A New Born Baby

I will now let my consciousness

slip into the watery eyes of a new born child

And will know tenderly the secrets of this universe…

O new born, your eyes

with the big black circle

And the lesser white are amazed

Because you are knowing again, seeing through new eyes, 

what you already know inside that delicate heart of yours…

As I look upon you,

Infect me with your innocence

Let me take in the news you bring of the other world...

© Manan sheel.

Comrades of the stars, Us the Fireflies....

0.

Fireflies, We.

We are comrades of the stars,

 yes, yes,

we are...

Unbelievable, We.

Come, Come, Hear

Our story...

1.

The dark God,

With eyes like

 a beautiful ocean 

twinkling, sparkling in

wondrous glee....

lived beyond space,

beyond time, beyond this

starry night....

2.

Stars were his playthings, 

Fools call stars big,

they were but tiny sparks 

for him, he made his Diwali

creating a few,

changing the symmetry 

of a few...

3.

He came, He came

to visit this abode of men 

Listening to their science,

he laughed..

People told him about the 

size of stars...

He who played with them

like a child plays with crackers...

4.

So, on a Diwali Day,

He did some Abracadabra display,

We, Fireflies were born,

'You are Stars on Earth', He lovingly

whispered to each one of us...

5.

From that day on

 whenever the dark God whispers

the same phrase, 

We are born for the magnificent display,

for his love....

6.

We are the comrades 

of those fireflies in the sky,

they are not huge,

just like us they are

little and beautiful,

and dazzling and lovely...

What if their name is different,

they are stars and we, the fireflies!!

-Manan sheel.

The Strange Request of a Tender Heart....

A poet visited heaven.
With his wonderful ability to spin
the magic with words,
he was permitted to live there forever.

A few days passed.
Then one day, as the poet sat in a corner, brooding,
God appeared in magnificent splendor
and asked him, "How are you doing here, noble soul?"
His answer surprised the God.

He requested to go back,
to leave that perfect world.

His request was incomprehensible.
No one who gets the taste of heaven ever
wants to go back.
God asked the poet the reason
for his strange request.

Poet said in a tender voice
with melodious tears
swimming in his faraway eyes,
"I felt something missing,
After careful thinking,
I now know what :
Life is too perfect here,
I miss the imperfections
of my dear world, the imperfections
that suffuse life with warmth."


-Manan sheel.

Wild Waves and your Flower carrying Boats...

There is a flood
of my melodious tears,
the every drop of which
has you-ness in it..

This is your river,
the source is my heart
yet it has a blossoming fragrance
borne of the flowers that you 
put in little leaf boats and float
in it...

It is for the lovely flowers
that my river is filled to the brim - labalab
The scent that decorates this river,
keeps it happy, and give the possibility
of 'meaning' to the wild waves
in pursuit of which they exist and play in harmony..

When you come to it's shore at night,
adorned with colorful, clinking bangles,
these waves become eager for your touch,
and when you put your hands inside the water,
to gently push your flower carrying leaf boat into the river,
Oh! How thankful are the waves to seep into your hands...

And sometimes when you don't come,
the river made of tears overflows it's banks,
As if it will break in torrent, with a passion
unimaginable..
And just as the waves see you coming from far,
the torrents of wrath turn into overflows of ecstasy!!!


-Manan sheel.

Matters of the Heart....(A Love Song)

These are the matters of the heart,
which should not be told...

Speech is at times false,
To use such an
infamously corrupt medium,
for such a true love
is to make the love seem impure,
like putting pure wine
in a dirty vessel...

But don't be disheartened,
for there are other ways
For the existence knows
your love,
and it will communicate..

each bird will carry your message
in it's song..
your love will dissolve like color
in the waters of rivers and reach
your beloved..
your singing thoughts will
evaporate into the vastness of the
space and land like a loving butterfly's
touch while she is sleeping,
on her nose (the center of her face)
and will contemplate on her face
all night, every night...


-Manan sheel.

The Heart of Ugliness is Beautiful...

Ugliness is on the brink of becoming beautiful,
Just one touch here and there,
And it will appear beautiful to a normal eye,
For it is beautiful at it's heart,
Every ugliness is beautiful at it's heart,
Loving touches of trust are needed for
the beauty to surface....

-Manan sheel.

ये नयी कायनात

ये नयी नयी कायनात,
लगता है सपनों से ऊब गयी है,
या फिर, सपनों को जानती ही नहीं है
क्योंकि अभी तो जन्मी है,
मेरे शब्द पुराने हैं,
ये नयी नवेली है,
मेरे शब्द शब्द हैं,
सपनों की धूल से बूढ़े हैं,
ये ज़िन्दगी है
एक नवजात शिशु सी
देखने को आतुर,
जीने को आतुर...


- मनन शील
- 1 मई 2017 

Light

Light

I sit here in my room, at an open window

Lots of lovely sunlight enters the room

I have some deep relation with this light,

It has been one of the most precious gifts to me by life,

I playfully give it the name of a beautifier for

it beautifies anything it falls upon:

It makes gems out of water waves,

It gives colors to the lovely flowers and birds,

It makes the green leaves sparkle…

There is something in this light,

that lets us believe that we all are every moment being showered by something divine,

in front of which our small troubles are but nothing.

This light is melodious,

and sometimes I look upon what it gives to me and my eyes become watery,

for how can I ever pay back the love and warmth and infinite little pleasures it gives me.

Sometimes, I feel that all that is good is light and my heart is love and love is light…

-Manan sheel.

Ours is a beautiful, wonderful world..

Let us suppose a world in which everyone knows everyone else’s reality. A world in which everything is crystal clear. Everything is insanely sane and perfect. I want to know if love would grow in such a world. Such a world won’t have place for poetry, that is certain. For poetry loves to praise the imperfections and there would be no imperfections. There should be love in that world. Pure? Yes, it would be pure, almost distilled. As pure as the cloudless sky. It would be perfect too. But will anyone enjoy that love? The enjoyment of love is in relating. Relating the heavenly to the mundane. Relating the skies to the dirt. Love is enjoyed when it is played like a violin by the hands of metaphors and similes. When all the things are perfect and heavenly, the heaven will lose its value. It would become a boredom. The most boring place of this universe. That place would be like a cemetery with no person singing and dancing his sorrows away. For there would be no sorrows. So, you see, a sorrow-less world is imperfect. So, how is it perfect? Our whole life, we do nothing but strive for such an imperfect so-called perfect world, of which there is no need. Everything IS beautiful, yes, this should be the word, not perfection. We need to have some pain and passion to sing and dance. We need to have something which does not seem good and perfect (although it is) so that some writers like me can put their tongues in their cheeks and write about, so that it would be a matter to make movies on, to write songs about. The world is real, yet it is the imaginations associated with it, the imaginations of wonder, that make it a place worth living.

-Manan sheel.

Clouds!

Clouds!

You float with your load of splendor,

You are so beautiful!

Golden brownish lazy beautiful sloths!

Wondrous clouds!

I give words to you,

What a folly I do!

You stop me and my constant mental scribbling...

You live in the land of no thoughts!

You have a splendor that cannot be explained,

Your fires are not yours they say,

Does anyone in your beautiful land cares about mine or yours anyway!

You don’t let the sky look grand,

You provide birdie playfulness to an otherwise sober bereft man!

You look still, but you do move,

A snail would defeat you, and in that I praise you!

The world rushes,

You are glorified by the gentle strokes of a painter’s brushes…

You are lovely…

Clouds!

-Manan sheel

(written today on seeing an army of clouds floating in extreme leisure...)

Poetry and Fire..

Have you felt fire?
Rising in your being...
No, not rage, that is not what I mean..
A million hot flowers rising from every part of your body
Upwards, to meet your sky..

Such,
is the effect of poetry
on the sensitive...

Then there is milder poetry,
the feel good type, that shows the loveliness of your fire...
Such poetry scents of the petals of your colorful fire
a mild scent, a refreshing scent..

Then there is raw poetry
with the power and pain of sun in it
it falls on you like a hailstorm..
It is like lava erupting from a volcano..

Flowers are the most precious kind of poetry
The poetry by the almighty
they are like sparkles of God's own fire
twinkling like heavenly stars...


-Manan sheel.

A flower

 A flower
 once bloomed
 has bloomed.
 It won't repeat

 The same elements
 which made it
 are unable to conspire
 again in
 the same way,
 they may make
 other flowers, but
 that one flower..
 it was unique
 Incomparable!

 So are you!

-Manan sheel.
(This poem celebrates the uniqueness of each one of us)

Joy!!! (a short story)

Madi was a Graduate in Economics. And now a clerk in a post office. His work had weighed him down. He developed a kind of hunchback. His head remained full of sums and accounts, all day, all night. Following the same old routine, slowly life seeped out of him as he worked mechanically.

He had married some years ago, and his wife died giving birth to their daughter. His little daughter was now 5 years old. He looked miserable owing to all the sorrows that had fallen upon him. All that he cared about was his daughter. He loved her more than anything in life. The sight of her gave him reason to live, and his accounts gave him all the reasons to die. Her daughter was a beautiful little dusky girl with lively eyes. He had named her Mannat. She was a talkative girl, full of questions from the day she started talking.

One Sunday, while he was sitting, brooding on his life, he asked the real question. A liberal, dangerous question. He asked himself whether he was made to do this. Wasn’t he good for some other cheerful work? Like the artists, who paint their heart out and look so happy. Like the poets, who also look cheerful. But he reprimanded himself. It was really a very dangerous chain of thoughts he was getting into. These were immature thoughts for a man of limited income. And very bad for he had a daughter whom he loved, and whom he had to feed and care that she studies well.

Next Sunday (for it was only on Sundays that he could think, being extremely busy on other days) he started his thoughts from where he had left them last week. He started brooding on his past life. He missed his childhood more than ever. Not like memories, or places, or things, but in a more poetic way. He missed what he felt in those leisurely, carefree days. Now, he had all the cares in the world to his name. Then, he had none. Now, he could not get even a day’s holiday. Then, it was a continuous holiday for he loved school and friends when young, and schooldays were better adventurous holidays. He had no time to spend with his daughter. And he really wanted some. He was on the point of collapsing, of giving up on life. Suddenly, while brooding like this, he remembered something – he had worked a week extra last year and maybe he could get some holidays as compensation if he asked his boss.

Next day, he went to his fat, big, frugal boss and could get 3 days off from work. Now he was thinking while returning. No work, for at least three days. And he would at least remove this cloud of misery hovering over his head in 3 days. 3 days are 72 hours. He would live every minute, every second of these hours. He would spend time with his lovely daughter (who was having her holidays) and these 3 days will be for life….

Next day, they went to watch ‘Jungle Book’….

And when the familiar song from his childhood showed on screen….Oh Oh Oh….Mannat was dancing…and Madi stood dancing frantically and suddenly, everything was enveloped in joy….everyone in the theatre looked surprisingly at Madi.…Madi danced, for he remembered his own childhood all of a sudden…he was not born to be a clerk!….But did it matter, did it matter??….he was the happiest man! had a little daughter, a little soul to care about!!….all that waited to be expressed in joy came out and how?…in ecstasies!!….And and when he was full…he started crying…and danced more crying and crying…in tears, in tears…Mannat looked at him for a second…thought why is he crying and asked the same very innocently….He gave a scream of joy…threw his daughter in the air….and everything was joyful joyful…she understood…for kids understand, the fellow cinema watchers (who had come just to pass their time, and not searching for any real joy) didn’t…then there were all tears and tears…all joy and joy…little Mannat leaped towards him and kissed him repeatedly…it was all tears and tears…kisses and kisses….god blessed them in those moments…this joy was the result of how hard he worked and yet kept the hope of joy in his heart, the desire to live inside him that nurtured itself continuously…he had three days and on the first day itself, he had lived all that there was to live…..!!

Manan sheel.

I will sing, come if you wanna join...!!!!!

I will sing, come if you wanna join..!!!!!!

by Manan sheel on January 27.  © Manan sheel, All rights reserved

They say
'I wait
I suffer
I am being killed
I cannot live thus
It has been long since....'
and more miserly thoughts...
And they say that they suffer out of love
They are out of their mind...
How can love make one suffer?
Love which is the most precious gift
by god, bound to fall unadulterated on each one of us
a little opening of windows, can't you do even that?
These sufferers are people who misunderstand
are narrow
people who are not grateful..
Be grateful for each little butterfly
for each sweetness poured unto you
Do you deserve all this..??
Such sweetness..
Such snowfall of pleasure...
Such music in your soul..
Drops of honey falling from a rainbow sky
If you still suffer,
I don't know what to say....
If all is gone,
at least you have this sun shining
can the things you have lost
match the gift of sunshine in any way?
If in all your life,
let's say, you could look at only a butterfly,
and nothing else...absolutely nothing else...
Wasn't that enough??
Isn't a butterfly, such a beautiful arc of light
a flash, wasn't that enough in itself??
And you get million drops of enough-ness
Each enough in itself..
And my god!! you still cry!!!
You are full and you cry....
You have everything and you cry....
I don't know what to say..
And most people are crying...
I will sing, come if you wanna join...!!!!

- Manan sheel

Laxmi, Lachchmi (my grandmother)

She was a simple soul
No, she never cared about
things that are not worth caring about
For instance, she never cared about cricket,
or tv serials, or movies
And dismissed all that with a one liner
"yo laambe laambe chehre"
These long faces..
For somewhere inside she knew
that faces are better.
they are not like the diplomatic faces on the television...
that faces are better, like, like
those of her children...
'Sham, Fulad, Raj, Munna and Lala'
like, like..
those of her grandchildren,
maybe like Manu's face,
which was sweetest to her..
on whose birth she had danced and sang,
while beating spoon frantically on the plate...

And what about her grip?
the way she clutched her grandchildren's arm
and dragged them back to house
in the fear that they may get lost
Manu hated it,
for how could he know that it was out of sheer love!
how could he know that this lady, his grandmother
had lost so much in her lifetime, that losing was
a nightmare to her!
She who lost her father's family to plague,
And then many of her children at birth..
how could she manage to lose Manu...!!!

Wasn't she a saint?
Her tragedies and then, her devotion to God,
her singing of 'Bhootan ke dere mein, bhaj le pyare, tu sahara'
'where I am trapped in this pit of ghosts, it is you god, who will get me out'
every morning.....
She knew a secret, deep inside that this modern generation doesn't
(though she knew nothing of cricket scores, and once when Manu tried to explain her cricket, he came to the point of forgetting himself)..
just one rhythm, like Meera's can take you across..it is all that matters
nothing else does....

And what about her cloth and cotton parrots?
Can any living artist suffuse so much love into his art?
the love that she suffused into the parrots she made for Manu..
Art is for love, not for diplomacy,
yes, she knew that too!

And her tale of Hallaq Kuttaq
Wasn't that masaledar??
Manu loved that
and went around the streets repeating it..
'Hallaq Kuttaq it's your turn,
Let your tail put put burn!'

She didn't know how to read and write
She couldn't write her name for that
'Laxmi...(Lachchmi as it was pronounced)'
And when somebody teased her regarding that
and said that you should learn..
Her response was epic
"Baawli na hoon mein...gadanjoge, khapparbharne, daatwe, jaadwe..."
'I am not so mad as to learn now...then some excellent abuses'

She was a simple soul
So simple that she considered her village as the whole universe
Was there something beyond 'kharkhoda' her village?
No, just forbidden zone..
She didn't know much about what was outside,
but didn't she know a taste of the inside?,
that is lost to people now...

By - Manan sheel ( Manu of the poem)

this poem is about my grandmother..we don't know when she was born..nobody recorded the dates...but we know she was lovely and saintly...

Moments' beauty and Talking...

It is ugly, how

you pollute the beauty

of moments, talking!

(Can you bear talking people while you listen to your favorite songs? I can't, unless the person talking is more melodious!)

Haiku (5-7-5) by Manan sheel, written on 22nd January, 2017

Poetry is always in the moment

Poetry is always in the moment
It doesn't matter if the poet has written a poem or not

Poet looked at sun,
Sun looked at him
Some warmth was exchanged,
Some heart was exchanged
And you can say a poem was written,
written right on the walls of God's heart...

I looked in the eyes of a duck,
at her gentle swimming in a lake
at the trails she left in the water,
at the sun that reflected jewelishly in the lake,
With all this, I developed a beautiful warm understanding,
And you can say, 'Manan wrote a million little poems, and that too,
in a course of a few seconds'....

Music!

Music!

Music is soul. Without music, there is nothing. Music made this world, this universe. Music takes the mind from theories to life. Who will be there sans music? Music is a colourful orgasm. Music is ecstasy. Music eases, music dances, music creates joy, music destroys wastes.

Music is a live fire. Music is the waves of the sea. Music is silence, the surprise after silence. Music is life. Music decorates, music disrobes reality, magical reality. Music is comfort, yet beautifully anxious. Music is not you, it is deeper than the words ‘you’ and ‘i’. Music is your homeland. Music is a bond with god, music is eternity, God is music, music is madness, music is an oasis for the deserted soul, music is surprise, music includes all. Music is a writer with magical madness, music is a painter with magical colors in his palettes.

Manan sheel.

(I heart-stormed for half an hour and this ecstatic piece on music is the result!

This is unedited, raw in its ways)

Why do I write poems and paint!

I see a beautiful thing. I write a poem. I made the thing intimately mine. The next time I see it, my heart meets a beloved. This is why I write poems!

I see a beautiful thing. My heart wants to look at it often. I paint the thing. Now, just behind the curtains in my chest, is a window to that thing. I just have to move the curtains a bit, and Tada! I can look at the lovely thing, mixed with my living hormones. This is why I paint!

What is the use of all this, you ask?

I will tell you. All this brings richness. A little taste of timelessness. You get filled up with colors. You almost drown in a river of music and colors. You can create a heaven for yourself at any place, whenever you want.

Manan sheel.

Writing 1 for 17^th January, 2017.