Life is beautiful

Life is beautiful.

Fragile and nebulously so.

Some days and moments just rush in the good feeling, pushing past your daily grind, past your jaded cynicism, past your world weariness to tinge all the everyday things and people with a special color to put that smile on your face.

Just you.

Your shoulders relax albeit slowly, your feet stretch and your smile broadens and you are just happy. Just plain happy. No reasons. There is a singing in your heart that has no history. Nothing special and yet very special just because it is so intensely full. It feels good to be alive. You are acutely aware of the sights, sounds and colours of life around you. You are rooted in the awareness of the moment and in touch with it. All questions and pain seem dull, differences and conflicts forgotten and thrust in a corner for the moment. Music playing somewhere adding its rightness to the moment. So do the odd snatches of silence. Blessed content silence. Friends seem to reach out adding a unique flavor. A loved one calls and the moment is flavored some more , peppered with humour and warmth. The moment is so perfect holding all the promise of life and love that it can possibly hold.

I hug this special moment. I know not what the next moment would bring. But this moment? This moment is mine to savour, to pass on, and to share. What do I care about the next when I have been blessed with this moment so full?

Life is heady indeed.
---- Srividya Srinivasan July 26, 2010

I cannot follow you ...

I am sorry.
I have no role model.
No gurus.
No companions to hold my hand.
Yes, I can read about your journey.
And the journeys of the Buddhas and the sadhus.
The pious, the agnostic, the rationalist and the intellect,
the profound and the profane,
the free spirit and the disciplinarian,
the madman and the seer.
But in the end you see,
It is your journey and theirs, not mine.
Within me, only I can journey.
How can i ever comprehend the quality of your journey?
How can i but not question the credibility of your truth ?
It is not my truth.
It is not my truth until I can feel it in my bones,
until it stems from the very core of my being and belief,
until it rules every conviction of mine,
and goes past that to overpower my very existence.
My journey and only my journey matters to me.
My truth and only my truth can be the truth for me.
I exist only in me.
I can think you exist.
I am even sure you do.
But you see,
you exist as what I can see you as.
You exist as a reflection of my truth.
Of my comprehension of you.
You exist as how my life has taught me to see you.
Go your journey dearest in search of your truth if you will.
But do not ask me why i have no role models.
Call it my arrogance or your ignorance,
Be shocked at my honesty in only acknowledging my truth as the highest.
Or the fact that my truth changes as my perceptions do.
My truth will be MY highest as only I can stand by it.
You are free to stand by your truth.
But, do not be angered because I can believe harder in my truth
and that I am neither overpowered by yours nor willing to bow my head to it.
Instead raise your conviction of your truth to match my conviction in mine.
So that our individual truths can set us free and light a flame in the other.
Together we shall then walk hand in hand.
Two free individuals sharing our varied journeys.

-- Srividya Srinivasan - 6.7.2010

Love of a different kind.

Different people touch our lives in different ways.

Some people are like solid pillars, unquestioningly there for you,right beside you when you need them.People you can call at any time of the day and night over any number of years. People, you need not explain yourself to and whom you can depend on more than you can sometimes in yourself. You are simply connected with them for life. Some quietly prod you to move, gently correcting you but never letting you down. They censor your actions with a gentleness and genuine understanding and affection and you always surprise yourself by changing yourself for them cos its simply so beautiful to do so.Some provoke you into thinking, into discovering aspects in you that you never knew existed.Some come like a storm bringing a world of new things and simply change your world upside down. Some bring laughter and warmth when they come in and teach you how to care. To look at life with a different energy, ease and flow. Some show their care through some brisk act of solidarity and hate a hug or a kiss and shudder at the very thought of sentiment.Fiercely protective of your interest and welfare, they love you and are completely with you except that you should never state it or sentimentalize over them.

And there are those who care and simply don't know how to show they do.They run a mile when you need them, block you out when you reach out and then unexpectedly turn up and show such immense love and affection when you least expect them to.You can never think you know them, never reach out to them when you need them,assume that you are important enough for them to show they care. You will never be their priority and can never be sure about them. They will always let you down all your life and it is up to you to choose to strengthen yourself by not getting hurt each time. They teach you the most important lesson of it all - the lesson of indifference and the loss of ego. They teach you vulnerability, insecurity, anger and finally acceptance. They teach you to love with a different intensity and flavor.Initially you are angry, hurt, confused about their behavior. At a brilliant point, you realize that loving them is accepting them the way they are. Loving them is accepting the fact that they will never be there for you but you will always want to be there for them. They teach you to give and learn not to ask in return.It would make no difference to them even if you ask.They will treat your love and your reaching out with complete indifference. Accepting to love them is accepting the fact that they will care and express their care only when and if it suits them, and in ways that will suit them and not when you need them.They teach you to love with absolutely no expectations.It is love of the hardest kind but the most beautiful and the purest. Thank you for touching my life this way.

Everyone has someone !

Everyone has someone.
You have everyone.
Friends drop in.
Add some cheer.
Cook a meal.
Clean a bit.
Then they disappear.
To their cosy lives
and fireplaces.
To wives and husbands
and cuddles in bed.
And at night.
you stare at the
fireplace. Alone.

Everyone has a wedding.
You are there too.
You are on everyone's list.
To help.
Popular are you?
Everyone is calling out for you.
You are the one to take their pictures.
And in the night
you are with your thoughts, fears and hopes.
You stare at the fireplace.
Alone.

Everyone has a baby.
Laughing lovely babies.
Everyone is a daddy
Everyone is a mom.
The kids love you.
You are the only uncle around
who is not a dad.
The only aunt around who is free.
You are on everyone's list.
Popular are you?

Women come and women go.
None to warm your heart and soul.
Your hands reach out and find
the dent beside you in the bed
was your own.
made the night before.
Men come and men go.
Kisses and cuddles galore
but who has the courage to
go for more?

You measure the yards from
home to work
from work to home.
Every free meal at a friend's has
you running for more.
You are on everyone's list.
Popular are you?
It is either the dog or you !
And at night.
you stare at the fireplace.
Alone.

You are cold.
You are dead.
You want a cuddle.
You want a kiss.
You want the warmth.
You want the laughter.
You want the woman.
You want the man.
You want the child
who is not there.
They are laughing.
They are partying.
Everyone has someone

At night.
as you stare at the fireplace,
you have grown old.
And your faded eyes
give your pain away.

They are laughing.
They are partying.
Everyone has someone
and you have no one.
but Who cares?

---- Srividya Srinivasan, 11.4.2010

Thank you.

Two simple words.
And I am saying it with all of me.
They mean a lot.
You have wiped away a million moments
of pain and loneliness.
A million moments of being read wrong.
In that few moments of being understood
you have given me something most precious
that no one has ever gifted me.
The gift of being just understood.
I am special in my eyes today.
Linked to myself and my God.
You have made feel proud of journey.
About being 'me'
Thank you.

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

The rebel lives on

Like a phoenix, 

the rebel rises again and again,

refusing to listen to the voice of defeatism, 

beating its tired but strong wings, 

for that familiar magnificient flight 

in stormy skies fraught with challenge.

The rebel lives on.

- Srividya Srinivasan 

Death of a rebel

My mind oscillates no more.
The imaginary pendulum has stopped its swinging....

I did not go the well travelled roads that the world
assured me were the safest 
and braved it through the storm
armed with nothing but my intuition and guts to guide me.

The well travelled roads had nothing to offer
but safety and mediocrity.
But, if I had gone its ways I may have even been happy.
And so would the world have been.
That, it had stilled yet another rebel.

I took the unknown ways...
I have only myself to blame
and faced the shame.
New and untried adventures assailed me,
I tried wrestling with my wits,
and my courage was tested,
as at each stage the world watched
with bated breath,
to rejoice at my failures.
I never came out of it all,
glorious in my victory ,
masterful and strong .
And I never won the victory 
For the world to mourn my success.

The choice is no longer left to me now.
And the risk was just not worth it after all.

- Srividya Srinivasan Sept 2008 

-------------------------------------------------------------

THE ETERNAL QUESTION


My mind oscillates.
The imaginary pendulum swings....

Should I go the well travelled roads that the world
assures me are the safest ?
or
Should I brave it through the storm armed with nothing but
my intuition and guts to guide me ?

The well travelled roads have nothing to offer
but safety and mediocrity.
It shall bring me no fame or name.
But if I go its ways I may not be happy.
Neither will the world be.
But it shall rejoice that it has stilled yet another rebel.

But if I take the unknown ways...
I shall have only myself to blame
and face the risk of shame.
New and untried adventures shall assail me,
I shall wrestle with my wits,
and my courage will be tested,
as at each stage the world would watch
with bated breath,
to rejoice at my failures.
I may come out of it all,
glorious in my victory ,
masterful and strong .
And I may be supremely happy
as the world mourns my success.

But the choice is left to me.
My mind oscillates.
Should I risk it ?

- Srividya Srinivasan May 1994

Welcoming the baby

He had made up his mind. His knotted hands trembled as he clutched the precious seeds in the palm of his sweaty hands. He had heard his son and daughter-in-law whispering in the dark, a few days back. ‘Where do we put the baby?’ The utter helplessness in their voices had put the idea into his head. At first, he had wished it away. Unbidden it came, again and again. Pushing its way to the surface of his consciousness; until he was forced to acknowledge it for what it was – a master solution.

As his feet trudged over the cracked earth, the heat waves hit his face and made his weak eyes water and blur. He walked on resolutely. The faces on the way were grim. Not a single drop had fallen from the skies for days. For months. He passed by a crowded house. The wailing had just started. He forced his mind not to think. To imagine how it be. Soon. Now they would lower the body. The wailing would start. The beating of the chest. The thumping of the drums. The rhythmic death dance. A few flowers purchased on credit and a few wild flowers thrown in for free. Then, the government would step in. An official would come - usually a thin reedy man with a trembly voice awkward in his responsibility. He would give a cheque after a short speech, which would be drowned in the wailing. Then the family would feast. Eat after maybe days. There would be a few photographs taken. Sometimes, the local politician would join in, if he felt it would add to his mileage.

His face or behaviour gave no clue of what was running in his mind. He wiped his dry dusty feet on the dry dusty mat and went in. The poor girl was almost done. Well into her pregnancy. His eyes shifted vaguely trying to avoid looking at her helpless face. She served him the meagre portion of the gruel.

In the night, he woke up to the dry heat and moans of labour. His daughter-in-law was trying her best not to disturb him by stifling the cries of pain. He knew the time was right. He put the tiny pellet into his mouth and then lay down again. The last he knew was the wail of the baby as it came into the world.

At dawn, they found him dead. The precious seeds for the next season clutched tightly in his hands. The house that could only hold three people had a place for the baby now. The wailing started. Both, from the new born baby and for the dead.

The rains came, as they started the death dance.

The lone eagle flies

The lone eagle flies

high above. 

reveling in the height,

the sheer joy of the view.

Seeing the world far below.

Proud of its aloneness.

And ruggedness.

The feathery white clouds

stealthily enroached 

and enveloped it

in its white softness.

Wonder what became 

of the eagle ?