Musings

Existence
Unsolved mystery
This unbreakable code
Mocking
All our senses

Yet

Yearning
This hopeless yearning
Yearning to know
Neither feels insulted
Nor dies a silent death

Ponderings

I long for the sea
sheer mystery of it
The silent waves………carrying a story
Clashing
Breaking
Receding back……..to carry another one

Stories of incomplete lives
Broken hearts
And love unconsummated

Not only that
In some secret corner
From time immemorial
Carry tales of slaughter
Deceit
Lust
And caprice too

Their deadly silence
Holding so much violence
Dumbfounded by the utter noise of hatred
Possessing power to benumb the senses
Ironically
Bestow a strange sense of peace

Perhaps
Human optimism
In its extreme
Waiting to find in debris
Beginning of a new life.

महाम्हौपाध्याय डॉक्टर गोपीनाथ कविराज और काश्मीर्य शैव दर्शन

My first write-up in hindi

Sunday on the island of Elephanta: by Octavio Paz

I had been introduced to Paz way back in year 2000 but somehow never got to delve too much into his writings...probably because they have not been written in english...I remember finding him extremely profound and simple. The directness of his approach instantly appealed to me...
and when last night me and my husband got to read his poems i couldn't help but marvel at his style...
Moreover Elepanta holds a very special place in my heart...its the first arthistorical site that i visited with my department...i recall being completely floored by the over life size sculptures of siva in various lilamurtis...



Here is Sunday on the island of Elephanta by Paz trans by Eliot Weinberger.....hope every one enjoys it as much as i did

IMPRECATION:
At the feet of the sublime sculptures,
disfigured by the Muslims and the Portuguese,
the crowds have left a picnic of garbage
for the crows and dogs
I condemn them to be reborn a hundred times
on a dungheap,
and as for the others,
for eons they must carve living flesh
in the hell for the mutilators of statues

INVOCATION:
Shiva and Parvati:
we worship you
not as gods
but as images
of the divinity of man
You are what man makes and is not,
what man will be
when he has served the sentence of hard labor
Shiva:
your four arms are four rivers,
four jets of water.
Your whole being is a fountain
where the lovely Parvati bathes,
where she rocks like a graceful boat.
The sea beats beneath the sun:
it is the great lips of Shiva laughing;
the sea is ablaze:
it is the steps of parvati on the waters
Shiva and Parvati:
the woman who is my wife
and I
ask you for nothing, nothing
that comes from the other world:
only
the light on the sea,
the barefoot light on the sleeping land and sea.