Category: life

War – A Grim Reality Show

It almost unfolds live

On Social Media

On Television

Whipping emotions

As short lived

Till the next reel or news

There is a race

Turn it into an epic

Before the elections

Even before it ends

Scriptwriters have no clue

How will it end?

Or will it end at all?

Who has the controls?

Nations who are sparring?

Or nations who sell

Arms and weapons

To both sides fairly?

Is this an long over due upgrade?

Of war technology?

Old stocks need to be used or sold

For the new ones replace them

Weapons lead to wars

Or wars lead to weapons?

Damn the vicious cycle!

Everyone wants to stay in power

Even when they don’t have any

Wars and revolutions rarely go by the script

They often go rogue, off the script

Resilience and resolute is never factored in

Soldiers become immune to killing

And civilians learn to mourn the loss

They understand they are

Important but

Unacknowledged collaterals

Unbelievable!

What a techno-feat!

We witnessed and debated genocide

Inbetween binge watching shows

Even if war comes home

We will watch it on screen

Not realising the proximity

In denial glued to the screens

Life must go on after all

Everything is for greater good

Even the greater evils!!

The Bell


For Whom will the bell toll?
In fond remembrance
Of ones we lost?
Or for us who lived?

The bells can no longer
Keep the count perhaps
The bell no longer tolls

Where are the Hemingways and Orwells?
The ones who toiled
In armies and in kitchen
To write about how it felt
To hear those bells

For whom will the bell toll now?
And how long?
Wars are unending
Ceasefires rarely cease fire

The bells can no longer
Keep the count
Of who is on which side
Who is the winner or loser?

And whom should it toll for?
The ones who lost yet won
Or ones who won yet lost
The bell no longer tolls

There are mourners
But no graves
There are lovers
But no love

For whom will the bell toll?
For you and me
Or for the one who went away
And who can no longer hear

Time has set itself free
It doesn’t count anymore
How can it possibly measure?
What we no longer value

6/3/25
Bangalore

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!!

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