At the barber shop

 My barber is really really clever! He has found an excellent way to minimise his work. He plays Cheesy Telugu movies, that makes one feel like plucking out his hair. By the time one gets his turn at the saloon, half the hair is already plucked out. Sometimes if the movie is too irritating, 90% of hair is already off the scalp. Here’s an example of one such scene that probably is a major contributing factor to the barber spending no more than 5 minutes for my hair cut!!!!

Resistance

It takes effort just to enter the building. The resistance is palpable in the air. The presence of certain individuals seems to make it worse. I feel like Charles Moriorty trudging through thick fog across the moor. There is always uncertainty or the unknown lurking nearby. The melancholy is overpowering. And yet trudge one must. In the case of Charles Moriorty it was his heart pining for Miss Stapleton that gave him courage in darkness of the Moor. Like the horrid acts of Hugo Baskerville which unleashed the curse on the family and the Hound from hell, there are the events of the past which make their presence felt, when one looks around at the same people and places. While it was Miss Stapleton who provided the much needed courage to Charles Baskerville, to me it is the search for the elusive success that once seemed second nature to me. With that hope in my heart, I turn up every day to do what I must. And to do the best I can. I look at the images of the Gods and Saints, hoping that I would finally be blessed with success. That the terrible events of the past will be long forgotten. But the vibrations of the events are palpable. The battle scars are yet to heal. But move on I must! For the soul wants, what the soul needs!

I look for the tavern!

 

I was in deeply contented in the beloved's Garden

Drinking blissful wine from everlasting source in paradise

Cast down due to foolish desires and faults,

I left the tavern and came to a lunatic asylum

My family laid a path of thorns for me to walk

They crowned me the king of paupers and crowned me with thorns

This is not like Socrates's hemlock

Potent elixir that frees one from hell called life

This is a slow death that one dies

Being stabbed a thousand times

In the midst of all this. I walk the torturous path

Hoping to find the tavern somewhere!

Fear

Why pray, do you fear? 

Why do your limbs shudder? 

Do you fear losing something or someone?

Do you fear temporal and spatial seperation?

Do you fear what people will think about you?

Or do you fear failure, penury and ruin?

Or do you fear the dark abyss of your soul where light dare not penetrate?

Or do you fear the greatest of fears which visits uninvited on one and all? 

But needless are your worries and fears

For what is destined to happen will happen anyway

Continue fighting on the battlefield of life

So that you may leave this realm with a smile

And then in Odin's arena continue fighting fearlessly

So almighty father may grant you the best place in the banquet 

Hemlock!

 

I must have committed some heinous crimes

In my past births, verily to suffer thus!

I must have done something bad to you in some lives past

To ensure that you came into my life to make me repent!

Time and again have I groveled at your feet

With the hope that my heart is not shattered into a thousand pieces

But now I had enough of being servile! 

What has to happen must happen!

Like Socrates of Athens before me,

I gladly welcome the hemlock of your tortures

I have become numb to the countless poison darts

That you have kept firing at me mercilessly

I hereby declare that I am a lost soul

Seeking my true destination. 

I have also realized that this is a lonely battle

There is only one seat reserved at Odin's feast in Valhalla!

Castles in the air!

 What does it cost? you think, 

to build castles in the air!

Does it hurt, you think,to 

nurture dreams of your own?

Why not dream big, you think,

So long as you dream anyway!

Little realizing that, all this dreaming

Can cost you dearly!!

For as you trudge daily towards your castles

They seem to move farther and farther away

And then they seem to be a blip in the distant horizon

Beyond reach and all but forgotten.

Then you understand that, this is but a small sacrifice

For the ones you love. You work like a machine to provide for them

And yet the work never seems to be completed.

Deadlines are always looming large.

Barely has one deadline passed, 

one would be confronted with a new task

But you bravely try to manage that

Knowing that you are doing it for the ones you love

You start wondering if you are doing a good enough job?

A casual remark, a jibe an insult pierces you 

However none of that hurts as much as it does

To hear the ones you love say, you don't do much for them!

Realize this now oh foolish heart! The mind

is filled with unrequited desires by the thousands!

A million regrets and a thousand insults rear their ugly heads!

Yet remember that none of them can enter without your permission!

So build strong fortified walls around your heart

Let the icy winds of the Norse gods steele your heart

So what if you live in a hut built of mud and bricks

It can be the castle of your dreams and you can be the king!

So go ahead and dream a little! Maybe dream some more!

And go along inching towards your dream.

We are all weary travelers hoping to reach the ultimate destination

So stop and smell the roses and enjoy the ride!

Emptiness

Every second I face the tortures of purgatory

Every breath I draw is painful and hurting

Suffering grevious wounds from a pestilence

That torments all and is called Expectation

A thousand times Iam stabbed in my heart

By those whom I call my own!

Who is this "I" and who are "they"?

They seem to be illusions of light and shade

A numbness comes ater the immense suffering

Stealing my sleep and hunger before my very eyes

I stare into the darkness  to find a Kindred soul

Only to stare at the vast emptiness of space

Friendless and bereft of love 

I stare into a lifeless chasm

One must pay for one's deeds good or bad

One must bear with fortitude the tortures of Hade's realm!