Small dreams of the monday man - Deepak Sir

“anna. you have been in ettimadai for ten years. and you still have not learnt tamil,” remarked palani amma recently, making her customary ten point annual deduction in her estimates of my iq. “palani amma. i have been in ettimadai for ten years. and you still have not learned hindi,” i retorted. “hey! who’s the phd here – you or me?” touche! then there's the question of the guitar that’s so strategically placed in my living room. i had bought it a few years ago with much fanfare. flew back with it from delhi to coimbatore. shobhana said that i looked like an aging hipster with the guitar slung around my back that day. “grow a ponytail,” she said. been a few years now. and i am still strumming the few chords that I had taught myself during my iit days. and then that beautiful piece of open source statistical software called “r” that i have been staring at for two years now. have downloaded every new version of it and I am still where I was! (though i have been getting this growing suspicion that perhaps i first need to double click them downloaded files to begin with J)


tamil. guitar. r. and the monday morning mails. four jigsaw pieces in search of the larger picture. four questions in search of an answer. four poems in search of their poet

The Paradox of Life

A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other's key.

The Road to Wisdom

The road to wisdom?
-- Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
If You Know What I Mean

A poet should be of the
old-fahioned meaningless brand:
obscure, esoteric, symbolic,
-- the critics demand it;
so if there's a poem of mine
that you do understand
I'll gladly explain what it means
till you don't understand it.

The Egocentrics

People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
They will keep on about themselves
While I am explaining me.

that of course was piet hein - 20th century philosopher, mathematician, designer, scientist, game inventor and poet :-) he's graced the pages of the monday morning mails before with his wise and whimsical "grooks". and the kind of mood this mail is in, it just had to be piet. and the last one is a personal favorite of mine :-)

tamil. guitar. r. and the monday morning mails. four dots in search of a circle, four stories in search of the sutradhar, four dreams in search of the dreamer. 2015 has come calling and it says “hello again where have you been? there's a pause button that had got pressed too long and its time to press play again” and i say “you know something. i had got the buttons switched!”
and then this clear vision comes dancing before my eyes. it’s the end of the year and you’re reading a poem i have written in the monday morning mail. and you are smiling for the poem is in tamil :-) and then the poem becomes a song, a song of  love and loss and longing and redemption. i am singing it softly.  there’s an acoustic guitar being strummed somewhere too in this picture. but what really stays with you is this haunting chorus . you don’t really hear it first for its very soft.  and then when you have got your attention one pointed,  and your mind really quiet, you finally hear it. and it’s a deeply spiritual moment. for this is what it is saying- “r is for research, r is for research, r is for research “ :-)

sigh. the small dreams of the gupta J

something tells me that 2015 is going to be a great great year. what do you say?!

much much love
d&s


Happy new year Sir and Mam :-)

Happy new monday 2015

it’s the same train. it’s the same mail. perhaps it’s the same evening too. they say that time’s an illusion. i think about that sometimes. sampath just posted on fb a scan of a marketing examination that I had set for his batch more than half a decade ago. when I looked at it i wondered about the questions i had set. and smiled. when he looked at it he wondered about the answers he had written. and smiled. and for brief a moment we had transcended both time and space. and become just two smiling ends of one thought. i think about that too. it’s the same train. it’s the same mail. it’s the same mountain. the same buffaloes grazing nonchalantly while the sun sets gently behind them. it’s the same smoke lazily making its way up while the fires hug the ground. the same boys chasing the same soccer ball on them same fields, kicking up the same dust that shimmers like a muslin curtain in that slanting dusk. and it’s the same guptajee feasting on this timeless scene - eyes bright, mouth agape, and the heart quietly listening . to this song of love eternal

(and thank you usha for sharing this poem. so beautiful. and so just in time J) it’s the same new year coming back again and again. the same new beginnings easing the same old pain. i am a child blissfully lost in the laps of the sages. i am a bird gone high on the rock of the ages. it’s the same old time but somehow its new. it’s the same old rhyme yet its different too. the river has flown, the cells have replaced. the heart has known, the mind has erased. time’s an illusion yet something shifts. loves a collusion and these are its gifts. the same train, the same mountain, the same sights for us to see. yet it’s the first time we are seeing each other and that’s the way will always be J to paraphrase that “timeless” song that pink floyd actually intended to write J the sun is the same in a relative way and we are just bolder. longer in breath. and one eternal moment further from death. J they say a new year has come to be. here’s to all the new mondays of our destiny. may they be lived ever fresh, ever free. much much love, d&s