Suicides by Social Norms

 Hearsay has murdered for eras

Without the notice of tiaras

Countless fossils of mortals

Still continue the invisible throttles

Everlasting dictatorship in disguise

Advancing AI can’t even realise

Civilised civilisations name

Politely as ‘social norm’

Generation after generation

From the day of civilisation

Failed to remove the social scaffold

Most keep climbing with a blindfold,

Without knowing what for and how far,

Fear of mocking climbers on a par;

Convenient systemic cruelty of generalisation

Thrashed numerous visions in trivialisation;

Why can’t Einstein still make sense?

Baseless fear-mongers create a tension

That burns the hope and vision,

Of numerous fishes’ dream of ocean

Compared to the climbing monkeys,

Abused for being born as donkeys!

Naive souls drive over the edge,

With no one to dredge…

Partying World

Nay! I am neither worried about the wasted lives in the war,

Nor do I care that a dull-witted president’s pride and greed can’t be restrained by the whole world!

What’s that forum called? The UN, isn’t it?

By the way, I am not as deeply concerned as the UN is.

Indeed, the world has been partying with

the traces and losses of COVID-19;

And the financial celebrations of AI intervention in every sector;

There was a DJ missing and, of course, here come missiles to add music to the partying world!

I couldn’t participate in the party as I couldn’t cook or eat my food;

The only thing that stops me from having fun is the 10-day wait for a cylinder!

Rain Talk

I was riding on my bike to my office 

With dreary daily dullness

Yet happened to notice a drama in the sky 

Sun was so bright and suddenly dark cloud hid the light

As I tuned my hyper sensitive senses on

I heard them speaking in a meeting 

It was a round-table conference (earth is the table)

Between the sun and the ocean 

Clouds and rays were also presented -

Sun: I want them to be burnt;
I want them to be dead without water.

Clouds: No mom sends us to keep you calm.

Rays: Why should we be calm?

Sun: You have given enough chances;

You have a heart of a mom,

As you carry

From harmless to harmful,

From charmless to charming,

From formless to numerous forms,

Of lives in your womb...

Yet the mankind has become a threat to us:

They damaged even the timeless turtles
- One of your favourite children - 

You hold deep and special for centuries...

Yet you are too generous!

Ocean: I understand you are upset
And you can never relate to my decisions,
As You are made of totally different stuff;
I have seen better human beings
Who clean up the mess of their kind...
They love you and me equally!
So I am trying to help them
And give a few more chances.
Let my children do the job
Tuck yourself and take rest for a while
Last time our talk ended up in rough note
In anger I swept off a few lands
And sabotaged their livelihoods
Let’s not argue any further...

Suddenly, I felt drizzles on me
I veered my bike towards office
As the sky completely turns gloomy
Just after I entered office
It was pouring for an hour...

Reality!

All seem so easy:

When I see people around me,

Holding on to social values;

When I see them lead life,

Believing everything is running race;

When I see them evolve,

Accepting day-to-day mundane;

Sometimes, all seem so beautiful:

 When I see two lovers,

Hoping to get married;

When I see the parents,

Bringing up their children;

When I see children,

Playing around me...

A whack on my face:

Everything becomes nothing,

In real, life is too complicated to crack,

When I see children in cancer institute,

When I see a husband die at 40,

Leaving his wife with an autistic son,

When true love proves to be myth,

My faith is annihilated;

Time to time hopes of new joy,

Bloom and wither;   

Pain and sorrow linger,

And now I find solace in them;

For some, even a simple and normal life,

As per social norms, is a luxury! 

Kill the Heart till the Goal!

Vision of puffing and panting dreams,

In the wide open eyes,

And the helplessness to save them
Hurts

To hear the proud proclaim of Failures: 'Dreams are dreams,

Rootless and formless,

Fade away into the darkness...'

Emotional bonding of social structure,

Are so very meaningless,

When the being and dying,

Cannot be borne on none's behalf!

Yet everyone takes responsibility,

Of everyother soul...

On gratitude's and duty's sake 

How many precious opportunities,

How many tiny wishes,
How many passionate dreams,
Were slipped through the fingers!

Still on and on goes...

The demands of kith and kin,

Till the very life is slipped!
 Pathetic social codes and systems,
Of so-called secured and safe life,
Of familial bonds SUCK!

The casting daggers of tears,
The blackmailing catastrophic emotional dramas,

Pierce through the conviction and confidence,
Of the picture tube of hopeful dreams;
No one ever knows:
 How excruciatingly painful to kill the will,
To destroy the vision!

Wish not to feel,
Wish not to be trapped by emotions,
Wish not to sympathise with people,
Wish for a sterner heart,
Or to be a heartless brute,
Sometimes courage is not enough,
Mere rage drives better,
Dare not to hurt people,
Who meddle on the way to the goal,
Tender and empathetic nature,
Hinders the courage to reach out
For a Himalayan height!
Indeed, no one ever bears the pain on no one's behalf!

A Mourning for Passion

Thoughts and feelings overflow 

Beyond the balance

Sinking in and oozing out:

The job rips off 

All the skills I hard-earned, 

Through out the years I lived!

Monotonous reading on a computer screen  

Makes the eyes swollen;  

Forced to read black and white 

Of science, medicines and medical experiments...

Whether they interest me  

Or they bore me to sleep

Whether they sound familiar 

Or they are Greek and Latin

Read, read and read to find fault;

The irony is I love reading!

As an art lover, fantasy lover or poetry lover,

To be exact, I am dying for 9 hours a day,
Of senseless reading.

I spend most of my time doing a job that hurts me,

Or that I hate to do

Just as compulsion and for commitment

To pay off rents, EMIs and medical bills!

Longing for teaching English literature, 

Especially for teaching poetry,

And for a writing profession are all mere dreams...

For one more thing I regret to be born in India,

Where education industry has become a huge trade centre,

Rather a medium to impart knowledge

Where an individual cannot do 

What he or she loves to do 

Rather the individual has to kill the passion for survival!

"An Area of Darkness",

"India: A Wounded Civilization", 

And "India: A Million Mutinies Now"

What V.S. Naipaul experienced in a year time,

I have been experiencing for past thirty years...

For me, nothing can better describe India  

Other than those three titles!  

Need Wings to Fly Far Away!

Deeper bewilderment consumes:

Does dependency ruin the harmony of individuality?

Or

Does it give solace to nonchalant routine?

Frightening to reveal the privacy,

Frightening to lose the priorities,

Frightening to abandon the parents,

Frightening to steal the time:

Of reading books,

Of listening to music,

Of watching movies,

Of writing and of dreaming...

But for a limited time in a day,

Also a feeling of longing lingers,

For a cuddling warmth,

For an assisting hand,

For an emotional dependence!

The fears keep on supressing –

The anticipation for years;

Know not the way out,

And met none to trust beyond the fears.

Regret to be born in the soil:

Where heart and love are considered the least in a wedding!

Where money matters a lot for a marriage,

Where a bridegroom is paid huge by a bride:

To be served for life-time by the bride and her family,

Where spinsters above age 30 are cursed!

Need a flight to fly away from the stale custom,

To a heavenly land:

Where true love can be found and valued,

Where a woman's independency is revered.

Where a woman's individuality is unbroken by her wedding.

Where a woman gets appreciated for living alone!

Extremities

Differences, differences

Everywhere around me, 

It hurts to witness:

Roadside dogs suffering

With all hits and hurts,

Awaiting for death at any moment;

A pet dog of a posh house, 

With a medic to take care,

Gets all pamper and parenting.

Human beings are not an exception:

Many are:

Cursed with poverty,

Cursed with loneliness,

Cursed with society's all the illness!

A few are:

Gifted with good health and great wealth,

Gifted with love and care,

Gifted with normal living of the society!

I wish, 

The creator could have planned

A better world:

With love and peace,

With no pain and sorrow,

With full of soothing sun light,

With no darkness,

With always blooming spring,

With neither piercing winter,

Nor burning summer,

With an immortal living,

With no birth and death,

For every single organism's content,

No one kills no one to live!

Enough of the balanced world, 

Of vice and virtue.

I lose my balance 

To bear unfair affairs on earth.

Let the greed-less joy and fear-less harmony,

Untie the subdued balance,

Of life and death in the world. 

Fear of Future

I played in streets

Jumped beyond compound walls,

Into the un-occupied empty land–

Filled with big and small trees

With birds and insects,

The whole streets’ crowd of kids

Joined together as a team to play

Knowing nothing about each other’s

Whereabouts:

High or low,

Tall or small,

Strong or week,

Rich or poor,

Matric or public school…

Together we ran and jumped,

Hither and thither all day.

To spend the excess leisure worthy,

I learned dance and music

Six or seven kids learned with me,

Together we participated in all school events,

We never gave a thought of lead roles,

We felt as a group in all our participation,

Still we had so much time

To play on the streets,

And swing under trees…

When I was a kid.

Now, the place I live is surrounded,

With multi-storied buildings!

There is no tree,

Except for crows,

No bird visits the place,

I don’t know who lives in the next door,

They don’t know who I am.

I see very few kids

On the way to their classes,

As race horses in parents’ vehicles.

Every day, everywhere and every-way

Competition is flaring up

With such greed for success and wealth,

And they are trained to compete,

If one horse misses the pace,

In the never-ending futile race:

No good-air to breathe,

No good-water to drink,

No good-shelter to sleep,

No good-food to eat,

As basic necessities’ quality lies

In the price tags they carry!

Everyday living has become a nightmare

To live in this chaotic hell.

Everything is open to everyone,

Now nothing can be hindered...

With heavy eyes,

With hi-tech games,

With computerized dreams,

In an air conditioned room,

Charm and innocence of childishness

Are lost in present-day children.

Guilt pricks me -

To think of the future generation,

A terrible terror creeps in,

Do I have any right to bring a new life,
Into this traumatic survival,
As I didn't preserve the world I enjoyed?

How can I love my country?

They say: numerous lives have been offered

To earn this independent India,

Democratic and secular India,

Is it worth now?

India would have been a much better

Place to live,

If the Brits continued their colony here.  

It’s been 6 decades now,

Schools still train everyone everyday

To take the pledge:

“I love my country”

But:

How can I love my country?

When my fellow-women are cruelly raped and killed,

When policemen safeguard criminals and ill-treat commoner,

When govt. jobs are bribed to inefficient people,

When the country’s constitution is in hands of people in power;

How can I love my country?

When the country’s education system is in all mess,

When my breathing air is polluted in every way,

When my drinking water is costlier than my breakfast,

When all rivers have been changed to sewage,

When people and dogs sleep together in the roadsides,

 When fundamental healthcare is luxury for 80% crowd!

I can love this country,

If I have loads of money and numb senses;

And money alone can earn more money, Indeed!

For a commoner,

It’s a nightmare to live in this country.

Social activists fight against whole lot of issues,

They blame media- and techno-addicted youth,

While day-to-day living itself is a trauma

For most of the population.

Except for the little familial bonds and values

Nothing is lucrative in this country’s waning culture,

How can I love my country?  

Longing

Life gnaws tediously in routine living

The rustic wild heart of ancestral past,

Longs and longs…

For a meadow with dewy snow,

Vegetation and wilderness,

Dustless breeze and engineless paths,

True spring with lovely blossoms,

Hanging berries and cherries in sideways,

Spreading fragrance of green,

Soothing whispers of waving wood,

Gurgling of water in a serene ravine,

Grazing herd of cattle in a wide and far pasture…

The list goes on and on

Which are never seen or touched

Other than in virtual forms;

Bane, are the souls

Are born in current synthetic world,

Where NO fresh and clean:

Water to drink,

Food to feed,

And even oxygen to breathe,

Roads are hedged with giant buildings,

Rarely a tree peeped out from them;

With shrieking engines and jarring sirens and horns,

Amidst the fog of dust and dirt,

Beyond punctuality, an unknown weird rush

Creeps in everyday on the way…

Cinderella Complex

Dancing dolls,

Dabbing idols

To heavy-handed men

Daring thoughts

Patronized tone 

On delicate beauty

Longing for a prince

To rescue all the time

Thrown to lime light 

On the realms of feminism,

Indian female emotions

Are in complex of angels and idols,

Diluted by the bossy care,

And boastful masculinity,

As in third world suppression

Male domineering stereotyped

Social values rule the country's sensibility

Opportunities are wide and open,

To overcome the oppression

Women are still not ready to pick one!

Fate of Professionals?!?!

Many are stamped to be professionals,

Irrespective of personal choice-

In fast growing industrial India,

The business of professional education

Is hiking with zeal to zenith,

Numerous colleges are popping up

Year on year-

To appeal the crowd,

Every year a fare is conducted to fill the seats;

With flaring posters and pamphlets

Every institution promises a job after four or five years,

As if institutions are career agents for many concerns,

Regardless of the potential and passion of scholars!

Many innocent individuals fall in trap,

Trusting that their lives will be enhanced

After four years of meaningless education.

Nobler thought of imparting knowledge is dead,

Among the education business-makers!

Geeks who run a mechanical living,

Market metro’s flashy splashy nature,

With excess bank balance,

Are the current role-models of every youth!

Men of principles live only in books,

Their civility lasts all its fervour.

Youthfulness of youth is vanquished

By the bewilderment of which path to choose!

Every year a crowd of youth rushes to metros,

In search of job following their living role-models,

There is no answer for the questions:

‘What kind of job profile do you like to work?’

‘What are your natural skill set?’

‘What do you want to achieve?’

All they want is job that pays enough,

The knowledge of self is zero!

So pity to see such mad crowd,

It’s pathetic to think of the future society~

Go Green

Day by day every way,

Nature goes away

What to say!?!

Cosmo turns into junk hay

Hues lost their ray

The earth is in dismay!

We wipe out the green,

So nature loses its serene.

Come together to begin

A society to restore the green

Let's keep our atmosphere clean,

To bring the friendly Eco-scene!

Festivals of Unity!

North, South, East, West...

India is vast in culture and nature!

Diwali says I was born in North,

Sankranthi says I was born in South,

We say we celebrate both!

Durga pooja says I was born in West,

Holy says I was born in East,

We say, we rejoice both the best!

Multi lingual, multi-color, multi-culture…

All multiplies our joy of celebrations!

Ramzan or Christmas or Diwali,

Here all religions are holy

And we Indians celebrate all with jolly!



URBAN

Mad life of crazy human race:

Craze for money,

Rush for food and shelter,

No taste or value for uselessness (art),

Mere a blind ramble for utilities;

No eye abides for the beauty of God!

But for deceitful beauty of materials;

Greater quality, richer expression,

Beautified fact of life—

Are shedding deliberately,

Flames of sensual preference

Ignite the Nature and the Just;

No room for spiritual choice

And for eternal truth

All confined with instant relish.