If I were a falling leaf
I would have extended
my both hands
resigning from life
with a belief
that I’m about to meet
my creator.
The earth that
shifted itself
for our roots
to grow,
is now welcoming
me in its bosom.
I would happily
meet my death
knowing I lived
a purposeful life.
Happy international day for biological diversity
Benevolence with innocence
dripping smiles of trust.
A hand held in distress
with such purity of love.
Through those powerful, pure intent
I saw the beauty in this world.
A warm and unmoving faith
curing the nerves
of a cold heart.
——–
This is a tribute to that soul who was so pure, so giving in nature. She was my school teacher, my favorite one and she passed away yesterday. This malicious virus engulfed her too. An exceptional mathematician with a heart of gold.
I was always interested in studies and was inclined towards giving Entrance exams after my 12th std but we couldn’t afford all the Prep books/material at that point in time. Something that I never said to her explicitly, I don’t know how she understood but she came in front of my class loaded with fat paperbacks, called me out and handed me all the books (apart from our textbooks) so I’d have enough material to study. I can’t forget that day. I felt so ashamed thinking ‘Do I even deserve this?’ But I studied harder to do justice to the belief she had put in me. This is just one instance, and that too with me. She always went beyond for her students
Years later she met my mother in the market and when my mom told her that I completed the engineering and landed myself a good, stable job, her happiness knew no bounds. She was so excited to hear it.
She was a strong, independent, pure, bubbly and positive lady. Why god is obsessed with taking away good people, I’d never understand. Wish I could meet her one more time to thank her for everything. Thanks for believing in me. Rest in Peace, Ma’m. You are being dearly missed.
No one prepares you for the day
when you have to stop telling each detail to that one person you so ardently used to share it with.
Green mahogany dresser wooing me
with its slippery polished surface
to poke you with my pyramid light.
What could I possibly do?
I am just a night lamp!
A piece of gleaming radiance
who had seen you radiating under,
for years so long.
Who had witnessed the care-free sleep
you always had after giggling over a
charismatic hero of your favorite book,
that rested calmly on your torso
taking you skillfully to the dreamland.
As I look down at your face now,
I see a blank, expressionless
sleep-deprived eyes and I miss
betting among my friends here
as I always picked the peak
of your squeaky expressions
to be the best performance
while gawking at the fictional character.
I now witness the chronology of your thoughts
running along with the same patterns;
from picking up your Cellphone from the dresser
to keep it back, disappointed, and those
episodes are endless.
Waiting is hard, isn’t it?
when that gadget doesn’t buzz,
or for the one you’d been waiting for.
I have seen your frustration
turning into brooding sadness
leading to a mournful melancholy.
My pillow-buddy
breaks the news to me every morning
how it got drenched again
the last night after I got turned off.
Why are you so sad, darling?
That’s not how I want to see you.
That’s not how we want to see you
If you feel only your friends care about you,
then ask us.
The things around you feel your sadness too.
They are not able to say
but they miss you the way you were before.
Your original, raw self
rosy lips glistening, eyes twinkling
alongside the characters of the books
in your pretty sturdy hands.
I can emit all if that would make it alright.
My flickering light will try to kiss you goodnight,
the dresser would love to stay stagnant forever
for if you need anything,
the pillow will hold you tighter
in its embrace if warmth is something you missing.
We all will travel from our tiny non-living world
to yours until you feel alright,
until those hands stop shaking
while placing the cellphone
back on the mahogany table.
We all want you back!
Fickle minded people do not deserve you, love!
The boy was sitting in the interrogation room. The inspector cursing and sprinkling spit on the table in-between them.
“Why did you do it?” the Inspector knew he won’t be getting an easy answer. The rebellious eyes of that young boy were silently testifying that he could crash the entire shutters of their pretentious cages with only a blink. Those eyes were full of anger, resentment and his expressions snorting with indignance yet he chose to mock the officer and quizzed him back.
“Why did YOU do it?”
“Do what? We did nothing. You broke into that Vintage-Guitar shop and tried stealing it.”
“Is that what you’re going to write in the report or do you have guts to document the exact scenario?”, retorted the boy.
The Officer went livid. His palm landed harshly on the boy’s cheeks and barked at him for his audacity.
He slapped that lad who was already black and blue after the shop owner and their neighbors found a perfect aim to vent out their day’s frustration.
His face was remarkably red with the current encounter but a devilish smile entered his eyes.
“Youngsters like you are the reason for the doomed society. You want to get easy money so you could party, do drugs, indulge in all sorts of illegal activities and then you blatantly attempt to put us in a bad light?
Do you have guts to be true to yourself?”, demanded the Inspector but was hurt by his own words. The boy could see and so he revealed since the one who arrested him was another officer.
“I was arrested while I was playing the guitar in front of that shop. It was past midnight, the shop was closed. So yes, I crashed the glass wall using a wooden plank not to steal it but to play it. Just one more time before I give it up for forever.”
“What! Is it that hard to buy a Guitar that you have to break-in in someone else’s property and steal it?”, the officer was confused.
“To your surprise, Yes!” The boy continued. “It is hard. It’s very hard to continue art if you’re born poor.
It’s hard when you see your family looking up to you with such expectations to build their future as well
and then those eyes filling up with disappointment because you chose music over studies.
It’s back-breaking that the only basic, second-hand Guitar you could afford and earn working through different part-time jobs, is smashed by your parents in front of you.
It’s unfathomable when you can’t brush your creativity off and it keeps poking at you to be fed while the stomachs around sleep hungry.
It’s exhausting when you know your family understands the weight of your dreams, did everything to protect them but failed before the repulsive weight of poverty.
It’s strenuous when only to pursue music you agree to work in a pub at night and apart from playing the Guitar, they make you do all sorts of odd jobs of waitering, pouring booze in their glasses whole night, moving illegal stuff from one place to another, letting customers be extra-friendly to you. The situation clearly growls of being exploited and abused but the moment you raise your voice against the unfairness you’re rewarded with zero payment and a kick-in-your-buttocks attitude.
I don’t do drugs, Sir. I never got the easy money. I could have stolen if I wanted to but that’s not how I am raised. Yes, the way I let all my frustration out was wrong. But there was nothing else that could calm my soul down amidst the dreadful chaos if I didn’t hold the guitar and sing my pain away.
Charge me with all the bullshit if that gets you with higher-number-of-cases-resolved status.
I don’t care!.”
The officer wasn’t moved. At least he didn’t seem to.
“Look here, Young Man! If you think you are the only one with the hardships then
Welcome to real life!
It’s never going to be easy, nothing is easy but that doesn’t give you an excuse to destroy someone else’s property so you could have your own peace of mind. Pave your way out. If you’re really that determined, the path will find you.”
“I don’t want another lesson”, shrugged the boy.
“Fine, have it your way.” Said the officer putting his hands in the air as a giving-up gesture.
Officer 2 enters the room meanwhile.
“So, what’s up with this lad? He got to pay a hefty fine. I was about to inform his family.”
“Yeah, Yeah! He’s going to pay what he is due.” Said the 1st Officer and both the Inspectors left the room leaving the boy alone with his thoughts.
The boy knew all this was leading to a worse situation. By this time his family would know. He wasn’t afraid of what was to happen to him but what would his parents feel. He kept murmuring in his mind, ‘I am not a bad Son, I am not a bad human being. You raised me well. But things didn’t work out and I messed up. I hope you don’t blame yourself for it.’
The 1st officer came back into the room and handed him few sheets of paper that looked more like forms and asked him to submit them on the front desk. “Go home, and we will call you when we need to settle things.”
The boy was confused now but he took it and moved out of the room to hand it over to the reception area.
“What? Why are you giving me this? There is no such formality and go home. We don’t have time to deal with you.”
The boy thought what sort of dirty little trick he was being played at but slowly stepped out of the station. His fingers gingerly brushed the envelope beneath those forms which he didn’t notice before.
He saw some hard cash nicely pressed in it. Enough to buy a Guitar and some essentials with a note saying:
“Buy that Guitar.
Stay out of trouble!”
The boy sensed and suddenly felt the turmoil after reading those 2 lines and squatted on the same spot.
His head touching his knees, cupping his mouth to silence his painful but happy cry.
“Hollow perceptions and people’s expectations cut wings of the dreamers
yet there are some souls who become their wings.”
I might not be able to write a longer poem this year, Ma
But thanks for all the rebirths you gave
after my every breakdown.
A dimly creature that seeps in
every dawn through my veiled curtains
embarking my journey of shrugging it off
innumerable times;
pulling a pillow over my head,
an annoying hindrance to my sleepy eyes.
Today, I thank you
at the daybreak.
My eyes see you
My lips are moving
my soul will remember, now.
The unprecedented farewell
I wasn’t prepared for,
never will ever be.
Esp, of my people.
‘Light of the day’
I called you because
the darkness before
was threatening to engulf us in the
most heinous, unfair way.
Trepidations, palpitations, anxiety
levels skyrocketed
looking at my mother
lying there in the pool of her sweat.
That light of the day reminded
it was graceful enough to bless us
with one more of her morning
to fight off our fears.
The moment you think you have
won over your fears,
Universe gives you more.
The moment you think you are
already grateful for what you have,
Universe gives you more.
One cannot go on with the carriage
of immortality but witnessing from own’s eyes;
your siblings feeling weak
being unable to get up;
The helplessness of not being
able to fight the battle on their behalf,
the silence of your heart kills you already.
The horror, the panic
of these dreadful times
shrieks of the minutes & hours
we took granted for,
of the moments
meant to be celebrated twice as hard.
It’s been years I lost my father
to a terrifying disease
but there are loses you can never
surface it from.
‘Light of the Day’
sweet day of liberty
I’d give you the recognition you deserve,
honor your welcome,
carrying a forever debt
that you landed in my home,
in my heart
with another hopeful day.
My stars are hanging there tight
to welcome you, EveryDay
–
From:
the one who’s along with family still fighting covid,
the one who thought she has been grateful enough but surely it wasn’t enough,
the one who’s now more hell-bent in extending help after surveying how shamelessly people use other’s plight for their advantages,
the one who’s still growing in terms of being kind and more aware of everyone’s needs,
the one who’s still striving to convert any pain into poetry,
the one who continuously learn to get up after being fallen,
the one who aims at being a better human.
Your face is like a mirror
polished on the surface
with a tinted pale reflection.
A reflection capable of
displaying an un-adjustable truth,
magnifying one’s shattered emotions
successfully hidden from the world.
When I am made to face you
I enter my own maze of sheer glance
the dark, the light, the inverted world
the illusion, the reality
bouncing in front of my eyes.
That enchanting pattern
is ethical,
is fictional,
is rigid,
But is classic.