Meeting the Ocean

I walked aimlessly without an umbrella as it drizzled quietly. It was dark, though the street lights were awake and saw themselves shivering in puddles. There was no sign of life on the street. A tune (in Sindhu Bhairavi) kept following me.
It was as though I was flowing on the road. The beauty of the scent of wet earth seemed indistinguishable from that of the notes. Before I knew, I was humming. It seemed as though all the roads lead to a single road and all the little channels of water flowed into one.
Then there was an intense interlude on Saxophone …I was humming it too, of course. Time seemed to flow slower than usual. I seemed to grow and expand into the surroundings. It was as though all the longing was all set to meet the ocean, as though all was going to be unified into something singular, as if supreme order was taking over chaos.

NOTE: These weak words don’t (and can’t) mean the experience, words don’t even come close. They remain a cheap imitation of the experience and a product of my silly inclination to translate notes and experiences into them.

Radio

I sat at the bus stop waiting for the bus. I wasn't expecting it very soon, though. I made myself comfortable on the bench, just as a familiar dog did under it.
The shopkeeper of the grocery store turned on the radio. What flowed out was a beautiful rendition in BehAg. Almost instantly, the singer's face flashed before me - not extraordinarily beautiful, but radiant as that of a saint. The large kumkum and long nose stood out. Her mellifluous voice resonated. It was strong, yet mellow. It could drown you in sober reflection with its melancholy or elevate you with its ecstatic ascent. The notes leapt and fell effortlessly and with the same ease, lingered on or floated at other times.
Were these also the same compressions and rarefactions that my teacher just spoke of...I wondered. These notes are so unearthly, so out-of-this-universe, that they hardly seem like sounds anymore!
I could picture the singer close her eyes as the notes ascended, descended and in their capriciousness, crafted intricacies.She would occasionally open them as though waking from a pleasant dream and emphasise the same intricacies with variations.
The rAga encompassed motherly affection, the fondness of a lover, pure love and pure beauty. It overwhelmed me with its versatility. It had layers of bitter-sweet longing and the joy of watching a naughty child.
The notes danced blissfully and filled the air, spread their wings and touched the skies.They were hushed, momentarily by the jangle of the rickety bus. But, I wasn't the one board it- not even if I had to walk home.The notes steered through the dust and smoke and once again leapt, fell, lingered, hovered and floated.
The shopkeeper and the dog, both looked at me-surprised! I smiled to myself not bothering to give them an explanation.There I was again - possessed by the music.

Good Bye

Her searching eyes looked all around. It was the last time she was gazing out that balcony. She loved this place. It was far from the bustling city, yet as close as an hour’s drive. There was close to no traffic. It was neither village nor city, neither forest nor resort. It had a lazy tranquility about it. It fuelled her imagination and at times made her dipping spirits soar. In that view, was a ubiquitous abundance of space. The green that spread at a distance filled her with optimism. In the nights, the city glimmered, but at a distance.
In the foreground was a lone tree. A symbol of solitude, she thought. It stood elegantly with its many arms outstretched towards the sky, while some of them looked down at its own roots, as though in contemplation. So many new little branches every year, and so many more leaves, so many buds and so many seeds. Its growth never ceased. But what impressed her much was that its growth had a certain composure to it. It was not about racing past someone in ruthless competition, but critically watching every step and growing with much care and thought. Its branches maintained their elegance even in their rapid growth, never getting themselves into a tangle, never hurting the squirrels or cuckoos or sparrows or crows, or even little workaholic ants. The arresting beauty of its branches outdid their obvious asymmetry. It redefined aesthetics. It stood as a paradigm of beauty.
It would shed its leaves and flowers every single year-eternally rejuvenating itself. The flowers filled the air with their scent, and when they fell, they’d turn the grassy floor into a yellow carpet. The drying brown layers were promptly painted bright yellow everyday-never letting the grief show.
When it rained, the eager branches reached out to the drops and the young leaves were overjoyed to let them drip down for the first time. Their existence was transient but rain made their short life joyous.
In the evenings, the sky was much like her canvasses- a mad riot of colours but one never had to search for beauty in that apparent chaos. She clicked as many pictures as she could. She wanted to keep the memories of this house.
She was to move to her old home-the home which had more memories associated with it than this one did. But both were dear to her. One for its dream-like remoteness and the other for all the memories it brimmed with.
She would miss the meditative solitude of this place. She had spent countless hours there and time always seemed to stop. The tree and the view from the balcony had become an extension of her own mind’s canvass. From a distance, she felt like waving back as though at a good friend, but she realized these were inanimate.
She was moving from the company of inanimate objects into a company of memories.
The breeze blew gently and the trees gently swayed. “Good Bye”, they all seemed to say. Did they seem a little low? She couldn’t say. Perhaps she wasn’t as important to them as they were to her!
“Good Bye” she said too.

Searching

I crawl cautiously, in utter darkness. I carefully feel the ground, lest I should fall into an unknown abyss. I've not come too long a way. But the path has been sufficiently long for me to foget about returning. Is this the right path? I admit I'm not sure. But this is the best I can do.
So I start this freaky journey. I sometimes move my arms, as though wading through this dense darkness is going to bring hints of light...silly habit! But thats not the only thing I'm doing. I'm furiously searching...all in darkness you may say, but really, its not so dark inside my head. This is the only thing that has kept me going. But I hope to see hope. Too unrealistic a dream? Though I am inclined to deny, I cant yet see clearly how I'm going to make it all come alive.

Universe

A thousand violins sang,
Their hearts out-
As the notes of joy
Cascaded down.

They wished only
To rejoin the sea
Of infinite bliss

They were flowing away
I thought;
Before I saw them
Leap to reach the skies.
They kissed the clouds,
They transcended rainbows and mountains.

They flowed in the heavens,
As the Milky Way,
Conquered space and time,
And all dimensions of the Cosmos.
There they were;
Above ALL
I was one with the universe

Inertia

There’s this lazy air about some of these Sunday afternoons. They don’t let you do what you are supposed to. They only make you procrastinate. I woke up hesitantly at 8 in the morning. By afternoon, I happened to listen to music and that too brindaavana Saaranga, that was the end of it all- there’s something about its feel that just cuts you off from reality. A strange euphoria envelops the heart, it begins to rain! Imagine the bliss of showers from a cloudless sky! A weird lethargy simply numbs everything. It’s a very pleasant sort of sloppiness(I wish I hadn’t used that ugly word for such a beautiful state, but the reality remains that despite so much ecstacy that I feel, to the rest of the world, it must be looking like jobless sloppiness!).
The clock turns from 1 to 5 and I just remain wondering till night if it was minutes or hours that just ticked by. Nothing shakes the mind up; I admit its stagnation- albeit a very enriching one!
The mind wanders, jumping in one go, from remote past to future-far-ahead. It’s everywhere, but in the present, though in the real sense, it is nowhere. There is no thinking, but neither is there silence. I’m left confused if the state is to be described as extreme monotony or the peak of contentedness; is it extreme chaos or the peak of order? Is it oscillation? No-its not. Its both but neither. I give up-it’s totally uncategorizable.
The mind can not stick to one thing, nor can it remain still without sticking to things. It’s a fuzzy drunken state. I can neither sleep nor remain awake. Ha, try, you’ll know, you can’t get the darn mood off your insane head! Its stubbornness is as ridiculous as its looseness.
It dawdles on, till Monday morning squeezes it out! And then when reality hits …the Sunday soul simply commits suicide. But life goes on with the repeated birth and death of Sunday Lethargy and Monday Discipline. Sometimes I get bored of it all – is life all about these fluctuations, this fickleness, this unsureness? When I think about it, it shocks me, it even annoys me. I feel like a lump of meaningless existence, with nothing more than shifting states of mind as a theme running through. But when I look around, it appears (although I don’t know for sure) as if it were the same with everyone else. Life’s just taking us through these varying mental states- how boring, this world! On the other hand, it can be a nice roller coaster ride…doesn’t all that fun make it worth living our lives? Well it depends on how one sees it.
But for now…get me more lotus…coz’ I love inertia! :)

Music

I stood on my terrace and watched the sky-it was cloudless, absolutely. Like little diamonds, the faraway stars shone. Friday nights are so wonderful! A sense of freedom lets me let go. The horizon was so well defined. It darkened skywards and down on my light-polluted planet, it was all too bright. Bright yellow, white, orange lights shone brighter than little stars. But the almighty moon remained unbeaten. As far as I could see- land was full of lights. They looked rudely into my eyes while the unambitious stars, up in the sky, squinted meekly.
I had been listening to some great music for half an hour and by now, even my vision had been tinted with the beauty of the tune. It continued to haunt me and in its haunting, it somehow sounded more beautiful than the original! Every single molecule in me seemed to be swaying to it, while it played over and over and over again-and each time it sounded more overwhelming than before. The whole universe was bathed in the ghazal’s mysterious charm. A strange masti was closing in – every fear and every worry departed from this new realm I had entered and this feeling was totally inescapable (…not that I’d want to escape!) Even things that hadn’t, from any conceivable angle, looked beautiful, seemed to have suddenly taken possession of a grand extraordinary beauty.