I play the beautiful game...

With the wind in my hair,

My mind is freed from all care,

I take to the field, my eternal lair.

With the ball at my feet,

My world looks impeccable and neat,

I look for challenges to take on, to beat.

With poetry now set in motion,

My soul achieves its redemption,

I play the beautiful game, in all elation.

Update: 8th June, 2016

Picture this. You’re taken away from something that you love. Taken away from it for reasons that are unclear to you, and reasons which seem ridiculous to you. It was, and it still is, your favourite drug which got you high, your favourite drink that calmed you down, and the one thing that you’d enjoy on any given day, in any given occasion. And now it’s taken away from you in a cruel way, and put beyond your reach for the next 9 to 10 months.

The wait alone will be excruciating. And that’s enough mental stress. But what if you’re made to work hard physically too over the next 10 months? You have to go through pain, through a workout regime that’s only getting tougher, while you inch uncertainly towards your target. You can decide to forget about it and put yourself through only the mental torture of forgetting it. But no. You yearn for it, you need it. You will go through whatever it takes. For you know how it felt.

Then you see others reveling in the happiness that it gives. But you can only see; not feel it yourself. Finally, after enduring through the tough months, you can have it. You’re almost there. But now there’s a new conundrum. A doubt has crept into your mind. After all this time, will it still be the same? After all the efforts, will it be worth it? You’re anxious about the new beginning. Yet, deep down, you know that you would’ve gone through twice the tough times that you did go through, just to be here. Nervously, you reach out.

You feel it again. Instantly you know that you’ve never felt it so good before. Euphoria takes over. Ecstasy will reign.

I suffered an ACL tear while playing football in a corporate tournament. The injury was inflicted by a careless tackle by the opponent. I had to undergo ACL reconstruction surgery if I ever wanted to play again. But the surgery was only the first step towards recovery. For full recovery, I had to go through a rehab protocol, where discipline and patience were of prime importance. Then after 8 months of concerted efforts, I was declared fit to return to football. In this poem, which is an emotional one for me, I’ve tried to capture the way I felt when I took to the field finally.

The Quantum Cat!

Contrary to the intention of leaving quantum theory in knots,

Came this example, which only illustrated the apparent paradox:

Hats off to the cat of Schrodinger, still dead and alive in its box!

An acrostic written on Schrodinger's birthday.

As it feigned to rain...

As a patch of white, obscured by clouds, I see

The nearly full moon, in this tired retiring city

While I walk below the big flowery tree

I'm chilled to the bones by the cold breeze

Li'l water droplets fall from the flowers and leaves

Upon me; now arms crossed, I shudder and freeze

Looking for an ivory tower, I wander solitarily

As it feigned to rain, the night is in tranquility.

क्रुद्धा कुतोऽसि मातस्त्वम्

क्रुद्धा कुतोऽसि मातस्त्वम्

अशक्याः धारणे वयम् |

किं तु मन्यन्ति युष्माभिः

अहमबाधितेति वा ||

Lunar Eclipse

The Moon, she's so bright

Has taken a fortnight to grow

Thinks she'll last fifteen nights

Before she's again no more.

Oh she's such a delight

Beaming on Earth a mellow glow

But of what's in store tonight

So little does she know.

She receives no light

As the planet, in its flow

Moved to block the Sun's sight

And in shadows she's swallowed

The agony, the pain, the fright

The poor Moon is in, oh

A sudden unimagined plight

The sky adorns her no more.

But soon things are set right

As the Earth went on in its course

She's again full and bright

As shadows cleared, so her sorrows.

Recover

Roads, they sure are rough

Me, I am equal and tough.

Incapable, is my body like this

Indomitable, yet, my spirit is.

'nd invincible, is my strength of will

Unrelenting, I shall continue to till.

Until I recover, until I surely heal.

An acrostic describing my ongoing ACL reconstruction rehab.

Special Relativity

Absurd and unreal, reality had appeared

"Would we ever decipher?" they had feared

Until came this young German clerk, with a weird

Theory that had the then world-view jeered.

Time takes longer, he said, lengths become shorter

And mass grows heavier, as things move faster

Thus his theory, which hardly anyone could master

Also predicted that energy is but matter.

Rejecting the notion of absolute spacetime

Postulating the constancy of "c," was Einstein's

Special theory of relativity; it still shines

For it was the sign of birth of modern science.

On the occasion of Albert Einstein's 134th birthday, here's my tribute to the arguably the greatest theoretical physicist and his brain child, the special theory of relativity. In my haste to finish the poem today, I was unable to make it an acrostic.