Polishing the mirror

I was busy polishing
the mirror, its slightest error
bothered me, so I ordered for
the flawless glass that spoke of
an elite class; still my face
reflected all the signs of stress
that the metal couldn’t efface.

The recycled

I received many regret letters
from countless employers;
felt depressed, piled them
one by one, slowly it became
a habit, a hobby, a bit of fun.

I thought of doing something new
with the failed pages, learned folding
the papers into beautiful boats, flowers,
toys, and stars. On them, I splashed
random, irregular colours.

They looked brilliant and bright,
I decided to post them on a site
that invited paintings for an ensuing
competition; to my utter surprise,
one of them won me a winning prize.

Gradually, I had many followers
with whom I didn't hesitate to share
how I transformed the pain into pleasure 
that the boats, toys, stars, and flowers
were recycled heaps of regret letters.

God and the preachers

Excuse me, please
but god is too powerful,
full of love, merciful,
bountiful to have enemies.

If there’s anything that god
would hate, it’s war and
the bloodshed of his or her
own creation, god is he or she who
gives and forgives all, including
his or her own enemies.

If you have, by mistake, portrayed
god as someone of whom we need
to be afraid, your lines had betrayed
the basic truth; they need to be
rewritten and reread.

Describe him or her as one
who can only love, bless,
and bestow infinite bliss,
even to his or her enemies.

God is someone from whom
we learn and have fun.
She or he is friends at ease
with those who believe in her
or in him, as also with those
who sing a different hymn.

In order to get rid of this warring
disease, follow god alone, not his
or her preachers, please.

বিশ্বের বিস্ময়

বিশ্ব এক বিস্ময়কর ভূমি
অদৃশ্য ঘড়ির ছন্দে চলে
ওঠা পড়া, ভাঙা গড়ার খেলা
দিবারাত্রি ঢিমেতালে দোলে
শত সহস্র প্রাণীর নাড়ির টান।

বনজঙ্গল পুকুর দীঘি নদী
সমুদ্র, পাহাড়, কত পর্বতমালা
অগন্তি সম্পদ নিরবধি
প্রসাদের মত করে অনুদান
গেয়ে চলে জীবনের গান।

ফুলবনে ফুলফল ফোটে
ভোরে ওঠা পাখিদের ডাকে
না জানি কি নেশা মিশে থাকে
পায় মাখা শিশিরের সাথে
আনন্দে ভরে যায় প্রাণ।

রাতে কত থোকা থোকা তারা
জ্বলজ্বল করে আকাশেতে
মায়াভরা জ্যোৎস্নায় মেতে
প্রেমে হয় মন মাতোয়ারা
আলোর আলিঙ্গনে স্নান।

যেখানেতে এতো ভালোবাসা
আমি সেথা কোনো এক কোণে
মাতৃস্নেহে বেড়ে উঠি ভেবে
পৃথিবীর বুকে মোর বাসা?
কি করেছি পেতে এই স্থান!

আমার যত রাগ দ্বেষ আছে
নিষ্ঠূর যুদ্ধ হানাহানি
সভ্যতার দম্ভ হয়রানি
বিশ্বের করুণা ঝর্ণাতে
করে যাই অনর্গল পান।

যখনি চেতনায় পড়ে ভাটা
সব ফেলে দিই আমি হাটা
চোখ কান খুলে দেখি শুনি
বিশ্বের পবিত্র সুরধ্বনি,
সব গ্লানি হয়ে যায় ম্লান।

Global checklist

The greatest achievement of
human population
will only come into fruition
when the world and its cousins
learns to operate and function
without the use of weapons.

The most significant contribution
to the world will come alive
when poverty, in all its apparition
will disappear, wither, and die,
and corruption ceases to survive.

Until the time, all the countries,
despite their sciences and technologies,
will fall prey to the win-lose model
of destruction, all accolades, and laurels
will crowd the space, cloud the mind
as precious and priceless fripperies,
they’d be for a fact, not worth any kind.

Being in the game

When soldiers become
leaders, wars are stationed,
bargained, rationed, because
they had been there, done that
many times before, they know
its futility, all the more.

When writers become
leaders, nation recovers
from disasters, since they had
criticized those hankering
after, pelf, position, and power.

When lawyers become
leaders, rate of crime, corruption,
violation significantly drops
as they had dealt with the malice
a number of times in their profession.

When doctors become
leaders, the nation heals under
their guidance for they know
how to cure illnesses.

I know, by this time, impatient
readers, like me, are nodding
their heads in disapproval;
reality paints a picture that's
way too imperfect, people who
go to the top, those who matter
the most, for the eradication
of the disturbing conditions,
cannot opt to break away from
the vicious norm, and usher their
nations into a brighter morn.

We need fresh thinking, a collective
strength to help, not blame; to deliver
the world from this self-destructive
system, we need to create an innovative
game where players learn and benefit
without any guilt, or shame of defeat;
where all of them, regardless of their
professions win as they play,
all along the way.

সুপ্রভাত

ওই যে মানুষগুলো,
রাস্তার চারিধারে আছে,
তাদের ফুটপাথের
চিরন্তনের উচ্ছেদের
আচ্ছাদনের ভিতর...
তারা মর্নিং ওয়াক রত
পথযাত্রীদের থেকে সুপ্রভাত
শুনলে অবাক হয়ে তাকিয়ে
দেখে, কোথাও থেকে ভাতের গন্ধ
আসছে কিনা। 

আমি বসে এক কোনে ভাবি
মনে মনে, এই দারিদ্র কি
কখন মিটবে না?
এতো লোক হাটাহাটি করছে,
হাতাহাতি, মারামারি করে মরছে,
পৃথিবীতে এতো ধন, এতো
প্রাচুর্য, এতো আড়ম্বর
এর মধ্যে যারা বনবাসের মত
দারিদ্রে বসবাস করছে নিরন্তর,
কবে দিনমনির মত উঠবে
তাদের মাথার ওপর ছাদ,
মুখে পেটভরা হাঁসি,
পাতে গরম ভাত,
কবে আসবে জাগরণের
সেই মনোরম সুপ্রভাত।

Sex and sexuality

Sex, in essence,
is heterosexual, sexuality
is in between a man
and a woman;
both manifest within
persons where
only pure and passionate
love matters,
gender doesn't;
it's always
a man and a woman,
looking for each other
 while making love on the bed,
or elsewhere as partners 
for a one-night stand,
or for good, holding hands
for a lifelong affair. 

The elusive

Imagination is trapped
in words, 

when I say, Jesus

I cannot imagine him

playing the flute,

a hut has to stand
somewhere in a land,

it cannot sail afloat 

in a boat,

Krishna cannot find himself

in a mosque,

images that want to live

die in predicted captivity.

Through arranged letters,
are created, unconscious

waves of wars, 

they're meant to anchor ashore

like a vehicle of

communication, but on their way

they invariably hit hidden

icebergs, their fixed destinations,

like a mirage in a desert, 

are forever distanced 

in tragic destiny.

They bond, to depict reality
they're bound in sounds, 

lie in silent pages, to separate, 

yet expressions rejoice, 

in volumes of 

heard, unheard voice

in the illusion of liberty.

The absolute truth

From the moment of birth,
death starts; destruction of homes
in its literal and metaphorical sense
commences with its inception.

I die because of my breath
yet, when I die I cannot breathe
life is destroyed because it eats,
it also perishes when it stops to eat.

All definitions collapse with
Vishwadarshan, Krishna becomes
Radha, he leaves, but never ever
abandons the Vrindavan.

When Arjuna beholds Krishna,
not the one we are condemned
to imagine, like the one playing
with the Gopis, or as the shepherd
with a peacock's feather on his head,
a flute in his hand,
but the Krishna who absorbs destruction,
creation, and operation, in whom duality
of opposites ceases and continues to confuse,
yet coexist, the Krishna who is beyond time
and space, where the part and the whole are
seen at once, where Krishna, in the majestic
scene becomes the stage, the director,
the audience and the performer.

Where all differences become one,
where no rule can be established,
although its existence can be experienced,
Arjuna dared to define the indefinable
in the clumsy lines that overruled all the
rules of meters.

That whose beauty and vivacity cannot be
contained in measured lines, whose existence
cannot be lied in words or description, which
is intertwined like birth and death, whose
vision may be denied to some, but can never
be defined, that which is within us at ease
all the time, but beyond any dogma or proof,
that is the state of the absolute truth.