the bubbling vitality of the experience of her journey all the way from Delhi to Lagos. Her sharing came tumbling out in a stream to stop only when we reached home.

In the words of the car driver : 'Massa's daughter talks and talks and talks.....

After the 'Three days... ' this was for her:

Nov 24th, '95

To Our Daughter

You had grown

From a crying baby to a tumbling toddler.

As you ran out of the custom's area

And gazed up trying to find your father

In the crowd.

That was the first time I picked you up.

And you started talkng

To finish only when we reached home.

Waking up to your "Good mornings!"

When you sat on my tummy jumping up and down

Shouting

"Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!"

And your delight in finding a new name

For your brother yet to be born.

We shared your agony when we saw you

Sitting on a chair holding your wrenched elbow

And crying in pain.

And we shared your joy

When you pranced around

As the 'lion king'

Singing with arms waving.

And then one day

You stood before us dressed in a sari.

Pretty, confident and bubbling;

A sense of Deja Vu

And then the memory

Of your mother dressed as you were

Before our marriage.

A deep pang of regret,

And joy too.

Of a childhood gone by,

Of a child transformed into a woman,

Of fullness and pride

For within you, with your love

We shall live on.

Take just a pinch of our love

And store it within

For then we will always be there

As your strength.

To protect, to guide and to nurture you

In moments of hurt and sadness;

And to share

Without reducing

Your moments of joy.

And when you are at a loss

And cannot find the words

Our love would flow out in a harmonious stream

Through my poems

For they and I are you.

26th Jan, 1995 - it all started with the reluctant picnic...

It was a cold January morning and we stood sipping drinks on the lawns of the bird sanctuary. I was with a group of people not really close. And then the bee-swarm - it came sweeping all over us, crawling into the hair, the clothes; and we ran. We landed finally at the place that was the closest and most convenient - the factory where I worked.

It was a strange experience to observe myself - an 'almost stranger' slowly getting absorbed into this group of people who just a few moments ago had not been really close. It was puzzling - even in retrospect. And quite soon the conversation became smooth and free flowing.

On the return journey I listened with half an ear as my wife's friend talked of her 'profound' experience at a seminar, extolling my wife to just 'do it'. Finally when she was about to disembark, the friend turned to me and said "Bau - if she doesn't do it - you must!"

I was taken aback. In the time I had known her, my wife's friend had never spoken directly to me before. But my curiosity was piqued. I was left wondering : What was it that could have caused this lady to overcome her restrained and conservative background?

I did the seminar in November '95.

I had to answer a simple question in the form - what did I expect to achieve by doing the seminar? Being contented with life, I discarded a lot of options that came to mind, looking deeper for something that would be really worthwhile.

And I wrote : "I used to write excellent poetry in college and am unable to do it now. By doing the seminar I expect to correct the imbalances in my life and start writing again."

On the last day of the seminar when I reached home late at night I picked up my pen to write. But what wanted to gush out was flowing too fast. I could not write quickly enough. I just put on my wife's desk-top and keyed in what is below:

Date: 19^th Nov 95

THREE DAYS IN NOVEMBER

We were a motley group of all ages

Collected together

Young, grey-haired, quagmired and bogged down

Waiting

For the time to pass us by.

Then

For three days in November

A strange thing happened.

Time stopped,

And there was a conversation.

We, the young and the grey-haired talked.

Time asked.

We, the young and the grey-haired answered.

From far below

The marsh gases rose to the surface in anger

As ugly memories

Harsh, Unrepentant, warped,

Demanding retribution.

In the silence

What could be heard

Was only the sound of anguish.

An answering voiced cracked in pain

And from an individual sea of frustration, anger and despair

A tear welled out

Then another and another and another

Till it became a river flowing from four hundred sources,

The river flowed within and without

Gentle and cleansing

It flowed onto the marsh

Softening the ragged memories

Purging the ugliness.

With the river

The poison from within

Flowed out

And dissolved in the river that flowed on the marsh.

The healing had begun.

Time talked and the conversation went on

And slowly the pain subsided, perceptions changed.

And we walked out slowly, hesitantly

Onto a flickering path ahead,

Slowly

Instead of anguish

Laughter bubbled up to the surface

And then on the third day there was rejoicing.

Time flowed on.

Today

We, a group

Of the young and the grey haired,

Stand together,

Healed from within.

Old in experience,

But innocent in life,

Ready

To love and be loved, to cherish and be cherished,

To grow and develop,

And to become an identity for each within.