Who?

Whose knock is it on the haunted door

That startles the moth eating the carpet floor

Whose breath is it that gently disturbs

The spider stitching its meticulous knit work

Whose steps on the dust leave imprints unseen?

Whose whisper is it? To whom does it speak?

Whose scratch is it on the crumbling walls?

What caused that solitary marble vase to fall?

The crashing sound – the air full of fleas

A shadow passes, the house is at peace.

Dawn

Hush - hark
Dogs bark
Night’s dark
Life’s stark
Open window
Closed window
Chained door
Cold floor
Grey clouds
Eerie sounds
Ugly hounds
Thoughts bound
Rough hair
Dusty layer
Musty air
Short prayer
Bells ring
Birds sing
Night’s gone
Golden dawn

In pursuit

Watching the sun rise through the mountains clad in snow
Feeling the warm breeze on a silver moonlit sea shore
Listening to the brook gurgle as it tumbles down the slopes
Smelling the fresh earth after the first rain drops.

Spreading my hands and running over open fields
Or lazing about under a giant oak tree
Wading hand in hand in the waves of the green sea
Or just walking down the road where my home once used to be

To spend a Sunday afternoon in the lap of my mother
Or talk about the fights that as a kid I had with my brother
A Saturday night spent with my friends in laughter
Or a quiet summer evening with her along the river

Such trivial things in life bring such immense joy
Then what are we running after – why this pain – this cry?
What we think we want is just an illusion
That is going further away along with our progression.

On our friendship

So much has been written
And yet so much remains
The joy of true friendship
Can never be fully appraised
Each friendship brings with it
A new bonding unique
And your friendship for me has been
Like a box full of sweets.

Each sweet has a brand new flavor
The best thing is that – is seems to go on for ever
Each morning brings a flavour new
But then again it is just you

Together when we are
Then nothing seems to hurt
All the drudgery ends
And green gets the desert
Time flies by as the non sense goes on
One thing leads to another
And we laugh like morons
But then there are days
When we open out our hearts
And talk about all those things
We’d share with anyone - we hadn’t thought

And for being such a nice friend
I extend my hand,
In promise that beside you I’ll stand
So be it summer or the monsoon rain

The beauty of our friendship shall forever remain!!

Little Butterfly

A couple of lines to cheer you up
When your day wasn’t as it was meant to be
A couple of lines to let you know
Just how special you are to me

To let you know that your sparkling little eyes
Light up my entire day
To tell you that you look so cute,
Even when your mood isn’t that great.

To compliment your wonderful smile
That brims with both innocence and mischief
To praise you for your tender heart
That tries its best never to cause anyone grief

To tell you that when I hold your hand
All the world’s happiness resides in my fist
And when we sit together in taxis and buses
My heart beats turn to giant leaps.

And when you are so wonderfully nice
Why waste precious moments in foul mood
Each moment is a beautiful moment gone
Don’t let anyone take them away you.

Life may get arid, life may get dry
And Life for moments may get awful
But when all the wars are over
The little butterfly is still so beautiful!!

Adieu

New places there are, but some faces seem old;

In countries of strange men also, there is some hand you can hold.

Lost when you are, there is a voice which will guide you

And anxious when you are the same voice shall give comfort too.

Not once, not twice, but so many times I did feel

Just how much you gave me, nothing in return did you mean.

And here I am bidding you a good bye;

New horizons beckon, but old memories shall linger by.

Days may come when our common roads become far and few, but;

Always in my heart I’ll remember those paths tread by Me and You.

Good Bye and Thank You PwC

Finally ... its all over.
But I can hardly believe it
I don't know whether I should be happy or I should be sad
Once again I've left it to my destiny ... let us see what lies ahead.

Observations on platform no. 4 of Allahabad Railway Station

Written by me on 25th December at around 10.45 p.m.

This has been a trip of trains and railway stations. In the last week, we have visited seven railway stations and boarded three trains and here we are waiting to board the fourth – the stations being:
- Howrah
- New Delhi
- Old Delhi
- Ramnagar
- Moradabad
- Varanasi
- Allahabad

We haven’t visited any of the stations more than once. We shall just be visiting Howrah for the 2nd time tomorrow. (It did not strike me earlier – should have booked tickets in the Sealdah Rajdhani – that would have made it 8 stations)

However, since I am sitting jobless on platform no. 4 of Allahabad Railway Station and the train shall arrive at least after one and a half hours, I am penning down whatever I am seeing around me

1. A goods train, with 60 wagons (yes, I was jobless enough to actually count them), carrying limestones, crawls past us

2. Behind me, a military train is standing. Never seen anything like this before. It is a mixture of a goods train and a passenger train. There are some open wagons with military trucks on them. The train is green in color and has been standing here for a long long time.

3. There has been an error in announcement. Train No. 5631, which is actually arriving on platform no. 7 was earlier announced to be arriving on platform no. 5. As a result, there is an absolute chaos on the platform.

4. A person is peeing into the tracks, standing on the edge of platform no. 5. It is high time, the Indian railway tracks are entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the longest loo.

5. The tubelight in front of me is flickering and is very irritating.

6. For the nth time an empty engine is going past us and for some reason, every time it crosses us, it blares its loud horn.

7. A train is entering Platform No. 5 – it is the Poorva Express, coming from Howrah and going to Delhi.

8. A fat mouse is stuttering on the platform

9. I have been writing about our day at Varanasi for the last 15 minutes. Poorva Express is leaving the station. Varun has finished saying “good night” to his girlfriend and is back on the bench with us.

10. The tubelight continues to flicker and I continue to get irritated.

11. The military train is still standing behind us

12. There has been an announcement that our train is 45 minutes late and that it will arrive at 12.28 a.m.

13. Another train comes on platform no.5 – Toofan Express. Coming from New Delhi and going to Howrah.

14. The military train is finally leaving. It must have been there for at least 3 hours.

15. Again the lone engine crosses us and again it blares its horn.

16. There is a crowd near the weighing machine. It seems that all these people want to know their weights at the same time. Till 5 minutes ago, it was absolutely deserted.

17. Bored now, will catch on some sleep.

The beginning

We stepped out of the Corbett Link Express. It was a single platform station. I loved it. There is something fascinating about single platform stations. Probably, it is the mystery involved. You don’t know what to expect.

This was Ramnagar station and the day was yet to break. It was cold like hell and the whole place was misty – smoke coming out of our mouths as we spoke to each other. A perfect situation to have a hot cup of tea.

But the autowallah was already there with a placard in his hand and within five minutes we were off for our resort, shielding ourselves from the chilly breeze that hit us through the open gates of the auto.

At the resort, we were a given clean and cozy room. As we explored, I stepped into the verandah and the sight left me awe struck. Below the verandah was a small stretch of fields, beyond the fields, a gurgling river, beyond the river were the mountains, covered with dense forests and from between the mountains, the sun had begun to send signals – “I am about to start my journey for the day.”

The sky had a streak of magenta and the clouds above were a bluish grey. It seemed too beautiful to be true. We saw the sun rise through the mountains and as it did so, the reddishness dissolved, giving way to the brightness of a brand new day.

Yes, this was the beginning – not just of a brand new day – but that of 3 unforgettable days, when we would pamper ourselves with an overdose of nature’s beauty, when we would feast our eyes on awe inspiring mountains, rivers – at times calm and deep, and at times, bubbly and mischievous and forests – dense, deep and mysterious.

Selected Snaps from my trip

Selected snaps from my trip