All I could see was a few small trees and one big grey building. Shades of black, patches of dirt… the peeled paint made it look more like a sketch of a building…
A sketch of an old building that has seen eras pass by.
An era that changes almost nothing, but still does. Change that life awaits. Life that holds colours. Colours combine to form black, if it’s light they combine to form white.
Remember the prism experiment? Black and white…and grey. Grey characters say a lot. A grey building says a lot.
Happy me with happy flowers in September. Image – Pixabay.
Do you remember how snowflakes made the little girl smile? And how velvety the whole valley looked? And me… jumping like a rabbit in white madness that I love so much…?
Oh sorry, that was January.
Do you remember when the squally winds took my hat away?
Ha! It was February. Sorry-sorry!
Surely you remember the rush of the colours – rich green, bright but soothing yellow, and joyous merry pink… oh what days, colours dripping music and more… glorious days, sunshine in store read the headlines and our red shoes couldn’t stop dancing, remember?
No? Colours rule, hurray, hurray… March, April and May… Oh! So it lasted till May… my mistake.
But then mangoes arrived and shined and peaches and plums and cherries and strawberries… and never did we see such a bigger moon… what a splendour, you had said, I clearly remember, you can’t deny… the moon and the earth and the sky all in tune.
Oh! It was June.
The moon and the earth and the sun all in tune… oh, it was June. Image – Pixabay.
Those monsoon showers I hope you remember… lie, if you have to, at least to save me from heartbreak. Puddles and paper boats, raincoats and wet pockets, teacups and gossips… Don’t take it all as a joke, I am hurt and you know it. But I won’t cry like you did and sneezed and laughed and cried again. We shared the longest hug… no, I am not mad.
July and August… My bad!
The golden autumn leaves, don’t say you don’t remember… we jumped on them, you and I… We liked the crunch-crunch sound… but that old uncle who wore a woollen Kulluvi-cap didn’t and he ran after us… remember?
Long walks in those misty mornings, me shivering you laughing, me yawning you still laughing… I even wrote a poem titled – September laughed throughout October and November…
Am… Sh, why am I getting it all wrong?
Lights and candles and time for celebrations… candies and cakes and handy resolutions… Oh! I know, am wrong again, you don’t need to say it… “December, December, December!”
Indeed it was in December.
Oh, my dear September… accept my apologies and hear what I have to say… whatever the calendar ever tells me, whatever the weather ever shows me, I carry September in my heart throughout the year, for September is special to me and will always be.
The carousel plays on and on, it is where we met for the first time, I came reluctantly to that fair or was I dying to be there… but I am sure I stayed for you.
Your eyes are sweetly closed, you are smiling peacefully, and you are meditating…but how? How do you do it?
I am listening to my breath and the music my heart plays. My eyes are closed yet I see all the colours ever so vividly. I feel so light as if I am flying and thus I smile. I am meditating, I am living in the moment, in the second. I can feel the spirit inside me. You are asking me how to do it…but the answer lies within you.
Search for it, not once or twice or thrice, do it all the time, ceaselessly, until you find no further need to explore. When time and space vanish and you are present everywhere.
Is this the ultimate search? Will this solve everything?
When you start looking for something, it becomes the first step. And if you look clearly, the first step turns into the last step. This is only possible if you ask the correct question.
I am painting you in different colours…you somehow are choosing the colours for yourself. I don’t know how you are doing it but then it is only making the painting more alive. I don’t want to part yet I’ll have to; you’ll look good in the big palace, not in this old hut. You are almost complete now….
If you believe, truly, that I should stay here with you, you will see me here even if I leave.
*
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The painter after finishing the painting of the Buddha, sent it to its owner for which he was awarded a good sum of money. He stayed gloomy as he wanted to have the talking Buddha to himself.
He thought about the last words of the Buddha for a long time…days passed and then months.
Sitting quietly and pondering upon those words he felt calm and just then he realised that the mud wall of his hut had an impression on it that looked exactly like the painting of the Buddha… he was entranced!
All the walls of his hut had turned into the painting of the Buddha and slowly the roof and the floor as well.
The painter smiled and closed his eyes, feeling serene and unaware of the fact that his own body was turning into the painting ofthe Buddha.
I believe in the waves. Everything in the universe is in the form of waves. The connection never breaks. Reverberation happens. Do you also feel it? It is amazing, but most of the times beyond our understanding, often leaving us frustrated.
Like when something is in front of us, we know that it is but we can’t find it.
I saw something that caught my attention, I saw some creepers climbing high and meeting the trees’ branches. The light green coloured creepers united with the brown coloured branches and the contrast between these colours and the dark green coloured tree-leaves looked so perfect, as if the scene was painted.
I don’t know if the union was meant to be or not. It was just wonderful, the creepers slowly crept on to the big trees; first the trunk and then the branches and then making a green velvety blanket with the leaves, like a slow wave.
The clouds move beautifully you know. They dance. They don’t stay at one place. We should also learn it. I mean we should keep in mind the fact that nothing is permanent, everything shifts from being to non-being. The clouds allow the sun rays to pass through it, only sometimes the sun rays decide to stay back and be with the clouds. The clouds change in colour when they are about to rain.
What a grand way to leave, to change into droplets and become a seed and come alive and then to meet the sun rays once again.
When a dancer performs and a singer sings and a musician plays and a painter paints and an architect builds, and a scientist thinks and a mother smiles – it is in a wave form. Like the velvety green wave we see in the forest, when the creepers meet the trees.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
