Come let's dance

The Blue Throated Barbet

Jumping chirping

From Jasmine to Red Rose

To Magnolia

Singing of beauty of colourful majesty

Of the melting snow in towering peak

And gurgling streams

Spreading its wings and shivering

Alternately tasting snowy chill

With sudden heat

And Little Wren,

With Blue Whistling Thrush

On their way

To long dry summer

With Grey Bushcat,

Common Rosefinch

And Yellow Billed Chugh

Lamenting in unison

Of the short

Spring life of Poppy,

Of Petunia and Flocks

From within the Hibiscus

And above the Deodar

And fleeting paced

moments ticking by

All wondering, impatiently

Oh my love

How long will you take
To complete us
To be one

In the dance and rhythm

Of colourful spring.

.... Ramakant Pande

Life A Gift

I never solicited

Yet a gift bestowed upon me

To experience what

Only alive can.

And I meandered along

Wandering in illusory mirages

Afar till

I got lost from

Myself and now

After dark night, the soul

Begins the journey

To self discovery

And oneness with the beloved

Knowing intuitively that

The best thing that happened

To me is life

...Ramakant Pande with Sadhana

For You My Love

She always thought as she looked

Through the branches of

Juniper, Oak and Blue Pine

Outside her childhood home

At the cliff on top of the jutting peak

That one day we will climb up

When it will pour

And catch the rainbows

When it stops.

Dare did I all soaked one day

Climb up to the summit

Waiting for the clouds to dispel

And then at the edge of that slippery cliff

Saw that beautiful bow of colours

Spread out from behind another peak

Much higher.

And mountains I have climbed

And mountains I will climb

Till I will one fine day

After it stops pouring

Catch the Rainbow

And bring it home and

Come back to you.

...... Ramakant Pande

Broken

An elated heart ebbing

With hopeful jollity

The enchantress,

I was amazed dumb,

When on my call

Came like a flowing tide

Radiating grace

On that chilly moonlit night

Spring had hardly dawned

A tender breeze broke

The flower off from the stem

Even before it bloomed

Falling into the melting

Snow stream gushing

Down the ravine breaking

Into scattered petals, soaring kite cut loose

A dream died before it was born

When she said she was leaving forever

To follow her heart’s beckoning desires

To the land of opportunities.

                                   .... Ramakant Pande

Spirituality II

Each cell has a unique function and the integrated function of a group of cells forms a process. Quite a large number of processes are in operation every time inside the human body.

Is it not as if all the cells combined somehow, i.e. something akin to the invisible hand metaphor of Al Ghazali to form a body in order to support life in each of them surrendering to the will of a central control thus creating a central control and the central control helping them survive and they helping the central control survive.

Can we not extrapolate this kind of arrangement to other systems, like a social system where each individual is engaged in a unique function and the integrated functions of all the people in a society create a society and the society helps them survive as do they help society survive.

And then can we not extend this arrangement of surrendering to the will of individual parts of anything for each part could collaborate in its own unique way and the collaboration would in turn help each individual part survive.

And is not the food chain of which we are a part not a similar kind of arrangement, an arrangement of every unit of every living and non living thing contributing in its unique way forming a Whole helping the Whole survive and the Whole helping each and every individual unit survive and sustaining the life and giving it a continuity by birth from itself erasing the expended.

The Beautiful Day

Incertitude engulfed me on that

Stifling heat in August day

That had finally seen me

After seconds of minutes 

Melding ever slow into hours

In anxious impatience

Longing craving counting

Days, crossing dates 

When the train arrived as 

A beat missed heart 

Finally spotted her peeping out

In the other direction, 

Her hair hanging loose

Then she jerked her tress that way

Her doubt waned too, she saw me

Her face lighted up

In colourful brilliance 

And we held each other 

As she flew into my arms

And our dream came true.

What a beautiful day it was

Soaked in each other's sweat

We wouldn't let us split

Entwined into each other

For we had given ourselves to us

Forever.

A Prayer For Ultimate.

Centre of collective consciousness,

 Of all things, help me

In annihilating my ego,

The self image,

That has propelled pure gift,

Of life into

Meaningless, intangible, spurious

Make believe world of transient mirage

Of social compromises

Full of miseries and broken hearts

And erase all that separates

Me from you to coalesce into one. 

                                                       

                                                             .. Ramakant Pande

The Pinnacle

This is the last point

The ultimate permissible,

To human frontier

To intuition where no puzzle

Or riddle remains.

The sensation shrouded in the aura

Of a divine ambience

Revealed to me

Was but a result of

A coincidence, a quandary

A conception of poor self image

And made me feel like

Out of synchronicity

In that crowd of

Coevality,

whose perception of me

As a clumsy abnormal enigma

And my own perplexity at their snide

Culminated into premonition of

An obvious and

Imminent conundrum,

Forced me to renounce

Everything mundane

And I set out on the path

That lead me to seek

The mystery of the obscure phenomena

called Life.

And attain emancipation.

                                                                        by Ramakant Pande

Stirred

In the tram saw her
Every morning
Longing for her
A few smiles made
Work day easy
Waiting for next dawn.

That humid sticky day
All broken up
She took my hands
Said take me, never let me go.

I talked my thawed heart out
Melting, pouring, sweeping
Dancing, singing, till dusk
When he came
Said he was sorry
They shouted, quarrelled, settled
And left
Leaving me alone
Fighting tears.

                                                                             ...... Ramakant Pande

When Life Rained

Life,

Entangled in the webs

Of the dry desert struggle

In the thicket of cactus,

As the sand storm kept blowing

Creating new hills, replacing old

Snakes, chameleon, scorpions,

Digging out with effort

Searching to kill the

Hunger, driving it weak

Unable to move

To even as much as to

Feed on the camel,

The carrier, who brought me here

Lying almost dead, 

And me beside it

Forgetting when it was we ate last 

As thirst overshadowed starvation

Parched lips obliterating

Blistering pain

Thorn pricked dry throat eclipsing Muddy suffocation.

Will at all I see her

Touch her face, hold her

Will it be ever again? 

I will, like always I had

Return back

To my hope, to my love

To her, to home

To my reason to live

Across the reddish brown auburn

Ocean of sand,

Surviving the dark dry death

Standing all the while over me

Waiting for me in the hot blaze

To succumb.

And then it fell on me

A few scanty drops and then a few more

And then a deluge of rain

It’s raining again, life raining into me.

                                                                                          .... Ramakant Pande

Our Invisible Thread

At an English class, with stress on grammar
Being taught how to write a perfect letter
Who’d want to write, my mind would shrug
When all I wanted could be said with a touch.

They said a paper and a quill was all I’d need 
Now the instructions seem an outdated feed
For when thoughts overflow, and eyes are blurred
Then lines of the glassed emotions scratch at words

For paper I’ll use the sheer weft and weave 
Of woven dreams now turned grey and bleak
There’s a line in there I’d like you to unravel
Pick the perfect seam, to read thoughts in a tangle

Like clues I’ve read, through the dreams you’ve sent
A dear departed’s welcome, as the soul’s river bent
Left me wondering all day, were they good to you,
This new land you inhabit, does it seem more true

When you lay wrapped up in a dress red and gold,
On a bed of wooden sticks, tell me –were you cold,
When I begged for a last time, let me see the face,
Touch once more, the hand that showered grace

Why could I see the soul hovering above?
Watching from afar the scene play of love
Did you see how my innards had been  blue?
When flames leapt at you, they charred me too

You’re thrust in a world which I can’t share
I wish you’d tell me that you’re all good there
When in the night I dream of your ashes in the urn
Then why does your fragrance too linger till morn

How many times, I beseeched you to just stay,
When you crossed veils of two worlds each day
For sensations of your touch wrapped us closer
For a moment I’d forget that you’d crossed over

Do you still remember the trips we wanted to take?
Or recall the special words that we two  did create,
Does being bereft of body, make you still envision
How icy cold it’s become at the very last station

Before email pervaded, how our lifeline was the  post,
You’d made me promise, so each Sunday I wrote
Never breaking this link, in my mind’s treasure trove
Saw your glowing face, as you lived each written word

Now the world has progressed, it’s on a wireless trend
And as my letter too has now almost reached its end
It’s your turn now, Mom; tell me how to send this to you?

And you whisper-through the invisible thread that joins us two.

                                          Ramakant Pande

Come Back Dear One

The overcast sky
So dark

Painted with thick rain clouds

Brought a reluctant dusk at noon

As winds, untamed

Burrowed holes through the leaves.

The Weeping Willow

Held the burnished Ebony

Swaying like the untamed wild

Waiting it out

Scattered, powerless, surviving

To slake the thirst.

Then the scanty drops

So thick

Wash over dried dreams 

Settle the dry summer dust

And wet the dry earth.

And then everywhere

The rain, the succour

The fragrance of revival

Its again dazzling green

Everything turned so washed

 So cleaned,

Washing the heavy sorrow laden me.

My dear one

How I wish you were here,

Soaking and drowning

We’d cleanse each other’s shards

Of the life we lost

 To our new creation of

The life that could never be.

         ...Ramakant Pande 

You're The One

In its full ripe bloom that March

It was spring when it snowed

And I followed
foot marks trailing all across
In regular stride
Till they disappeared
Into the gates 
Of the wooden house
Between the grove 
Of the drooping foliage
Of Juniper
And Quaking Aspen trees
Heavy holding mounds of snow.

And I wonder
Who can it be 
Who broke the fresh snow.

Draped in scarf, muffler, gloves
I saw you in that cap
As crimson as your cheeks
Prancing about catching
The falling flakes

Could I have walked in I think 
On your steps 
Could we have for those moments
Felt the same feel
And there I wished for you
That no one but you
Was all I want


Was it you too so lonely
In need of
Someone as lonely
As I was
Oh it was love I knew
I felt it exude
Beyond endurance
It grew and grew
Through spring and summer 
And autumn and winter

And seeing you
In tulips, in carnation
In pansies, in daisies
I lost my path 
I lost myself
Waiting for you 
Waiting for it to snow
To once again break steps
In fresh fallen snow
And maybe in hope
You’d see me walk 
On your steps
And know that
We are but one
                                                                                                   by  Ramakant Pande