Isn’t This A Beautiful Silent Love?

 

We met for a purpose that we knew

From the moment we started talking  

We started a journey of friendship

Which we never hoped to have in real

 

Don’t even know how we got involved

Deeply In each other’s personal lives

Sharing those fun times and memories

That gave joy as well as immense pain

 

Isn’t this a beautiful silent love?

When I know I m in your heart

When you know you are in my heart

Even in dreams, we are together

Isn’t this a beautiful silent love?

 

We are trying to shrug off our emotions

Even though we like each other so much

As we know it is hard to be together in real

Yet, we wish to change the circumstances

 

We made each other stronger with care

We wiped out each other’s tears with hope

We gave affection without even realizing

We shared our love without uttering a word

 

 

Isn’t this a beautiful silent love?

When I know I m in your heart

When you know you are in my heart

Even in dreams, we are together

Isn’t this a beautiful silent love?

 

We are still wondering, what made us closer

Inner voices always made us be in touch

Giving all our goodwill, we changed our lives

Looking ahead with some prayers for unison

 

Isn’t this a beautiful silent love?

When I know I m in your heart

When you know you are in my heart

Even in dreams, we are together

Isn’t this a beautiful silent love?

 

This was an attempt to write a song back in 2008. My friend Thomas recorded some songs based on my lyrics during that period. We had a wish to start a band. It sounds funny now when I look back.  Pictures were taken by Nathan Dumlao and Fanny Gustaffson

A Reason To Live

Why should I live?

We face this question at some point in our lives 

As kids, we have ambitions to chase 

It drives the life forward 

After studies 

There are career ambitions that drive 

The life to its limits, burning all mental energy 

In between, there's a phase of love 

That is a mirage that overdrives the wish to live 

Save money to marry the girl you love 

It remains a dream for some 

Lucky ones marry their sweethearts 

Starts living for their kids and grandkids

Some have bucket lists to live for 

Do many things they cherish 

Before they leave this world 

There are unlucky people who have 

Only a few days or years to live  

They live life worthily and inspire others 

They leave memories as a reason for others to live 

Some people find making money a reason to live 

To enjoy all the luxuries this world offers 

Some others find fulfilling responsibilities important 

The pain of unrelenting failures, heartbreak, illnesses, debts, 

and depression offers  reasons for some people to quit life 

While struggling to meet the societal pressures

Friends leaving you behind with their success 

Loneliness, even when surrounded by people 

Without being able to share the fears and thoughts 

Even with all counseling and therapy 

Suicide may seem an escape route from miseries

It takes a lot of courage to quit life 

Those who quit life are not cowards 

I asked myself million times 

Why should I live in a world without my dad?

My heart told me then to live for my mother and brother

From the brink of giving up on life  

I kept finding reasons to live 

After every setback, ever since  

In search of new destinies!

This poem is an adaptation of prose, with the same title, I wrote a decade ago. The images are taken by Aziz Acharki and Danica Tanjutco. Thank you :) 

Summer Rain Romance

A balcony facing the paddy fields

Steaming black tea and fritters on the teapoy  

They were watching the summer rain 

Together like for the first time 

The rhythm of rain fall on

The paddy leaves and trees

The mosaic floor was cold 

The air had the fragrance 

of soil, Lillies, and Jasmines 

Their favorite flowers 

They leaned on to each other

Whispering the sweet nothings 

She blushed and her dimples bloomed

While the rain droplets dripped toward them

From their roof in the direction of the breeze 

They stood up and cuddled for that rainy breeze

Drenching with the excitement of new lovers 

Their summer vacation in a village homestay 

They saw more rain than the sun and the scenery

They remembered how they met on a rainy day 

Drenched and shivering in a tea shop sipping tea

Their eyes made contact and froze while the steam

Took them back to senses and they talked excitedly 

It seemed like they have gone back to that moment

They took their tea cups and walked towards their room

With desires from the past luring them for nostalgic romance

This poem is inspired by the extended rain sessions during the summer in Trivandrum. Images are taken by Dagmara Dombrovska and Miliju Varghese

New Forests In The Deserts

Countries are reclaiming deserts 

Through raising new forests on sands 

To stop the sandstorms in cities 

To create farms for food security

To increase the green cover of a nation

To save the rainwater from draining away

To create a new ecosystem and biodiversity 

To bring back the birds and animals 

Egypt used wastewater to grow a forest 

In the desert to fight climate change 

The Great Green Wall in Africa is aiming 

Eight thousand kilometers long arrays of trees 

An irrigated afforestation program 

To stop the expansion of the Sahara desert 

And combat the effects of climate change 

Saudi Arabia is planning to plant billions of trees 

In the desert with modern technology 

To reclaim degraded lands into forests 

China has grown millions of trees in the Gobi desert and 

Mu Us Over the decades to generate a new green forest 

With an ingenious technique to store water for trees

Thousands of Chinese people have contributed efforts

This is reducing the sandstorms in Beijing 

It has increased the overall forest cover of China 

An engineer created a small forest in the 

Thar desert in India based on ancient paintings

Israel has converted desert land into Yatir forest 

A new eco-system has emerged there 

The trees have adapted to the harsh arid conditions

Relying on a lesser amount of water to grow

The coastline of Abudhabi is witnessing the 

Planting of thousands of mangroves to provide 

lush green cover and another forest closer to

Abudhabi city is aiming to create an ecosystem

To give a hangout for the city residents 

The world is witnessing various forest projects

With an aim to improve forest cover and prevent

desertification of the land or afforestation of deserts

That could positively help in controlling climate change

Reducing greenhouse emissions and global warming 

Deforestation is the previous poem related to this topic. During the lockdowns related to the Corona pandemic, I saw a lot of videos on growing forests in deserts in various parts of the world. It take a lot of painstaking trial and error methods initially before they succeeded. The trees that can adapt to arid conditions are primarily used along with some shrubs that can grow in sand. Watershed programs that help in the absorption of the rainwater for replenishment of groundwater is also a significant step. Thousands of people took part in the forest projects in China and Africa. Some of the projects are decades old and now they have lush forests with birds and animals and enough water. Images are taken from Science Photo and Great Green Wall. Thank you :)

Deforestation

The greed of humans is exploding deforestation

Felling trees without an afterthought 

To meet the needs of a construction industry 

To clear the land for the expansion of settlements

To prepare land for cultivation 

Deforestation affects biodiversity, 

Loss of habitat for countless plants and animals 

Many rare species are facing the threat of extinction 

Without trees to stop the fast runoff of rainwater

Climate change implodes flooding and soil erosion

Untimely monsoons and flash flooding make people 

Take refuge in camps, with damages to their homes 

Kerala and Europe have seen the effects recently 

Without trees storing water, droughts occur in places

The temperatures are increasing in many countries 

Affecting the availability of potable water

Desertification is posing a threat to more population

Deforestation leads to more greenhouse gases emissions

As trees are the best storage medium for that

It is a major factor in the global warming that 

Caused drastic increase in sea level over the years

Putting the lives of thousands of islanders in 

Tuvalu, Kiribati, Maldives, and Marshall Islands under threat

The manmade fire in the Amazon that lasted months 

Burning everything down in a rainforest 

To make way for soybean plantations 

The clearing of rainforests in South East Asia 

To build monoculture palm tree plantations 

It destroyed the entire ecosystem over the years

It is causing conflict between humans and wild animals

The captive tree forests for claiming trees 

Too ruined many thick forests for commercial revenue

And the natural bushfires in Australia and California

Seeing more devastations with climate change 

The images of barely alive animals seeking water 

The seasons and weather are changing drastically

Across the world in different ways 

As people uproot more trees daily without replanting

A search in my blog by someone about deforestation led me to read about deforestation and its effects worldwide. It is a rather complex issue. I touched upon some aspects of it in this poem. Images are taken from istockphoto and dreamstime. New Forests In The Deserts is the continuation of the topic of this poem.