Obituary

Shade-less reds

Bring depth

As the Dead

Hearts Wept

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Bunshin, 分身

They say the you in me hides behind the I that they can see.

How can I kill me and make you the only me?

For I am not me, they say.

For centuries, we have remained shadows of each other,

Constantly contemplating: “Is it you or I?”

Centuries more were spent on deciding

Who is the Ophelia and who the Sita is.

Can we exist together in two different worlds?

Or do we take turns?

 

Bunshin, he called us.

We were shunned, neglected and looked down upon.

Anomalies, as we were, and against nature.

Those were our tags.

Were we proud?

Maybe not.

Maybe.

Yes.

We were.

分身

 

And like that we walked across the veins and forests.

Bathed in blood, we swam out of the arteries.

Murderers, they called us.

But we said.

“Bunshin.”

“分身”

 

Linked by Karma, we were now tied through our souls.

Knotted a thousand times around your neck

As you hang dead from the ceiling of your cave.

We ate your flesh and drank your blood.

That does not make you Christ

And nor are we your disciples.

We are your slayers; that is the truth.

 

Marching towards our kingdom, we roared.

Bunshin!

分身!

Taking our revenge as we climbed to the throne,

We reached up to the man who ruled and asked him:

“Do you know who we are?”

“No”, he trembled.

“We were once violated by your words and deeds.

You called us lesser mortals.

So we decided to become gods for you.

So that you would know what it means to be less,

And not more.

You gave us our name

To deride us,

But we used it to unmake you.

We truly became our alter egos

To seek our soul’s revenge

We became Bunshin.

分身.”

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P.S. I have been asked a number of times about the meaning of Bunshin so here it is: Bunshin means a doppelganger, so to say. But here, it’s more like a doppelganger of the soul. Or at least that’s what I was imagining. The rest is up to your mind. Thank you! 🙂

The Fearless

Can I write something that will make me less you

And you a little more me?

 

Adding colours to our conversations

While dyeing it grey?

 

Words fail me as they lean on my barren imagination.

Deeds fail me as I fail to reach out. 

 

Today, can I be a little less me and a bit more you?

Because this world needs more of you and less of me .

©

Heart Lights

Sometimes inspiration comes from places you’ve never heard of. Sometimes, it comes and you don’t answer the door. Sometimes, a hand holding yours seems warmer than your mother’s bosom. Sometimes a kiss would mean the world to someone. Sometimes somebody would pick you up and show you your right place and price. Sometimes, these dreams seem futile.

I started to write because I wanted to improve my handwriting but for you it might be your dinner or your wildest dream come true. I wasn’t made a star but I was born one. I do not shine for all like the sun but I wink with sparkling eyes at that special person. Sometimes, you never find that special someone.

When I walk the streets they look at me for I just walked out of their dreams. They say “he is my inspiration” but I have none. I walk alone without any inhibitions. All I got is time, leisure and power. What I lack is will. Will I?

That was the question. That was always the question. Sometimes, you need to ask the right questions. Answers are irrelevant. Someone did say so but I guess I was too busy with the question to notice who it was.

I walked into the rain, I walked all along with the sun and I walked out of the snow: I was. No. I am Perfection. But doesn’t that mean that I lack nothing? I believe I don’t. I don’t.

They often talk about a thousand different memories. I sing about them and they echo my lyrics. But what about my memories which always had four walls of thickest concrete about them? Am I a prisoner? But I am the only one who has known true freedom. I am that person who can touch anyone as per his whims while no one can touch him unless he desires that touch. And yet, he remains untouched by humanity. Only perfection touches him. He became Perfection.

Like the Sphinx, like Tireisias, like the Ardhanaareeshwara, he was complete in himself. Yes, I lack nothing; I am complete.

But when I touched her, a droplet of crystalline blood spilt from her chalice and I realized my imperfection. And she, like a naiad from my wet dreams, vanished into a puff of cassia fumes. For the first time, I realized my incompleteness. I wandered like a Fakir in search of that true music of my soul. She was a soulful melody who danced to my Sufi heart’s rhythm.  I became a wandering sage and she became my melancholy. A happy melancholy. Transience became her eyes and through them I saw the Baul in me. My Iktara became I, me, myself.

And she talked to me for the first time. The ghunghroo of her feet matched my Damru’s joyful skipping of heartbeats.

Dugeun Dugeun.

My heart beats.

Dugeun Dugeun.

Her face seemed familiar for the first time and I recognized. It was she. My eyes, my ears, my taste, my smell, my touch, my emotions: it was all her. She was my all. She was me and I am she.

And I entered my trance, yet again. I was complete, again. I am complete, now. You are my inspiration. You are the light that illuminates the darkness of my heart.

Darkness, beautiful darkness.

 

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The Songbird’s Musings

Picking up my limbs as they kept falling down
While I walked to the end of perdition,
I hummed and your blood
Evaporated into an igneous effervescence.

Your memory floated in the solitary musings of the songbird
And I reminisced the ripples that shook your anatomy –
The divine rhythms of high Olympus
Rankled my sanity.

Your eyes, they were the end of my cognition
As I saw the two worlds unite in them
And I saw my world falling apart in them,
I fell into your abyss and ecstasy ruptured.

Do re mi fa so la ti
So sang my bird.

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