When Agustun Fuentes remarked that you are who you meet, Gandhi flashed across my mind. If Gandhi had not met the racist conductor who threw him away at the Pietermaritzburg station then Indian if not the world history would have been different because it reinforced his spirit to fight against the evil English empire.
We shape society is a fact we all know but we don’t realize is that society too shapes us. That’s why the old African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child. All the teachers, friends, peers, co-workers, priests, and everyone in your vicinity make us the person we are. In other words, If we can map out all the people you met since childhood and flip them with someone else then you become a new you.
People say casually that you are the average of five people you surround yourself with. However, the fact is you become the average of all the people you meet from your womb to the tomb. Our perception of ourselves and the world then is a product of all the relationships we had and we will have in the future.
Writing and thinking
I think writing reveals your ignorance. Before we begin to write we think that we do know a lot about something and think that we can actually communicate a lot to people. But the minute we begin to type or write on a paper, then the problem kicks in. In the mind, it appears that one has exceptional clarity on anything we usually think.
However, dumping down the ideas onto the paper shows whether we know or not. Of late, it has become a sort of litmus test for me to check intellectual arrogance. On the other day, I began to write a piece on socialism vs capitalism. I was confident that I can write good stuff owing to the fact that I read a lot. But words and ideas began to crumble the minute pen hit the paper.
The fact of the matter of course is quite obvious. Holding random thoughts and a few quotes of famous men and women is easy and takes no effort. Being disorganized is simple and no sweat. However, writing demands shape, order, and sorting out the wheat from the chaff which is way harder than it actually sounds.
And writing also insists completion of thoughts. But in the mental world, we never care about that. Half-complete ideas are okay and do not require an extra struggle to bring a nice closure. We can also simply shut them off or divert them. On the other hand writing tests your will and is a sort of fire that burns away your nonsense and puts a deadline and orders you to take a stand on the issue at hand.
Paper at all times demands a settlement of thought and it doesn’t accept half-baked cookies.
Before the morning (Poem)
At 3 A.M.
a quiet pissy feeling,
woke me up or,
a thirsty throat.
_________________________
At 3 A.M.
the wormholes of the universe,
were wide open,
no one was there to melt into it,
no, not even the gods,
for they were too busy,
in auditing the spreadsheet of,
vices and virtues.
_________________________
At 3 A.M.
productivity games of man,
did not start, yet —
the air was still not,
wet the sweat of joggers.
the birds, the dogs, the cats,
the coffee cups, the babies,
and the karma has not woken up,
yet —
and were still in their erstwhile positions,
like a spartan army, disciplined and tamed.
but the cockroaches were moving.
The nothingness of 3 A.M.
was blissful, not yet intruded,
by mechanical and robotic 5 A.M.’s,
of the man.
_______________________
3 A.M.
it’s the time,
you are utterly alone with the stars,
and the darkness,
in a state of true living.
the only moment,
I hear the time,
slipping by.
only the watcher remains,
with no mind,
to explore the geometries.
The wrecked home (Poem)
The soil is sodden
with chemicals.
Air
became monstrous
with particulates,
blackening the blue sky.
Water
is sobbing
not in salts
but with sulfates.
The muscular woods
were pillaged,
the leafiness was lost
to the senile love of sapiens.
Birds,
wounded by antibiotics.
the ocean bottoms
scrapped, reaped,
by the insomniac passion
of imbeciles.
Monastic habitats
turned to urns
and occluding the
cobweb of life.
Glaciers — The immortal ice,
playing
life and death
to the tunes
of Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Oh — the starry nights
are no longer
lit
but
split and hit by
the manly photons.
-The civic sins of the man.
Clouds (Poems)
I think, therefore, they are
Clouds without me are just science
I make an art out of them
and give meaning
I catch these nomads
and make them
a one-eyed dragon
using their unfathomable expressions
Without me
they are just pale simpletons
however, I rearrange vapour
and forge a great lost king
Before those wild winds take them away
out of sheer mercy
I took these idle dull not-fit-for-anything creatures
and shaped them into
something great
Mikail says they are just hippies
I agree
but I gave them a spiritual aura
by my imagination
Smallholder (Poem)
The son of the soil
and
The daughter of the sickle
placed the bet
on the slaughtered lands
on the mercurial monsoons
and
on the sleepy seeds.
Pack of pests
patiently waiting
to prey on the pain.
The rhythm of debts
The tunes of prices
play a sad melody of suicides.
Meanwhile, the cows
cry in the clutches
of corporates and
the Goblin of globalization.
Adding to the ironies,
The past sins of man
come to the farm
in the form
of cyclones, droughts
to make late memories
and bleach the
colours of cracked earth.
Chronologically (Poem)
The songster bird
and the Casio
have hit the air
at 5 a.m.
Papa too
woke up
for this disrespectful sounds
followed by mama.
the nescient plant
couldn’t tolerate
this scheduled hell.
Wires hung to walls
have begun
to charge the poor
devices
reeling under
the Victorian electric poverty.
Up, down
Up, down
Up, down
scrolling and rolling
of e-mailbox
and the unquiet notifications.
Only then
I raise a toast
to the sorry-bar of karma.
Job done (Poem)
The mailman’s inky fingers
were shaking like a toddler’s head
when his eyes saw
the tragedy
behind the letters.
How many kisses of death
and the news of hell
can the latter carrier
take with him to the village?
This is no majestic mission.
God decides
yet the messenger takes the blame.
I long to lug the light
and twist the words
so that
the beloved only knows benevolence
and the rumours only
rush to remind a forgotten face
yet the sound
I
deliver is cold.
the memory
I deliver is tainted by time.
the laughter
I deliver is brief
and burdened by blows of
blood.
Locked and locked to the
a load of luck.
Thoughtful (Poem)
The train of thought
was a rumbling one
very close
to great Indian railways.
I left the stations
of Plato, Socrates, Kant,
Hannah Arendt and other
such wise fellows
to burn my engines of the cranium.
Neural obesity of schools
and university did not
give me greener ideas.
All I had was some
colored and copied ones
to entice the unread.
At last, after a few shots of courage
some came up
good enough to start a caffeinated small talk.
The whole process
resembled a Swedish night
waiting for the sun.
For this, we need some iron
to trust our own mental breeding
if not,
wait for the intellectuals
who write down noble books
filled to brim with
the un-collected societal wisdom
left to the journal-writing vultures
by feared men and women.
We need valor
to wear the rounded hats
to walk with spirited sticks
to tread the tea bars
to ferment the dull cups
and pale milk.
Hence O’ nerds
hanging to the walls of
grey and cracked libraries
Hence O’ market-troublers
raising fists to fables
Hence O’ garden-walkers
and black-board artists
and beard trimmers
— the society awaits your holy germination.
Wintering (Poem)
Without sun —
colored sweaters
were flavorless
and very neutral
like an old diplomat.
The hibernal moods
were suit-cased
and hand-gloved.
Spirit was
an old octogenarian
dragging on a long staircase.
The imagery
of a paused butterfly
for a candid shot
was missing.
fingerprints of a bee
on the nectared flowers
were long gone.
The lava of snow and solitude
slowly filling in.
the deserted sky
slowly filling in
like an unholy cowboy
coming to a village.
polar lights with
chameleon morals
masked the brightness
of a starry night.
poems too
have become
dubious
so
too
were the guests
of late night TV talk show
so
too
were the swirling coffee cups.
— Drunken dragon with
a drunken tummy.
Thy Vox 