Tag: brokenness

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!!

A Fall

All it takes is a fall

To rise again

We haven’t reached

The tipping point yet

Where words

Will eventually give up

Their meanings

All languages will fail

To express the pain and gratitude

All the love will be a foregone conclusion

And death?

It is now a  kids play

Their playmate doll dies

Just like their friends did

They know the rituals

They know the burials

Death seems so routine

Mourning has turned

Into a celebration

What else can we do?

Except for changing

Our perspectives

We are running out of

Perspectives and paradigms too

There are no masks

Emperors take pride

In their nakedness

That brave little boy

Has been buried

They don’t care even if

They are called out

It will take big fall

For the humanity

To rise again

We haven’t fallen

Enough yet!!

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!!

Joan of Arc

Though there is ample evidence

That we were the harvesters, gatherers

While men went hunting and gaming

Maybe we were cave artists too

Though there is an ample evidence

That we did the ground calculations

For ambitious space missions

Carried out fatal experiments

To figure out x rays, radioactivity and

Even the DNA structure

Though there is evidence

That most anonymous writers

Too were women

They were also those wives, sisters, sister in laws and whores

Which gave the world stupendous art

Yet women have been historically ignored

Cast aside, taken for granted

Treated as a doormat 

While men ran their victory laps

As they stood on the podium 

The tray bearers were the women too

There is ample overpowering evidence

That we birthed the entire humanity

Every evil soul who masquerades as saviour

Started life in a mother’s womb

The very female sex whom he ended up

Exploiting, killing and silencing

How did we end up here?

Are we truly the weaker kind?

Or just too kind? Or too conditioned?

Passing on the intergenerational trauma

And patriarchy in equal measures

No wonder we end up being hated a lot

For trading freedom for freedom

That’s the only real deal for us

Be unfree, free, unfree, free

To be or not to be

We truly can’t distinguish between choices

There isn’t any escape route

From this foul role-play

We regale it in and we ace it too!!

After all we just have to call it day

And decide not to give birth

And watch homes and government scramble

With incentives and perks

We can pull off a demographic shift

Yet these imbecile fools

Disrespect and disrobe us

Rape and kill as per their will

There seems to be no end in sight

We are still in the recognition stage

Recognising the inequality

Still debating that patriarchy 

Is the ultimate design

No wonder Joan of Arc

Was called a witch and burnt at stake

Only to be venerated later

As a patron saint and saviour

This game is too old

Can we move to the next level?

We refuse to be recognised in retrospect

We dare you to practice equality

Take those baby steps

Remember we women are good at it

To teach those baby steps

Watch you falter

Give us a chance to make you

A better human or maybe at least a human!!

Photo courtesy: My son, Anuran. This was clicked at Orleans where Joan of Arc led the war to save France.

Unheard Screams

She was out on the streets

Screaming about horrors

That went on inside a mansion

No one believed her

Women are always

Hysteric they thought

Before her there was another

A super model

Who tried to tell the truth

She was packed off

To the psychiatric ward

A filmmaker tried too

He died before

The world saw his edited film

Which felt like his perverse imagination

All this while

For decades men and women

Of power and influence

Kept mum even when they knew

They all partied, built a horrific reality

That the world thought was

Just a perverse imagination

They maimed, harmed and killed

In the name of fun and longevity

It took a whole generation

Of abused and trafficked kids to grow up

To call it all out, fight endless legal battles

Die mysteriously in the process

To bring it all to the light

With all evidence for everyone to see

Yet the world is numb

The perverse spy network

That controlled the world

Still thrives in money and power

Telling people to move on

Screaming only stocks and race

Money and influence matters

A handful few perverts

Reminding us that torture chambers

Continue to exist, cruelty never dies

In war between good and evil

Evil always has the ugliest loud laugh

While goodness stands shackled

Maimed, trafficked and brutally abused

No one believes the goodness anymore

What good does it serve to be good?

What kind of a rot is this? 

Where screams of vulnerable

Women and children

Often go unheard

While men continue to flaunt

Their naked positions and power

Through utter cruel perversity

Shame on this selective

Deaf, dumb and blind world

Was it all like this forever?

Was free world, an illusion

That was sold to us?

Just like puppets we dance

While the screams go unheard

We scroll past all the horrors

To pause at delicate flowers

Or wellness reels

How many steps did you walk today?

Far too Long…

It takes far too long

To figure out the right from wrong

It takes far too much

To comprehend how much is too much

It takes a lifetime

To figure out life is about time

Sometimes it’s far too late

To let go what is already lost

It takes too long to figure out

There isn’t any blue print

And there isn’t much to figure out

By the time we find the puzzle pieces

It is too late

The puzzle actually is being undone

And not all pieces fit in

It takes forever

To know that silence is eloquent

Conveys more than words

It takes too many wars to know

To know what actually is at stake

And wars go on far too long

And love?

We can barely hold it for long

It slips through fingers like sand

The moment you define it

It becomes a possession

A caged bird

Which rarely returns when set free

It goes away far too far and

Far too long…

Sometimes It Is Too Late…

A petit pink fresh flower

Fell on the roadside

Just detached from the mother tree

I thought of picking it up

On my way back

As I walked ahead

A big SUV passed me by

At the end of the lane

As I turned

I saw it backing

Into its marked zone

To park perhaps

To my utter dismay

The wheels went over

That petit pink flower lay crushed

Beneath the mother tree

Sometimes it is just too late

To  behold, cherish and save

Beauty is often fragile and transient

Always ending up crushed

Under the ruthless

Wheels of the civilization

Sometimes it is too late

Most times it is too late!!