Kahan Shahar Mera

Kis shahar ko kahoon apna
Kahan basera mera
Roz bichhati hoon khilaunon si duniya
Roz samet kar fir dhoondhti hoon naya basera

Jahan bachpan bita, kya woh hai mera shahar
Wahan koi toota khilauna tak nahi bacha mera bataur nishani

Jahan bachpan ne aankhein khol duniya dekhi, kya woh hai mera shahar
Wahan toh koi na raha mujhe jo yaad kare ya dhoondhe meri nishani

Jahan koi wada mila, kya woh hai mera shahar
Wahan toh wafa thi jaise koi ehsaan tha, aur ye chaah ki na badlein aapas me koi anmit nishani.

Nahin koi, kahin koi mera shahar
Banjaron ki qismat, aur zamindaron ka dil
Yun dhoondhne chale apna shahar
Zindagi ki shaam dhalne ko hai
Shahar ki thaur, sar chhupane door tak kisi parchhayi ki nahi nishani

I do

I looked up at the vast azure and asked
Why?
Why am I denied what is so easy for everyone else
Why every time I have to seek like a beggar the opportunity to be all that I can be

He looked down at me and said,

"Daughter, see where you are standing
You say you are a beggar
You who stands in her own Home
You who had once thought of it as a distant, impossible dream
You foolishly ask to lead one home
I have built you to lead a hundred homes
You dream to mother a child
I have filled you with strength to bring up a thousand children
You wish to cradle an infant
I have made you to be a mother of men
You wish to nurture a son or daughter
You are to be a mother to fathers and mothers forgotten
You aspire to spoil a naughty child
You have to show the path to a people gone astray for the want of a mother.

You wish to inculcate civility in your lineage
You have to bring back a generation to the path of righteousness.

You have to bring back the faith in right doing.
You are looking at taming hills.
When I have built you to rule mountains.
How can I oblige Oh daughter?
I have made the world to be your home
You ask me for a hut
How will you fit in
You are not born to beg
You are my princess
You are to rule on my behalf
You are to re-establish my name
You are to take the throne from me
Take charge my daughter"


I bow and say... "I do"

You within me

Not a penny in hand
But the resolve to build a castle

Not a bone  unbroken
But the arrogance of taming the peaks

No future inheritance in sight
But the pride of giving away all

Heart bleeding with a hundred holes
Still the wish to anoint others with the reddened elixir

You gave this.. O Lord
To the meek, the doubtful
You stood beside and made look tall
The soul that was about to be dwarfed by its own shortsightedness

May you rule all the breaths this life has
May you design all the lives this soul has

The celebration of your grace is my pride
Treading the path illuminated by you my good fortune

Wish I were the breeze... Neither  adding anything nor taking away.... Just touching lives.... Leaving a refreshed air.... Breaking into a thousand streams while soaking through beings... Uniting again into a whole on the other side.... Neither resisting nor resisted, neither hurting nor hurt.... Only caressing never binding.... Ever travelling never gathering......
Always a memory... Never a pain 

Roaring Rivermouth

Not able to hear myself
Too much of noise
From the river passing by the river mouth, teased, humbled, ennumbed
From the crackling spark spitting cinders; agitated, smothered, smarting fighters ensembled
From the early spring winds, that take off on the wings of happiness yet land with a dash of pathos mingled

Quiet, quiet, quiet all of you
For the lamp in the temple cannot be and shall not be wavered;
The sparkling drop of water on the alocasia  has to stay glittering, pride enamoured;
The serene, pious quiet of the mornings, innocent drops of Manna to be gathered
The light behind the eyes must continue to illuminate,
No stray sparks, lest the parched, delicate papyrus is gutted and shy poetry shattered

All have come to pass; winters, springs, summers and rains.
What has stayed is the sky, up there, with His promise of vastness, rains or no rains.

Promise of sunset and sunrise
Promise of childish mornings and evenings wise
Promise of sleep and awakenings,
Promise of unbreakable promises
Mild, sober happiness and loyal pains
Pens of cinders and potions of ashes.
Welcome losses and unworded gains.