Scavenging under the rubbles
She looked for humanity
It was yet another day of
Strategic bombing
They tried to flee in vain
From guns and grenades
And bombs
And landmines
And beastly men
Death was everywhere
In every form
It caught up with all
Even those who escaped these
Troubled shores
She kept scavenging for humanity
Under the rubbles
Of the wasteland
Many died
For the sake of few
Who wanted to live
It was a lost battle
Under the rubbles
She scavenged
For dead humanity
Tag: peace
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.
Juxtaposed
Man against man
Man against women
Women against women
Man against Nature
You against me
All of us are juxtaposed!
One defines other
One ends other
One begins other
On a dark night
We seek light
On a sunny day
We look for shade
Light and dark
Day and night
Love and war
Life and death
Juxtaposed!
Sad seeks joy
Happiness
Sadness
Juxtaposed!
Broken against
The Whole
Nothing can stand
On its own
It needs the other!!
You eliminate one
Other loses meaning
Yet the fight remains
Eternal!
Juxtaposed
One belittling the other
Forever!!
Seeking the Moon
I seek the moon tonight
With thousands of others
From my window
Caged momentarily tonight
In my cell window
Moon too looks desolate
And Persecuted
Was I persecuted for
Beholding the Moon?
My parents at my faraway home
Me, at my detention centre
Along thousands of refugees,
Illegal immigrants
And activists around the world
All are looking at the Moon
Moon smiles as ever grimly
Bonded forever to the Earth
Spinning with twined destiny
It tells me
We all need to wait
There is no easy way
To Salvation
And Freedom
Other
Peasants will rise
They will sing
They will protest
They will take bullet
They will save democracy
While we will fret
And intellectualize!
Educated middle classes
Don’t you worry
These whom you ‘other’
Will save your jobs too
They don’t need you
But you do
To reap crops,
Cook your food
Cobble your shoes
Tailor your clothes,
Build your homes
Clean your homes
Toilets and cars too!!
After the revolution
They will still come
And assume their lowly jobs
While you will rot in your guilt
Or die with a foolish smug!
History textbooks will talk of them
But you will be mentioned
As the ‘other’ who let the system down!!
#saynotohate
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
Silly Significance
With her chin-up
And chips down
With spring in her feet
She trots on the globe
Our blue dot
But she is not alone
There are billions of us
Totally lost
In the humongous mess
Of hundreds of imagined worlds
And faiths
And the great sense of propriety
All trying to be right
By proving others wrong
Kudos to us for
Throwing out the baby
– our sustenance
Along with the bath water
All self similar beings
Trying so hard
To advance their race
By killing each other
The sheer madness
We still love to imagine
And believe
It’s the sun that sets
Or rises for us
Instead of –
– that’s it’s we go
Around an axis
Downside up
And upside down
Along the elliptical
Planet doesn’t care
Whether it’s dinosaurs
Or only us
Neither does the Universe
Feeling all self-important
With bloated
or deflated egos
With the chin up
Or chips down
We continue to seek
our significance
In the grand cosmic
Insignificance
But does it have all to be
So dangerously silly?
by pitting imagined worlds
Imagined selves
And imagined gods
Against each other
And against Nature!
Immigrant
They tell me I don’t belong
To this part of the land
Under this part of the sky
On this shore
They tell me move back
But I came here
When they told me
I don’t belong there
I was a refugee then
An illegal immigrant now
How many names will you give
To your own creations?
The divide that you created
The line that fractured the land
Into here and there
Us and them
You and me
I will go away…
History will repeat
I will move on
Move back
Move away
But when will you learn?
The Earth, Sea and Sky have no boundaries
Your mind has made it all up!
The imbecile mind
Which is addicted to war games!
I will outlive your games
Tomorrow you will celebrate my survival
You will share it million times
Just like war
You are addicted to stories
To social media
To internet
Between the persecution
And celebration
Millions will disappear
Lives will be lost
Many changed forever!
In this world of imbeciles
I’d rather be an immigrant!
I’d rather not belong!
Your riches
Will be forever indebted to my poverty!
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
Mad Decadence 