Love Stories of My Friends: 3!

Sloshed and stoned, lying in a corner,
He whispers her name, almost in a murmur,
I say, Oh! My God! You? You love her?
He says, Vivek, there can't be any other!

I picture the pair, a giraffe and a polar bear
What she lacks in height, ske makes up in diet
"I am such a fatso, Vivek," she always complains
While wiping off her shirt those icecream stains!

He mumbles, "Vivek! Do not get any bizarre notion
What she lacks in sensibility, she makes for in devotion"
In disbelief I hear so, for she is a bee, a butterfly
But I know he ain't kidding, not when he's so high!

"She calls me sweetie pie, I call her chick-a-boo
But Vivek, for some reason she thinks more highly of you
Maybe you like her too, but to me it doesn't really matter
I can even go to the end of this universe to get her."

As he throws up the details of his heart and bowels
I supply him words of solace and several paper towels
I grin to assure him, tell him, "she means nothing to me"
But even that is not enough to end his or my agony!

My room is soiled, while he continues his outburst
"Vivek! Do you remember how I hated her at first"
I concurred for he initially called her a baby elephant
And had confided that she smelled like a mosquito repellant!

I though, maybe, she has now changed her perfume
She surely now appears in skimpier costume
Ah! She has a big mole inches below her neck's nape
And several eyeballs are left rolling in her wake!

Meanwhile his sense return, as does his heartburn
He cribs that next week she is going to Auburn
To meet some old friend, who happens to be a male
And just like that, calls her everyday, without a fail!

I ask him, if his drinking was for this very reason
He says, "Screw her! How else do I face her treason?
She told me today that I was only a good friend
Who she could trust, on who she could depend!"

I inquire, "Has Auburn Ahole's postion been made clear?"
He chuckles, "She actually talks like Nostradamus dear,
He words are as open to interpretation as her clairvoyance
So afterwards "I said so" she can say and happily dance.

She says, "These decisions take time, are not all that easy"
But if I stay away from her, contends "You don't even love me"
If I tell her, I love her with my heart and soul
She says, "Take it easy chick-a-boo, chill, control!"

After six hours of chatter, his head seems clear
(Though my room still stinks of his undigested beer)
He winks and says, "Let me not be too misunderstood
I developed a soft corner only as the nights were so good!!

If she wants to go away, I wouldn't really mind
You see, Vivek, my services were paid for in kind
In fact! I hope she gets married to that Auburn AHole
And then I wouldn't suffer these pangs of my soul."

He left me stumped, with lots of mess to clean
And several secrets spewed about his drama queen
An year later, he is glad, she's gone to Auburn
And I see his shades in pics of her new born!

April 25, 2005!
Atlanta GA!

I hope readers have as much fun reading it
As I really had while just composing it!:)!

Love Stories of My Friends: 2!

She was a spring blossom
In the sweet sunshine of
Her youth, till she heard
Hiz buzz that broke the
Silence of her soft solitude
As he danced around in delight
On finding the sweet nectar
Of her essence that he could
Draw his own life from!

She is a fall flower now
Withering in the cold current of
Her old age, left to die
She has lost her nectar to
His domination and thirst
And lost her value, her charm
To him and her other admirers
Who are all dancing elsewhere!

She is just a soul, a seed now
Sunk in the dark soil somewhere
Carried away the distance by his
Promiscous, pestilent lifestyle
By nature, he knows only to take
To trample, to triumph, to tarnish
He has the wings, the power, the passion
To feed! Ah! He must make her bleed!

2pm, 21 April 2005
Physics Building

Another tradegy.
I promise the Story 3 will be a comedy of errors:)!
And the next in tea series is already brewing:)!

Cleaning my room!

(A note to self, a leaf from my real life, I guess after cleaning the room, I need to clear up my head as well!)

Cleaned my room. Momentous event. Rarity. Transition from chaos to order. Walls without cobwebs: turned lifeless by my lust for cleanliness. Can walk in my room without the need to jump: can't be jumpy anymore. Found Virginia Woolf's To a Lighthouse, and Dr Zhivago: both novels that I had bought and forgotten all about. Recovered notes for "Bade achchay lagte hai", my flute would be elated to hear it come out again. Found hundreds of notes to self, random poetry, back of the envelope calculations, plans, timelines, deadlines, seeds of oranges, twig of grapes, a dry mushroom that crumbled on touch, a ping pong ball, forgotten T-shirt, a wine bottle that shall be used tonight, toothpicks, old letters, Rakhi threads, greeting cards, including a card that I bought for two friends who got married two years back. Found some lost email addresses, lost phone numbers, even an unactivated credit card that I knew was lost somewhere in my room. Background music: Lata's rhapsodies (kiss liye maine pyar kiya, pal bhar mein yeh kya ho gaya, ab toe hai tumse, jaane kya baat hai) followed by Led Zepplin III, followed by Pink Flyod's Wall, followed by The Greatest Hits of Simon Garfunkel (including Sounds of Silence, Boxer, America, Old friends), Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits (including Hungry heart, dancing in the dark, glory days, street of philadelphia) and in the end choicest oldies from Madhumati, Razia Sultan, Seema, Khamoshi and Anupama(including Humne dekhi hai, Kuch dil ne kaha, Dil tadap tadap ke, Tu pyaar ka saagar hai, Jab bhi yeh dil udaas hota hai, Ae dil-e-nadaan)! The number of songs testifies to the fact that I spent over five hours sorting the mess, and if you ever planned on entering my room, TODAY IS THE DAY not to, for you will see a mirage that will stay here only for a few hours! In my room disorder creates the sounds, smells, steady state to which all the research papers, empty papers, envelopes, and what not, dances, drifts, decays. Old letters, broken promises, dreams, half-baked love letters, incomplete articles, snippets from past that had gathered dust over time, wires that were as tangled as my thoughts are on Tuesdays, buttons, and even pencils. The room looks too different for comfort. It looks like someone else's room. I need to get out of here!

Your two eyes, what can I say?

Your two eyes, what can I say
Are two dreamers that donot see
That see not the landscapes of reality
Only the rainbows of the imagined
That span the skies of your dreams
And lie far away from my galaxy!

*******

Your two eyes, what can I say
Are two beacons in my dark sky
Two beacons that bring hope to me
As I walk towards you, my light
My love, you guide me on each step
Guide me till I make you my destiny!

********

Your two eyes, what can I say
Talk to me in ways no eyes can
No eyes communicate innate misery
And quietly also of what cannot be
Veiled in silent smiles of cordiality
Your enticing eyes, why they abandon me!

Physics building, 2pm, 15 April 2005
During a lecture on "Quantum effects in electronic transport in artificial atoms"
The quality/(incoherence between stanzas) of the poem is a testimony to the fact that I was attentive in the class:)!

The Graduate Student Speaketh (ranting)!

Risky to read! Risky to write!
Grad rants r repeatedly trite!

(Cough Cough)! (The throat is cleared, head isn't)! The head is a herd of unsheared sheep, that having not slept well for weeks, have started bleating together, incoherently. The cacophony, the madness has a method to it, has a pattern, an underlying invisible, but valuable message We donot know the message yet, for it is in the same language that was used in the Passion of the Christ, and the available subtitles are in Egyptian heilographics. Like in all research questions, the needful is unknown, the wanted is missing, the doable has already been done, the possible has been perfected, the impossible is known to the advisor who has forgotten to mention it to the student. Besides the student is in a persistant state of procastination, distress or undress. "Procastination is my birth right, and I shall have it." In any case, doing is less important than thinking about what to do.

Thinking produces sprains in the millions of nerve cells that need to be activated out of the blue. It gives you kind of cramps you get when you get after a dog has chased you for a mile. I have worked like a dog all my life. My life is a bitch, gets ffffed quite often. There are no puppies yet!

ffffed means getting F's you dumbo!

Miracles don't happen. Every graduate student knows it, and yet expects one. Except on the defense day, they hardly ever get lucky! Come on dude, if you ever watched the movie Saint (its better than Jackal), you would know that proven three miracles can make you a Saint. By graduating and by getting a REAL job some of us get two miracles to occur. If you don't believe me, read PhD comics!

There are no flashes of brilliance. Sometimes there are no flashes, no light, no brillance. Some tunnels do not open to a bright sky. Anyone who ever told you you are smart never went to graduate school, and if he did, and still said that he just sympathized with you! We live with limitations, and hence we are not stupid. Whoever said "Genius has his limitation, stupidity is not this handicapped." was talking about us!

I believe in myself. I believein myself. I belie vain myself:)!

Cribbing helps. It brings back the focus to problem at hand: You! It motivates to graduate sooner. It presents a pathway of self-realization, which is underhanded way of say it helps you to stay conceited and happy. It makes your problem Somebody Else's Problem (refer to Douglas Adams for details)! Most importantly it cleanses your system of the remorse of not having accomplished anything. Not accomplishing anything is not uncommon, rather a success must always be treated with suspicion. A success is like a dream that a graduate student cannot have. A success is like a pay check that a graduate student knows nothing about. A success is a myth.

We are the drivers of myths, the movers of miracles, the believers in slackers, the seekers of not easily disproved. We are the hungry, we survive only beause there is a constant influx of free food from seminars. We are the grumbling, grunting gas bags of unfulfilled desires, and misplaced needs. We solve Differential Equations for food.

There are few things that keep us going, save our day. The coffee, the tea, the tablespoons of sugar, the crumbs of cookies, the leftovers from yesterday's seminars. If there is advisor, there is lo behold, Budweiser. There are deadlines; you have to stop working after they are over. And there is Google. Google knows everything. Google is god. What can be done, can be found on google. What cannot be done can be found on Google. Google is the best thing that ever happened to graduatestudentkind. Next time you google this long word, you will figure that it exists, and can be found on my homepage.

Being a graduate student is not all that bad for following debatable reasons:

Being graduate student makes you patient (good for guys as it helps them bear with their girlfriends)!

It makes you mentally tougher (you know SHIT HAPPENS, and you know how to deal with it)

It makes you humble and grumble (and you definitely learn how to mumble in a way that people associate with deep thinking of a doctorate holder)!

It makes you grow older and wiser and cynical and less hairy on the top and makes you miserly, capable of surviving on almost nothing (to eat and wear). (Leads to long term happiness as you have seen the worse already!)!

It makes people respect you, and they give huge allowance for your lack of dressing sense, lack of table manners, pot bellies, poorly shaved beards, forgetfulness and HUGE APETITE when invited for dinners.

It teaches you practical things like "how to stand on shoulder of giants" like Einstein did, how to write hundred pages without stating anything new and yet making it sound revolutionary, the skills of cooking and cleaning and the importance of being trivial in realm of how the world is and yet being hailed as experts (of a very narrow field, with only 3-4 people besides you knowing how less you really know).

Lastly, it gives you time, energy, motivation and ability to read and write such blogs:)!

PS: All advisors and graduate students mentioned here are imaginary, and all that is said here is quite unrelated to the happy life of this graduate student: unlike his future thesis, this is a work of fiction!

Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence: A Review

DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover remains infamous for the explicit description of sexual encounters between a upper class housewife and a laborer, and eventhough it features among the top lists of the novels written in last centuty, like many others I started reading it with suspicision. What I found was a world with vividly described characters, a frank writing to the degree it talks about all aspects of human emotion, and sexual ones too. Unlike the mainstream writers before him, Lawrence writes a powerful and passionate novel, full of sensuality and natural bursts of energy. So in some respects it is a mature novel, but it if neither porno, nor as sexual by modern standards as it was made out to be in early last century. In fact, by present standards, it does not shock any grown ups, maybe can provide the shock shared by people in 1930s and 1940s to enthusiastic readers in late teenage or early twenties, or for someone whose diet was entirely Victorian before this.

So after you get through and over with your own the prejudices and the infamous part, you start to see why Lawrence is one writer from the last century you just should not miss. His description of nature, of forests, of people, emotions, thoughts and actions of both men and women, his references to class struggles, his lyrical style and most importantly the similies swept me off my feet. His words move before your eyes, recreating beautiful imagery, reconstructing (the infamous) Connie, the laborer Mellors or Connie's cripple husband Clifford as completely humanly, falling, fearless or failing, sexually charged or bored or incapable, imaginative, passionate or hateful, lively, lusty or invalid, very lifelike people! The choice of these three characters provides him the ideal meat to create such beautiful poetic, intense prose. So much so, that after finishing this novel you rush off to the store and find yet another Lawrence level. (Picked Rainbow, was equally delighted and amazed:), but that is another story)!

I think the most important part of this novel is the sheer brilliance of the style in which it is written. Poetic short sentences, with astute comparisons and frank expression, run from sentence to sentence, and sway you in a strong current of his writing, while you are not only enjoying the ride, but also noticing the beautiful, changing, evolving scenery that you encounter at each instant. This is indeed a rich novel, packed with a natural beauty of human emotions and likes and dislikes, with poetic fervor of the writer that will grip any reader with the beauty of his prose. Unlike most other famous novels, this novel is written in simple English, is short in length, readable at breakneck speed, though so charged and passionate that you have to stop to breathe every few pages, and very open and direct, and yet has exceedingly introspective characters, the progression of their thoughts and feelings are inetgral part of the novel.

Read it. Sexuality is no more than found on any adult rated movie these days. Beauty of prose one of the best of the authors of last century. If you have always loved 19th century authors, read most of the romantic classics by Bronte sisters, Austen, Dickens or Thackerey, read this novel and notice why Lawrence shocks and yet the brilliance of his work soon shifts the spotlight to his name into one of the most important novelists of last century.

An old review; written when I had read just one Lawrence novel. Now I think his other novels are more powerful and more beautiful than this most "infamous" one! Publised on amazon earlier!

Love stories of my friends: 1!

He dragged her into his world
An underwater magical reality
That drew her close, awed
By the myriad creations unknown
To her naive, bewildered eyes

It smothered her, put her
Out of her breath but she
Returned again and again to the
Bottom of his poetic passions
To his deep, dark sea!

Her dives cut deep scars into her
As he spread out his coral clasps
To draw her close, to make her stay
Even in pain, her own blood mystified her
Vermillon, beautiful, diffuse cloudlike!

And then she moved as if drugged
In dream, she dwelled in his world
And began to forget the land, the sand
Swaying in his currents, breathing his fervent
Emotions into her dreamy but disenchanted soul!

Her old friends saw her sink so
But she was gone beyond their reach
Adrift in his world, floating in his tides
Just captivated by her own loss of her self
And numb knowledge of his stuffy presence!

She also saw herself shimmering as if
With drops of his emotions adhering
To her soft skin, like drew drops
And she saw his within blossom
In the sweet sunshine of her breezy self!

But she believed she was not given to him
Not in her entirety, not with her soul
She suffered as she sensed her own inability
To match his intensity, his swing, his strength
And found herself shrinking, shrivelling too!

As she groped for light, for hope, for future
His desires hugged her, snuggled her, soothed her
His love even wooed her will, her thoughts too
And yet she was just a bird in a fine aquarium
Bound to be unhappy even if skies she didn't know!

She mistrusted her flight, her will to flee
And scrambled to find transient thoughts of glee
But oh! Her heart began to twitch and scream
His cold engulfing of her, aroused her self esteem
And one day, she heard herself sing, ah! she was on her wing!

Physics building
April, 17, 2005
9:30 PM!
I must capture chaos in experiments
Not in romance, not in poetry!:)
So should get back to work now!

Faiz Poem: Yeh mujhe azeez bhi aur napasand bhi from 99.9 FM

I am working on the translation: SO WAIT FOR IT TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE COMMENTING:)!
I copied most of the lyrics, except for a few missing sentences (see question marks)
Feel free to send me those (or their meaning:)@!!)
Except for last two stanzas, rest of the translation is "doable": I might seek help from the masters of the language to translate those: if you can, do send me your inputs!

(Incomplete)

Thahar gayee aasmaan ki nadiya
Woh jaa lagi hai ufak kinare
Udaas rangon ki chaand naiyaa
Utar gaye sahil e zamin par sabhi khiwaiya
Tamaam Taare

Ukhar gayee saans pattiyon ki
Chali gayee ungh mein hawayein
Gazar baja hukam e khamoshi ka
Toe chupp mein gum ho gayee sadayein

sahar ki gori ki chatiyon se
Dhadhak gayee teekgari ki chaadar
Aur iss bajaye bhikhar gaye
Iskay tan badan par
Niraas tanhaiyon ke saaye

Aur issko kuch bhi khabar nahin hai
Kissi ko kuch bhi khabar nahin hai
Ke din dhalay shahar se nikal kar
Kidhar ko jaane ka rukh kiya tha

Na koi jaaga na koi manzil
Kissi musafir ko ab dimagay safar nahin hai
Yeh waqt zanzeer-e-rozon ki koi tooti hui kadi hai
Yeh matim-e-waqt ki ghadi hai!

Yeh waqt aaye toe be-iraada
Kabhi kabhi mein bhi dekhta hun
Utaar kar jaat ka libaada
Kahin syahi malaamaton ki
kahin pe gul-bootay ulfaton ki

Kahin pe lakeeren hai aansuon ki
Kahin pe khoon-e-zigar ke dhabbar
Yeh chaak hai fazaye uddu ka
Yeh mohar hai yaar-e-meherbaan ki
yeh?????
yeh mrhabat hai shaikh ke batjuban ki
yeh jaamayen rozon shabd gazida (????)
mujhe yeh pehraane gabida (???)
azeez bhi, napasand bhi

kabhi yeh farmaan-e-josh-e-wehshat
ke nooch ke isko faink daalon
kabhi yeh israarey farme urfat
ke choom ke fir galey lagaa lun!


Lost in translation (Work in Progress)

Halts the river of the sky
There has touched the shore
A ship - moon of sad hues
And have alighted on the coast
All the stars

Is broken the breath of the leaves
And the winds have gone to yawn
The buzz, the order of silence went out
To quieten into speechlessness all calls

From the breasts of city damsels
Alit the veil of Teergarhi
But besides that scattered
On its body and soul
Sad shadows of solitude

And it knows nothing about it
No one knows anything about it
That at dusk as we walked out of the city
Ah! Where did we direct our selves to go?

Neither any place nor any destination
No traveller with his mind on the journey
This time is a broken link of daily chain
This is a time of grieving

When this time comes, unforced
At times, I also perceive
Shedding the clothes of my caste
The ink..........(???) at places
At places the flora of fidelity
The traces of tears at places
At places the stains of blood

This is a.......
This a stamp of a friendly patron
This...???
This is?? of a
These clothes of words ??
I cherish too, I despise too

At times this ordinance of enthused savagery
To snatch it and just throw it away
At times ???
To just kiss and hug it close!

((This is first draft: posted for chay and others to have an idea about what the poem is all about. The translation right now is quite crass and if the poem fails to appeal in English (yet), the fault is with my translation. I am quite uncertain about the words spoken in last few lines of this recital from the version on www.raaga.com, and would be happy to get help on deciphering those)!!

Reading list: so far, so good!

Left out even longer list of textbooks:) !

Read in 2005: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1984 by George Orwell, Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Leaf Storm and other stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish and Life, The Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams, East, West by Salman Rushdie, Sons and Lovers and Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence, Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham, Love Story by Eric Segal,
About to finish: Riot by Shashi Tharoor, At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity by Stuart Kauffman, Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order by Steven Strogatz, Cells, Gels and Engines of Life by Gerald H. Pullock and counting:)!
Next in line: Love in the time of cholera:

Read in 2004: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, A Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Rainbow by DH Lawrence, The Razors Edge, Up the Villa and The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham, Far from Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, The House of Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Metamorphosis by Kafka, The Stranger by Camus, Sula by Toni Morrison, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by Mitchell M. Waldrop, Life in Moving Fluids by Steven Vogel.

Read in 2001-2003: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, Ulysses and The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor, Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Johnathan Livingston Seagull and The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach, Love and longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra, Prophet and Beloved by Kahlil Gibran, The Three Chinese Poets and The Heaven's Lake by Vikram Seth, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman, Ralph Leighton & Edward Hutchings, Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings, The Double Helix by James Watson.

Read during IIT days (1997-2001): The Fountainhead and The Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand; Illusions and Johanathna Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach; The Ground Beneath her Feet, The Moor's Last Sigh and The Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie; An Equal Music, A Suitable Boy, The Humble Administrator's Garden, All you who Sleep Tonight and The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth; The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mehta; The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy; Gora and Gaire Bhare (Home and the World) by Rabindranath Tagore, Anand Math by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Doctors by Eric Segal, City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, The Mayor of Castorbridge by Thomas Hardy, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, The Animal Farm by George Orwell; A Study in Scarlet, A Sign of Four, The Hound of Baskervilles, and in fact Sherlock Holmes : The Complete Novels and Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Julius Ceaser by Shakespeare, Godan by Prem Chand and Leo Tolstoy's Father Sergius and other Stories.

A Bird View of Love!

Who am I? A bird that perches
On your balcony by daily habit
Feeding on strewn sentences
Of kind, though disenchanted joy
That you find in my company
And your occasional happiness
On hearing me merrily chirp
Or happily flutter my wings
Momentary togetherness in time
That my flights of fancy cherish
Through my days spend in yearning
For the next sunset and morning
When I return to your home
Ah! I am no pet of yours
And yet I am not wild or free
A persistant visiting dreamer
In love with uncertainity!

September 2004!
Atlanta, GA!

Love Story by Segal and other things!

I am going to India and Netherlands, to Himachal and to Delhi, and maybe to Paris and to Calcutta. Two months to finish a zillion tasks! I must somehow fill in more work hours into each day, though I cannot figure how. Papers need to be dished out, and research requires lot of doing rather than just thinking, meaning I need the physical presence and effort at multiple places. I wish I had multiple selves taking care of each job that I so optimistically entrust to myself.

Meanwhile I picked a novel to bide time while my fellow graduate students gossiped, grinned and glowed in Chinese, and surprisingly it ended before they stopped talking:)! Such is graduate life; you always manage to do first what you are not supposed to be doing and vice versa.

Erich Segal's Love Story is a simple, tocuhing, beautiful and heartfelt novel. It is an easy read, full of sentimentality served with dash of really delightful wit and exchanges between Oliver and Jennifer. Oliver starts a Harvard stud, hailing from a family of superachievers, and has reserved acute enimity towards his father who he calls "sonofabitch". Jenny is a small town girl, who studies music, and comes out as a perfect match for Oliver. Its a romantic novel, runs like a movie, and besides being a love story, addresses father son relationship quite well as well as brings out the character an ivy-league garduate acquires simply because of his schooling. The novel manages to drive a dagger through a readers heart towards the end, which I will not disclose for benefit of those who haven't read. Read it; it requires few hours at most, and believe me you might like it. At least a diehard romantic like me would think so!

Fuzon: Mera Saiyan (Lost in translation: One)

Saawan beeto jaaye piharwa
mann mera ghabraaye
Aiso gaye pardesh piya tume
chaain humein nahin aaye
Mora saiyan bmose bolay naa
Mein lakh jatan kar haari
Lakh jatan kar haar rahi!

Tu joe nahin toe aise piya hum
Jaise soona aangna
Naain tihari raah nihare
Nainan ko tarsaao na
Mora saiyan bmose bolay naa
Mein lakh jatan kar haari
Lakh jatan kar haar rahi!

Pyar tumhein kitna karte hai
Tum yeh samaj nahin paogay
Jab hum na honge toe piharwa
Bolo kya tab aaoge
Mora saiyan bmose bolay naa
Mein lakh jatan kar haari
Lakh jatan kar haar rahi!

Lost in translation (I am still working on it):

Monsoons are getting over, darling
My soul is in torment
You have so gone to foreign land, my love
I know peace in no moment
My beloved is not talking to me
I have tried a million times, defeated
A million tries and being defeated!

Without you, oh my love I am as if
A lifeless, lonely courtyard
My eyes wait on your path
Make my eyes pine no more
My beloved is not talking to me
I have tried a million times, defeated
A million tries and being defeated!

Oh how much do I love you
You might never comprehend
When I won't be my darling
Say, will you come then
My beloved is not talking to me
I have tried a million times, defeated
A million tries and being defeated!

Elizabeth Barret Browning: Selected Romantic Poetry:)!

How do I love thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

*********

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day--
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

**********

A Man's Requirements


I
Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.

II
Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.

III
Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest grantings;
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven's truth be wanting?

IV
Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;
Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.

V
Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely -- open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot, --
Hearing one behind it.

VI
Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur 'Love me!'

VII
Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living -- dying.

VIII
Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the world has crowned thee;
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.

IX
Love me pure, as muses do,
Up the woodlands shady:
Love me gaily, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.

X
Through all hopes that keep us brave,
Farther off or nigher,
Love me for the house and grave,
And for something higher.

XI
Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,
Woman's love no fable,
I will love thee -- half a year --
As a man is able.

She is just a rumor!

She doesn't really exist,
* she is just a rumor!
We have never met,
* I really donot know her!
Yet I strive and strain,
* suffer with a sweet pain!
Aching each day to meet,
* her sashaying down the street!
My love is quite abstract,
* has blossomed without contact!
And without rendezvous is withering,
* unwanted, unclaimed, worthless!

Will you call me tonight?

Will you call me tonight
For your happy sound
Lights up a dozen candles
In my dark, lonely room
And in the soft glow
Of your spoken words
My life launches into
A lively, poetic imagery!

Will you call me tonight
And silence the bassdrums
Of my unsettled heart
By you nonchalant chuckles
And in the lyrics of
Your evanescent words
About trivial incidents
Whisper me a lullaby!

Snippets of random poetry (my own)!

In glowing blushes
Your red cheeks are embers
That scorch my eyes!
*******
For all the yearning
Your face can produce
I should muster courage
And to your offer refuse
For if, my lady, I stay today
Nothing will ever take me away!

*************

He caught a dream
On the palm of his hand
And with index finger
Crushed it till it left
Just a cold memory
On an angry surface!

*******
Like her parched lips
Her memories too
Have lost the flavor of
Rosy, juicy delight
And like shades of grey
That her head bears
My feelings for her
Have dimnished, darkened!

*****

Incidentally, I do not love her
In spite of what you make out of
My continuous desire to talk
To her laughing eyes
Or my persistant attempts
To walk by her side
As the cool breeze fills
My heart with her perfume
And I do not think about her
Always as you seem to imagine
Though her thoughts cross
The trails of my imagination
As a comet that lits up
Bright sky for a lone watcher
Gazing into empty night sky!

*****

She always wrote to me
Her responses in poetry
And in slurs, served in blurs
Dismissed me absolutely!

Her rhyming was perfect
And verses quite abstract
Sentenced in no uncertainity
Rejections quite abject!

Using similies and pun
She composed for fun
Metaphorical associations
To leave me undone!

*****

Na Milti ho, Na milne ka prayaas karti ho!

Na milti ho, na milnay ka prayaas karti hoe
Mein karta hun koshish, toe parihaas karti hoe
Tumhaari awaaz phone par sunta hun jab bhi
Meri hridhaya par sau sau prahaar karti hoe!

Koi naraazgi nahin, toe yeh adaa kya hai
Koi kehta kyun nahin, ki meri khata kya hai
Ke kuch lamhe bhi tere mujko naseeb na hon
Kaun si uljhan hai tumko, kaho maajra kya hai?

Waise milney ki toe koi aisi zarurat bhi nahin
Humare raaste roz ek mod se gujarte tak nahin
Tum kuch pal kabhi kabhi humkadam banti rahi ho
Hamari hamsafar banogi aisi dikhti surat bhi nahin!

Doston mein dooriyan koi mainay nahin rakhti
Milnay na milnay se yaariyan nahin ghat-tea
Shayad mera bharam hai, yeh bura mausam hai
Tum mil hi jaati kahin agar roz barish na girti!

Murakh na hua mein, barkha nay waise kab kissko roka hai
Tum bebas ho, na isliye milti ho, ya meri soch ka dhoka hai
Kyun inn khayalon mein hun khoya, kyun yun hun bekaraar
Dekh tere na milnay ne bhi mujhe nikamma kar chodaa hai!

Wajib hoga tera khayal, tujse milnay ki khwaish de dil se mitaa
Nayi khushiyon ki basaa len nagari, jeenay laggay ab tere siwaa
Kal pukaarogi bhi toe bhi na ab hum nazar aayenge (gaur kijiye)
Shaheed hota hai teri berukhi ka ghayal, dekh yeh jalti uski chitaa!

Apropos for "A Cup of Tea" series!

As you take sip after sip of stanzas that I serve,
An array of characters will begin to emerge,
A hero will pine for his unrequited love
The heroine, her tea-bags of love, conserve,
How can without a third lead the story complete be
She will enter holding trays of twists and mystery
And while his parents nudge at his arms, he'll see
New colors of fate spread over his own artistry
As one spell shall break, another will take form
(There will be usual mishaps for the sake of continuity)
The heroine shall strike back, as it has to be
Tempting him into togetherness and infidelity
In all the chaos he will experience some joys unbound
And also the times of poetic pain or unsavory absurdity
But this is a trailer, a "tea-ser", full story remains to unfold
Drink on, to dregs shall I drag this episodic "Cup of Tea"!
*********
This experimental tea poems are seemingly savored less
But I am writing those just to hone and hype my prowess:)