Unrelenting Destinies: On reading a poem of an eleven year old.

I organize papers
carelessly scattered
on my study table.
There is one paper
bearing burden
of a heart-
eleven year old.
I read it again, a hundredth time.
The world of stars
and galaxies
has shrunk itself
in pink and blue
four lined paper.
Just a few words,
poetry
of a boy- little lone.
He is asking me, over and again

“Will you tell me madam
what is the definition of a family?
Mother says
there is
a destiny
a dream
yet to be fulfilled.
A sole journey
to eternal happiness
Destiny
yet to be accomplished.
She says
‘When you really want something
the whole universe conspires
to help you achieve’.

Madam will you
tell me
‘Does universe conspire for everyone?’
We all have dreams
my parents too
have one
or should i say two?
Different dreams
Directions different
‘Are different universe
conspiring for them?’

Or-
Is it just one
in many roles.
Wretched universe
where is mine?
No geography
No Physics
No mathematics
could answer me
just so simple
a question.”

Just to ease
his troubled mind
I asked him
the other day
What he wanted to be
when he grows up
like all of us.

“An astronaut.
madam-
for i will go
too
in search
of my own universe.
May be of my parents too.
I will reconcile
both of them
and find a destiny
that everyone shares.”

I had a dream…Into Calculations. A Dream Fragment.

 

Kierkegaard said ‘Life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards’. What kind of an understanding a mind is capable of yielding? When we make attempts to live our past, often our memory fails us. It comes to us in fragments taking a new shape as we try to understand it. True, ‘Life must be lived forwards’ because any attempt to live it backward will only lead to disappointment. Kundera said ‘Life can only be lived once’. We cannot, how much we try, re-live our past.

It is only in dreams can we live our life again, because dreams can evoke senses and give a pseudo feeling of being in the moment. Though dreams too are fragments but each fragment being a product of unconscious brings to surface even the desires, long forgotten and suppressed. Our mind is a creator which brings varied images to evoke a sensual experience. Similarly our dreams by taking material from our past, present, dreams, hopes, aspirations, fear presents life in a cinematographic fragment, transmutes a similar feeling and gives a sense of deja vu. Dreams bring to life our lost memories, they bring to us people we have lost to time and help us comprehend our inner self. These cluster of images sometimes tells a story. It is when we comprehend them in our waking mind do we discover that fragments make a substantial whole.

We all have dreams that make sense to us, dreams that so subtly present to us our inner life that we are only vaguely aware of.
Here’s a dream i had which i have adapted into a short story. The imagery is almost the same, i have infused a few dialogues to highlight the theme and motifs. This dream made me realize that my fear of numbers can truly be called a phobia now, which i had not confronted completely until i had this dream.

Here’s an excerpt-

I am walking through a dark long corridor with someone i do not recognize. I trust him. He is taking me somewhere i want to go. As i walk i meet many faces, strange and familiar. They are indifferent, unquestioning, calm. But their eyes, when they look at me, seem to answer something i do not understand….

read the whole story.