Again

Again on the parallel tracks, staring out and looking at another pair of them, but this time am in a different state. Carrying memories from current meets which had rekindled the good old days more strongly than usual.

That was a picnic on those parallel tracks. Schooldays, friends and moments....all now just memories....and all as picnics as compared to the journey of now. We had some innocence, a lot of fire and cheery and adventurous spirit.... we were just clay to be moulded or being moulded on those parallel tracks...

Now each of us stares out our own window, looks out at the parallel tracks and try to look past to where they reach, more often towards the back than in the future... The places they have left, but pictures in our mind. The talks that have evaporated but feelings left with us... Smiling at the corner of our lips, for a minute we stop being Atlases with the burden of the earth, but then these thoughts also move fast as the parallel tracks and leave with a vacuum and we hunt and wait for these lovely memories.

Now we are on our own journey, painting our pictures, sketching our dreams, writing our feelings, listening to the melodies our memories.... our own journey... our own parallel tracks!!

Parallel Tracks

One amazing thing about travelling from Mumbai to Pune at 6 in the morning is that most things can be observed at their simplest.

After the groggy start from my room to catch the train which was slowly forced with sudden but lazed out rush, i reached the platform somewhat out of breath. And slowly as i inhaled more air to normalize the rythm, i seemed to be inhaling more than just air.....some by sight, some by feel and some through dreamy-and-groggy-yet-hope-wish-desire filled mind. I sipped a coffee to get some daily familiarity into the morning rather than the caffeine.

(from here on i am reverting to the present tense with which i wrote in my exercise book, it went along as i saw...i saw - felt - wrote, though many things i felt i could not put down!)

Soon the train comes, I search my boogie, find my seat and am set. Then the train starts or rather the journey starts. Breezy cool wind blows through the windows and i get to see the darkness around which occupies as much space as the streetlights.

I hunt for the inspiration to put these things down on paper...but where to look for? Then suddenly the train enters a tunnel right after Thane. There is some uneasiness as the same window which shows me the horizon, is now hindered by the somewhat dark walls of the tunnel. The reason for shouting in the tunnel, as little kids do, maybe is to assure and calm the unsettled mind in what to say, 'Hold on, the horizon will be back and you will get to see and observe and dream at length!'. The somewhat unfriendly tunnel also seems to play a part by echoing these shouts and diverting our minds from the unease in an amiable gesture......and the horizon comes back out of the window and i resume my hunt....

I stare outside the window bars. I stare into the kind dawn, the part of the day which gives humans that tender time. Dawn filled with dreams, wishes, stolen moments and soothing silence and blissful peace before the juggernaut rolls into the day!

I see the world outside but the parallel tracks attract most of my attention. The sound of the wheels of the train clanging on them reminds me of their presence and they bring more questions.... are tracks like habits in our journey of life, are they like characteristics that we take along on this journey of life (the larger picture)?

Some tracks are far from us, some close, some on which we travel, some changing along the way, some criss crossing and thus we travel. These help us to turn and even though they take us from place to place, they limit us to the breadth of about a meter between the tracks. The train has to reside on them.....

Are tracks emotions? Why do we refer at times someone with a 'one track mind'? One track? But I see two...Or do they refer to a pair?

What are these tracks? These tracks illuminated by the streetlights, shining and strengthening their presence....

This journey, this travel, the fellow travelers, the Pilgrims to Ithaca............
The Self, the Soul, the Know, the Unknown and the mysteries, moments and memories on these parallel tracks?

A traveler to Ithaca..........A pilgrim to Ithaca.............

In Translation

This is one of my creations..... When life around with its fullness filled me with vaccuum.... and words crept.... out of meanings.... and kept me busy in..........

In Translation

between
meanings and words
feelings and expressions
am lost

translating
reality and illusions
proclaimed and pure
rational and arousing
am lost

race and rest
defeats and conquests
love and its meaning
mine and not mine

am lost

am lost trying to find myself
lost what i found of myself
found what i lost in time
and time paced

between
sanity and craze
destination and ways
roads and u-turns
am lost

translating
facts and figures
tranquility and triggers
human and instinctive
am lost

between
spiritual and civil
hope and will
freedom and peril
am lost

am lost
in translation

- kedar kulkarni

Questions

As the fog cleared out over the sea, sleep cleared from my mind with the 'cutting chai' that i was sipping.

The morning well into the sun brought out the agenda for the day and I started sorting it out into clarity. On the way back, I noticed a couple, A man dressed in his office best and his wife (i assume here) who came along to drop him at the gate.

Being far away to actually hear, but close enough to observe; I saw that she remarked something about his shoes. He tried to see what was wrong but she just bent down and removed whatever she felt was not at the right place.

This small act just logged through the still misty clarity and till I reached the room it had rooted.

Act if Love? Small act on a Sunny day? Act with the bright morning faces!

Wonders these questions, is what they are.... this small act triggered many such questions, directly or indirectly related... but lead to the one big one...humans and their minds, actions and their meanings....

What must have been going on through everyones mind? Man, rushing to work and wife removing a speck from his shoes but leaving one on his heart....And me a passerby, maybe with more questions than i can understand... Every question arriving to an answer and then slowly evading it, leading to other........

Questions!!!!