Ruchira's Ramblings

Photo by Engina Kyurt via Pexels.com  There’s a certain type of sadness you fear in those you love. A sadness you can’t name, can’t put your finger on, can’t even properly describe. It comes out in flickers of petty, domestic discontent. The tele-soaps have all got it wrong. All those grand conspiracies, lofty heartbreaks come with an end-goal. Unhappy homes are made of smaller stuff- things misplaced, little forgettings, rotten fruits in the refrigerator, an unclicked switch, a harmless question. Even a shared anecdote. For a while, I have been watching. Counting. What breaks the ceasefire? What disrupts the peace? It is, as the saying goes, always the little things.  Truth is, nobody cares about the little things. The little things only reveal an absence. Most of human history isn’t about momentous matters, and thereby lies the discontent. There are no great goals for most of us, so we find our goals in others. A leader, a hero, a loved one. We are told to be a c...

NaPoWriMo Day 29. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to produce a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement or you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to." 1 more to go. Yeah, we did it. Almost!

Dusk is a kindred spirit. Have you ever noticed the colour of the twilight sky- light, but not light, dark, but not dark, and the street lights lining the streets- bright and sharp, but not really needed yet- everything seems to be in a vacuum, waiting for something. The rush of the day is over, the rush of the night yet to begin, and the world moves around you in fast forward while you seem to be suspended in slow motion. They pick up tired  smiles, and cheerful anecdotes, and they all have a destination, a goal, and you ask- What is home? Where is home? Why am I going there? And I'll leave again, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and return in the evenings once again.  "...and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday  Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm"  Is that all that is there? Through the days and weeks and months and years? And for how many years must Icarus fall before he can rest in the sea? Reincarnationists say that this world is only a tem...

Every joy brings with it its own sorrow, every beginning- an inevitable end. And there is bereavement in every ending, no matter how longed for. We walk, from day to day, goal to goal, life to death, and for what? Only to hope, to long, to desire, to dream, for what else is there to keep us going? And our hopes fail, shattering our hearts, and we pick up the pieces and hope for miracles. Again. The lines you see on my face, and under my eyes are where I glued the fragments of my unspoken dreams, so many times that I lost count. And we keep walking, and hoping, and sometimes our wishes come true, and our wildest dreams are fulfilled, and there is so much joy in my share that I will never be able to take it all in, say all my words, sing all my songs. So I soak in the warmth as the stories get overlapped and the faces get blurred. And I don’t even know how the time has flown. And then it’s time to go home. There is a charm about winter afternoons, like a thin film of invisible glass ...