Sometimes I wonder
whether I lose track of time
or time loses track of me
Forgotten, erased, demonised
I lurk like the dark shadow
Waiting for the spotlight
To reveal that I exist
Tag: history
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.
Time
Time is wrapped
We move forward
But yet in circles
A new beginning
Another New Year
All dots
On the circles
Time is a trap
An endless wrap
Moving forward
Yet in circles
Histories repeat
Dictators return
But tyrant
Time
Beats them all
Let us not despair
No one colour or
One faith can
Rule Forever
Light refracts
Even through
The Prism of Religion
Into a Rainbow
All mighty forever
Will bite the dust
As children of soil
Will rise yet again
Time goes in circles
Some look ahead
Forgetting the wrap
Others who look behind
Fall in the trap
There is no way
Back into the womb
Only death awaits
Ahead
Time moves forward
While moving in circles
Maybe Sisyphus is happy
For he knows
The clock ticks…
Modern Day Macbeth
We are still under the hangover of Macbeth – the play by Rajat Kapoor which was staged yesterday at Kalamandir, Kolkata. It really give hope that there are people who are voicing their dissent loud and clear!
The satire was not lost…starting with three witches being compared to Kardashians, fascism being called Karaoke Fascism, how it needs one small ‘push’ to make any person violent, how violence is the potent force that binds the society and ending with the satirical disclaimer by two jokers played brilliant by Jim Sarabh and Vinay Pathak.
Ranvir Shorey portrayed the dilemma of modern day Macbeth (who kills to become a CEO)

with troubled conscience superbly. Each dialogue was important but unfortunately much was difficult to decipher due to poor sound and our back alley seats. They made it very clear that given current state of affairs, the joke was entirely on the elitist audience!
Bravo is all I can say!!
I hope it will make people introspect what they are endorsing so easily is dangerous and the blood stain on our conscience will only grow bigger and bigger even if we try to wipe or justify it!
#macbeth #shakeaspeare #rajatkapoor #jimsarabh #vinaypathak #ranvirshorey
Strange Imprints

As the night falls
I wonder what
Set the pace
Of Time
It moves
Freezes
Goes back
And forth
Yet always
Arrow of Time
Points always
Ahead
It circles
Around the
Life and Death
Beginning
And the End
I look at the stars
I look back
Millions of years
Wonder how do they
See our history
Unfolding
On a tiny
Blue Dot
Strange is the
Arrow of Time
Pointing into
Nowhere
Ticking away
Turning
Itself into ashes
Rising like a phoenix
Yet it always
Moves ahead
Stubbornly ahead
Leaving behind
Strange mute imprints
A sand dune there
Or a mountain here…
Staying Relevant
Staying relevant
In irrelevant times
Is the challenge
Engage
Or disengage?
Stay attached?
Or be detached?
When Time sweeps
You away from the frame
Should one linger
On the fringes?
Where does one go?
Is there a Rumi’s field?
The even playing field?
Where they play it fair
No time to call a foul
A foul
No ground rules
It’s a game
Where no one wins
But all try to
Reinvent
Shifting positions
Moving goal-posts
To stay relevant
In these irrelevant times…

Kafkaesque
I exist therefore I am
I am therefore I exist
I am the means
and the end
I think
so I do
I do
so I think
I stand
so I believe
I believe
so I stand
I reason
to be
not to be
I protest
for Justice
That is blind
I am free
but chained
by law
But the law exists
to free the chains
what is Right
is also Left of Right
But Right is not wrong
so Left is definitely wrong
Looking Back
History stares at me
Full of tales
From different eras
From different perspectives
A walk
Back in Time
To re-build the Time
To know the present
To shape the future
That’s what Astronomers
Do as well
Look back in Time
To connect the cause
and the effect
In a chaos that reigns
Emerging from the Dark
Engulfed by the light
Blinded
By own luminous being
Unable to see or feel
How others feel…
An era of knowledge
Bereft of Wisdom
Desensitized
Sensitivity reigns
A world
where refugee children
Face trials
Four year olds
Die smothered with lust
Hope is a lost cause
Let darkness descend
Light has led us nowhere
Maybe answers we seek
Lie in darkness
Let there be dark
And quiet healing
While emerging from the dark
Maybe we will learn to behold Beauty
And the Truth yet again!
War

Canvas of history
Forever painted in red
Shows us the right mirror
Mankind has never been kind
Battle after battle
Peace has been butchered
Yet we dream and hope white dove
Will save us
Love will bail humanity
Even in garb of peace
We know to fight our
Cold wars
Power wars
Without weapons
Even between you and me
We identify the Other
To keep the fight on
We need victims
To feel the power
Even if we don’t butcher
We bully in good humor
To eliminate the Other
Upmanship may drown us
Yet we steer our ships with pride
Towards annihilation and regret
Metaphorical Phoenix
Rises from the ashes
But we keep the embers burning
To start the next war
With every hope demolished
Love turns into a refugee