Category: time

What Ifs…


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

Time Stood Still


Time stood still
We giggled and giggled
Like a pair of good old kids
But in their fifties

Time Stood still
As we stared at those benches
In the front of the canteen
Where we often sat and sang

Time has stood still
In that college campus
When pleaded the guard
To let us in

We went back in Time
Through those gates
Perhaps to seek our younger
Gullible, ugly and clueless selves

We patted on their backs
For making it through 
For finding each other
To make up lost time

But who knew
All sand was about to slip
In that damn hourglass
For one of us

What a chance it was
That we took
Instead of standing each other up
We finally showed up

And we made the Time
Re-wind and replay it all
We relived our nostalgia
And made fresh memories

Re-unions are the sweetest
They take us back in Time
To meet ourselves and find love
Even if it is for one last time!

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!!

Ah! AI

Ah! AI

Ah! The clamour for supremacy
Race for Artificial Intelligence
While we lose natural traits
Along with all kinds of intelligence

In this game of supremacy
All are falling behind
Be it China, US, UK or name any
All bear the similar shame

Shame of bartering poor lives
Trading away dreams
Violating privacy
Outraging modesty

In this magnificent churn
Of algorithms and time
Wonder who will survive
When the planet dies?

Let us pause out
Take a time out
Remove our heads
From the sand

Information ain’t knowledge
Machines aren’t human
Money isn’t the end game
Neither is power

When empires topple
It is the poor rebels
Who make it alive
While tyrants flee

Time spares none
Not even the sun or stars
We are mere mortal
Accidental stardust!

– Jan 2025
Bangalore

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?