I am no joker ...

I am just gonna be.
No longer god’s joker.
No imagined favourite child.
I am not going to gush
or jump in elation
every time I think I see his sign.
If he waves at me
I ain't waving back.
I am just gonna be.
His timing sucks,
his humour is worse.
If he thinks I am a bad sport
I don’t care.
I am just gonna be.
Tried talking to him last nite
Told him we are splitting.
Baby, he said with a grin,
You would be back.
Remember, I own the cards
and you are still my joker.
And ...
the joker never
becomes the queen.


- Srividya Srinivasan 18.11.2010

Pain ...

When there is nothing left in you to say,
it is better to say nothing at all.

-- Srividya Srinivasan

Life ...

I have moved when I should have waited,
Waited when I should have moved.
Believed when I should have given up,
Given up when I should have believed.
Been silent when I should have spoken,
Spoken when I should have been silent.
Said ‘No’ when I should have said ‘Yes’
and ‘Yes’ when I should have said ‘No’.
Smiled when I should have cried.
Cried when I should have smiled.
Risked when I should have played safe,
Played safe when I should have risked.
Acted smart when I was being dumb
Dumb when the world thought me smart.
Brave when I trembled inside,
Trembled when the world thought me brave.
Broken when people thought me strong,
Strong when they thought me weak.
Trusted when I was cheated,
Cheated when I was trusted.
Died when I should have lived,
Living when I could have died.


---- Srividya Srinivasan 23/09/2010

Dream lover ...

No more tears my darling
Shh, for I am here beside.
Hug me tight, my dearest
I am never gonna leave your side.

Let me wipe your tears
Let me erase the pain
From those who were before me
who wiped the child off ur face.

And when you are strong, I will smile
and watch you walk tall with pride
and turn to the world and say
that's her. she is mine.

When you are down, I will be beside
behind, ahead and all over you.
And when you want to walk alone
I will wait and watch
And when the woman turns into the lil girl
there I will be with my arms opened wide.

You come in with ur flirty smile
and as you turn around i smile
is it you or is it me
are we one ?

The tears remain.
The pain remains.
I am cold.
Beaten and bruised.
The scars remain.
You came in my dream
and left again.

Dream lover, were you ever mine ?

-- Srividya Srinivasan

Divinity of life

• The only divinity that can ever be in the natural order of things and in the physical structure of the universe.

• The only other divinity that ever can be is mutual respect and genuine love between humans, animals and plant life.

• Mutual respect that everyone has a different journey, a different perception of their journey and are at a different point in the journey. Never compare their journey unless to learn from theirs. If their journey is radically different from yours but worth exploring give it a shot as genuinely as you can and pursue or leave it if it suits you or doesn’t. It works for them. It does not work for you. It is no less genuine than yours. The way they see their journey may be different from you. If it interests you clue in else shut up. The same goes for the point in the journey. If they have journeyed ahead, catch up else shut up.

• Genuine love needs no explanation and has no fixed rules of expression

• Whatever happens, happens because of a natural cause and effect manifested at a large scale or a personal scale. What suits us is a miracle and what doesn’t is a calamity,

• Life is a series of cause and effect peppered with randomness. The cause and effect is unacceptable in reality as it demands accountability and a stop to manipulation. The human mind searches for coincidences as it is a useful tool for answers and it is the best prop for self brainwashing, social brainwashing and belief in the divine.

• Physical death is a natural or unnatural phenomenon just like birth and often perceived a calamity by the human mind. Physical death occurs due to cause and effect like murder, random/partial cause and effect like accidents, and natural aspects like disease or old age. There is no sin attached to any of the above. You die because you were born. You do not die as a punishment and heaven is not a reward.

• Gender is purely a biological difference and nothing else and be celebrated and intrigued over and finally accepted. Every other difference stated or used is only manipulative.

• All religion that ever was and will be will only be manipulative and false and is only social, moral and psychological brainwashing to make you weak, dependent and guilty. It is done to ensure safety of numbers and to remove your accountability in yourself and in your actions. This brainwashing is both external and internal. External by the world and religion to manipulate you and internal by you to use as a prop or an excuse or justification to act or not act in a particular manner.

• Every custom, every ritual will only divide or manipulate. Permit and accept only those that are fun, easy, that do not profess a deeper meaning or bring guilt in you because you have not done it in a particular way. If your child had fun it was a great festival. If it made your old man happy it was worth the effort. If it was a wonderful feast, enjoy it. Pretend along. But be clear that’s what it all was.

• Life is beautiful. Yes. It is. And living is a special experience. Just live it as it unfolds everyday without guilt, regret, fear or manipulation.
  
  

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