By The Flickering Flame of a Beauteous Night

When the fire of revelry let out her first smoke,

When I set forth in earnest without my cloak;

When guarded etiquette flashed her final smile,

When dancing shoes would paint many a tile;

When chiming glasses had intoxication in guise,

When the dancing tribe possesseth my eyes;

Whose hands I clapped, to whose humor I bent,

Through many a name my labored memory spent;

Yet what magic did it weave that I sit up and pen,

With an unexplained urge came these verses in ten.

The author finds an unexplained urge to pen these verses in a set of ten at the end of a musical night of camaraderie.  

"What is this Gowramma"!

Why, o lassie, this eye-liner on thy brow,

Decorates these eyes to an eloquent glow,

Who coloured these precious lashes? ‘Twas I,

Now amidst amorous flashes, my senses ply!

Many a lake parched by the tropical May noon,

My sun-burnt skin pines for the course of moon,

Yet why my maiden, do thou shiver at my approach?

In thy heart’s parlor, did I secretly encroach?

Like the waist-band singing praises of thy frame,

The lamp-glass ornament to the resplendent flame,

These unchecked words, in truth my fair dame,

Are likewise grammar’s  ode to thy worthy name.

Let Cupid lay down his bow and sleep,

Let the Artic snow douse the flame’s last leap,

Let wrinkles and grey manes wither our youth,

May these verses be balms to comfort and sooth!

Why, o lassie, this eye-liner on thy brow,

Decorates these eyes to an eloquent glow,

Who coloured these precious lashes? ‘Twas I,

Now amidst amorous flashes, my senses ply!

The poet was triggered to write this poem when he heard the Kannada song "Enidhu Gowramma" on radio during his drive home. 

This song and the Tamizh version - "Ennadi Muniyamma..." are indeed fun songs to listen to!! 

An admirer's lament

Neither her hair, let loose or held in plait,

Nor her frame -every true admirer’s bait,

Nor her presence that weaken even cast iron knees,

Nor her fragrance for which many a competing bee,

Nor her gaze aloof from a gallery of eyes,

But yet found mine in a questioning guise!

Nor her printed cloth that was condemned to veil

her ripe lips that would leave many verses in trail,

None as enchanting as that disarming smile,

but, none to release her*from her cloak’s guile.

Hours flew swiftest when her unveiled cheeks shone,

And time labored most when the drapes were done.

With a rumble in my heart I solemnly write,

Of my infected musings that has no balm in sight,

If the sweetest fruit were the most forbidden of all,

As a burglar in the sanctum, I shall stand tall.  

*her smile

The ladies in the city have now started veiling their faces as they move about, and the poet can't help complaining. He ponders about why something so beautiful as her face should be hidden away from his admiring eyes. So much so, that he is urged to himself step ahead and unveil her face!

To Be Happy

To sight him among the wise men they besought,
with her: “pray show to us thy lovely consort”
“Is he? “; “No”, “Is he?”; “No”, until they reached the One,
Her head hung, no words rose, only her abashed face shone.

Thus from one joy to another, from one victory to next,
Through sights and scenes who each claim to be best,
When they drop away disarmed, without even a drone,
He knew that to be happiness, so unalloyed, so alone.


When Sita was asked by her friends to show to them who her consort, Rama was among an assembly of sages, she denied everyone whom that was pointed to. But when they pointed out to Rama himself, she just hung her down in bashfulness and didn’t say a word.
Similarly, when that pure happiness happens, there wouldn’t be any expression, no testimonials, no debates. We would be left with only that pure experience.

The Ancestry

Like the infant retiring to her parent’s bosom,
Like the lifeless corpse on to barren ground,
To know wherefrom all its nature blossoms,
Is to find where to its retirement hath bound.

The Earth sprang from Water, by the aforesaid rule,
And Water, from Fire, what unbelievable parentage,
And Fire, an offspring of the might Wind’s fuel,
And the pristine Space be Wind’s final hermitage.

To the most subtle ancestor, be a progeny most blatant,
Hath there ever a riddle, whose answers be more pendant!

And so, the perceived World from the bosom of Senses,
The inscrutable Mind in turn bred them to their fame.
The Mind, like rays, diverged from the Intellect’s lenses,
And Intellect be The Conscience’s embryonic game.

To the most expansive ancestor, be a progeny so distinctive,
To know of this would be questioner’s unsought incentive.

It is believed that to find the orgin of any phenomenon, it is enough to find wherein it subsides - just like an infant naturally finds an embrace in her mother, etc.

Accordingly, Earth is said to have orginated from Water(as it get submerged in Water), water from fire(as it gets put off by fire), fire from wind and the wind from the expansive space.

Similarly with the Object-Senses-Mind-Intellect-Conscience relationship.

It is intersting to note that in both examples, every phenomenon subsides in a more subtle and expansive one (like, the wind subsides in space), until there is nothing to subside into. And that is the goal worth beholding.