Poetry as image-lines, poetry as thought-lines. Poetry as a learning, a new experience. Poetry as rasa, shabda, dhvani, akshara and alankar. Where the pathshala of poetry? Can poetry be taught in a pathshala? How the grammar, alphabet of it? How the sur-madhuri, swara-madhuri? The manna of man, the playfield of poetry, what is it happening within? The fickle and abnormal mind of man, how to read it? How to relate to art forms? Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci, Bob Dylan with the guitar, Pablo Picasso’s paintings, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Mozart’s symphony, Hare Rama Hare Krishna Movement and its exponents, where the Bohemians, gypsy bands, youths bewildered and lost, digressed and deviated, lost in love, romance and waywardness, marijuana, drugs, narcotics and alcohol, seeking for emancipation, recuperation, spiritual pleasure? How to find solace and comfort in,

Hari Om, Hari-Hari, Om-Om, Hari-Hari, Om-Om, Hari Om? Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Rama-Rama, Krishna-Krishna, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Krishna-Krishna, Rama-Rama. Where does the path of life go to, how to say it, neither you know nor I myself? Shyama sangeet, how to make you hear it? How does the murali of Kanhaiya keep breaking tunes and melodies? How the Dark Divine, Mother Kali, the Statue of Hers? In search of Shiva, whereto, to Kailash, Mansarovar? Where Amarnath, the icicles forming the Shivalingam naturally? Where the Kamakhya temple with the Nilachala Hills and the Brahmaputra flowing? I am keeping the statue of Nataraja Shiva in my dressing room.

Mahakal, Kaleshwar, Shiva, the Jyotirlingas, how to describe them? The Shiva-Sati story and the Shaktipithas? What the case of Sabrimala? Who there to tell about Mumbadevi? Tell you about Balaji. The Jagannath Puri temple, why is it called the swarga-dwara? The Konark Sun temple, how was it when it was made? Why can we not say more about its construction and the kings who made it? Where the Vishnu temples? Neel Madhav, Neel Mahadev, how to tell the tales of them? Nageshwara is Shiva, the lingam emitting light. Nagamani is but the mythic side of sadhna and it indicates the facets of sadhna.

The diya burning on the mazar of a Pir takes us to Sufistic philosophy and Sufism. The allopath doctor with the Cross sign in his chamber and the placard revealing, “I treat, He cures” takes to Jesus Christ and his gospels, service to man is service to God. The song of the Karmayogin sing I, O, wayfarer, your karma is your dharma. But like I not to be conservative, orthodox and fanatical.

Where The Mayor of Casterbridge? Is it not Hardy himself? How could he choose a younger partner as for the second choice? How would have Milton burnt the midnight oil as for writing Paradise Lost and accomplishing? How would he have dictated the portions to his daughters when he lost his eyesight? From whom did Eliot learn Sanskrit? Was Yeats a critic of Tagore as he attempted a constructive criticism? Had Hughes been envious of Plath? Was Plath a nervous girl? A daddy’s daughter, she had been a psychoneurotic patient. But Hughes too had been a violent husband.

How to regain our lost innocence? How to live and smile with the flowers? We have forgotten to live and smile with them. How to be so much tense and anxiety-laden? Try to dismiss and discharge you the pressure of living. Maintain you the style of living, the art of living. Try to keep you stress-free and for this you need to do meditation freeing all the tension of the mind, forgetting you yourself who you are, what your existence, concentrating the mind on the Supreme Soul to relax and refresh you yourself as if you exist, the world and if you do not, the world is not yours and you not for the world. Try to be content and satisfied. Never complain you against what you have, what you do not have. 

Sometimes I feel it, had I been able to do something for humanity, it would have been great, but sorry to say I have not done anything. What have I, say you? I have nothing for humanity. What have I for family I belong to or come from? What have I for the society I live in? And what have I for the nation I am from?

Who am I? Where am I from? What my path, the path of life? Where am I from? Where to go in the end? Am I a traveller?

What the relationship between I and You, You and I? Can I be imagined in the negation of You and vice versa? What the interrelationship in between?  Shivoaham Shivoaham Shivoaham, I am Shiva, I am Shiva, I am Shiva, Shiva am I, Shiva am I, Shiva am I, I Shiva, I Shiva, Shiva I, Shiva I. I in search of Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Satyam shivam sundaram, what it satyam, what shivam, what sundaram is definitely our aesthetic and moral view of life, a combination of truth, goodness, beauty.

We are not modern only for poetry, but for so many things. The modern age is modern in many ways which, but we cannot say it at one go. We are modern for progress and development, science and technology, engineering and skill, information and communication, transport and conveyance, means and resources. Had the radio, the cinema, the theatre, the press, the offices, the telegraph, the newspaper, the post-office, the court and the buses been not, could we have been modern? Had there been not schools and colleges? Had the rail lines been, could we have been? Had the electricity been not, the world would not have been what it is today. Had the roads, dams and bridges been not, could we have? The cold storages, sewing machines, watches and pesticides too have shown the things otherwise. 

Poetry, creative poetry. How to write poetry? Can poetry be taught? Or, is it in-born? We do not how to answer it. Whatever be that, there must be the urge, the impulse to write and create, to add something  new. To be a writer of poetry is to be after poetry. Without delving deep into a poet’s world, one cannot be a poet and that too without dabbling into words. Something also it depends upon reading and studies, something upon hearing of stuffs. Something it depends on perception and the sense of observation. Something it is related to sensuousness and sentimentality. There must be someone to inspire you or give company to you. Sometimes talent too gets it destroyed. There must be someone to nurture and nourish it. Do the wild blooms not look beautiful? The yakand blooms, datura blooms, palash blooms, simul blooms?

Have you seen the beauty of the palash trees during spring in the hills of the plateau? Go and see and then say it to me. It falls heat, the sun seems to be getting hotter day by day and the cuckoos cooing from the leafless trees but clustered with the ornate, florid palash blooms. Cuckoos coo madly from the herald of spring with Vasant Panchami to the celebration of Holi and even thereafter. Palash blooms too seem to be in a mood of celebration with the winds of Falgun. The blue-blue hills shining blue or hazy under the sunshine, but dotted with the orange flames, the flames of the forest looking so lovely. But sorry to say we have destroyed them all. The hills lie strewn as stone pieces by the railway tracks and the skyscrapers we have built though we need the houses too for to dwell in. We have always lived in fear from scorpions, snakes, elephants, lions, bears, jackals, hanumans and other wild beasts and venomous things to safeguard us and for those means we seem to be. The furies of Nature have always baffled us, the tornadoes, typhoons, whirlwinds, bolts from the blue, cloudbursts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, cold waves, wild fires and so on. But that shaped it otherwise in terms of urbanization, industrialization and modernization.

Time passes by, but memory lingers on and the experiences which but  life teaches us one forgets it not, carries it along to gather courage and strength. How had it been the towns then and how are they now? How had it been the bazaars? How the ways leading to, lonely and deserted? Even then we used to see one Sahityalankara from a Hindi Vidyapeeth claiming for headmastership while the submissive M.A. maintaining silence to give him a pass over as for who come into a tussle with the blunt fellow? The Hindi professor used to ask us to use Mahashay and Kya main under yaa shakata hun? in Hindi rather than in English, Sir and May I come in? But definitely he would have read the English critics in his M.A. We used to smile on hearing them, so with a small mentality.

The Santhal Parganas so dotted with the hills, the chains of hills once used to be full of the blooms and their clusters seconded by the sweet cooing of the blackly cuckoos and the heat beginning to fall. It was a beauty to see the vultures perched on the leafless branches of the simul trees, but full of bulging red blossoms. The downs in between the hilly ranges used to be manless and there in between the hills the rivulet used to flow and murmur, chattering and babbling by the pebbles. In that loneliness there used to be none barring the shepherds and herdsmen and the cattle grazing far from.  By the trees of the banks of the rivulet we used to sit and see the course of the rivulet with a musical murmur passing over the pebbles and the rocky bases going down the ups and downs.

Sometimes while passing through the countryside from one village to another at summer day noontime, crossing over a long distance on foot, we used to come across the skulls grinning, looking like the theologians, lying on the white sands even after averting the gaze utmost, seem to be murmuring and we used to stride along fearfully in a huff on marking loneliness all around the secluded place, the tract so lonely and awesome, almost bereft of men and animals.  But what to do as for the visit to be taken? We had no option but to visit the relative’s house. That was but a time.

The love of flowers we cannot discern it as because flowers are our life. Flowers are the things of joy and happiness. The Divine Joy one may find it in childish innocence and tenderly blooming flowers. Sometimes when we pass by and see the laburnums decorating the roadside with the flowers in full bloom, the golden chains hanging by or in the form of natural wreaths, the heart dances with joy. What a Divine sight to see, how natural is it! Whose are these garlands, God’s of Nature’s gifts we feel it within! Mother Tara, with the red tongue out of the lips, with a dribble of blood, how to view the image? Tara looking beautiful in the midst of the red hibiscus flowers, may be the painter’s pleasure. Tantricism is good, an experimentation with the Supernatural Divine, the Nocturnal Force, but to invoke or see with a balance is the main thing which but many fail to keep in command, often get misled in the end. 

The ancient times had been of olden thoughts and ideas. Can you ever guess about the guru-dakshina of Eklavya? What sort of teacher had he been? How had it been the love of the tribal boy? But ask we, why did he ask for from him? He too should not have given to. The gurus had been so rigorous and strict. 

In our times too the teachers used to beat mercilessly, but it was withdrawn later on when the ban was imposed upon with strictures, the olden teachers desisted from caning. Some used to rub the ear-lobes red, used to beat black and blue with the whipping raining upon the back. Many had to stand holding the ears on the last benches. Many had to stand in the strong sun and holding the ears they used to do some sit ups and downs. Strict classical rules loved I not, admired it too not. Catholicism is not my cake to cut.

Have you thought about the Kashmiri pundits? Driven from their homes, where have they been living? In refugee camps and shelters? Do the politicians feel about them? Should they have divided the Punjab and Bengal as thus? Say, who bore the brunt of? The Punjabis and the Bengalis, the Sindhis and the Pundits? Ask the Chakmas and the Hajongs. Hear from them. Try to hear their version. The Partition of India was but a blunder for which there cannot be any excuse for it. Did the politicians feel guilty of? Did the fanatics and fundamentalists? Only the satanic men can go along such lines of division and partition. At least human beings cannot do it at all. How to reach Ladakh and Leh and view the world lying beyond the borders? Which route takes to where?

Poetry from the Indian point of view, shringaric, hasya-vyangyakatamak, full of raag-viraag, swara-madhuri, full of prem, haas-vilaas. What is shringar? Shrigar is decoration, ornamentation, beautification. What is vakrokti? It is the oblique approach. Poetry is samalochana, the samalochana of life. Dhvani, what to say about poetic dhvani? It may be sweet and harsh too. The grammar of poesy is no doubt stricter. But sweet sentences too are poetry. 

An Indian bride in sholah shrinagars, it is really a beauty to see her. What are those sholah shringars for it we shall have to take expert help with jewellers, beauticians and decorators. There is no dana like kanya-dana but we understand it not. We know it not, feel it not internally. When a bride leaves for her in-laws’home, have you ever felt the tears welling up and trickling down the cheeks of hers? First, see you and then say to me. Anamika’s love, the unnamed maiden’s love, have you ever felt it? Have you ever felt the life of the theatre girl moving from one countryside vacant ground to another when the fair seems to be shifting with poles and things loaded and packed to be placed on the carriers and carts?

What to take during the corona period? Do take you pure things sometimes to keep the body and mind fit. Sometimes milk tea with a spoon of cream, sometimes  with  cardamom bits, sometimes with tulsi patta boiled. Sometimes you may go for leaf tea without milk. Sometimes you may without milk, raw tea with lemon juice and a pinch of black salt or raw tea with ginger boiled with. A spoon of chyawanprash with a cup of warm milk in the morning may help you  regain strength. Clarified butter smeared hand-made loaves of bread during the night time with vegetables will invigorate you. After the food, you may curd, sweet or sour after pouring sugar or salt. Salad, sauce and chutney, pickle, whatever it appears tasty, take you.  If nothing available, one may a few tulsi patta in the morning or two cloves of garlic. One may some tulsi patta with honey too. Germinated and soaked grams, pea seeds or moongs in the morning with rice puffs slices of onion and green chilly as breakfast in the morning or the evening.

Hashya, is something different and without it one cannot as the  elements of it are necessary too. Can one without smile, laugh, laughter, guffaw and chuckle? Sometimes one fails to keep under check as poem untoward or unexpected behaviour or mannerism makes one burst into and you cannot hold. Have you seen laughing holding the stomach? Have you someone smiling and thinking within? A laughing club is not the talk of mine nor the announcer caricaturing to make you laugh. How to lessen the pressure of modern life when we have forgotten to smile and laugh and even laugh we, we laugh but critically in a sarcastic way giving critical smiles and caustic laughs. How to keep tension free as the country joker too is not? The bahurupis, Indian showmen used to play the street performance with chor-sepoy, the sepoy pulling the rope tied from the waist of the chor, thief and he trying to flee and he following, going after to show that he  was a thief who had committed theft. Sometimes he used to come or dawn upon as a postman with the post-cards to, we mean the dead letters to give and take to in the khaki uniforms which but you cannot doubt  sent directly from the post-office. Sometimes he used to come upon all of a sudden in the uniform of a policeman running after a criminal to be caught and the criminal looking shabby and clumsy with the ruffled hair running for cover holding a knife into his hands looking so desperate and fierce in life. But we could not why did he turn into a criminal and why the other man into a policeman and the other a lawyer arguing for after taking the fees. Who is whose lawyer, we do not? Who is what? Who Shylock, Antonio, Portia?  God knows, who is what? Who comes in what disguise? Who a criminal, who a guard? Who becomes what, how to say it? How the drama of life? How its theatre? How the dramatic personae? Who the script-writer of this play of life? Whose role who is given, assigned to?

How do the people keep beards? You do not know. Have you seen goatee beards? One middle-aged person perhaps in the fifties or the forties with the French-cut beard, a little bit over the chin and he sporting it going to with an attaché in the hands, crossing the town  square. Looking handsome-handsome and grave, but with a little hair on the head and his moustache too is dyed, he is going his way. Some dye the beards brown and some half-white and half-black. Some keep the flowing beards. Some young men are trying the beard oil to grow it longer. Some dark-complexioned maidens, have you seen them? They have turned into brown ladies after applying the face cream or lotion. Today the people are after the ads and this is a world of ads. Apply you beard oil and grow your beard. But the longer moustache twirled and twisted I admire it not, giving the Thakore, Thakore image of the dreaded Indian bandit with the rifle. In the past the dacoits used to come to raid the houses of the rural people who had jewellery and gold, brass, pewter and silver things. With the moustache twirled and twisted, what goon are you, friend?

God, save me, save from Indian English poets, save me, save me, God from the poetasters, rhymers, commoners and non-poets calling  themselves poets, the poets not merely, but the great poets of India, God, my God, save me, save me from them, they are coming, coming! Let me, let me hide it somewhere. I see Indian Shakespeare, Indian Herrick, Indian Herbert, Indian Wordsworth, Indian Keats, Indian Tennyson, Indian Arnold, Indian Eliot, all going to attend the poetry conference, Kavita Festival. I seeing from far, hiding in behind the statues of Dryden and Pope and taking the photos of the people strutting and walking on tiptoe.

The joker minister, what to say it about if a rustic turns into all of a sudden? He will not think himself less than a rajah. You will hear him saying that he had been to Harvard, California, Chicago to deliver lectures to management guys and it was a great success. What the educated cannot do he has in life. The dalals and chamchas of his too keep cringing him with garlands and bouquets of flowers. Actually, it should be, mukhyamantri ki jai, mukhyamantri ki jai, mukhyamantri zindabad, mukhyamantri zindabad, but murkhamantri ki jai, murkhamantri ki jai, murkhamantri zindabad, murkhaantri zindabad! Murkhamantri taking a glass of lassie, sherbet and advertising it in foreign, how comical and rustic is he, you can guess from it! 

The Ph.D. guides, thesis matters and the scholars, what to say it about? Which is whose, how to conclude it, which is from where? Somewhere the guide helps the scholar not, somewhere the scholar wants it not to labour. Somewhere one can be found doing one’s degree just for promotion. Many want it not, but  become doctorates. Some of the brokers of the varsity sirs and the older students too have turned into Ph.D. dealers who can do dalali as well as can help you miraculously which you will not believe it as we know it sometimes bureaucracy helps it not, but implicates it the common matters as for ego, pride and hypocrisy. The library men thinking themselves big  officers never could we appreciate it. There are many who have kept books, cleaned and maintained but never have they claimed anything else for their services. 

The toothless smiles of Bapuji the smiles of simplicity, that want I not to talk of as because I always draw from it, remember it so often. A child smiling toothlessly draws my attention to, a crow taking a bath at summer day.

Stealing the moon, have I thought about you, have I thought to run away from here, plucking the  stars, clutching it into the fist want I want to put into the braid of your hair. Chandramukhi, I love you, love you; I like you, I like you, darling! Chandni, you are my love; Chandni, you are my love. The feelings of the heart, how to describe them? How the dreams of love? The moonlit nights do not let me sleep, the sweet memories of yours, the sweet talks of yours! Under the  night full of mist falling and the rajanigandha sticks blooming, how to tell of your redolence? The song of love, every heart wants to sing it. The song of love, you too sing it, I too sing it. Suppose you a young miden named Rajanigandha, a fairly tall white beauty is standing before, no less than the flower.

Poetry as chitralekha, hieroglyphs, have you thought about? Suppose you, just suppose you Chitralekha is a young maiden standing before you, saying it not everything about a Chinese script version, the gestures and postures saying it and she emerging as one interpreted through symbols and signs.  Can you draw the fair sky? The wordless sky, how to script it?

Six seasons, summer, rainy time, light winter, winter, autumn and spring have the features of their own.  During summer, the loo does the rounds in the hills and the plains too, the heat wave seems to be sucking blood, drying up and the winds swirl and play at noonday while the huts and mud houses burn with heat and humidity. It appears to be perspiring, the earth seems to be burning with heat, the river bed appears to be difficult to cross. But the cool shades of the banyan and the peepul, the groves and orchards, we cannot sidetrack, the cool draughts taken from the earthen pitchers kept on sands full  with cold water. The water bodies with rocky layers are so cooler to cool you down. You have salad, cucumber and water melon and curd beat it down. Take you lassie, a glass of lassie or sherbet to beat the hot Indian summer.

Forget it not that summer has no flowers. Summer has most beautiful flowers, you can gulmohars blooming in clusters, yellowish red, reddish yellow hanging as orange colour ones, dodging the morning sunbeam and the twilight, hanging as fire flames or reminding us of the brides to be married, tied by a nuptial tie or wedding or the  towelled saat feras to be taken after, the seven rounds around the holy fire taking it to be a godly witness. The jaruls what to say about the purple jaruls standing in contrast to the azure? The roadside creeper bellis fragrance the passers-by during the night time as and when the gusts of the wind carry it the fragrance, wisps and whiffs of sweet redolence coming down. But tell you not some spooky tale attaching with the presence of a jinn beauty trying to entice and hypnotize or haunt you. The golden champas, what to say it about? The gandharajas, so florid? The raat-ranis doing the rounds with their rounds and spells, is really a dream girl, you might have imagined in your dreams and kissing you in sleep. 

After a spell with heat, dust and humidity, comes it Kalbaishaki, the  Nor’wester ruffling it all as a forerunner of, but finally the rains come lashing in with the monsoon knocking at door, it raining and the clouds hanging over the hills during the months of Asadha,  Shravana and Bhadra. The continuous rains sometimes result in the flooding of the areas, the low lands and the marshes. When it rains and the weather seems to be cloudy, the kingfisher calls and fishes braving the rough weather.

After the exit of the rainy time, the kaash blooms dot the highlands and seulis start blooming to be strewn with the dew drops and all these tell of the coming of the Sharodatsav. The sacred mantras from the Chandipatha will do the rounds and purify, chastise the atmosphere, the environment which is but Bhagabati’s time. Have you heard the Chandipatha? There is some to be felt in the invocation. The Motherly Consciousness, how to awaken it? How to see the Creation with awe and wonder! The sacred and sacrosanct mantras take us to a higher pedestal of thinking.  Only with a heart full of reverence can approach Her. The season will change and will pave the way for.

Again, winter will come with the shivering cold, fog ad mist. The cold winds will keep lashing the doors and windows and man will shiver with cold. Get you ready with blankets, woollen clothes, coats and jackets. When the winter used to be severe with the cold winds lashing from all the open sides, we used to sleep on the straw beds in order to warm or sit by the fireside. Sometimes in the country homes we used to keep the firewood embers with the ashes in an earthen pot below the rope cot. A foggy winter morn, how to admire the beauty and mystery of it? While in the country homes by the riverside, you will fail to see who is coming from the other side of the bank. Even the sun struggles to clear forth its light.

How do the leaves flutter and fall during the autumn? How do the trees shed their olden leaves? When the reddish buds of leaves come out, those buds fail the flowers in colouring and paint.

A poem may be about art and artistic things, sculptures and crafts. Bapuji ke tin bandar, bura mat dekho, bura mat kaho, bura mat shuno, it may be a replica or an emblem with the three monkeys in a sitting pose with the hands over the eyes, over the lips and the ears in order to see, say and hear it not wrong. Do not speak you bad, do say you bad and do not hear you bad, this is but a tale of Gandhian disciple. A poem may be a picture, an image of Gandhi striding with the stick, in dhoti and shawl and the specs over the eyes, the Great Old Man of India, the Father of the Nation. It can be about the khaddadhari Congress leaders and the freedom fighters. But who did politics for what, who fought for what, I cannot say it about as because are but after all human beings and we have the selfishness of our own as many drew many for being a freedom fighter and many drew it not and it is very difficult to say who is honest and who not. A poem may be about the Gandhian studies and Gandhian scholars. What will it engage us none can say it.

The Kurds, who are the Kurds? How their faith and culture? Where do they live? How their dreams of Kurdistan? The Parsis, who are they, where they from? Where their fire temples? How the Towers of Silence?

Honesty is the best policy, I have been hearing it for so long and really honesty pays it in the end, but to attempt a constructive criticism of it is to say sometimes pays it not. First, say you, who is honest, who dishonest? Are we really honest and even if we, how much is the question? Ask you, ask I. One who is content and complacent is honest. One who has not is dishonest. Are the honest given? Or, just after their death as consolation prizes, posthumous awards? Say, who is not selfish? Who is not for the chair? Who is not for power? Who can hand it over to without any grudge that too with a feeling of renunciation? All are not Buddhas, Bhartriharis. Read the Abdication Speech of Edward VIII of England who abdicated as for going out of the royal lineage in choosing a common girl. History forgets often these types of fellows, just remembers the notorious ones. Abraham Lincoln, how to make a word-portrait of his? Edmund Burke’s speech we still search for the copy.

Is Keats’ Lamia a Nagakanya, a Vishkanya? Is Coleridge’s a jinn girl? Dr.Faustus’ kiss of Helen, is it the kiss of Marlowe? I too am reading Kubla Khan and thinking of the kiss of the burqawalli mistress. A burqawalli atop the railway footbridge of the platform crossing over to is the picture of mine, the photograph taken and archived in my heart, sending the message, dekho magar pyar se, see me but with love. Do they kiss, do they love, I confuse in thinking about? Miss Burqawalli is my shadow, my walking shadow and wherever go I, she keeps following me. The burqawalli’s black and white photograph I love it the most. Saudi Arabian women too have started doing yoga as for to keep up in healthy spirits mentally as well as physically, taking it to be a sport.

I am to give to the world, I shall not take anything from you, this should be the philosophy of life.  And if you have to take, take you. I am here to give to you.

Where one’s matribhumi, where karmabhumi, I know it not the difference. Who can say it that it will not be his mritayubhumi? The place I live is my land, I believe in that as because who has seen the future? The birthplace not, but the land of action is it all. You say it to me, who will give me food? Who will the house to live in? And if I die, will my body be taken to the land of my birth? And even if, the villagers will only ask for the feast.

Kalpana, do you kalpana and the imaginative power is it all. Imagination is the power with which you can do it all. You can dream and fly. Suppose you Miss Memory is standing before with a handful of the flowers to offer to as her tribute to the someone loved one who is  no more in this world, the flowers of reverence, respect, a homage to, in the memory of which it is not forgotten, the heart remembers it. Flowers of reverence, where to put it with the teardrops falling from the eyes? The photograph is the memory. How the singer of Rama singing the songs of Rama invisibly? Do the dead go to the bosom of  Rama?  The Singer of Rama is but a kindred soul, lost love personified.  Anand-Mela, Anand-Ashrama are just the meeting centres where the aspiring ones want to meet, but the meeting is ordained it otherwise, never possible. Anand-shrama is the imagery of an ashrama of delight and happiness, but that very happiness is not perennial and appears to be short-lived. In Anand-Mela, Fair of Delight, everybody comes, besides the loved one, the lost fellow whom the heart searches it most. Perhaps he will not come, he will not meet me, is the answer. God’s Anand-Ashrama, where is it? Where Your Ashrama of Delight, where there is no pain, no remorse for anything else?

Indian dehati girls, village girls, you will laugh to hear their names, Gobar, Cow-dung, Kali, Blackie, Bijali, Current, Kenti, Thinnie, Bhagjogini, Glow-worm, but so full of love and sympathy too. Some of the Indian names beautiful, Chandramukhi, Beli, Chameli, Champa, Mira, Radha, Yasodhara, Yasomati, Malati, Rajani.

You know yourself the best and never care you to know the others. Go and see the glass factory workers and labourers. Have you ever visited the saw mills? Have you ever felt the miners trapped in the coal mines?

We see the dressing room but without the red roses and posies, but with the plastic flowers appearing to be marvellously natural. It is also a fact they dry it away so soon and it is not easy to bring them daily. The parks also lie in with the cement-made kangaroos, lions and deer but the animal habitats bereft of, forest lie it deserted and destroyed and cleared. How to think about the eco balance? Sometimes we fail to recognize the lilacs or laburnums made from plastic material or brought fresh from the gardens of Nature. When the cloth showrooms put on mannequins on display in the glass house attached to them, some used to confuse on taking in, plastic or real ones. The Bombayan villains fire with toy pistols to get Filmfare awards for their dreaded roles, but in reality they go on for making real villains all around us.  

My rustic love, where do you lie in pining? Just for the cosmetics, face power, bangles, face cream, lotion, hair oil, lipstick and imitation   stuffs, blackmail you her not. Entice her not with these. She is after all a tender girl. Break you not her heart. Play you not with her feelings.

The snake-charmers of India, how do they keep playing with the venomous cobras, have you seen, if not, go and see you? The wooden been instrument music is marvellously haunting which the Bombay film industry men too have copied from there. But I cannot prove it whether the cobras love music or not which but a zoology department teacher may tell it and if he too knows it not, the other experts will definitely as he cannot know more than fishermen, mahouts, stable-keepers, zoo-men and cloning scientists.

Dark is beautiful. The dark world’s dark history, what it to tell about? What it is dark will remain it dark. Everything is but shrouded in mystery and how to unravel that?

If you have to write, you may about pinda-dana, asthi-kalasha, you may about the devadasi, the temple serving maiden. If you have to write, you may about Nagamani. The Lingam-Yoni motif too can be taken. The widows of India too can be a topic. One may work on Patita, who but a fallen and degraded girl, unchaste and defiled and who Punita, chaste and pure? Do not call her a call girl as she is after all a woman. Lost love may be symbolic and penitent.

Shall I go away from the world one day? Is the world not my own? The  things that I see, are these not my own I think? Where my mother? Where my brothers? Where my father? Where my aunt? All have gone, gone away. Now it is my time to go, to go. 

The houses we have built, are those houses? How do the houses get built and how do they get destroyed? Time’s things time knows them well. What we the men to do with? Everything is but on lease as leased by time. Lands are not measured, but settled which we know it not and at the borders we often like to engage the opponents in firing.

The world that we see is a world of maya-moha, of illusion and hallucination. The world of maya, how to describe it?  Men are but the puppets of maya.

What is this samsar, of sukha or dukha? It is of both sukha and dukha. If sukha, happiness comes, dukha, sorrow is bound to be around as the cycle of it gets it repeated one after another.