sometimes a monday morning

sometimes a monday morning comes & goes and then the afternoon, and then the evening and you start getting calls & emails which say "hey! what happened to my monday morning email?!". caught between a frown (hey, wait a minute! don't i have better things to do?) and a smile (hey, that's sweet! some people are actually missing the mails!) you chose to smile for on reflection you really dont have much better things to do:-) "my name" he said with a smile "is venu". he was our coach attendant on sabri express last night (why is this email late? where do i begin?! shall i gently pass the buck to sabri express that was, habitually and as predicted, late in arriving at coimbatore station this morning. or should it be tara who suddenly out of the blues decided to get married and threw this magnificent bash in hyderabad, and hence got us on the sabri express in the first place :-) or should i just be honest and say that hey sometimes a monday morning there is just a monday night here) shobhana and first noticed venu because he reminded us of our students. smart, young, and friendly he just stood out among the various attendants and servers hurrying up & down our railway compartment. later when i was enjoying the chill of the night wind hanging out of the railway door, venu and i chatted. just a bit, just enough to know that he was from kerala (kollam!), his name was venu, i was from coimbatore (he didn't look convinced so i had to resort to delhi! thats when he jumped up in respect :-) and my name was deepak. so many questions in my mind that were left unasked such as why was he there in the first place and not in college or school. what was it about the job that kept him so cheerful? and what did he think of his new uniform? venu kept on popping in and out of our lives that night trying vainly to make us eat some of his ware (i had eaten so much at the wedding that my stomach was literally on strike!). perhaps he is part of a new breed of "professionals" in the indian railways. just like the uniformed kid who came to clean the compartment the next morning and cheerfully shouted "bye" to shobhana when we got off at coimbatore. or the supervisor who came in with this cracker of a feedback form on "the on-board housekeeping services" on the indian railways. the form was so good that i snagged an extra copy for my marketing research class! maybe the railways is getting more professional - there's more dignity being given to these jobs - but these kids they deserve better opportunities from life. these kids they're us. what to do for them? i can't really pretend to have an answer. at least yet... well its valentine week and the tension is building up on campus! my thoughts go back to my mba days and the wonderful wonderful lesson i learnt about love then. the joy and the power and the grace and beauty there is in the way you receive love, as much as there is in giving it. i used to take much pride in my "self-sufficiency" till then. "i will give but i will not ask." but hey if all were like that then where would we take our love! "so much love to give," one of my favorite uncles used to say, "but so few people ready to receive." this is my thank you then to all of you who have so lovingly accepted these "monday morning" gifts. its energy and inspiration are the love you have fed it. your acceptance and your love truly nurtures these monday mornings! keep the emails coming! this week's poetry features the first part of a double billing of one of my favorite poets - e e cummings. for one, he freed me from the tyranny of capital letters. and two, theres nobody i have read who can quite write a love poem like him. or at least thats the way i've read him! so without much ado, bookending both ends of a valentine week, one of my favorite love poems ever: somewhere i have never travelled somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me,i and my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands ee cummings heres to a week long celebration of love's little gifts. each is precious, none less than the other. one day we may be able to talk about a life that is a living celebration but i'll gladly accept this week - any week - till then! much love, d&s