Time stood still
We giggled and giggled
Like a pair of good old kids
But in their fifties
Time Stood still
As we stared at those benches
In the front of the canteen
Where we often sat and sang
Time has stood still
In that college campus
When pleaded the guard
To let us in
We went back in Time
Through those gates
Perhaps to seek our younger
Gullible, ugly and clueless selves
We patted on their backs
For making it through
For finding each other
To make up lost time
But who knew
All sand was about to slip
In that damn hourglass
For one of us
What a chance it was
That we took
Instead of standing each other up
We finally showed up
And we made the Time
Re-wind and replay it all
We relived our nostalgia
And made fresh memories
Re-unions are the sweetest
They take us back in Time
To meet ourselves and find love
Even if it is for one last time!
Tag: poem
Pick Yourself Up
Life teaches
How to pick
Yourself up
Along with all
The broken pieces
Of your heart
And your being
One just needs
To be patient
Those life lessons
Are like strewn clues
Hidden in a flower
Or a bleak star
In the night sky perhaps
Or on the dark side
Of the moon
When pushed
To a corner
Or into an abyss
Don’t quit
But rebel
Your life puzzle
Maybe undone
With pieces missing
But new pieces
Are strewn around you
Pick those up
Try to find
A grander puzzle
Or a greater purpose
Or just be
An unseen gardener
Toiling away
For the new seeds
To germinate
Pick yourself up
Don’t give up
Yet.
20/1/2025
Shame
Shame
Perhaps it is easy
To violate
A woman’s body
And soul
And then walk with
Head held high
It is all done
To teach a lesson
To create fear
Perhaps it is easy
To plunder the earth
To dig out all
That is worth
And then walk with
Head held high
It is all done
For a profit
To create wealth
Will Earth save itself?
What about women?
Bilkis Bano is silent
Our silence is more deafening
We will rage
For Earth, for Bilkis
Yet they will
Walk free
Reign free
That is how it is
Dont ask why?
It’s reign of the
Shameless and inhuman
Emperor after all parades
In full nakedness and glory
How does one teach shame
To shameless tyrants?
#BilkisBano
Best not Taken
Thud – will that how it will sound?
Breaking lazy monotony
Of a rainy evening
Ensuing a chaos
Miraculously
Things will be taken care of
Strangers will curse,
blame and pity
And so will
family, friends and colleagues
People who never paused
To listen or understand
Will dissect your being
For hours
Gaslighting the departed
Absolving themselves of guilt
Everyone will move on
Within a day or two or years
Presence of a life will be erased
Unloved life would be lost in vain
Is that all there is?
Pause and look up
Behold the bird
Soaring in the sky
Flying into the setting sun
Birth is never a choice
But when death seems at times
The trick definitely is to
Keep breathing
Wait for the moment to pass
Look beyond
Outside your window
There is a life that awaits
That wants you to live
Take the pain in stride
And marinate your life with it
The last desperate step
Will definitely be
The best not taken!!
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
Just Like a Driftwood
Don't behold me
With contempt
Because I floated in
Just like a driftwood
I had a name
Born to someone
Isn't it enough
To qualify as a human?
Do not fear me
Do not hate my folks
Simply they couldn't afford
- love, pyre or a grave
They probably thought
Water should be my grave
Instead of fire or earth
River being the river
Did what it does best
Buoyed me back
Just like a driftwood
I had love to give
But there were no takers
In the land of hate
River could have set me free
But it returned me to you
As a nameless corpse
To be counted among
The countless
River will remember me
Even if you don't
This beloved river is
Our memorial!
#CovidDeaths
Waiting in the Dark
When will it be dawn?
I ask in desperation
Peering at the night sky
Stars too seem grim tonight
After the endless wait
There is a dim light
But, someone whispers
Hey, you missed the day!
What arrives is another dusk
Followed by the dark
Moonless night
Stars without their shine
Another endless wait
For the dawn
That never arrives
A dawn
That never arrives
Spin
What kind of a spin is it?
What goes around, does come around
Yet, its never the same!
Laws teach nothing is lost
Yet, much cannot be retrieved
The top is also below
A walk on the mobius strip
In a world so self-similar
Nothing is familiar
For – What is, is never,
What really it is!
What we know, is actually,
Only the depth of the unknown
And that bond also decides the drift
Stuck on a blue planet in a vast abyss
Where war literally is sold as peace
I wonder,
What kind of a spin is it?
Howling Winds
It was in the news
Cyclonic storm was on its way
They did what they could
To prevent the disaster
They monitored the eye and the tail
There it was circulating,
feeding on winds
And gathering momentum
It all seemed calm on the shores
Till the waves began to move faster
It came closer,
Sounds of the howling winds
Made it all real
Everyone knew
All preparations were made
All estimates looked good
But there was no way to assess
The damage it did
Young ones quivered in fear
Homeless knew they will be
Unaccounted ones
Lonely man walked on the street
Unaware of the perils
No one had told him to be safe
He took shelter under the very tree
That crushed him minutes later
Howling winds
Harbingers of death
Preyed on lonely, helpless
And homeless
Farmers lamented as
Entire harvest got washed away
No one realised
Storm was our harvest
By feeding Earth, wind and seas
Our anger, disgust, greed,
wastes, pollutants and hatred
Cyclonic storm just churned it all.around
And returned what we had reaped
With anger and vengeance
Winds, earth and sea turned hostile
Howling winds perhaps were warning us –
“Don’t be a bully
It all can all boomerang very badly!! “
Silence and the Darkness
When silence becomes deafening
And the words hide in the dark
Slowing erasing history
I try to figure out their forms
Or meaning or language
Nothing emerges
It’s a dark dense space
Nothing is visible
Nor is audible
I wait
Maybe words are being born
Maybe a new reality is taking a form
What if it’s a monster that’s in the making?
What if the silence is made of inaudible screams?
As the world looks away in faith
Blinded by the festive lights
I will hang on to my doubts
I shall still try to listen to sounds of silence
And try to peer into dark abyss
With or without hope
Mad Decadence 