LONGINGS OF A 'LOST' SOUL

I yearned to not part,
I pleaded to remain stark,
I confessed to be a spark.

It was all clear and hazy,
I was both empty and full.
The grip was strong yet lose,
The passion was growing yet fading,
I was laughing and crying,
I was smiling and smirking,
I was connected yet aloof...

I was yours and not,
The pain was mine and not,
Blinding love can be binding,
but it was neither blinding nor binding.

longing...
to succumb to the urge,
to fold into the foetal posture,
to cuddle up, to snuggle,
to envelop and be enveloped.

The water froze into cubes,
The cube melted in the warmth,
The cold lurking behind the warmth.
I too wanted to freeze, and melt,
become water again and flow.
I did freeze, melt, flow,
alternating between different states.
I evolved into a person I cannot identify with.
I am dazed, perhaps its just a phase.
I tread the path,alone;
I wander, alone; I explore, alone;
I experience the bouts of gregariousness, alone.

Where am I?
Give me back to 'me',
Please don't hold me there any more;
for I am not sure;
Is it right to question things? why not?
It is my right to seek the answers,
but whose duty is it to provide them?

Dark Room

The cobwebs of last night
linger on threateningly
While the dusty memories
refuse to budge
You wait for
the godforsaken light
The only welcome you get
is the cold, glaring sight
A frozen dew
keeps you company
In the midst of skeletons
you look for a sign of life
It disappoints you, yet again
with sinister delight
A wail, a scream
and you are back to reality
The blood-churling dream
was a far-off realm

Copyright©RiddhiManiar

For my Guru

Words fall short to describe the One
He who stops the wind
with the will of a storm
The One who serves Him
gets a taste of Heaven
In the chaos of life
he makes things right
I wonder how He entered
my mortal frame
He became the balm
to soothe my pain
The thorns were thrown
out of my path
He gently erased
my difficult past
He taught me
the Art of Living
I cherished it
so as to last
Even when I left his abode
I realized he had shared
with me a secret so precious
I sealed it in my
newly blossomed heart
As I carry it each day
with gratitude
a sincere wish arises
A wish to share it
with the rest
But something stalls
It is not meant to be
He has chosen me
for a purpose unknown
Time alone will tell
what I have to do
Till then, I keep basking
in the glow of his Divine Grace

Copyright©RiddhiManiar

The River Sutunga

Photography: Nairit Dey

The town where I grew up, is called, Mathabhanga. It is very small peaceful idyllic town, where life is slow, people are lazy and kids are happy since there is nothing to worry about except study.

Old people like this town very much, young people want a better education system and children play and watch television to be influenced by the popular culture. Sometimes their parents remind them that television is an entrainment box and if the kid wants to get into the box, they need to hone their skills like the prime time anchors, singers and 'stars' since they are doing it as professionals. So there is no other choice but to study. So here one studies and takes everything else as entertainment. Again while doing and growing up so some kids go frustrated and leave study for earning money. Some of them end up in becoming a driver, some open up small pan shops, some take care of their family businesses, some go to Kolkata for a better education and return hopeless to open a cybercafe, a bunch of them even go to South India after finishing the education in Kolkata for getting a better job and another bunch returns again to be school teachers, both primary and high school. And a very few aspires to be a state administrator, or a teacher in a college or university or to enter the IIT, Indian Institute of Technology and thus move abroad.


Many of these highly educated bunch call this idyllic place a backwater, which is true to many extents, for having a free and educated life of high thinking. But they never forget there is one river, Sutunga, which surrounds the whole town, always flows despite the lazy life of this town. She flows irrespective of whether a group of young boys take the first puff of cigarette by her bank, whether a young couple kisses each other hiding themselves in the catkin bush on her sandy stretch, whether an old teacher breathes fresh air during her evening walk along the riverside road, whether a bunch of people gossips regarding the latest political trends looking at floating and tied-up wooden boats on the babbling water, whether the hot film stars heat up a gossiping session of young fresh breezing chaps, who stop suddenly for a while when a young perfume passes by on a Lady Bird cycle without knowing the fact that the lady bird comes to the river bank to breathe more freedom everyday and whisper it out to someone. But hardly any one can hear. Only the river current never makes a mistake to listen to that whisper - 'freedom like babbling water' -of that lady bird and to carry it forward to the vast free bay of Bengal through Koch Bihar and Bangladesh.

P.S. Mathabhanga is a small town, on the top north Bangladesh border , in the district of Koch Bihar and the state of West Bengal, India.

Copyright©SaibalRay

Excerpt from a soul

“When the night is awake, I often wonder – what is happiness all about...
...Is it defined by your qualification, wealth, power, health and fame?
Or is the “so-called worthless things” that make life worth living – things like unexpected love, innocent smiles and noble gestures?

I wouldn’t know.

Life happens to us without our will
Coming from nothingness and melting into nothingness.
Then who makes the rules that place us in a certain category in society?
Who decides what is right and what is not?
What’s the correct way to live life?
And what the hell is idealism?

Well, I wouldn’t know.

Do we need to have a purpose in life?
A timetable planned by our limited hands to
keep us going against the tide.
And are we ever satisfied?

I couldn’t care less.”

Copyright©RiddhiManiar