Till the curtains come down...

" The world's a stage where every man must play his part. "

A rare few are born with an innate ability to sleepwalk through their part. A victor by destiny...

For the rest in this mortal orb, it's more about adapting to the part to emerge unscathed at the end of the play...

And that I believe is not a mean feat either. But there needs to be some constant source of inspiration that would keep the blood flowing in the sinews long enough to ensure that you sojourn on till you take the final bow...

And there will never be a greater source of inspiration to journey on than the sun...

For you know deep within that however dark and despondent the night may be, the sun shall rise again the next morning and chase all the shadows away. Its done so before the diluvial and will do so beyond it as well.

This unequalled heroism calls for an ode to the beacon of our lives... 

Thou beauty stands undiminished

Having survived the ravages of time;

Thy burning passion cannot be extinguished,

For Thou art so noble, so sublime.

On the Earth on which Thou shines

Where good has always been ephemeral;

Except for that divine beam of Thine,

Which has been forever eternal.

Thou splendour melts away the darkness

And with it the unwonted fears of night;

For even ghosts, with all their vileness,

Would endure not, Thou unusual might.

Only Thy can say good from evil

For Thine has seen all; one by one;

The newborns and the dead, the saints and the devils,

For there is nothing new under the Sun.

The Pandora's box...

" Hope is a good thing,

  maybe the best of things,

  and no good thing ever dies. "

Aeons ago when Pandora fettered Hope in the confines of the artifact, its fate looked grim.

Would it ever survive the aeons of captivity ?

Would it ever be unchained to warm the hearts of men ?

The world of mortals was still not ready to give up on Hope.

The man who had sunk the 'Titanic' to infinite leagues under the sea, descended further below.

This time to free Hope from the bottom of the Pandora's Box.

James Cameron revealed Pandora in an incandescent light that the world had never experienced before.

Pandora, a macrocosm in the Alpha Centauri star system, populated by Na'vi, a remarkable kin of the sapient humanoids.

'Avatar' is the beacon of Hope that Man will constantly endeavour to achieve the impossible.

'Avatar' is more than just a movie. It is an experience that would outlast a lifetime.

An experience that redefined the art of watching movies.

An experience where while watching a movie, you felt that you could pluck the flowers of the Hometree and embrace the portents from Ewya, the Mother Goddess.

An experience that seemed hyper real but still believable...

Besides the brilliant 3D images and the spellbinding visual effects, 'Avatar' also conveys a very strong message - 'Tomorrow is Another Day'.

There may come a time when Man might cease to be the cynosure of eyes in the cyclopean environ of the cosmos.

He might cease to be the omnipotent on earth.

A message of love would ensure the co-existence of Man with his brethren.

He would survive.

Hope has survived as well.  

What else could have been more important...

The eighth wonder...

" The best way to predict the future is to create it. "

As the curtains descend from the African skies on the greatest spectacle on Earth, the eyes are transfixed on a cephalopod with eight limbs, each seemingly more potent that the 'Hand of God'.

'Octopus Paul' not just predicted the outcome of Germany's matches or the winner of the World Cup, it also revealed an innate human nature - 'The eagerness to see the future before it happens'.

And as the time machine remains an unfulfilled dream, our choice of soothsayers keeps getting arcane by the day.

Whatever be the oracular skills that the octopus might be endowed with, I somehow see a greater prophetic ability on part of its keeper.

The octopus never knew that it was being used to predict the outcome of the World Cup matches. The keeper did. 

The fact that the box from which the mussel was devoured indicated the winner of the match was also an interpretation of the keeper. I always thought that it is the losers that get gobbled up, but this time around the symbolism was different.

The keeper also seemed to know from before-hand that the group matches would yield a result. Uncanny, since a draw would have been an equally likely event as a win or a loss. 

So what to Paul was actually food, seemed to have become fodder for a chimera that unveiled the future.

Whatever be the human urge to learn about the future, and whatever be the contrivances to unearth it, I believe that the present has enough conundrums that deserve a solution before the vision for the future can be enlightened.

And let us not strive to take a glimpse of the future without trying to create it ourselves.

For us and our posterity...

And as long as 'Octopus Paul' is engaged to predict Spain as the winner of the World Cup, it is not much of an ado.

I only hope that its soothsayer skills are not honed to predict a solution to Spain's economic turmoil...

Give me some sunshine...

" Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy

  Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry

  Sunshine on the water looks so lovely

  Sunshine almost always makes me high "

 What could have inspired Denver to pen such beautiful lyrics ?

Was the song meant to be an allegory where the sun was Lady Justice upholding whatever you did ?

How would you ever bathe in sunshine without meeting the sun in the eye ?

Would the moist eyes never desire to illuminate the countenance with an unparalleled light ? 

Perhaps the cascade would be able to answer...

The cascade rambled down the craggy stones

Dislodging the pebbles in its hasty dash,

And silenced the trees deafening groans

As they were uprooted like a brutal knife’s slash.

And the rocks on which it thundered down

Bore the grunt of the fall passively,

Like soldiers in their armoured gowns

Would impale the hearts of the not guilty.

And the waters splashed and left a mark on all

And crippled some and left some lame,

For it had been assured by the mighty fall

That things would never again be the same.

And the cascade was being backed in its infernal cause

By the sun behind it, shining bright,

As calm and serene as she always was

And smiling as if it was the fall’s birthright.

My blog turns one...

Today, I celebrate the first birthday of my blog.

" Kushan's Musings " provided me the ideal platform to share my literary work with people around the globe.

Over the past one year, I have posted quite a few of my poems as well as my first short story...

With most of my poems, I also posted the emotions behind penning them.

To me, poetry is a very strong medium for expressing my thoughts and desires.

It is a true reflection of man's inner soul...

I believe, poetry is like strumming the strings of the heart and creating such sublime music that it could raise spirits from their graves and make their shadows dance...

I hope you enjoyed reading the posts on my " nascent reflections " and will continue doing so as I keep updating my musings on my journey on the highway of Life...

The band of colors...

" If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

  If you can meet with triumph and disaster

  And treat those two imposters just the same; "

A dream is one big candle.

A candle whose flame is kept alive by the warmth of the sun, by a burning desire in the heart, by the smouldering fire in the belly, by a blazing passion to perform and leave a scorching trail behind...

A trail that could scorch the blades of grass and leave footprints behind for the posterity to follow...

But a torrential rain can extinguish even the fiercest of fires...

What happens to the dream then ?

Does it ever realize ?

Or does it die a premature death ?

Deep within I know that the fate of the dream is beyond me. I'd rather try and keep the candle burning and hope that it holds its forte against the rain and makes life a kaleidoscopic odyssey. For only the sun and rain in unison can make a band of colors appear stretching over the wild blue yonder...

A band of colors that is an outcome of the dream and the theme for my poem...

A thin band stretched across the immeasurable,

As the child looked on with an unknown mirth

Gazing at the wonder from his rocking cradle

Unaware of what that stripe was worth.

All the riches of the world that man desired

Would pale in the contrast of its illuminance,

All issues of the world that man measured

Would fade in the bearing of its significance.

Each colour that stood out in the infinity

Had its own poignant tale to narrate,

On the facts of life and its vitality

That no gold or silver could ever satiate.

And the transfixed eyes continued staring

Unmindful of the truth that the vision could imply

That life was worth celebrating,

Was the harbinger of the rainbow in the unbounded sky.

The eternal song...

" Music is poetry in the air "

Music is a consummate experience...

An experience that gives a cherubic soul to the universe, unfettered wings to the mind,

an unbounded flight to imagination, unconditional love to the heart and an unparalleled charm and gaiety to life and to everything...

Music is like a sliver of the moon in the dark nights of your life.

And the moonlight pervaded my soul on one such night and overwhelmed the heart in such a manner that while penning the lyrics of " The Eternal Song ", all the sorrows seemed to have been muted forever by the infinite power of Music...

The clouds swayed in the moonlit night

Intoxicated by her music;

While the stars shone with all their might

On the face, so cherubic.

That the moon’s beauty paled before her’s

And she hid behind the mirthful haze;

So divine a song, made her wonder

So beautiful a mortal, made her gaze.

And the trees awoke from their slumber

Entranced by the melody, the winds did bring;

No nightingale, could they remember

Such music, to them, ever did sing.

And the waves rolled on and rocked the shores

Dancing to her melody;

As they for centuries, or even more

Had never felt this ecstasy.

And her rhapsody quelled the sailors’ fears

Stunned by the tides in that lyrical night;

Their joys unbounded, for land was near

Her music being their guiding light.

And I stood as if a spell was cast

On me and my fatigued mind;

For as long, as would the harmony last

No sorrow, my heart would ever find.

Keep Running...

" Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.

  It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

  Every morning a lion wakes up.

  It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

  It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle; 

  When the sun comes up, you'd better be running. "

This African proverb has been a great inspiration.

The gazelle has survived the odds.

Now it moves to a different terrain with different challenges but keeps the same hope.

That someday, the gazelle will be a lion. But it will still have to run. And keep running...

Fifty yards to the crossbar, he stopped in his tracks

As racing thoughts outpaced his leaden feet,

"Should I pass the ball, or should I hold back,

And keep running till there's ground underneath."

And he chose to run and dribbled past

The swarthy knights decked in ebony hues,

He was now in sight of the goal line at last

With the ball steadily glued onto his shoes.

And sixty thousand voices joined in chorus,

"Keep running till you've reached the goal."

Before a stab of steel impaled the dermis

And floored him with a deadly foul.

With bleeding feet he started running again

And this time, with him, raced a thousand souls,

As he shot ahead of the armored men

And curled the ball into the abandoned goal.

Let there be light...

" Superstition is the weakness of the human mind;

   it is inherent in that mind;

   it has always been, and always will be "

It's time to break the shackles of superstitions that fetter our emancipated souls.

My poem " Superstitions " takes a strong stand against this irrational belief that has harboured skepticism in our fertile minds since time immemorial...

Why should man, so rational a being,

Be frightened of the number thirteen.

Why the mind, so logical in nature,

Occult and mystic ideas, do nurture.

Why the only thinking animal, ever born

With amulets and stones, his body adorn.

Why should a being, whose every thought is clear

The unknown and untold ever fear.

And for this I wish, the human civilization,

Would erase from their memory, such futile apprehensions.

And prevent man, the greatest creation,

From losing his way, in the dreary desert of superstition.

Ahoy! Springtime...

" Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems. "

It is time to put the dark days of winter behind and welcome spring...

The leaves shall grow anew and drape the forests in lush green.

The grass shall rise in every barren stretch of land imaginable.

The rivers shall flow with an unquenched vitality. 

The birds shall flap their wings joyously, the wind lifting their spirits and ours as well...

In such a beautiful environ, can " An Ode to Spring " be far behind...     

The frosty white mirrored the golden hue

As the rays glimmered through the misty haze,

And the ripples transpired on the pristine blue

As colours shrugged off their torpid daze.

For there was red and blue, flowering the blazing meadows

And the dainty forget-me-nots blossoming here and there,

A delightful herald of things to follow

For springtime was tangible in air.

And the winged ones, twittered in their weary flight

Their hiatus, a wait too long to bear,

Since now they would frolic in the gleaming light

For springtime was tangible in air.

And mischief sparked in the soft hazel eyes

The reverie, a musing of their debonair

A time for cream on baked apple-pies

For springtime was tangible in air.

And it was time for men to allay their fears

And shred the fetters that could them restrain,

A time for sybarites and their hedonist pleasures

For springtime was time to be free again.