Grapes of a Distant Land
Grapes of a distant land are way more delicious
Than grapes of homeland
They claim just by looking at the picture of them
They fight with you despite the fact
That you have been to distant land and
You have savored those grapes
Countless times directly from
The grape vine in the distant land
And found their grapes are
No more unique in taste
Than grapes at your homeland
What next?
They refute your claims by comparing
Jams made from both types of grapes
Maternity Leave
Maternity has become a sort of endemic
How could I afford maternity leave for all the ladies
Who join my workplace to get pregnant
He sends out an advertisement
In the leading daily which reads
Female staff required
Unmarried or married
As long as they aren’t pregnant
And don’t wish to be pregnant
In future
Mandodari’s Frog Days
Mayasura and Hema, lovers of two different worlds
One demon and one nymph,
prayed to lord Shiva for a daughter
There was a nymph named Madhura
To express her love for Shiva
She danced her heart’s out for Shiva
When Parvati arrived she cursed Madhura
To be a frog and to live in a well for 12 years
Shiva calmed Parvati down and diluted her curse
“You will marry a man that you will love”
Shiva handed her over to Mayasura and Hema
The love and care of two different creeds
She was destined to be loved
And then one day Ravana walked in her house
Kamdhenu
Option A:
Think of a cattle wandering around you
Write a letter to the authorities, ask them for money, open a gaushala/shelter, force people for donations in the name of cattle (if not threaten them with dire consequences about heaven and hell), admit only native cattle (supposed mother of Indian): not the cross-bred and non-descript
And after that
Eat their fodder and money and if that doesn’t satisfy your appetite: sell some to illegal traders
In addition, get the job to protect the illegal traders
Option B:
Wander around like a cow or in group like cows here and there
Find someone/others ferrying the cattle from one place to another
Tie a saffron cloth on your forehead
If that person belonged to other religion, that’s even better
Follow him or them
Chant the word cow smuggler online or offline
Till you get enough followers
Arm them with sticks or stone or both
Locate a place to beat him/them up, without disturbance
Chant ‘Hail Mother Cow’ when police arrives
Keep repeating it even in lockup
So the big and influential people come and talk to you
And offer you job or something bigger
Option C:
It is summer season
Let the cow wander in hot weather
And feed on hot air
How long can the cow survive?
Call the media and plant blame on someone
That you dislike or even hate or want to extract revenge
Cry ‘Mother cow’ ‘Cow Mother’
Kamdhenu: solution to all your problems
You get what you ask for
A Tiny Bible of Criticism
I sneaked onto every comment on others’ writing
like a thief stealing in broad day light
but in term of knowledge, these weren’t even
worth my time.
From stealing – I couldn’t benefit much.
Most of these comments were pretty basic
Geared to not offend the writer
My turn came
I can be nice to them but I abandoned
my view – I couldn’t cheat them such.
Sometimes, I found comments I like
rare like gem stones at seashore, glistening
from a distance, and waiting for to be picked
but because of their scarcity – I couldn’t learn much.
Why didn’t people give meaningful comments?
Why they spoke in cryptic language,
Were they just short of time or they had assumed
serious comments will fetch serious replies.
Baffled by reality and eulogy of such kind
A mirage – I couldn’t trust much.
May be others didn’t like reality
Lots of love is that they all need
Happy and ignorant they would sleep
on unreliable fluffy mattress made out of
unadulterated love of their parents.
Their souls wake them up in the middle of the night
“Life like a rapid river will flush the mediocrity one day”
But they discard it saying
It’s too pessimist- I couldn’t help much.
They were aware of reality and
they had shed bloody-truth from their conscience
seeking only praise from their critique group
where they pledged against passable ‘literature’
when started on this ink-path,
I resist the temptation – I couldn’t reiterate as such.
In writing and in life
Truth is the only survival mechanism
Truth will rise: only when we swim with problems;
not when we stare at them like inert pebbles of shore.
Little procrastination is acceptable but to dupe others
That’s where I draw the line – I couldn’t do such.
God of Volatile Things
Born in the storm
Abandoned by your parents
You grow older alone
Missing them, their love, care and affection
The world is bitter at you
It doesn’t care about your orphan archetype
It wants you to be ready at any cost
On the slippery roads of future
You are pricked by thorns of expectations
You bleed daily, yet you learn to remain calm
No other choice you have to satisfy your soul
Demand of survival looms larger
Let people stare at you
Wonder at your equanimity
Who are waiting to see the volatile you
Concoct a smile, walk down the road
Whisper to the darkness surrounding you
“I’m the prince of storms.”
Songs of Grief and Regret
The death god had arrived and left me alone
Again
He is certain and He is cruel
Always hell-bent on taking
A sure snatcher, he is
detested for his virtue but
Never discriminate babies from adult to old
I’m left alone with a mere name,
a long history, and some faded conversations
People around me remember other gods
Gods who are supposed to keep us alive
Partly in fear of dying, partly in faith bordering on blind
I can never know who is playing the game
God or people
Even after death I pay the money to priests
So that the dead one can have safe travel to the other world
I feed the people,
So that all who feasts can take away the feast memories of the gone
but the one who is gone is gone
I feed knowing the fact the known witch ‘poverty’ is lurking behind,
in the form of pot bellied money lenders,
to rip me apart as soon as feast is over
I am sad
They are never going to see what had been done for them
If they sits atop this world, as I have been told,
They may feel jealous of the feast and laugh
To be treated special like this
One must kiss the death
Blessings, dreams and hope get destroyed
this pet sentence ‘Everything will be alright’
will come rescue some of the people.
Loss, as they say, can’t be summed up in words
words, as usual, serve as mere fillers
for people to show their compassion and care.
Old fallout find a reason to come together to cry
but who can know how true were the tears
Even then death is a mean to connect with other fellow humans
and chance for some transformation
I wonder why such a certain god got a bad rapport
But then who wants to lose
My Crescent Moon
There was something in that moon
that was so calm,
cool and sparkling.
Night didn’t mean much
apart from that crescent patch
among the stars he would come to home,
only to those who survived the sun.
People with charred emotions call me insane
I can listen anything for you, my moon.
Murder and Slaughter
Humans dies the death of mosquitoes
who get more coverage than the human
Thanks to mosquito repellent ads
To follow his heart is one thing
but to fight mental fear is another
People like him dies daily in newspaper
For not following the convention
Even when he wants to speak, he turns dumb
Blood stained bodies visit his dream, he claims blindness
Daily he think of doing something, he just thinks
Knowing very well that
There is no guarantee that
He will survive to see the change
Change takes its own sweet time
Staggering over the dead bodies
To reach to its destination
It’s nothing but his destiny that he is alive
Standing up against the oppression is
Like running against the wind
People with logical ideas are forced to remain silent
for the logic and reason may create disturbances
To allow the mob to swell up in the number
It’s so easy to crush the logic and assassinate rationalist
Like swatting the mosquito
How to crush logic in a common man
Abandon the common sense
Tweak the understanding
Instill fear
And then it’s time to oppress
Slavishness comes naturally to thems
Gods, kings, britishers, and politicians
had so much faith in their irrationality
A sheep blindly follows the sheep in front
Despite listening to shrieks of death
They should have run away smelling the blood
Instead they follow the road to slaughter for their god
If anyone disturbs them in their plan
Sheep claimed that either they will die
or kill anyone who came in their ways
One by one, sheep would come to him
and offer their meat to him, their god
He relishes their meat, they know
What is life, a blind sheep would say to another,
If you can’t fill someone else’s stomach
Poor people next to them request some meat
Dying sheep looks at dead babies in their arms
And whispers to them
“Not my problem.”