ये चाँद

सो जाऊं ज़रा मैं आँखें मूंद ,

ये चाँद जो यूं ताका न किये.

कह दे ज़रा कोई इससे,

खिड़की से मेरी झांका न किये.

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you, 
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.


~ Khalil Gibran

from a different plane...

You probably can steal my smile that's yet to come from happy moments spent with you;
but can't rob those that I have safe in my memory vault, from happy moments gone by!
And...until then,
I'm rich...for I have made safe deposits of precious memories as I earned them, dear World! :)

In the darkest of dark depths where hand sees not hand,
I live in the light of these smiles, I thrive!
so come not to me if u so wish.
I'm gud by myself as can be!
for I live in the light of these smiles and I thrive!
for I have made safe deposits of precious memories as I earned them, dear World!

I am...

The bounding snow, that gives,

and gives with all her might.

Light and gentle, falls quietly, all around.

A pleaure to your eyes, until trodden all over

...dirt smitten and hardened

...driven to nothingness...by you!

Cold and severe yes, but just

to have you kindle a warmth in you

Much warmer within, at all times though...

As nothing does, I will not last either!

I am the bounding winter snow...

It'll soon be time for me...

...here the winters go!

He'll be back

T'was the crescent so loved...yet a little less bright
"it'll be brighter tomorrow, and thicker, as it grows."
I told my uneasy self.
I looked up today, to check in on it, and be sure.
Oh! but he was gone--the waning moon.
Some moon that was...

"He'll be back...just a matter of days"
I told my despairing self, and smiled!

याद आ गया आज यूं ही अचानक...

हर स्टेशन पे उतरकर यूँ ही खड़े होना,
गर्मी में जा जा वो मुँह धोना.
वो ऊंघना दिन भर, बस और सोना,
वो नापना क़दमों से ट्रेन का हर कोना!
वो चाय का आना, वो बच्चों का रोना,
याद आ गया सब आज यूँ ही अचानक...
वो दरवाज़े पे ट्रेन के घंटों खड़े होना!

वो खाने की खुशबुएँ जो थी उड़ती
तो खाने को घर के कुछ और तरसना!
वो गोलाई में जब ट्रेन थी मुड़ती
उसे देख बच्चों का वो शोर करना
वो दूर शहरों की बत्तियाँ चमकती,
और सुनसान जंगलों से भी निकलना.
याद आ गया सब आज यूँ ही अचानक...
वो ताली बजाते हिजड़ों का गुज़रना!

A Guest Post Straight From Rob "Diesel" Kroese's Heart!

Recently I sent a message to my blogger friends asking if they would like to participate in a blog tour to help promote my new novel, Mercury Falls. I suggested that participants could do a review of the book, or an interview with me, or whatever they wanted to do. I got plenty of responses (see the ongoing list of participants at my blog), but only one person asked me to do a guest post: Sheen.

When I asked her what she wanted me to post about, she said, and I quote:

Anything that comes from deep within your heart would be awesome! I wouldn't wanna limit your 'expression' in any way! :)

This is what my blog in-pensive-mood.blogspot.com is all about. It bears the deepest of my thoughts and emotions, or those of others, that stir mine somewhere deep.

And I thought: “Sheen doesn’t know me very well, does she? Because if she did, she’d know that I don’t HAVE anything deep within my heart. Except blood, of course, and even that stuff is in and out pretty quickly.”

And after all, this blog tour isn’t about what is or isn’t deep inside my heart; it’s about selling lots of copies of my book, Mercury Falls, so that I can quit my job and live the life of leisure that so many of us crave but only a few of us, such as me, truly deserve.

But then I thought, “What if Sheen sees something in me that I don’t even see in myself? And I looked deep into my heart and realized that, more than selling lots and lots of books, what I really cared about was bringing an end to all the pointless strife and discord in the world.  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” I thought, “if everyone in the world could just get along like the giant siblinghood of humankind that we truly are?”

But then I realized that even this noble sentiment was a cop-out. Because beneath my desire for universal getting-along-ness lies a more personal need: the need for reconciliation in my own life, with those people who are closest to me. What I really longed for, underneath everything else, was love and understanding from those around me.

And then I looked under THAT, and realized that underlying it all was a desire to sell lots and lots of books.

Ah! This thin line

I tread this thin line, in this drunk like state.

The thrill's all yours onlooker,
you know--all, right now's at stake!

I for now just tread on...
I have naught to choose!

It's just steps right now,
with minds any but mine.

I'll know if I make it,
I'll know when I emerge

that the line's sanity!

That I tread this thin line

to the other side,

to the side that's mine.

----
[1] naught - nothing