Beyond the Borders: Of Questions and Offerings

Copyright © 2014 by Shakya Sen.

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CONTENTS

The Omnipresence

The Magic

A Friend

The Invitation

The Privacy

The Feel Of Fortification

The Symphony

A Request

The Expectation

Who Unto Him Rules

The Attempt

The Thrust

The Call

The Search

The Selection

A Friend

The Expectation

At St. John’s Church, Kolkata

Where?

Celebrate Life!

The Final Inspiration

Discrimination

The Distinction

The Blending

Ancient Regime

The Blossoming

The Perfection Of Life

The Discardment

The Final Say

Song Of Death

Your Divinity

The True Meaning

The Ultimate Award

The Conversion

The Question

Song Of The Corpse

The Satisfaction

Story Of My Survival?

The Quiet Search

The Travel

My Failure

The Winner

Song Of A Lawyer

The Stand Of The Passing Moments

The Dedication

Oblivious

The Hope Across

The Aspiration

Reflections

At Last!

Friendship

The Bliss

The Onus

Smile!

The Difference

Lift Me There!

The Link

The Continuation

The Doubt

Yet To Be?

The Unending Search

The Arrival

Questions & Answers

The Taste Of Silence

The Equation

The Transformation

The Balancing Act

Renaissance

Priorities Ignored

The Drumbeats

Lessons

The Recreation

The Picture Of Existence

Confusions

The Rainbow-Chaser

A Different Me

The Lifestyle

The Sound Of Tears

Interpretations

Ratios

The Load—Factor

The Supreme

The Walk

Seaward Ho!

The Journey From Within

The Entry Of Magnificence

A Dreamer’s Pleasure

The Walk Of Life

Simply Nothing

The Equilibrium

I Exist!

Ode To Solitude

Nothing Special

The Via-Media

Redescribing Myself

Parting Pains

Statement Of Facts

A Corpse Sings Newton’s

Law Of Gravity

Adoration

Still Unfinished

A Journey To The Past

A Lovesong For You

A Question

A Second Home

A Song Of Questions

A Visionary’s Prayer

The Abstract

The Access

The Adventure

The Agony

Alas! The Error

All For Me

The Amalgamation

An Invitation

And I Shall Not Return!

And The Twain Shall Meet

The Angel’s Touch

The Art Of Living

The Aspiration

At The Crossroads

The Baptism

Beyond The Borders

The Birth Of Poetry

The Bridge Of Silence

Bridging The Gaps

The Call

Catch Me If You Can!

Charmer! You Have

Charmed My Life!

Clueless

The Colour Connection

Colours—The Final Blend

The Combination

The Complete Search

The Confrontation

Sighs

The Consecration Of The Soul

The Dancing Partner

Death? Really?

Dedicated Thoughts

Delay Defeats

Desperate Cravings

The Detachment

Different Strokes

Disorders

Dissentience

The Elixir Of Life

The Emergence

The Evasive

The Existence

The Real And The Unreal

The Festival Of Silence

The Final Bloom

Fire And Thunderstorm

The Fountainhead

Frantic Prayers

Frescoes

From Darkness Unto Light

The Garland

The Gifts Of A Host

The Glorious Dark

The Great Consolation

The Homecoming

The Hope In Despair

Incomplete?

Is That Where?

The Impression

In Quest Of Perfection

The Interaction

I Shall Not Burn!

Idle Hours

The Reaction

In Love

The Immortality

Indecisiveness

The Invisible Tie

In Anticipation

In Darkness And In Light

Inspirations

I’ll Be Waiting

The Immortality Of The Mortal

I Serve

In Search Of An Answer

The Journey

Know Thyself

Lead! Kindly Darkness

Let There Be Light!

Let’s Share

Liberties

Life, Death And Man

Lift Me

The Longing

Love’s Labour

Magic In Motion

The Magic Of The Arts

The Manifestations

The Master’s Touch

The Matching Difference

The Meaningful

The Message Shall Not Die

The Moment

The Motion

The Much Awaited

The Mutiny

The Obliteration

Oh, The Pains!

Omissions

On The Canvas

Only If I Could!

Our Union—

In Quest Of A Meaning

The Passage To Obscurity

The Path To Divinity

The Perfection Of Loneliness

The Pleasure

The Poetic Balance

Prayers

The Prerogative

The Pride Of Pains

The Prizeworthy

The Promiscuity

The Query

Questions And An Answer

The Questions

Quo Vadis, Romance?

The Rainbow

The Rebirth

The Reimbursement

Reminders

The Replay

The Research

The Restlessness

Resuscitation Of The Unconscious

Revelation Of The Unknown

The Revolution

The Role

The Romance

The Route

The Sacrosanct

The Satiety

The Satisfaction

The Seasoning

Seek And You Will Find!

The Sense Of Relief

Silence Unto Speech

The Sorcerer’s Tunes

The Soulsearching

Sounds Of Distant Drums

The Spirit’s Song

The Stand

The Story Of An Orphan

The Street Hawker

The Survival

Surya Pranam

The Taste

Tasting The Ultimate

The Teacher

The Thanksgiving

The Om

The Question—The Answer

Thou Art!

To My Soul

To The Devastated

To The Mind

To You

The Touch Of Class

Transformation? Really?

The Trust

The Tunes Of Death

The Twilight’s Magic

The Unbounded

The Unexplored

The Universal Home

The Value Of Zero

Vis-À-Vis

The Vision

The Voice Within

The Voice

Waiting In Anticipation

The Walking

Wanderer In The Desert-Lands

Waste Of Time?

The Website

The Worship Mode

A Winter Night

2000–2001

Thieves, Liars, Hypocrites, Opportunists And Lovers

THE OMNIPRESENCE

In the serenity of the universe

Signaling the advent of the dawn

As a prelude to the earth’s welcome

To a charming new-born morn,

Awe-filled, as my soul I bare,

I find that You are there.

As the sun rises in the upper skies

And throws its scorching heat around

And sucks the water from the oceans

And sets on fire, the earthly ground,

While I thirst for peace with none to care,

I find that You are there.

As the sun leans towards the West

To set, and the twilight zone

Engulfs the world with a host of colours

From sources yet unknown,—

Before my eyes a wink could spare,

I find that You are there.

In the constant spell of my tragic moments

Through days and months and years

As I burden myself with the aftermath

Which a ravaged destiny bears,

In the shape of melancholy, grief and despair,

I find that You are there.

In happy hours of my life

When I lift myself from the vile

And see a reason which for a moment

Allows me to smile,—

Amidst the laughter and fanfare,

I find that You are there.

When I hate someone and cannot stand

His presence ‘fore my eyes,

And his entire bearing in every form

Seems to me to be filled with vice,

While my wrath and hatred charge the air,

I find that You are there.

When I love a woman of my dreams

And feel her magic charms

And taste and sense my virile pleasures

And hold her in my arms,

In the ecstasy of love and passion which we share,

I find that You are there.

As I travel through life’s diverse stations

Loading my mortal existence

With so much to see, to feel and to absorb

With my limited human sense,

While I spread the cream of life on every new-found layer,

I find that You are there.

And the day when I shall reach

The last of all my destinations

And bid my last goodbye

As I leave the last of all the stations,

When Death shall beckon and shall stare,

I’ll find that You are there!

THE MAGIC

My pains have transformed themselves into

A realisation of an art

Where my soul is painted with the words:

Thou art, Lord, Thou art!

From whatever source my spirit soars

High above all mortal grounds,

Your image in its pristine glory

Makes its quiet graceful rounds.

In me, I find Your presence ensured,

In me, I hear Your call;

In me, I’ve stored Your affections,

Your love, adorations and all.

In You, I have my confidence

Reposed since my birth;

In You, my mortal entity

Has found its divine worth.

From whichever angle I view this life,

Either through You or me,

Our merger makes me a complete man

In fullness and entirety.

Life then finds its winsome meaning

Through every step of mine

In my voyage towards the destined unknown

In search of the superfine,

While I’ll be left with nothing but

Peace and peace alone

In realms spread out far and near,

Whether known or yet unknown.

And the artwork realised through my pains

Playing their divine role,

Shall be the essence of the magic

Woven in my soul.

A FRIEND

Divinity descends to befriend me

When all have parted ways

And holds my arms in quiet embrace

And plants kisses on my face.

That’s when I could sense in me

The greatest pleasure ever

And wish to hold her in my grips

Forever and forever.

That’s when I could discard all

That’s worldly and not lasting

With the touch of divinity wrapping me

In happiness everlasting.

That’s where the markings of my life

Howsoever ill-fated,

In the touch of divine class, do stand

Totally obliterated.

Nothing remains to be wished for further

In the span of my existence

As divinity settles in me to calm

My mortal turbulence.

THE INVITATION

These moments, when I’m all alone

Idling away my time,

Seem to be priceless with their silence

Balancing my living rhyme.

Here my ceaseless lusts for life

Are transformed into peace

To spend my time-bound breathing hours

With soulful ease.

In recognition of your magnitude

Simply by staring at your sky,

And in endless search for your identity,

My obmutescent prayers lie.

With countless thoughts which lead to you,

My emptiness is filled;

And in the wilderness of a forlorn life,

My rues are stilled.

Nothing more is precious than

Your links which tend to seal

My destined grief and distress which

Hardly seem to heal.

Let me therefore be alone

With a silent invitation

To you to enter in my soul

And find your seat and station.

THE PRIVACY

In the world of men where everyone

Shall stay and leave alone,

I’ve nothing to grieve and nothing to repent

For a feeling that’s not my only own.

I know as much as you do know

That in the hearts of all of us,

We’ve reserved a space for ourselves only

Through which we can ourselves pass.

That’s not a place where all can enter,

That’s not a space which we can share,

But that’s a private corner which

Prohibits others’ thoroughfare.

There we survive all alone

Exclusively with our joy and tears,

With our wreckage and trophies unrecognised

And unsung in open public spheres.

THE FEEL OF FORTIFICATION

Breathless, I stand with trembling feet

On devastations across the earth

And try to assess the worth and reason

Of man’s ignoble birth.

In the magnitude of thoughts which are,

Or should be, good and pure,

Is this what man endlessly

Through ageless time endure?

In the melee of these destructions

Rampant everywhere,

The goodness of man’s artistry

Is lost in the poisoned air.

Our endeavour to extract even

A speck of purity from

The toxicity thus spread by man

Through the noxious ruinous storm,

Shall be welcomed by the ravaged millions

Wrecked in the hellish fire

Stripped of shelter, food and health

‘Midst the devil’s great bonfire;

And existence shall be fortified

Even by the feel

That someone’s waiting with the balm

Whether it does or does not heal.

THE SYMPHONY

If the violent strength of the thunderstorm

Raging through this night,

Could force its entry in my soul

And wash away my baneful plight,

The rupture caused by the forceful access

Would act as my finest balm

To provide all that’s needed to

Usher in my peace and calm.

The wild and untamed gate-crash shall

Perforce help to bring a state

To counter and to drive out deftly

My wild and untamed fate.

Blow, therefore, ah, blow with fury,

And raise that mighty force

Which the wind can carry crossing limits

To break open all my sensual doors.

For in the ruins and devastations

I’ll perceive

The much sought freedom of my soul

In this thunderstorm-filled eve.

In the ravage that shall be left behind,

I’ll slowly search and find

My union with the divine goodness

And my final peace of mind.

And my soul shall lie in symphony

And perfectly orchestrated

With the furious sounds of the heavens where

All others are outdated.

A REQUEST

As I stand alone in the wilderness

Of existence and life

Where fate has unduly sworn

Ruin and devastation, I only pray

Let me simply be

On my own!

While roaming alone through endless tracts

In futile search of peace,

Where no harvest has been reaped, no crop has grown,

My only solace shall be if you

Let me simply be

On my own!

Where nothing seems to match my mind

And I am yet to find a friend so true,

In a world where I am left alone,

The passwords to my comfort are:

Let me simply be

On my own!

In the massive network of what’s called ‘life’,

Where I have found my solitary ground

Built on a cracking stone,

In the chaos and disorder, ‘Sturm und Drang’,

Let me simply be

On my own!

In the cravings of a life which has gone astray

Through hopeless hours spent in vain,

With a thousand reasons to quietly mourn

In the graveyard of my buried hopes,

Let me simply be

On my own!

In the star-studded presentation of the mortal world

Immortalising the fancied dreams of man,

There’s not a single grain I own

Save and except my soulful wish:

Let me simply be

On my own!

Across the debris of life where my footfalls leave

Marks of blood which oozes from

An existence quite out of tone,

Through my onward journey in search of God,

Let me simply be

On my own!

As I wait in anxious anticipation

In course of my tedious walk of life,

Of the welcome arms of a friend unknown

When I shall cross my mortal border,

Let me simply be

On my own!

THE EXPECTATION

And the devil speaks to me

In God’s counterfeited tone

And ushers in chaos and restlessness

In my living zone.

And the more I’m convinced of the words

Which the devil spells aloud,

The more