So, here I am again.

Here is the prodigal blogger back from yonder.
Times change. Social media changed. We transitioned from orkut to Facebook.
We gained friends and we lost friends.
The world order changed.
The circumstances of our lives changed.
Our beloved Border Collie Timmy passed away.
Baby nieces grew up and got married.
The eyes dimmed. The knees creaked more.
The weight came to rest permanently on the hips, belly and the second chin.
But still we tick on.
And I am back.

Family

We were the ripples
Of the old family.
Spreading outwards
Moving away.
Gradually all of the ripples
Will calm down.
Lives will vanish
Below the water's surface.

The Procrastinators Winter Song

I have to shovel the snow again
Beneath the dreary skies
I think I'll just wait a bit
Oh goodness! How time flies!

Let it just accumulate a bit
Let the storm clear out
Then I can deal with it just once
Its easier for my gout

No, no, I don't have gout yet
Its going to happen later
For I am told it might happen
As it happened to my Pater

Just look at it!
Higher it piles!
Down the street
For miles and miles

I must first locate my boots
Then cap and gloves as well
But just for now, sitting tight
By the fireplace is swell 

Doggerel

The day was smoggy
Muddy was my doggy
Because the ground was soggy
When we encountered the froggy.

Unfriendly dialoguey
Between doggy and froggy
and a chase in the boggy
in the morning so smoggy

Led to an escaped froggy
And an unhappy doggy

The Sixth Sense Experiences

Sometimes I dream
Of people I don't know
Of places I have never been to
Of situations I have never been in.
Yet
They say
Dreams are reruns
Of one's everyday life.

Sometimes I hear
Music that no one else hears
Voices in my head,
Whose messages, few would heed,
If they could hear them at all.
My heartbeat that pounds so loudly
When my emotions are a whirlwind.

Sometimes I see
The patterns of light changing
The treachery of people
The kindness of strangers
The almost invisible red and purple
Of a rainbow

Sometimes I feel
The attitudes that change,
Subtle but certain.
The chill of evil
The warmth of love
The glow of pride,
Golden and gentle.
The pain of rejection,
Searing and aching

Perhaps...

.

In the freshness of the dawn
It is hard to believe
What was said last night.
The darkness gathered
At the edges of my mind
And you stayed in the shadows.
Revelations came in layers
Of suppressed grief
Of ardent unspoken love
As though there would be no tomorrow.
When you left
I was unaware
That you would not return.
However, today is here
And the shefali has fallen.
Perhaps, last night was just a nightmare?
Perhaps you will return?

Unapologetic

It was sad in a lifetime's space
Everything had its set place
But push its frontiers, my friend
You'll never know how it may end

Middle age has been quite fun
Better than expected
I refuse to be a calm quiet one
Like one who is half sedated

So let the good times rock and roll
I'll paint the town in colours bold
I'll sing loudly and dance as well
I will not do as I am told

I'll continue to move and shake
Unfazed by fetters- real and fake
Life's riches are free to take
For anyone who dares

A rueful moment here and there
A brief moment to think and care
I'll drink a toast to my fate
To get to heaven I'll smash the gate

'Here comes Trouble!'
They'll all shout
While without a care
I'll strut about.

Even when I'm gone from here
The sound of laughter will remain
The legacy of a life uncowed
Through its hardships it stayed unbowed.

The exploits of an Ordinary Pencil

I
There it was. Lying on the soggy ground in the park, all on its own. Not quite sharp, yet with a usably sharp carbon tip. I saw the yellow stem amongst the overgrown grass and thought to leave it alone. The park was full of children during the weekend. Someone had dropped it and forgotten it for sure. Inexplicably drawn to it. I picked it up. 2B. The erasor at the end was hardly eroded, but had obviously chased a few errors that the other end had caused. And just beneath the erasor, the metal band had a few teeth marks on it. A sure sign that the former owner had been concentrating on something or the other. Suddenly, a little reminder came into my mind about The Little Toy Soldier; a childhood favourite short story about the adventures of a little lost toy soldier with one leg, written by Hans Christian Anderson.
Well, this is how the pencil started its life with me.
I came home with it, and aware of the teeth marks on it and with my morbid fear of germs, I washed the unprotesting pencil with some Dettol. As I left it drying standing tip upright by the sink, I could have sworn that wall behind the sink was completely clean. But later that evening, when I came to inspect the pencil, I found quite clearly was the sign ' = ' written by the tip. Putting on my reading glasses, I noticed a tiny little ' i ' written close to the tip.
I took the pencil and had an odd prescient feeling that it was going to write something on its own, as long as I gave it some support. Accordingly I sat down at my desk and pulled a sheet of clean white copy paper out. I poised the pencil on the paper.
Nothing. It was inert.
My mother had always said that I had an overactive brain, full of phantasmagorical and useless thoughts. 'You are something else' she would say chidingly. Sigh!
I pulled out a ring binder with some lovely creamy looking heavy ruled paper. The pencil leaped into action! It wr

II
It wrote 'something else'
I stared at it in amazement. Was it echoing my thoughts, or was it trying to say something on its own?
'i = something else'.
Why was it not writing on the soulless dull white copy paper?
I turned the cream paper page and sure enough, away went my hand! It flew across the lines, writing as one posessed, about green forests, fir trees, carbon ground into a powder and shaped into the heart of a pencil. Then on to formation of an erasor which was married to the pencil by a wedding band of metal.
Next it wrote about being branded on its nether regions in meatallic print- which announced that it was 2B. It had to share space in a little box with a dozen others like it. 
Oh! the blessed relief of breaking out of its confines when it was bought, at the begining of the school year, embarking on a journey of discovery and conquest. 
Discovery of cursive writing in the hands of its new little owner; conquest when it was once used as weapon by the same child in a spat.
But the little owner was also quite harsh with it- biting it below the wedding band. Night after night, the erasor complained of overwork as it diminished in stature, the owner being prone to writing errors, which needed corrections.
Then, quite by chance, the duo made a break for freedom, by falling out of the owner's satchel, when she was out on a class field trip.
It endured a few passing showers and a near miss of certain death when a lawn mower cut the grass aound it. It lay as still as possible and as close to the ground as possible, while the lawn mower blades whirled perilously close.
Ah! There was the escape again- when I picked it up. The Dettol bath was the first of its kind. Rarely have pencils known to bathe- even more rarely in Dettol. 
My hand was begining to cramp up, but the pencil showed no signs of slackening.
It had seized the opportunity of advertising its unique nature, using the simple writing techniques picked up. The ' = ' sign was a bit of showing off of its math knowledge.III
So there it was. A most wilful pencil and very demanding as well. Some days, it would rattle on the desk persistently until I picked it up- rather like a crying child. Has any one heard of a petulant pencil? If I was even a little late getting to it, it would be in a mighty huff. It would spend the first few minutes just making doodles instead of writing. The shape and composition of the doodles was a good indication of its feelings. It could make angry zigzags like thunderbolts when it was furious. It could make lazy loops and circular designs, when it was simmering with passive aggressive thoughts. The day it drew an angry cobra about to strike, I knew just how venomous it was feeling!
Then there were boxes within boxes, circles within circles, boxes within circles, boxes cut in triangles, boxes within triangles and so on. All our emotions can find shapes, I noticed, just as they could find colours. I tried using a colour pencil to augment these tessellations one day. The Pencil went into a decline. It lay quietly on the table for some days like a gravely ill person, barely breathing. It was a big mistake. I did not know that the Pencil could be so jealous. Afraid that its demise would be imminent, I hastily used its eraser, to deal with the coloured pencil's artistry. Suddenly the pencil came to life and vigorously began to erase. The eraser had been waiting for its moment to support its spouse. Normally a colour pencil mark does not erase easily- but this was not a normal pencil.
I put the colour pencil away after I noticed that the Pencil remained somewhat wary of its presence, even when it was on another part of the table. So, I gave the coloured pencil away to my nephew. The Pencil was relaxed and wrote with zest thereafter.
Now one may ask, what was the pencil writing now?
Well, it had taken over writing all my creative stuff. Thus far, everyone had been critical of my very concrete thoughts. No imagination, they said in the past.
What on earth! they exclaimed now.IV
Then there was a time when I had to go visit my friends in Delhi. The Pencil would not and could not be left alone. Unfortunately, I had become very busy at the last minute. The taxi had come, and as I was getting my suitcases out of the door, I forgot about the Pencil. After I had travelled a few miles, I remembered. I was already on the verge of being late. Being of half a mind to let things be- I wanted to continue. But come sort of a compulsion drove me to return. The first thing I noticed as I entered my apartment was the Pencil, lying on the floor near the door. My heart melted. The poor Pencil! I had left it on my table and here it was! It had actually tried to follow me.
In its anger and relief, it wrote in a mixture of turbulent, heart rending words, at the next opportunity 'Never leave me! I sad!'

The Seventh

The Seventh

A child is born today
A child is born today to fulfill a destiny
A child was born today
Many aeons ago
In a prison dungeon
Where the darkness fled
In the face of her unique radiance
She was born to be dashed to the ground
Because she was a girl
But she rose up instead
And announced the coming of a new world order

Dizzy with Fizzy

Fizzy drinks are very great fun
They are a delighful sources
of slaking thirsts
In refreshing bursts
Except when they go up your noses

I love to drink a feisty cola
Full of zingy bubbles
Tingling tongue
Joyfully sprung
But in the stomach gurgles

Oh the joy of a quiet burp!
Genteel and discreet
then on with the fun
Jump and run
For joys of life are sweet