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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Stuck for Life
Where did we go wrong? When did we stop feeling compassionate and emotional about things that mattered? How have we become so engrossed in our materialistic comforts, that we have built a fortress of silence around us? Women and children are being raped and sold. They are being subjected to oppression and exploitation in unmentionable ways.
Sunitha Krishnan was gang raped by 8 men when she was 15. An anger in her made her work for hundreds of victims all around India. She is 40 now and has co-founded Prajwala, or "eternal flame", a group in Hyderabad that rescues women from brothels and educates their children to prevent second-generation prostitution.
Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Hyderabad for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution, 1,500 of whom Krishnan personally liberated. At its Asha Niketan center, Prajwala helps young victims prepare for a self-sufficient future.
Sunitha Krishnan was gang raped by 8 men when she was 15. An anger in her made her work for hundreds of victims all around India. She is 40 now and has co-founded Prajwala, or "eternal flame", a group in Hyderabad that rescues women from brothels and educates their children to prevent second-generation prostitution.
Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Hyderabad for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution, 1,500 of whom Krishnan personally liberated. At its Asha Niketan center, Prajwala helps young victims prepare for a self-sufficient future.
Look into those eyes
and read the fleeting words
etched in her sorrow’s mist,
Words that quickly liquefy
as tears flow down her cheek.
She cries out in pain,
her words echo in my brain
“Don’t label me thus,
I am no slut”
But labels are such
with adhesives so firm
stronger than the clasp
of the dying young.
Her voice rose shrill
above stern content ones,
shrieked words of protest
bounced right back at her
from closed bejeweled ears.
Closed eyes, closed ears,
Closed minds and closed lives,
We live on, nothing touches,
nothing allowed to penetrate
our safe fortress of silence.
Labels stick, stick so hard,
and beam out spotlights
to attract the hyenas,
Knocks on her door
that guides in the darkness.
Now she is just a vagina,
that may cry and bleed.
No one hears
since no one cares.
The dumb and deaf world
its screaming shame hides,
gagged and chained
in the narrow dark lanes
of its sparkling cities.
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Love Musings 1
Love has more to it than meets the eye. I wonder, in my most blue moments, if what we feel is love at all. Do we not love the 'I' in the I love you a little too much?
In these 5 short poems, you will find me in awe as well as cynical about love. That's the reality of the human species. Is not your image, your reputation, your Dharma, your comfort, your life, your children that defines your love?...you take 'you' out of the equation and find that selfless love is a just myth. Or is it?
Just like flawless snowflakes come in so many intricately beautiful designs, love too is a complex mishmash of complicated emotions, that pull one way on a given day and the other the next.
In these 5 short poems, you will find me in awe as well as cynical about love. That's the reality of the human species. Is not your image, your reputation, your Dharma, your comfort, your life, your children that defines your love?...you take 'you' out of the equation and find that selfless love is a just myth. Or is it?
Just like flawless snowflakes come in so many intricately beautiful designs, love too is a complex mishmash of complicated emotions, that pull one way on a given day and the other the next.
If I say that my universe
Has shrunk into a human fettle,
Does it say that I love you?
Or I love that I love?
II
Love is that magic
That packs the universe
To make it shine
From a heart in love.
III
Love has no language
But the language of action.
Of Karma and Dharma
To all in our scope.
IV
Love has a history
Been a subject of study
It has taught man
The ‘how is and how to’
That when hearty-
I ask, “Is this IT? ”
V
Like snowflakes
Comes forth love
Nonpareil in design,
Ornery it would be to say
Monday, April 26, 2010
Key To My Evolution
I started off as a misunderstood child, unable to read and write, unable to follow instructions and unable to stop grinning even while being scolded. My parents gave up on me but I know they wouldn't have, if they had heard about dyslexia.
What I never lost, during all my struggling years, was the attitude...so positive, that all the negatives aimed at me, changed me in a positive way. I learnt that it was not I who brought these reactions in them. It was their prejudice and their shortcomings that did not allow them to reach out and embrace. I learnt to forgive but luckily did not learn to forget.
I embraced change. I imbibed the new. I grew from within. And strangely those lessons that I was unable to put on paper during exams, those concepts that were taught in class and in life, stayed with me. I understood them differently...in an applied way...taught by me to myself!
So change is the essence of my life...an open mind, open to new thought. And I will not, I repeat, will not remain what I am today, tomorrow. I promise... Yes, I promise this to myself.
What I never lost, during all my struggling years, was the attitude...so positive, that all the negatives aimed at me, changed me in a positive way. I learnt that it was not I who brought these reactions in them. It was their prejudice and their shortcomings that did not allow them to reach out and embrace. I learnt to forgive but luckily did not learn to forget.
I embraced change. I imbibed the new. I grew from within. And strangely those lessons that I was unable to put on paper during exams, those concepts that were taught in class and in life, stayed with me. I understood them differently...in an applied way...taught by me to myself!
So change is the essence of my life...an open mind, open to new thought. And I will not, I repeat, will not remain what I am today, tomorrow. I promise... Yes, I promise this to myself.
As I read my old poems yesterday,
'Is it possible for a person to change?
A metamorphosis of self in change?
Transformed matured grown altered?'
These questions as I read emerged,
As I scanned oldnew poems yesterday.
The process I admire and respect, for
In the Universe change is the essence,
A process, a mystery so remarkable,
A process, omnipresent, incredible,
But as it unfold inside me I see,
Its strength and beauty, I perceive.
I see a mind expanding, opening,
To a word, a theme, a question,
Tentacles in my mind feeling,
Reaching, touching, in unison,
With my heart learning, exploring,
Every minuscule vibe of emotion.
New tissue, new pathways formed,
I think new dendrites and synapses,
New veins, arteries, capillaries paved,
An ‘I’ all new renewed that makes,
To feel and think in modes altered,
Or in hidden, now surfacing ways.
As I search for the reason for change,
That I see unfolding deep within me,
Is it I? This crazy newfound being?
With pen as weapon powerful to wield?
No! No! This change in me for all to see,
I know the real reason for this change!
What holds the key to this change I see,
In the poems my heart and soul writes?
Helping me willingly as I changembrace,
In my attitude, in emotion, in my expression?
The key for change it holds in its possession,
Is strangely 'appreciation'! Simple words!!
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Mangrove Muddle
The Rhizophora roots
Like a bed of nails
Point fingers at the skies.
The smell of the gases
That bubble from below
Burst gently in the
Heavy humid reeking air
That hangs over the marsh.
The sunset casts a spell
Of orange stickiness that creeps
Between the dermis and the bone.
Stuck I am waist-deep in mud!
Little Uca crabs scuttle sideways
Fiddle and violin held up high
Blue streaks on the white disappear
As they gently slide into their holes.
There flashed by a white egret
On my right, as a heron
Flew off with a fish for dinner
To the Avicennia trees that grow
Just at the edge of the river.
I can hear the chicks in their nests
Tweet in delight as the fish
Mother heron brought
Slid down their throats.
Ah, I can feel polychaetes
Slither into my jeans as I stand there
Unable to move an inch!
The mud banks of the Mandovi
Stretch out firm and inviting
The waves make faint ripples
On silver sand edges
As I stand rooted in the
Mangrove forest mud.
Oh! for a friendly Goan fisherman
To spot me on his way
To the basket traps
At the estuary mouth.
The smell of frying fish
That whiff of heavenly bliss
And I hear a rumble rising
From deep inside the mud
That’s now up till my chest
Emm, that my stomach crying!
The sun now set
The darkness wrapped me
In a warm cocoon of smooth mire.
Slowly sliding
Deeper and deeper
Into a mangrove grave
Lost
Buried
Never to be free ever again.
My cries of help lost in the dark
As I wait for the damp mud
To enter my nostrils!
And I wake up
From the tired haze
To the sweet sounds
Of approaching help!
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Love, The Spiritual Language
Countless stories reaffirm the importance of love in our lives. Mythology and real life stories talk of love which is selfless and spiritual. Love is what makes the world go round. It is the lubricant that smoothen the spin that would otherwise leave us dizzy and confused. It is also the only anchor we have, in this world that spins beyond control more often than not. In this poem, I have used 2 styles...the structured verse and the free verse...because I felt that in the madness of love there needs to be some structure and discipline too!...mainly because when 'in love', logic flies out of the nearest window!
As the world burns, burns too the heart
The cold world redhot, we view hot eyed
Is selfish desire, the disease of the heart
The disease of the world, lust and greed?
Dressed in forest flowers
With a peacock plume on his crown
And with a flute, the weapon of love
The young cowherd Krishna
Descends to this earth
Roused by the beauty of tranquil Vraja
He plays with his flute
Sweet bewitching music
And out flow from their homes
Gopikas, the cowherd maidens,
Into the splendour of the moonlit forest.
In love they dance holding hands
Each Gopika dances with
A Krishna only hers.
This is an invincible symbol of love
Intimate, hermetic, cerebral and sensual
Of passionate devotion to God
Joined with God each one of us feels.
Clouded minds grope for reality grounded
Life mythshaped by our perceived reality
Realize with feet solidly on earth planted
You, on this mythical earth, the only reality.
The Song of Songs
That Song of Solomon
The love song of passion
Between a queen and a king.
The song of sacred love
A devotion so loving
That in each other they merge
The earthly queensoul
And the divine Christking.
A sacred love story
Of romance and passion
That lifts mortal hearts
To heights of selfless nihility,
For love and compassion
In the madness of devotion
Majnu obsessed for beloved Laila
Setting an example fine
of its limitless power esoteric.
Lubricated only by the love in our heart
The earth smoothly on its axis thus spins
Language of logic means little to the heart
It’s the spiritual language of love that counts.
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Love Lines
Say the word 'LOVE' and everyone is starry-eyed. After heady couple of years, the 'really in love' couples find a method in the madness. They draw lines of understanding between them and around them to sustain the love and to help it grow. This keeps them from stepping on each others toes and also from 'rubbing each other up the wrong way' (in the context-this one is funny!)
Love is all about lines.
Love lines of healthy love.
Lines drawn with the arrow
that pierced two hearts.
As in love they fall
lines themselves draw.
Lines that redefine
tolerance and sacrifice.
Lines so bent you now
call them arcs.
Lines that with passing time
change in length.
As backsteps both take
to accommodate.
Lines that define the space
that need surround.
No lines should trespass
into freedom spaces.
Assertive lines that
draw the limits.
Respect these lines
for love to grow.
Lines at a tangent
that that cross often.
Never should run parallel
as if paths preset.
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Life Goes On…
Life is full of disappointments and numerous moments of feeling that you want to just sleep and forget the goings-on, but suddenly the cloud cover is lifted and the sun shines warmly on our lives. I think it pays to understand that the sun cannot shine for you for ever. Unless the rain clouds bring the rain and the snow, earth cannot prepare itself for a hot summer.
Step by step
On the white chalk line
Walk on, sojourner!
Life moves on
And waits for none,
No time to linger
With regrets in the heart,
No time to ponder
On words said harsh.
Along the way
A hand is held
With promise pledged
Sealed and taken,
No time to linger
With regrets in the heart,
No time to ponder
On words said harsh.
Close bonds may grate
And repair a must,
All things need fixing
For friction wears,
No time to linger
With regrets in the heart,
No time to ponder
On words said harsh.
The seeds well sown
Have borne the fruit,
Sit back, unwind!
Kind wind, fill the sail
On smooth satin waters
To the horizon sail!
No time to linger
On life lived well
No time to ponder
On life after death!
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Love at First Smell
Pheromones are the reason for love at first sight...or is it love at first smell?
Across the hall the eyes meet
Locked as if frozen stuck
The view blurs all around
And time flees in freefall
As the focus zooms in
To the appearance, voice,
The gestures and smell.
They move forward prod
As if by an unseen hand
Till there they stood
Lost in the sea of humanity
With a cyclone rising in them
That threatened to drown
Them in the whirlpool
Of a swirling universe.
“He smells divine,
As divine as he looks”
As disorder hits a nerve,
“Why do I believe
I will cease to be
If not with him?”
Is he the faceless stranger
Who waits around the corner
In her lonely dreams?
“It is he!” she whispered with
Her heart now in her throat,
Is she in control of herself
As her heart beats fast
And her thoughts gallop?
Asudden they started talking
Words blurted out in animation
Incomplete sentences
That made no sense at all
And came the giggles
And then the candid laughter
As the rising warmth
Broke the ice and the distance.
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
Monday, April 19, 2010
Lessons In Life
Hope this didn't come out too preachy! But these are lessons that I have learnt in life. Some of them are beyond me but realizing their absence in my life has made me try harder. Attaining even a fraction of these truths can make life less painful.
Everything in life happens for a reason
Gently nudging us along the way.
Like the quiet play of changing season
Some tender some sad some happy.
Beautiful sunrise starts a sunny day
And darkest darkness a starry night.
For without sorrow one knows not joy.
Accept both the day and a starless night
Everyday a new page always opens
Brings the welcome and the unwanted.
Accept both with wide-open arms
Both are there for a purpose unnamed.
Past lessons are wisdom if simply learnt,
Mistakes are teachers of pain and gain.
Mistakes are teachers of pain and gain.
Past is past but may visit the present
Falling teaches to rise and never fall again
Misfortune brings out the best in you
Strengths you never thought you possess.
The doors of opportunity unlocks for you
Regret not the countless doors that close.
Regret not the countless doors that close.
Learn to keep mind wordless and silent
Do what is essential to solve a puzzler
Let nothing affect the peace and quiet
Feel no panic or anxiety for the future.
Feel no panic or anxiety for the future.
Things always turn out just right
For those making the most of a day
Problems are never problems tight
For those that grow riding today.
For those that grow riding today.
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
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