..Learning and unlearning......

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security.



And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,


And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,


And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.


After a while you learn...
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.


So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.


And you learn that you really can endure...

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth...

And you learn and learn...

With every good-bye you learn

~Jose Louis Borges....


the last 5 days were momentous for me.

met old friends, but now new in their changed attires.
saw them, slowly, getting naked, and getting back to their old selves.
felt for a woman, again, but find myself changed too, in the control i have started exercising in life. and i wonder, how wholesomely i have started seeing things..that is the value of experience, must say...beware though, u must not fall prey to being too learned at the same time, when will there be an end to learning..

blazed through north america, from cleveland to buffalo and niagra, the expansive highways, and the rivers in the terrains.

in the suv, the moments of learning and unlearning too..

ever since last evening watched too fabulous french movies...some select thoughts from them, goddard's breathless and 'nina takes a lover'..

"If i were to choose between grief and nothingness, i would choose grief, what would you"...

"I dont know which is the greater sin, making a lover feel that you dont need her anymore, or the sin she commits, when knowing you dont need her anymore, she goes to find a new lover.."

"I dont know if i am unhappy because i am not free, or i am not free because i am unhappy".


..now am back to my mother's lap. my research life, my pittsburgh.

falling in love with u, dear old city, a pity, pitt dearest, that some day i will leave you too! my other mother is waiting patiently for me...

~cares, the child...

..In the great open dome, with no one to tell........

let's see, how attending the book reading session of a pulitzer prize winner can be.
attending, ted kooser's talk here in the univ, here is a lovely poem. just about apt to capture my moods...


After Years


Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea.

An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant.

At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.




~amen,again.

....I talked about death today..again ..

and it was so vivid still.. wish i could have more words, or was at home to cry a little. nothing like that. its a desperate world. a despairing world.

First Love


They say
the first love's most important.
That's very romantic,
but not my experience.

Something was and wasn't there between us,
something went on and went away.

My hands never tremble
when I stumble on silly keepsakes
and a sheaf of letters tied with string
— not even ribbon.

Our only meeting after years:
two chairs chatting
at a chilly table.

Other loves
still breathe deep inside me.
This one's too short of breath even to sigh.

Yet just exactly as it is,
it does what the others still can't manage:
unremembered,
not even seen in dreams,
it introduces me to death.


isnt that lovely, by Wislawa Szymborska, a polish poet, i must taste more of her poems.

~betweenasighandadespair...

Aamerika.

i have now faced the question, umpteenth number of times. i tried a passionate answer in the beginning. tried a reasoned out answer later on. I think soon, i will stay mum too, irritating the questioner in the process.

But, till then, here is a Taslima poem. sums up why i must, will, the force willing, return back, one day..

~happychildren'sday,gladiremembered.

...Discipline...myself...should i...should i not...

I do remember one thing.
It took hours and hours,
But by the time I was done with it,
I was so involved,
I didn't know what to think.
I carried it around with me for days and days,
Playing little games,
Like not looking at it for a whole day,
And then looking at it,
To see if I still liked it.
I did!



debating hard, but its high time i answer this question..it is. and then, what would be my definition of discipline too..thats an important element as well...

heres a short extract from a nice little song.

i hope the next time i write out something, i will be able to get an answer to the above dilemma.

~amen.

..Aami Brishti Dekhechi....

aami brishti dekhechi
brishti r chobi ekechi..
aami rod e pure ghure ghure
onek kendechi..

amaar akaash kushum shopno
dekhar, khela thameni
shudhu tumi chole jaabe,
aami shopneo bhabini..

chaarte deyaal maanei noyto ghor..
nijer ghore onek manush por..

tokhon ki she jaane maanush
haay je khuje bachaar maane

bhaapsha chokhe dekhaa r ei shohor.

aami bhenge chure, abaar shuru korechi
abaar paoa r ashaay ghure morechi...

aami onek here giyeo, haarta shikaar korini
shudhu tomay haraabo, aami shopneo bhabini..

aami brishti dekhechi
brishti r chobi ekechi..
aami rod e pure ghure ghure
onek kendechi..

hariye geche, tortaja shomoy
hariye jete, kore ni amaar bhoy,
tokhon kisher jaane, msnudh
hoy je khuje bacha r maane

jhaapsha chokhe dekhaa ei shohor..

aami onek srot e boye giye,
onek thokechi,
aami aagun theke, theke shikhe,
aami onek purechi

aami onek koshte onek kicchu
dite shikhechi,
shudhu tomaay bidaay dite hobe,
shopne o bhabini...

aami brishti dekhechi
aami brishti dekhechi
aami brishti dekhechi
aami brishti dekhechi
aami brishti dekhechi
......

...Moder Gorob...Moder aasha...Aa Mori Bangla Bhasha...

courtesy, sharique made my first bengali friend here in pittsburgh. and hey-ho, what sweetness is in that language speaking with somebody who is equivalently sweet too in his tonalities..

Navid, from Bangladesh is a very sweet guy...he reminds me of goodness, bhatiyaalis, bangla r maath, nodi, all that is so surreal in life.

He plays the guitar..must sit with him for a music session...

and he reminds me of Purano Shei Din er Kotha...the talks of old days..

Moder Gorob Moder Aasha Aa mori Bangla Bhasha....Our pride, our hope, we die for you my bangla language...

~mymindtravelstokolkatanow....

...."Shaking hands with God"...

" In a way...it's a struggle to be human. I mean, if you really look at it, we wake up every morning to an alien environment. Certainly not the environment man was created in. Its a busy, throbbing, hustling, buzzing, spinning, crazy, alien environment. And the struggle for me, within that, is to try and be human, to try and do human things, to try and remember what we were born with. So to me, it is very much a struggle to be human, not so much a human struggle to do something else, but a struggle just to feel...human."

~Lee Stringer

"More and more these days i find that people want to boil things down to something simple, something you can grab in a second. I also see that today people are very result oriented. We won't do anything just because it's the right thing to do, or for the sake of art, or for the sake of anything unless we can prove that down the road x y, or z is going to happen. I guess in that kind of environment it is difficult for what we call literature to exist because a book is not all that practical a thing in the short term. It's probably infinitely practical in the long term. But you're not going to pick my novel off the shelf and learn how to scramble eggs tomorrow. So in that context, writing is a struggle to preserve our right to be not so practical..."

~Lee again, i love this bit.

"You know, man tries to be a sociologist all the time, but the truth is, you know, if you look around, we really suck at it. So i don't know if there is anything to be done about it - say for example, homelessness. What? Eliminate it? Move these people ? Get them out of your faces? Feed everybody?
I dont know what's to be done about it, except to find what your relationship is to it. I think that's the only work.
Not to eliminate what offends our sense of what should be, or who we are. Just to find a relationship to it. Just, when you pass somebody on the street: 'what is your relationship to that person?
I mean, how as human beings do we relate to one another? Anything beyond that is bullshit."

~surreal, Lee!



" People will continue to write novels, or maybe short stories, because they discover that they are treating their own neuroses. And i have said, about the practice of arts, be it painting, music, dance, literature, or whatever - is not a way to make money, or become famous. It's a way to make your soul grow. So you should do it anyway. "

~lee is god.

"When it comes to justice, the kind that gets you locked up is different from the kind you find inside. Personally, i would like to see all judges and district attorneys made to do time. Not for the crimes they commit from the bench. For they commit those out of ignorance. Which is precisely why, time in prison should be a part of their qualifications. So they might come to know what they dont know they dont know. Let them sit faceless and despised in the holding cells, let them be run through the wringer of their process until the wind has been wrung out of their self-righteousness. And let them stumble on the wisdom every two-bit con knows instinctively, that real justice is always poetic.

~Kurt Vonnegut.

Finally...Lee Stringer is just really divine.


"You want tips on writing, sure...well, you know, i had a lot of fun bumping into...its a joy of discovery for me. I kind of would not like to know what i am doing. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how i am going to fill up those pages, and then, convinced that i am not going to figure it out, bingo! something happens. It's like shaking hands with God."


it is...it is...

~amen...


(the above extracts, from "Like Shaking Hands with God - a Conversation about writing, between Kurt Vonnegut, and Lee Stringer" - more coming up)

...smart COOKIE....

somebody thinks, i am a smart cookie! somebody else thought i am a 'bastard!
now if those cliches are the day's earnings, after a sad micro test..
let me sleep..

~amen.