.....

i wished for u upon a shooting star,
knelt at the aisle and there u are....

sometimes i wondered what you did to deserve me,
sometimes it seemed we were tad too early...

there have been times i've felt all wrong
and u've come and put me all right

and when i felt ur all but gone
and cried myself to sleep at night

u came along and proved us wrong,
things were as they'd been all along

and now its just u and me,
sitting together probably under a tree

watching a sunset at the beach,
never too far, never out of reach

the bonds all strong
as we move along

through ten million days
of the future we make

and all i can think of is that shooting star
and the aisle that I knelt in those days so far

a tribute to home...

What is it about this place we call home? What is it that a mere slur against the very name makes our blood boil… The place where many of us were born and many of us spent more than half our lives….what is it that a mere song or a tale brings back rushing moments of the joys and sorrows we felt?

Our escapades, our near scrapes with the authorities…the overnights, the walks along the airport road…the memories of meeting in Lulu centre…Annual day and Khareef festival—the highlights of the year…the numerous picnics, the field trips….the Jabals, the camels…bus rides…sports day… the choir!!

Yet, we yearned for our freedom, from the oppressive environment, and yet the heart craves to go back to the place where we once “were.”

A photograph, a place, a person brings back so many memories that tears well up and we ache to return home, return to the place where we first learnt to walk, where we made our first friends, where we made our best friends, where we discovered our talents, a place where we lost the people dearest to us, where we found the people dearest to us….

The bonds we created there were the strongest ever…people who dint matter then have become so much more important to us today…a random person from school adds us on FB and we immediately accept, an attempt to move closer to where our heart is…

Salalah, the heart of Oman, the oasis in the desert, our home… has become our haven, a place to heal, to recuperate, to bask in the memories of our childhood, to go back to the time when life was innocent and childlike, when we dreamt of bigger things, bigger places….we’ve reached where we wanted to…but our heart is still stuck where it was…

Some may call it a fool’s paradise, which practically speaking, it may be, but I’d (and many of us) rather be a fool than let go of my home…

these are places, familiar places...my dearest memories were made here.

the rain is lashing at the pavement, the wind creating havoc with the trees...

people hurrying past to escape the stinging water drops and rickshaws spraying them with the mucky Mumbai rain...

and I, a mere spectator, look back...to another day, another time, another moment...

when the air resounded with our playful banter, gleeful laughter, us taking delight in each other's presence... a mere look, a touch...

the pavements are still there, so are the trees...the people are still rushing by.

yet i stand still, a solitary figure, a victim of time, in the torrential rain--alone and incomplete.

Empty...

An empty room, a bookshelf filled with dust

Billowing curtains, crumpled sheets, a slept-in-bed

A breeze rustling dead leaves on the floor, the dust swirling

The sunlight streaming through the cracked glass

Old love letters—tear streaked and well-worn

Dried rose petals, cracked photo frames

A chair rocking alone in the breeze

A shattered mirror, a book--its yellowed pages fluttering

Wisps of memories surrounding the room

Footprints in the dust, walking out the door....