Once in a café 

The following few poems were written in a space of one month, while moving through three different cities. Each one has been triggered by a random image, a fleeting moment, or by a phrase caught inadvertently by a curious ear.

1.

"just forget 'bout 

it";

A bit lonely 

repetitiveness

slips in...like

the hollow slow

call of a solitary 

crow pheasant

lying unanswered

on the other side of

a buried reality

"just forget 'bout 

it";

it turns to

silence, but the

insides still scream

like cassandra.

echoes rise and

fall against the

sanguine darkness

lost to time

and lessness 

"do you remember?"

2.

do not mourn for us

who existed always

in each other's dreams

even without knowing;

strangers no more.

each listening quietly

in the wordless hush

of silent yearnings.

eyes closed, we brush

past each other

in the folded darkness

and lo the sparks that

rise, the cinders that

fall...a chrysalis aquiver 

on this rainy day

3.

the gentleman 

with pink umbrella

under the cupolic sun

forgot his wreath

of smiles somewhere

along the cemetery

he passed on the

way to work

now there he goes

wondering why

today feels a little

emptier than

yesterday; his hand

clutching the smooth

wooden handle 

wishing it were holding 

the light brown palm

of the beloved, with

infinity etched on it

4.

      

in the old bookshop

renovated, smelling of 

fresh paint and defunct

identity, they cruise

from aisle to aisle

searching for fragments

of departed time 

with its musty smells, 

coffee dregs, and pages

aflutter with impatience;

hearts racing past its 

'silence please' corners

drumming pulsations

slowly dying like embers;

hissing

5.

infinity squandered in 

trying to forget the few

moments we spent

together: yet who could 

have known that every

leaf  sighing in the wind

would remind me of you?

6.

i shall merge 

forever in the now, 

the then pressed gently

against my heart

The Way...

It passed noiselessly from our front yard. "Good," my mother exclaimed. "This would take care of those thieving rats raiding my papayas right off the trees". Yes, the enormous whip-tailed rodents were not only partying up there, but also leaving fat chunks of turd right by her entrance door as though to rub it in.

"Great," my husband remarked, chuckling. He was thinking of the fate of all those toads which had turned our shoe-rack on the porch into a convenient housing complex, with each slippery individual occupying the cozy interiors of our infrequently used sneakers and sandals. However, as part of his morning ritual, he went through each footwear on and off the rack and shook it vigorously,  waking up the sleepyheads and sending them scurrying to look for some other place to house-sit. Needless to say, he also had to ensure that they hadn't left any proof of their eupepsia behind. So, for my husband having a snake around was reassuring and translated into one less chore to preoccupy his morning hours.

My brother too was overjoyed. His reasons were quite different, as he nodded his head thoughtfully and said, "hm....very auspicious indeed".  For the legend has it that we are the descendants of King Agrasen of Solar Dynasty. And King Agrasen is reputed to have  married  the  beautiful  princess Madhavi, the daughter of Nag Raj, the Snake King. Somehow my brother was very taken up by this legend and proud to have some reptile blood coursing through our veins. The conspiracy theorists like David Icke who propagate the reptilian humanoid/reptoid theory would surely feel vindicated by this belief.

Two-meter-long, dark green and unaggressive, the welcomed visitor, which came and went as it pleased, was a harmless rat snake. Soon a mongoose too had begun to drop by our yard in a casual 'howdy' kind of way. And the brahminy kite was heard circling the swirling heights above the cashew tree. The sprawling indolence of summer-swathed days assumed an air of alertness with shadows once still, beginning to breathe, and hiss, and  glide.

"Nothing is permanent" , says Buddha. One morning we were woken up by  a sudden commotion of excited voices. An image of two drunkards in a tussle swaggered across the mind briefly before I was nudged hurriedly back into the tempting arms of Morpheus. Later, on waking up, the dead snake outside the gate met my eyes: killed, slaughtered, hacked. "It is released from this world of Maya", my mother philosophised, adding, "now, it might  be reborn as something else". She had found her peace. She always does.

The memory slowly slinked away, leaving in its wake the usual cavalcade of unanswered questions; the whys and the wherefores. Summer days grew hotter and clammier. The three amaltas trees in our neighborhood with their dangles of golden yellow blossoms refused to bloom. Even the vermilion gulmohar was reluctant. The wonted abundance of the mango season eschewed us. 

It was only May, the wee beginning of summer, and most of the country,  embroiled in communal upheaval,  was already reeling under an unprecedented heat wave. History was being dug up to resurrect the past, while the present itself was being quietly buried. 

  

Let's Get Serious

It felt surreal to find Ravish Kumar on NDTV's Hindi channel speak about Trevor Noah. Suddenly the living rooms of Ravish's prime time audience were alive with Noah's unstoppable humor which seem to be pumping up  an animated Joe Biden with an insane amount of laughing gas.  Interestingly, oftentimes the butt of the joke was President Biden himself. Yet, the 81-year-old leader found it within his ambit to be a good sport. 

In 2015, Trevor Noah, the stand-up comedian and South African television icon succeeded the longtime host Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, a satirical news program on Comedy Central. And seven years later, here he was, the 37-year-old Noah, invited to do a skit at the White House Correspondents' dinner. Poking fun at the President's many policies as well as the complacency of media, Noah was as much at home as his audience. 

The above example just goes on to illustrate that a vibrant democracy embraces criticism at the apical level. Here is a non-American, who is not even a citizen of the country, making fun of the highest authority of the nation in his presence and on his turf. To envision a similar scenario in our country steeped in a culture which encourages an almost groveling and reverential attitude towards the powers that be, is chimerical.

To be able to expose the hypocrisy of a society, amnesia of a system or short-sightedness of a leader through humour sometimes may be the most effective means to get one's point through. The front page editorial cartoons in the newspapers worldwide, for example, have long been considered representational of the publications' respective socio-political leanings, and often succeed in mouthing more than the editorial or the articles on op-ed page can. 

While political satire is as old as the Greeks, stand-up comedy is a twentieth century phenomenon where a comedian addresses a live audience. Even though India has had its fair share of popular satirists in artists such as Kaka Hathrasi, Ashok Chakradhar,  Safdar Hashmi, Pradip Chaube and Alhar Bikaneri, stand-up comedy has made its foray onto the Indian stage only a decade and a half ago. Artists like Kunal Kamra, Varun Grover, Hasnein Sheikh, Vir Das and Munawar Faruqui have not only become household names, but were once considered a force to reckon with. 

Lately however, this business of being funny is becoming less and less funny. Awkward

silences or an audience that is not in on the joke is one thing, fragile egos with easily-hurt sentiments, quite another. While the former might land the artist in an embarrassing situation, the latter could land him/her behind bars. The truth being that along with the risk of content-crackdown or a show-cancellation, there is always the realtime apprehension of being sued. And it is this  which is driving several comedians to run their stand-up videos by lawyers before uploading them on social media, just to be on safer grounds. "Getting shot dead while performing is not out of the realm of impossibility anymore. A slap on stage is quite a mild thing in comparison," remarks Grover on the mishaps of being a stand-up comedian in India.  

Whoever said, 'Laughter is the Best Medicine'? 

Are you serious?

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Composed, consciously shutting out the latent snobbery of my non-believer's heart, I step into the grand ancient interiors of the Meenakshi temple.

Two rock doves flutter above me to land on the monolithic buttress supporting the entrance. A tiny salamander slithers across the path. People dressed in silk, forehead smeared with ash and sandalwood paste, eyes filled with jasmine scent and fervor file past. I touch the stone-carved pillars, dating back to the 6th century CE, wondering if I were to reach the closest star at this very moment, would I really be watching dinosaurs rollicking around the earth? Their damp coolness feels soothing against the sun-soaked granite floors where we walk bare-footed on this hot summer day. 

A cat basks in  the snug embrace of one of the sculpted gods. Its proximity to such divine company hasn't spurred it to lose touch with its wilder instincts for in-house adventure. My eyes follow its maverick movements as it sidles up and down around the pillars, finally finding its way towards a hidden window and quietly disappearing therein. No doubt, in search of something new...or maybe merely seeking some privacy away from the bemused expressions of the devout.

Many temple guides are eager to woo us and show us around. They speak several languages and understand different psyches. Their locution and interpretation varies depending on whether the individual is local or a foreigner. But, it's getting harder and harder for us to walk on the parched grounds. We do not have the same stamina as these thousands of devotees who have thronged here from various parts of India. 

Mere observers, our little group of four is full of oohs and aahs and wows, captivated by the sheer magnanimity of such a project taken some 1700 years ago. The fervent beauty and the flowing rhythms of sculptures draw us into the very soul of rapturous harmonies. The painted murals too are immersed in the perpetual light of earthly colors. Marching down aisles after aisles, under the beatific gaze of thousands of gods, goddesses, twelve-hooded serpents, ferocious demons with dragon faces, elephants, bulls and The Great Rattus itself, a sense of awe gives way to a sudden surge of catharsis.  'Free me from myself so I can aspire to be Thee: Joyous, calm, filled with light in all thy myriad manfestations', I pray.

Back on streets outside the temple, it is business as usual. Vendors from rows after rows of small shops call out irresistible deals to attract customers. An out-of-place showroom seems to be truly cashing in on the spirit of the place with the following caption on its storefront sign: "Your Search For the Incredible Ends Here..". The store is dedicated to American brands like Levi Strauss, Ralph Lauren, and Route 66.

I want to buy something local for my mom as a souvenir from this holy place. The sun is relentless and the dry heat is beginning to rise in swirls. The cool dark interiors of small shops seem inviting. I walk into a non-descript hand-woven silk emporium looking for a saree. Within minutes my aspiration to emulate the great gods has ludicrously rolled off my being. I am human again as I dive into some petty haggling with the shopkeeper -- the adrenaline rush coursing through my bloodstream is wickedly palpable.

Our Grandma's Trunk

An object gets reduced to junk when it outlives its usefulness. Today, on Earth Day, I rescued our grandmother's trunk from such a dire fate by reclaiming it from  the mafiosic violence of an overloaded and chaotic storeroom. And, by the patient process of sandpapering the rusted exterior, and applying a new coat of paint, this 60 year old 2'x1'x0.75' hunk of metal was finally accorded a new lease of life. I chose to depict a glamorous kingfisher on the lid because of the bird's pre-dawn waking habit, a routine which our grandmother too observed rigorously until the very end.

This trunk accompanied our grandma wherever she went, be it to visit one of her seven sisters, or her own grown kids. In the case of the latter, it was mainly to help them manage a newborn baby and organize the many festivities which revolve around a birth. In fact, any occasion which demanded her diligent presence, she was there. One would hardly notice her as she moved around unobtrusively like a slow, stealthy shadow, attending to a thousand and one chores.

The trunk contained all she had: a few white cotton sarees, neatly folded, some blouses, a woolen shawl for winter, and a paltry sum of money which she would have liked to invest in the stock market. Black and quite ordinary, it was a heavy little thing and it seemed almost laughable that its content should have been so lean and simple. Just the way she was.

Beyond a smile and a quick, 'Namaste Maaji', I don't think we ever indulged in any kind of  significant conversation. I can conjure up a couple of reasons which might have given way to such reticence. Firstly, I didn't understand the dialect she spoke, and secondly speech was not her forte. 

Overwrought and bent at ninety degrees, she moved around the house straightening things up, or mending a torn dress, fixing a button, hemming a skirt...folding the laundry in a way that it wouldn't need ironing...she always found something to keep herself busy. In an era where televisions did not boom across one's living room and the radio was a means to set the time on one's watch and listen to the news on AIR (All India Radio), we never found her marooned on the island of boredom, wondering what to do with all those hours of a day. She had a bag full of unshelled watermelon and cantaloupe seeds which she had collected, cleaned and sun-dried over the long summer. If nothing else, she would sit down with a pair of tweezers, gently squeezing on the seeds, popping them open, extracting the kernel inside and storing it in bottles, to be later roasted with salt, or to be used as garnish for festival sweets.

In 1930s, in the big haveli built by our grandparents, where our father and his three siblings were born and brought up, our grandmother's day began with grinding the daily quota of wheat flour in a quern-stone and weaving cloth on a spinning wheel, two disciplines which she, along with several women of her generation, had adopted, overtly as an expression of self-reliance, and covertly as a way to revolt against the British colonialism. And, this was only the wee beginning of a long day, which, for her, usually kicked off at 4 in the morning. Waking up early meant being able to sweep the house, mop the central courtyard, start the fire in the kitchen and dive into her usual set of daily tasks before the rest of the household slowly yawned and stretched itself awake from its nocturnal rêverie. 

Relentless in her pursuit of perfection, she went through the day tirelessly, yet never did she thrust any expectations on anybody. She was the epitome of a Karmayogi. Karmayoga is one of the four classical spiritual paths in Hinduism, based on the 'yoga of action/work'. To a Karmayogi, work is a form of prayer. 

Eyes sunken looking into an ever-changing timelessness, skin dark brown and wrinkled like a wise old tree, she gracefully defied the seventh stage of man as described by William Shakespeare:

"Last scene of all

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere        oblivion;

Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans taste, sans everything"

For until she breathed her last, not only did she have all her senses together, but much much more. On this Earth Day I remember her as someone who treaded so softly upon the ground that we didn't hear her pass, nor when she passed away in her sleep...yet a small trunkful of quiet memories remain in a remote corner of the mind, lingering. 

My Journey into an Epic

The Reader's Digest's A - Z dictionary with rich red binding was our prized possession. Not only it looked royal and terribly important adorning our father's beautiful rosewood study table, but for us kids, it was a gratifying reminder that English held a prestigious status in our home. This was oddly ironic since in those days, besides our father none of us was conversant in the lingua franca. 

Sharing the space with this treasure was a rather innocuous looking book, light orange, equally thick and commanding, called 'Savitri' by the great Indian philosopher and poet Sri Aurobindo. For someone like myself, mortally afraid of the English language, and convinced of its utter incongruity, the fact that our father could read and understand this magna opus, made him superhuman in the eyes of my ignorant eight-year-old self. How could anyone read, let alone understand a book of such proportion, was beyond the orbit of my comprehension. Merely lifting it equated to a workout. Yet, everytime I was asked to fetch it, my heart swelled up with pride. To be entrusted with such a hallowed and herculean task, was no mean achievement.

I still remember the deep sonorous voice of our father reading the epic poem aloud, filling the house with its long, unending verses, pausing so often to let them roll gently and settle into the pores of our consciousness. According to him, its mantric value sufficed to bring the Great Change. I would just sit there, listening, not understanding a word; my face aglow with daughterly devotion.

Little did I know that in later years, this is what I would inherit from my father: his love of Savitri. As we traveled around the world, Savitri stayed my constant companion and guiding star. I referred to it whenever I felt lost and whenever I found myself in the din of my own confusion.
Written in iambic pentameter, and consisting of 24,000 lines, Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, based on the legend from the Mahabharata is a symbol of the spiritual journey and transcendence of the human soul.

As an amateur reader of the epic, and a zealous summoner of the Muse, I recently invented an exercise in which while keeping my eyes shut, I randomly open  up a page of Savitri and let my index finger lead me to a word. Whichever word it is, I endeavor to pen down a free-verse with an 'automatic writing' kind of approach. 

1.

Word: Smiting

smiting desires
into minute bits,
stone-carved and
tumultuous,
she walked on
into the world
making an offering
of every step. she
became a shadow
of all her dreams

2.

Word : labours

life labours on
seeking meaning
in the daily chore
of mere existence;
dust settles, weighing
upon the ticking of 
the clock...slowly
suffocating its
sound, drowning its
meaningless zeal,
arresting the cadaverous
mechanicalness of its
hands -- returning life 
to its foetal silences

3.

Word: Impassive

crossing man's troubled
world with heaven's dreams
the impassive sky weaves
itself into Life's nomadic light

4.

Word: questionable

questionable all that was
felt with piercing intensity,
questionable the elation of 
a slow discovery; the gnarled 
misery of unfulfilled
yearnings sweeping across
the being with typhoonic
might and hurtling me 
beyond the vistas of my 
'self'...questionable everything
and yet it flung my soul out
of its ascetic heights
to be trampled upon by
careless feet of  love

5.

Word: turbulent

barred now by a wall of dull logic
the great wave that had inundated
my being with turbulent whirls of
strange and luciferen longings 

6.

Word: pause

while the moment flies, a
dim uncertain pause
latches on to the
leaf that falls and to the shadow
climbing  stealthily up 
towards the light

7.

Word: exultant

serene and exultant
in the inkling of
a distant love
intimate like the
sweet sound of 
koïl on this sweltering
summer day: wrenchingly 
beautiful, and seductively
treacherous...

8.

Word: anguish

all he sees is
anguish and defeat
hanging like Damocles' 
sword above his beautiful
young head; the faint call of
a kite skying up into the
unfathomable heights slips
his sight, as do the 
unwrinkling of the tender
leaves when the morning
sun scatters over them its
column of amber light...
the gentle twirling of spring 
air brushes his cheek as
the butterfly flies past

ideas and their causes sets
his mind abuzz, and he
wakes up wondering why

9. 

Word: smouldering

slow and languorous,  yet
another dawn lingers over
smouldering stones and rocks,
clambers over muted hills, and
skims across brackish oceans
to kiss the world awake and 
fill it with the flutter of
expectation and delight 

10.

flaming mouth

a flaming mouth
sweeping up celestial
verses from the etheric
gold of a hesitant 
dawn, lolling them 
around its cavernous
deep and spurting
them out into the
sputtering fire
of a raging pyre

11.

Word: ungrasped

it is the unseen our

eyes search; the unheard

our ears strive in vain to

listen, and the ungrasped

that the soul seeks 

in its aeonic meanderings

12.

Word: memory

in the haze

of memory

you and i

were made eternal;

our unspoken-ness

finding words

in the ellipsis of

Orion's belt

A terrace, and a takeoff...

 My eager feet scampered up the steps and onto the terrace...ears perked up at the lazy call of a jungle crow. Cloaked in humidity, it sounded muffled, yet somehow louder. A cluster of cumulus clouds was stilled into a bolted forward position, feigning the promise of coolness to the hot start of the day. My eyes took in the vast expanse of horizon, limned with coconut and palm trees. Everything was breathing: a nurtured, deliberate indolence kept Nature alive. 

Since an unwarranted cacophony of birds accompany the brahminy kites, this mid morning quietness should have translated into their absence. But no. There they were, beyond the lengthening and shutting off of shadows. The two of them, slowly circling around each other, in and out of the squinty summer haze. I watched them... Every widening circle brought them closer to the little shard of sky above my territory. I waved, overcome by a surge of spontaneous camaraderie. All of a sudden, the kite which was trailing behind until now, took the lead. And as the distance between the two narrowed, the tip of their wings touched. A blinding spark cleaved the air. High and heraldic, detached from their immediate surrounding, they were the world...the universe. Nothing else existed. It was the most sublime aerial dance, so wholly in sync with the blazing symphony of inner scapes.

How many like myself out there were privy to this ecstatic moment, I wondered. Brimming with gratitude, certain in the knowledge that I was amongst the few allowed to witness this mystical bonding between two beings, not just because of some supreme synchronicity, but because they had wished me to be there. I was Fire, one who hosts...and I was also  the Raven, who had dared to  steal the Fire from the immortals. Yet at that moment, more than anything, I yearned to be Icarus: thirsting for attainable light, wanting to graft wings on my mortal crawl... And maybe touch the stars.

The Hero the World Needs?

 Spanning three seasons, translating into 51 episodes and lasting for four years, from 2015 - 2018, Servant of the People, a political satire not only kicked Volodymyr Zelenskyy's career as a comedian/actor up a notch or two, but also provided the basis for his campaign manifesto a year later when he decided to contest the election for the office of the President of Ukraine. As one of its producers and the main protagonist, Zelenskyy, through this popular show, had openly ridiculed the dysfunctional remnants of Soviet era propagandist machinary, promising  instead a simpler, efficient, and corruption-free system.

The plot of the show, Servant of the People revolved around a young high-school teacher whose spontaneous outburst against oligarchy, fossilized social and political structures and rampant red tapism, is caught on a phone camera and released on youtube. This candid paroxysm becomes an instant hit, throwing the young professor into national arena and eventually to Hrushevsky Street, Kyiv, as the youngest President of Ukraine. Through this charming series, by formulating and mouthing the struggles as well as aspirations of the common man, Zelenskyy had already succeeded in amassing a loyal audience. 

On March 31, 2018, he started his own  political party naming it Servants of the People. While the series' hopeful message helped serve as the party's rescript of election promises, Zelenskyy's long association with showbiz also came in handy, aiding him to build an intimate rapport with his target-audience and command their attention.

The show, either consciously or inadvertently, became a precursor to reality, as Zelenskyy went on to win the elections with an overwhelming majority in 2019. His charisma and youthfulness, like that of Barack Obama, played in his favor in a world which so far had been largely dominated by ex-stalwarts of the Soviet communist era.

Interestingly, after his explosive foray into politics which found him at centre-stage, he soon began to follow the authoritarian footsteps of his predecessors. The candidate who had won by a 70 per cent majority, had sunk to low of 25 per cent in a popularity poll in 2021.

The recent Russia-Ukraine war however, has provided the President an opportunity not only to return to his legendary showmanship, but also steal the limelight at global level. In a world plagued by disillusionment and long suffering from the lacuna of visionary leadership, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become a household name. Here is a man at last: a man of courage and principles, refusing to relinquish his  nation's sovereignty to the brutish force of its tyrant superpower neighbor.

At 44, it makes him 35 years younger than his American counterpart. Moreover, his rugged appeal may put him at an advantage over other politicians, contributing further to the new Zelenskyy cult. Add to his stardom looks the raw material for fanning fantasies and winning him admirers the world over. Want cuddly Zelenskyy? Look up his voiceover for the Paddington Bear film. Patriotic Zelenskyy? Listen to his defiant wartime speeches. Hip-shaking Zelenskyy? Check out his swanky moves on the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the Stars. And oh, if you have the hots for him, there’s even a bare-chested Zelenskyy getting the vaccine. 

He may not be your Gandhi, Mandela, Sadat or Kennedy, but he sure is a showman with a well-oiled PR machine behind him. His famous "I need ammunition, not a ride" has become one of the most quotable quotes of the month. Garment industry can't churn out enough Zelenskyy t-shirts to cope with the rising sale. And despite much resistance on its part, Netflix is forced to bring back Servant of the People, by popular demand from its consumer base in U.S.- with English subtitles, of course.

Everyday one is now confronted with heartbreaking live footage of a country at war; shelled buildings, supermarkets sporting empty shelves, frightened families hiding in the basement, more than 2 million people rendered refugees, now scrambling to cross over to neighbouring countries. But the 'show' must go on. 

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look at my Works ye Mighty, and despair"

 

A War, a Movie and a Muskrat

My head hurt. The air, heavy with incongruity, was wired with tensions and fears, hopes and prayers. Television channels alternated between frenzied coverage of the ongoing war in our not so distant neighborhood and the blaze of communal antagonism and revenge sweeping  the homefront. 

I watched the birds diving and soaring against the infinite canvas of fizzy clouds, abundant in their expression of unsuppressed freedom. A jersey cow, visibly pregnant  chose my meagre classic syngonium plant peeking out of the railing, to feast upon over the plethora of wild and indigenous flora strewn across her wayward path. The sun set, gloriously round and primeval.

A Dream: I am drowned  now in a pall of muddled subconscious world, in which terror-stricken by some ongoing war, we are coerced into living underwater. Living is an overstatement; surviving should have been the word. "Just like a muskrat", I think to myself. Wind in the Willows comes to mind, and scoots out immediately, chased by the loud music bounding off from the temple a kilometer away. Traveling down the night-infested road, it has managed to incite my eardrums to vibrate. It seems so close, I can almost touch it, gauge its musty thickness. 

As my conscious mind takes the front seat, I realise it is the muezzin summoning the faithful to the adhan from a mosque situated 3 kms from where I am...who at this unholy hour could be tempted into seeking salvation?

Again, whirls of sleep take over. World goes on. The wars, the parliaments, The Kashmir File, sloganeering...I keep sinking and yet something inside me attempts to stay afloat, pretending to be a muskrat.

The War Machine

As a regular blogger, I feel weighed down by a moral obligation to write something about the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine...The images of surgical strikes, of an enormous tanker mowing down a car, of hungry students in bunkers, of backpackers hoping to cross over to the neighbouring countries should have made me indignant of the superpower's browbeating approach. It should have been an inner compulsion, and a natural revulsion against such a tyrannical act of this magnitude which should have prompted me to pen something incisive. But I have been numbed over the years by the plethora of causeless wars fought mainly for personal gains of some civilized nations and mega multinationals. Skeptical of the unwarranted haste with which U.S. invaded Iraq, brutally ending the lives of more than a million civilians, and of the war in Afghanistan which raged over four decades, the Vietnam fiasco and its meaninglessness, Bosnia tragedy and the Syrian seize, a never ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and an ongoing civil unrest in Yemen, I  have reached the conclusion that  wars are increasingly being used as booster shots for world economy. It is an effective means to mobilize an immense machinery being manipulated by several invisible forces across the globe. Weapon deals get struck in billions. Defense contractors too bag their fair share of business, and so do the intelligence and surveillance divisions of several tech companies. And certainly it's a field day for oil and gas corporations as well.  Stock markets turn bullish, and all's well with the world. People go on with their lives, trying to cope with rising inflation, because of a war they were dragged into. Wikipedia and history books get upgraded.  

While in its present form, the shape of the current war is being determined through confusing statistics, only future will reveal the real story. Right now, what we have is live coverage of explosions, of people fleeing to the borders, some scrambling to leave Ukraine, some returning to partake in the war, empty shelves in the supermarket and traffic jams, as well as plenty of forged news and virtual war footage directly picked from popular video games circulating the whatsapp circles, accompanied  by frenzied commentary by self-proclaimed anchors. In India, PM Modi is being portrayed not only as the ultimate saviour of 20000 some students stuck in Ukraine, but also as an epitome of wisdom to guide the world out of this unparalleled crisis. Here are some headlines from local media:

"Both Russia and Ukraine request PM Modi to intervene"

"On PM Modi's request to give a safe passage to Indian students stuck in Ukraine, Russia orders ceasefire"

"PM Modi World's only hope to charter a peace treaty between the warring nations"...

Not surprisingly, for the ruling party in India the war might turn into yet another opportunity to gain political mileage. Period. 

Yet, all things considered, one can't overlook the fact that it is the first time since World War 1 that a country has invaded another, not feigning any ideological ground, but simply to deter western forces from entering their buffer zone at the pretext of Liberty and Freedom for all.

Call of the Wild

In an endless panorama of blinding clarity, it moved leisurely as though in the amplitude of forgotten time, drawing wider and wider circles...just the way its ancestors must have done some thousands of years ago when legends were being laboriously scripted on palmyra leaves. With the same intentional intensity it  gyrated the heights, sowing seeds of freedom. Aerial crop circles. And with the same envious intimacy whereby a million others before me must have watched this flaming  monarch of reign and territory, so was I doing today, and had done so for almost a week. 

Yes, besides having to use the restroom, the nasal tremerous call  of the brahminy kite was the only reason to drag myself out of bed, and stay perched by the window to  acknowledge its presence, and express my heartfelt gratitude  for having come to lift my spirits when I lay swathed in misery, pain and isolation.

Its call always succeeded in momentarily drawing me out from the febrile abstraction I was prone to sink into, back not into the drab reality of the shadowy room, but into the promise of a new day brimming with unreceived love and light, and eager to offer itself. I would catch a glimpse of the mighty bird, swerving and twisting away from the lower air. Then spiralling towards the spring warmth of the sun until it was just a notion of its real self, it seemed to waver between motion and stillness, silent  in the blue depths of the sky. And sometimes, shredding the space, faint yet audible, its message of ultimate camaraderie, would  pierce my heart and set it quivering with joyous reciprocity.

In my battle with the virus, it was my daily rendez-vous with this wild spirit, which proffered something to look forward to. By and by, as I began to recuperate and emerged  from isolation, I would still hear its call, and if I were fortunate enough I would catch sight of it scanning the long white spine of a stray cirrus, or teasingly visible within the fluffy brilliance of a cumulus. But, as days piled onto one another and I recalibrated myself with the mundane rhythm of clocks, its call receded within the darkling hue of the coconut grove. And as the sky emptied out of its luminescent enchantment, I was once again left alone to grapple with the solitary vistas of my being, and its hushed susurrus of expectancy.

Lion and the Lamb

Gaffar market in Delhi presents itself not only as a pageantry of imitation brands for all kinds of electronic goods, such as mobile phones, laptops and sound systems, but also for Chinese clothings and trendy footwear. Squeezed in the narrow bylanes of Qarol Bagh, it's a less affluent  counterpart of upwardly mobile Khan market, in South Delhi, which, dotted with gourmet eateries, bookshops, cafes and even a couple of art galleries, caters to a yuppy crowd. Yet there exists between these two places a forgotten yet strong filial bond. They are named after two brothers Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and Khan Jabbar Khan, both of whom went on to become staunch stalwarts of the Indian freedom struggle. However, it was Abdul Gaffar Khan who, with his pacifist ways and his resolve to uplift the downtrodden of the country, became a lifelong ally and close friend of Mahatma Gandhi. Apparantly, seeing Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Mahatma Gandhi next to each other was a rather comical sight. Khan, who was well over six feet tall and weighed more than 100 kilos, overshadowed the small, thin Gandhi. Moreover, Khan could be very vocal while making a point whereas  the latter was shy and soft-spoken.  Because of his non-violent principles and his close association with the movement for Indian independence under Gandhi, Khan was repeatedly imprisoned. It was during one of the many prison terms that he got the opportunity to read the Bible, the Geeta, and the Guru Granth Sahib, paving the way for his lifelong commitment to inter-faith harmony. Interestingly, in 1937, Khan accompanied Gandhiji to Varanasi to inaugurate the shrine of ‘Mother India’, a huge relief map of India engraved in marble. He made it a point to join the recitation of Vedic incantations, and while doing so he expressed his sincere hope that the new shrine would become a common place of worship for all. 

Son of a tribal chief, this great nationalist leader chose to live with the ordinary and the poor. Certain that education was the key not only towards freeing the country from the oppressors, but also towards rooting out the evil from the society, he set out to establish a network of schools, encouraging  both boys and girls to enroll and espouse reforms. At the age of 20,  he founded his first school and travelled throughout British-India to spread his ideas. Khan condemned nepotism and believed that people should earn respect based on their deeds, and not on their class background. 

 A political and spiritual leader, along with social reforms, Khan also spoke up against British imperialism and its ceaseless pilfering of India.  He was amongst the four members of Congress Working Committee, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Jayprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia,  who vehemently opposed the idea of a divided India. In fact, he came under harsh criticism from many of his followers who favoured partition of the country into an independent Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. It was at this time that he was given a second nickname: "Frontier Gandhi," meaning the Gandhi from the Northwest border, the region adjacent to Afghanistan where he was born. Gandhiji is said to have declared the following attribute on Gaffar Khan, "I have a number of Muslim friends who would sacrifice everything for Hindu-Muslim unity, but none greater  than or equal to Ghaffar Khan'. In 1987, at the age of 97, the highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna Award was conferred on Gaffar by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Abdul Gaffar Khan, also known as Fakhr-e Afghan, Bacha Khan, Pacha Khan and

Badshah Khan lived to the ripe old age of ninety-eight, passing away on 20th January, 1988. He lead an exemplary life, becoming an epitome of honesty, selflessness, and non-violence. Unfortunately, for many Indians and Pakistanis today, Gaffar and his teachings seem to have  slipped into complete oblivion. So much so that in February of last year, a few days before his 131st birthday, the Government of Haryana decided to change the name of Badshah Khan Hospital, built in Gaffar's honor by his close associates and followers, to Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hospital, as a tribute to an ex-prime minister who was a member of the present government. Even though changing names of cities and institutions is an ongoing ideological trend intended to further the agenda of the ruling party, but substituting the name of a hospital built in the memory of one of our most dynamic freedom fighters goes on to symbolize a dangerous surge of sectarianism in the country. Thankfully, successful lobbying by several prominent citizens who felt emotional over the issue helped retain the hospital's original name.

Today*, on the occasion of his 132nd birth anniversary, at a point in history, when once again the forces of religious fundamentalism are raising their ugly heads, devouring politics, culture, and day-to-day life, it pays to remember Abdul Gaffar Khan, his humility, and his grand vision.

*6th February, 2022 was Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan's 132nd birth anniversary.

My Tryst with the Beast

They say that because I didn't take the jab, the virus has chosen to take a jab at me...

Head exploding with blinding bits of jarring light, body pumping out heat, bones broken into a million pieces...young leaves on the cashew tree form hearts and blow kisses. Birds are vocal. They come visit, blabber a lot. There might come a point when I would be delusional enough to understand the language of the avian world, and all my knowledge of the human tongues might simply slip away from me...imagine all the great secrets i might be privy to! Who knows I might even be able to spread my wings and take off. The idea excites me and is saddening at the same time. Yet, would I be a lesser being if Rimbaud's audacious flights into visionary realms did not encompass my consciousness or Dostoevsky's nosedives into the subliminal eschewed my pinioned comprehension? Or...there are illimitable ors which could be illustrated here and honed to brilliancy but I think the point is made.

A few moments from my feverish reverie:

1.

The sun stretched
lazily on the balcony
beckons me;
i haul my feverish
body and lie atop;
together we pump
out heat merging
into one another.
the volcano
erupts and lava flows
out; a file of black
ants marching past
urges me back in

2.

the night a huge
organic beast
with uneven folds
where i lie tossing
and turning, craving to
fall through some deep
crack and disappear
into an infinitesimal
moment of not being...
a heart beating:
not mine.
a body breathing:
not mine.
dreams roll in like
a blanket of early
morning fog, smothering
the consciousness, yet 

here 'i' am, awake and
groaning with pain

3.

Beyond the mortal cells
dying and renewing
I resurrect myself:
an entity, an energy
a force of
a sprawled shadow
with an arrow of sunshine
darting through it

Spinning Webs, not Dreams...

The sky split open and a voice boomed from above: 'Thou shalt contest the elections from Mathura'...And there He stood, the cerulean blue vision of beauty and delight, holding the unmistakable golden flute, smiling mischievously. It was Lord Krishna himself urging Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Nath to go forth and conquer his beloved city Mathura. How could the CM refuse Him?  Humbly he accepted.

The dream made headlines in the media across the country. People offered their oblations to the CM, the Chosen One. Who would have thought that such an epiphanous directive from the Lord himself could be overruled by the party high command? Yet, it was. And being an obedient cog of the party, he did not dispute the decision.  And disregarding the divine implications of his dream, he resigned himself to his assigned constituency. 

The Chief Minister's sputtering fire in the belly to reclaim Mathura from the Musulman would have to find its deliverance somewhere else. And his insatiable craving to pitch seething speeches to raze the Shahi Idgah Mosque adjacent to the historical Sri Krishna Temple, to a hungry and frenzied mob would have to wait for another time. For now, he will have to let his dream sleep. 

Interestingly enough, America's dear old ex-president (now an avid painter) George W Bush, in his waking dream, claimed that he was on a mission from God when he sanctioned the invasion on Afghanistan and Iraq: "I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." He did indeed... It would seem that directives from On High are infallible.

Almost six decades ago Rev. Martin Luther King, in one of his concluding paras of 'I have a dream' speech, said: "I have a dream...With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

One wishes that today's world leaders would change their sleeping positions; turn to living dreams like the one Rev. King so eloquently expressed, and help transform old hatreds into new empathies. All emancipated nations take their first step by learning to  create an organic  internal harmony within the existing demographics of the land, instead of divisions the way our colonizers did.

A Funeral by the Sea

 It's wonderful to see the world lopsided. There's a certain weightlessness to it...a momentary defiance of gravity. How liberating it is to think that not everything follows the same trajectory, not everything that goes up must necessarily come down! Things can remain midway undefined in their coordinates. 

He was glad he was a bit tipsy. They were still collecting firewood for the pyre. The old woman who had lived on the footpath for as long as he could remember was found dead in the morning. A cluster of bones, lying open-mouthed, an early morning blue trapped in her cold steadfast eyes. No one knew her name. No one came to claim her body. The dog sat whimpering, unwilling to leave her side. So, they decided to bring it along to the funeral. It sat there, hungry, yet undefeated in its sorrow. Two orphaned puppies encircled it with their furry warmth. A nice family, somebody said. The wind was getting stronger, and so was the sound of the ocean. The pyre needed to be lit lest they called it quits. The monsoon clouds lurked threateningly in the west. 

A child ran laughing towards the rushing waves...a man quickly caught him by the arm and picked him up.

It was getting cold, and he hadn't brought a jacket along. Patiently, he waited for them to set the corpse on fire, so he could huddle by the leaping flames and steal some warmth.

the stillness and the word...

 As yet another year wound its way in and out of the shadows of the pandemic as an inevitable continuum to 2020, one hoped and prayed that it would spell the end of global consternation and economic anxiety. But, Ananke and Providence had other plans for humanity, and a lot of us tumbled into new year with weekend curfews beginning to ebb our social life.

We would remember 2021 as the year when humanity seamlessly divided itself between the vaxxed and non-vaxxed, the 'responsible' and the 'rebellious'. And between those who distrusted the governments and took to streets to protest and those who mistrusted each other and shut themselves in their homes and took to the trenches of social media.  It was also a year when many of us unquestioningly resigned ourselves to a masked version of reality. We moved within the confines of our designated area, trying to reinvent ourselves vis-a-vis the limitations imposed upon us.

Personally, I saw reality  as I once knew it, slipping from my grasp, its regimented predictability becoming amorphous and elusive. I lived from moment to moment, from day to day, in an infinite stretch, looking for myself. As an immense amalgam of time, I could very well sum up  the year 2021 as a huge wasteful expanse, but no. It turned out to be a voyage of self-discovery, giving me courage to face myself in my raw solitude, and find myself in random moments of sudden revelation. I struck a natural companionship with the wilderness surrounding me as it spontaneously embraced the wilderness within me. The two became one...

1.

a gutted evening 

spilled across the

sky: ribbed clouds

in gray and pink

being dragged 

like dead weight

of a rotting day;

the poet could 

seize the peace 

even in this decay,

a pale moon's

crescent smile compelling

the eyes to reciprocate

darkness turning to light

with  sightings of 

the first stars

2.

The ocean and sky were one

the thunder and the sound

of crashing waves edged 

into each other; the far away 

cry of the peacock slipping into 

the neem grove rose in delight 

above the slashing rains,

the stinging of the fast drops 

and the memory of our hesitant 

first kisses fused seamlessly. your

touch on my dress was washed 

away by this sudden downpour, and i 

smelled of wet earth

3.

a moon quiet

and fragile like 

the sky timid behind

the golden evening

veil; a fiery drongo 

perches on the clothesline 

whistling flirtatiously

4.

short filaments

of gold looping

across the purple

night, weaving magic

and love: peacocks

waking up to the

stirrings of 

spring desires

5.

the brahminy kite cruising into

my view from across the

window slits the afternoon

with its silent flight,

the kingfisher swings on

a low branch, whistling, the frail

moth i saw last night

lies lifeless on the porch;

my heart cries and sings,

flies and sinks, sways and 

slips, like dappled pearls of

light through quicksand