A new poem at Mothers Always Write

Mothers Always Write is a magazine that I have always admired and read regularly. Happy to share that a poem that I have written - 'One Step at a Time' has been published. Here it is: https://mothersalwayswrite.com/one-step-at-a-time/

A stolen afternoon

The creased bedspread undergird your sleep, a sleep I do not want to disturb and have the magical spell and magical run that I have had with my writing, halt like it has arrived at an unexpected dead end. 

But you wake up and open those black eyes that I love so much. I realise my luck has thinned as I cajole sleep to curl into you. I cram in the last keystrokes, allow the sulci and gyri of my cerebellum to form thoughts as clear as possible and click the right buttons before I shut my work for the day and tend to you like I tend to the hidden desires in my heart.

Flash Fiction

A piece of flash fiction that I wrote is up at https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/ekphrastic-writing-responses-maria-izquierdo. Thanks for reading! 

Efforts at home schooling

Krishna is now two and a half years old and at home, thanks to the pandemic. Much as I try to slot the days into neat little compartments of learning, art and outdoor activities (which has reduced to a bare minimum), I have not been able to. For, the mind of a two year old is as playful as the flitting butterfly that refuses to get bogged down by the rigors of discipline. 

I try to cram in as many activities as possible for him, into the lone hour that I get, before leaving to office. Ten minutes of which, gets spent in cajoling him to arrive at the table to read. I finally abandon my futile attempts and get him to sit on the soft duvet, a bowl of raisins in one hand and his favourite water bottle in another. He uses both of them as distractions to suit his whims, once every two minutes when he finds the process of listening, tedious. I carry on like this for the next fifty minutes in the solace of the knowledge that we are 'making incremental progress towards a meaningful goal', a la Earl Nightingale. 

And then I hand him over to my mother to carry off from where I leave and proceed to office till I return in the evening, hoping to read to him but never actually getting my exhausted self to do it.

One of these days, hopefully, things will change. And hopefully the process of learning will get to be more fun for both of us, actually all three of us - my mother and me, as educators and my son, as a diligent learner.     

Buddhist Poetry Review

 My poem titled 'The Destination' has been published in Buddhist Poetry Review. You can read it here at https://www.buddhistpoetryreview.org/archive/vol-three-issue-three/preeth-ganapathy 

Two Poems and a piece of micro fiction

Hello,

Happy to share with you a couple of my recent publishing successes.

Willawaw Journal published a poem that I had written - 'The Flourescent Orange Swimsuit' in their Fall Issue. You can read it here - http://willawawjournal.com/category/journal/fall-2020-issue-10/page/3/

A piece of micro fiction that I wrote was published in one of my favourite magazine - 101Words.org. https://101words.org/divine-justice/

A poem that I had written in response to their prompt - 'Figures on a landscape' by Bertram Booker has been published in The Ekphrastic Review. It's up at https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/ekphrastic-writing-responses-bertram-brooker.

Happy writing! Happy reading!

In the lap of nature

 Today is the last day of my three day mini-break in Coorg.

I must say that this time, I got to see a completely different face of the land that I belong to, the land whose beauty I just can’t get enough of, I just can’t stop raving about.

We arrived on Saturday morning after a short detour to KRS(Krishna Raja Sagar) dam. Our car tootled on the cement pathway to our home in tune to the light beats of a thin drizzle, when I caught sight of the patch of clouds hanging delicately on the tip of the distant hillock, a hillock I had never noticed before. They bowed low like hosts, eager to please, folding their palms.  

It has not stopped raining since the time we arrived. The volume of the rainfall varies from time to time, alternating between heavy and light, but never stopping altogether. This sound of pattering rain is a pleasurable change from the constant din of honking horns of a dreary city life.

During the past two days, Krishna, with his outstretched palms, has been sampling drops of water dripping from different surfaces – from the red petals of wild hibiscus, from the tips of green unripe coffee berries, from the eaves of the two dog kennels, from the edge of the porch – all while we entertained ourselves to some outdoor carrom, a game at which I fare very poorly and would have happily joined my toddler in his adventures instead. Nevertheless, we did have some great moments of family bonding, ones that will remain in our mind for a long time to come.

Today morning, we visited the kere, a small pond which serves as a natural well of irrigation to the estate. It was as green as the leaves of coffee shrubs themselves and Krishna was pretty excited to see all the different birds that hung around the pond. We tried to match them with the birds we had seen from his book, but practicals are always a different ball game when compared to theory.

Otherwise, I’ve been trying to nature-watch, bird-watch, insect-watch, flower-watch from the comfort of a sheltered porch trying to soak in as much as possible.

With a book on my lap and a fountain-pen in my hand, on our first evening here, I remarked to my husband who was sitting beside me, sipping from a cup of hot coffee, ‘This is my dream life, you know. Writing in the lap of nature.’ Like one of my favourites, Ruskin Bond. And another favourite, Shivaram Karanth. But now at the end of the third day, I realize - I was so lost in her beauty that, in three days, I could only squeeze in a short poem in her praise.

The days and nights have been cold, a kind of cold that lulls you into sleep and prevents you from getting on your toes to make yourself a cup of coffee, to take a bath or to reach for the phone that lies on the table a few feet away from your bed. ‘Lie down for some time more,’ the cold seems to say, a wicked smile playing at the corner of its lips. The only other place that reminds me of this kind of cold is Mussoorie , which happens to be another favourite.

‘The chill in the weather is much better these days. When we were young, we would find it difficult to even have a change of clothes,’ my mother used to say. But today, when I call her up, I will tell her about the rains, the wind and the cold. This pleasant kind of cold.

And hope against hope that this is the beginning of a reversal of climate change.  

Perspectives

The world seems to be changing everyday. Tiny small changes.

Of course, I'm sure change was a constant earlier too. It's only now that we notice it, thanks to the pandemic, thanks to the time to reflect and thanks also to the desire to get back to normalcy.

I've noticed that the more fussed and obsessed I am about change, the more intolerant I grow towards it.  Whether its work picking up pace, not picking up pace, change of inclement weather or even letting new people, new friends into our lives - the slightest of changes seems to evoke disproportionate behavioural reactions.

But one thing that I have found that offers solace and a sense of rootedness is spirituality. Meditation, chanting, yoga and pranayama are practices, that I can say, by experience, should not be forgotten. And of course, please add writing to the list. And blogging. And cooking. And spending time with loved ones. The list seems to grow longer and longer !

Well, looking at life, there seems to be plenty of things that seem to be a source of spirituality. It's all a matter of perspective - finding constancy in change and change in constancy.  

I wish I was...

 

a sunny day

caught in the folds of a month of raindrops

 

a bumble bee

amidst flies flitting around flaps of skin on a swivel chair

 

a page of my favourite book

savoured in the middle of an indulgent work break

 

the glow of fire in a lighthouse

waiting for salvation on the jagged banks of the Arabian Sea

In this blog post, I share with you a couple of my pieces that got published recently. 

First up, another of my ten word stories found a home at Potato Soup Journal:

http://potatosoupjournal.com/how-she-fell-in-love-with-him-by-preeth-ganapathy/

A poem that I had written in response to their monthly prompt has been published in Visual Verse Magazine :

https://visualverse.org/submissions/cerulean-freedom/

A piece of prose that I had written for the Prose 500 contest organised by Wordweavers has been selected under their 'featured' category.

https://www.wordweavers.in/2020/08/prose-500-2020-winners-featured-writers.html

Happy writing, happy living!  

Splash

Work gathers, picks pace and pushes aside everything else, especially the hobbies that I had clung onto all these months. The weeds have been pulled out, the table is spanking clean, the files – ready to be opened.

I clear out a section in my mind and make space for new work stuff that I’m training to love. I do this between the lines of poetry in The New Yorker.

Cheers to work! Work, here I plunge. <Sound of water splashing>

10 word story

My ten word story has been published in potato soup journal:

http://potatosoupjournal.com/infidelity-by-preeth-ganapathy/

Mars Confusion

I try to introduce my two year old to the beauty of outer space – the star spangled night sky, the constellations and a telescope. I read out a book called ‘There’s no Place like Space’.

He gapes with wonder at the ‘Cat in the Hat’- our official space guide and laughs at the turn of each page because the words end in a rhyme.   And then I talk about astronauts, comets, meteorites, the Uranus and its satellites and he listens to the roll of the tongue with each new addition to his vocabulary.

Today morning, when we are going through the months of the year, he starts with January, moves onto February and progresses to March and then changes track to ‘Jupiter’. March and Mars must sound very familiar to his toddler ears.

If only I could take him to the planetarium and sort out his confusion… My list of to-do tasks in a post-COVID-free world grows longer each day.

Word prompt : https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/rdp-tuesday-space/

Voices on the Wind

Happy to share that two of my poems – ‘Family History’ and ‘The Taj Mahal’ have been published in Voices on the Wind Poetry Journal.

You can read them at http://www.voicesonthewind.net/family82.html and http://www.voicesonthewind.net/taj82.html

Reset

Reset, reset and reset.

Your personal life, your creative life, your professional life at the beginning of every day.

Every day, we are given twenty four hours to better yourself, to move closer to your goals, to make a difference to the people around you. Every day is a new beginning. It’s upto us whether we want to live in the hangover of yesterday and mope and moan over losses or pull our socks, jump out of our quilts and do/continue to continue to do what matters most to us.

So forgive people, forget bad experience but learn your lessons, free up your mind, take a deep breath and just do that thing that you always wanted to do.

Once you’ve done that, move onto the next.

Looking upto success

When you embark on a new project, you are bound to hit roadblocks, bound to bump over road humps, bound to meet challenges. What helps you achieve success is your attitude – your attitude to carry on inspite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. For a determined mind can plough a hole through the hardest of rocks and toughest of mountains.

In the words of Earl Nightingale, motivational speaker, success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Success is not just the act of reaching your final goal but also comprises the small incremental steps that one takes on the journey towards achievement of the goal.

If your goal is to be a writer, you may not have written anything on a particular day, but if you have read a story that struck a chord, if you have flipped through the pages of a ‘how-to-write’ book, you still are making progress, for you have not wasted the day. You are one step closer to your goal and you are successful.

'Flow'

When you don’t realize how time has flown, immersed in work, when breaks to feed a rumbling stomach do not trouble you, when you come up for air only when somebody reminds that you have not taken a breath, you know you have found your calling, you have found your ‘flow state’.

When you have found your calling, you have found a life of joy.

Breaks

I ponder over what to discuss in today’s post, when a fly buzzes in front my eyes. It’s one of those tiny flies, one that the eye can barely perceive.  I can only feel and hear it.  I cannot see it.  I hit and clap randomly in the air but to no avail. It continues to irritate me. So I decide to take a break and walk around in my room.

I come back ten minutes later and pull out my swivel chair. It seems to have disappeared and I can once again get on with my work in peace.

So many things in life seem to work this way. Give it a rest and we feel better after a while. We get new perspective and the problem seems to have cleared itself out.

Let us learn to give ourselves breaks when we feel like it, so we can be more efficient when we really ned to be.

A thing of beauty

‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’

Keats began his poem ‘from Endymion’ with these great lines.

If we want to hold joy in the cup of our palm and the cockles of our heart, we have to find that thing which defines beauty in our eyes - anything that you find beautiful and connect to it, so you can be joyful, however fleeting the ‘forever’ part is.

It could be a quiet evening in silence, a session of meditation or a great book.

Personally, I find the power of words, very beautiful. To immerse yourself in the craft of weaving words – whether you are writing or appreciating what has been written is, for me, finding joy at a personal level.

What do you find beautiful? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.

Pause

Great is a mind that, in the middle of the rush to get nowhere, stops, pauses, breathes, looks around to savor the beauty of surroundings and learnings that a mundane everyday life brings with it.  

Blessed is a mind that feels the pulse of what is really important in the challenges that one is bombarded with.

It is when the mind stops, breathes and pauses that great things, the really beautiful things are manifested.

Routines

Life changes. One day cannot be exactly similar to the previous day. A person cannot be exactly same as he was the previous day. He has to undergo changes – some cells die, while new cells take their place, new thoughts take the place of old thoughts, new ideas take root in his mind. Change is the only constant in life, on Earth.

But what helps us remain grounded through the changes and what helps us deal with changes – minor or drastic is a routine. Routines keep us tethered to our moorings while our boat is rocked by a tempest. Routines are what power us to move forward and chart the choppy waters of uncertainty. Routines form our sheet-anchors when the world around seems to be changing colours a tad too fast for our liking.

Find a routine that is uplifting and stick to it. So you will be uplifted a little each day, no matter what changes are thrown your way.

Winner of Wilda Morris's July 2020 Poetry Challenge

Happy to share that an acrostic poem that I penned for my mother has been chosen as the winner of Wilda Morris's July 2020 Poetry Challenge.

You can read it here:

http://wildamorris.blogspot.com/2020/07/july-2020-winning-poem.html

Make it work

The cursor blinks at me at a frequency per second. It blinks at me in step with the ticking second hand of the red Titan time piece staring at me from the mantel. The longer I stare at the cursor, the more difficult it is to tame it and get typing. 

Enough is enough. I hunker down and type the first word on screen. 

I guess this is true with any problem that you face, any challenge that you encounter. The longer you stare at the problem, the bigger it looks, the bigger it grows. Instead, gather your wits and plunge headlong into tackling the problem. Sure, strategy and planning are important. But they are important only when and if you have a strategy and plan!

If you don’t have one, it’s time to make use of the best resource you have – YOU and move on without much ado!    

Be Happy

As I leave for work, my toddler son touches my feet. He has acquired this new habit, watching me touch my parents’ feet and seeking their blessings everyday before I leave for work.

Touching elders’ feet to seek their blessings is an integral part of Indian culture, more specifically Coorg culture. When we were children, one of our primary duties when we are introduced to the elders was to touch their feet with both our palms and bring the palms to our heads. And they in turn would bestow their blessings and wish for us all the good things that the smorgasbord of life has on offer.

So, it came as a pleasant surprise when my son who is all of two touched my feet for the first time a few weeks ago. He then proceeded to touch my parents’ feet too. Three times and placed his hand on his head after each iteration. Like a true blue Coorg!

He has kept up with the practice and has not missed even a single day. And today was special – he touched my feet and also offered his blessings! Turning on his most serious version, he smiled and said, ’Be Happy!’ And his words made the rest of my day!  

Hard Work

Hard work. Plain. Simple. Hard. Work. That’s the number one ingredient that takes you to the top. That’s the essence of what differentiates a winner from the ones who make it to a measly almost there. It can move mountains, change hearts and raise life from the dark pits of despair. Hard work can turn around a life like nothing else can.

Of course, grace – some call it luck, matters. But it’s important to remember former President of US, Thomas Jefferson when he said, ’The harder I work, the luckier I get.’

Whenever you stare at a dead end, when you feel hopelessly useless, when you feel the world turn its back against you – hunker down and work hard. It will lift your day and your spirits. Not to mention your game. UP.

Getting things done

That arduous and long pending task stares at you from the corner of your desk, gloating at how you just can’t get around to deal with him. You delay and dither until it is too late and cry over wasted time. You buckle down to do it, anyway and round it off half-heartedly when the hot breath of a deadline breathes down your neck.

You need not always keep things for the last minute. Things can be different. Tackle the gargantuan task at the first opportunity available. 

Break down the task into small bite sized rubber meals that you can chew up. And with every accomplishment, however small it is, reward yourself with a goodie – anything that you love – It could be a session of two minute meditation, reading a short short story, going for a walk or chatting up with a friend. 

And once you are through with your reward, get back to tackling the next small rubber piece that you can chew.

This is one method which I have found effective in tackling many of the demons lurking around in my procrastination closet.     

Self Reliance

“No one can save us. No one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

The Buddha’s words ring true as I read one of his many nuggets of wisdom. Every being here, has a path cut out for her. She has to walk that path, whether or not she likes it, whether she is attached to the destination or detached from the outcome. She has to face the changing cycles of seasons, brave the storm, clothe herself in layers during the cold and enjoy the sun on her skin during spring. Her sufferings are her own. As are her learnings that are born out of the sufferings.

No individual can share the pain of another. Parents may struggle and bring heaven to earth in their effort to mitigate children’s sufferings. The pain of a surgery, the pain of a heartbreak, the pain of an addiction and so on has to be borne by the child herself. Parents may try to soften the blow, provide a comfortable cushion to rest her tired head on, offer warm words of comfort, but the pain of the action/reaction/event has to be tolerated by the offspring. This is true of every other relationship – romantic, platonic, filial and so on.

In that act of suffering is hidden the fact of transformation, the possibility of metamorphosis. So let us not be afraid or shun the difficult times in life.

Let us not wait for sympathy/empathy/words of kindness from others who we think are our well-wishers. If the ray of hope shines through in their kind, comforting actions, let us be grateful. If not, let us not wait for it. Waiting and not receiving the kindness weakens our emotional fiber and slackens our resolve. Instead, let us be self-reliant and forge ahead with doing what according to us is the right path to emerge strong because of a particular event. Let us build good routines like meditation and yoga and incorporate them into our daily lives so we have some sort of ‘insurance’ cover to fall back on during the not so sunny days.

Strength

What is strength? Strength is the quality to remain true to your promises, to your goal and to your vision even when circumstances are not favourable. It is the ability to plod on and get your thing done even when the going gets inexplicably tough. It is the ability to remain true to yourself and to your values despite harsh criticisms and sharp, painful barbs of innuendos that the world will shoot at you when you set out on your path. Strength is what makes life bearable during the unbearable times and gives you the wherewithal to manifest better days. Strength is what helps you make a difference and leave everything better than what it used to be.  

Pure Joy

Expectations in life whittle the plain joy of doing something down. The Buddha very poignantly says, ‘Desire is the root cause of sorrow.’ You write an article, you expect to get published. You expect to earn hoards of regular, faithful readers. You expect a shower of praises. You go for a run and expect to cover the distance in certain time. You deliver a presentation, you expect that your superiors will clap you on the back.

Now imagine a scenario where you do the work for the joy of it, for the love it. You write because you love the process of creating magic with words. You run, not to create new records or make it within a certain time span, but because you love the wind in your hair and the sweat from the muscles working themselves up. You give a presentation after you’ve read everything there is to know about the subject and you genuinely, truly want to share your knowledge.

The two situations would start the working of completely different systems in your body, in your mind and in the universe at large. The first scenario would lead to stress, burnout and would sap your energy in not much time. The second approach on the other hand would invigorate you to work harder and lead you onto the path of joy, meaning and fulfilment.    

Life is pretty simple. Do things for the joy of doing them. And don’t burden that joy with the weight of expectations, applause and external validation.

A changing way of life?

The city of Bengaluru is observing another lock down once again, this week. Roads are deserted. Atleast more deserted compared to what it usually is.

The skies have cleared up once again revealing pure aqua blue on clear days and dark grey when it’s just about to pour. Either way, we get to yank the invisible thread of connection between a quiet, unhurried mind and the freedom of staring at the sky and test it for real, at leisure.

Bird-songs rush to fill the air once again in the absence of potential threats in the form of fume-spewing cars and trucks with their blaring horns.

And except for a dangerous virus that lurks in the air threatening to endanger one and all, everything seems to be nice and pristine once again.

Why can’t we enjoy this noiselessness, this lack of need to get to places and indulge in mindless consumerism, even when there is no lockdown? Why can’t we self regulate and decide not to step out of home unnecessarily or for purposes of mere entertainment (read reckless long drives just for the heck of it) at least once or twice a week when things get to normal? It’s not too much to ask for. It’s all a matter of setting intention and the resolve of following it through.

Mother Nature definitely seems to be enjoying this change. It’s time we re-align our goals/ motives/ intentions with her’s to not just lead a meaningful life but also to leave to our children a planet that is plain liveable.   

A new friend

The eagle circles majestically

Grooving over and over

In an imaginary whirlpool of air

And latching onto a new arc

Every time the imaginary vortex is reached

Revealing a black brown belly

The brownness stretching out to

Her graceful, dancer wings

Letting out a shrill cry

That attenuates but manages to

Trickle down to my playful toddler

Who looks up in wonder and welcomes

His avian friend into the folds of

his tiny but growing world.

Word Prompt: https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/rdp-monday-belly/

Attempts at being normal

I sit here in my room at office, gazing out through the windows watching vehicles pass by at a frequency of one per second. Cars, two wheelers, SUVs. Purple flower petals from the Jacaranda tree that have fallen on the road, are trampled by the tyres treading on them.

It has rained heavily this morning with thunder roaring and lightening bursting forth on the horizon. But the afternoon sun shows no signs of the rains that visited the city. Nope, no signs, not even an inkling.  

The lockdown is being rolled back in a phased manner and life stares at the possibility of being normal once again. Full of myriad twists and turns, mighty knots and criss-crosses. At the possibility of having the roads filled with vehicles crawling together at peak time traffic. At the possibility of the smoke rising up once again from the invisible chimneys that these vehicles foist upon themselves, straight into the stratosphere. At the possibility of birdsong being drowned out by incessant anthropogenic chatter.

 I look at the man hurrying on the sidewalk with back pack strapped, a black mask in place and the determination in his eyes.  And for some reason I am left with no doubt that we are at the same place where we stood before Covid shook us. Just like the sun that does not show any signs of the storm that it has braved, the city shows no signs of weakness or meekness, in its desperation to spring back to normal.   

Word Prompt :Normal
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/04/24/rdp-friday-normal/comment-page-1/#comment-20612

The surprise (A 100 word story)

Stupor hangs onto every cell like dead-weight. It is the peak of summer. The lip-smacking lunch of curd rice with mango pickle adds to the languor. The body aches for a siesta on the soft quilt, back home.

Almost immediately I get a telephone call from my husband asking me to rush home. Thereafter, his phone goes caput - no longer reachable. The effects of curd rice wear off instantly and anxious thoughts sweep the mind. With heart beating loudly in my throat, I dash home.

The door opens. I am greeted by a giant cake that reads ‘Happy Birthday!’


Word Prompt : Cake
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/04/09/rdp-thursday-cake/

The flower vendor

The flower vendor sat on the footpath surrounded by baskets of flowers. The silence of the calm and peace all around, was palpable. A Mynah descended from the skies and skipped playfully very close to her. She had never been this close to a mynah, not in thirty years of her selling flowers in this area.

She would sit at the entrance to the park, stringing together either mallige(jasmine) or kanakambaram(crossandra) flowers. Other varieties of fresh flowers – pink, red, yellow, orange roses would lie in her basket waiting eagerly, to spread their fragrance in the right home. She would also have a stock of fresh tulasi and bilavapatre leaves in a special basket. They were offerings that most devout Bangaloreans offered at the feet of the divine without fail.  

Everyday, she would see multitudes of people enjoy the early morning Sun, the luxury of fresh air and the twittering of birds. The park would transform into a vibrant ecosystem of a variety beings from the human, animal and avian kingdom enjoy their slice of unadulterated happiness.

Teenagers would jog their way around in bright tank tops and tights, oblivious to their surroundings with ears plugged with head phones. The older lot would congregate in groups of five or six exchanging the latest tid bits of political gossip. Saree clad ladies would walk around in gleaming white sports shoes enlightening each other with variations in recipes to make that puliyogare a little more tangy or share their woes of managing work and home.    

Each morning she would sell her wares to these morning walkers on their way back home.

“How much do you charge for a moLa of mallige, one bunch of tulasi leaves and some of these pink roses?”, a customer would ask.

(MoLa is a unit of measurement of stringed mallige flowers which translates to the length of a hand)

“Thirty rupees for the mallige, five for the tulasi leaves and twenty for a fistful of flowers,” she would say.

This would be followed by instances of haggling and bargaining for a discounted price until a mutually acceptable figure would be arrived at.

The flower vendor would then pack the flowers in a small plastic packet if the customer did have his own cloth bag. The plastic pack would cost an extra five bucks. Each day, she earned just about enough to make ends meet.

The flower garlands would then be used to decorate the idols in temples present in each domestic household, the tulasi/bilvapatre leaves would then go to the feet of the deity and the left over flowers would be used to deck up the outer periphery of the temple.

But today, there was no such scene. People were conspicuous by their absence. She was all alone on the deserted footpath, surrounded only by her flowers, mute and stationery as always, until the mynah landed beside her for company.

“Oh, you are selling flowers today also?” asked a pedestrian, in his late fifties. He was a regular customer but she was startled by the sound of his voice, all the same.

“Yes sir. What shall I give you today? The usual Mallige with tulasi leaves?” she asked starting to measure out the flowers.

“Yes, I will buy them. But have you not heard about the lockdown? Nobody’s going to be out here for the next month,” he said.

The flower vendor handed over the flowers and sat quietly. How would she survive for the next thirty days without her flower business?

Word Prompt: Pedestrian

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/31/rdp-tuesday-pedestrian/

Limitations

Smooth, suave, slick
That is the new magician in town
The wand with his wrist that he does flick
An ace always ready up his sleeve
Expressions fit to be captured by a click
When he makes the Taj Mahal disappear
He says it is all in the legerdemain and a trick
And that is why people should watch him in action!

But no amount of earthly magic
Can bring back squandered time
Or lost lives
Or words that have been uttered
Or unravel the spiral of vicious actions
Nor can it make a man
Disappear from the door of death
Acts that can be performed only by the sleight of divine hand.

Copyright © 2020 Preeth Ganapathy

Word Prompt : slick
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/rdp-monday-slick/

A prayer

 Clothed in the fuzziness of the warm morning Sun as

The day careens into a waltz to the beats of the song

Sung by a collage of the myriad visions that strikes a match of inspiration 

The heart is filled with fresh hope,

fresh as the sound of the cuckoo

Travelling from glade to glade

And a head that brims with ideas to

Bring the heaven docked up in the stratus

down to terra firma

And hands that wish to mould and re-mould

The sculpture until it becomes a blueprint

Of what You envisioned it to be

My dear Lord, let this be the habitat

That I live in for as long as I live.

Copyright © 2020 Preeth Ganapathy

Ragtag Daily word prompt : Habitat

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/rdp-saturday-habitat/

The visitors

“Empty your mind, clear the thoughts away,” said the yoga instructor in her soothing voice.

I felt a comforting sense of calmness wash over me. No thoughts, no white noise in the background to disturb me. It was just a void. A strange sense of lightness overcame my being, strange in a happy sort of way.

As I inhaled deeply for a count of four, my stomach expanded. I concentrated on the breath alone. Thoughts of that unfinished report were pushed to a quiet corner of the mind. This was not the time for work to suddenly show up like an unwelcome visitor.

Every morning before the crack of dawn, I attended the yoga classes in my neighbourhood.  It was still dark and quiet everywhere. Even the stray dogs, deep in their slumber, would not let out so much as a snore. It was this quietness that I enjoyed most during the day.

All of a sudden, a sound was heard. It was something like a cross between the melody arising from the plucking of a veena string, the purring of a cat and the striking of metal on a gong.

The magical spell was broken. My concentration veered. Somebody had forgotten to switch off their phone again, I thought in exasperation.

Soon enough, another metallic tang was heard coupled with a few more tangs in quick succession. Unable to concentrate on the breath any more, any longer, I opened my eyes. The other yoga students too were wondering looking around trying to figure out the source of the sound.

When it was clear that it was not any of our phones that was causing trouble, the instructor decided to take charge. She went out to enquire with the watchman about the source of the sounds.

There was no other premise in the building open at this hour in the vicinity. A music class in the offing perhaps? Nope, not that he knew of.

“Not in any of the other floors of the building? Are you sure,“ she asked. The building had five floors and the yoga studio was in the ground floor.

“No madam, I don’t see any neon board hanging outside advertising one,” he replied nonchalantly.

Now, all of us were scouting for the source, looking for light glowing from a room or two from houses in the vicinity. May be some sleepless soul had woken up at this hour and had switched on the radio for company.

“It can’t be a radio,” said one of the students in a magenta tank top and black tights.

“It has to be an animal, sounds more like a kitten,” said another man who had not got up from his lotus pose, the padmasana, like the rest of us.

The sounds were repeated, frequency between two consecutive sounds maintained at the same pace. 

They were emanating from somewhere inside the yoga studio, we decided.

There at the corner of the room, behind the pot of money plant, lay a small wooden box. The box was closed and lay motionless. There was no doubt now, about the source of the mysterious sounds.

I slowly ventured towards the box on tiptoe as the class collectively held its breath. I practiced some deep breathing to steady myself and stretched out my hand slowly and lifted the cover.

As I looked inside, I found two little kittens huddled together, lying on top of each other, purring loudly. Probably being a day or two old, they were hardly able to open their eyes. The entire class was now peering at them over my shoulders.

That day, the yoga class extended for an unusually long period of time. Not because we were practising various poses, asanas but because, we were busy finding milk and a safe home for the forlorn kittens.       

Ragtag Daily word prompt : Empty
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/rdp-friday-empty/

The elusive silence

There is an intertwining relationship between silence and creativity in my life. I can create only when it is silent and quiet. Any noise and distraction seems to dispel the slightest whisper of new ideas from my mind. In such situations, I usually just hold onto my ideas like as if I were meditating, and wait for the hubbub to settle down before I begin writing.   

The fast paced beats

Of the blaring music

Incarcerates the ears

Leaving the mind with little elbow room

To nudge around its creative muscles

I stop fighting and decide to

Drift along with the flow-

Waiting patiently for the song to end

So I can finally write something in

The quiet interlude that will follow.

Copyright © 2020 Preeth Ganapathy 

Lessons in Staying ahead

We try to tame nature, try to attach a meaning to her actions and find a solution to the puzzles she throws at us, but we are unsuccessful each time. She always has the better of us, each time.

Each generation

Thinks that it has

Unraveled

The mysteries of

Countless branches of science

In its efforts to inch closer to the truth

But no amount of

Deciphering, decoding and discovering

Can make us ready

To deal with the stock of surprises

That nature has in her quiver

She comes with a new conundrum each time.

One step ahead of us. Always.

Copyright © 2020 Preeth Ganapathy

Word Prompts :
Countless Branches - RDP
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/ragtag-daily-prompt-thursday/
Amount - FOWC
https://fivedotoh.com/2020/03/26/fowc-with-fandango-amount/

Everyday instances of scrying

You don't really need to go to a clairvoyant to scry, we do it in our everyday lives too. And not just us, the animal kingdom is replete with examples of divination.

The kingfisher peers into

The orb of the blue pond

Looking for fish

The weatherman gazes at the sky

And predicts heavy

Rainfall

I stare into your eyes

And try to magically decipher

The thoughts floating in your mind

Copyright © 2020 Preeth Ganapathy

Ragtag daily word prompt : SCRY
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/25/rdp-wednesday-scry/

Lockdown Triolet

With the 21 day lockdown period starting in India, there are cases where rules are flouted and instructions are not adhered to. People going for morning and evening walks, vehicles commuting along roads every other second are a few common examples. This short poem(triolet) is inspired by one such instance. 

Can you hear the engine revving
       Up the deserted road, puffing with all its might
I want to ask the driver,” Where do you think you are going?”
       Can you hear the engine revving
In sometime, I presume, he would be quietly withdrawing
       But still, this is supposed to be complete lockdown, right?
Can you hear the engine revving
       Up the deserted road, puffing with all its might

Copyright © 2020 Preeth Ganapathy

Delicate

New born fingers that curl around a mother’s

Dew drop fresh on a blade of green grass 

Touch of soft muslin on the skin

Unspoken equations in a relationship

Damage wreaked by angry words

Space occupied by love in the heart

The thread that connects the body to the soul

The thin veil between life and death.

This is my poem in response to the Ragtag daily word prompt: delicate
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/24/rdp-tuesday-delicate/