To Bubbles and her dimpled mom-to-be !

Bubbles is loved before she is born.
Someone is waiting for her. Impatiently.
Smiling. Dreaming. Loving. Smiling. Dreaming.
Waiting to lift her and take her into her heart and home.
Bubbles, do you see your room is ready ?
Your clothes laid out. Toys galore.
The walls painted bright just for you?
Your baby feet shall patter across these rooms.
Your laughter shall fill these rooms.
And as you get ready to come into this world
Here’s my silent prayer for you and your mom-to-be.
May your lives be filled with countless giggles, dimples and laughter!
Tomorrow and forever!

Who are you I wonder?

You are a face without a form
A voice that laughs, teases, supports, scolds, and pampers.
A fixed picture on my screen and my head,
Sometimes blurred, sometimes clear, but always there.
In the same spot, right when I need you.
You are the silent spectator, the broad shoulder, the avid listener.
You give me new hope, a higher courage, a return to trust.
Will we meet and when we do,
I wonder how it would be.
What are we to each other that we care so much?
What is this relationship born amidst this nebulous fragile digital space?
And, when I look at your smile and kind eyes,
The questions disappear and so do the definitions.
Am happy to just let things be.
Happy just being me. And letting you just be.

How long I wonder I can hold on ?

How long I wonder I can hold on ?
What cruel test should I continue to pass ?
There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
No hope or promise of the morrow.
How fair is it to continue the test
when one is so ridiculously unarmed ?
I have stood my ground
and by the truth,
with courage and faith,
spoken my mind and
believed my heart.
Is it that I have
failed you, my lord,
in not believing in you
longer and harder
and daring to question the test ?
Or is you who have
failed your precious child
standing with bent shoulders
and tears in her eyes
ready to give up?

---- Srividya Srinivasan

I long to be friends again …

I am hurting like crazy
more than I have been hurt all my life.
Like a child unable to comprehend
why adults are mean.
Like a child who badly wants to
play with a best friend
who just doesn't want to play with him anymore.
I am standing at the edge of the ground,
watching with my face pressed against the mesh fence,
knowing full well that I wouldn't be
accepted into the game.
I don't know what i have done or not done,
I can only feel helpless childish tears flow.
One minute we were both playing together
and the next minute you had thrown me out of
the field and out of the game.
And like a child with unreasonable hope
I can only pray that we be friends again.

This one moment...

If one could choose between one glorious moment of honesty
to a million inner battles of conventionality,
I am glad we have chosen this one moment
to be true.

A moment that would stand beautiful and pure,
stuck between
the years of the past and the years of the future
both not given to us.

Let us not get into dangerous waters
unless we are both ready to swim.
It is enough that we feel the same way
and finally saying it true.
Meeting each other on equal ground
and holding nothing back.

And so, only this moment is ours, my dear,
precious in our declaration of love.
For the beautiful people we are this moment.
Not for censorious eyes or waggling tongues,
and not even for our own narrow doubting selves
that would return after this precious moment is past.

Let us hold on to this moment a little longer,
It holds the beauty of a million moments
that never was and would never be.

------ Srividya Srinivasan, 7.9.2009

To a first love...

If I could turn back the clock,
I would hold your gaze until eternity,
and hold you tight and not let go.
I would write you letters of my love
and get replies to them too
and not wait in vain.
I would know my answer true
and know it hadn't been all in my head.
Your grin is fixed in my mind still
just as my youth is fixed in yours.
Should we ever meet
I wonder what we will find?
Soulmates that missed their way
or a silly relationship that never was.

--- Srividya srinivasan

Deep Down

Deep down my dearest, nothing has changed.
Deep down my dearest, is the magic,the hope and the connect.
Deep down my dearest, beneath the layers of pain and triviality,
beneath the wrinkles and the years,
fresh and beautiful, pure and untouched lies our love.
As young as the day it was born and, as innocent.

I see you are wearing your mask, and I come wearing none.
Let me be gracious in pretending that deep down there is and was nothing,
For deep down my dearest, both of us know
I can't ever wear a mask and you can never take yours off.

------- Srividya Srinivasan

he she he she he ?

She got up in the morning a male.
Adjusted the color of her skin to suit the day,
Smoothened yesterday's curves to square lines, .
As his feet slipped into the slip-ons,
the boobs disappeared.
It was always the last one to go.
As he strode lengthy strides,
the stubble came up just when the sun did.
He whistled at a passing she,
and she came around
he she he she he she?

--- Srividya Srinivasan

The big question

How can we comprehend the
mystery of what happens before birth
and what happens after death,
when we haven't even learnt
to understand ourselves
in between those two?

----------- Srividya srinivasan, Feb 8th 09

The journey

There are levels to be reached
where the mind cannot go
where words lose their meaning
where thoughts cease
where silence rules
and oneless prevails.
It is an experience
that can only be felt.
there are no parallels.
no 'like this', 'like that'.
only 'neti' - None of all these.
With what does one come back from the journey?
How does one ever narrate the journey?
With words?
that would be twisted for their meaning?
or checked for their syntax?
If it can be shared,
let it be in silence.


---------------- Srividya Srinivasan Feb 8 - 2009

Lullaby to a girl child!

Don’t jump or run
What if you hurt yourself there?

Don’t bawl
Stifle the pain. Let the tears flow artistically down your cheeks.

Please
Don’t walk so tall and confident.

Look down
at the ground as you walk.

Don’t stare back
Instead lower your eyelids, shyly.

Pinch your cheek
Practise your blush for the compliments to come.

Giggle
Never laugh out loud.

Lower
Your voice. It should never be heard

Go deaf
Pretend you haven’t heard all that you do.

Hold your tongue
At any cost, never speak your mind.

Blank your mind
Don’t have any thoughts, opinions or ideas.

Bottle up
Your desires; you are his property and his slave.

Hide
your bosom, don’t jut it out, and don’t sway your hips

Close up
Sit demure. Don’t spread your legs.

Open up.
Be the vamp when he so desires.

Hide
Your intelligence and your rebellion and your revulsion.

Fake.
Your orgasm

Pray.
You get a baby boy the first time.

Sacrifice.
Your very identity to a stereotype

Yes dear, you would be just fine, you would be just fine,
Safe from the taliban, safe from the sena,
safe from the men that would be born
from our very wombs.

------------------ Srividya Srinivasan, Feb 2nd - 2009