Warring world

Push the weapons inside places of worship

They need to rest in peace

In mosques, temples,

churches, gurudwaras, synagogues, and in books.

And those persons with unbounded consciousness,

whom for years

we treasured inside the imprisoned boundaries,

Bring them out in the fields, on the streets,

Where they truly belong.

Weapons and the World,

both will be delivered.

We are all Kalidasa

We are all Kalidasa

With weapon, cutting the branch

On which we nest

O Intelligence!

Bless us

so we could relax

and have the good sense

to drop the axe.

Note:

The poem stands on the story of Kalidasa. The legend says that Kalidasa, one of the greatest poets that ever lived in Indian soil, was a fool cutting the branch of a tree he was sitting on with an axe. When he fell on the ground, Saraswati, the Goddess of learning, came to his rescue and gave him a boon, which eventually resurrected him into a poet with an outstanding talent. However, there are many versions of this story. Later, he came to be known as the master of roopak (metaphor) and had authored brilliant novels including Meghadootam, Shakuntalam.

Health and happiness

Cocktail

Together a cocktail if we want to make

The frozen ice is surely going to break

Dough

Need to war is a germ in the dough

The feed poisons the body, from top to toe

Host

Together let’s give it a toast

Here's to health, for the host and the host

In this world, Weapon is the only unwanted guest

Quenched with bloods now, we'd put it to rest

Free from worries, we’re ready to grow and flourish

Every soul will heal now, every being will nourish

So let's shake our legs now, let’s give it a toast

Here's to happiness, for the host and the host

Owning ago

Ocean of sadness in my ears

Falls drop by drop,

The salty pages fly

With inky clouds

In search of fresh air,

To nourish the still eyes,

To wink or blink, a little.

Mountains don’t move an inch,

Air fails to woo

I am in awe

The same tune beats my drums.

Ode to mind

Mind! O beautiful mind,

Open up your blinded eyes.

Conceive, at least for once

It’s possible to do away with weapons.

Mind! O intelligent mind,

Kill the need to kill humans.

Release your worried horsed eyes

Show us a way without weapons.

Mind! O brilliant mind,

Imagine a real no-enemy land.

Where humans befriend humans

Without guns, arms and weapons.

Mind! O innovative mind,

Re-invent methods to save the world.

Protect the space where we bind

Without guns, arms and weapons.

Mind! O truth-seeking mind,

Alight from hats on their comfort thrones

With defeating powers, fears and prides,

Build a winsome world without weapons.

Mind! O imaginative mind,

Free us from the stereotype that runs

For once, conceive mankind

Without arms, without weapons, without guns.

Happy Republic Day

Earth is my Devaki*,

India my Yashoda*.

In this land, I worship

Jesus, Krishna and Allah

Above all, we celebrate friendship.

Today is our Republic day,

Sweets were shared on the borders,

I wish this camaraderie to stay,

That we realise we’re sisters and brothers.

*Devaki is the birth mom of Krishna and *Yashoda is his adoptive mom.

Made for each other

The sun is rigid, doesn't move,

It is done by the agile moon.

The sun looks strong and bright,

The moon is forever feathery and light.

The sun is colourful, moon is white,

On the stage, playing all day and night.

They unite at times every single day

Dawn and dusk part in their different unique way.

But the blue never leaves the earth in the dark,

Lights with precious, golden silver stars.

They’re just there, present if you please,

Being with the rhythm, glowing at ease.

There is no judgement, no sense perhaps in the move,

Life grows with the sun and rests with the moon.

Ceaseless lights rain from the space up above

The sun and the moon are madly in love.

Let’s walk

The moon is the sun’s mind

In perpetual separation

Causing death,

Is one interpretation;

The moon is the sun’s presence

In inseparable union of light

Breeding life is another;

In this world of light, the sun and the moon

Have transformed, merged as one.

The mind is here with me

Of readers who’d pass by this text

It will also be

They’d separate as parts

Like our companion stars.

A recount of an ordinary walk

On a Sunday afternoon

Of a mother and a child;

Wait I would also be a reader

In a while

In the mind of the text

I have my role everywhere

In union, in separation

Of thoughts nestling, nursing

Since a long time

As an extra-ordinary state

Has suddenly become so real

So wonderfully trivial

Like our coveted ordinary lives

My mind, your mind, our mind

Let’s walk...

Scene: The capital of a country in Africa

Mom: Taxi!

Driver: Good afternoon Madam. (Looking at the child)... good afternoon sweetheart... (Ushers them in)

Mom and Child: Good afternoon Sir!

Driver: Where to Madam

Mom: The Museum

Driver: Very well... here we go.

The taxi sails through the road. On one side is the vast orchard of fruits hanging on the nourished trees, and on the other an endless paddy field; long far-reaching grasses smiling away. The sky on top is blue, relaxed.

Child: (smiling)... Thank you Mom...it’s going to help me for my project work.

Mom smiles

Driver: Here we are Madam. Here sweetheart...a mango for you.

Mom: Thank you Sir. (pays and alights. The child smiles.)

Mom: Come... (takes the child and goes to the counter. Two options: Hunter and War. Mom takes both)

The place is not so crowded...it’s just an ordinary museum.

Mom: Do you know we have this kind of museum in the capital city of every country?

Child: Yes, teacher told us.

Mom: Come let’s go to the Hunter section first.

The section hosts animals that were hunted the most, viz. tigers, lions, leopards, wild boars, snakes, and so on. It also has names of hunters.

Child: Mom, I think people were sick in those days. Imagine killing animals for a living! And to think that hunting was a profession back in those days! I think the world should name this a hunter zoo or a war zoo or something?

Mom: Yes hunting was a profession once upon a time. But don’t say people were sick in those days, no unkind words please... it is best to be known as a museum, the concept of zoo is unkind too, don’t you think? They were also good people, very well-meaning people, but their mind was elsewhere and they were insecure. That’s all. Besides, it is the same Intelligence, the same Leaders, and the same Peoples that have made this world also possible. Let’s go the War section now.

The child walks through the rooms and sees weapons, weapons, and more of weapons all over the place. He was reading from the friendly fonts in red that in those days humans would kill humans with the weapons displayed now with a ‘do not touch’ tag. They were invented by very intelligent and well-meaning people, when countries would flaunt weapons to belittle or scare other countries... he was reading... about the waste of money, wealth... these weapons were invented, created and marketed, weapons for mass destruction, but they were not used... his mind did not understand the purpose behind inventing something that couldn’t be used! But the intention was noble... these weapons were invented for self-defense. When he shared his thoughts with his Mom, she said it was easy for him to think this way, but there was a time when children would shoot children too. That now, it’s become so easy and mundane and ordinary not to use weapons, to function without the use of a single weapon now. Even earlier, when people would hunt animals, hunters were really sought after... no one could even think of doing without them, but it happened. In the War section, there’s an Army section too.

He goes and learns that there were people who were trained only to kill other human beings. They were dedicated people, but their sole purpose was to kill, the objective was very noble...they would kill to protect. But these Army guys are now called Nature guys...equally trained and built to fight calamities and force majeure... he knows it because that’s his dream to be a Nature guy. There was also another section called account section... the whole room was full of figures from 0 to 9... the child got lost in the losses the world went through.

It’s almost evening. The sun is becoming milder. Sky is sleepy. He’s out of the section now. Disturbed; like those children who visited the concentration camp in Germany, who were trained for years not to repeat that ever again. The child thinks... human beings would kill animals, and human beings... enemies...and what is that...and why...how...it’s good that he’s out of the section, but Mom told that people were good and very well-meaning in those days too, it’s just that their mind was not with them. Good that my mind is with me. But I have a question. Wait I am going to ask this to Mom, who is looking tense now. First let’s have something to eat, he thought.

They are out in the cafeteria. Mom bites a sandwich and asks the child.

Mom: So...how was it?

Child: Good, but I have a question.

Mom: Just one?

Child: Or maybe more (laughs)

Mom: Tell me

Child: how did it stop?

Mom: What? Hunting?

Child: All... hunting, war, weapons, army...how did this stop Mom

Mom: Nobody knows how...some say it’s because of the leaders who were tired of their respective insecurities; some say it’s because of the people who were tired of looking at each other’s reflections as enemies.

Child: But whatever it is...good riddance...but I have another question.

Mom: Tell me...

Child: What’s for supper?

Mom: Let’s get home first... we have to ask the grand kid too...

Child: You bet! Or he could also be making us a grand supper.

Mom: Sure. Taxi!

The taxi walks through the streets, taking the two passengers, who are now pensive and looking out of the window, what is the mother thinking... that mothers of the world would never have to give birth to a child who’d cause terror or be terrorised... she did not reveal one vital discovery that the whole world has made while doing away with weapons...that toy-weapons far outnumber real guns... she would bring her child again to reveal the secret because she knows that secrets create insecurities...what is the child thinking... of the weapons...of the army... or to fulfil the dreams of being a nature guy... they’re perhaps throwing many questions at the sky, still golden... to be silver in a while.

Dedicated to the mothers of all the 233 beautiful countries of the world.

Earth beats well

Self defense, a clutter

Tumor in the mind

That markets the need

For disaster,

Plants the seed

Turns the pious, poisonous

Creates machines with forbidden purpose

Is clearing away.

A strange dark light lifts a feather-weight table

Waiting in good humor, places it

In the banks of a forest fountain

Willing to expand, accommodate, explore

Align with the rhythm of the defenseless star

Once and for all, with love.

Dedicated to all my siblings who died on the streets, in the fields, with bubbling lives

The superfluous

O child! It’s time, it’s time

Grow up from your addictive rhyme

With your gun-games you still scare

And ‘frighten the little mouse under the chair’?

We are faithful to war

Learnt in the jungles,

Primitive still is our attire

In modern cover-up jingles!

War and weep

With your uptight juvenile head,

Incomplete lives will sleep

In the delinquent scarlet bed.

Weep and war

With your hesitant heart,

Revenge and anger

Will mimic the conceited craft.

Mourning speeches

Would write and be read,

Holy screeches

Would mime the world red.

Candles will burn

Operas will chime,

History will learn

To mirror in time.

But if we all sat together

With collected heart and head,

Wars and its terror

Could freeze and be dead.

Dedicated to all the leaders of 233 beautiful countries of my world.

Shifting the focus

Inescapable

Ages of turmoil,

Sad episodes grim the moon’s face,

Confused at her rising and hiding

Silver rings as teardrops break

into the waters,

Talk to the fallen petals

They must have been flowers, a while ago

In the stillness of darkness,

Redolence falls,

Pearly silence tends to surface.

Changing the prosaic demeanour

I belong to the world; this world, my world, our world

I am an American, a European,

An African, an Asian, an Australian

All at the same time

I am an Afghan, a German
A Pakistani, a Brit, an Indian
A Mexican, a Canadian, a Russian
A Japanese, an Algerian, a Chinese
All at once, all at ease. 

I belong to the world; this world, my world, our world

Ever since I was born, I had been fighting with reflection

The sister or brother

Camouflaged as the other

Till date, I have created weapons to destroy, kill

I have never even thought

That it’s possible to survive without weapons

This need, I did never feel...

Never have I even considered this!

And I call myself intelligent? A scientist? A leader?

My priority has been to war? For the sake of peace!

We’d shift our need.

This is the real change.

I belong to the world; this world, my world, our world

Leaders and scientists would fossilize weapons

Store them in museums

We’d all skilfully kill insecurity

The stranger, real foreigner, the intruder, our real enemy.

It will be uprooted from our minds, from this heaven.

This is the real change.

I belong to the world; this world, my world, our world

Greece! O Greece! What marvellous philosophers you gifted

To this world... it is a shame that you are struggling now

With hedge funds... wait...you will get back your grace

Economists will show us how

It is a shame that Beijing and Delhi cannot breathe

Wait... scientists will purify your air and water

Will show us how you’d succeed

No more focussing on other planets

All intelligences will converge towards this tent.

This is the real change.

I belong to the world; this world, my world, our world

Africa! O Africa!

Scientists will invent mud technology to understand

The pattern of your earth

Make every inch of your fifty-eight countries reap wealth

They’d give you a hand

Instead of loans,

Loads of affection, support and effort will pour...

You will be as rich as Australia...

And for this, other continents won’t be insecure

The need to grab will cease, the urge to empower will emerge.

This is the real change.

Like this, all our self-created problems

To win over others will dissolve

We will win this ‘other’ and consume all of it in us...

Different, yet as brothers and sisters

It will prevail in this world, my world, our world

Instead of weapons, we’d flaunt wealth

Celebrate camaraderie and happiness

This is the real change.

I belong to the world; this world, my world, our world

I am an American, a European,

An African, an Asian, an Australian

All at the same time

I am an Afghan, a German

A Pakistani, a Brit, an Indian

A Mexican, a Canadian, a Russian

A Japanese, an Algerian, a Chinese

All at once, all at ease. 



Dedicated to the peoples of all the 233 beautiful countries of the world.

Promise

It’s time’s promise to me that I would also grow old

It’s my promise to time, with age I will never be bowed.

The sacred and the scared

You are unafraid to die, what a skill!

But you are also unafraid to kill!

Are you afraid to love and live?

Are you afraid to believe?

You are afraid of your guide,

You are afraid of the pages,

You are afraid of your pride,

You are afraid of other sages.

You are unafraid with weapons,

You are unafraid with arms,

You are unafraid of the killings,

You are unafraid of allarms!

You are afraid to heal,

You are afraid to be friends,

You are unafraid to steal

You are afraid to mend.

You are unafraid of your hides,

You are afraid to be kind,

You are unafraid of your sides,

You are afraid of your mind.

You are unafraid to be sacred,

Afraid to alter dead thoughts

Unafraid, but you are scared

Afraid to deliver from your corps.

You are unafraid of your folly,

Unafraid to kill the unarmed dead,

Your arms are unafraid and holy,

To turn the green sack red.

You are unafraid to die, what a skill!

But you are also unafraid to kill!

Are you afraid to love and live?

Are you afraid to believe?


One typo in the poem can be excused as a licence to demystify the present crisis. Thank you.