Nisha is dead Ma

Ma.Ma. Nisha is dead Ma.
She is dead Ma.
No. She didn't die a natural death.
'They' killed her Ma. They killed her.

Ma many Nishas died in december and before..
You remember?
Tired Nishas returning home from work
Small,laughing Nishas..
whose young blood lay scattered all over.
Ma they killed them
They killed her...
Now its me and other Nishas.

Many Nishas were killed..will be killed.
You know, 'they' want to be heard
But I heard only the dying wail of dying Nishas.
The wail was forgotten after december...
So they killed more Nishas in march and now again.

They were mere Nishas; not Gandhiji, Indira or Rajeev
Not even Dawood or a Saddam.
All Nishas await the same fate..
Do they Ma?
What will you do of your Nisha? Ma??
?????????????????????????????

Future Aborted

Shattered expectations lay all over
Whats more its all over
The radiance, the ray of hope.
The anxious waiting..all shattered in a minute.
In a minute, six months of waiting ..
lost forever the seeds of future.

All penance, all sacrifices, all pain
gone..leaving a void forever.
The pains were sweet when hope was there
But now it is a unbearable ache..
The pain endured ..to see the seeds of love grow
was life itself...
The loss of pain is not..its death.

Six months of pain, just three months were to pass
They didn't pass...
Instead there is a pain for life.
An aborted future.

Death of my Life

Inability.
Treatment.
Care and Pain.
Endurance.
Perseverance.
There is a life to gain.
Life.
Hope.
All inside me.
Grow.
Grow.
Still some time to go.

Alas!
Pain.
Loss of blood.
Void.
Death.
Death of my Life.

Date: 26/03/2005

thought provoking

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.
-LIN YUTANG, A CHINESE WRITER

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.
-PABLO PICASSO

"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."
-BRUCE LEE

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
- WINSTON CHURCHILL

"Experience is a good school. But the fees are high."
- HEINRICH HEIN, GERMAN POET.

Imprisonment

The square with its four boundaries
limits the flights, the wanderings..
The wings of imagination are caught in its perimetre-
binding, suffocating, the hold's getting tighter.

The words of wisdom, the big talks.
The precautions highlighted in all walks
snatch away the 'self', leave it in a maze..
only to see the world through haze.

Traditions are stable...they support
but they fence
They are shackles trying to bind time
but with passing time make no sense.

There at a distance is a new unsteady plane
waiting to be explored, to be touched
A plane beckoning the spirit
to free itself from traditions = security = imprisonment.

No subject

Idle musings…inane attempts..
Objective thinking…conscious creativity…
Deliberate silence…forced introspection..
Vigilant eyes… socialist moral…
Sympathetic outlook…
Deep desire…
None come to rescue when you have
To decide on a subject for a poem.

Art for art’s sake..
My first attempt at it (??)

Child the Father of Man

The child cleared the hurdles.
The ring of fire couldn't stop it..
then it has to pass through the narrow suffocating ring
half the size of his waist!
First the tiny feet entered..
then it was the neck.
The passage was tough,
but there was no turning back.

The child climbed the pole..
to reach a ropeway, no, just a single rope
dangling at twice his height.
Walking on the rope, suspended in the air...
The passage was tough
but there was no turning back.

Alongside all this,
something else quietly sneaked by..
Childhood
slipped unnoticed..died a silent death.
The passage was quiet, gradual
And still there is no turning back.

Child devoid of childhood.
Child strangled by the ropes,
lost in the circle of life..
Promoted to being the caretaker, the bread-winner
the money-making machine..
Child truly has become the father of man.

Date: 29th Oct, 2005

today i am successful

Today I am successful.

I killed it brutally.
Murdered that innocence, that curiosity.
Must admit, it took a lot of time
23 years is not a short time.
I had to get used to being “human”
It’s required these days.
You need to give proof that –
you are cultured, civilized and above all human.
I had to kill it. Kill the child within me.

Not an easy task pal.
I would like to attribute my success to
20 years of rigorous education.
With every progressive year
You are taught the art of murder.
Oh! We don’t call it murder…
We call it being “human”, “cultured”, “civilized”–
you know taming the animal in you kinds
I have accepted the “human” tag
Of course, after killing the child.

See the child is inanimate – how?
Well that’s why you term it as “it”.
So logically, you haven’y killed anything.
Got it. You are still human.
Okay, how do you kill a child?
You put on the attitude of know-all-be-all
And fail to wonder at lovely things.
Everything boils down to power equation
You gotta prove you are powerful
So exert power. Kill the child
which is happy in submission, is full of awe.
Now I am full of myself.
They call it confidence.
I am human – I have made my mark,
I have gained that edge over others,
I have exercised power – power to kill.
Today I am successful.