Category: peace

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!!

Imposter Syndrome

In a world

Where judgement

Precedes knowledge

Prejudice before

Understanding

In an era

Where world tries

To make you

Someone else

Weaves a tale

That suits their

Narratives

A world where 

You are a misfit 

You feel naturally

Like an imposter 

In a world 

Everything seems

Staged and performative

A doll’s house perhaps

Anything original

Is constantly doubted

Needing proof

A world which

Keeps validating lies

Creating false narratives

And a cloud of confusion

What else can you feel

But an imposter?

There are masks

Behind masks, underneath masks

Agendas hiding agendas

Like Martyoshka dolls

All identical and empty

A riot of shamelessness

Arrogance of patriarchy

What else can you be?

But an Imposter

Shape shifting, flowing

Trying to fit in

But feeling half empty

And also overwhelmed

You didn’t ask for this ride

You didn’t ask for these lies

Or these false narratives

Not sure who is

Hallucinating here

Me or you ?

Or who is the imposter?

Me? Or You?

Or the humanity itself!!

Possibilities

It is difficult to be optimistic

Some always see

half glass empty

Because it is empty

Emptiness is overwhelming

And it consists of suffering

And all kinds of lacks

A cruel void

But it also presents

Immense possibilities

There is a space to fill

There is a space that can change

However grim realities are

Change is always a possibility

It just happened in Hungary

Before it came to Nepal, Bangladesh

Common young people turned up

In streets and in polling booths

They did not stare at the void

And the status quo

They decided to upturn the glass

That’s the tipping point

One country at a time is reaching

Rekindling hope against all hope

For possibilities against

What seems impossible

History shows tyrants were defeated

There is an overwhelming evidence

We know the half empty glass

Can be filled with hope

And unknown possibilities

We need courage to

Keep trudging

To live with and without

To believe

And to simply show up

When possibilities emerge!!

Love

A Noun?

A Verb?

An Adjective?

Human value?

Emotion?

Attachment?

Attraction?

Respect ?

Friendship?

Kinship?

Dopamine?

Oxytocin?

Validation?

Affection?

Admiration?

Desire?

Conditional?

Unconditional?

Affection?

Romance?

Platonic?

Narcissism ?

Passion?

Adoration?

Devotion?

Compassion?

Sympathy?

Obsession?

Lust?

Greed?

Love encompasses all, takes various forms… yet no one understands it…

PS: Have I missed something? Do add..

Ceasefire

As the whole world holds its breath

As the threat of annihilation looms large

As brave people brace themselves

For the final showdown with death itself

Bunch of men proclaim

“Ceasefire!!!”

Such an easy convenient word

Why did it take so long?

One just has to cease

And step back

No one needs to call off the war

This game is paused for the next level

After all it increases views, stocks and profits

And weapons industry sells quite well

The biggest reality show of current times

Boom!! Just after ceasefire

There was much fire elsewhere

While the negotiations were still being read

There has to be a twist in the war drama

Well, the whole bloody drama is twisted!!

No one knows who is winning or losing

I guess it doesn’t matter anymore

Let the game go on…

While the desolate moon, sun

And a bunch of astronauts

Behold the beautiful Earth

Blue and white…pristine marble

Moving in the dark empty space

Silently miles miles away

Human life does seem a miracle

Till it turns itself into a curse!!

Courage

Tonight I want to talk

About the courage

Courage of those who are

Facing imminent fatal threats

As fear looms large

No one is talking about leaving

Or fleeing the war

It has been a pattern

Among all the nations under attack

No one is leaving to make conquest easy

Tonight we need to talk about this courage

Courage of common people

Who take the batterings

Who are easy civilian targets

Yet they refuse to leave or flee

They bury their children and kin

They live in refugee camps 

They return back to the rubbles

To rebuild again and again

As long as the ceasefire lasts

They stand up to

The truth and power

While every powerful nation chooses silence

They don’t leave or flee

Their ancestral land and home

Despite all indignity and threats

They keep showing up as human chains

They keep recording

And collecting evidence

In the hope that civility and peace

Will return again

And one day wars

Will become redundant

Tonight let’s talk about the courage

The courage of four astronauts

Who flew furthest from the earth

To the dark side of the moon

To watch unseen craters and an eclipse

Perhaps knowing well

Their mission will be eclipsed

By the war and fear mongering

They saw our beautiful blue planet

Knowing very well how bad the things are

Yet they speak of One Earth

Tonight let’s talk about the courage

Courage in the face of the fear and death

Tonight I don’t want to

Write the saddest or angry lines

I want to stand in solidarity with those

Who are being relentlessly attacked

If they have the courage to hope

To bear it all and fight back

And have guts to die

What we think or do is inconsequential

Their land, river and mountains 

Will remember them

As a resilient civilization

I will just hope

Hoping against hope

This exemplary courage will win

It has to win against the evil

Fear is not even a choice

Fear was never a choice!!

Unkept Promises

Every Peace treaty

Every marriage

Every relationship

Every dysfunctional family

That fails

Has a history

Of Unkept promises

Promises which did not

Pass the test of time

There should be

A proper closure

For unkept promises

Or else they turn into deep wounds

They grow like cancer

Occupying spaces

Leaving no breathing room

They are like unseen

Elephants in the room

Which are never addressed

The room where

Where adults play

The game of pretend

Lies and amnesia

While teaching their youngs

Lessons of morals, values

And promises…

That promises are meant to be kept!!

Poetry Ai’nt Luxury

If poetry were a luxury

Afforded by only few

The world wouldn’t have known

Realities of poverty, hunger and war

That lament of loss and grief

Poetry ain’t luxury

Thankfully

A little girl hiding in an attic

With just a paper and pen

Multitudes of thoughts and emotions

Finds an alternative realm

Realm of words and emotions

Those damn slaves, those blues singers

Poetry freed them from slavery

Songs and poetry of protests

Gave language, words and idioms

To the oppression and violence they endured

Poetry gave the moon and stars 

Silver linings another meaning

Metaphors for hopes, love and loss

There wouldn’t be lullabys

There won’t be haikus

Long and short

Lyrical and free verse

Had poetry been a luxury

It belongs to those who own it

A craft they are willing to hone it

It says much even in its pauses

Brevity is its expanse

Poetry is a friend

Who walks along

Encouraging one to face life

It is like those fallen and trampled flowers

A true evidence of life lived and unlived.

Stranger

A stranger stares at me

Whenever I look at the mirror

A school girl with two pigtails

A college goer

A trekker

A writer

Stranger takes many forms

All forms seem

Like a figment of imagination

The mirror itself has gone missing

The images are stuck in my head

My self tries to time travel

I climb the hills

But I go out of breath

The pigtails are gone too

A writer perhaps still thrives

Who will keep record

Of all these strangers?

They grew up with me

And then abandoned me

Or maybe I abandoned them

It’s not just them or me

The world has become a stranger too

Victims have turned perpetrators

Little children no longer grow old

To stare at the mirror

To remember their many strange selves

As we go further to discover

Ever expanding edges of the Universe

We seem to be collapsing

Just like those stars running out of hydrogen

We are made of star dust after all

Stars taught us to go nuclear perhaps

Just like a habitat with prey and predators

We continue to live in a concrete jungle

Though roles get reversed in every epoch

Predators become prey

Hunted turn into hunters

How long will it take for us

To be humans?

Mirror has no answers

My many selves and versions

Collapse into one too

The one that is trapped

Behind the mirror or screen perhaps

A virtual self…a stranger

Stares back at me!!