decadence – Mad Decadence

Hope in the Light

Doomsayers and doomscrollers

Find it impossible to be hopeful

Quite rightly so

Everything that could go wrong

Has indeed gone wrong

And what seems to be right

Seems to be doomed too

It is like being buried

Under the debris of

One’s own making

Being trapped in that

Dark claustrophobic space

With no possibility

Of hope Or light

The only way out is to move

To move towards any

Glimmer of light

Or glimmer of hope

Only in such pitch darkness

Can one meet faint light

Which arrives from nowhere

Almost like a hallucination

Reflecting that elusive hope

Rekindling the dying spirits

Nothing is lost

Till everything is lost

We make it through

Through that dark space

Where we learn hopelessness

Hope always stays hidden within

That hopelessness

Stubborn hope does thrive

All that it needs is a faint light

That glimmer of light

In the kind eyes

Or from a bird’s flight

Or from that distant far away star

Whose light makes it

After a journey of millions of years

Traveling light years

It meets us right in the eye

Making us aware

The dark space isn’t dark

It is made of millions

Millions of stars and kind hearts

Great Floods

Great floods have occurred in the past

No one talks of who triggered it

But we know right from Noah

Who were the saviours

Gods can’t seem to do much

In the drowning world

Where drowned ones

Wait for that one physical and real

Hand to manifest

The hand of the saviours

To pull them out of the debris

To live to tell the tale

Some say it felt like

A great wall of water and sludge

Came towards them

Scenes of apocalypse unfolded

Is the world coming to

An end?

We know there are

Profiteers getting richer

By burning the planet

But ice is ice is ice

With a fixed melting point

A completely non-negotiable one

We have watched for a decade or more

Bargains over 1 degrees or two

But idiots never understood

Glaciers will melt

No gods can save us

From nature’s fury

We transcended the boundaries

Taking earth for granted

Like we take our women too

But everything has a breaking point

Yet we refuse to learn

As long as the poor

Or rich tourists die

Does really matter anymore?

Nor do lives on a narrow strip

Which is getting narrower

Nor do high altitude folks

Who are the first victims

And first responders too

Who is to be held accountable?

For uncountable deaths

We will bear witness

Make films, poetry, stories too

We have all documentation tools

To document the horror

Soon we will walk around

With oxygen masks

As cities turn unliveable

While mountains prone to GLOFs

You escape the noise

To seek peace in higher altitude

Only to get buried under a glacier deluge

No one knows where you disappeared

Lucky ones say Shiva or Jesus or Prophet

Or any god of their calling saved them

No one asks why gods are so selective?

They never punish the perpetrators

They go after the poorest of poor

Trapped in bare minimum cycles of survival

On a larger scale we are in an era

Which might get defined in retrospect

An era hooked to screens

Watching their own collapse

And mountains turning into rivers

Minute by minute

Waiting for saviours

To manifest to save them

From themselves

As we sink into the deluge and debris

Of our own making

When will we learn to act?

Isn’t it too late already?

Betrayals

Time betrays

People betray

Family betrays

Life betrays

You betray yourself too

The true story

Isn’t the words said

The true story

Is never what is seen

It lies in what stays

Unsaid and unnoticed

And in life unlived!!

What betrays silence

Is the word

& what betrays the words

Is the silence

Between said and unsaid

There is a pause

A void so dense

Yet so empty

Bereft of trust and emotions

So finally here we are
Talking about the weather
The most safe topic
Not so long ago
But Alas! No longer is
Who would have imagined this day?
We are not just being
Robbed of a decent weather
But also a safe small conversation
Which now ends up in a rant
Look at the sheer number of folks
Ranting about the European heat wave?
Finally they are getting back at the whites
For not having acs which they never needed
It is equally fun to watch
Europeans learning the ‘DIY’ ways to cool off
Turning the fan away might be just the trick We Indians or rest of the world never learnt
Or putting aluminium foils on the windows
Or using other ways of coping and cooling
Or simply sprinkling water on strangers
Weather is certainly getting
Stranger and stranger
Blowing hot and cold
Bringing rains and droughts
Most of us are ending up
Under the weather
Once upon a time a lovely talking point
Now it’s best avoided
We just cope…we cut trees
We just cope
We buy more cars
We just cope
We wage wars
We just cope
We want all our luxuries
Yet we struggle to cope
We end up on a dream
Summer holidays
Only to find destinations getting hotter
Most tourist spots closed
Our list turns listless
Tired, we feel lucky to find a place
Under the shade
A stranger finally looks at you
And asks how’s the weather?
You paid for this remember?
For that hottest spot
Under the very super hot weather!!

Climate Chaos

Some blame it on nature
The sun’s activity cycles
Some blame it on human activities
Unprecedented cutting of trees
And encroachment of lakes and forests
So I guess Earth is playing it fair
It blows too hot, dry or humid
And just when humans start complaining
It blows hailstorms, cyclones and rains
With water water everywhere
And nowhere for it to go!!

My house help lamented the other day
That I was spending a lot on house plants
She hinted jokingly that money could help poor
Ah!! The fallacy of existence
I could only smile back and say
They were my buddies who gave me free oxygen and beautiful flowers for free
We take the oxygen we breathe much for granted
Just like the clean water we drink
And the gravity and the magnetic field
And also the sun and the moon
And of course our sole planet earth
While we spend billions to find exoplanets
With a hint of the existence of life

Perhaps, we deserve this wrath of nature
To reset our perspectives and context
Nothing is unlimited and forever
And everything follows
The law of reciprocity
Hate begets hate and Love begets love
Eye for an eye has blinded the humanity
Yet we refuse to learn
We make it all about profits and money
Climate chaos will be good for climate insurance

Rich will get richer and poor will become poorer
Except for the few who will be paraded as hope
The model examples of rags to riches tale
The dream after all needs to be sold
To keep nightmare going!!!

Going Solo

It didn’t take long

To go solo

Be it movies

Or restaurants

Or museums

Or a bookstore

Or treks

I don’t even remember

When it began

Perhaps during my college

My long solo commute?

Every daily commuter

Is always alone

Though almost crushed

In a crowded train or bus

There is a constant

Inner talk with self

About a thing

Or millions of things

Or just an empty mind

Too fatigued to think

You don’t need people

When you grow up

So rugged

And then of course

There are betrayals

Of trust and time

Then there was beautiful phase

When my newborn boy

Became my extension

I was never alone

I was his constant

For that tiny life

I had brought forth

Into this chaotic world

I was never alone

Kids never let you be

Unless you play along

So often it would

Be the library or bookstore visits

Where I would sit solo

In line of sight of my boy

Far far away in the kids section

I don’t remember

Who exactly was I

Training to be alone ?

After the boy grew up

And flew off far far away

I made up my mind

To be the solitary reaper

Of my abandoned pursuits

I unearthed my buried self

In place of a girl in 20’s

Out came a woman in her 50’s

More calmer, confident and wiser

Much slower too

How I wish I could reach out

To that girl and tell her to go solo

The world abandons you anyways

Women are supposed to play

A second fiddle in everything

Wish I could spare her from

All the traumas and dilemmas

And of course all the tears

My dark circles are rightfully earned

But here I am in my 50’s

Carrying that abandoned

Spirit of my 20’s

I know it feels absurd

To those who never tried

(Or didn’t have to)

To stand up for oneself

And live for a while

Remember?

We have abandoned our earth too

Who moves solo in the dark space

And then there is the final solo act

When we depart solo!!

Kafkaesque II

Kafka wrote about it

Long before

World turned into

This dystopia that

Pre-dates Orwellian one

Was human condition

Predisposed to be

Such a nightmare?

Making up rules

In the favour of power

At the cost of powerless

Cohen famously sang too

“Everyone knows dice is loaded

And the fight is fixed

The good guys lose

Poor stay poor, and the rich get rich

That’s how it goes”

What kind of a matrix is this?

How do we escape

This labyrinth of our own making ?

We are the predators

We are the preys

Perhaps, human condition

Cannot be redeemed

Even though

Christ has been crucified

Wars have been lost

Upon which religions were built

We are spiralling

Nobody knows

But yet everyone knows

Trials are punishment

You never get a sentence

For what you didn’t do.

But you were charged guilty

And given a Sisyphean task

Of proving your innocence

A lifetime is spent in seeking

Justice and freedom

Validation and acceptance!!

An Ode to A Photographer

Photography is a rare art

Playing with omnipresent

Light and Time

Capturing moments

That transpire magically

Just like a sudden flight of a bird

Or deep pensive prayer of a saint

Or something unsettling

Or maybe deeply political

Just like a dying child staring

At an approaching vulture

These are moments of truth

That transcends Time

A photograph rarely lies

Unless of course it is doctored

To peddle a lie

Ever since it’s invention

There have been warriors

Going to the ends and the depth

To capture beauty and horror

Their gaze becomes

The gaze of the masses

That’s the magic

They turn you

Into them

The gaze changes places

You become the onlooker

Your silence becomes complicity

Life of a photographer

Isn’t an easy one

Trudging with the gears

They make the unseen

And unknown visible

They unravel the truth

That hides in the plain sight

Leaving us to wonder

How did we allow this to happen?

Are we going to do something?

Photographs have changed

The world history

But photographers carry

The burden of Sisyphus

They must push the boulders

And the borders again and again

They must teach

The blind populace to see

And behold the truth

And not turn a blind eye

Again and again

Photographers have turned

Cosmetic over ages

They just indulge in beauty

Safety and narcissism of it

Yet there came along

A rare tall one

With a discerning eye

And deep wisdom

Who could stop the world

With one single photograph

Using simple Light and Time

To paint the undeniable Truth

An ace visual storyteller

Holding the mirror to the world

Leaving for the future

Stories that are imprinted

By light on the frames of Time

And memory forever!!

PS: In remembrance of legendary Raghu Rai who passed on to another realm today

Michael

You danced & sang

And moonwalked

Your way through life

Life that wasn’t easy

Your childhood was lost

You played in gigs

While other kids went to school

You brought home animals

To talk and show love to

Because humans around you

Didn’t always show up

You lived life on your terms

You broke out of the gilded cage

Made by your father, music producers

You called out the truth and the lies

You reached heights and lows

As a black man you rose high

What a white man

could only dream of

Obviously you had to be punished

They had to make

An example out of you

So that no one else would dare

That’s how white world

Keeps things in order

And gets away with every crime

They still are vilifying you

Even after all these years

Killing you again and again

Yet they cannot dim your shine

For you were born a star

With your own stupendous

Creative energy and charm

Which no one could take away

You showed the world

Music was a universal language

That could unite and heal the planet

And just when the world

Is very badly wounded

You have made daring comeback

In your movie posthumously

To teach people to live again

To heal the planet again

To dance and moonwalk

Through tears and smiles

To the music of life!!

Brain Fog

Best words and lines

And the flow of thoughts, ideas

Come to me while

I am walking or teaching

Or while doing some unrelated chores

And then they disappear

Brain fog I guess

Should I guilt trip myself

For not writing them down?

Or maybe a pardon is in order?

After all brain fog isn’t my fault

And it isn’t the brain’s fault either

We keep constantly overloading it

With information, emotions and sentiments

Evoked by hundreds of visuals

And narratives unfolding

Everywhere all at once

One moment we are infuriated

And next moment we laugh

We cry for a bit too

And then we are confused

Most of the time

I guess the brain too gives up on us

Thinking fast, thinking slow

Long term or short term

Cognition and metacognition

How much can it label and segregate?

Neurons too must be overworked

With all the firing and messaging

I try to remember that string of thoughts

Something that got completely lost

While I went on a scavenger hunt

Looking for war, elections and other news

Doomscrolling

I don’t remember knowing these words

During my growing up years

Brainfog, doomscrolling…

Oh wait…what was I planning

To write about?

Ufff I lost the string of thoughts again

Wonder how James Joyce and other

Stream of consciousness writers

Would have fared in this era?

Will there be a new genre?

A genre of brain fogged writings?

For writers who lose their

Stream of consciousness?

Category: decadence