Fish out of water

In the garden-pond...

World peace days,

Angry peace organisations,

Big fish

peace, a small fry

out of water

Immortal air

Immortal air

Dead in the flute

Lying on the ground

Once, many tunes were born

Wrote stories of angels,

From the gaps of gasping breaths

Painted pictures, in the whistling air

Entertained rivers floating through the nerves

Its intercourse with fingers melted snows and stones.

Now, those feelers no longer

Give a hand to the dancing air; they have left

Leaving the flute as a mere instrument

They are now occupied, engaged

To craft and build structures of a different bent

Mud has choked the flute.

No room, no space inside; to flirt, caress

Even from close

It looks like a stick, made of stone

Ready for a new role

Outcast air urges the leaves to fall

And cover its mate.

Lying on the ground

Dead in the flute

Immortal air

Hey U

Hey U

Curtain raises. Circus begins.  

Voice in chorus:

"Men in uniform – prepared to lay their lives

For their nation, they’re ready to sacrifice

Trained to kill the enemies, dead

Red tilak on some of their foreheads

Painted by their mothers and wives

War will begin in a while

National anthem playing on the background

Filling the air with pride, all around"

Joker

"The red tilak looks so familiar, no? Wait a minute, where did I see this? Ah! I remember on the satis, who were burnt alive, and in the background, there would be music too... so satis would go to heaven...ah...I remember!"

Voice in chorus

"Hey U! Not a word anymore!

Don’t you dare remind us!

Of those primitive onerous omnibus

That is done with and over for sure

What a shame it was, that sacrifice

Of innocent lives"

Joker

"You see I don’t see any difference I am sorry. Do you think I should leave? For instance, I find this mindset very primitive dudes... you are still not able to find a mechanism to stop war, to function without weapons and arms. How’s this any different from those girls burnt alive?"

Voice in chorus

"Hey U! Not a word anymore!

With those unfortunate girls

You equate these noble soldiers

Don’t you dare compare!!!!!!"

Joker
"Hang on then... imagine what’s happening on the other side?"

Voice in chorus
"Don’t you dare compare!!!!!"

Joker

"Hee hee, then do you think I should leave... why don’t you let the soldiers and the men in uniform do something else...hmm... like working for the poor, for the environment...hmm there are quite a few things to do you know, which are far better than this delinquent game...you could stop this war, and any war for that matter."

Voice in chorus (a painful music is played on the background)

"How?"

Joker

"Talk to the dudes on the other side... you see there are no sides in this round world... hee hee...like there’s no horizon, hee hee... there’s no east, west...these are all conventions, not the reality you know... you see the sun? Does it set or rise? No, never... hee hee but yet we see and just because we do, doesn’t mean it’s true. So grow up...please?"

Voice in chorus (angry)
"You did not answer the question!!!"

Joker
"Well how would I know... I know nothing of anything you see... hee hee"

National anthem playing in the background

Filling the air with pride, all around

Voice in chorus

"You have no place here

In this pure, patriotic, pious atmosphere

A traitor, a betrayer that you are

You wanted to leave hey u?

We think you better do"

Joker

"Ok dudes...I think you guys are really angry with me... I have to be with the farmers... we found an interesting way to plough without fertilizers... we also invented a mechanism to purify the rivers and the air with prayer and energy...and you know what... we are a team where there are also these people who use the same red tilak, few dudes detest it but that’s okay... we are all working together to provide food and home to everyone in my country...your country sorry...(self-chuckles...when will I get my possessives right!) but we need soldiers like these you see? Standing there! Also we need money yaar and you’re wasting all this money and lives on wars, you go yaar...

before you kill me,

let me flee

for with or without those red tilaks on,

like possessed morons

do I want to die...

so bye bye"

Voice in chorus

"hey u... morons...u said morons?

to selfless souls as these?!"

Joker
"Aha! So you admire selflessness?"

Voice in chorus

"Doubtless, yes!"

Joker
"What if countries also did the same

Of neighbors they thought instead?

To wars morons I said, not to them

It won't suit your artificial caprice

For I know in this plastic mayhem

I need them for good, for growth and peace

For heavens, stop this war"

Times

Voice in chorus

"Throw this half-wit out

Before creatures like these would sprout

Creepers like you would in forests cry

We know everything of the likes of you, BYE!!!

You must thank your star

For we set you free"

Joker

"Hee hee...hee hee... hee hee"

Curtain falls. A soft voice is still heard in the background.

"Soldier O Soldier
brave sons of the soil
you sacrifice your life
your body, your soul dear
O my brothers and Sisters!
Wish as leaders
we could end this strife
for good, we know you have no fear
of death; we ask you to end your lives

for we cannot end wars, it's our failure
we measure your success
when your dead body lies
we salute you like this
year after year
thousands of years down the line
wonder if we could get over war crisis."

The joker suddenly appears popping through the curtain

"Long live the soldiers
because they can die
They protect us when we lie
asleep on our bed

sorry we cannot end the wars
we are the leaders."

Voice in chorus (in the background...running after the joker)
"Hey you... get out of here... just leave
Not a word of yours we believe
You neither respect our selfless soldiers
Nor do you our able leaders
Now you do not have the right to live."

The curtain drops.

Note:

1.      Sati (Sanskrit: satī, also spelled suttee) is an obsolete Indian funeral custom where a widow immolated herself on her husband's pyre, or committed suicide in another fashion shortly after her husband's death. Mention of the practice can be dated back to the 4th century BCE, while evidence of practice by wives of dead kings only appears beginning between the 5th and 9th centuries. The practice is considered to have originated within the warrior aristocracy on the Indian subcontinent, gradually gaining in popularity from the 10th century CE and spreading to other groups from the 12th through 18th century CE. The practice was particularly prevalent among some Hindu communities, observed in aristocratic Sikh families, and has been attested to outside South Asia in a number of localities in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia, Vietnam. The practice was initially legalized by the colonial British officials specifying conditions when sati was allowed, then the practice was outlawed in 1829 in their territories in India (the collected statistics from their own regions suggesting an estimated 500–600 instances of sati per year), followed up by laws in the same directions by the authorities in the princely states of India in the ensuing decades, with a general ban for the whole of India issued by Queen Victoria in 1861. In Nepal, sati was banned in 1920. The Indian Sati Prevention Act from 1988 further criminalised any type of aiding, abetting, and glorifying of sati. Source: Wikipedia

2.      Red tilak, also known as tilaka, In Hinduism, the tilaka (tikli or sheether harr in Bengali, tika, or tilakam or tilak in Hindi; Sanskrit: तिलक tilaka; Hindustani pronunciation: [t̪ɪˈlək]) is a mark worn on the forehead and other parts of the body. Tilaka may be worn on a daily basis or for special religious occasions only, depending on different customs. Source: Wikipedia

3.      Yaar, friend

On paper

It’s just a piece of paper

That unites and separates.

There are these scratches,

Instructed to know

As signatures of witness.

What about the journeys

on the bed,

on the buses and trains,

what about those nights

when a no meant a yes

those sweet, salty togetherness,

what about the ginger

in those precious lunch-boxes

scratch-less, spotless

gleaming with love’s labour,

of concern and care...

Those dreams wonderfully thankless

Fall as ink-drops, on paper-power.

O heavens I wonder

how these precious partners

will walk apart, strangers

tearing away the bond

of memories futile, fond...

scratches of those days

through severed paper craft

will beat in the hearts

as numb witness.

in the detached loop

A blank page

Like the blue sky,

Open

To be written.

I choose words, as birds,

those in it would fly...

exclusive, unrivalled

the good and the beautiful

to the ear and the eye

for the clever and the cool.

I don’t withal sense

how in your blue

light and dense

you let all

receive your hue...

and yet again,

when you fall as the sea

your solitary image

becomes your order and your plea.

My words choose

to drop on the page.

Goodbye to wars

Just a while ago, we took our long awaited leap

Awake, aware we’re now living our dream

Wars are destroyed from the minds

No aftermaths, no outcries

Arms and weapons are resting in peace

In the museums and lexicons, o what a bliss

Unarmed people do not die on unaware streets like rats any more

Arms wide open; they stretch for the needy and the poor

Growth abounds, lives flourish

Hungry children are nurtured and nourished

Gone are the reasons for those worried wars

For those who shine in the sky like our scars

Changed has the challenged world.

Peace and love are now not just words

Radiating friendship beyond borders and boundaries

Free are they from the confines of dictionaries

Love and peace are shared for sure and for good

We have wealth and abundance of food.

On the stage, beyond masks, with life and nature

Differences are now playing a connected overture

On the same tolerant land, under the same forgiving sky

We bid adieu to wars, we say a final goodbye

The poem is in the reversible style; it can also be enjoyed by reading from the last line to the first. Once by following and respecting the law of gravity (laws of the land!) and once by moving your way upward, as though you are taking a leap. Enjoy!

Of nothing else

Taliban! For a long time

It had the better of me this word,

I could only think of terror and crime

When it appeared in my world;

Of it, the more I heard and saw

It costumed as the truth, without any flaw

It played its role on stage

For years consumed horror and bloodshed

Until I went to the dais, without a borrowed mirror

And looked at the word I caused pain, freed it from my obstinate cage

I will change its mask; I will change its dress

I will paint it afresh with a complete new face

Some will witness in it for sure some sense

The word now speaks to me of tolerance

Of acceptance, love, intelligence

Of brotherhood, affluence and newness

Of nothing else, of nothing else

I have changed it completely

And with it will change my reality

O what a beautiful word this is

It holds everything I need

How did I overlook, how did I miss

The word is kind indeed.

Words have a deep impact on our thoughts. In fact, we are nothing but words! Thoughts give rise to feelings, feelings to actions, actions to habits. Habits make our personality which in turn becomes our destiny. In view of this, the poem tries to change our destiny by changing the thought of a particular word that's troubling our world.

This poem is dedicated to those who have taught me how thoughts create our own destiny

The Brahmakumaris
Deepak Chopra
Wayne Dyer
Osho
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Eckhart Tolle
Oprah Winfrey
Home of Abraham-Hicks

Rien à faire

Rien à faire

my only affair,

seated under the nameless tree

...not waiting for anyone, not even for me!

A pleasure at last I am nested here

nothing else to hope, nothing else to fear.

Thoughts that rest, still move the memory steps,

how naïve I had been with goings-on insane!

The world’s fast asleep, I am wide awake

it’s dreaming for someone through steps that are fake.

Leaves of love browned, are falling all around,

my bed of failings would turn them green, right on this ground.

Something dances inside me, singing all along

I think I know the steps, I think I know the song!

With hands wide open, I turn round and round,

all words then end my real me I found.

It tells me to banish hatred, worries, wars, anger

Until the time it’s over, rien à faire, rien à faire,

rien à faire,

the sole affair

in between

I was looking at a waterfall

Ceaselessly, at the white

Falling and falling

Oneness in the action...

So near was I,

Fresh!

I could smell the flow,

Feel the force.

After a while

my eyes and ears focused

the fall dressed as a fountain

rising and rising...

spreading its freshness

in the air

as its sole offer...

beyond a point

nothing!

Did I not look-see?

Yes, I did!

Then how did they marry!
in this blissful bridal symphony

The movement

only the movement stayed,

as a unique sound, a forbearance

the source and the destiny

in silence

alighted from the journey

Life!

I sensed

moving in between

hidden birth and death

Background

When you play your guitar

Stars blink, moon smiles

The sky shines in the dark

As you tune in from behind.

Seeing this my heart sings

With the ears mellow my eyes

Un voleur gets the miracle wings

In the melody, wanders and lies.