As I climb (Poem)

Cricket on the granite steps
in
a Yoga asana
or a Kung fu move
hard to stop
in the spy-movie lights.

Folk music and dog barks
in the cosmic background
as the lizard near the light
is interrogating and shadowing
the migration of insects
like Sherlock along with its Watson.

Chinese clothes on the nylon rope
suspicious of getting dried
in the dark-American winds.

One crazy cat has loosened its fur anarchy
onto the world with night king eyes
and convicted paws.

The ice-chipped
winds and the shadows
of unknown lights
erect silent goosebumps
on deforested body
as the legs pass the stanzas
of concrete.


India, Undefined. (Poem)

All scholarly tongues are silent,
And all the well-read pass the buck
if asked to define India.
Cultures are made anew every morning
Religions redefined again in the afternoon
And spirituality altered for every new moon.

Every street has a fresh social norm
and it’s own intricacies.
Every bystander a philosopher.
And every cow is holy in some sense.

Rivers, trees, stones,
snakes, eagles, dogs,
earth, water, soil, air
all worshipped and none left
in this land.

Snowy Himalayas try to offer truth,
Monasteries, a bit of solitude
and a Gandhi statue non-violence
amidst a billion-plus population.

Modern men and women
carry ancient tags of caste
and millennial identities
in the same bodies.

The threads of
Past, present and the future
bind together
to create a land of no time.

Fate aligned to karma.
Justice tied to power.
and liberty hand in glove
with money.

Politics performing sorcery.
Economy doing yoga.
Science flirting with customs.
Technology with Jugaad.

Administration to connections.
And sports — running between the wickets.
but this is just
one India,
in so many other Indias
in India.
A forever plural nation.

The
What-ness
Why-ness
Where-ness
How-ness
of it all
is breathtakingly
unusual.


Is there nobility in suffering?

Definitely not. Being a Dostoevskyian is sick and saddening. Why should any suffering have meaning at all? And we never search for meaning while we are happy. Is it to accept the helplessness and then seek some pride in it?

Friedrich Nietzsche says that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But suffering rarely made any men stronger. Either they get used to it or become egotistical to accept that they too are weak and can weep.

Even after the Nth time, pain cripples us but humanity and so-called self-advertised strong men find it hard to swallow it.

This has a negative consequence—No one is seeking out help and is crushing their lives simply in the name of being stoic. This is a disease and a plague for us all.

They are dumping the waste into the subconscious and growing their Jungian “shadows” and society is raising sociopaths in the name of strong Spartans.

Acknowledging this can heal the sore souls and spoiled spirits. It’s time to stop searching for meaning in martyrdom and affection in affliction.