If there were life elsewhere
With a different Time flow
A day lived in a second perhaps
A year going by in 365 seconds
Shortlived precious life
Much to be done in milliseconds
Much to behold in minutes
Years going by sooner, wilting us
But what if instead
A day was stretched to a month
A year going on and on
Long lived, Turtle life
Maybe wars would have
Ended sooner
If time went by faster than
The weapons could be made
But if the Time slowed down
We would be lingering away
Too tired of long drawn wars
Exhausting all natural resources
Maybe everyone dead
And civilization was born again
And again, either way
Messing it up in newer ways
That’s the trick with time
It keeps us wondering
What if…what if
Unhappy, seeking, lost
We avoid What is…
The finiteness of our being
In the infiniteness of time
We delude ourselves
With immortality of soul
We choose What Ifs
Over What Is
Ignoring the beauty and love
The momentary transience
We trade it all
With Dante’s inferno
Imagination, intellect, beauty and love
Reduced to insatiable lust
For hate, anger, desire and power
Category: peace
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!!
Kaleidoscope
Escaping with little
Leaving home behind
A refugee in the world
Only a sky and courage to behold
Empty mansions
Tired caretakers
Only wealth to behold
A hostage to greed
Twain realities coexist
Yet they never meet
Peace is easy to violate
War remains difficult to negotiate
Ah! World…so predictable
With no new way ahead
We trudge the known bloody paths
Self-similar war games
Us and them
Power bereft of reason
Reason bereft of compassion
Compassion bereft of love
Love bereft of logic
Logic bereft of purpose
A farce called out
Wit bored of sarcasm
Futile cynicism
Kaleidoscope needs to be shaken
A new pattern must unfold
Out of all brokenness…
My favourite spot
It is easy to imagine
You are sipping
Your morning tea
On your favourite spot
Reading your book
And suddenly
It’s all reduced
To rubbles
Except the place
Where you are sitting
In your favourite spot
You look for elevator
You need stairs
You need to run
Ground beneath feet
Did shake
And now it’s just you
On a high rise
With roof blown
Staring in disbelief
Incredibly lucky? Isn’t it?
To be perched precariously
To watch the scene change
Within seconds
You don’t know
Is it a nightmare?
Where did this missile come from?
When did the war reach my home
Till yesterday I was a civilian
A honest tax paying citizen bystander
When I did I turn into a victim?
A witness to such horror?
Do they even know I am alive?
My dear and near ones who
Probably are watching TV
Sitting in their favourite spot
Will they count me among the dead?
With no signal, no electricity or kitchen
I will have to wait
With this rage, confusion
Fear and grief
Why were we abandoned?
Who abandoned us?
The governments? UN? God?
Will this attack bring peace?
Cease-fire atleast ?
Nations will spar
Deads will be numbered
And not named
Living ones will have no names
Only identities
Suspended in disbelief
I wonder if the house
Was it insured for missile attacks?
But was this an official attack?
Will there be a paper work?
How will they prove?
Everyone will spin the narratives
We are good in condemning
What we cannot prevent
Words, words and more words
Us and them
We forget – they made us
And we made them
Imagine, it is not too difficult
Planet on the brink of extinction
But till the end money needs to be made
Stocks to be bought and sold
No need to see what companies do
Buy and sell
As long as they bring in dividends
Was this missile made by you and me?
Play the probability game
The answer may be infinitesimal
But finite
Ofcourse we didn’t know
Where our money went
Taxes and investments
We were just doing jobs
Building our homes
A place to be
With a favourite spot
To sit, sip and read
To plant our succulents
I look around
My spot, books, succulents
All are there
But rest all is destroyed
Reduced to a pile of contrete
They will find me
They need to mourn
And avenge!
26/10/23
Love and Hate
Hate could
Learn lessons
From immortal
Love
How to hold
It all in
Till the
Heart breaks
How to turn
Away coldly
And never
Look back
You don’t
Need a knife
Just words
Are enough
Hate could
Learn lessons
From Immortal
Immoral Love
How to
Let go
And not
Fight for
How to wait
Till it comes
To knock
On the door
Hate just
Wastes it all
By losing
The battles
For in wars
Hate just
Blinds you
Fools you
Love recognises
The other
Who stands
With the sword
Love knows
How to embrace
And defeat
All the hate
Hate just frets
Fumes and
Builds the rage
To go on rampage
Love remains
Immortal
Tiny cry of life
For Life itself
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
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
Silence and the Darkness
When silence becomes deafening
And the words hide in the dark
Slowing erasing history
I try to figure out their forms
Or meaning or language
Nothing emerges
It’s a dark dense space
Nothing is visible
Nor is audible
I wait
Maybe words are being born
Maybe a new reality is taking a form
What if it’s a monster that’s in the making?
What if the silence is made of inaudible screams?
As the world looks away in faith
Blinded by the festive lights
I will hang on to my doubts
I shall still try to listen to sounds of silence
And try to peer into dark abyss
With or without hope
Chains of Liberation
You ask “Why don’t you dance with joy?
There have been infinite invisible chains around my feet
I never knew that I was supposed to undo them one by one
I kept them all ‘as gifts’
I waited for some loving hands to undo them
I didn’t know I have to undo them myself
One day you came along
And laughed at me…
You reached down my feet
But ended up adding one more chain
Now I struggle to undo them one by one
Only one of them can’t be undone
It’s the ‘chain of liberation’
Which you gave me as a farewell gift!!!
Mad Decadence 