Touch the sky

Taking a break from routine life. This time I have set my sights high. I am going to touch the sky. Wish me luck!

Won't be back for a while. Until then enjoy these amazing pictures from Hemis Gampachen and Tso Moriri.

Coffee Clouds

Coffee clouds in hidden hills,
Are echoes of green and blue.
Like lover boys,
They chase careless cliffs,
To steal a kiss from you.

Mist covers the rising sun,
Day dreams are dipped in dew.
The mellow rocks,
Have lost their voice,
So I sing their song for you.

To a proud girl

I spend dark hours looking at you,
Wondering what’s that wild fire,
Within you, that swiftly spreads,
Whichever way the wanton wind,
Of your willful gaze chooses to blow.

There seated among distant dreams,
And proud ideals of my captive mind,
With a raised chin and resolute lips,
So sure of their royal bloodline,
You turn with perfect ease upon,
The waiting world, cast a cursory glance,
And look at them no more.

Expressions mask with hidden haste,
What the naked face might betray,
For the enchanted world should never know,
What lurks behind those haughty eyes,
Is a little girl that cries, at the dark night,
That prevails on the restless forest,
Deep inside her untamed heart.

It catches me

It catches me like summer fever,
That shakes me from within.

A splash of water on my lost expression,
Washes away the unwillingness,
And equivocation of my limbs.
Then my mind is a flying fish,
Flipping around and tossing about,
The wavy notions of watery thought.

It possesses me like the approaching,
Shadow of someone, lengthened,
By the dreamy, departing day.

Pursuit of meaning

Lost myself,
In the woods one day,
With trees and bees,
That look like words.

Thoughts of mine,
Make distant sounds,
Like fluttering wings,
Of evening birds.

Little forest path that winds,
Bends and curls,
Through shrubs and vines,
Stretches on for miles and miles.

Who knows,
Which way it goes.
Whichever way,
T'will be my home.

The Escapade

Stuck in the starry sky,
A glittering bulb of light,
Overlooks the game of life,
With a silent silver smile.

Little children are we,
Hiding in big bodies,
Pretending to each other,
Reveling in trickery.

From the terrace high,
Look down from the sky,
Little alley below,
Beckons you to go.

Leave behind your innocence,
For another night,
Somnolent city sleepeth,
Time to close your eyes.

(Picture - Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in "Chilpéric" by Toulouse-Lautrec)

Travelogue - The bumpy ride to Ooty

The bumpy ride to Ooty wasn’t short of thrills and excitement. When we were tired of laughing at my uncle’s jokes we would look outside to see all the patterns the clouds would make in the blue sky. In the distance, the blue hills of Nilgiri gradually began to dominate the landscape giving us a foretaste of what was to come. The average ordinary trees began to be replaced by tall conifers and eucalyptus trees. Lurking in the greenery a pair of shiny eyes would suddenly manifest itself in the form of deer and nilgais. The odd wild elephant might also be found brushing its tusk against the tree bark as though this action were prescribed by a dentist! The big cats chose to stay hidden. The Bangalore-Ooty highway passes through the Bandipur and Mudumalai forest reserves. Although both boast of a decent tiger population there aren’t many who can claim to have seen any. One begins to wonder if this is all a hoax especially when one reads the rather suspicious message on the forest department website that cautions “Wild cat sightings are rare as they are masters of camouflage and prefer to stay hidden”.

The road crept into the mountain and silently curled round it like a woolen muffler. As if on cue, the weather began to feel nippy. And it was peak summer! Spells of light rain lashed against the car windshield but did little to deter us from our quest for a good holiday. Miles and miles of forest are an album of beautiful images, enough to content the photographer in our minds. Every now and then at forest checkposts and state borders, human settlements mushroom awkwardly like patches of weed in a little homely garden. This is where we stopped for tea, grown amply in the slopes of the Nilgiri hills.

At Gudalur two roads leave for Ooty. One of them passes through the sleepy hill station of Coonoor, the other through the unending grasslands of Pykara that carpet the hilly slopes of Nilgiri. We chose the latter. Standing on the slopes at Pykara, one unselfconsciously looks for golf clubs and 18th holes. The view is an endless array of blue-green mountains punctuated by lakes and hilly streams. As our car trundled along the grassy slopes of Pykara, clouds and darkness finally got the better of the sun. Silence, darkness and chilly mountain air put me to sleep until the spluttering engine woke me up finally. It was 10 pm and we were finally in Ooty.

(Update: Found time and added to my short story)