Seven Granted

The seven tender rings
Dispelling all fear/
The seven tender steps
Holding you dear

Assertion and dissent
Shown by moving around/
My love and respect
Showing emotions abound

The seven tender bones
Holding the head alight/
The seven life long vows
Held true against all despite

The seven tender bones
Taken for granted/
The seven life long vows
Leaving much wanted

The inflamed neck
The painful stance/
The hurting heart
An emotional dance

How tightly wound
The power of seven
Holds me in it's grasp
Breathing uneven....

The silent cry of pain
The hidden tears
The seven tender bones
Can't no longer dispel fears.....

Not mine...but rings so true

ME TOO

Through the mists of time and from the ruins of history
echo the faint voices
Of the maidens of mythology
like sparks from the dying embers of a fire
Crackling one after the other.

Driven by lust
for the most beautiful of all women
radiant as the moonshine of the moon
Lord Indra, the ruler of the heavens
stalked her for her very sight made him swoon
and made love to her wildly in the dark of the night
pretending to be her husband.
The only witnesses the fireflies shining bright..
Sage Gautam cursed his wife for being a wanton woman
and transformed her into a stone.
Deceived by one man,
repudiated by another
raped and rejected for being raped
she was transfixed to a spot, lifeless
And invisible to all creatures.
Me too, wept Ahalya.

The evil ten-headed Ravana
known for his roving eye(s)
besotted by a beauty
disguised himself as an old hermit
and begged for some food.
When she crossed the lakshman rekha
he caught hold of her hand
grabbed her by her braids
and dragged the screaming woman into his flying chariot
against her will.
Ram her Lord rescued her
but a trial by fire she endured
to prove her chastity
and emerged unsinged.
But yet he who is Purushottam, the best of men
abandoned his pregnant wife , the Pativrata, the best of women
on the complaint of a washerman
for he had to listen to his subjects
But wasn’t his wife his subject too?
The first single mother of the nation
raised her children in isolation.
And the daughter of the earth
Returned to the bosom of her mother.
Me too, cried Sita.

Yajnaseni born of fire
roaring like thunder and fiery like lightning
a dusky lotus-eyed belle with long curly tresses 
staked by her own husband in a game of dice.
Dharmaputra, where was your dharma?
Called a whore by Karna the benevolent,
dragged into court
by her long raven hair
in a blood-stained garment
for she was in that time of the month
and disrobed and humiliated
by the vile Dushashana.
Five husbands and not one rose to protect the young woman
from the vastraharan
Five mighty warriors
emasculated
hung their heads in shame
And then in the sixth decade of her life
By Keechak she was molested again
and her husbands were silent,
they were still the same.
Me too, wailed Draupadi.

By the banks of the Yamuna
to the strains of the flute
Krishna, the stealer of hearts stole the clothes
of innocent nubile maidens
bathing in the river.
And climbed a kadam tree
to spread them on its branches.
The pubescent girls emerged out naked from the river
and implored him to return their clothes.
Shivering and shy,
one hand covering the breasts
and the other placed between the thighs.
The playful Kanha reprimanded them for
bathing naked “Raise your hands in pranam
if you want your clothes back", he said,
and come fetch them alone
one by one.
And so they exposed their bodies
every nook and cranny
to the lustful gaze
of the voyeur.
Oh, but they said he was just a boy
a mischievous little prankster.
Me too, says Radhika
Me too, sighs Lalita
Me too, sobs Chandravalli
Me too, shrieks Indulekha
And one by one all the gopis scream out “Me too”.

And
The immovable earth heaved
Still stones moved
Dry rivers flowed
Dying fires raged
And all the voices
Drowning out
The voice of patriarchy
Reached a deafening pitch
And shouted their
Ignominy
In unison
Me too. #MeToo

~ Jayshree Iyer

Little mistakes

Little mistakes.
Harmless little stumbles.
The biting of tongue,
Apologetic mumbles.

In a serious life,
Of rhyme and reason.
A little cheating,
A bit of treason.

The heart aflutter,
The stolen smile.
The hidden joy,
For a little while.

The sweet pain,
Of a deliberate fall.
Lasting happiness, 
of momentary enthrall.

Life pulls back,
Logic unbent.
The unopened bud dies,
 Romance unspent.

(Extra) Ordinary

I am not a star
No shine in me, no glitter.
An ordinary person by far
Neither too sweet nor bitter.

No extraordinary feat
No amusing stories to tell
The same old tales I repeat
Which by now, I've perfected well.

I am but an ordinary girl,
Upon mundanities I ponder.
But... I allow my life to unfurl,
The ordinary too, with wonder.

So what if I am not a star ?
So what if I don't shine ?
A rolling stone too, may go far
Without a complaint or whine.

Every thing happy or tragic
The daily hum drum around me
Have become tiny drops of magic,
God's miracles, which surround me.

Dance Again

It's ages since the feet had talked
And kissed the ground with love
The spine shook out the lazy bones,
And took on a healthy curve.

The hands moved to the steady rhythm
The feet were tapping on the ground
The hips, the waist, the thighs , the  knees,
With a happy surprise, moved around

It has been years since the body had
Moved to rhythmic Kathak beats.
Years since I felt the euphoria of
Simple 'tatkar' step repeats

A tiny flame of dancing toes
Which had almost ebbed away,
Today on reconnecting with my dance
Has again begun to sway.

Of first love and all that mush....

So I went to see a Sachin Tendulkar biopic movie today, and absolutely loved it. It managed to bring out all range of emotions in me. But this story is not about this movie.......it is about love.

As a young girl growing up in the nineties, I too fell in love. With movies, with fashion, with stories and with stardom.....I was no different from other teenagers. I loved music, Enid Blyton, Aamir Khan, Sushmita Sen.....I am sure you get my drift.
What is surprising is my love for cricket in a Bengali household. So, being a bengali, I am genetically programmed to love football, and I do. Tennis comes a close second. 

The 11 year old me though, fell in love with what India loves, Cricket.

And with cricket came the love for Rahul Dravid. Yes my dears, this post is about Rahul Dravid, the wall, the Jammy, Mr. Good Guy.

Rahul Dravid recieved reverential love from the teenage me. I did it all, scrap books, cutting all pics from all newspapers, writing ghost letters, buying posters from footpaths of CP ( one particular poster on the door of my bathroom managed to irk my father....but then, such is love) .
My heart would skip beats as he batted or licked jam out of a kissan bottle. Oblivious to my existence, he adorned my TV screen, and I wove crazy dreams around him....

So, you must be wondering, what's special ? Everyone has celebrity crushes, and does all this hoo haa haa. 

What's special my dear, is the skipped hearbeats today, as I sat with my husband and watched the Sachin movie in the theatre. On screen , Ajay Jadeja climbs a team bus, and behind him is my skipped heartbeat.

Years have passed, much water has flown under the bridge. Today, as the theatre reverberated with Sachin Sachin, and we celebrated one of India's greatest legends, I sat with my husband and teenager son and grinned like a Cheshire cat. 

How can we expect, at 37, to feel the rush of first love, the heady happiness which makes you smile for no reason ? But I got the unexpected today. I got the happiness of looking at my first love again, and skipping my heartbeat.
It felt AWESOME ❤❤❤

While Waiting

A solitary coffee with a book
A roving eye for occasional look
Li'l wait for loved ones to arrive
The hum of a song to survive
In a  bubble of suspended time
Some emotions, fuzzy , sublime
Me , me and thoughts of mine
A self built paradise divine....