The position

I will write on the
bellies of the starved,
I will put words in
the mouths of the
famished;
not one word of
disgrace in my thought
to be used against the
unfortunate wealth, my mind
will not blame oppression,
injustice, it would, like a
singing bard, whisper in
the ears of the achievers
on what real acquisition is,
the eyes of the rich will
suddenly open up and feel
the poignance of walking
over the poor, the stalwarts
will redesign the market
trends; the world, devoid
of disparity, will see its place.

Until then, my love for
the rich and the poor
will continue to enrich the floor,
until growth and development
delivers equality, until the
time new theories of economies
are written, until the pleasures
of the absence of depravity
come into fruition, will I
safeguard my relentless,
tireless position, seated on
the bellies of the famished,
inside the mouths of the starved.

Standing its ground

The world
absurd.
many skies
rich, poor;
many grounds
sliced into pieces,
colours of rainbow
tarnished,
horrific melange
of dark shades,
power to grab
the lion’s share,
the pie of the red
innocuous fruit
made sinful selling
packs of irrelevant
stories.

Grim heaven,
sunless, moonless,
a stone on the
shoulders of
the cursed survivors,
glorified soldiers;
bright firmament,
shining stars,
an umbrella on
the blessed dwellers.

The residents of
the world,
divided, dispersed
caste, creed, colours, race
spitting scarlet words,
splitting the skies and
the grounds in
holes and parts;

The world, way too
unseparated in its
orbit to fly off
to a distant time
and space.
It needs one ground,
one sky to stand
in its moving place.

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.