Poem !

See, the stars have begun to shine,
And the night seems to be peeping in,
I know I cannot hold it back,
….that one lingering sunbeam.

The birds on trees now make no sound,
The winds blow soft and cool,
The Silence sings its favourite song,
Shhh ...the Dark is back to rule.

In such lonely, unfilled hours
A curious gloom pervades…।
Edgy nerves capture me still...
….Some miracle's in the air...

Yes, and then it really goes on,
The stars get bright and clear,
The words, poignant, ooze out of the heart
My dream's about to appear..

Tiny, shiny flicks of light
Then fill in the world for me,
My day begins when the world’s asleep...
A poem’s born to me !

----Gayatri

The Rains !

It happened once; what? Let me tell you
The sky was blue and calm,
The day was smoothly running around,
It felt so bright and warm.

And then it started all of a sudden,
Together they swarmed up high,
The Blue was overlapped with the Black,
And the birds could hardly fly.

They thundered loud and flashed up there,
Just ready for the fray,
A minute or two, unable to wait,
They poured themselves away.

Big and bold and round and clean
The raindrops danced on leaves,
And filled the air with charm and cheer,
One could not help being pleased.

It goes on now again and again.
For days together in a row.
Now’s awaited the sunshine bright,
Just once for the pretty rainbow।

-----Gayatri

Get..set…..

It is now time to pack and head back. At moments, I am overwhelmed with the thought of leaving such a beautiful place at once. But then all my assets, all those ‘living’ assets, which I’d left there behind me have started using their magnetism and now I could not wait for the moment when my plane would land on my motherland.
These last seven months were like a fun-adventure- ride in an amusement park, called America, for me. It was sure to get over at some point of time, but it was full of fun, thrill, and most importantly, it taught me to think for the moment.
I would not now recollect how I went through all these days, but I am definitely locking them up in the most secured vault of my heart’s treasury. I, not only enjoyed here with my hubby and my Adi, but also learned many a things, knowingly-unknowingly, got a big chance to introspect and take a few table-turning decisions.
I realized with a bang that there’s a vast world outside ‘Me’ of which I’m just a trivial part. I should load myself with confidence and efficiency to enter the space. I should come out of my hatchet and join the big run with the think-alike I come across, let my mind accelerate on the top gear when it’s time to take decisions (the most difficult thing for me at the moment ).
And the most important thing is to mould my child, with conscious efforts, to face this world with a smile. Whatever qualities life demands for this, I must see to it that my Adi excels in all those.
This is definitely a turning point in my life in many known and unknown areas.
I’ve filled up fuel to my engine and given enough time to me for idling, now it’s time to change the gear and let my car enter the freeway, run on, until the desired exit.

To the Grand Canyon

Thy depths so fathomless for skies to reach,
I behold bewildered.
Thy unnerving, speechless ambition
to rule the earth
encircles, cunningly...
unknown of
what thou pulsating beast keep on
humming…
Yet every exhaling sigh
from those domineering depths
caresses me…
Surely, I don’t want to be.
Mesmerized although I am,
I want to leave with my salute to thee…
unhided but accepted, I know.

Me, the cook !

“This Saturday it’s going to be our place,” my hubby announced.
“Really…?” though I was aware this was going to happen someday…, I was even subconsciously waiting for it.., yet I could not escape the little shudder the news sent through my nerves.
We were going to have a small get-together of all the friends, we made after coming here. Last time it was Swapnil's place, this time we were going to be the hosts.
Actually, there was no need to panic, but this time it was ‘me’ who was going to “cook” and that was something that would worry my guests next time they would think of coming to our place.
“It’s potluck. Anu 's going to bring biryani,” ...one relief… “What will you cook?” another bombshell...
“I’ll make chhole…umm .. and Carrot halwa.” I readily came up with the answer…an outcome of so many days’ thought process.
Somehow, I felt confident about chhole…!

The whole week ahead brought back to me the familiar feeling that I always passed through when my exams were approaching.
I researched the grocery shops thoroughly this time and came up with a number of vegetables with curious names…how to cook them?… obviously, a foreign thing to me.
Cleaning the house and making it presentable was another difficult and never-ending task.
With the apprehension of upcoming test, it slipped out of my mind that I needed to confirm with the recipe of chhole. And this horrifying thought roused just the evening before ‘The Day’.
“You are impossible. Why did you not think of this earlier?,” my hubby’s face wore the familiar expression – ‘what-a- difficult-woman-this-is!’.
With a premonition of upcoming word-fight, I hurriedly assured him, “Don’t worry. I’ll manage it very well.” I searched a number of food web sites only to increase my confusion as there were various recipes for chhole.
I tried calling Amrita, but could not get her. My heart sank in my boots.But now, there was no turning back.

“Was it so bad? I had tried sincerely to give justice to all the recipes I came across. ” I could not help bursting into tears when all the guests had left.
“No, no. In fact, you have made it this time. They are so tasty. And it’s good that we can have them for tomorrow’s meal also.” My hubby seemed to sound genuine.
“It was the snack items, we bought, filled everybody much to relish the main course.”
I thought exactly the same. So we agreed finally on some point.
“Do you really think they are pretty delicious?”
“Yes, of course, dear,” he assured me.
As I thanked him generously for this rare compliment, an idea struck me.
“I am going to publish my recipe on net,"I announced enthusiastically.
“Oh!..Pray don’t you, please,” he said hastily with a ‘oh-my god-what-have-I-done’ look on his scared face.
I gave him a bitter look…
And the next moment we burst laughing our hearts out.

My Darling !

A feeling so tender…
just fills me up full…
And flows out of the heart…
it's so wonderful !...

Those tiny, little hands
when hold me too near,
The tender-throbbing heart
I feel so dear.

Full of surprise
the round, big eyes ...
Perceiving, discovering
the world and its wise.

A number of questions
the little brain would ask,
What would I answer now?...
that’s a testing task.

Every gesture so lovable,
every thought so curious,
With the zest brimming full
I wonder, what a genius!

What the world would have been
if not this way but the other...?
I thank you God and feel most proud
for being my Darling’s mother.

Heavenly...'Lake Tahoe' !

‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’….they say.
But some things are so innately beautiful that whoever beholds they simply shower beauty…. and beauty.
Lake Tahoe is one such treasure of natural beauty where one cannot escape being spell bound by the awe the Nature inspires. HE has blessed the earth with beauty in abundance. The various spectacular forms of beauty make the earth a reflection of the heaven. One such paradigm of the heavenly magnificence is the Lake Tahoe, positioned on the northeastern boundary of California, surrounded by a gorgeous, snow-covered mountain range.
On one such fine morning, prepared for the chilling cold we marched forth for the Lake Tahoe, the journey fascinating as always. The surroundings soon began to undergo a slight change as we approached the destination. Snow-covered mountains welcomed us. Beautiful pine woods passed by as we headed towards a ski point. To our surprise, Spring had used its magic wand and it was pleasantly cool rather than chill.
It was the first time in my life to see and touch the snow. I was too excited to wait to feel it. That touch sent a vibration through my nerves telling me what those tiny crystals felt like being what they were.
The whole landscape seemed to pose for an artist to fill it in the canvas of his mind. I felt like an artist too, not knowing how to capture that splendour.
Lake Tahoe looks equally splendid through any angle. We went around filled with an extreme enthusiasm to take in each and every drop of that eternal grandeur. Those bluish- green, greenish-blue waters enthralled us to an unimaginable height.
We climbed one of the mountains with a terrific gondola, a ropeway so to say.
The view from the top was so majestic that we left behind the mundane world for an unearthly voyage. The lake, surrounded by the blue mountains with a sheathe of super-white snow on their shoulders stooping to take a look at their own beauty in those brilliant waters, put such a stupefying spell on the minds that it lies beyond the power of words to explain. The white wonder of the snow filled our beings with a real peace echoing through the green of the stunning pines.
The return journey was the one without us in ourselves as our souls were left behind in that rapturing reign of heavenly beauty.
Lake Tahoe has become one of the most cherished happenings in my mind.
Now I can claim, yes, I’ve been to the heavens.

First Light

Talking about books is an unending and all energizing experience.
You forget the world around and start living in the book while you are journeying through it.
I always have an alluring after-effect when I finish reading a good book. It takes me some time to get out of the enthralling experience.
I am passing through such a stupor after having read the ‘FIRST LIGHT’ by Rebecca Stead. With an interesting theme for the book, author takes us to the bare face of the truth that the world dreads of at this very moment.
How do you find a life under a layer of an enormous ice-sheet where no sunray has ever entered? The story of Peter, a teenager, takes us to imagine a life all alienated from the world above its hidden existence, ever known.
A very different world of Thea, a girl of 14, curious and courageous, exists under the icy glacier of Greenland, which is threatened to sink down as a consequence of global-warming.
With Thea and Peter exploring the lost human generations on Greenland, we also pass through the unnerving and astonishing discoveries.
The author presents before us the picture of what global-warming is on a verge to create.
I was so lost reading this really atypical word that I literally felt numb with the icy sensation running through me.
I’m waiting for such a fantastic experience again.

The library

One of the most wonderful things living as a resident of America seems to me is the Public library.
Not because it is accessible to everybody without any cost, of course that being one of the surprising and welcome factors, but because of the huge treasure of knowledge it opens for any of the voracious readers, it's a favourite.
One finds books in almost all major languages of the world. No area left untouched.
For us the visit to the Cupertino Public Library is an exciting chore of our routine.
Unlike in our country you are attended here, by the ‘Check out’ and ‘Return’ machines that keep a record of how many drops you gulped down from the extensive ocean of wisdom and knowledge and entertainment and enlightenment in there.
Finding books, cds, references is at the tip of your fingers with the help of a number of computers just placed for you. Even children make a superb use of this functional facility of an advanced, well-equipped infrastructure. There’s a huge section of books for children of all ages.
There’s no restriction as to how many items you carry home unless you return them on time. Surprisingly, anybody hardly misuses the books and the facilities.
The easy and direct access to the books with visible identification marks, sure to find on proper place, makes it pleasant to linger from book to book.
I like the cozy and peaceful ambience of this place a lot. It is so inviting that I would not mind sitting here for hours together with the books and a cup of coffee. For a true lover of books this place is nothing less than a paradise.

It is just the place to linger and long for.

Faith

When you first occurred to me
You hardly bore any of them…
The winter was hard on you…

The winds couldn’t be any less harsh.
The green was not your way any more…

I could witness
Life dripping down, sucked out, going bust…

But you seemed to be quite untouched
Not weathered by the wavering weather….

Now I am far from being surprised
When you’r clad in green allover again

‘cause your faith unshaken unlike your leaves
Makes me behold your beauty unbeaten.

I am

A thought just lingers in my mind.

I fear its very existence…..

…for it questions me about ‘myself’.

And you know how hard it is
To conceal what you are
Than to reveal what you are not.

So I thrash it beyond my being
….but it slips in…
…catches me unawares…

I beg it not to drive me crazy
I plead it let me breath freely…

Oh! So obstinate…!


Now that it inhabits in me so well….
…
I ‘chose’ to be what I am.

Just experience it !

Some things are difficult to be explained after we experience what they were.
We ‘experience’… this is such a word which says something but what? Isn’t it difficult to explain what we mean when we say we ‘experience’?
Really, what do we do when we say we ‘experience’? Or to be precise we experience an emotion?

While looking at the setting sun along a deserted but beautiful beach, we experience some emotion. What is it that we experience actually? Is it something described in words, which say it exactly the way it happens? I don’t think I have ever found appropriate words to describe the experience my mind goes under when the sun sets in the sea invoking a crowd of thoughts or at another time leaving it totally empty.
I experience a surge of such emotions while being here also, on the tour of California. My mind goes off many a times letting me not know what it is I am going through.
When I stood on the Golden Gate Bridge and filled in the world around in my eyes, I experienced I cannot say what.
To behold the trees undergoing a renewal shedding their beautiful golden yellow leaves, I cannot name the state of mind I was passing through. And, when those same trees get clad in awesome attire of attractive colours to celebrate the spring, it hardly comes to my literary talent what they mean then.
Passing clouds chatting with the winds unseen change not their forms but my person.
Alone under the bright blue skies with wide earth beneath… what secret reveals between me and them is ever a secret.
I am overflowing with such happenings inside me. And the marvels cannot keep mum. So I spilled some of them here
Now I feel more….relaxed…,..um….. do I…..?

The Montery Bay Aquarium

Hundreds of them hypnotize you with their eyes wide open…… their shapes, colours all set to take you to an experience, amazingly different and enchanting. You can’t escape the verve once caught in it and float with them voyaging through a miniature yet vast and magnetic world of the deep oceans. The visit to the Montery Bay Aquarium leaves you speechless like its inmates.
The mind-blowing drive with long-stretched coniferous trees on either side makes you fly and not drive. You are just lost in the journey and you reach Montery Bay, a beautiful township bound with the pacific on its west.
Montery Bay Aquarium - once you enter the place, an uncanny ambience invites you to enjoy the awesome treasure the oceans disclose in front of you, unfolding the various secrets of the aquatic world. You just go on staring at the diverse forms of beauty and life, extending from the ever-in-motion sardines to the king if the ocean - sharks and wonder about their being what they are.
It is like diving deep to explore through the other world and having just a glimpse of it. You certainly feel like really going nearer to the Nature and finding out the ‘how’ behind its display. You are not only confronted with a variety of fish but also brought to the ultimate realization where you salute the Maker for His skill and ingenuity, His art and creativity.
You return home with an exhilarating experience and many a things yet undiscovered.
But a thought undoubtedly lingers in your mind, ……
……..is my very existence of any more worth than these born-to-move species lacking a self identity?