from, may be, some place far away

The past never happened
& the future never will.
Look closer,
the present
might just be a dream.

Wanderer, The

A pinch of humour & an ounce of chagrin

The storyboard: An irked employee is doodling some terms of socially loathed qualities and all the arrows of angst are directed to the nemesis of the story who is remembered as the most popular name in corporate India. Hari Sadu returns in Naukri’s new campaign with a climax that teases the gun-smoke of the much dreaded months of recession. The punch-line reads ‘Jobs are back!’(The diagonal strokes of the letter ‘k’, in the word ‘back’, are cleverly inverted to emphasize the meaning – forward movement.)

The billboard: As you cruise over one of the flyovers in Secunderabad, and when Parade grounds come into full view, the cityscape is donned with a large hoarding that promotes a restaurant with humorous punch-lines like ‘taste even Rajni can’t beat’ & ‘six-pack ya family pack’. The term family pack has since caught on with the local parlance so much that it is frequently used in social circles to substitute the term obesity.

The springboard: If the public recognizes your logo, style or color, the value of the communication is obviously doubled. Combine this instant recognition with a touch of wit that resonates with the target market and your brand sells. Humor is one of advertising’s most volatile tools. Good humor wins friends. It attracts the eye, engages the mind and restores the soul. Humor is everywhere. You will find it in a maverick’s histrionics, you will find it in the comic strips about the adventures of a small kid, be it Dennis or Calvin, and you will find it yet again in the cheeky one-liners mouthed by Ian Fleming’s debonair spy. Yet humor is surrounded by banana skins. It can try too hard and fall flat or not hard enough and go unnoticed. But still, ads that make us laugh might make us buy.

The dartboard (or when humor goes astray): The so called ‘creative’ clowns of the Indian ad-houses are sporting a field day with a conceited attitude that they can get away with anything more degenerating than slapstick because they presume their audience to be fuzzyheaded morons who waste their time wagging to the heavy-duty emotions of tearjerker soaps and “pre-scripted”, and yet very lucrative talent shows. Pondering over the hackneyed path that a segment of Indian advertising is treading these days, we can observe that as we flip channels across the tube-space we jump into some really stupid commercials that make us wonder why the ad-makers are grossly underestimating the acumen of the average Indian viewer (and you will thank your stars for the invention of the remote).
I guess, on a meager shoestring budget, even a local school team can come up with better, fresher ideas.

The Union (of Kali & Bhairava)

From the frenzy rises a passion,
From the passion rises a life force.


Her beauty
contrasts with her violent awakening.
Her ferocity – raw & unmatched,
Her flowing heat –  terrible & untamed,
Her spirit – chaotic & unrestrained,
Her anger
has the force of a thousand thunders.
Her wrath
rivals the doom of the darkest forces.

His presence
dissolves the roaring vermillion sky.
His shadow
whiffs with a phallic urge.
His desire
engulfs the radiance of her sultry torso.
His grip
tightens on her fuming posture.
His vitality
pours into her like gushing lava.
His defiance
unlocks a feminine splendour.

Bound
by the shackles of love,
Released
by the harmony of the union,
she reveals
& she surrenders.

The boulder

Weather-beaten, immobile & lifeless:
I lift the stone
From the veil of its deceit.

I could, with awe, see dozens
Wriggling in the damp soil.

Warmth

To tune into the desire for Togetherness
Is to unlock Nature’s deepest secrets.

They played like children on a beach,
They hungered like beasts in the wilderness,
They sparkled like blossoms in a spring garden.
They fulfilled like a mother’s yielding breast.

They soared. They swam. They embraced.
They laughed. They loved. They lived.

Reflecting on the documentary film: Deliver us from evil

The subdued voices squirm in the domes of imposed silence.

Physical abuse
is faith - shattered;
spiritual abuse
is faith - erased!



Man’s journey of civilization from the dearth of his savage past is far from complete.

For the inherent solace of societal bonding, we tend to associate ourselves with a specific faith. As a consequence, we indulge in the oblivious surrender of the self as we place all our fears and beliefs on the strength of a concept called ‘God’. For matters of hypothetical convenience let us keep the petty issue of religion out of the discussion. However, as we retract and examine the horrors committed by mankind in the name of God, the list is excruciating: the Crusades, the Holocaust, the endless bloody riots, the religious sacrifices and the recent exposés of child abuse committed by none other than the guardians of faith. From these illustrations the dynamics of the Supreme Conscience are very clear. The choice for God, or let us uncomplicate the term & just settle on ‘Supreme force’, is never between good & evil. In higher realms, absolute functioning is rather about deciding a time for either progress or regress, to fine-tune a balance between both, and thereby regulate the eternal order of the universe.

Naught

Void in the mind,
A hole in the heart,
-Grim, surreal, unsettling, choking…
Like the numbness before a blackout.

Insomnia

Strangeness
Haunts in familiar territories.
A semblance
Reveals itself in queer worlds.
Reflections
in broken mirrors,
Mirages
in blinding lights,
Phantoms
In the surrounding void.
Sometimes like a dream,
And at other times like a hallucination.

Nightwalk

It's midnight.
Three or four miles away from the shack
and walking...

Hands in my pockets,
Cigarette in my mouth,
And icy breeze slapping against my face.

Mindless
Of the roaring dark skies near the horizon,
Of the waves that gently strike my bare feet,
I walk on the shoreline,
Along the path of the burrowing crabs.

I pause
And my eyes
Narrow upon a distant, solitary light.
Is it the ritual dance of a glowworm
Or the blink of a lighthouse?
My head spins,
My legs give away,
And my mind hits a blank.

I should have stopped at the ninth beer.

The tragic end of a jilted lover

Blood as a bookmark

Six years of war
and a million shades of terror
- barbed wires, crushed crayons & other dreams of the dust.

In a deserted playground,
a swing, charred & broken,
sways in the stillness of the terror-filled winds.

When the trials of justice will be over,
when peace will prevail over the land again,
all the silenced voices shall cry in desperation:
thirsty for the lost years,
and eager to reclaim the days of childhood.

Buddha: The second coming (2)

In pursuit of a mystifying dream, I found meaning;
In pursuit of a fulfilling meaning, I found life;
In pursuit of a rewarding life, I found purpose;
In pursuit of a greater purpose, I found the truth;
In pursuit of the absolute truth, I found beauty:
And it’s in profound beauty that I found my dreams again.

Trigger happy

The knot in my stomach
is growing stronger day by day.
And so is my grip on the trigger.

Heady with optimism

Her eyes are dark & deep
like the sight of a wild sea
on a stormy night.

*****************************

The object of desire
melts
in the flames of passion.

Flirtation

It’s a distant city.
Everybody came from some place else.

Two strangers: intoxicated, aimless & lost
- kindled by a smile & a little chat.
In the silence of the unrushing hours
The beast in him
Devoured the storm in her.

(Line 2 of the poem lifted from the movie: ‘New York, I love you’)