Author: Madhuri Katti

I am an aspiring writer, photographer and a school Teacher. I like to step beyond borders to find corridors for exchange of thoughts, information on issues which transcend borders...

A Place Called Home

For some it’s a place to return to

For some it is a place to escape from

For some it is a place they cannot return

And for some it is a place they cannot escape

A Place Called Home

That illusive space in time

Where we think we belong

The place to fight for

Or die for

A Place where we wake up

And go to sleep

A space where we thrive

It becomes an identity

Pride and asset

A place called Home

Yet it doesn’t take much

To tear it down

The home of your childhood

Or to lose it to the occupiers

Who too think it is theirs

A Place Called Home

Wars are fought and lost

A lifetime is spent as refugee

What remains is in our memories

And in imagination that illusive space

A Place called Home

Where I am me

Unapologetic me

A place where we can be

Let alone in peace

To go on with our daily drudgery

Watch our flowers bloom

While I looked for it

A place called Home

I didn’t realise

I was home within me 

On this planet 

Which is our home

We often fail to protect 

While fighting to save our idea 

Of a place called Home 

Unseen


They are in plain sight
Yet they are invisible
They are dismissed
Ignored, unloved
By life itself

Who condemns them
To remain unseen
Unheard and unknown?
Just like blank spaces
In between words

Once you erase them
All sentences seem
Gibberish
Blank spaces that filled in
Also gave meaning

Alas! Life too needed
Such lives
unseen, invisible
Lurking around
Humiliated

Blank spaces
Humiliated by words
Unseen in sentences
Yet giving meaning to
Those very words

When will we learn
To respect
Those unseen
Invisible
But essential?

15th Feb, Bangalore

My Dear City…

What do I say to you

My dear city?

Should I regret the joys

I was robbed of ?

Or should I thank you for

Gifting me a new me?

I have smiled and cried too

On these shores of the sea

The sea that you seem to hide

I came around a full circle

What I thought was a closure

Became a spiral

Yet I am back here

Asking no questions

Nor seeking any answers

Your hidden vast shores

Are welcoming as always

As though waiting to hear

My song again!!

Ah! AI

Ah! AI

Ah! The clamour for supremacy
Race for Artificial Intelligence
While we lose natural traits
Along with all kinds of intelligence

In this game of supremacy
All are falling behind
Be it China, US, UK or name any
All bear the similar shame

Shame of bartering poor lives
Trading away dreams
Violating privacy
Outraging modesty

In this magnificent churn
Of algorithms and time
Wonder who will survive
When the planet dies?

Let us pause out
Take a time out
Remove our heads
From the sand

Information ain’t knowledge
Machines aren’t human
Money isn’t the end game
Neither is power

When empires topple
It is the poor rebels
Who make it alive
While tyrants flee

Time spares none
Not even the sun or stars
We are mere mortal
Accidental stardust!

– Jan 2025
Bangalore

Pick Yourself Up

Life teaches

How to pick

Yourself up

Along with all

The broken pieces

Of your heart

And your being

One just needs

To be patient

Those life lessons

Are like strewn clues

Hidden in a flower

Or a bleak star

In the night sky perhaps

Or on the dark side

Of the moon

When pushed

To a corner

Or into an abyss

Don’t quit

But rebel

Your life puzzle

Maybe undone

With pieces missing

But new pieces

Are strewn around you

Pick those up

Try to find

A grander puzzle

Or a greater purpose

Or just be

An unseen gardener

Toiling away

For the new seeds

To germinate

Pick yourself up

Don’t give up

Yet.

20/1/2025

Boulders

Gambling away
One’s own life
Taking risks
Leap of faiths
Seeking
The unknown  

But gambling away
Others lives?
Especially our children’s
Thinking we own it
Is always dangerous
And wrong 

A young aspirant
Gave up
So did the other and another
Fathers said
Fans need to be banned
Anti suicide device
Need to be checked

Let us control
All the factors
Look for loopholes
The peripherals
While avoiding
The truth

Sisyphus facing the
Heaviest boulders
Dared to pause
And not push
Not realising
It is not a choice
He or she had

Who decides
Size of the boulder?
Boulder of expectations
We unwittingly
Force our kids
To inherit

Boulders
Which crush them
Then we call them
Idiots who quit
We look for others
To blame
For our collective shame

Perhaps
It is the time
To imagine
Our young Sisyphus
Unhappy
With boulders and crucifixes
Of our expectations

– Jan 2025

What will become of us?

Maybe the culprits and reasons are the same so are the innocent victims. Be it Gaza, Ukraine, Manipur and other conflicts or wildfires in elite neighborhoods of Hollywood. It is a skewed idea of entitlement, unchecked growth and greed. To feel entitled to encroach and occupy – not just other nations but also nature. To completely disregard basic tenets of human existence and Nature. To stop being human to create luxuries out of miseries at the cost of the environment.

What will become of you and me are in the images of the world today. The destructive progress will reach our homes too before we know it. Natural elements like earth, fire, water and air will try to tame the shrews we have become. Earthquakes here, snowfall there, wildfire here and floods, landslides there – we refuse to read the messages they bring just like we refuse to learn from the history of hate and war.

What will become of you and me isn’t hard to imagine…we no longer even persevere and aspire to leave a peaceful and safe planet for our children. What will become of us and them?

Turn of Tides

Waiting for the tides to turn
When and where exactly do the tides turn?
When the river rushes downstream to meet the sea?
Or when sea water surges in one long big wave?
Which of the two will flood the banks?
They say glaciers are melting
Sea levels will rise and rivers too will swell
Wonder how much land will be swallowed by the waters?
And what will be left behind?
I hear the unrest of the sea of humans
They too are waiting for tides to turn
For some it will bring in fortunes
Others may simply drown
But no one knows which way will the tides turn
Whether the river will rush downstream
Or a long sea wave will hit upstream?
Everyone pretends to be in control
Unaware how their actions affect the other
While we were watchful of water waves
A fire engulfed a forest somewhere
Humans rushed to save animals and
Animals taught humans love and empathy
Maybe that’s the game
To return to one’s own self and roots
One must brave the surging seas, the fire and vanishing forests
Fighting natural elements is tough
But tougher it is to battle one’s own kind
Who believes that my end will turn their fortune tide
The fool can’t foresee the surge will drown us all!
The river bank watches yet another epic battle
Ah! The vicissitudes of Time and Tide!

time #river #sleeplessnight #poetry #tides #climatechange #empathy #love #protests #shotononeplus #blues #riverbank

The Blue Print

I see confident people around me
Who have figured it all out
Life’s bucket and checklist

The job, insurance, taxes, savings
First home, second home
Third getaway home maybe

The blueprint clear in their heads
There would be assets, things
And family playing their perfect parts

A big happy picture on the wall of life
They know they will get nice funerals
Maybe memorials, epitaphs too

I see all kinds of people around me
Well, who seem to have
Figured it all out

Their days line up
In a disciplined manner
One following the next

Smart alecs – they know
How to cease the moment
They know their politics too

They know whom to hate
Whom to other, games to play
All rules of the game

But then they can’t imagine
Others imperfect lives
With mouths to be fed, roofs to be fixed

Neither do they realise
Beauty and Fragility of life
Stupidity of their whole game

Modern Sisyphus seems happy
Happy to be a smiling cog in the wheel
Turning and turning, without the toil

I see people pretend
They have figured it all out
Even as their world falls apart

They can’t imagine
Someone’s home being razed
Children being killed and maimed

Chaos only comes home
When their lives get disrupted
And the grand plan derails

Like natural cycles
Disasters seem to have a purpose
To restore our hopes, dreams and ideals

It takes an effort to live and love
We somehow miss this simple fact
Till our homes become empty cages

I see people around me
Who seem to have all figured out
Their todays, tomorrows and dayafters

Except for the bits which need love
Compassion and understanding
Except for the fixing, we know everything!

Then the cycle repeats
With fresh blue prints
Which erases yours and mine!