Silence

There is a Silence
That I am afraid to break

I will find no voice
I fear

Just words swimming
In a blur
No strength to move up
Stuck in the airways

No breath of life
Just dying before they can ever be...

Only the Silence survives.

And then there was nothing...

Sometimes we tend to put in too much into relationships... i mean, give your everything. And expect reciprocation to the same degree. I mean, it is only natural to expect reciprocation.
I see that I have gotten angry when I don't get back what I want. I mean, I am no saint. I can't only give and be happy. I expect. There used to be times when I was almost a saint... but then i don't know how and what changed, but here I am...
We met in 2011 after her engagement in 2006... 5 years in the same city, but i don't think we even exchanged phone calls as frequently as our closeness demanded, and not for lack of trying on my side. But of course, one gets exhausted. There was some amount of bitterness that had grown... i expected that something would happen when we finally meet. Maybe the bubble would burst.
I was disappointed. There was nothing. Time does eat away at even the most cherished relationships... distance, physical or otherwise, matters. It is not easy to keep loving... to nurture a relationship without the things that grew them in the first place. You know, life still goes on...

Requital

A stranger passing by,
A kind look in the eye,
A smile, warm and shy...
Smile back... should I?

Why should I?
Its only a stranger passing by!
But she smiled at me... why?
To be friendly, should I try?

Looking for a loophole, I
Let the beauty of the moment slip by

Will it happen again?
Will I be ready then?
Will I catch the eye of anon.,
And be ready to smile back then?

[Inspired by a 5 year-old girl sitting in her grannie's lap - It was dark, and I was passing by them - she smiled reticently while I squinted to get a closer look. I smiled back... :-) Seems like only kids can smile at strangers without wanting anything back from them! ]

© 2010 Praveena Slathia

Life as is...

Hello Hello Hello Hello...
Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye...
That's all there is
And the leaves that are green turn to brown...

- Simon and Garfunkel

Green blogs??

It was ablog-browse day at work today(of course work was happening in the background!! :-)) And this is what I stumbled onto -



To the hope that there will be more green cover around the world tomorrow than there is today!!

I stand

I liked to stand like this
By the roadside...
Green and bright...

Now my myriad lovers
Caress me by day
And choke me at night

It is funny how
The same thing can mean
Both life and death at once...

I stand, a silent spectator
While they speed past me
Not sparing a glance

With this the case
How could I hope for
A moonlight dance?

How would I care
To tame my unkempt locks
Or my shabby hemline?

A pair of scissors came along
A nip here, a tuck there,
I stand, beautiful again

And yet at the end of the day
The gift I get
Is a coat of gray...

It's too warm for this
It's stifling me
I need to breathe again...

The rain came down...
And washed me off the pain
Readying me for another day of loving...

I wait for the morrow...
I wait to wallow
And wilt in the smoke again...

[Inspired by a lone Asoka tree that had been pruned in the ASC Campus - It was looking on us while we were stuck in a traffic jam on Friday evening!]
© 2010 Praveena Slathia

Joy ride everyday...

Ok... one more day's journey in the bus with the "half-back-rest" wale seats done. Of course there is no point in complaining about the "pain in the neck" that this travel has become. So I've decided to list out the positives - you know, seeing the half-full part of the back-rest rather than the head-rest part that's missing.

* I get to stay awake and see the beauty that's Bangalore for at least half the journey.

* The other half of the journey of course shows the prosperity in the city. The number of cars and 2-wheelers snaking through the rather wide main roads that still falls short of the city's requirements.

* I can really appreciate and admire the driver's talent to drive the Swaraj Mazda as if it were a 2-wheeler, swinging it left and right as he finds his way through the maze... all this without a near-accident. (The accidents are avoided coz of a lot of sudden brakes of course!) He deserves a medal for this.

* The back-ache inducing jerks that force me to exercise everyday... This journey is in fact helping me stay fit! ;)

It is a fruitful journey indeed!