You have won.

Theres more to pain than just a broken heart....

This is a loose translation of a famous line by the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, which has been a sort of guiding light to me in my dark hours. To look around is to find the sheer depth of human pain in all its forms, making you realise just how little your own loss is.

And yet at the bottom of it all, what is affected as a consequence IS the heart. Its bruised and broken and battered.

Jobs are lost and relationships get broken. People get into habits and relationships get broken. Health breaks down and relationships get broken. Ultimately no matter what the loss, there seems to be a loss of love and a broken heart and pain.

Where love should grow and nurture in sullen dark hours of need and difficulty, it seems to be abandoned and lost.

But still people soldier on...
But still people shoulder life...
And people love once again.

And hearts beat once again...
despite the
pain.

I salute all those people, you all taught me much....
Life rejected you
but ultimately
you have won.

My voluntary work brings these wonderful souls into my life and I feel truly blessed.

Soul satisfaction....

AD.
(double click on painting for higher resolution)

Distant.

Sat sipping sunshine
weakened warmth
filtering away....

A lonely red leaf
twirled an
autumn tune....

I sat on it
and blew away
a distant love....

Just a winter away.

The thirst.....

A.

Just Another Day.

[This is the beginning of a short story which I recently wrote, the link to which I've placed in the title, if you wish continue reading onto the whole...which I hope you will want to :)). Please DO give me feedback/critque on the same..and I hope I shall be entertain some more and in a better way too...enjoy!]


The mist was coming in thick and fast now. The crying of the seagulls moody and melancholic. The filtered blue light was fast dwindling; perhaps it was fitting that they should meet like this. He stood leaning against the ancient gaslight pole, the cigarette dwindling in his fingers, but tonight he’d have to prevent another life from dwindling into nothingness. He’d promised her he’d speak to Ajit today. He pulled his coat tighter around him and turned up the corners of his collar, cursing the infernal London weather. He looked at his watch again. It was almost time. Why wasn’t he here yet? It occurred to him that Ajit might not come at all, but no, knowing him, he would, oh yes, he most definitely would.

Ajit spotted him immediately. Leaning against the gaslight pole careless and nonchalant. The eternal cigarette burning out. A muscle worked in his jaw as he walked slowly, in no hurry to close the gap between them. He felt the bile rising in him with ferocious intensity. His fists clenched. He willed himself to relax, compose himself, make his face expressionless. Better this way. He made a great show of adjusting the muffler under his coat and then wiping his glasses, brisk and business-like.

It had grown dark now, the gulls still circling but quieter now. The all-pervading silence creeping up the spine in icy tentacles. The embankment was completely deserted now, with only the pools of light making the seething mass of black water come alive. From some distance away, came the high-pitched sounds of drunken gaiety, spilling out occasionally from the pubs in flashes of white flesh and the tap tapping of stilettos........(contd)

Tender mercies!

London 2.00 pm

And now the heart is light and breath easier....

The angioplasty procedure on dad's heart has been successfully carried out he's now been discharged from the hospital! I have flown back to London and all's well that ends well!

And it sure feels great to be back here; Thank god for tender mercies!