Responsibility

You pelt stones at me, 
I will offer garlands;
You could take me for
A lunatic, an ignorant, 
But I will not water the plant;
You'll soon relieve me,
I will still let you be.

My ability to respond
Will unconditionally
Set me free.

The countdown

When the lockdown will be
over and done with,
when we'll walk past
the nonstop distancing,
when we'll again go to work,
when the world afresh
will be free from
the deadly virus,
when we'll regain
our lost freedom,
then we can sing to us,
'Hey buddies
We  did it, we made it,
We have really overcome'.

Life will be back to normal again.
Leaders, caregivers
aren't working in vain,
their efforts for sure will pay
happy days aren't far away.

With hope in every heart,
life can resume, restart,
with faith in every soul
we'll achieve our goal,
with resilience in every mind,
we can put our exile behind
with sparkle in our eyes
we can regain our kingdom
we can see the sun rise,
it is of no surprise
that the lockdown will surely end
the countdown will soon begin,
let's stay put for some more time
let's together count our blessings.

Being in prison

Act I

I am in a prison,
in love with the
prisoners,
its regiments;
strange as it
might seem,
I can clearly see and sense
the gates are left open.

Act II

I am in a prison
charged for a
number of reasons,
for my lies mainly;
but strange as it can be,
as far as I can see
I sense that nowhere
ever before I felt so free.

Times

Times

Colourful words
lose their hues;
a rainbow,
in black and white.

Times

Unclean mind
cleaning hands,
healer, under the weather
utterly confused,
time and effort, abused.

I am History

I am History.

Do not talk to me
about conflicts,
the ones you had
with families, relatives
friends, neighbours,
colleagues, and
with neighbouring countries.
You have shown your unquestionable
integrity, sincerity, honesty
in keeping alive animosity
through unkind words,
self-destructive thoughts,
delinquent actions.

I am History.
What is so special about
keeping dead discords alive,
reliving hatred, rewriting same stories
in my pressing pages?
Get rid of your destructive box
and write something I am yearning
preserve, talk to me if you have resolved
issues, melted cold and silent wars,
standing in between yourselves
as stubborn, imperceptible icebergs.

I am History.
Talk to me when you can display
the same sincerity in friendship
that you have demonstrated
for self-molestation, self-degradation;
I want to read the same integrity in kindness
that you have shown in being enemies.
Talk to me when you can uphold
the same authenticity in healing
than in killing, the same honesty
in mending relationships.

I am History, a unique teacher,
if you fall prey to your same nature,
results will be that of repeated defeat;
if you conquer the deadly habit
you will lead towards victory,
it’s not difficult, no mystery,
look inside the folds
of the flora and the fauna
read the pages again,
rewrite your destiny.

I am History.
I would want my looks to change,
the age-old green room
traps me in a cage,
give me a hand I desperately
needed for so long,
play a different song
and sing along together;
all maladies and malpractices
will naturally disappear.

Silence

The much travelled roads
Of conflict, arguments,
Discussions, debates
Cannot take talkers
To the destination,
Listening to the silence can,
Only silence can,
Only silence.

We're looking outside
For the ways to be free,
Being on the inside
Is the source, the only key.

What you say or do
Is not important,

• What you think, is;

Be at ease please,
It's never too late
To sit and meditate.

Light of love

I couldn't understand you
My world, my love; I fear
There were rough and smooth
Patches we walked through,
The rich and the poor sides
Of being in love could
Perhaps never find the truth,
They lied on the ground beneath,
On the kingdom above.

Is that what made us part
Our ways? Our intimacy,
Being in love, didn't it ever
Make any sense!
We're going back into
Our tiny nests,
Fighting our battles,
Our struggles of being
Under the weather
All alone, wandering around
Belonging to none,
An exiled lover.

Being in love isn't easy
For there are these notions
Born before us, clouding our vision
The dead history recreates walls,
Barriers of the mind
That can't be cracked;
We had to lose
At the end of it all.

Tomorrow the stars will rise again
Light of love will never go in vain. 

Let it heal

The world is breathing,
It is healing.

We are struggling to live
Still fighting.

Conspiracy theories of warfare
Has made love, being loved unfair.

To fight the virus,
We're washing our hands,
Wearing masks;
If the mind could be shielded
And washed as well
We'd have helped us
Faster off this hell.
It seems we ought to
Do some thinking still,
The world is healing,
Let it heal. 

The indomitable

No, I will never ever die
Before I am physically dead,
I will live my lovely life
Until my breath
Is finally withheld.

The state of the global village

We are in the anteroom,
in a castle we knew as world,
playing out perhaps the last act
of a drama; men, women, children
all at once engaged
as the sleepwalking Grouch,
cleaning the dirty hands;
caregivers are failing,
so are the perfumes of Arabia
to wash the scarlet guilt away.

What a spell has fallen upon us,
that we are outwitted
by an invisible,
so-far-invincible virus.

The historian inside
trembles to paint
the grim picture in words,
of how an imperceptible petite germ
failing the intelligence
of the unprepared
disabled, challenged world
that has successfully cracked
into the outer space.

News, tracking the countless
figures falling as flies,
as though keeping the scores
of a horrendous Olympic game,
every continent, losing lives,
liquidating businesses;
putting work to an abysmal
standstill; lockdown, the sole remedy
to this pandemic peril,
confinement, the only prescription
waiting for the underestimated
enemy to perish. Everyone is jobless
except for the relentless, indefatigable,
resilient doctors and nurses.

Realisation that too much greed
is of no use, other than the futile
effort of getting rid of the guilt;
globalisation was merely to
grow and develop, uniting the world
was never the business, a concern
it ignored the decay, the screech
of the tonsured world; deglobalisation
that the world’s facing now
could finally unite humans with humans.

On witnessing the countless procession of hearse,
perhaps the stage is tired of wars;
disunities, differences might wither from within,
soul-searching might very well begin;
a new way of thinking might emerge
old and failed methods, purged;
global citizenry will perhaps concur to win;
world, a waiting room, tired of losing,
now, in the last act, eagerly washing
its hands of all the erstwhile, countless sins.

World!

We have so far
molested the world
as a brothel;
now, let us treasure
it as an ashram.

The show goes on

I want to be happy.
I focus on things, or on others,
Friends, strangers;
It entices me more,
Becomes my addiction,
My destiny.
Instead of being happy,
I become sad.

I exercise my freedom,
I feel cherished in
The so-called like-minded company,
In passionate love that leads into
Humdrum tolerance
Or in acquisitions, opulence
Blinded by material success
Perpetually scared to be with me,
I constantly yearn for togetherness.

My own friendship I underestimate
Seduced by others, submerged in things
I am subjugated,
I crave for them as my savior,
It kills me from inside, it devours;
The more I get, the more I want
The more I compare, the more I hate;
This germ of a game is forever reborn,
The curtain never falls, the show goes on. 

Lying for nothing

Look at the sky
Lying for nothing
Spinning the mind around.

Looking up is an intemperance
An indulgent impertinence;
The neglected, ignored ground
Lying for nothing.

The curtain-raiser

When the curtain falls
Actors are delivered
From their roles,
From a pack of lies;
They become free
From the cage,
But only temporarily;
For when the stage reopens
Before the audience
For the next performance,
The players become bound
Within their profound scripts,
Dialogues, actions of yesterday
Repeat in time and space.
Only a momentary wonderment
'Ah! If it were to change,
It has to', but in the end
Nothing is above entertainment. 

Victory will belong to humanity

The world is standstill.

Human life is in sudden peril.

Deaths in thousands lie,

Shock our unprepared universe

No time to weep, no time to cry

For the countless, silent hearse.

No matter what, believe in your own faith,

In our unabated, united strength

That whatever be the calamity

Victory will belong to humanity.

Numerous martyrs of the war

Have sacrificed their lives for us

We bow to them and take a vow

That this too shall pass,

This too shall pass

Soon we will show us how

We could concur to conquer the virus.

No matter what, believe in your own faith,

In our unabated, united strength

That whatever be the calamity

Victory will belong to humanity.

This poem was selected as the top 50 by the WHD.

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Lock-down

Lock-down.
Hidden treasures
Of nature,
Unlocked.

Find us a cure

You, the supreme

Of all sentient beings,
The cream of the cream?

You have learned to fight

In the dullest days, darkest nights.
Guns, weapons engaged to kill
Your own species with matchless skill.

Your outer-space intelligence,
Your wealthy arrogance,
Why are they useless
Now, to protect us
Against an invisible virus?

You will take months to prepare
A vaccination! Why can't you expedite
For your expeditions, you take lesser time
You supreme erudite! For within this tenure
The deadly creature will tonsure
The defenseless battlefield,
Where is your smartness now?
If you can, show us how
You can help at this hour of need.

All this while you have wasted our money
In outer space, invested in other
Things, as expensive as white elephants
But you cannot take care of our safety
Against a creature much smaller than ants?

Inside the oceans, you store
Countless weapons of disaster
Yet, at times of crisis such as this
There’s not enough equipment
No adequate infrastructure.

Look at the rejoicing nature
Dancing in fresh air
It has got some respite from us
Thanks to the deadly virus.
You are greedy, made small
Although you sound like big brothers.

Take this as a lesson please,
Do not fight with human beings;
Learn to fight real enemies
That spread pandemics such as these,
Do not waste public money anymore
Save us from dying, find us a cure.

Virus, an avatar of Vishnu?

This virus for me is
An avatar of Vishnu
It has come upon the stage
To teach us a lesson;
With a gentle jerk
He pulled the brake
Of the money-making mind
Driving, causing hazards, going berserk,
The mechanical car that polluted for ages,
Abused every being on earth.
Nature is saying times for a while,
It is at peace, experiencing bliss.

I heard a voice within me
Criticizing, cursing me bitterly
For this insanity.
'How horrid is this that you call
The deadly virus Vishnu?
Thousands dying in the pandemic,
And you? Writing your senseless lines, without a clue
Calling this a teaching?
As both start with the letter 'V'
You find a link? A disgusting similarity?
You call this virus an avatar of Vishnu
You must be a horribly possessed Hindu!
You should hide in shame
For playing such a thoughtless poetic game!'

I say this with a hand on my heart
If only I could also die in His craft,
The innocent lives are sacrificed
For nothing! You need eighteen months
To come up with a vaccine?
How weak is the Intelligence?
Why can't it be cracked in eighteen minutes?
How absurdly horrendous,
Isn't each dying moment precious?

If pigs are the reason for this,
First the swine flu
And then the virus,
Why do we have them at all
In our mouth-watering menu?
I imagined Vishnu smiling,
In my ears softly whispering,
'Go deep and look for the remedy
If pigs are the reason for this mayhem
The cure might also come from them,' I repeated,
The cure might also come from them.

With this, the Lord disappeared in my dream,
When will my wailing world
From this invisible viral germ be delivered?
I forgot to ask this to Him
My Vishnu, my shepherd.

Stepping stone