Painful Pleasure

Being an Indian
I love spices and hot chili peppers
As I eat, my mouth is on fire
The more it burns
The more I savor the taste of my curries
And wait in anticipation
Of the next meal
Like a mom waiting to give birth to her baby
To undergo
Moaning, yelling, swearing
And hurt
Only to hear the first cry of the baby
To put him or her to her breasts
And to enjoy the sweetness of hurt
As she brings one to this world.

The sadhanaa (attainment)
The saints, the hermits
The nuns and the priests undergo
By controlling desires,
The bodily needs
Being anti-hedonist
Meditating in summer in a circle of flames
Or sitting on ice slabs in winter time
Fasting, torturing the body
Giving up the carnal desires
To live beyond corporeal
The pain of seeking becomes
The pleasure of finding
Something, some one
That he or she is after

The temporal space
Where the pleasure and pain manifest as ardhanarishwar
(a being half of which is man and the other half woman)
Where stars are seen with closed eyes
By sweating bodies floating in ether
Sipping the red wine of satisfaction
But letting it all go
To experience a slice of paradise
Twitches, screams and tears
become the harbinger of real life
In the land of painful pleasure.

((*.*)

babru

Jan 2010