freedom – Mad Decadence

Michael

You danced & sang

And moonwalked

Your way through life

Life that wasn’t easy

Your childhood was lost

You played in gigs

While other kids went to school

You brought home animals

To talk and show love to

Because humans around you

Didn’t always show up

You lived life on your terms

You broke out of the gilded cage

Made by your father, music producers

You called out the truth and the lies

You reached heights and lows

As a black man you rose high

What a white man

could only dream of

Obviously you had to be punished

They had to make

An example out of you

So that no one else would dare

That’s how white world

Keeps things in order

And gets away with every crime

They still are vilifying you

Even after all these years

Killing you again and again

Yet they cannot dim your shine

For you were born a star

With your own stupendous

Creative energy and charm

Which no one could take away

You showed the world

Music was a universal language

That could unite and heal the planet

And just when the world

Is very badly wounded

You have made daring comeback

In your movie posthumously

To teach people to live again

To heal the planet again

To dance and moonwalk

Through tears and smiles

To the music of life!!

Prison

Democracy is imprisoned

In the name of justice

Justice is imprisoned

In the name of freedom

Freedom is imprisoned

In the name of Peace

Peace is imprisoned

In the name of War

War is shackled too

In the name of economy

Economy is prisoned too

In the name of capitalism

Capitalism is boxed too

By the markets and profits

One person’s loss is

Another one’s gain

The media is imprisoned too

In the name of propaganda

Propaganda itself is made of lies

Lies aren’t free too

They have to hide the truth

Truth is in gallows too

On non-bailable terms

Don’t ask who benefits

Everyone has lost the plot

Old money gets older

New money becomes old

Those who are poor

Remain poorer

How else will we define

The real rich?

Marginalized communities

Define the majoritarian

Who turn authoritarian

Till…till everyone loses the plot

And the script flips

Nature loves entropy

But it likes balance too…

Not everyone gets away

With it all…

Where do you stand?

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!!

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!!

Trust and Love

The kitten ran
Helter skelter
Scared, very scared
Neighborhood kids
Tried to reason with it
But it was too small
Full of fear
Confused maybe
Maybe it felt attacked
While actually it was
Being rescued

Rescuers didn’t earn
Its trust perhaps
But they were sure
It ought to trust them
The more they tried
Befriending it
More it shrank
Into the shadows

Lessons in trust
Are most difficult
To learn
It’s a language
It’s an action
That promises safety
Both sides need to be
Calm and patient
To set this dialogue stage
On safe middle grounds

What is the language of trust?
What is the language of love?
No one teaches these
We are supposed to learn them
Context, syntax and meaning
Most often we learn the hard way
After the trust is broken
And love breaks the trust

In that darkness
Tiny kitten couldn’t see
Trust or love in the eyes
While everyone saw
Fear in its eyes
When they backed off
It ran for its life
Away from the life
It took a while
For it to return
To this game of
Hide and seek again

Maybe it will survive
Maybe it won’t
Depends on what lurks
In the darkness
One can only hope
It finds its way to
To the bowl of milk
Waiting for it
Food often builds trust
So does tender care

Tenderness is rare
No one teaches us that too
Knowingly, unknowingly
It comes our way
Like the gentle breeze
That helps us breathe

Love can be suffocating
It can smother and kill
What it pretends to protect
While trying to control
We never try to understand
Children’s language
Instead we expect them
To comprehend ours

Children too run
Helter skelter
With fear in the eyes
Unsure why
Mistrust masquerades
As trust
And anger as love
Like Pavlov’s subjects
Why does it all
Have to be reward
Or punishment?

When will we learn
To back off?
And wait patiently
With food and trust
On the table
And tender love in
Our hearts?

#WorldMentalHealthDay2025

Idiot

Idiot!

They laughed

When she looked at the horizon

No one knew

She could see that

Sky never kissed the earth

They laughed

When she looked up at the sky

Idiot!

No one knew she looked into the infinite space

Seeking…

They mocked

When she kissed a youth

What would an idiot know about love?

No one knew

That she had kissed Life

And paid her compliments

For being alive,

For being able to laugh and cry

For being able to love

Written in 2000 after watching Gelsomina in Fellini’s La Strada

Forever

Forever is a strange faraway land

Where eternity dwells

The word itself

Hides a promise, an irony

As well as a dread

People want to

Live forever

Stay together

Forever

And those who die

Are gone forever

Forevers are the promises

That we never keep

Forever is a sand

That slips through our hands

Yet we cling to it

Just like we cling

To life itself

We wish for forever

Peace, happiness, health and wealth

None of which ever lasts ever

Forever is the best illusion

Created by humans

Just like Gods

Even sun and stars

Don’t last forever

Forever is a greatest irony

While we want to hold it

We don’t desire

Forever grief

Forever wars

Forever poverty

Forever inequality

Forever is the best false promise

We make to ourselves

In a transient world

Where nothing lasts forever

The best moments and joys

Are often short lived

Beauty lies in their brevity

Think of those flowers

Or our lives of our pets

While chasing forevers

We forget to live

Those precious moments

Which perhaps make our forevers

Our memories too

Don’t last forever

With time they fade

Grief and pain often

Linger and last longer

Sometimes forever

Ownership

We don’t own anything

Not even these words

Which are borrowed

From a language

Thoughts may be ours

But not entirely

They are formed by

All that we read and experience

In a dynamic shape shifting world

How can we own anything?

Our body cells start to shed

The moment we are born

Our ions and electrolytes

Are forever incomplete

Seeking bonds

Nothing is ever static and whole

Blood flow forms rivulets

All through the body

Do I own these cells, ions and atoms?

All formed from the star dust

Including the sun, our planet

How can we own anything at all?

We are just a blip, a heartbeat

In the grandeur of cosmos and

Timeline of universe

Yet in vain we try to possess and own

That piece of land, this piece of resource

People in our lives and their free minds

What for?

For that momentary

Lust for power and glory?

We play with lives

Lives of others

While squandering our own

Nothing ever dies

It changes forms

We just own our made up

Truths and lies

Our actions too are borrowed

From the history playbooks

We lack courage to love

So we choose deceit

Ilusion and grandeur

Happy in our bubbles

We float in an embryonic state

Feeding off the lives

Which we think we own

While we own nothing

Earth belongs to itself

It doesn’t give a damn

About our petty lives

Our politics and lies

The more we plunder

More it will make us pay

Just like any other landlord

Photo courtesy: Anuran – Researcher and photographer based in Paris

Happiness on Discount

Have we become junkies
Addicted to hope and joys
Rainbows and silver linings
All things positive decoys?

We proclaim that
It is just
A matter of choice –
To be or not to be

How does it matter
If conflicts rage
Or forests go ablaze?

How does it matter
If someone is killed
Or incarcerated
For our rights?

They know
We enjoy cheap thrills
And discounted happiness
With easy EMIs on sale

How does it matter
If we are told to teach
Wrong facts or hate
Or fiction?

As long as happiness is
Prime and insta-delivered
Does it matter
If the planet is under threat?

They know we are junkies
Addicted to hope and joys
Rainbows and silver linings
All things positive decoys

Gambling away a future
We won’t be a part of?
Doesn’t it seem easy, quick
And affordable?

Dreams

I take long walks
In Latin quarters in Paris

I enter a random church
Someone is playing Ave Maria

I climb Sahyadri hills
Feeling free and fatigued

I walk along Marine drive
Watching rains approach

I am stranded in deluge
Waiting for a transport home

At times I am sailing
Along Tungabhadra in Hampi

Or I am listening to a stream
On some river bank in Bhutan

Or I walk and sob on a beach
Unsure of taste of salt

It could be sea
Or my tears 

At times I am trapped
In Escherisque space

Or walking on a 
Mobius strip 

I am lost and then
I am found

I reach yet
I don't reach

While Uncertainty is
The only certainty 

Waking hours 
A prolonged nightmare

My escape and freedom
Is in my dream 

Selfish it may seem
I don't want to be awake 

I don't want to talk
Of nightmares today

#covidtimes