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.