Phases

You carried me inside your body

Brought me forth to this world,

I was told.

You fed me, held me

I snuggled instinctively.

You held me, drew me close,

I reciprocated, sought you out,

I remember.

And so it went on, till

Topsy-turvy teen age and

the incipient moustache on my upper lip

made me shun and even protest against

 any physical display of affection.

A little later there were none at all.

I grew in to manhood and you into middle age.

Then came marriage and fatherhood followed

And too soon, middle age is here for me.

Your passage to old age, was it easy

Or painful, I did not have time

To find out, or probably the inclination.

I have come a full circle

And sometimes long for your healing touch

On my scalp, my face

Where life has etched many lines, left many scars

In its wake- Maa.

Haiku: Time

Here is a Haiku, dedicated to my student-friends- VGSOM Placecom05, Sumit & Mahesh, Tarak & VGSOM 2011 batch:


Haiku: Time

Four wristwatches

gifts from loving students

memories of good times.

My Movie

This is my movie
this movie is mine
directed by me
screenplay by God and me, in that order
storyboard by Life
acted by me and supported
by a whole, big cast-
blood relatives, friends, well-wishers and...
not-so-wellwishers, strangers
Acting the entire script,
it's great feeling, watching in flashback
the sepia-toned images
elapsed years have taken out the harsh edges
and makes them slightly hazy, mellow
almost erasing the actual pain, trials and tribulations.
Zoom in to close-up
is at my free will, but
I cannot flash-forward,
will have to wait.......
Don't stop the movie now
Don't take me out of the hall,
there's so much more to come,
see!

Temple Erotica

Why did our ancestors choose to
Mix the profound with the profane
The sensual with the sublime
To adorn their temples with erotica
- Blue films on stone?


Because they said
This is your body, your flesh
Composed of the five elements
And this is the vista of pleasure
Base, carnal yet pure
That it can offer


Recognize it, know it, accept it
And then shake it off-
Water from a lotus leaf


Then and only then
Enter the portals
Of the sanctum of your soul
And search for your Creator.

SELF IMAGE

1.

a

person of

no significance

a tireless ant, crawling

up, down , sideways, twisting, scurrying

with a headload along the pathways in the

corporate anthill, thinking this is the universe

this is the cause. And the wages of this exalted

drudgery and glorified, coveted slavery - tolerable existence.

2.

Small town boy

don’t you feel lost

amidst the glitteratti,

the shimmering chandeliers,

the shining silverware,

the starched napkins,

the polished cutlery,

the almost silent footfalls,

the stilted conversation,

the tinkling laughter.

Did you remember your lessons?

Fork in your left hand and

knife in your right.

Or was it the other way round?

3.

What am I?

Sensitivity, a sense of fairness

- Bengali genes , I guess.

Upper class/caste machismo,

typically Hindi heartland,it is a put on)

- almost entire life spent in Bihar,

rites of passage to manhood retained.

Ability to make decent conversation

In tolerable English (accent varying from ersatz-BBC to New Delhi doublespeak),
depending upon the listener and a veneer

- Jesuit education in the formative years and

What else but BBC!

Analytical, logical, expressive and assertive

- professional training and experience.

Abrasive, rough-grained and aggressive

- school of hard knocks and growing up in a rough mohalla in a small town,
where fists and tongue go together. 'Been there, seen it' -

that's simply smart-ass attitude,

I guess!

So, what am I?

An incurable optimist.

4.

Physical frame

Optimistic 5'8"

65 kilograms, down from 70

slightly squat, lifetime of exercise and peasant genes

recently touched by hyper-thyroidism

eating away at assidiously collected pectorals, biceps and triceps,

receeding hairline, more salt than pepper beard

nose bent during boyhood foray in to boxing,

missing tooth- motorcycle accident in misspent youth,

on the whole a used face.
Used, abused, misused by life

too many cigarettes

too many long nights

too many books.

I was aiming at larger than life, till

Life cut me down to size.

5.

A sense of ennui,

Tiredness, scepticism if you like
Creeps in insidiously

When one takes stock

Of the things achieved

Against the price paid

Do not simply add up.

The question just keeps on popping up, time and again.

Is it all worth the pain?

What happens if one just gives up

And let's go?

We ask a great deal of life

Thank you Virginia Woolf

As you so succinctly put it.

I ask for:

- life to be fair

- life to be just

- effect to follow cause

- efforts to culminate in results

- the good, honest to be rewarded

- the bad punished

- love to beget love

- good behaviour to be reciprocated

- politicians to be honest and politics clean

- bad things not to happen to good people

Now, that's a tall order! I am indeed

Asking a great deal of Life!

Proposition

The present me


As defined by the mental frame-


I am the product of millions


And millions of incidents, accidents,


Circumstances and impulses.


A thousand cross-currents


Have tagged me along.


A smile, quirked eyebrows,


Pouting lips, a pointing finger,


An upraised hand, a frown,


A smirk, sighs and


Coos of approval


Each


Has moulded, bent, deviated,


Eroded and formed me.


So, take me


For what I am


And not what I should have been,


And I'll do the same too.

Forget the rearview mirror, forgive

Craftily it proclaims,


“OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”


(it’s a blatant lie!)


Preying on your fears of your past chasing you


Magnifying, establishing its place in your life.


The rearview mirror


Seduces you with the backward glances,


The pleasure-pain narcotic;


Leaves you wallowing in self-pity


And self-recrimination.


Sucks you deeper in to the whirlpool,


Of a past-centric life.


Takes your eyes away


From


The vistas unfolding


Future-present-future………


The possibilities.


Wrests control of your life and


Gives the future to your past.


In the ultimate analysis


You are unable to


Forgive others


Forgive yourself


And carry forever the baggage of your past.


You become a rearview mirror

Mediocrity

Small man
Small job in a small town,
Small dreams, small hopes
Big disappointments hidden
Behind a smug exterior.
High point of existence, discussing
The nuances of “God of small things”!
Wallowing like a buffalo
In the mud-pool of complacence
And when the mud dries,
Flakes off under the harsh sun
Of reality, sniff at yourself and
Smile ruefully and
Say, “ I am doing OK, am I not?”
Mediocrity is an opiate,
A tranquilizer that limits dreams,
Throttles needs, stifles aspiration,
Narrows the horizon of thought.
Small man, small job in a small town,
With small hopes, small dreams.

Goodbye, nicotiana tabacum

Friend of frenzied moments
Finale to food, complement to a drink or two

Solace for the blues

From the first puff and paroxysm of cough

From young, untainted lungs screaming in protest

To, million cigarettes later

Paroxysms of cough

From tar sodden lungs of middle age

Each smoke was a response

To neurons clamouring for a connect
And a brief sense of well-being.
Good bye, old friend nicotiana tabacum
I guess this friendship has outlived its life
Goodbye.

Dilemma

Duty says uphold the rules, regulations.
Apply them, punish those who break them.
Reward those who help maintain them.
Circumstances are no ameliorating factor.
Building an organization and path to excellence
Needs discipline and its compliance.
Maitreya says, show compassion
and practice forgiveness.
Question that keeps scrolling back
Punish the person or the act?
How do you separate the two?
How does one ensure adherence,

By compassion alone?
So, what is my dharma?

One summer night

To the call of a humid breeze

One pore opened and slowly

One drop of sweat formed,

Like some bitter dew

On the still paleness of your skin

Then another and another

And by some force, coalesced

Into a tiny rivulet

That flowed downhill

From the delectable valley

Towards your navel,

Moonbeams chased the drops on

Even as each follicle held it back

and I watched the night

suffer and age

In the heat

Make-up

MAKE-UP

Darkness descends

by soft, deft brush strokes.

Night touches the sky

like the gentle lines of kohl;

night is make-up time

for cities too.

A glittering tiara of street lamps

light up the wide avenues

and tuck away the dingy by-lanes.

Emerald, ruby and sapphire

the neons shimmer,

hiding the blotches

that mar the facade.

Feminine as they are -

to hide the acne of slums,

cities need a few layers

of judiciously applied

darkness.

Last Night

Last Night

Last night

When clouds grey, bowed

And silent I mourning

Had clustered around the widow moon

And the wind was tired sigh

A firefly had wandered in to my room

Tired yet restless

Straying, lonely and defiant.

Its eerie green light

was a silent scream

A call

Of defiance yearning for tenderness

To envelop it.

Why do men want sons?

Why do men, under-achieving

And mediocre, want sons?

Because in our beaten, half-bludgeoned souls

Sore with failures, we crave new men,

Those we carry in our blood, our sperm.

Who will achieve, what we could not

‘cause

We were not bold enough to dream,

Wise and strong enough to achieve,

It will be like a new life.

Lived all over again,

A stack of new coins

Before a gambler

Who has lost his pile.

Another chance, at a better life

If at all, vicarious.

The world will remember us

For our more worthy sons

We fear death less

Than being forgotten.

__________________

Questions on quality of existence

Standing at the watershed, today looking forward
not so far away into the future,
I can see the river of life
take a plunge in to the unknown-
death, life after death, end or
new beginning who knows?
One thing is certain, I will not exist
As I have in this form, ever-changing as it is,
from that moment onwards.
Standing here at the watershed, today looking backward
Over the twists and turns
That the river of life has taken,
How would you evaluate my existence?
Am I a sum total of my achievements, successes?
Or am I a sum total of my failures?
The sum total of my efforts?
What I have done for myself?
What I have done for others?

Combat of Shadows: Mating Call

Come let's shed the trappings of civilisation

The cocoons of respectability

And met in the arena of shadows

When fireflies glow with love.

Just two combatants

You and me, and let the bodies armed

With the Braille of love strain

To overcome each other in a combat

Neither of us win

or lose.

Let the minds soar

To a dizzying zenith

Where novas are born

Life so near death

And then fall caressing the clouds

Back to their vapid cages.