1
The day one comes face to face
With a huge mountain
Automatically windows open
Deep down somewhere
Inside the brain
Dark brown clouds atop a black massif
Penetrate your innermost corners
One fine day they suddenly emerge
Barging into a busy office room full of overworked colleagues
2
There are some people who never get to see a mountain
All they can do is simply wait
Any of these days it might just happen
Flapping its wings out of the blue
Would appear a shining desolate golden mountain
And lift them off their park side benches
3
In this extremely plain city
You sometimes wish
The road behind your house
Led to a nearby mountain
Every day on your return
From office
You’d take a walk on its steep slopes
Everyday ... in this extremely plain city
One longs for a very own dear mountain
4
The rain stopped for you
To open that window in the bus
For your eyes to feast on those rice fields
Beside the road and at a distance
A shining ivory tearing through the clouds
5
I strongly believe amidst us somewhere
Resides a gigantic mountain
Full of perennial snow
Shining brightly in the afternoon sun
Changing colors with time
Morning ... a pinkish white
Evening ... a orange hue
We go about all our lives
Trying to scale our individual mountains
Somewhere deep within them
We exist ... ourselves
6
Let down your hair in the wind mountain
Let it flow like a torrent through poetry
Swept off false moorings
Your volcanic lips let it burn each syllable
And let it cool with your icy stare
7
This mountain is an institution
One staying here too long tends to gather roots and branches
And finally ... one day ... becomes a tree which nests
Innumerable eggs of countless dreams
Each day we struggle to hold on to our mountains
Our roots, our dreams, losing our smiles in the process
In the end the institute crumbles and leaves us
To fly on the wings of freedom
8
You resemble the mountain of my dreams
Is that a running stream or your hair blowing in the wind?
The day our eyes met and clouds burst into rain
I had to carry a wet heart all the way to the top
What are those pock marked scars
Did some one use pitons on your body?
One day I too had longed for a climb atop your majestic tresses
Every day I had been saving a jumar or a carabiner
All is lost today in your flowing hair
A mountain stream that floods my dreams in the plains
9
One day, they show a mountain on the TV screen
Walking towards a lonely traveler
It grew bigger and bigger and the traveler
Smaller and smaller until ...
The whole screen was full of the mountain
Snow covered soft powdery white and the traveler ...
One of the black dots on the tube ... yet
Nobody really ever moved from their individual places
10
Oh no! Mountain she’s not for you
She’s just a bolt from the blue
A thundercloud, which will drench you from head to toe
After a time you’ll notice the smiling sun
Point out to your cloud over another distant mountaintop.
11
For me, I am sure await
A few playful mountains
One has to cross them on the way
To the biggest of them all
Its peak ... lies invisible amidst clouds
Its surroundings ... serene, silent
And yet ... there’s this welling of love
Shining mountain ... do stay put I pray
For you, I shall come definitely, one day
12
Imperceptible and yet a gradual accumulation
Of hatred, anger and distrust ... human relationships
They form a thundercloud of emotions from a wisp of smoke
Far down from the valley ... all within seconds
A gigantic mountain of misunderstandings
From mole hills of misconstrued notions
13
In terrible tensions sleep is only possible
On listening ... to a far off melody that emanates
From deep within a desolate, distant mountain
There’s a hint of the smiling sun
At the distant mountaintop there exists
None of our dreams and wants
Only sleep ... deep and restful
14
On returning from the mountains
One roams in the city ... full of visions
Giant skyscrapers resemble Makalu ... Lhotse
Vehicles ply on disgruntled streets ... remind you
Of hurrying sherpas on the Khumbu ice fall
15
One day ... maybe on a trip to the mountains
One might just encounter crumbled rocks and dust
On both sides of a road which extends into a never ending desert
A gradual wear and tear through the ages ... play of air wind and water
Cities buried deep within them ... houses that twinkled once at night
Atop dense dark mountain shapes.
16
One day just before elections you chance upon
Political workers painting graffiti on the mountain
Slowly and steadily it gets covered in slogans and speeches
As you go near it becomes illegible ... childish scribbles
You leave and from a distance ... see only a sparkling sun
17
Everyday I return to you
Like you are home waiting
With a sweet smile and a cup of tea
The sea gulls fluttering in your eye lashes
Throw up incredible patterns of white
I am sucked into them in a vortex of river rapids
18
If one can’t go to a mountain
It comes to him
I’ve been waiting for a long time now
Molehills cover my body
The Earth on it sprouts Trees
With the passage of time it seems I have
Become the mountain
