Sunil Bhandari is a poet by compulsion. His words heal his wounds, makes him understand stars, makes him resolve pain. His first book of poetry 'Of love and other abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. This podcast is of his poetry.
I have always wondered about people who go through tragedy, and then fall into profound grief. Such that their lives change, trajectories bend, and a state of being moribund sets in. In much of our existences, we are all living half-lives in our own way, pur-blind, half-dissatisfied, fully-disgruntled. The world refuses to work according to our diktats or wishes. And we are being continually rebuffed or embarrassed. Till we take it as normal. And then what do most of us do? Chin up. Take the blow. Move on. Things invariably add up somewhere. And find some sort of an equilibrium. Because the future is a consummate stitcher of 'rafoo', a darner of torn existences. But then there are those whose lives don't find their equilibrium, those who stay mired, however impractically we might think, in the turbid morbidity of past tragedies. For so many people, lives stop when their love dies, or heartbreak breaks a bond with life which they assumed was irrefutable, or a financial muscle breaks and their whole existence collapses. They lose the will to find light, the flex to transition into an alternate reality, the humility to seek redemption, the ability to let go of happenstances and embrace realities, to learn, absorb, embrace and then become the light. They never understand the value of taking life seriously but never so much that it becomes both a vice and a vise. Because that's when they find themselves as castaways in their own stories, forgoing their ability to find a log, and the wind, to set sail again, this time with a fearlessness bordering on ferocity. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the dramas of life - Sometimes Life Leaves You Alone Waiting for my flight to Chennai at the Kolkata airport Why I Disagree With the Moon Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadness Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
There are so many microscopic things which happen which tend to change our lives - not in cataclysmic ways, but in infinitesimal ways making us the persons we become. A word said in passing, a kindness shown when not expected, a smile out of the blue, a touch when unexpected. And when a person opens up to you with all her vulnerabilities, bare to her soul, regardless of consequences, regardless of the delicate position which she places herself in, is the time when something inside us shifts. We learn of the preciousness of trust, how simple keepsakes can be life-changing, how devastating and life-affirming can a peek into someone else's truths can be. Paradoxically, our complex journey through our lives is made richer when our choices become simpler. To pause to see, to stop to listen, to go silent to let the noise subside, to acknowledge presence, to reach out, to reach in. Each person we meet is actually a cornucopia of dreams, actualities, hopes and compulsions. To breath with them is to travel with clear eyes and a pellucid heart. To know that to know a truth of another is just another way to find our own truths. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on life and its infinite mysteries - Elegante Solitude I Come With Mud Assisted Suicide Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Gracias by Sascha Ende Kathrin by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Gracias Link: https://filmmusic.io.en/song/Kathrin Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
"My love, of a thousand reaffirmations, we know we will never find ourselves in adequacies. Beyond the blemishes you absorbed, the ones I ignored, it was enough for us to have found the places where we fitted." Who are we if not a pack of confusions and misdirections? Because we are so inadequate in our understanding of what we are, and what is truly important in our lives, we ever so often miss the very opportunity passing by us with a shy smile. Until, through a strange alchemy of circumstances, we don't. And we find something, we find someone. And everything changes. There are a million reasons why something shouldn't work, a relationship should collapse, why an idea should die an immediate death, but something holds us up, gives us the courage of our convictions, a boldness which says "whatever be the consequence". And things happen, in their own messy ways, such that through the chaos emerges a new kind of light. Soft at times, harsh mostly, often accompanied with music, often blinding - but light it is. And through the clutter we see ourselves and our lives with clarity, and we finally recognize what is important to us. And beyond the love we have for another, things, seasons, art, beyond all the lives we find - our love for ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on fractured relationships finding peace: When Did You Say Living Inside a Wound I Come With Mud Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Blockbuster Atmosphere 10 Relaxation by Sascha Ende Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Blockbuster Atmosphere 10 Relaxation Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sometimes you just know. As someone once said "I knew you were the one, as soon you walked into the room. There was light coming out of your ass!" Frankly, more often then not, love has less drama associated to its arrival, because it is really a feeling which grows and found incrementally, one conversation at a time, one walk at a time, one infraction at a time. You know there's something happening inside you when there's an unexplainable feeling of excitement and queasiness and anticipation which starts to brew inside. Why queasy, I have often wondered. And the only answer I get is that you start feeling that you are losing control. And it makes you nervous, helpless. But it's a feeling you enjoy, giving into it is akin to some other power taking control of how you feel and act. The more irrational the act you see yourself do, the more you see yourself say things which you didn't know you were capable of saying, the more you realize you are in the power of something transcendental. Something which will now never leave you unscathed or unchanged. Love has made an entry. Life as you know it ceases to exist. Sometimes infinitesimally, sometimes significantly, you find yourself change. Even when the high fades, and love becomes a normal part of what you live with, there's a glow which never leaves you. Even as obsession tapers into normalcy, you know your life is forever touched with magic. The most significant change comes as you stop thinking in singular terms. Is it freedom curtailed, or life enchanted for its inclusion? If there's excitement inside thinking of experiences together, then you are on the way to a twosome. Plurality is only acceptable with its promise of shared experience if one does not consider sharing an encroachment or a loss of freedom. Because love is, in so many ways, an acceptance and an accumulation. It's the difference between being breathless and gasping for breath. In that thin line of differentiation, lies the richness of our choices and the changeability of everything we stand for in life. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the progression of love - I Come With Mud I Said I Love You First Quietly Yours Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Angels by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Angels Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Someone once said "The path of peace goes through power." It's not only the truth, but a reality. Sadly. In a world largely ruled by men, rules are set as statements of power and domination. Even if someone seeks a hassle-free existence, unencumbered by positions, they are forced to seek bullies as allies, and are blackmailed in the name of security guarantee. In the sick paradigm of domination, innocents are both targets and collateral. And we, who are unaffected till we are not, react in disgust, fear and with the full force of our prejudices. Somewhere in the chasm between left and right, right and wrong, righteousness and hope, prejudice and fact, we the innocents also become warmongers in the name of being opinion-makers. Even on the sidelines we bring in the full force of our prejudices and opinions, seeking to change who cannot be changed. Facts take flight, and we become mood makers, reflected in wayward news articles, op-eds masquerading as headlines, passion disguised as television reportage. We the populace, the common people, thus also become warriors. And find that the battlefields and nationalism which conjoins us, does not stop us from fighting our own battles of our versions of right or wrong on social media, newspapers and tv channels. We stand divided. And we, the hoi polloi, become our own worst enemies. And we find, later, much later, that we are the ones who are the ones who hollow a nation out. Much much after political parties have come and gone, our debilitating legacy stays on. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on country, war, and other confusions - Politics on the Dining Table Mr Hoskote, HAve You Visited Kashmir Recently? For Anyone Who Bleeds Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Sleepers by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Sleepers Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Vincent Van Gogh, possibly the loneliest man in history, once said - “A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.” We are so much, and so little at the same time. As we transverse our fulfilments and relationships, seeing one flourish, and the other flounder. And we struggle to understand why. We find that we are that person who is loved outside as also the person agonizing over the one he loves the most. So much of us lies unidentified. Why - we struggle to know ourselves! As we see ourselves in other people's eyes and are astonished that they see someone else altogether than the one we thought we knew. Until the realization comes that we are illusions trying to find our own realities. And we transverse the world through the dream version of our lives. And we encounter strife and pain. Things start unravelling. And with dread within our hearts we know we are less than ideal. And we find ourselves alone. With space to not find someone else but to find ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness and aloneness - Elegante Solitude Sometimes We Remember So Hard Those Days of a Lost Summer Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Rising Sun by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Rising_Sun Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Too often, only too often, couples live lives of quiet despair. Without knowing that's not ordinary, that's not what coupledon is all about, that we can't have lifetimes compromised to the extent that an entirety passes by and there's nothing to show for it. Life is valuable and nobody, no relationship, has a right to take away from the preciousness of each moment. Because we have too few in the entirety of a lifetime to be in a position to even lose a single one of them. We need quick reparation, priority conversations, time to sort things out, to sit down with the intent of resolution, to come halfway - if not whole - to mend. But that's easier said than done. For the simple reason that hurts are deep-seated, more cavernous than ego. And fault lines once created are like deep crevasses. The solution is not bandaid, neither surgery because the scars which remain still hurt. It's only massive change and a change of attitude that will act as the silt to fill those fissures - a flood of gratefulness which would leave its residue behind, a continuous level of self-awareness of how our inadequacies are compensated by the other's presence. Couples are a team, and much more than the centripetal forces of differences, it's the pre-assumption of intent which destroys. Close relationships have to start with gratefulness, take each other as gifts and stay in the moment, to find real joy. Zen is not a strategy for love, it is the first principle. Nothing is impossible if intent and awareness are the emotions which lead. Ordinary lives are then haloed in quiet beautiful ways. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the struggles which mark coupledom - Before Bruises Become Wounds What is Loss, She Asked Me Grief Strikes Where Love Struck First Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Evacuation by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Evacuation Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Summer is late in the city I stay in. There are discussions about it but no conclusions. Some say - enjoy the extended spring. Nobody minds, as there are high winds coming in from the south-west, and windows rattle. There is more time to get the air conditioners serviced. But the intimations of summer have not ceased. Much before the papers announced the hot days ahead, the mornings had started to get more humid. Joggers knew. Windows in cars started being closed and the air conditioning cranked up. Summer bushes along walking paths started flowering. Pink Bougainvillea, red frangipanis, yellow elders. Flower beds had amaranths, salvias and hollyhocks nodding away delightedly. And as I went to office, Red Road and the Victoria Memorial complex was strewn with gorgeous gulmohur and amaltas, the golden yellow shower tree, the purple jacaranda and the flaming royal poinciana. My drives every morning were ablaze with colour. And I knew though it was a welcome, things would unravel in different ways. The tar on the roads would start to melt, as would the barely hidden anger on the edges of side streets. People would tend to get tired faster and more irritated. Fuses would ignite and punches landed. Relationships would begin to unravel and truths told in harsh tones. People would fall into lust more than they fell in love. And there would be too many misdemeanours conducted by common people in commonplace ways. But legendarily people understand. Even as they fight and argue, they understand that the heat is a character in every situation. People make plans to go to the hills but some refuse. Summers are when they reveal themselves to their own. They write their most honest poetry. And understand the enormity of their misdemeanours- and do not hesitate to ask for forgiveness. Springs just make you glad, happy to be alive, perky without reason. Autumns are for deep depression, to think of the worst life has every given as just desserts: it's the time for seeking redemption. Winters are to freeze inside, to not reveal oneself. Everyone is too embroiled in one's own battles of seeking succour and warmth, to be able to think of being benevolent. But summer is when we allow everything to fall apart. Our clothes, our defences, our truths, our untruths. Even as the most iridescent flowers burst uncontrollably in colours which sometimes hurt the eyes, something soft inside wants to tell truths. It seems easier to give in then rebel, or wallow in stories with long lives. It's good to be ordinary and open. Summers are the time for both passions and truths to find their own paths of destruction or redemption. Whilst other seasons are one dimensional, summers are when the roads get forked, ready to form - or destroy you. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the the seasons of our world and lives - Those Days of a Lost Summer In the Winter of Our Relationships The Passing of Autumn Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende Summer Dream Instrumental by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Sehssucht Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Summer_dream_instrumental Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
The riches of our lives, even when we are not searching for it, is like the journey of Santiago, the young Andalusian shepherd boy in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. The treasure is always nearby, always close. We just don't have the eyes for it. The treasure is often our search for meaning, sometimes it is the clarity we seek of what the fulcrum of our life is, so often it is our despair to put together the disparate parts of our lives into one knowing compass. Most often it is our search for a person who gives meaning to our lives. And we have to wander through our days and our dullness, the inequities and confusions, the seemingly directionless pull of our lives, the cornucopia of choices, or the dearth of choice. And we return home, tired, our ties crunched, our spirits defeated. No balm, no gentle commiseration, no time with the closest to us, seems to make a difference. And we keep searching, keep looking outwards, keep wondering what will give solace, give intent, bring significance. Who would be the compass and the companion, the commiserater and the catcher in the rye? And in our search for an adult cradle, even as we lie curled on the lap of someone we care for, laying bare our existential issues, we forget that possibly, this is the person who is both the destination and the means, the person who could hold us and lead us, the one who both understands and scolds, the one who is the wind beneath our wings and the first step of beauty in our lives. And in that realization, lies the gorgeous reconciliation of our search, as we realize that who we thought of as an accessory, a necessity, a cultural perk, a socio-economic order, a social necessity, often a burden, an enforced liability in the form of a gift, is actually purpose and direction, succour and signal, a parachute and a mattress. And in that realization we are like the prodigal son. Our return becomes then just a realization. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on elusive love - Before Bruises Become Wounds Old Poems for Old Loves Bella's Meadow Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Der Kristall Ending by Sascha Ende Der Kristall the Glade by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-ending Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-the-glade Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Aloneness is forced, solitude is a choice. Loneliness forces me unwillingly to be with myself. But solitude, as the great Montaigne said, gives me a chance to know how to belong to myself. A mental stand - and an entire outlook changes. But, of course, it is not so simple! Ironically in our worlds, we have to forcefully claim our aloneness, often to fight for it. It is antithetical, nay, antisocial, to voluntarily eschew company, and be alone. In its own way, it's a rejection of social norms, company, to say that 'hey I prefer myself to you.' We are all meant to be social animals, and nothing should deviate from that. If you seek droplets of solitude - that is acceptable. We need 'me-time'. That's hip. It's new age, recommended. But to deliberately and pointedly eschew company - to travel alone, to go to a film on one's own, to decline an invitation to a party for no reason whatsoever - is anathema, non-understandable, hence, well, 'unacceptable'! Because nobody can understand solitude. How can I explain its texture, its ability to embrace like a warm comforting room, to give the feeling of teetering on the edge and of being held at the same time, of getting the feeling of being with a stranger you know well, of discovering the undefinable in the person who's definition you thought you had down pat, of having the full force of freedom with oneself and of pulling oneself back all the time, of being excited because you've just said yes to something which all company would have abhorred. And one discovers what the great Soraya once said - "Sometimes being surrounded by everyone is the loneliest, because you'll realize you have no one to turn to.” If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the loneliness - Sometimes We Remember So Hard I Can Sense Her Loneliness The Art of the Lonely Good Deed Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Time Is Now by Sascha Ende Colossus by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Time-Is-Now Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Colossus Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Coming back, when you've slammed the door behind you, is not easy. Literally or metaphorically. There is too much history to deal with, to have it hit us again like hale. Fresh starts are rarely as heroic as in fiction, and there is too much pus oozing out of the pores of common history for it to be a conjoinment without terror or distress. We do not always desire recall, because rewinds bring with them memories of unbearable pain. But often there's a knock on the door which we cannot ignore. And we are forced to reach in to rediscover not the agony but the good times, we reluctantly revisit the residue of love, to seek the part of our heart and memory which our best selves house. And once the trickle begins, the flood is not far behind. There's nothing right or wrong, there's nothing good or bad. It's our life, and it's our best or flawed self finding its apogee or its nadir. In our search for happiness, we are ready to let hope triumph experience, to be reductive in our pessimism and let our beings be flooded with possibilities. Because intrinsically we are good people. What works and what doesn't is a matter of chance and opportunity, of desire and purpose, of intent and attitude. But to know we've given ourselves and the universe a chance for redemption is a simple acknowledgment that we are flawed, our lives are flawed, and we recognize that, and are ready to forgive and rise above the wallow of bitter memory. We are gorgeous because - unlike a lotus - we can float with the pelf inside us, not below. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on second chances in life - Tenderly The Happiest Couple You Will Ever See That Ordinary Lie Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/sehnsucht Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
You have to say it first. You have to do it first. You have to use the words. You have to acknowledge what is burning inside you. You don't have to find a reason. You don't have to wait for an apposite season. Lack of Reciprocation, fear of rejection, the vulnerability of putting one's heart (one's ego?) on line. Life is a hurdle race and love is strewn with obstacles. In the magnificent tapestry we create of our own scars and wounds, a bulk of them - unmentioned, hushed - are self- inflicted. But they are also an atlas of our journey through the landscapes of angularities and anguish. They are markers of our journeys from which we can learn, recalibrate, reignite. Because - where's the time? We have to love in a hurry. Before anything else claims our time, mind, heart. Because nothing would be worth the wait. Just as, in the selfsame vein, we need to forgive first. We can't wait for the 'who's-right-or-who's-wrong' of it all. The moment regret visits our heart, we need to walk across, or pick up the phone, and say that most difficult of words - sorry. Because asking for forgiveness is a major component of love, going unrecognized because it is construed as compromise, a shame, a capitulation, when actually it is a show of strength, vulnerability masquerading as compromise, understanding standing with a hangdog expression asking for a rewind. Every moment is a vacuum. Waiting for us to fill it with what we feel is important. If we choose not to do anything, the universe rushes in - with its offerings, its insistences, its random temptations. The reason why we need love to be a driver for our life is because we can then choose it every minute, every time. Even if it feels premature or inchoate, and there's no stardust falling on us, we would have walked through the evolution of our own truths. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the confusions and insistences of love - Tenderly Love Actually (more & mess) Perpetrators & Victims of Love Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Dreamsphere2 by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Dreamsphere2 Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I read about the famous economist Daniel Kahneman, author of 'Thinking fast and slow', opting to end ha life through assisted suicide, euthanasia. He went to Switzerland, and died. A friend and I were talking about it. And I remembered what Tanu and I have often discussed - Not to live if we become a permanent burden on someone. I told my friend, I was quite clear - I get to decide when I will end my life. But he asked a simple question - is your life only yours? And it made me pause. And as is my wont, I started writing to clear my head. First I wrote from the perspective of the one who has decided to end his life, and followed it with the feelings of the one who is left behind. And it wasn't an easy decision any longer. It's easy to say that our breath, our life, is a gift to us - and after that it's our decision as to what we want to do with it. But that also started sounding glib. Because the fact is that our breath, our life, is also a collective. We are made of the efforts, the hope springs, the heart carvings, the soul bindings, the body cravings, the thought mouldings of all who love and care for us. We start being someone and then are slowly changed and created out of what others see us as. What might start as an opinion, an illusion, starts getting recreated. We then are what we make of ourselves, but are also deeply vented and grooved by what our world thinks of us. No, we no longer remain our own. If our presence makes a difference to the lives of someone else, we are not only our own. If our mere breath gives solace to someone else, we are not our own. If mere presence, without words, without effort, makes someone's life feel complete, then our life is not merely ours. And that, if nothing else, needs to give us pause, before we decide to go to the next realm. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on deaths and similar journeys - I Heard That You Just Set Off on a Journey Birthday Musings of an Ageing Man I Will Leave The Last Line For You to Fill Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Movie extract by Sascha Ende A Sad Toy Story by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/movie-extract Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/a-sad-toy-story Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I often feel that as a poet I am destined to live through the infliction, the gain and the loss, the incandescence and the darkness, of a continuing bruise. I have to confront too many truths, and make sense of them, I have to face the world with too much honesty, and to crack open too many of my lies and illusions. I feel alone, trying to tell the story so I camouflage the truth, to iron up to rebuffs and to the reality of losing space. To know that I am both a mirror and a weapon, though I profess I'm just an agent of stories whose words sometimes seem like a lunging sabre. When all I do is to sit on a desk alone, with a single bulb throwing shadows on my notebook, a pen which makes a scraping noise as I write, shovelling out the detritus of memory, scraping my heart and soul for revelations, which would help me unravel my own mystery. Why do I do what I do, why does the universe pull me towards disaster and then helps me flee, why do I rebuff destiny, why do I run away from sanctuary? And then I stop in my heels, and realize that I know. I'm merely being the poet that I am. No more, no less. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the absolute glory of being a poet - Old Poems for Old Loves How a Poem Finds Itself I Don't Think Poetry Will Save us. And yet, and yet.... Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Sleepers by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/sleepers Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
So much of life is of journeys, just the way death is the final one. Of course, I'm not only talking of trapezing around the world, country to country, city to city, in innumerable trips. I am also referring to metaphorical and metaphysical journeys. The ones which reveal the greatest of mysteries - of what we truly are. The journey inside. Because that's where the truth of our sighs and lights resides, of what haunts us in the night and of what drives us in the morn. Of what irritates us, what irrigates us, what parches us, what floods us. We learn to recognize people who freeze us, and the ones who free us. How at times we become blithe spirits when alone, and how we are completely imprisoned even as we move around in company. Who are we if not responses to our own stimuli? Who are we if not found persons, dug out of our own excavations and discoveries? Because in life and in death, however many our encounters, accidents or conjoinments, we finally keep meeting ourselves. And, without comparison, it is the greatest unravelling. Because journeys help us shed skin, help us become raw and open, vulnerable to our own revelations, to see our deeper fears, and what we are but also what we can be. In the world of circumstances, we are both the greatest possibility and the meanest retraction. Inside us, our wings are tightly-folded. And there's no need to fly in the crowds, as there is enough space to hide, from people and from ourselves. But, journeys give us a chance to unfold those unused wings, renew our promise to the universe, and to slowly, timidly, then surely, learn how to fly again. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on different kinds of journeys - Adventures in Two Worlds In Search of God On Growing up (that haze of sunshine & dust) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Der Kristall Ending by Sascha Ende Der Kristall the Glade by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-ending Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-the-glade Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
What are we if not the ones who crave for second chances. And what is this world if not a place which is spatially abundant but trajectorily linear. An opportunity lost, a call not made, an apology kept back, a feedback reined, a love abandoned. Life is a compulsive giver. It's we who are blindsided with the cornucopia of choice - mistakenly thinking that life will keep giving. That we will keep rebuffing its generosity, with impatience, with disdain, with ego, and we will keep getting what we want. But even the universe gets tired. When it sees its largesse being rejected, being thrown asunder with impunity, of being taken for granted, it just takes its plentitude elsewhere. That's why trying to get back what we've lost, trying to bring back whom we've lost, are often exercises in futility. Apart from the context being changed, the dominoes having shifted, the reference points getting lost, the heat and light which accompanies first crushes and initial rushes simply do not find any resonance when time shifts reference points. When time and tide bring other people and more contexts which are eager to adopt the universe's gifts, the munificence shifts. Our rejection of the other then leaves us bereft and alone. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the touchy-feelness of departures - Sometimes We Remember So Hard Departures I Heard That You Just Set Off on a Journey Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Pullman City Hard by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/pullman-city-hard Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Love they say Is the mess you invite, The mess you make And the mess you leave behind.) It's a flash, it's a paint, It's basil in the soup. It's a kite which finds the sky Because its cut loose. It's a shore being tugged by the sea, It's the moon staying on in the morn, It's the sunshade in a roadside cafe, It's the chef's apron he can't take off. It's the brownie you crave, It's a drink you like strong, It's a glass too many in a pub, It's a staid party and you want to pole-dance. It's the chilly flake on your pizza, It's a fondue too hot, It's the tandoor crispening your roti, It's the buttered part of the toast. It's the street which you love, It's the bend in the lane, It's the view which you search When the highway is long. It's the blood you give in a camp Though you don't know its journey's end. It's the ticket which you get When you park too long. It's the sock which you wear, It's the inner to keep you warm, It's the tattered shirt on the hanger, The torn jeans you don't mind. It's as warm as worn-out slippers, A curtain which can't be still, It's a dream which won't let go, It's when you're awake though long-gone. It's your song sung in a foreign tongue, It's a glimpse you get in a throng, It's the thong you see on a mannequin, It's when you are hungry in a rich repast. It's the sigh of a dream unfinished, It's breathlessness after you run a mile, It's a vein blocked in your body, It's your heart going still, at first light. When was love ever tea sipped alone? When was it ever just dawn's first shine? It's the hale which cracks the wind-shield, It's when its clear and you're snow-bound. It's your semen in a condom, It's a baby you might not want. But when you hold it uncertainly It's, finally, the world you find in your arms. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the gorgeous mystery of love - Punctuation for Lovers Coming to Your Side of the Bed Changing Your Address (on marrying & moving homes) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Rising Sun by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/rising-sun Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
So much of life is about forked roads and where we choose to lead ourselves. If we are vigorous about living, we would give little time to ourselves to reconsider or think back to our choices. We ensure that our lives overflow, each minute tumbling into another almost breathlessly, with little time left for reflection or regret. But oftentimes, on a tired evening, when a passing strain of hopelessness seeps into us, and nothing seems to be right - the ones who are closest seem far away, and circumstances weigh us down in the name of destiny - we try to fathom the mystery of choices, and think back to the forked road. And think about lost chances, of what might have been, of what we could be, of who we could have been with. Memories come rushing in - words ignored, questions answered wrongly, those we professed to love taken for granted. It could all have happened aeons ago, but it suddenly seems like yesterday. And we try to think of where the lost ones might be, what could they be doing, who they might be with - and whether, in some balmy sighing night, they think of us. And what would it be like to be called again, or what would they say if we call them? Whether their number would be the same, whether they would recognise our voices, whether their voices would suddenly flood with emotion. Or just remain neutral, unfeeling, silent. Whether at all they ever think of us, the way we are thinking of them? And we wonder that though we might not go back to having the luxury of changing our choice, but whether there is ever a future for a remembered past? If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and regret - Before Bruises Become Wounds Old Friends What I Miss is the Tender Moment Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - About Moments by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/about-moments Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I fear disuse. I fear lack of purpose. Not necessarily in terms of conclusions but more in terms of direction. Whatever I do, I feel good to think it adds something somewhere. No, I'm not thinking of increasing the national GDP or my fame or fulfill a spouse's desire. I think of it more in terms of experience. Where nothing goes waste. It could be anything - a film which knocks the daylight out of me, music which haunts me through the day, a shadow I see lengthening as I lay in the winter sun, the unceasing drip of an incurable tap as I sit reading, of sitting silently with my dad as he nods off to sleep, of letting my mum tell a story from her childhood a millionth time because old experiences are her mainstay now. But I grow older, and have started to forget. What gives me sustenance are traces of the life I have lived and am living. Because that is what experience does - it makes you alive in the moment - and the moment consequently never ends. I am keenly aware, with each passing day, of how life seems long but days turn out to be so short. And before I know months have gone by, and then years. And I have nothing to show for them. Not in memories, not in the senses. And I ask myself - 'what have I got this life for?' And I battle for a full day, and consequently a full life. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on embracing life - Those Days of a Lost Summer Her Breasts as Shelter And the Crowds Roared as the Music Rose Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Flucht Romeo's Erne by Sascha Ende Childhood by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Flucht Romeo's Erne Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Childhood Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
We are all strangers singularly and a brotherhood en masse. With a seamless earth and a sky being shared between us, in spite of boundaries - of homes, cities, countries, continents, hearts, colour - we cannot but be similar, looking out for each other and being there lending a hand when we see the other struggle. The tragedy of borders is their illusion of easy divisibility. But a line drawn is a slash on a heart which in spite of divisions seeks conjoinment. In thought, religion, spirit or opinion. How can we be anything less than a whole? If a million stars can be a galaxy, and adorn the skies with their synergetic beauty, how can millions of us be merely individuals, concentrating on differences, trying to find our fulfilments alone, and not strive for connections? I love the idea of all of us solitary as a reality, but being part of a collective as a necessity. It could be the way our parents are the nurturers and the caregivers, to the way we marry and start our own broods, seeking and getting succor and shoulders. It's not a case of quid pro quo but a primordial need. We are not meant to be alone - however much we might do a Thoreau. And if we can be at one with a partner why can't it be with a collective, a mass, a country, across countries? In the hullabaloo of our own egos and existences, we forget we are lesser alone, as soon enough we start to struggle with the minutiae of our solitary existences, wondering where time went, wondering why we are not what we can really be. In the schemata of life's design, we are made independent by body, but are never enough in brain or brawn to pull the entirety of our existence alone. It is my firm belief that it is the universe's strategy, its design, that we are made adequate, but lesser - so we can reach out, join hands and find both the strength and the comfort of being in each other's company and support. We are more because we are more, lesser when we are less. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the need for being solitary and together - I Heard That You Just Set Off On a Journey I Can Sense Her Loneliness The Art of the Lonely Good Deed Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Epic Intro 2017 by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/epic-intro-2017 Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I sometimes wonder if there is anything comparable to the generosity of a morning? Once you force yourself up, the cornucopia of the universe is laid out for our delectation. The sun is at its most benevolent, the birds are full-throated, the flowers are sleepy and demure, the air is soft even as it bites, the leaves are brittle, letting themselves to be crunched to a satisfying exuberance. The trees above are in a state of measured chaos. Bushes which have grown thick have deep caverns and shadows, inviting exploration. The smaller bushes are like poodles itching to run away. My walking path has a large amoeba-shaped pond, which suddenly appears as you take a turn, and it bares its shimmering heart to the red of dawn. And the canopy of trees is a filter for light, throwing dimples and moving tapestries as I walk. And I enter this treasure room, as an auberge of hope, a safe place to replenish, an energy drink to jumpstart one's nerves. A morning is a kriya, a dawn is a kripa, as we walk purposefully for a life, which is nothing but an opportunity to find meaning in everything we find beauty in. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the whispers of mornings - Dawn in Hampi Recalibrating Dawns Musings As I Step Into The Morning (leaving a lover sleeping) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Medieval Tabletop Session by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/lonely-fish Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Immersion by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/childhood Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Our lives are a collage of a thousand scraps of random, and often irreconcilable, happenstances and mistakes and decisions thrown onto a canvas of existence. Love is often the most decisive happening of our lives, often trooping in unannounced and more often than not, grossly disrupting our lives - and mostly overstaying beyond our comprehension. We are both perpetrators and victims of love, even as we are the helpless receptacles, seeing ourselves change - beyond our own comprehension. All because we are in love. Love makes us reactive, even as we grow generous, imaginative, fiery, beautiful and gentle. It is the only thing in the world which shows us the good and the bad we are perfectly capable of. We become both warriors and gentle creatures. Meek to suggestion, fiery to defend. Beyond ambition, beyond our need for fulfilment, love gives us justification. The question then is never of right or wrong, of the ethics of choice or decision, it's of direction. The question is of being consumed, of being in the shadows and the sunlight. Unbehest to our senses, when love enters our lives, our stars immediately realign - we are then not ourselves but of our destiny. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the quiet advent of love - An Ordinary Poem on Love Quietly Yours Old Poems for Old Loves Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Medieval Tabletop Session by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/medieval-tabletop-session Licence: https://filmmusic.io/song/medieval-tabletop-session Immersion by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/immersion Licence: https://filmmusic.io/song/immersion
It's basic good manners they say, possibly one of the first things taught to a child, the most primal form of grace. The importance of, nay, the necessity of saying 'thank you'. But ever so often, we are taught the semantics but not the emotion which needs to go along with it. And there lies the crunch. Because we start noticing the gap, the inadequacy of a formal thank you, particularly in the closest of close relationships. One theory says (in the form of twisting an immortal line) that "Love means never having to say thank you". The other end of the spectrum says that you can't take love for granted - and every little thing done is to be observed, embraced and acknowledged. And I struggle with my thank yous. So I substitute the verbal with the act. A deed for a deed. Maybe immediately - likely not - maybe later. But I keep the memory like a blessing laid on my door - to be embraced, taken home, nurtured, never forgotten. It's not a question of equalising a favour and then moving on as if a debt has been repaid. It's more like a flame, to ensure it keeps on burning in some form or the other - as a 'pay-it-forward', as a habit, as a friend-in-need, as as a karmic credit, as a sign of being the person that I really am. Folded deep in the warm embrace of a thank you, in word or deed, is the gift of accepting that we are complete only with each other, that alone, we are exactly that - alone. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the absolute glory of kindness and ordinariness - A Legacy of Kindness That Ordinary Lie An Ordinary Poem on Love Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Dreamsphere 7 by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/458-dreamsphere-7 Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I sometimes look at myself and wonder who I am. I surprise myself often with the way I react into situations or the way I say things, and I look back and wonder if it was me there. Sometimes it is something outright unpleasant, and I'm completely ashamed of myself. But I also love the times I surprise myself with my own generosity or wisdom, of what I am capable of saying or doing. And then I sit back and wonder about how, after so many decades of knowing myself, of living in my own skin, of having gone through millions of situations, expected and unexpected, I can still surprise myself. And then the vital realization comes - if I am a stranger to myself, then how can I ever expect anybody to understand me? And that really is a sobering thought, because one of the things which we always struggle with is the question of not being understood by the other. It is a tragedy of a kind that we are strangers to ourselves, but want complete familiarity from the one we love the most. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the pain of loneliness - I Can Sense Her Loneliness What is Loss She Asked Me Letting Go (Because I am Alive) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Spring Bloom by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/9216-spring-bloom Licence: Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/12335-battlefield-heroes
Our relationship with the almighty is a complex one. I have grown up with an atheist father (he calls himself agnostic, but the search never ends), and a mother who grew up as an Arya Samaji, so 'believe in yourself, believe in no idols'. Dad was a man of science, well-read, an engineer, hence well versed in his arguments against the presence of god, per se. As a family on holiday, we only visited temples if they were scenic - which of course meant that I have climbed more hills and trekked more miles than any faithful might have done, just to reach a gorgeous temple set on the top of a mountain or of an architecture which could make you swoon. But as time went by, at some level, the serenity of a church or the calmness of a Jain temple or the incredible noisy and emotional faith of the throngs in front of a Hindu temple, got to me. I stopped trying to determine the logic of religion, its genesis of fear or need, and gave into the feeling it evoked. I could somewhat understand what some people could do for god, where their faith came for, and how seductive was the thought that there was somebody who, finally, guided their destiny, irrespective of what they did - and that there was meaning to it all. Even as a basic philosophy it made sense - do the action, let the fruits evolve. I'm aware of the symbolism embedded in the stories of miracles and victories of gods. But I love stories of piety and sacrifice more. Of gods, of human beings who could be gods. And I love it when I sit inside a temple, a shrine or a church, and find my thoughts change their tone and tenor. I grow calmer, thoughts of reconciliation start forming. I am a better person just for being there. I feel we are our full-formed thoughts. Our essence sleeps inside us in an amorphous, sometimes inchoate, form. Whatever alchemizes them into being, a fully-alive gentle, generous, forgiving, kind self, is gold. Or maybe god. For me, there's no better reason, or definition. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how we struggle with god - In Search of a God When The Goddesses Depart The Sublime in the Ordinary Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Der Kristall the Glade by Sascha Ende Der Kristall Ending by Sascha Ende
I think if we did a dipstick survey of happy couples, we'd find an overwhelming number who aren't. No surprises. Nobody ever knows what happens behind closed doors. Hurts run deep like rivers which cut through ancient rocks, till you can only see the sunrises above them and not the deep gorges they've created. Our primitive instincts call out to us to conjoin, cohabit. But nature also gives us the complex tapestry of emotions, often irreconcilable, with the uncanny ability to bruise. And the scars we get reduce us as human beings, because what is revealed is our worst selves, more often than not as enforced derivatives, and not reflections of what we truly are. I'm convinced that some of the terrible things we do, do not always arise out of vestigial truths, but are generated afresh as weaponry against unprovoked attacks. Simply said - there are some people who have the unerring ability to take the worst out of us - a side we don't even know exists. But we are magnificent, because we are humans. We forbear, we camouflage, we often forgive. There's something called the big picture, and in its altar, we also find our best selves. We survive the worst of coupledom, the anarchy often wrought on us, because something inside stands up for us, as an instinct to be more than a merely reactive beast. In a world of iniquitous battles, we are our own flag-bearers, our national song, our moral compass, our survival guide. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the difficulties in relationships - That Ordinary Lie Before Bruises Become Wounds Love's Night of the Long Knives Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Medieval Tabletop Session by Sascha Ende
What do you do when a friend dies? The one friend who spoke softly and was beside you in the best and worst of times. What can you say except that's it's just too soon. That, if an end was inevitable, why would someone so sweet and kind ever have to go through the pain he had to go? That why would an affliction like cancer affect someone who had not harmed a fly in his life. I look at his photograph and I think of the times we'd shared. From college, through our respective marriages, to having our kids, to this, now this. Someone in deep sorrow had once said that god is in desperate need of good people up there, that's why the nicest of them all are being called up. I can well believe that. Too many people I've loved have died. All much before their time. But then - when is it too soon? As an individual, in relationships? Is age the criteria or unfinished work? Or the fact that infinite potential suddenly grows cold? Often when I see someone put on ventilators and other desperate means to keep breath going, though it's clear that the person is well nigh gone, I wonder if we should not dignify death and just let it come and take a person away. What is the use of letting pain eat away a good man's soul? We reconcile to every death, because it is the fact we live with, but the hauntings rarely go away. The missed opportunities of shared times, the softness of a smile remembered, the unexpected visit, the phone call when most needed. There is no substitute to the care a good friend can give. There then becomes a life before and a life after. However much the routines of daily life engulf us, loved ones we lose are air pockets of emptiness, which we hit and plunge endlessly. We survive but our existence gets tied into knots, which we spend a lifetime unravelling. Losing someone dear and close is to lose the possibilities of myriad conversations and things we could be. Because we change for and because of the people we love. And when we lose them, there is always a part of us which lies orphaned. As a body grows cold, there's a part of us which also stratifies and freezes into eternal sorrow. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on passing on - What Do We Leave Behind If I Commit Suicide She Held His Hand As He Drifted Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Positano by Otis Galloway
Every morning I walk into a small shrine, housed by Ganesh and Laxmi, and ask for a blessing for someone in my life. It could be anyone who I feel requires the touch of divine that day. It could be for someone passing through a tiring time, someone who is worried about outcomes, a couple which has just hitched, a colleague who has a presentation, a friend grieving, or for someone I know as a happy person and I seek a blessing for her not to lose her joy. I have survived, been saved, been held together, been forgiven, been born. And I've been held in arms whilst in incipient flight, till I could learn how to soar. And I in turn keep wishing fervently, that I'm the person who can make a difference in the lives of all who are with me, around me, for me, against me, but who need a touch, some wings, some air to find their flight. Otherwise, what are we in this beautiful world for? We are changed and blessed because of a multitude who we don't even realize are working for us, as a collective or individually. Silent partners, as it were, the nameless, the unspeaking. In the midst of turmoil, strife, petty battles, small injuries, unrelenting scars, often it is the smallest of thoughts or deeds which become the benediction and the very direction of our lives. We are blessed because of the blessings of people who don't give up on us. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on love steeped in nostalgia - Miles Apart The Comfort of Her Being Lovers in the Morning Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - About Moments by Sascha Ende
We need to walk straight, with our spine erect. There's no other way. We need to know ourselves - what keeps us abreast of ourselves, beyond the bullshit requirements of the world. There's the sinister expectation of people who plant redemption of their failures on us, and coat it in aphorisms both sweet and compelling. We are sold because we love people and hope to keep them happy. We feel it's incumbent that those who reach out to us are a challenge, a benediction, an opportunity, a duty to be addressed. There couldn't be bigger lies. We need to cease being reflected glory. We need to own ourselves. We need to find our own catastrophes and disasters. The springs and the geysers, the continental drift and the tectonic plates, the fissures and the gush. Because in the entirety of our acceptance lies the way to find new skies. We need to become a bold moon not afraid to challenge the sun in a morning sky. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on moons an d suns - Mornings (as entry points to life) Recalibrating Dawns As We Meet Again At The End of The Day Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Walking Towards the Light by Musiclfiles Majestic Autumn by Musiclfiles
This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, replayed here with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it! Youth is so wasted on the ones who carry it as a burden. The changes which wreck havoc to the body and heart are later looked back at as the sweetest damnation possible, irreplaceable but never ever lived through fully. We all know and understand the alchemy of a moment richly lived, but still let it pass us by ruthlessly, unthinkingly. Why do we consider time as a rich man's wealth, when it can't be hoarded or spent endlessly? In its strange and beautiful equalities, we realise it is the only thing bequeathed equitably to all. But we are fooled by time's serene passage, lulled to forget its irrevocability. And in that lassitude we end with half-lives. In our puzzling pursuit of things which finally matter little - lucre instead of light, breath in lieu of breathlessness - we take away the most precious gift we could give ourselves. And when we realize our folly, often it is with nothing left in our banks - not health, not inclination, not circumstances - and what is lost is a glow, and the possibility of finding light - and being it. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the summers of our lives - A Summery Love Story (in the middle of winter) Indian Summers Call Me By Your Name Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com. The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - The Positive Way Of Hope Piano Solo by MusicLFiles Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7522-the-positive-way-of-hope-piano-solo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I am so engrossed in the theatrics of my mind that I often forgot that there is a world outside which has been gifted to me to revel in, to find pleasure and meaning in. Getting too intertwined in myself is often the bane of my existence, as I lose purpose in my desperation to resolve the quotidian quibble or the boredom riddle. Time and again, seeing myself immerse in the labyrinthine issues of daily grind, whilst failing to notice that life is desperately trying to grab my attention, is to also lose a potential way to unravel the knots of my very being. The times serenity descends on me as I see the water boil for my morning tea, or I stand at the window and watch a flawless sunset find its night, or listen to the cadence of a loved one's voice as they talk of normal things or when the doorbell rings and my heart leaps as I know who it is. Suddenly, priorities get sorted out, issues get resolved. Later, much later, do I realize that the true path to the universe inside me comes through the vagaries outside, as I cut though the noise, and find that the world is much more then a mere domicile for me for my desires and ambitions, and offers a journey of senses and fulfilments. Everything I could ever want is merely a question of merging what's outside to what is inside. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on mornings and cities - Calcutta - A Lover's Epitaph Recalibrating Dawns Musings As I Step Into The Morning (Leaving a Lover Sleeping) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - A Bright Star in the Sky by Musiclfiles Mystic Mediation by Frank Schroeter
As we age, we hark back to the ordinary. After we've seen it all, our sense of wonder might not have dimmed, but it does become selective. And we know that though there is no end to discoveries, we find even a still moment is rich in repast. And without wallowing in nostalgia, we remember simpler times. And we remember the glow of presence. No details are required, because the feeling remains. And we realize in all the iterations of love, the one which abides is of letting the ordinary surround us. And we start the transition from being a participant to becoming an engender, from walking into sunlight to being the sunlight And we ease into the slow gold of easy conversation, the easygoing minute. Home is an excitement and an evening out is a cafe which allows leisurely lingering. And in that transition, we embrace the beauty of boredom. Of recognizing that life's bounty is often nothing but the steady elongation of the pause between the storms we invariably step into every morning. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on life and times - I Have Been Thinking of Life Again Bella's Meadow Life For Rent Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Follow That Dream by Luca Fraula
I write so much on so many things. Relationships is a recurrent topic, as I traverse myriad emotions. Because of them my heart and my mind are my poetry labs, and I'm never bereft of things to write about. And I'm amazed at the discoveries. Day in day out I find new ways in which I can hurt - and get hurt. There are old fault lines which never get repaired, and fresh wounds which find their way into scars. Its facetious to say this is the cost of being in love, the price one pays to be vulnerable and open to both bliss and hurt. Because much more than being, love is a realisation. Because beyond its craggy transversion, it's a discovery of all the good residing in us, things we didn't know about ourselves, the essential purity which actually defines us. Beyond the drudgery, jaggedness,and angularity - which often becomes our character's annotation - lies the still clear water of shadows and sunlight, the beauty of which even we don't realize until the clear sight of love discovers it. Because at the bottom of it, love is action. It is giving beyond our urgencies, our insipidity, our masquerade : love is the only emotion allowed entry into our fears, our secrets, our failures, the essence of us. The dawning of this, with the advent of love, is to find the treasure each one of us really is. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and desolation - Grief Strikes Where Loves Struck First Letting Go (because I'm alive) The Things We Become When We Leave Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Positano by Otis Galloway
What is the ethical and practical length we would go to save a relationship or a situation or ourselves? Is our segue into safety always self-protection and a rapid walk through a portal of lies? Or do we girdle up, step up, chin up - and say the truth (and nothing but the truth), consequences be damned. Or do we tell ourselves - let's be practical. Let every situation determine our choice of what we say. We become chameleons of ethics, as it were. Maybe a person can't handle a particular truth and things would become bad (if not worse than bad). Or maybe you will finally tell the truth - but by and by. But there is also the question of the little lies, the white ones, the ones which slip into togetherness like a whisper in the softness of a mutual feeling. The ones which seem harmless - but which, when they start getting recognised, chip away soundlessly at the very foundation of what the relation stands for. But then there is also the nature of the congenital liar, as also the one for whom self-preservation - name, blame, fame - is primary. Where stories become second nature, and lies are a permanent armour. This then is not second nature - it is nature. But most problematic, if not tragic, is when we don't want to lie, but decide to. Where the only immutable thing we've ever known is the conscience. But we still decide to lie, against the very fibre of our being. The very act then puts us into the dungeons of despair, when we know we've broken the first rule of relationships - trust. And even more than that, we've fallen in our eyes. A self-reductionist act, a diminishing, a shrinking. There's a world of guilt one transverses into. A lifelong affliction. An unfolding of the soul, as we look at ourselves with both disdain and despair, the questioning never ceasing, the wheel of cause-&-effect stopping at the choice, a self-damnation. A lie is then not a compromise, but a self-condemnation, a hanging without death. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on lies and truths - Your Body is a Truth Adventures in Two Worlds The Truth of Lies Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Crescendo by Alexander Nakarada
George Meyer, a co-writer on The Simpsons, referred to marriage as “a stagnant cauldron of fermented resentments, scared and judgmental conformity, exaggerated concern for the children . . . and the secret dredging-up of erotic images from past lovers in a desperate and heartbreaking attempt to make spousal sex even possible.” There's bitterness and cynicism there. That's a relationship at its very nadir, where there seems to be little hope for redemption. But, of course, that's not how things always work. Most relationships work in the twilight zone. Part incandescent, part dark. Not so much hate or love, as simmer and freeze. And as is true with most extremities, there's a sense of humanity lost, of balance skewed, confronting more of what's lost then loss itself. But we are humans: the more we hurt someone, the more we require healing; when falling out is often synonymous with falling down; and more we push people away, more we need them beside us. The tragedy of people who injure others is not that they use their ability to draw blood, it is how much they would like to be the one who would rather bleed. Their natural disdain is for themselves - their lowest opinion is reserved for their own weaknesses. They are fragile waiting to be broken, to be destroyed, to find meaning in their extinction and maybe their exhumation. Those who create tragedy are themselves tragediennes. So much of the grace of good gurus is nothing but to teach not to judge and merely embrace what seems to be imploding in front of one's eyes. Souls are redeemed by the mere act of acknowledgement. The words "I understand" have saved innumerable lives. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the desolation in relationships - Of Love (& other bouts of sadness) Miles Apart Finding Ways to Survive (Each Other) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Rising Sun by Sascha Ende
Relationships are such journeys! Once you get into one, one prepares for the long haul. Railroad crashes, car rides, boring flights. The odd distraction, the unwilling participation, and the rare view of the Kanchenjunga through impenetrable clouds. One wishes for transcendence and encounters reality checks. In our closest relationships we discover our worst selves. But then a few things start to change. A few things seem to find their niche with a satisfying click. You start seeing things together and find consonance in your reactions. Slivers of light seem to come out of the brokenness. Our sharp edges transcend to become rough surfaces. And we start to redefine the definition of 'smooth': the chiding, the irritations, the battles, all become quiddities - to be paid attention to, but not with emotional equity. And suddenly the uncertain universe starts taking the shape of two. Habits behove relationships. Habits knit into relationships. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which reminisce on the passage of love - I Can Sense Her Loneliness What is Loss, She Asked Me Grief Strikes Where Love Struck First Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Satisfaction by Sascha Ende
So much of our lives is a choice between the hard rock and a soft landing. Time and again we struggle, forgetting this is one life, and just a few million breaths. Beyond that, it's retribution. Endings are rarely spectacular. Because, we are all slaves to our insecurities, our fears holding us tightly. And it is in very rare occasions of singular clarity and fearless realisations that we let ourselves go. We blindly let the universe take us into places we would never dream of. And we find our nightmares to be illusions. And the coyotes we get to run with are the only honest beasts we know, who will hunt with us, and will find their one peaceful corner when the time comes, just as they leave us to ours. Our lives are richer for the wildness we keep seeking outside - and inside. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the mysteries of life - Bella's Meadow A Meaning Without Questions Life For Rent Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Andromeda by Sascha Ende
I'd written this poem years back. I can't even remember the context or the time. But it brings an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, of evanescence - of people and loves who move on, always too soon it seems. Parting seems like demise, and its irrevocable passage doesn't make it any easier. Bitter lovers have often talked of such periods as those of wasted opportunity, as if anything which doesn't have a classic consequence or a desired denouement is a phase in futility. The fallacy of endings being more important than the rush of the journey. But those who know about transience, who know that life is only a zen exercise, an observance of moments, know how life is both accumulation and movement, of experiencing and moving on. All my poet friends keep telling me "Don't wallow in nostalgia! It is treacly. Too much sentimentality is dangerous to health." Maybe. What I do love doing is to think back and smile. Of having reconciled with what travels, what hurts, what sustains, what follows, what stays. And of looking back at it all, as the hurt and gain of irrevocable passage. f you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on departures - Letting Go (because I am alive) Favourite People (who we love and leave) Departures Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Golden Journey Under The Sky of Autumn by Musiclfiles
Ara (who goes by the name 'petrichara' on Instagram) writes "someone who allows you to rest is the relationship dynamic of all time". And I think - it's not only people but places too. Places we're familiar with, places which allow us to ease into ourselves. Like a home. Where we know everything, where everyone knows us, and all we have to be is what we are in our own skin. And often when we move in our home with awareness, we find the new in the old, messages we hadn't got earlier, congruities we hadn't encountered before. We know our home's oddities to be our own, we find its nooks suffused with hidden histories, and it is our witness and sanctuary. A home is a friend, silently seeing us unwind or unravel with equal sang-froidness. Familiar people, familiar places are a boon to our hearts, solace to our souls, as we step into the unfamiliarities of an unforgiving world. We start our days, unaware what it would bring, our guards up, a thin tensile strain keeping our spine straight. Are we funny, are we competent, have we met the world on its terms without losing ourselves, have we stamped it with our individualities? The modern-day stress we keep hearing about is merely a result of these unmeasurable presences of a normal day. When we step into our homes, leaving our shoes and artifices behind, it's the medicine, the panacea, the equaliser, which brings us back to our sanities. We would be deranged without our homes. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the healing and beauty of homes - Her Breasts as Shelter A Home as an Open Dream Changing Your Address (on marrying and moving homes) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - True summer love by Musiclfiles Tranquil Fields Peaceful by Alexander Nakarada
The relentless agency of living, its insistencies to persist - until it no longer could - its proclivity for drama, its calmness to tired souls: that's one way to see life, when you are about to give up on things, when there seems to be no redemption to distress, when life seems to be an unending travail - something which doesn't give up even when you are ready to. And you search for a reason to carry on. Viktor Frankl said "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." But, alas, you simply can't find a reason - and you can't let go. So you strain to come out every morning. And you see that the ones who are always present are - the sun, the morning, the birds. They find joy without anticipation. They find a sense of being in the very act of repetition. Without expectation, without thinking of the past or future, just letting the nature of what is uncontrollable to do what it does best, and going along with the repetition and the ride. And you step back, and look at this with a new eye. Not as a wound which doesn't heal, not as pain which keeps nagging incessantly. You start to look at it as benediction, a faith that things will unravel the way they have to, that agony is not preordained reality - rather, to be in the incident of life is to be in the full glow of its grace. And everything changes. You look at life with new eyes. Not as anticipation or affliction, not as scar or suture, not as the space between sighs and celebration, but as presence, as stillness, as sanity. The time to create, and find the beyond. Because that is where we always find ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of healing tired souls - What is Loss, she asked me Loneliness (oh these rains) Ruins Have Permanent Flames Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Rising Sun by Sascha Ende https://filmmusic.io/en/song/86-rising-sun
How much we are afraid to say what often simply needs to be said. It's an unavoidable fact - the conversations we avoid are the conversations we require the most. Often we are afraid to face the black-&-white of the spoken truth, often we fear the unpredictability of confrontations. Maybe, in the past, we've had to face the consequences of a scathing talk, and have now sworn to avoid anything which has the potential to break or hurt, welt or injure. But subtly, irrevocably, what lies unspoken also changes us as persons, as it does our relationships. On the surface, a calm descends. The need to avoid conflict overwhelms the need for stark truths. And the elephant sits fat and solid in the room, munching away time, growing fat on what's unspoken. And by including avoidance in the definition of love, we chip away at truths. We become politer but less honest, we want to confront monsters by pretending they don't exist. In the song of life, we try hard to avoid the discordant note, and thus lose the soul required to give love not only its longevity but its singular breath. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness - Old Poems for Old Lovers The Art of the Lonely Good Deed Loneliness (oh these rains) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Loneliness by Sayan Mukherjee
What is important to us? This question needs to be asked every morning, because weeks, which have been days, soon become years, and when we look back, we find that things have changed and people have drifted. It's not that we lose ourselves in the trivial. It's how we let things subtract our lives rather than add to it. And we regret the time where we let go of opportunities to be with people who mean everything to us, or do things which we feared at that time and now regret not doing. Time and again we are told to live in the moment, to embrace the passage of time, to know that living in the moment is the only way to find meaning. Time and again we regret not embracing it, and to let go of the opportunity which life gives us. Akin to this are the small stones of resentment which grow inside us, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, for people we care for, which become boulders stopping us from reaching out. When we look back we can see the reasons of withdrawal were so slight that in the schemata of lives, sorrows and admonitions, they really counted for nothing. But then we would have wasted time, we would have wasted years. We would have lost out on someone holding our hands in grief. We would have lost out in hearing voices with laughter in them speaking to us. We would have lost out in seeing familiar faces in front of us, growing more loved by the minute, because we love their mind and their heart and what they stand for and what they mean to us. More than anything else, it is people we should always reach out to and be close to and pick up the phone and talk to, because our true meaning comes from only two things: the things which we do, the people we reach out to. Our lives are always lesser when not filled with who or what we love. And in turn we are lesser as people. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of friendship - Memory Keeper Compatriots of Trust Aaschi Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Spring fervour full version by Musiclfiles Mystical autumn by Musiclfiles
It's been a tumultuous few days. According to WHO, one person is murdered every 60 seconds in this world. One person commits suicide about every 40 seconds. One person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds. And busy with our quotidian struggles, we let the numbers swirl around our consciousness before slipping away. Until one day, our blasé conscience finds something which goes beyond even our overburdened shock meter. And in strange infinitesimal ways, our world shifts. Something inside us breaks - and something else breaks open. The overwhelming feeling that a public tragedy is a personal visitation, beyond a dining table conversation, starts to haunt us. The tragedy becomes our own. We want to go beyond the pale of our usual cynicism - "what will change? what can change?" - and want to demand change. Of course, the patient procrastination of officialdom, the slow overtures of bureaucracy, the survival instincts of political whataboutery kicks in - as do attempts to wear us down. And we understand the strategies, we know how we will grow angrier and progressively frustrated - and our lives will begin to call, our duties will come to the fore. Our livelihoods will begin to be at stake - and we do give up. But we don't give in. For we know the long game too. Along the years we have also learnt the power of giving the long rope. We know that beyond the immediate sufferance, there are a few knockout blows which we hide beneath our sleeves. The streets, the polls, protests, poems, a non-cooperation movement, emptying halls where they speak, refusing their doles, walking out in the middle of speeches, a continual call to conscience. Beyond the pale of greed and corruption, which we all see and bear on a daily basis, we unite ourselves from cynicism, of not giving up because struggles often take years, maybe generations. We ensure that the blow is significant, and political parties, for years to come, will remember that those who bring them to power can never ever be taken for granted. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of what politics does to all of us - Politics on the Dining Table Mr Hoskote, have you visited Kashmir recently? No Revolution is Complete Without a Ruined Soul Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Refugees by Sascha Ende https://filmmusic.io/en/song/539-refugees
Who are we if not slaves to our addictions? In the annals of definitions, we are often what we are at our worst. Which is the world's way of prioritising simply - and slotting conveniently. But much worse than our ruthless judgement is what we do with our own judgements about ourselves. Within the tumult of being a sex addict or an alcoholic or being bulimic, there are those despairing battles where we fight our worst indulgences, and heartbreakingly, lose, and lose again, till we stop even putting up a fight. And to live in the shadow of this continuous defeat is to realize how much of a lie we live in, and how everything dwarfs, even in our mind and soul, in front of this assault of unrelenting indulgence. And after a while there's no place to hide - from the world or ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on sex as life - Her Breasts as Shelter Such are Such Days (or the days I make love to her) Finding Souls Between Their Legs Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Sleepers by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3232-sleepers License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Our feelings are a yo-yo. Forever seeking more, something different, something ultra energising. As if different is better. We are not able to figure out the difference between excess and endurance. Everything around us moves so rapidly - technology, circumstances, opinions - that even relationships fall victim to the syncopated rhythm of indulgence & desertion. And in this cornucopia of life, we lose sight of what is actually enduring, what is flippant, what we need to hold onto, what we need to release. We indulge in a hurry, and regret at leisure. And in the hullabaloo of choices do not even realize what we've lost. Till, someone recognizes our gold, and realises the unmindful flippancy of our directions - and refuses to let us take them. And in the blessings inherent in our lives, the accumulation of the good we've done in this world, we are able to embrace what finally endures. Our life is changed, we go past the nightmare of options, and find both the compass and the perch, the arc and the direction, the zen of the passing and the depth of what endures. We are then blessed, because we have been found. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems full of nostalgia for love - Living Tragedy Forward Of Love (& other bouts of sadness) Favourite People (who we love and leave) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - The Children Of MH17 by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/268-the-children-of-mh17 License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Loss is embedded into our lives. Its advent has both unpredictability and inevitability written into it. It never comes as a stranger - but never ceases to break us. As humans, we are too embroiled in the now, too sure that the inertia of happiness will never cease its trajectory, to even mentally (leave aside emotionally) prepare for it. The definition of loss, for each one of us, lies in whether what we lose is in our care, is our concern. Whether it lights us up. In concrete (often amorphous) ways, whether it gives meaning to the breath we take. Every which way, loss has a wake of tragedy. It could be a pinprick in the routine or a chasm in our soul. However robust our defence systems, however practical our relationship with reality, loss which means something to us, leaves us desolate. It's this fear which leaves us unprepared. Conversations on death - the ultimate loss - are avoided, because we think it's bad omen. There's no one to blame - we are humans, we have our quiddities, weaknesses, blind spots. But the loss which leaves as deep a cut is when someone we love decides to move on. The sadness fractures us because the occurrence is not inevitable, and is often unexpected. To lose someone who brings gold to our lives, and amber to our hearts, is to lose treasure. We are then no longer the lees of loss, but its extension. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and desolation - Grief Strikes Where Loves Struck First Letting Go (because I'm alive) The Things We Become When We Leave Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 (Sadness) by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/304-blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadness License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
There's nothing like tragedy to make us feel dreadfully alone. The particularities of what afflicts us is so personal that very few can find ways to hold us together as we fall apart. We seek the shoulder of those whose contours and smells are familiar and make our desolation feel less lonely. But often their presence is merely a body to hold onto, even as we tear up inside. So, paradoxically, if there's anything which exacerbates the implosion, it is the non-presence of the one we expect to be beside us as we disintegrate. Because what could be more devastating than not having a loved one, whose mere presence lights us up, to be not there to hold us up. One can travel across the globe in multiple hours, there's no office, no binding, no power - except probably deep illness - which could or should hold a loved one back. And in that absence lies the deepest cut. Because human beings are tactile, and sorrow requires presence. And hurt CAN build upon tragedy. We shrink inside when love gives intimations of deserting us, particularly when it still hasn't deserted our hearts. However much we find ourselves self sufficient and centered, we are special when people find us so - we are the validations we receive, we are the unexpected call, we are the sidelong glance, we are the deer caught in someone's glance, we are the unplanned trip, we are the early-morning love-making. Our life is often full because of the smallest gifts. When we are denied those, our lives shrink into decimal places. And our tragedy multiplies. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of lovers who move on - Of Love (& other bouts of sadness) I Will Leave The Last Line for You To Fill Favourite People (We Love & Leave) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - A Sad Toy Story by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/563-a-sad-toy-story License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Bella's Meadow* * inspired by Rumi's Field by Bella Mahaya Carter. A little help from Leon. We have all been asked one question from time immemorial - “What do you want to become when you grow up?” Or the more sophisticated variant - “What do you want from life?” When I think back, I'm bemused with the varying answers, I would have given as I grew, and do give now. When I was a child, it was to be a railway engine driver. Then it became a desire to be a writer. Later as life's reality checks started sinking in, I just wanted to make tons of money. The subtleties of life started showing their face. And I realized all I wanted was happiness, which turned to fulfilment. And today all I want is to be present in the moment As the most important things in our lives keep shifting, this subtle transition is one of the benedictions of aging, mirroring, as it were, what is important to me at that phase of my life. But this last wish, this desire of presence, of being true to the moment, will now stay with me. Because this one moment is all we really have, to create a lifetime of riches. Of making a difference to myself or my world. Because allied to presence is the biting realisation that we cannot forever be carriers of regrets or recriminations. In a world choc-o-bloc with choices, why in the name of heaven, should we choose to carry stones in our hearts? Amnesia to things which bite the heart late in the night is possibly the most powerful path to serenity. And a good night's sleep. The world opens up its riches to those who see it with clear eyes. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the generosity of time - Things We Gather In The Drift We Will Find Our Certainties Letting Go (because I'm alive) Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Lonesome by Sascha Ende
We are terrible at recognising symbols. That's why much of popular art believes in high jinx, and the subtler softer art of hidden stories and allegories find their home in empty art galleries. For me, one of the greatest joys of living in a world full of wonders is to find symbols and messages - where probably there are none. But stop me! It all started in my childhood, when I and my mum lazed in our garden, each chewing a strand of sweet summer grass, watching clouds, discerning shapes out of them and she saying “The next cloud will be what you will be when you grow up” and laugh uncontrollably when it turned out to be the shape of rotund elephant. And now everything sets me up. From a random political poster saying “Savdhan” as I step to start a day; to the way my skin crawls when I enter a home I don't like; from the uncharacteristically generous splash of jam on my morning toast put by my wife; to the way flowers fall on me at the exact moment I pass a tree. If I'm crossing a road and a dark cloud passes the sun my instincts go alive, if I step out and a child coos at me I start looking forward to a lovely beatific day. I have never tracked the efficacy or the evolving truth of the messages, because for me it is enough that they are there. More than their truth it's their presence which thrills me. It's like the universe is having a secret conversation with me. As if it is being both naughty and generous - sharing secrets and giving messages - be aware, beware, be alive. In the same vein, the body of a loved one is chocobloc with messages. The arc of an eyebrow, the way a hand is withdrawn, the seconds in which a hug is broken. The way her thighs touch yours when you sit in a crowded hall, the way she smiles in an elongated silence, the way music wafts out of a filigreed window as you walk to a lover's house, the way she lets her breast caress your chest in the gentlest way as she kisses you on your cheek. Beyond practicalities, our entire body is a gorgeous possibility of messaging. The subtle art of Vipassanna - which I so prefer to the secret-mantra artifice of TM or the forced kindness of Metta Meditation - asks us to explore our body for messages, to observe and move on. For in that observance, lies the recognition that it is important to know, but equally vital is the immediate passage away from this realisation. I see the morning sun filter through the leaves, and there's a delicate dance happening on the walking path. A snail waits for me, probably to let me lift it to the garden on the upper ground. It's actually lifting me up. It's gonna be a good day. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the mysteries of the body - Punctuation for Lovers Such are Such Days (or the days I make love to her) Finding Souls Between Their Legs Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - The Way To Kataka by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11-the-way-to-kataka License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Sunset at Glengorm by Kevin Macleod
One thing which I celebrate with a fullness of heart, is the normalcy of a strong relationship, which allows for consent, dissent, conversation, dissatisfaction, honesty, fun. The pleasure of knowing one can be one's own imperfect self, and still make a relationship stronger for it. Life, as it were, throws enough seductions to test us to our weaknesses - of faith, of belief, of purpose (and I'm not even getting started on religion and politics!) - not to further have the ones who love us the most to sit in judgement on our munificence or transgressions. And this is, of course, easier said than done. Because much before we demand non-judgement, we have to ensure we give it. I for one am very quick in ‘disliking-rejecting', ‘liking-embracing'. It is my own private fiefdom of choice and I carry my opinion fiercely inside me, until I deem fit to change it. And progressively as I age, I show my true feelings more transparently than before. I have fewer friends as a consequence, but the ones I have, are the rocks and rock stars of my life. Because we know this of each other - we are both more because of our quiddities and irritations. And we enjoy the frayed package of what we bring to each other. Life is complicated enough not to allow love to be nitpicking. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on leaving a lover - Letting Go ( because I'm alive) The Things We Become When We Leave I Will Leave The Last Line for You to Fill Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Your name by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/13-your-name License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Sunset Fields by Alexander Nakarada
Time and again I have wanted to die. Oh there were reasons enough. A bruising fight at home, an extreme embarrassment outside, an absolute absence of intimacy when I was bereft of everything I cared for. Of course there was an absolute lack of balance, a misreading of circumstances, an extreme reaction. But far more critical was what the universe laid out for me in those times. I found an iridescent evening full of orange and purple thrown my way. When I stepped out into a budding dawn after a sleepless night, the trees bent down to caress me, the snails stopped their steady progress in the walking path to wave at me with their tiny antlers. I met a stranger who paid for my change in a coffee shop. Poori kainaat. The whole universe was conspiring to tell me - abide, hold on, you are not alone. And I was glad that I noticed. Time and again, I wake up to the blessings of a world which never stops giving. Of course, it's always there for the seeing. It's we who ignore the signs and the colours and the aromas of a world which is crying out loud to be experienced. It's we, who internalize our senses such that we are awake to our minutest emotional tremor but miss out the broad strokes visible everywhere. But much more than that, the message to us continuously is that meaning is not a derivative or an equation. It is a presence, to be embraced, without suspecting payback or a happenstance seeking a price. Once we realise this, the entire grace of the world is out for the taking. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on why life is so beautiful - I Like The Ordinary Life The Grace That We Give This: One Grace Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Artemis by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/6934-artemis License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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