Uncut Poetry

Happiness is found in extraordinary places. The two who don't seem to ever match with each other, become the matchless couple. And The ones who tick every box, are the ones who find different paths and partners. The alchemy of relationships is only a small-part nature and a large-part mystery. But what is irrefutable to what lasts long - is the trouble each partner takes to figure out what hurts a...

Relationships always have departures. Temporary, permanent, simple, or heart-breaking. Inherent in such partings is the inevitability of our heart's decisions. Sometimes it hurts - but there is a good which lies just beyond the realm of hurt. And in that realm, a person departs, but love doesn't.  The gorgeous music in this episode is by Sayan Mukerji.   Uncut Poetry is brought to you by Sunil Bha...

Surrender is a strange word. It first and foremost denotes defeat. But couched in its shame are also intimations of survival, a love of life over demise, of abiding hope. But, ironically, in love, surrender is the first prerequisite - it is love's entry point, the only way to live it's tumult, and survive it's caprice.

The changing dynamic of relationship with our parents, in every age, actually defines who we are, & how we are changing.   Often we get to know them as the ones we cannot take for granted, very late in our lives. We learn that the only constant in the changing seasons of our moods and age, is their forbearance, their non-judgmental acceptance.   When the world outside & inside us is collapsing, th...

We have a delightful little conversation with poet Riya Roy. She has just launched a scintillating newsletter "the nook", which is choc-o-bloc with nuggets of wisdom, art, poetry and literary surprises of all kinds. We talk to Riya about her journey - and end with an amazing heartfelt poem by her. "the nook" can be subscribed at " tinyletter.com/thenook ".

Khalil Gibran famously said "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself… You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow…”   So be there in the shadows of the lives of your children, as they find their way. Let them find their own ways to love, and be hurt....as long as they know you are there, a...

So much of what we are, is defined by who we are with. And that truth is germane to what gives us happiness. Society, norms, mores ignore that basic need which makes us complete. They concentrate on gender, forgetting that love neither knows borders nor restricts itself within boundaries. The first liberation, the first freedom starts with that realization, that acceptance.

Relations are discoveries, found after arduous journeys.   Intrinsically, everything about love changes in time - the nature of love, the definition of love, the lovers themselves. Is it for good or bad? That can never be the question. Did you last the upheavals to reach the calm? That is the question. 

"My capricious love of many moons, I wish I could meet you again - there's so much of you I have inside me, but out of so little of you."

Clouds roll into every couple's life. Everything gets hidden - the planets, the shooting stars - nearer home, even fireflies go unseen.   The worst is when love's clear skies get hidden. Love goes blind, it flounders.   The importance is, of course, not in the clouds - because pain will come, scars will happen. The question always is - what overwhelms and what prevails. 

And today, I introduce you to two lovers who finally get to disengage from each other's limbs and  beings, and come out to seek some coffee and fresh air. Their smiles are soft, their skin glows.   And all I can do is to sit on the side, a grizzled veteran of many stories, and watch them with a peculiar sense of knowing and pleasure.....

Paresh Tiwari, Writer & Illustrator and Maestro of Haiku & Haibun, leads us into the minimalist, sparse, meditative and beautiful world of Haiku and Haibun.   Like the deep woods, it is a world full of mystery, seduction and contemplation.   Once there, you will not want to come out....

So much happens in our minds! Often, the adventures in our heads are more exciting than the ones happening in our real lives. But when our imaginings take precedence in our relationships over reality, and we conjure the worst, the die is cast for dire consequences. Love can survive the worst, because intrinsically it is forgiving - but how can it contest the power of imagination? When what you ima...

Growing up is a time of luxurious waste. And in that indolence often lies the true meaning of living in the moment. It's only in looking back that we realize how precious that time was, & how much of us has been built in the heat & the sweat & the coolness of that time.   We are, in later life, what life gave us in those heady days - when nothing often meant everything.  

So much of me is my parents. My love for poetry is from my mother. My practical life is from my father. And as I have conversations with them, I realize both of them are actually universe's first and the most beautiful poems gifted to me. No wonder, poetry is life.    And today I have two poems, one each for the two who mean the most to me.    The details of...

The gorgeous poetry in the song 'Main yeh sochkar' by Kaifi Azmi from the film Haqeeqat, has heartbreak written into its very fibre.   The finality of endings is often unavoidable, often known, but never ever easy.   Love's tenure is a story of irony wrapped in an unhealed scar which neither heals, nor desires healing.   

We are so quick to judge violence as communal, religion as bigoted, and protest as biased.   But do we realize the person we threw our abuses at is also a person who trudges back to a home, tired, bloodied, pilloried.   That this man does believe in the power of a prayer. And when he runs down the street with fire in his hand and screaming God's name, he is merely invoking the name to protect hims...

What is love, or love-making, worth, if it's not mischievous? It's high is a question of physics and biology, but for it to be life sustaining, it requires playfulness, good old conversation, a lot of giving and a lot of taking.   It's one of those strange things where you burn and then come out more alive. 

They say everyone is happy in similar ways, but pain catches everybody differently. Even when it is shared, pain is a burden which has to be borne alone. But pain is also a doorway to compassion, to understanding, to appreciation. And life telescopes through pain, into its most elemental. We are truth, we are awake... even as things fade away. 

So much of our mental space is spent in recrimination of those who deserve nothing less than our deepest gratitude, and for what? Small hurts, a word we didn't like, a gesture which didn't suit us?   But happily, we all have in our lives people who forget quickly and forgive generously. Their grace is what quietly gives our lives its rich textures. Can we be that person?  

Tragedy hits everybody. But it hits some at a livelihood level, others at a heartache level.   We can sneer at rich - but we are in this world with our own destinies. To feel guilty about our luck is to deny the very things which give life its beauty.     But when two worlds meet, grace appears in mysterious ways.   (And welcome Tanuja!)

So much of love is all about being in the moment.   The length, paradoxically, is of little consequence. A lifetime together might have just a few memorable moments, but just a few moments might have a whole lifetime embedded in them.    That's the joy, pain, and gorgeousness of this unhealed scar called love...    

The relationship of a father and daughter is one of the closest bonds, almost akin to  homespun spirituality. For a father, a daughter is someone so valuable, that battles could be fought for her with the whole world.   But like all realizations, children often discover the indispensable nature of their parents just when the universe makes them realize how dispensable each life is.

What is life without risk? What is life's worth if we haven't jumped into the dark not knowing anything more than that there is an invisible grace of something infinite out there which will protect us?  In the brave response to these fears lies the most beautiful offering of life we can ever hope to either give or get....

So much of our life is spent in longing. But, often, we don't even know what we are pining for, there's just that feeling of emptiness, of standing at the edge of something unfulfilled. Is it because we forget sometimes that all the important things are either beside us or inside us?