Darbari

Leave my side, O Kanha!
Speak to me no more...
Sweet words shall not move me
And caresses will not heal my pain.

Thus speaks the grieving Radha,
With angry tears in her eyes,
And her voice trembling with sorrow,
As she turns her face from her beloved...

Heedless, the Lord embraces her,
Even as she strains against his touch,
His breath whispers in her midnight hair,
And His fragrance fills the air she breathes...

Weakening in her pride, she struggles still...
A candle flickering in the gale of his affection,
Defying his love with all her might,
Furious at herself for seeing her own folly...

But He is as unrelenting as the wind,
His love swoops on her from all sides,
And her resolves crumbles against his smiles,
Even as he wipes the kohl from her fair cheeks...

In wonder then, Radha gazes at Him,
Krishna, revealed in his infinite form,
Space disappears, Time ceases and the Self dissolves,
Only Love remains...eternal...unchanging...
_______________________________

This poem was written to express sentiments that the Raag Darbari evoked in me, as I basked in Ustad Rais Khan's spirited rendition of the same. I witnessed the performance of the sixty-six year old maestro a few weeks ago, at Mumbai's famous Nehru Centre.

The theme of Radha and Krishna's love was used as a metaphor for something that many people experience in their lives. I have experienced it myself on many occasions...even on the day of the recital that inspired this poem...

You see, I had not made any plans to go for this programme. The passes for the show were given to me by some well-wishers all of a sudden and I quickly had to make some plans to reach the venue soon after I finished at the office. What happened however, was that a carefully constructed plan to reach the auditorium on time, collapsed most miserably and I reached a full hour late. My plight on the way there was quite pathetic. I was under the impression that I would reach too late to attend the Ustad's performance and would instead have to sit through only the second recital, which was by an artiste for whom I have no real liking! I fumed silently, until I got there, silently reprimanding the Universe for setting me in the thick of Mumbai traffic.

Imagine my surprise however when I walked into the hall and realised that the Ustad had not yet performed! Instead the stage was occupied by the other artiste, who was coming to the end of his recital (and with due respect to his knowledge of music, I was glad to have missed most of it, since I don't like his way of presenting the Raag!). I was perplexed, because even the pass had made it seem like the Ustad was performing first...I still don't know what happened, but the fact remains that I got to witness his entire performance soon after...and was left week in the knees, because of the sheer artistry to which I was exposed.

Darbari is a Raag that evokes a feeling of despondence, sorrow and reluctance in the beginning, but gradually takes the listener towards a sweet realisation and even ecstasy. Oddly, this is quite similar to what I experienced in the process of reaching the auditorium so horribly late, only to find that I had missed nothing. In fact, now that I think more about it, I think the scheme of things conspired to keep me away from the performance that I would not have liked and showed me the one that I will remember forever! :)

Similarly, the poem I wrote is woven around Radha's anger at Krishna, for some action of his that annoyed her. She is angry with him for having done something and decides to reprimand and punish him for the same. Nevertheless, she is unable to hold on to her disgruntlement and sadness for long because Krishna loves her unconditionally; in the face of his ceaseless affection and goodwill, her negative sentiments fade into nothing.

The Universe/God loves us unconditionally, even when our lack of understanding causes us to question this love. Sometimes circumstances make us question the grand scheme of things and we accuse the supreme of abandoning or neglecting us. However, we have usually only to wait a little before things happen that make us realise that despite our misgivings, there was plan and reason behind the occurrence of events in our lives. Somehow, and sometimes in a very convoluted way, each event in our lives has a meaning, shaped ever so carefully by the hand of the divine.

I know it's not necessarily easy to accept these words, especially if events in your life have led you to question the role of God in your life. Nevertheless, I hope and pray that positive change occurs in your life, driven by your hopes and prayers... and that you remember this offering of mine when the grand plan of your life unfurls before you.

God Bless!

Yaman

Twilight stretches its arms across the sky,
Kalindi robes herself in swirling shadows,
A gentle breeze whispers sweet nothings to all ears that listen...

On the riverbank sits the moon-skinned Radha,
Brighter than pearls, a tear gleams on her fair cheek,
Kanha fills her thoughts and she aches for his touch...

But He is a trickster, wily and unrelenting,
In hiding, he watches his beloved with mirth in his eyes,
And listens with amusement to the longing in her sighs...

Soon, he will cast aside his concealment,
And gleefully approach her on soundless feet,
His sudden embrace will startle her and his laughter will ease her cares...

Then tears shall be wiped, sighs shall become loving murmurs,
And songs of love will be whispered into the playful breeze...
_____________________________________________

The above poem came to me a few nights ago, when I was listening enraptured to Ustad Usman Khan's sitar recital. The aged maestro played Raag Yaman, which is particularly close to my heart because it is the first Raag I learnt from my Guru. Over the hour-long recital, the images associated with this poem flowed freely in my mind...writing them later took almost no effort...

Yaman is the quintessential twilight melody...the music of a silent yearning that morphs into devotion and hope. It reminds the performer and listener alike, of the elusive completion that all beings are searching for. The true beauty of the bandishes (lyrical compositions) of Hindustani music, lies in the hidden meanings of their words. To an unseeing mind, many of them will give voice to the passion and games of two lovers, describing their affection for each other. However, at a deeper and more abstract level, one can find the profound spiritual flavour that permeates all Hindustani music.

Radha and Krishna symbolise pure, unfettered love. With beauty that dwarfs anything else, Radha is the devotee who has submitted entirely to the divinity in Krishna. And despite his overt mischievousness and tendency to vex his beloved, Krishna is completely dedicated to her. Radha symbolises the human who yearns for spiritual awakening/realization and strives for this insight through devotion to a spiritual path. Krishna symbolises the awakening that lies at the end of that path, i.e. God. Krishna's little games and wiles mirror the way in which divinity permeates our lives with a hundred little coincidences that have no logical roots, but somehow make our lives brighter and more meaningful. The Universe tests us in myriad ways, but for those of us who have faith in the scheme of things, such tests always yield pleasant results.

Krishna tests Radha by delaying the moment of their union, but Radha, despite her sadness, never fails in keeping her mind fixed on him. In response to her devotion, he has no choice but to reveal himself to her. Similarly, Yaman tells the listener to maintain a focus on the supreme, despite the distress that comes from not achieving a speedy realisation of it...for once the mind is focused, there is no way that the divine will be able to ignore it.

God Bless!

PS. If you are interested in listening to something in Raag Yaman, the best thing to do would be to purchase its rendition by an acclaimed artiste. My favourite Yaman recitals have been by Smt. Kishori Amonkar (vocals), Pt. Bhimsen Joshi (Vocals), Gundecha Bandhu (vocals) , Ustad Vilayat Khan (Sitar) and Ustad. Amjad Ali Khan (Sarod).

You can also listen to some clips of Yaman on the following websites:

• www.itcsra.org (click on "Samay Raga" on the right side of the landing page and then select Yaman from the rotating display that appears).
  
• www.swarganga.org (click on the Raagabase link in the left navigation and locate Yaman in the database that appears)
  
• http://www.sawf.org/music/articles.asp?pn=Music this is the music section of www.sawf.org, which consists of brilliant articles on Indian Classical Music, written by Rajan Parrikar. Select the item called Kalyan, from the table of contents that appears.)

And remember...(especially if you are the sort of person who grumbles about not being able to 'understand' the words in a song)...in the words of Ustad Usman Khan...there is nothing to understand in this music, but there is a lot to feel! :)

I wrote the following poem and article about three years ago. They were published in St. Xavier's College's (my Alma mater) Sociology Magazine, Ethnocentric.

In Helpless Disappointment---The Bombay Dream, Shattered…

There is anger in my thoughts...the red haze enshrouding all consciousness...
And an unseen pain wracks me from within...

A silent wail seeks to part the lips that will not open,
And the clenched fists cause pain only to themselves...

There are no tears, no tantrums and none to blame...

In a moment, I realise that I am left alone...silent and aching,
No physician possesses the balm I need; none may prescribe a remedy...

I alone must confront myself...as cause, as effect and as the cure...

Strangely, in that moment of choice, the gloom is broken, the haze lifted...and I can breathe again!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I dedicate this poem to all those individuals who come to this city, dreaming about and hoping for the future that they never actually realise. This place, the economic capital of India, is more than just the cash-rich, glamorous metropolitan that it is made out to be. It is a city in whose streets you will find traces of lives that rose from almost nothing to dizzying heights and it is also a massive cemetery of countless aspirations that could never see the light of reality. The bright lights of the Queen’s Necklace and the proud skyscrapers that dot the skyline, seem to mock the vast slums in many parts of the city where often, a family gathers under the flame of a lantern and eats the one meal of the day, cooked on a kerosene stove.

My intention is hardly as socialistic as it may sound; I do not mean to say that the opulence of the rich in this city is undeserved and needs to be redistributed. Wealth, in Bombay, can hardly be gathered without hard work, intelligence and significant risk- taking. Those who have achieved it, are certainly worthy of respect to a certain degree. Regardless of their professions, the rich were not always as wealthy as they are today and would have had to start somewhere. There must have been something in their thought and actions that took them far ahead of ‘square one’ when millions still struggle in the same place.

In this, my reasoning may have a somewhat Functionalist flavour. I do not want to dismiss any aspect of the life of this city as an aberration, and I likewise refuse to believe that any individual has a life devoid of meaning. There is a greater scheme to things that we may not always look at, and when we do, we may find that we do not always like what we see. The drug addicts, who sprawl helplessly on Marine Lines, languishing in their self wrought filth and gloom, seem to serve no purpose at all in society, apart from being blemishes and social malformations. However, if there was some way of knowing it, one might be able to calculate the number of people, who, looking at them, realised the ill effects of drug addiction, and made a silent mental resolve never to touch the substances. In this way, even these apparently pathetic and useless individuals, serve a purpose…they have made examples of themselves, however unintentionally, and their lives are constant reminders of what can happen if you are not discerning enough.

The reason I am taking this convoluted stream of thought, is only to arrive at one conclusion…the fact that no life is meaningless, no matter how weighted it may be with failure. This city attracts people from all over India, possibly even from neighbouring nations, all of whom wish to strike gold and make something spectacular of their lives. Most of them fail to do this, because Bombay is most unforgiving to a man who gives up hope. When starting small, as is usually the case with all newcomers here, there are bound to be serious setbacks, failures, instances of being cheated etc. The difference between the man who will rise as a phoenix and the one who will flounder in the ashes of defeat is that the former will never give up on his dream and will refuse to blame circumstances for what has happened to him. In the last lines of the poem I offer an alternative, a solution to the person who feels that situations have just worked against him. To look at oneself and one’s miscalculations as the root of the problem might be quite easy, but many will tend to leave it at that and drown in their self-pity/loathing. Instead, one must learn to believe that he is the only one who can really make a difference to life. Life in a place like this is going to be full of hurdles…ultimately we are the only ones who can carry ourselves over them.

Have We Met?

I believe that as we progress through this life, we meet many people who were known to us in previous births. Sometimes the person is someone whom we were deeply attached to and when this happens there is a strange but welcome feeling of connectedness, warmth and affiliation, even if we are meeting for the very first time. This little poem is dedicated to such occasions:

- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - --- - - - - - - - - - - - -- -

Have we met before?
You feel strangely familiar...

I feel at ease in your company...safe...comforted...
Your smile makes old shadows flicker in my mind...dancing to ancient songs and laughter...
Your voice urges me to remember, even though your words speak of other things.

Why do I feel a bond between us?
You reach out to me like none other can...

When you look at me, I see glimmers in your eyes...older than your human years...
When we find hundreds of little similarities between us, they all seem to fit just so...
And already you seem to know me better than most others.

Have we met before?
You feel strangely familiar...

Two Poems

A couple of poems...the first was written to express a part of what it feels like to channel Reiki and the second is about the Raaga Malkauns, which is the second Raaga that I my Guru taught me (it's a pentatonic melody of midnight and is noted for it's serious and majestic flavour)...it's always been one of my favourites.


Alone with the Universe

Holding you thus, I wonder...often...anew...,
What chance was it that brought you to me?
Or was it me to you...I can never tell...

Coursing through me, dancing with my heartbeat,
You are a raging river; the gentle zephyr,
The laughter in birdsong; the sages’ silence...

Where did you come from? Were you always here?
They say it is all an illusion...it will all fade...
But if it does, you will still be here...always...

It seems strange to me, in these few moments,
To know of no other emotion than bliss...bliss unending…
Is this much joy really possible?…and I know this to be but a drop!

Why do I always ask the questions?
I think it is only to see you smile the answers at me…
Holding you thus, I wonder no more…I realize…I know
__________________________________________________________

Malkauns

Midnight sways at your command and the very skies pay obeisance,
The ocean lulls herself into a gentle accompaniment of your song,
And the restless wind calms himself, wary of disturbing your thoughts.

Kailasa, the eternal, stirs at your touch, full of devotion,
And Shiva, your father awakens to your call, O Malkauns, monarch of songs.
______________________________________________________________