you find time when you make it

Pioneer, Martyr, Armchair Extraordinaire
by Rishik Menon



And man was born to dream
Cause life was made with strife
How suitable for the everyman
Cant possible be denied. But
His visions could not fit, it seemed,
Alas! Larger than life!


---
Its just you and me, now, old man
by Rishik Vijay Menon



You taught me,
(being a teacher and all)
that dreams and life
need not be
so separated
as jacket on a book,
as cap on a pen, or
as heart to the hand
or rather; you penned
onto me
the simple notion,
belief, that both
dreams and life
were meant to compliment
each other
(jackets and hats off)
like ink off the letters
off words off the pages.
cause either simply didnt
make as much sense without
the other, and rather
than compromise
with pages wanting writing
and a life of something missing
cut the losses from
the get go, and let go
of fiscal ambition
that leads the hand on
to the endless listless
dictate of hollow penmanship
lines after pines
after lines
after lines.



and so you planted
(being a gardener and all)
those amorphous seed cones
of a hope of a vision
to keep my dreams
fastened to what space
my life may have led
me to, and ride on those pages
of white flurry in such an
indistinguishable blur
that no one may be the wiser
as to which image was meant
for what metaphor,
and when did the dream end
and where the life began.
and what a prospect that
was to be indeed.
oh what a prospect
and how extreme.


but You dared to fail
(being a maverick and all)
and rode out against a world
where the words
'paper chase' bears a
meaning unlike of
that held by you or I.
but thats really besides
the point, and the views
of 600 mean next to nothing
to the fact of inspiring
the life of one child.
and you dared do that too.
so, while the others
became too busy
laying their flat A4
sheets and mask
to cover their
crude reality
like the face paint
of the geisha
you sought for something
of an unpretentious
answer, and rather than
diverting, decided to
breathe life and magic,
to the sweat and breeze
of your childhood and
honest tales and escapades
were spun and dyed with such
quick wit and local colour,
that I grew up learning to see
that the beauty and charm
that had surrounded the
worlds of foreign fiction
had a home in my life too.
and such a mixture of
the morbid with elegance
the wry with magniloquence
that the boldness of your
expression scarred an impression
and legacy of a life
that was meant to be lived
into what i knew i had to do.


you had it all
and you had scarcely
even begun.
but instead
you gave me everything
(being a father and all)
and i can never ask
for anyone more
and all i can do is say im thankful
and im really thankful
for all that you are.

---