Soul of a text

 

A text written
lives longer;
bonsai in
a lounge,
fossil in
a library.
…
When you're
writing about
yourself;
truly describing
your life,
your experience,
you are also
drawing others.
…
The soul rises, sets,
in the different parts
of the soil, lightens
leaves of distant lives
like the sun, day and night.

JAI HIND

When I say JAI HIND

I fancy the HIND

That was. None

can take the picture

away from my mind.

I'm sure my humble

vibrations go beyond 

the borders, they reach 

my neighbors.

Stay well, my brothers

and sisters, wherever

you are. 

Our failure, 

when we divide, 

success, only

when we reunite, 

despite our stakes. 

We the fellow

people have the

power to rescind

the barriers from

our hearts, sing

aloud JAI HIND

for the Hind that was. 

The supreme state of being

You hurt me, I have rage
but I control it, no, it’s not 
the way; you hurt me, I 
don't have rage, yes, that is 
Akrodh dasha*, the ultimate 
state of joyous absence of rage. 

I say you don't teach students
about death, you teach them
about sex; you excluded moral
science from the aggregate,
now it’s no longer taught,
students moving with condoms 
and guns in schools; pupils, 
right from schools should have
death consciousness; they need
to know that death is not a bad 
thing; it'll reduce suicides, violence, 
distress and other diseases;

All right, all right, are you saying 
this with rage, with the feeling of 
duality? Accept it first with oneness,
in the life you’re living, there’s
one file in one folder. 

When you give alms to the poor,
what do you think? Ah, they’re
the less fortunate, this is duality,
think of yourself giving and taking 
alms, just as you wash your hands,
you don’t leave your arms.

You are the seen, you are the seer
for life has only one file in one folder.

Akrodh dasha* - complete absence of rage, it is not forbearance, it is a state where you do not have rage. Akrodh dasha is a skill that may be learned through practice.

Chasing the horizon

 

Are we all aware that we'd die?
Nah, the education teaches
us to forget death. The addiction
to neglect the inevitable has
seeped through the nerves, over
generations, through nexus,
slowly taking the global
situations from bad to worse.

Despite losing lives every
now and then, we don’t talk
about the unwritten taboo,
that my time will also come.

Schools, across the world
had never included it in
the curriculum; we have
sex education, not death
education. Moral science, 
although not included in the
mainstream was at least
present even a decade ago,
but now, it had been shown
the door.

Adolescent violence, loaded
guns with due license,
rubbers, condoms have invaded
the innocuous schoolbags
that once carried books,
tiffin boxes, at times, goodies
for celebrating birthdays.

Meaningful, engaging effort
from parents, leaders, educators,
with a promise to gift the children
their least deserved innocence
seems like chasing the horizon.

The overlooked oxymoron

Organizations, by their
very nature, compete,
make profits, want to 
supersede each other. 
At times, they'd even
cannibalize, to survive,
or to be on the throne.

Spirituality, a journey
into the unknown,
empowers individuals
to embark on their own;
it’s an education less
taught, more learned,
and experienced alone.

Spiritual organizations,
therefore, an oxymoron.

Live

Live! Live! Live!
Live your life to
the fullest, no matter
what.
Despite the challenges;
of situations, age,
working conditions,
whatnot.

Meditation, yoga, aerobics,
hip-hop, breakdance, or gym,
chanting mantras, singing hymns,
do whatever it takes to keep fit,
take charge of your winsome life,
think less, be more alive,
it's your life, live every bit of it.

Breathe in and live!
Live from dawn to dusk,
however difficult be your task,
live with the morning dewdrops,
in spite of your antics and props,
live with the early sunshine,
live in the moonlit night,
live every moment with 
the delightful stars
in time and space, 
wherever you are
don’t live to die but die to live
in every minute of life, believe 
in your breaths, in your weakness
and strength of your nonstop life!
Live! Live! Live!

Thank god

I am a Hindu.
I was stepping inside
a mosque; thought
I was inside a Church.
Both were religions of
fewer Gods, great violence.

There! I was caught
by me, wearing a Hindu
hat, I thought. For stories
of bloodshed among
the gods and goddesses
happen here more often.

All are different.
All the same.

Religion has nothing
to do with what people
had done with it,
I thought.

I dressed like a Muslim,
ate like a Christian,
prayed like a Hindu.

Staged with the make-up,
I forgot what I was made of,
the soil and the soul.

I dreamt of a strange shift,
each follower realized that
theirs was the worst,
the fight was equally worse;
I ran out of breath.

A curious caricature of 
reverse epicaricacy, maybe. 

I popped out of my shell,
in a minute, went back
straight into the cell,
closed from all corners,
comfortable as hell.
I promised to seek an exit
from the inertia of habit.

For a splash,
in the twinkling of
an in-and-out,
I experienced heaven
I could dispense the trash,
the superfluous burden.

Free from the designed sting,
for a second, thank god,
I felt like a human being.

The gate

In all the wars of the
yore and the present,
between countries,
faiths, and race
who won?
who is winning? 

Wild wars
a game of losers,
a cage where
the most powerful,
the most weak
are insecure prisoners. 

The mysterious burden
the gate is wide open. 

The tragedy of religion

As days went by, 
theists became intolerant, 
dangerous; they were bought into
stories that distracted them from
the track - that of peaceful prayer.

Atheists, agnostics proved to
be more peaceful and in that,
followed a sort of unwritten 
religion more than the practitioners;
the followers were infected with
the contagious amnesia, they 
forgot who they were.

Divinity disappeared in the
overpowering mechanical illumination,
religions were stabbing religions,
the light within us was in the dark;
dismissed, yet it relentlessly worked, 
like Sisyphus, carried the rock
on the shoulder, day and night without 
the slightest sight of hope, from anywhere.

When the prophets were writing
those pages, what were they thinking
one wonders... were they filling
the leaves by cutting them from
their branches of the sole tree...
were they, each of them, wording
a tragedy of scriptures?   

The planet

If this planet, a zoo
then, of all, who's
the most dangerous
animal? The human being.
The supreme, the most
powerful, putting creation
at stake, under the 
gratuitous firmament.

The weed of hunting,
being hunted, so present
in the delinquent hunter,
destroying the seed of
creation, day by day,
moment after moment.

Chosen, conscious, caring
words crowd volumes
of leaves, they don't commit,
remain comical hence,
shelves of awards,
endless accolades throw
their weight around,
but the deforestation in
the tonsured ground,
in thought and action
making the move lament.

The sole nest, trapped
in livid lust, greed,
screeching for help.

The cage will not open
change will not unchain,
in the absence of atonement. 

রাজ্যজয়

আমার বাড়ির দেয়ালে
একটা ফুটো ছিল। 
সেখান দিয়ে চুনসুরকি 
খসে খসে পড়ত। 

আমি আমার ছোট আঙ্গুল 
তাতে গলিয়ে দিয়ে আরো 
বড় করতাম আর ভাবতাম 
দেওয়ালের ওদিকে কোন এক 
স্বপ্নের রাজ্য আছে।

চোখ বন্ধ করলেই দেখতাম 
আমার মাকে, সেই কবে 
আমাদের ছেড়ে চলে গেছে 
আকাশের তারা হয়ে,
মনে হত আঙ্গুলটা আরো 
একটু গলাতে পারলেই বোধহয় 
আকাশটা হাতের মুঠোয় পাব,
মায়ের নাগাল পাব।

মনে আছে, কি অসামান্য আশা 
কত ভালোবাসা ছিল সেই 
দেওয়াল ফুটো করার মধ্যে,
একটা রাজ্যজয়ের উন্মাদনা 
ছিল, একটা অমূল্য রত্ন পাওয়ার 
তাড়না ছিল।

আজ অনেক বছর পর,
এক ছোট্ট বাচ্চাকে 
রাস্তার ধারে বিশাল এক 
ভগ্ন অট্টালিকার দেওয়ালে 
পেরেক ঠুকতে দেখে 
আমার শিশুবেলার কথা 
মনে পড়ে গেল। 
ভাবলাম, ওই শিশুটাও 
বুঝি কোন আকাশ হাতড়াচ্ছে
কোন রাজ্য জয়ের আশায়। 

Stars

 

sunset…
all lights have
disappeared willingly
from the outside
to enlighten me,
a dark space
all words have ceased,
need for big and small talks
rest in eternal peace,
I feel a sun rising
in silence, a soft golden
ray, I feel a sense of warmth,
I dance with mridangam*
right in the middle of
stark violence, the wind
playing inside the magical flute,
the argent touch of the ardent moon
tells me how absurdly false
the blood of hatred is;
I feel the healing energy of truth;
love, magic, miracle, abundance,
spread all around in delight,
throughout day and night
by the golden and the silver stars.

mridangam*, a musical instrument, as shown in the picture.

Way of life

Despite many attempts
I failed. To define life.

I travelled between a journey
and a lesson most of the time.

Then
I started reading
versions of good and bad,
right and wrong,
success and failure;
Nothing is accurate,
nothing perfect.

My life, I thought
cannot be construed
by borrowed fantasies.

I came back to spell out.
Horrible interpretations
of yes and no.

Which path to take?
I don’t spend my time
thinking over it,
questioning ceaselessly,
anywhere I go
a way comes along.