Ruchira's Ramblings

The mountains recede into the folds of memory, the snow disappears beyond nameless roads forking and the world flattens out into ceaseless ordinariness- acres and acres of plains sans mystery or beauty or movement, and we are moving away, encased in this marvel of modern technology, this miracle of glass and metal and comfort rushing on towards an inevitable end. We drift away from ourselves. Yet somewhere still in the world the ghost of a forgotten ocean raises its soul upward as buried past overreaches towards heaven. And one day, that churning unseen ghost life will topple the earth.   Happy moments fall flickering lightly like wondrous soap bubbles, sparkling, weightless, innocent. But then the heavy air of life touches them- with all its needs for data and details and precision, the lightest touch from the expanses of the flat lands, and the brief refracting looking glass is gone, leaving you with chores, lists and deadlines. But then you pick up the straw-pipes...

#1 "Write a poem that a young you needed to read." I found this poetry prompt for National Poetry Writing Month. Really nice prompt, except I was 3 days late. But it got me thinking. What poem would young me need to read? I mean, I have come across these pieces before – Letter to Young Me- but I’ve never given the idea much thought before. Perhaps because it was not my time yet for that contemplation. But tonight, disturbed, anxious, slightly depressed with my thoughts going where they shouldn’t, where I don’t want them to go, I am trying to think of what advice I could conjure up for a younger version of myself. At five, perhaps, don’t be so bitter For being always mocked at, For being made fun of, bullied, For being the youngest. We all grow up someday And frankly, it's overhyped. At ten, don’t try so hard To be nice, to be liked It won’t matter, in the long run In a few years you will wonder That you ever liked these people, An...

 A man lived alone beneath a mountain on a little island. All around him was the ocean. The man didn’t know there was anywhere beyond it. For him, the world was a little island with a mountain, ringed by the water. Perhaps the seas ended somewhere and fell into the sky. That was his world, and he was happy. There were times however when he felt a strange unwillingness to move, or hunt or do any of things that made up his daily routine. At night, he would watch the stars for hours, telling himself stories that he had made up about them. But they were the same stories and on some nights he would get tired of them. On those nights, he would pick up rocks and smash them against trees till his muscles ached and his fingers blistered. He got quite good at throwing rocks. But on the whole, perhaps he was happy in his little world. Then one day a boat came to his island. The man had never seen a boat before, or another man, so he was astonished. “Do you live in the lands under the se...