What was that line
I wrote,
Of pebbles and the insomnia?
What was that dream
I scribbled,
Of the sun and his bride?
Oh the words in my dog-eared diaries
And the underlined paragraphs
Are fading once more,
The sound of my old voice and
The sight of my imaginary home
Is sinking and diminishing, once more.
Even as Heart, the blind chaperone
Keeps the feel of it so pristine,
But Mind, the unfaithful servant
Refuses to retrieve,
What has been parted by
Time and distance
They say, such is the fate
Of the Exiles and the birds
When driven
Out of their homes,
They have no luxury of carrying
Belongings and the loyal memories.
What was the giggly proverb
She said,
Of daughters and the mothers?
What was the drinking smile
He toasted,
To our success and our happiness?
Oh the giggles and the smiles have gone
My existence is disappearing fast
Now an ailing mother watches me
Quietly on the monitor for finite moments
A sad father continues to speak
Cathartic silences over the long distance calls
I doubt, O sweetheart, I doubt
Exile is your reality.
This is self inflicted, says the blind escort,
It is not you who has been thrown out
It is you who has been running away
From home, once more!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Suicidal Notes
I could not laugh. The slide show kept running- the images entering through the corner of my eye, his satirical and sarcastic eloquence generating louder laughter - I looked straight into his eyes. I could not laugh.
I kept assimilating his rage that seeped through his hands when they raised in the air and thumped at the desk, through his fingers when they pointed at the existent and the non-existent audience, through his eyes when they widened and narrowed, through his voice when it ascended in passion and faded in sorrow, and through his lips when they curled downwards in disappointment and upwards in smugness. I could not laugh even as everybody else in the room chortled at his sardonic attack on a system that had failed its people. From the corner of my eye, I was revisiting my country buried under the weight of the corpses of the farmers.
The messiah of the rural, the poor and the underprivileged Indians spoke of the agony of the suicidal farmers, the greed of the rich immoral corporations, the pompousness of the free-trade economists, and the superciliousness of the elites in India. The anger that he had passed on to me gazed at the blankness of my head and re-emerged as shame and despair.
Three days have elapsed since then. My anguish stays, my remorse has spared me. Provoked by anger, my disgust for the rich has disappeared, my hope for a better world has revived. It has revived because I am reminded of this story:
Long ago, a poor farmer in a village of Kashmir, standing near his farm, looked far beyond the edges of his small piece of land- "Is this my future? Two meals a day? Is that the future of my children? I will die as an illiterate man. My children will be the illiterate parents of their children. Is that our future?"
The next morning, he packed his rags and started his journey on foot towards the small town which was 40 miles away from the village.
Like Antonio Ricci in Ladri di biciclette, the villager's new life started on a bicycle. He was the new newspaper man on the bicycle distributing a local handwritten newspaper in the town. In few years, he taught himself how to read and write under the lamppost at the Red Crossroad. With his nose to the grindstone for decades, the newspaper man finally made a living for himself and his family.
Like all real stories, the poor villager stayed poor. None of his children became Ambanis or Kalams. They did not become doctors or engineers either. Yet they were relatively better off than the villager. They were moderately educated. They became teachers, artists and small bussinessmen. Their grandchildren struggled even harder and they are now a part of India's growing educated middle class. Some of the grandchildren are striving abroad to fulfill the vision that the villager had when he stood near his farm, 80 years ago.
I had dwelt on what had been shown to me for three days. My instant response was to go back home and follow the angry man's crusade. But then, the Kashmiri farmer's memory floated as a small speck in the shame and despair that had clouded my eyes. He stood there and began expanding like an ink drop on a blotting paper.
I kept assimilating his rage that seeped through his hands when they raised in the air and thumped at the desk, through his fingers when they pointed at the existent and the non-existent audience, through his eyes when they widened and narrowed, through his voice when it ascended in passion and faded in sorrow, and through his lips when they curled downwards in disappointment and upwards in smugness. I could not laugh even as everybody else in the room chortled at his sardonic attack on a system that had failed its people. From the corner of my eye, I was revisiting my country buried under the weight of the corpses of the farmers.
The messiah of the rural, the poor and the underprivileged Indians spoke of the agony of the suicidal farmers, the greed of the rich immoral corporations, the pompousness of the free-trade economists, and the superciliousness of the elites in India. The anger that he had passed on to me gazed at the blankness of my head and re-emerged as shame and despair.
Three days have elapsed since then. My anguish stays, my remorse has spared me. Provoked by anger, my disgust for the rich has disappeared, my hope for a better world has revived. It has revived because I am reminded of this story:
Long ago, a poor farmer in a village of Kashmir, standing near his farm, looked far beyond the edges of his small piece of land- "Is this my future? Two meals a day? Is that the future of my children? I will die as an illiterate man. My children will be the illiterate parents of their children. Is that our future?"
The next morning, he packed his rags and started his journey on foot towards the small town which was 40 miles away from the village.
Like Antonio Ricci in Ladri di biciclette, the villager's new life started on a bicycle. He was the new newspaper man on the bicycle distributing a local handwritten newspaper in the town. In few years, he taught himself how to read and write under the lamppost at the Red Crossroad. With his nose to the grindstone for decades, the newspaper man finally made a living for himself and his family.
Like all real stories, the poor villager stayed poor. None of his children became Ambanis or Kalams. They did not become doctors or engineers either. Yet they were relatively better off than the villager. They were moderately educated. They became teachers, artists and small bussinessmen. Their grandchildren struggled even harder and they are now a part of India's growing educated middle class. Some of the grandchildren are striving abroad to fulfill the vision that the villager had when he stood near his farm, 80 years ago.
I had dwelt on what had been shown to me for three days. My instant response was to go back home and follow the angry man's crusade. But then, the Kashmiri farmer's memory floated as a small speck in the shame and despair that had clouded my eyes. He stood there and began expanding like an ink drop on a blotting paper.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
You are dead
Only Gods and infants
Don't blink,
Says a man who lives on
six bottles of beer every day.
Gods are dead,
Infants are yet to feel alive.
The lids don't flutter as such,
Eyes don't shut to the touch.
And You who pierces through
My demons and my virtues;
My silences and my larynx;
My nothingness and my action
Without a blink,
Must be
Either of the two.
But any which way
You are dead.
Don't blink,
Says a man who lives on
six bottles of beer every day.
Gods are dead,
Infants are yet to feel alive.
The lids don't flutter as such,
Eyes don't shut to the touch.
And You who pierces through
My demons and my virtues;
My silences and my larynx;
My nothingness and my action
Without a blink,
Must be
Either of the two.
But any which way
You are dead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)