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
Tag: being
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
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
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
The Blue Print
I see confident people around me
Who have figured it all out
Life’s bucket and checklist
The job, insurance, taxes, savings
First home, second home
Third getaway home maybe
The blueprint clear in their heads
There would be assets, things
And family playing their perfect parts
A big happy picture on the wall of life
They know they will get nice funerals
Maybe memorials, epitaphs too
I see all kinds of people around me
Well, who seem to have
Figured it all out
Their days line up
In a disciplined manner
One following the next
Smart alecs – they know
How to cease the moment
They know their politics too
They know whom to hate
Whom to other, games to play
All rules of the game
But then they can’t imagine
Others imperfect lives
With mouths to be fed, roofs to be fixed
Neither do they realise
Beauty and Fragility of life
Stupidity of their whole game
Modern Sisyphus seems happy
Happy to be a smiling cog in the wheel
Turning and turning, without the toil
I see people pretend
They have figured it all out
Even as their world falls apart
They can’t imagine
Someone’s home being razed
Children being killed and maimed
Chaos only comes home
When their lives get disrupted
And the grand plan derails
Like natural cycles
Disasters seem to have a purpose
To restore our hopes, dreams and ideals
It takes an effort to live and love
We somehow miss this simple fact
Till our homes become empty cages
I see people around me
Who seem to have all figured out
Their todays, tomorrows and dayafters
Except for the bits which need love
Compassion and understanding
Except for the fixing, we know everything!
Then the cycle repeats
With fresh blue prints
Which erases yours and mine!
Our Story
It is rather strange
How we get planted
In our own stories
Unintentionally
All characters
However likeable
Or unlikeable
Play their part
A hero
Could be an
An anti-hero
Or vice versa
Characters often
Become variable
Refusing to be
a constant
However chaotic
This drama of our life
We script it
Or it scripts us?
We get planted
Uprooted
Worshipped
And Cursed
For some we
Become breath
Toxic air
For others
Remembering
Forgetting
Othering
Dying
Ironically
We measure
Our lifetime
As Time and not Life
Mad Decadence 