Episodes
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This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, replayed here with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it! Youth is so wasted on the ones who carry it as a burden. The changes which wreck havoc to the body and heart are later looked back at as the sweetest damnation possible, irreplaceable but never ever lived through fully. We all know and understand the alchemy of a moment richly lived, but still let it pass us by ruthlessly, unthinkingly. Why do we consider time as a rich man’s wealth, when it can’t be hoarded or spent endlessly? In its strange and beautiful equalities, we realise it is the only thing bequeathed equitably to all. But we are fooled by time’s serene passage, lulled to forget its irrevocability. And in that lassitude we end with half-lives. In our puzzling pursuit of things which finally matter little - lucre instead of light, breath in lieu of breathlessness - we take away the most precious gift we could give ourselves. And when we realize our folly, often it is with nothing left in our banks - not health, not inclination, not circumstances - and what is lost is a glow, and the possibility of finding light - and being it. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the summers of our lives -A Summery Love Story (in the middle of winter) Indian SummersCall Me By Your Name
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com. The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -The Positive Way Of Hope Piano Solo by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/7522-the-positive-way-of-hope-piano-soloLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
I am so engrossed in the theatrics of my mind that I often forgot that there is a world outside which has been gifted to me to revel in, to find pleasure and meaning in.Getting too intertwined in myself is often the bane of my existence, as I lose purpose in my desperation to resolve the quotidian quibble or the boredom riddle. Time and again, seeing myself immerse in the labyrinthine issues of daily grind, whilst failing to notice that life is desperately trying to grab my attention, is to also lose a potential way to unravel the knots of my very being. The times serenity descends on me as I see the water boil for my morning tea, or I stand at the window and watch a flawless sunset find its night, or listen to the cadence of a loved one's voice as they talk of normal things or when the doorbell rings and my heart leaps as I know who it is. Suddenly, priorities get sorted out, issues get resolved. Later, much later, do I realize that the true path to the universe inside me comes through the vagaries outside, as I cut though the noise, and find that the world is much more then a mere domicile for me for my desires and ambitions, and offers a journey of senses and fulfilments. Everything I could ever want is merely a question of merging what's outside to what is inside. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on mornings and cities - Calcutta - A Lover's EpitaphRecalibrating DawnsMusings As I Step Into The Morning (Leaving a Lover Sleeping)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -A Bright Star in the Sky by MusiclfilesMystic Mediation by Frank Schroeter -
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As we age, we hark back to the ordinary. After we've seen it all, our sense of wonder might not have dimmed, but it does become selective. And we know that though there is no end to discoveries, we find even a still moment is rich in repast. And without wallowing in nostalgia, we remember simpler times. And we remember the glow of presence. No details are required, because the feeling remains. And we realize in all the iterations of love, the one which abides is of letting the ordinary surround us. And we start the transition from being a participant to becoming an engender, from walking into sunlight to being the sunlight And we ease into the slow gold of easy conversation, the easygoing minute. Home is an excitement and an evening out is a cafe which allows leisurely lingering. And in that transition, we embrace the beauty of boredom. Of recognizing that life's bounty is often nothing but the steady elongation of the pause between the storms we invariably step into every morning. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on life and times - I Have Been Thinking of Life AgainBella's MeadowLife For Rent
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Follow That Dream by Luca Fraula -
I write so much on so many things. Relationships is a recurrent topic, as I traverse myriad emotions. Because of them my heart and my mind are my poetry labs, and I'm never bereft of things to write about. And I'm amazed at the discoveries. Day in day out I find new ways in which I can hurt - and get hurt. There are old fault lines which never get repaired, and fresh wounds which find their way into scars. Its facetious to say this is the cost of being in love, the price one pays to be vulnerable and open to both bliss and hurt. Because much more than being, love is a realisation. Because beyond its craggy transversion, it's a discovery of all the good residing in us, things we didn't know about ourselves, the essential purity which actually defines us. Beyond the drudgery, jaggedness,and angularity - which often becomes our character's annotation - lies the still clear water of shadows and sunlight, the beauty of which even we don't realize until the clear sight of love discovers it. Because at the bottom of it, love is action. It is giving beyond our urgencies, our insipidity, our masquerade : love is the only emotion allowed entry into our fears, our secrets, our failures, the essence of us. The dawning of this, with the advent of love, is to find the treasure each one of us really is.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and desolation - Grief Strikes Where Loves Struck FirstLetting Go (because I'm alive)The Things We Become When We Leave
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Positano by Otis Galloway -
What is the ethical and practical length we would go to save a relationship or a situation or ourselves? Is our segue into safety always self-protection and a rapid walk through a portal of lies? Or do we girdle up, step up, chin up - and say the truth (and nothing but the truth), consequences be damned. Or do we tell ourselves - let's be practical. Let every situation determine our choice of what we say. We become chameleons of ethics, as it were. Maybe a person can't handle a particular truth and things would become bad (if not worse than bad). Or maybe you will finally tell the truth - but by and by. But there is also the question of the little lies, the white ones, the ones which slip into togetherness like a whisper in the softness of a mutual feeling. The ones which seem harmless - but which, when they start getting recognised, chip away soundlessly at the very foundation of what the relation stands for. But then there is also the nature of the congenital liar, as also the one for whom self-preservation - name, blame, fame - is primary. Where stories become second nature, and lies are a permanent armour. This then is not second nature - it is nature.But most problematic, if not tragic, is when we don't want to lie, but decide to. Where the only immutable thing we've ever known is the conscience. But we still decide to lie, against the very fibre of our being. The very act then puts us into the dungeons of despair, when we know we've broken the first rule of relationships - trust. And even more than that, we've fallen in our eyes. A self-reductionist act, a diminishing, a shrinking. There's a world of guilt one transverses into. A lifelong affliction. An unfolding of the soul, as we look at ourselves with both disdain and despair, the questioning never ceasing, the wheel of cause-&-effect stopping at the choice, a self-damnation. A lie is then not a compromise, but a self-condemnation, a hanging without death. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on lies and truths - Your Body is a TruthAdventures in Two WorldsThe Truth of Lies
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Crescendo by Alexander Nakarada -
George Meyer, a co-writer on The Simpsons, referred to marriage as “a stagnant cauldron of fermented resentments, scared and judgmental conformity, exaggerated concern for the children . . . and the secret dredging-up of erotic images from past lovers in a desperate and heartbreaking attempt to make spousal sex even possible.” There's bitterness and cynicism there. That's a relationship at its very nadir, where there seems to be little hope for redemption. But, of course, that's not how things always work.Most relationships work in the twilight zone. Part incandescent, part dark. Not so much hate or love, as simmer and freeze. And as is true with most extremities, there's a sense of humanity lost, of balance skewed, confronting more of what's lost then loss itself.But we are humans: the more we hurt someone, the more we require healing; when falling out is often synonymous with falling down; and more we push people away, more we need them beside us. The tragedy of people who injure others is not that they use their ability to draw blood, it is how much they would like to be the one who would rather bleed. Their natural disdain is for themselves - their lowest opinion is reserved for their own weaknesses. They are fragile waiting to be broken, to be destroyed, to find meaning in their extinction and maybe their exhumation. Those who create tragedy are themselves tragediennes. So much of the grace of good gurus is nothing but to teach not to judge and merely embrace what seems to be imploding in front of one's eyes. Souls are redeemed by the mere act of acknowledgement. The words "I understand" have saved innumerable lives. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the desolation in relationships - Of Love (& other bouts of sadness)Miles ApartFinding Ways to Survive (Each Other)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Rising Sun by Sascha Ende -
Relationships are such journeys! Once you get into one, one prepares for the long haul. Railroad crashes, car rides, boring flights. The odd distraction, the unwilling participation, and the rare view of the Kanchenjunga through impenetrable clouds. One wishes for transcendence and encounters reality checks. In our closest relationships we discover our worst selves. But then a few things start to change. A few things seem to find their niche with a satisfying click. You start seeing things together and find consonance in your reactions. Slivers of light seem to come out of the brokenness. Our sharp edges transcend to become rough surfaces. And we start to redefine the definition of 'smooth': the chiding, the irritations, the battles, all become quiddities - to be paid attention to, but not with emotional equity. And suddenly the uncertain universe starts taking the shape of two. Habits behove relationships. Habits knit into relationships. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which reminisce on the passage of love - I Can Sense Her LonelinessWhat is Loss, She Asked MeGrief Strikes Where Love Struck First
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Satisfaction by Sascha Ende -
So much of our lives is a choice between the hard rock and a soft landing.Time and again we struggle, forgetting this is one life, and just a few million breaths. Beyond that, it's retribution. Endings are rarely spectacular. Because, we are all slaves to our insecurities, our fears holding us tightly. And it is in very rare occasions of singular clarity and fearless realisations that we let ourselves go. We blindly let the universe take us into places we would never dream of. And we find our nightmares to be illusions. And the coyotes we get to run with are the only honest beasts we know, who will hunt with us, and will find their one peaceful corner when the time comes, just as they leave us to ours. Our lives are richer for the wildness we keep seeking outside - and inside. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the mysteries of life - Bella's MeadowA Meaning Without QuestionsLife For Rent
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Andromeda by Sascha Ende -
I'd written this poem years back. I can't even remember the context or the time. But it brings an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, of evanescence - of people and loves who move on, always too soon it seems. Parting seems like demise, and its irrevocable passage doesn't make it any easier.Bitter lovers have often talked of such periods as those of wasted opportunity, as if anything which doesn't have a classic consequence or a desired denouement is a phase in futility. The fallacy of endings being more important than the rush of the journey.But those who know about transience, who know that life is only a zen exercise, an observance of moments, know how life is both accumulation and movement, of experiencing and moving on. All my poet friends keep telling me "Don't wallow in nostalgia! It is treacly. Too much sentimentality is dangerous to health." Maybe. What I do love doing is to think back and smile. Of having reconciled with what travels, what hurts, what sustains, what follows, what stays. And of looking back at it all, as the hurt and gain of irrevocable passage. f you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on departures - Letting Go (because I am alive)Favourite People (who we love and leave)Departures
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Golden Journey Under The Sky of Autumn by Musiclfiles -
Ara (who goes by the name 'petrichara' on Instagram) writes "someone who allows you to rest is the relationship dynamic of all time". And I think - it's not only people but places too. Places we're familiar with, places which allow us to ease into ourselves. Like a home. Where we know everything, where everyone knows us, and all we have to be is what we are in our own skin. And often when we move in our home with awareness, we find the new in the old, messages we hadn't got earlier, congruities we hadn't encountered before. We know our home's oddities to be our own, we find its nooks suffused with hidden histories, and it is our witness and sanctuary. A home is a friend, silently seeing us unwind or unravel with equal sang-froidness. Familiar people, familiar places are a boon to our hearts, solace to our souls, as we step into the unfamiliarities of an unforgiving world. We start our days, unaware what it would bring, our guards up, a thin tensile strain keeping our spine straight. Are we funny, are we competent, have we met the world on its terms without losing ourselves, have we stamped it with our individualities? The modern-day stress we keep hearing about is merely a result of these unmeasurable presences of a normal day. When we step into our homes, leaving our shoes and artifices behind, it's the medicine, the panacea, the equaliser, which brings us back to our sanities. We would be deranged without our homes. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the healing and beauty of homes - Her Breasts as ShelterA Home as an Open DreamChanging Your Address (on marrying and moving homes)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -True summer love by MusiclfilesTranquil Fields Peaceful by Alexander Nakarada -
The relentless agency of living, its insistencies to persist - until it no longer could - its proclivity for drama, its calmness to tired souls: that's one way to see life, when you are about to give up on things, when there seems to be no redemption to distress, when life seems to be an unending travail - something which doesn't give up even when you are ready to. And you search for a reason to carry on. Viktor Frankl said "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." But, alas, you simply can't find a reason - and you can't let go. So you strain to come out every morning. And you see that the ones who are always present are - the sun, the morning, the birds. They find joy without anticipation. They find a sense of being in the very act of repetition. Without expectation, without thinking of the past or future, just letting the nature of what is uncontrollable to do what it does best, and going along with the repetition and the ride. And you step back, and look at this with a new eye. Not as a wound which doesn't heal, not as pain which keeps nagging incessantly. You start to look at it as benediction, a faith that things will unravel the way they have to, that agony is not preordained reality - rather, to be in the incident of life is to be in the full glow of its grace. And everything changes. You look at life with new eyes. Not as anticipation or affliction, not as scar or suture, not as the space between sighs and celebration, but as presence, as stillness, as sanity. The time to create, and find the beyond. Because that is where we always find ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of healing tired souls - What is Loss, she asked meLoneliness (oh these rains)Ruins Have Permanent Flames
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Rising Sun by Sascha Endehttps://filmmusic.io/en/song/86-rising-sun -
How much we are afraid to say what often simply needs to be said. It's an unavoidable fact - the conversations we avoid are the conversations we require the most. Often we are afraid to face the black-&-white of the spoken truth, often we fear the unpredictability of confrontations. Maybe, in the past, we've had to face the consequences of a scathing talk, and have now sworn to avoid anything which has the potential to break or hurt, welt or injure. But subtly, irrevocably, what lies unspoken also changes us as persons, as it does our relationships. On the surface, a calm descends. The need to avoid conflict overwhelms the need for stark truths. And the elephant sits fat and solid in the room, munching away time, growing fat on what's unspoken. And by including avoidance in the definition of love, we chip away at truths. We become politer but less honest, we want to confront monsters by pretending they don't exist.In the song of life, we try hard to avoid the discordant note, and thus lose the soul required to give love not only its longevity but its singular breath. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness - Old Poems for Old LoversThe Art of the Lonely Good DeedLoneliness (oh these rains)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Loneliness by Sayan Mukherjee -
What is important to us? This question needs to be asked every morning, because weeks, which have been days, soon become years, and when we look back, we find that things have changed and people have drifted. It's not that we lose ourselves in the trivial. It's how we let things subtract our lives rather than add to it. And we regret the time where we let go of opportunities to be with people who mean everything to us, or do things which we feared at that time and now regret not doing. Time and again we are told to live in the moment, to embrace the passage of time, to know that living in the moment is the only way to find meaning. Time and again we regret not embracing it, and to let go of the opportunity which life gives us.
Akin to this are the small stones of resentment which grow inside us, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, for people we care for, which become boulders stopping us from reaching out.
When we look back we can see the reasons of withdrawal were so slight that in the schemata of lives, sorrows and admonitions, they really counted for nothing. But then we would have wasted time, we would have wasted years.
We would have lost out on someone holding our hands in grief. We would have lost out in hearing voices with laughter in them speaking to us. We would have lost out in seeing familiar faces in front of us, growing more loved by the minute, because we love their mind and their heart and what they stand for and what they mean to us.
More than anything else, it is people we should always reach out to and be close to and pick up the phone and talk to, because our true meaning comes from only two things: the things which we do, the people we reach out to.
Our lives are always lesser when not filled with who or what we love. And in turn we are lesser as people.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of friendship - Memory KeeperCompatriots of TrustAaschiFollow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Spring fervour full version by MusiclfilesMystical autumn by Musiclfiles -
It's been a tumultuous few days.
According to WHO, one person is murdered every 60 seconds in this world. One person commits suicide about every 40 seconds. One person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds.
And busy with our quotidian struggles, we let the numbers swirl around our consciousness before slipping away. Until one day, our blasé conscience finds something which goes beyond even our overburdened shock meter.
And in strange infinitesimal ways, our world shifts.
Something inside us breaks - and something else breaks open. The overwhelming feeling that a public tragedy is a personal visitation, beyond a dining table conversation, starts to haunt us. The tragedy becomes our own.
We want to go beyond the pale of our usual cynicism - "what will change? what can change?" - and want to demand change.
Of course, the patient procrastination of officialdom, the slow overtures of bureaucracy, the survival instincts of political whataboutery kicks in - as do attempts to wear us down.
And we understand the strategies, we know how we will grow angrier and progressively frustrated - and our lives will begin to call, our duties will come to the fore. Our livelihoods will begin to be at stake - and we do give up. But we don't give in.
For we know the long game too.
Along the years we have also learnt the power of giving the long rope. We know that beyond the immediate sufferance, there are a few knockout blows which we hide beneath our sleeves. The streets, the polls, protests, poems, a non-cooperation movement, emptying halls where they speak, refusing their doles, walking out in the middle of speeches, a continual call to conscience.
Beyond the pale of greed and corruption, which we all see and bear on a daily basis, we unite ourselves from cynicism, of not giving up because struggles often take years, maybe generations. We ensure that the blow is significant, and political parties, for years to come, will remember that those who bring them to power can never ever be taken for granted.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of what politics does to all of us - Politics on the Dining TableMr Hoskote, have you visited Kashmir recently?No Revolution is Complete Without a Ruined SoulFollow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Refugees by Sascha Endehttps://filmmusic.io/en/song/539-refugees -
Who are we if not slaves to our addictions? In the annals of definitions, we are often what we are at our worst. Which is the world's way of prioritising simply - and slotting conveniently. But much worse than our ruthless judgement is what we do with our own judgements about ourselves. Within the tumult of being a sex addict or an alcoholic or being bulimic, there are those despairing battles where we fight our worst indulgences, and heartbreakingly, lose, and lose again, till we stop even putting up a fight. And to live in the shadow of this continuous defeat is to realize how much of a lie we live in, and how everything dwarfs, even in our mind and soul, in front of this assault of unrelenting indulgence. And after a while there's no place to hide - from the world or ourselves. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on sex as life - Her Breasts as ShelterSuch are Such Days (or the days I make love to her)Finding Souls Between Their Legs
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Sleepers by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3232-sleepersLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Our feelings are a yo-yo. Forever seeking more, something different, something ultra energising. As if different is better. We are not able to figure out the difference between excess and endurance. Everything around us moves so rapidly - technology, circumstances, opinions - that even relationships fall victim to the syncopated rhythm of indulgence & desertion. And in this cornucopia of life, we lose sight of what is actually enduring, what is flippant, what we need to hold onto, what we need to release. We indulge in a hurry, and regret at leisure. And in the hullabaloo of choices do not even realize what we've lost. Till, someone recognizes our gold, and realises the unmindful flippancy of our directions - and refuses to let us take them. And in the blessings inherent in our lives, the accumulation of the good we've done in this world, we are able to embrace what finally endures. Our life is changed, we go past the nightmare of options, and find both the compass and the perch, the arc and the direction, the zen of the passing and the depth of what endures. We are then blessed, because we have been found. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems full of nostalgia for love - Living Tragedy ForwardOf Love (& other bouts of sadness)Favourite People (who we love and leave)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -The Children Of MH17 by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/268-the-children-of-mh17License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Loss is embedded into our lives. Its advent has both unpredictability and inevitability written into it. It never comes as a stranger - but never ceases to break us. As humans, we are too embroiled in the now, too sure that the inertia of happiness will never cease its trajectory, to even mentally (leave aside emotionally) prepare for it. The definition of loss, for each one of us, lies in whether what we lose is in our care, is our concern. Whether it lights us up. In concrete (often amorphous) ways, whether it gives meaning to the breath we take. Every which way, loss has a wake of tragedy. It could be a pinprick in the routine or a chasm in our soul. However robust our defence systems, however practical our relationship with reality, loss which means something to us, leaves us desolate. It's this fear which leaves us unprepared. Conversations on death - the ultimate loss - are avoided, because we think it's bad omen. There's no one to blame - we are humans, we have our quiddities, weaknesses, blind spots. But the loss which leaves as deep a cut is when someone we love decides to move on. The sadness fractures us because the occurrence is not inevitable, and is often unexpected. To lose someone who brings gold to our lives, and amber to our hearts, is to lose treasure. We are then no longer the lees of loss, but its extension. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and desolation - Grief Strikes Where Loves Struck FirstLetting Go (because I'm alive)The Things We Become When We Leave
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 (Sadness) by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/304-blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadnessLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
There’s nothing like tragedy to make us feel dreadfully alone. The particularities of what afflicts us is so personal that very few can find ways to hold us together as we fall apart. We seek the shoulder of those whose contours and smells are familiar and make our desolation feel less lonely. But often their presence is merely a body to hold onto, even as we tear up inside. So, paradoxically, if there’s anything which exacerbates the implosion, it is the non-presence of the one we expect to be beside us as we disintegrate. Because what could be more devastating than not having a loved one, whose mere presence lights us up, to be not there to hold us up. One can travel across the globe in multiple hours, there’s no office, no binding, no power - except probably deep illness - which could or should hold a loved one back. And in that absence lies the deepest cut. Because human beings are tactile, and sorrow requires presence. And hurt CAN build upon tragedy. We shrink inside when love gives intimations of deserting us, particularly when it still hasn’t deserted our hearts. However much we find ourselves self sufficient and centered, we are special when people find us so - we are the validations we receive, we are the unexpected call, we are the sidelong glance, we are the deer caught in someone’s glance, we are the unplanned trip, we are the early-morning love-making. Our life is often full because of the smallest gifts. When we are denied those, our lives shrink into decimal places. And our tragedy multiplies. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of lovers who move on - Of Love (& other bouts of sadness)I Will Leave The Last Line for You To FillFavourite People (We Love & Leave)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -A Sad Toy Story by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/563-a-sad-toy-storyLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Bella's Meadow** inspired by Rumi’s Field by Bella Mahaya Carter. A little help from Leon. We have all been asked one question from time immemorial - “What do you want to become when you grow up?” Or the more sophisticated variant - “What do you want from life?” When I think back, I’m bemused with the varying answers, I would have given as I grew, and do give now. When I was a child, it was to be a railway engine driver. Then it became a desire to be a writer. Later as life's reality checks started sinking in, I just wanted to make tons of money. The subtleties of life started showing their face. And I realized all I wanted was happiness, which turned to fulfilment. And today all I want is to be present in the moment As the most important things in our lives keep shifting, this subtle transition is one of the benedictions of aging, mirroring, as it were, what is important to me at that phase of my life. But this last wish, this desire of presence, of being true to the moment, will now stay with me. Because this one moment is all we really have, to create a lifetime of riches. Of making a difference to myself or my world. Because allied to presence is the biting realisation that we cannot forever be carriers of regrets or recriminations. In a world choc-o-bloc with choices, why in the name of heaven, should we choose to carry stones in our hearts? Amnesia to things which bite the heart late in the night is possibly the most powerful path to serenity. And a good night’s sleep. The world opens up its riches to those who see it with clear eyes. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the generosity of time - Things We GatherIn The Drift We Will Find Our CertaintiesLetting Go (because I'm alive)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Lonesome by Sascha Ende -
We are terrible at recognising symbols. That’s why much of popular art believes in high jinx, and the subtler softer art of hidden stories and allegories find their home in empty art galleries. For me, one of the greatest joys of living in a world full of wonders is to find symbols and messages - where probably there are none.But stop me! It all started in my childhood, when I and my mum lazed in our garden, each chewing a strand of sweet summer grass, watching clouds, discerning shapes out of them and she saying “The next cloud will be what you will be when you grow up” and laugh uncontrollably when it turned out to be the shape of rotund elephant. And now everything sets me up. From a random political poster saying “Savdhan” as I step to start a day; to the way my skin crawls when I enter a home I don’t like; from the uncharacteristically generous splash of jam on my morning toast put by my wife; to the way flowers fall on me at the exact moment I pass a tree. If I’m crossing a road and a dark cloud passes the sun my instincts go alive, if I step out and a child coos at me I start looking forward to a lovely beatific day. I have never tracked the efficacy or the evolving truth of the messages, because for me it is enough that they are there. More than their truth it’s their presence which thrills me. It’s like the universe is having a secret conversation with me. As if it is being both naughty and generous - sharing secrets and giving messages - be aware, beware, be alive. In the same vein, the body of a loved one is chocobloc with messages. The arc of an eyebrow, the way a hand is withdrawn, the seconds in which a hug is broken. The way her thighs touch yours when you sit in a crowded hall, the way she smiles in an elongated silence, the way music wafts out of a filigreed window as you walk to a lover’s house, the way she lets her breast caress your chest in the gentlest way as she kisses you on your cheek. Beyond practicalities, our entire body is a gorgeous possibility of messaging. The subtle art of Vipassanna - which I so prefer to the secret-mantra artifice of TM or the forced kindness of Metta Meditation - asks us to explore our body for messages, to observe and move on. For in that observance, lies the recognition that it is important to know, but equally vital is the immediate passage away from this realisation. I see the morning sun filter through the leaves, and there’s a delicate dance happening on the walking path. A snail waits for me, probably to let me lift it to the garden on the upper ground. It’s actually lifting me up. It’s gonna be a good day. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the mysteries of the body - Punctuation for LoversSuch are Such Days (or the days I make love to her)Finding Souls Between Their Legs
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -The Way To Kataka by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11-the-way-to-katakaLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Sunset at Glengorm by Kevin Macleod - Show more
