What is Happiness?

...Happiness is a yoyo; one that lights up each time it bounces, one that reels out of control and comes back to itself.

...Happiness is a handful of sand; that trickles from between the fingers and is enough to cover the feet and protect it from rushing waves.

...Happiness is a willow shade that brushes the sides of a shallow stream and caresses each hard rock at the bottom of it's bed.

...Happiness is a grafitti wall (see picture) that tells a thousand stories and yet remains strong and still. A wall that spills many pallettes and laps up the energy around.

...Happiness is words (pure, distorted, unadulterated, and figurative.) Happiness is utterance.

...Happiness is an image of yourself, the perfect that can be or has been. One, where you walk the walk and talk the talk as you so desire. It's YOU at the highest level of perfection. You are your inspiration.

Sushi

Have you tried making sushi at home?

Shining nori seaweeds gently laid on a plate

A warm knife dipped in hot water awaits,

To cut a two inch strip with it's steely head

And separate the seaweeds and the union abate.

Oh dear nori seaweed! How it must have hurt

To know that the tiny grains of rice

Is going to be taken care of by you alone now

Cuz your family is cut into a abyss of two inch flattened dough

Have you tried sticking rice to a nori seaweed?

How it gently sticks to it's sides as a lover leads

You to his gentle embrace and folds you lovingly into his arms,

As the grains of Japanese rice in the embrace of nori seaweeds stay calm.

Have you tried slicing avocados into a sushi roll

How the slimy piece of mass slips into the knoll,

Of rice and crushed fish chunks and a dash of rice vinegar

How their world seems happy and the smell of bliss lingers

Have you tried separating makhi zushi rolls?

Did it not jar your conscience to invade into it's rolled up world

What were you you thinking when you passed that knife into it's stomach

Like you were carving a sculpture or perhaps a lame duck

Oh sushi roll, you smell so sweet; like my love who blows a thousand kisses when I meet, his tender voice

He makes no noise. He stays still and calls me from the other side of the hill,

So still that it fills my living soul with your warm scent

A love I seldom repent.

And when I reach the bend of your sides, the corners that avoid the sticky rice,

I look at you one moment still. You are so tasty and you my stomach fill.

Like the twilight bridges both day and night,

You bridge my wait with delight.

Twelve Times Twelve

My day passed off in a jiffy, but some impressions stayed with me. Here are twelve imprints from my day, today:

1. "Who are we, not to be brilliant?"-- Nelson Mandela

2. The mind loses it's creativity when thoughts don't follow the path from the mind, to the intellect, to the sanskara, and then finally to action.

3. "You cannot solve the problem in the same headspace that you created it."-- Isaac Newton

4. A camera's depth of field increases with the angle of view.

5. Mint is the best dressing for lamb dishes.

6. Youngsters today have a short attention span of less than 3 mins (I am a youngster but I don't subscribe to this view.)

7. Portamentos are the best copy of human voices.

8. God's favorite number is 6. (not the 666 for devil, please.)

9. Where the energy goes, life flows.

10. Watching your thoughts in slow motion might be a good idea.

11. Love fills.

12. I once heard somewhere when you repeat something/anything twelve times it becomes a sanskara (habit.)

My Subconscious has a Sense of Humour

My subconscious has a sense of humour. Ha ha, funny am I? Why doesn't my subconscious have a sense of humour? Why can't I parse through my dreams and filter my nightmares? When the wheelbarrows of the mind hit the dregs of the skull and the eyes see a colored vision, the mind goes reeling and out of control. During these moments of frothing activity my subconscious slips into an overdrive and registers all that can be conceivably registered -- but in puzzles. They all come back to me in bits and pieces at nightime.

This is what I see-- I walk a pebbled beach, hand in hand with Ahmadejaan discussing Obama's effects on Iran's psyche, and Kate Moss tottering in her six inch heel with Gungun and then both of them cooling their nails at a nails salon, while her professor yells at her. It's really not my fault. It's my subconscious that makes me see what a Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice could have shown me. It's strange how the mind works.

Yes, if my subconscious had a sense of humour I could even have put PG Woodhouse to shame. However, if my subconscious had a high brow sense of humour I wouldn't have seen slapstick comedy in my dreams :

Laloo wallowing in the waters of Malta
Euro vision song contest being won by Armenia
Mayawati doing a cameo at the Tomb Raider sets
Prince Charles eating badam bhaja at Golpark's golchokkor with Helen

Who says my subconscious doesn't have a sense of humour? If it hadn't, I wouldn't have humoured myself to write this piece.