Random Musings

Yet another new year
Is back with the old baggage
Of fears and cautions
Prejudices and bigotry
Lurking shadows of
Diseases and death

They tell us
To hang on
To seek hope in
Science and prayers
Look for silver linings
And healings
Lost love
And musings

While prejudice kills peace,
And pride our compassion
While hate spreads
Like wildfire
Our comforts get
Traded and sold

While we lose our voice
And rights
Like Jesus
Or phoenix
Maybe they will rise
Just like balloons
Filled with their breath

Those little street urchins
They bear testimony of
Our collective failures,
Our naked emperors
Maybe their balloons display
Everyone’s lost smiles!!

#2022

Disbelief

We stare in disbelief
At life that slips away
Who knew just a breath
All that it takes to be alive

We stare in disbelief
At all the lives
Washed ashore
Becoming nation's memories

We close our eyes in disbelief
When we cannot take it anymore
Confined in our safe homes
We turn into living ghosts

We stare in disbelief
As humanity fades away
We who love wars and winners
Are the tired vanquished lot

We stare in disbelief
As leaders trade away our lives
And our deaths
To build their empire of glory















Storm and Me

The storm has abated

Did what it can
Shattered my existence
Where do I begin?
How do I pick these pieces?
There is no ground
Under the feet
It’s all water
The roof over my head
Has blown off
Whatever I held close
Simply floated away
Some with water
Other with the wind
How do I get my life back?
How do I prove I am me?
How do I show?
Where my mud house stood?

It’s all gone
Either with water
Or with the wind
Did you hear howling winds?
Did you see the waves rise?
Those uprooted trees?
My uprooted life?
No, you wouldn’t notice
You were all locked in
Blind and deaf
Till they cleared it all
There is no sign left
Of howling winds
Of broken homes
Of my lost past
I too ask
Am I me?

amphan #cycloneamphan

Spin

What kind of a spin is it?
What goes around, does come around
Yet, its never the same!

Laws teach nothing is lost
Yet, much cannot be retrieved
The top is also below
A walk on the mobius strip

In a world so self-similar
Nothing is familiar
For – What is, is never,
What really it is!

What we know, is actually,
Only the depth of the unknown
And that bond also decides the drift

Stuck on a blue planet in a vast abyss
Where war literally is sold as peace
I wonder,
What kind of a spin is it?

Lost Humanity

Scavenging under the rubbles
She looked for humanity
It was yet another day of
Strategic bombing

They tried to flee in vain
From guns and grenades
And bombs
And landmines
And beastly men

Death was everywhere
In every form
It caught up with all
Even those who escaped these
Troubled shores

She kept scavenging for humanity
Under the rubbles
Of the wasteland
Many died
For the sake of few
Who wanted to live

It was a lost battle
Under the rubbles
She scavenged
For dead humanity

The Blue Door

There is a blue door at end of the road. People say it’s the door to the happiness.  One can hear laughter and songs, but no one is ever seen crossing the threshold. Neighborhood believes that all the peace and happiness has got locked behind the blue door. No one knows who has locked all the joy away but the sadness and anger that is left behind is quite palpable.

As one walks down the road, one can hear screams of the locked lunatic sibling coming from an attic of one house. They say he lost his mind over a girl who was forced to marry someone from her clan. From another house one can hear heart rending lament of a mother whose only child has gone missing. A misogynist cop rants and screams in the other one, ordering his wife and children who tremble with fear. A young girl screams hysterically in the next one whenever she hears a footstep, “They are coming for me. Save me.”

The town has a church, a temple, synagogue and a mosque where prayers are held daily. Everyone prays for peace and prosperity that they think is locked elsewhere behind the Blue door. They all hold each other’s faith in doubt. They all live in constant fear and pride of their gods. They fight and attack each other relentlessly. It feels as though they are compelling their gods to compete in a race to gain the highest glory and power of the land (just like they wanted the children to compete once upon a time). Sadly, they have managed to drive both gods and children away.

After prayers everyone returns to the little hell they have managed to create. The Blue door remains shut forever. In their fight, hatred and bigotry, the town has forgotten that the gods have left key to the door with them – the key that opens only when there is love and kinship.

Howling Winds

It was in the news

Cyclonic storm was on its way

They did what they could

To prevent the disaster

They monitored the eye and the tail

There it was circulating,

feeding on winds

And gathering momentum

It all seemed calm on the shores

Till the waves began to move faster

It came closer,

Sounds of the howling winds

Made it all real

Everyone knew

All preparations were made

All estimates looked good

But there was no way to assess

The damage it did

Young ones quivered in fear

Homeless knew they will be

Unaccounted ones

Lonely man walked on the street

Unaware of the perils

No one had told him to be safe

He took shelter under the very tree

That crushed him minutes later

Howling winds

Harbingers of death

Preyed on lonely, helpless

And homeless

Farmers lamented as

Entire harvest got washed away

No one realised

Storm was our harvest

By feeding Earth, wind and seas

Our anger, disgust, greed,

wastes, pollutants and hatred

Cyclonic storm just churned it all.around

And returned what we had reaped

With anger and vengeance

Winds, earth and sea turned hostile

Howling winds perhaps were warning us –

“Don’t be a bully

It all can all boomerang very badly!! “

Seeking the Moon

I seek the moon tonight

With thousands of others

From my window

Caged momentarily tonight

In my cell window

Moon too looks desolate

And Persecuted

Was I persecuted for

Beholding the Moon?

My parents at my faraway home

Me, at my detention centre

Along thousands of refugees,

Illegal immigrants

And activists around the world

All are looking at the Moon

Moon smiles as ever grimly

Bonded forever to the Earth

Spinning with twined destiny

It tells me

We all need to wait

There is no easy way

To Salvation

And Freedom

Other

Peasants will rise
They will sing
They will protest
They will take bullet
They will save democracy
While we will fret
And intellectualize!

Educated middle classes
Don’t you worry
These whom you ‘other’
Will save your jobs too
They don’t need you
But you do
To reap crops,
Cook your food
Cobble your shoes
Tailor your clothes,
Build your homes
Clean your homes
Toilets and cars too!!

After the revolution
They will still come
And assume their lowly jobs
While you will rot in your guilt
Or die with a foolish smug!
History textbooks will talk of them
But you will be mentioned
As the ‘other’ who let the system down!!

#saynotohate

Time

Time is wrapped
We move forward
But yet in circles

A new beginning
Another New Year
All dots
On the circles

Time is a trap
An endless wrap
Moving forward
Yet in circles

Histories repeat
Dictators return
But tyrant
Time
Beats them all

Let us not despair
No one colour or
One faith can
Rule Forever

Light refracts
Even through
The Prism of Religion
Into a Rainbow

All mighty forever
Will bite the dust
As children of soil
Will rise yet again

Time goes in circles
Some look ahead
Forgetting the wrap
Others who look behind
Fall in the trap

There is no way
Back into the womb
Only death awaits
Ahead

Time moves forward
While moving in circles
Maybe Sisyphus is happy
For he knows
The clock ticks…