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?

Counting Privileges

Not born poor

Neither rich

Not born marginalized

Neither a majoritarian

Not born with old money

Neither there is new money

Not born beautiful

Nor very ugly

Neither here

Nor there

Being somewhere

Also nowhere

Neither ultra left

Nor right or far right

Neither a doomsayer

Nor a dreamer

Somewhere in between

Nor a perpetrator

Or a predictor

Nor a victim

Nor cruel

Neither the kindest

Perhaps inbetween

Negotiating space

Counting Privileges

And gratitudes

Neither totally dead

Nor totally alive

Neither absent

Nor present

Somewhere in between

Totally exhausted

Brain fogged

Toiling like Sisyphus

Also being a zombie

Neither seeking

Validation

Nor rejection

Being there

And not being there

Trying to be

And not to be

Breathing in

Gasping out

Counting my privileges

As well as my curses

Silent spectator

Living while dying

Superposed states of being

Adding to almost nothing!!

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!!

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

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…

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

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.