Wicked Witch Rituals

If some bad buddy hurts me…
What do I do?  No, I don’t weep

I immerse their head in water
And enjoy their cool dip dip dip

I put them in a fruit juicer
And squeeze them till they drip

I grind them into fine flour
And knead, thump and beat

I turn them into a long stick
And break it into little twigs

I write their name on a paper
And cut it up into tiny bits

I crumple them with my fist
And put them under my feet

I hardly ever do all this
As I mostly ‘forget and forgive’

I like to hold my head high
And quietly…quit quit quit!!

Copyright © 2015 Alka Girdhar

.
That was my evil poem in response to  The Daily Post’s writing prompt Wicked Witch

Actually if somebody hurts me, I do none of the above evil acts. I do forgive and forget to whatever extent I can. When I find it difficult to quit, I try to win their heart and change them although that’s very exhausting and comes with its own risks.

Our Fountains of Joy

Have you ever tossed a coin or two into a fountain and made a wish? Did it come true?

I try to recollect but I do not remember putting coins in any fountain to have my wish come true. Sometimes I’ve looked at the sky and wished upon a star or should I say moon.

More than that I’ve prayed at religious places, asked for something and the wishes did come true. Yes, they do come true if we do not make it a habit. Generally speaking, be it a fountain, a star, dandelion or God, we should be careful what we wish for.

But nowadays, I do not ask for anything from anyone or anywhere. I’ve discovered, it doesn’t matter either way.

That said, we’ll look at a fountain. The picture below is not exactly a fountain with waters gushing out upwardly and some musical lights creating a spectacular sight. This is more of a fountain where there are subtle bubbles that slowly spread water all around.

With the architecture of circulating pathways, the Spiral Fountain at Darling Harbour in Sydney is a favorite place for kids (and adults) to wet their feet on steps filled with water, go walking round and round to finally reach the rotund centre and sit there in glory.

My son also used to love doing that when he was a little boy – splashing his feet around this path, laughing and giggling non-stop while descending down. Finally victorious upon reaching his destination, sitting comfortably there, he would wave at us from far as if he was now in some different land.
(My son’s picture is not too clear. Here’s another one with a wider fountain)

When we see our kids, or see any kid for that matter, enjoying their little things, we heartily wish them to be always happy like that.  They are our fountains of joy.

When they grow older, we continue to wish the same even though we inevitably cannot always be a part of their social activities, their trips and tours. We still want them to reach their destination and achieve great heights.

These are the secret wishes and open desires of every parent in this world. I look at this fountain now and make a wish for my son’s happiness.

~~~

In response to Daily Prompt: Three Coins in the Fountain

Halved Lives

Half and Half
Build a sensible whole
A complete completeness

Severed forlorn halves
Become wandering vagabonds
Fiercely seeking completeness

Finding along their way
Other fragmented halves
With complete incompleteness

Who quick-fix their halved jigsaw
To create whole new wholeness
Only to crack them, to smaller halves

Halves now quartered to shreds
Frantically float around
Crumbs, that forever elude wholeness

©2015 Alka Girdhar

~~~

For The Daily Post Photo Challenge: Half and Half
“This week, let’s split our photos in two.”

Also for:  Close Up

Writing prompt: Incomplete

Self-Help: The Best Guru!

Mentor I have none
I badly need one

When I said this to one
Who looked wise and sound

She said to me point blank
She herself needs one.

She gave me a counsel sound
That I will not forget soon

That no one in this world can
Mentor you as you yourself can

We are our own true guide
In ourselves we must take pride.

guru

Prompt:  Mentor Me
Have you ever had a mentor? What was the greatest lesson you learned from him or her?

Awesome Three

Three Letter Words
do they not like?

But three makes sense
Things happen in threes

~~~
Divinity comes in threes…
God – The Omniscient, The Omnipresent, The Omnipotent

The Holy Trinity – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Creates, Redeems, Sustains

The Trimurti – Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva
The Creator, The Preserver, The Destroyer

Buddha’s Triple Gems – Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha.
The Enlightened One, His teachings, His followers

~~~

Life’s three phases
Birth, Life, Death.

Time’s three realms
Past, Present, Future.

Sin’s three types
Thought, Word, Deed

Triple shades of health
Body, Mind and Spirit

~~~

Three – Not bad
Why avoid three?

We’re often third time lucky
Count – one, two and three…

The farmer’s wife had cut off the tails of three blind mice with a carving knife and, see how they ran.

(In Australia,  Triple Zero (000) is the primary national emergency number. Police, Fire, Ambulance –  help yourselves…)

~~~~

© 2015 Alka Girdhar

One, Two, Three!

You always believed in me

Huh!! Now they want us to play pranks on each other.  It’s April Fool’s Day and it’s customary to celebrate it, innit?  Ready…one, two, and three…Go!!  Play a prank!!!

No I won’t.  Naah. Staying awake till midnight (in my city) only to be prompted to play pranks. Are we kids? Tomorrow if they tell us to play ‘Ringa Ringa Roses’, how in the world are all of us global writers going to do that – hopping around the whole vast planet earth?

But who am I to get annoyed?  I should be the last person to do so because, if I seriously think of it, I’ve already been playing pranks with you all, my dear readers. I have already fooled you once.  In fact have done that ever since I opened this Word Press ID of mine. You know me by a particular name. Are you sure I am who you think I am?  Why did you believe me in the first place?  I had a URL by a genuine name of a female who genuinely exists in this world and has a real face so you easily believed I am A.G.  A person who puts up her real name and real picture has to be genuine. Far from it.

The fact is, I am a very well known ‘celebrity’ – this is how you always refer to me as.  In real life I can’t step out of my house without being noticed or my kid being picturized.  Day and night I was tired of trying to be my original self, the real KK.  But nobody lets me be me. One look at my Facebook Page and you can see how the world swoons at my feet.  I soon got tired of putting up pictures that drove people to leave their important tasks and write comments on my page.  I know, people love me for all possible reasons.  And hate me sometimes.

But deep in my heart I felt a need to leave those reasons behind and hide myself from the world. And yet I wanted to be out in public in some way as I am highly addicted to public life. Therefore one day I decided to write. I am not known to be a writer, right?  I thus became a new person whom nobody suspects to be me.  I didn’t want to have a pseudo picture of a monster, a zebra or a flower as my gravatar.  A real face, a real name of an Indian lady very well suited my needs. Voila! No one ever suspected. Did ya?

Adorning a new persona gave me a new feel about myself as I slowly became what I was born to be like – a thinker, a sensitive female like any other, a normal everyday kind of person – who is not merely popular due to her bags and back-age, I mean baggage.  I left them out of this blog.

And hey! Surprisingly, you all accepted me in my new avatar.  Here on Word Press you like me for very different reasons. You like me for my meaningful words and deep thoughts. Even though the number of followers on this simple blog of mine are not even 1/1000^th of the number of followers I have in other social media where I carry my real KK image, but still…who cares!!  I am happy like this. At least you all, my fellow bloggers on creative Daily Prompt, meaningful Photo Challenge/s and very friendly Haiku Challenge, are genuine.

You all are my faithful followers but you aren’t after my beauty, money or sophistication. Love it here!!  My point is, there are skinny people all around the world dying of hunger and I sincerely feel you gals and guys shouldn’t be so obsessed about the constant stream of news related to my body size and weight, my contoured nose, my personal relationships, about the ifs and butts of my life. Please please don’t ape me. Donate the money that you intend to spend on buying ridged leggings. Just because I wore them? Give these £1075 to some legless human being. (sob!).
Honestly, ever since I started writing at Word Press, my inner sensitive soul, my conscience has woken up towards the physical and emotional ailments of other flesh and bones people on this earth.

Till today I had been living with huge feelings of guilt, about hiding my true self from my dear readers for so long. This April Fool’s Day prompt brought out my truth. Hope you won’t desert me after knowing the reality.

Please promise you will stay with me and always read what my inner heart wants to write!!.  Moreover, don’t you think I too need true friends in life, like all of you here?

(sob! sob!!…sob!!!)

~~~~~~

My very honest response to The Daily Prompt:  Fool Me Once

It’s April 1st!  Pull a fast one — publish a post that gently pranks your readers.

~~~~

Foul becomes sweet…

Last time I had been ‘chosen’ for my serious Haiku.  This time for Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge 37, I am in a very different mood as my thoughts seem to flow only in one direction today.

Firstly, here’s my Haiku on the two words given to us:  Foul & Sweet 

      the foul games of life
      hurt, but once they’re over
      begin life’s sweet overs

In my above Haiku, of course I am talking about vagaries and treacheries of general life, about how we are often hurt by unfair treatment we come across esp. in the hands of people known to us. But once we get over such foul experiences, we can start to live the sweet ‘overs‘ of life.

Over and out!!   Read the rest of my post only if interested in the game of overs.

~~~

What else can I talk about today except overs – yes the cricketing overs. Right now as I write, India and Australia are standing against each other in the middle of the battle ground. The war bugle is about to go and soon the game of overs will start in full fervour.

The game…Cricket World Cup semi-final.
Team Australia vs. Team India.  Gold vs. Blue.
The winning team will go to the finals and have a match against New Zealand, the Kiwis.

Today’s semi-final is important for both Australia as well as India. It’s one final chance to to win the World Cup. Hopes of one team will be dashed today.

But Australian-Indians…which team will they go for?  Which country do they side with?
Is it a question to be asked? India of course.
But is that fair?
Please don’t ask that.
Indians will favor their adopted country in every other way except in cricket.
Please please let us side with India, they seem to say.  Sorry about that.
But how fairly-unfair is this!!!  or is it unfairly-fair?
Foul and sweet at the same time.

Call it sweet or foul, it is true that 70% of the of the 42,000 seats at Sydney Cricket Ground have been bought by Indian fans. It’s also well-known that Indian cricket fans are an agitated passionate lot – very noisy. No wonder Australian captain Michael Clarke is worried.

Call it fair or foul – sledging too is a huge part of the cricket ground, esp. foul words are always exchanged between Australian and Indian cricket teams.
But Sydney’s Today Show host Karl Stefanovic began the tete-e-tete even before the game began. While interviewing Indian cricket supporters today morning, before the semi-final between Australia and India, Stefanovic said:  “I was just going to ask…who’s going to be manning 7-Elevens today?

Actually, many newly migrated Indian students take up part-time jobs in petrol-pumps like 7-Eleven and similar service stations. So Karls’ logic was that if 70% of Indians will be at cricket ground, who will take care of the petrol pumps?
Funny retort. Leg pulling? Fair enough!!
His remarks offended many touchy-type Indians.

But hey! C’mon!!  It was only a joke. Be a sport…!!!

     Everything is fair in love and war.
     Fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair. 

Of course war it is, this cricket, esp. between Indians and …and…any team. Any team.
For most Indian cricket fans the slogan is – ‘My heart bleeds for blue’.

Personally speaking, as the match began sometime back with national anthems, my heart felt almost similar beats when listening to both the Indian anthem Jan Gan Man as well as Advanced Australia Fair, the Australian anthem.

Shouldn’t it beat for only one of them?  What say? In this global world, all countries are full of migrants from here to there, how fair and how foul are our loyalties?

P.S. Australia had won the semi-finals against India ,and also eventually won the World Cup, that too by huge margins. 

My Writer Dad

My dad was not
some literary genius
but writer sure he was.

He brought me up
till my life’s first half
after which he was gone.

If he could now write
my whole life for me
truly this will bless me.

Till he was alive
he knew me more, than
I could ever know me.

Rest of my bumpy ride
he didn’t get to see
he’ll write, he’ll know me.

He’ll write and review
if his dear daughter lived
well, or covertly died

Which of his dreams
she fully fulfilled
which others she tried

A daughter will know
her lost dad a bit more
this life had cruelly denied

~~

Your Life, the Book

Also, it was my second response to The Daily Prompt: Ghostwriter
“If you could have any author –living or dead – write your biography, who would you choose?”

In my first poem I had invoked Shakespeare to write my Life-story:  Request Denied

Request Denied

My poem in response to The Daily prompt: Ghostwriter
If you could have any author –living or dead – write your biography, who would you choose?

~~~

For e-book of my life-story
I invoked, the one and only
legendary Sir Shakespeare.

He looked at me to assess
then refused my request.
Thus he spoke and justified

Brown Lady!!  I do love personae
with some tragic flaw, but
dost not thou have too many?

I looked up at him and appealed.
Life’s been a comedy of errors
dost it not appeal you, Sir?

The Bard let out a hearty laugh
looked fondly, but lo and behold
he vanished without a response.

Bewildered I was but my guess
the idea of e-book daunted him
for he had no internet access.

~~

Why Brown Lady? That’s because Shakespeare had never seen an Indian woman before.
But Sheakespeare had his mysterious Dark Lady as mentioned in his Dark Lady Sonnets

~~~~

Your Life, the Book

Picture credit: fast

© All rights reserved by alkagirdhar.wordpress.com 2015

 

Life Signals

This week, Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge has some challenging but, as usual, meaningful words.  The two words given to us were:  Field & Beacon.

 

Each week, upon seeing the provided words, I get signals of many related thoughts hence multiple Haikus are born. But this time only one signal was the strongest. I captured it and now writing it as a Haiku…

LIFE SIGNALS

In the field of life
Many a beacon beep
But we pay no heed

In our everyday life as we walk down our path we are often caught unaware, or so we think.

We complain that all too suddenly we had a bad time. In fact, it is we ourselves who land up into such times despite ample warnings, subtle or vivid, that tell us to beware…to watch out.

Look out for signals, listen to your gut feelings, your intuitive mind.
If something seems wrong, it usually is.  If it feels right, go ahead.

If your own inner voice deserts you, then have a few reliable mentors or guides within your seemingly well-wishing friends or family. Gain insight from their simple suggestions.

Now, which friend or relative is your true well-wisher and which one is not, this important decision is again hard to make and this itself can be misleading.  For this, you will again need to have your own beacon working in your ability to recognize people.

Do you agree with my views? Did you have such experiences where you just missed or over-looked the signals that were around you?
Do share so that others can gain your insight without undergoing the actual experience.

~~~

signal –  when used as noun as well as verb, imparts dual meaning.

~~~

Every week, after the weekly Haiku Challenge is over, Ronovan reviews all submitted poems and selects two Haiku each week – one for humor and the other a serious Haiku.

My above poem ‘Life Signals’ was chosen in the category of serious Haiku: review of Challenge 36

© All rights reserved 2015

header: ‘poppy field’ by claude monet