The Stage

The engulfing darkness, the dissolving lights;
The spinning planet, the blazing sun;
The surging oceans, the roaring waves;
The thundering skies, the rumbling grounds;
The stretching deserts, the shining sands;
The flowing rivers, the rising tides;
The changing seasons, the emerging colors;
The blossoming flowers, the buzzing insects;
The thinking mind, conquering all;
The spinning ideas, the blazing furnaces;
The surging speed, the roaring wheels;
The thundering passions, the rumbling motors;
The stretching possibilities, the shining alloys;
The flowing wealth, the rising sky-scrapers;
The changing needs, the emerging technologies;
The blossoming fashions, the buzzing mills;
The engulfing lights, the dissolving darkness.

(Interchanging the first and the last line will change the mood of the poem)

THE SILENCE

The telephone ring, the monosyllabic talk,
The striking of a matchstick,
The irregular rattle of the ceiling-fan,
A desolate mind turning the pages of a newspaper,
A little artist scratching crayons on the bedroom wall,
Termites eating their way into an old bookrack,
Two lizards prowling around a fluorescent lamp,
Water draining from the sinkhole,
The tinkle of the wind chimes,
The haste of the clock– 
These little sounds
Amplify the silence in the house,
The tension between the man and the wife
Define the silence in the house.

Throughout the history of human interaction,
There was a lot unspoken by the imposition of silence
There was a lot spoken by the language of silence.

The blue sky

Forty-five or fifty years ago, he was crying in the cradle,
Thirty years ago, he was an adult.
A hurried transformation
Untouched by the innocence of childhood,
Unscathed by the recklessness of adolescence.

Four or five weeks ago, he had a cardiac arrest,
With one leg in the grave,
He dreams
Of exploring the ignored chapters
Of his lost years.

One of these days, a little after two in the afternoon,
He gets up from his bed and drags himself to his son’s room –

A nine-year old rebel.
He opens the door, looks at the mess around,
And tries to make some sense of the bizarre posters stuck to the walls.
He winces as he picks up the cricket bat lying on the floor.
He grips the handle and swings the bat wildly in the air.
At a distant space in time,
He could hear a cheering applause from the crowd.

He clenches his fist
And instinctively smiles to himself.
Some desperate tears escape from the corners of his eyes.
He experiences a strange feeling he never felt before:

An absolute sense of freedom,
Delight in its purest form.
His spirit, as eager as a young bird on its first flight,
Rearing to explore the promising horizons.

IT’S ALL IN THE MIND

A long time ago, there was a carpenter who worked under the commission of the royal patrons of a small kingdom. The work-quarters assigned to him consisted of a poorly ventilated room with a very small window to its east side. To work on blocks of wood, there was an immovable, heavy metal table placed right under the window.

When the carpenter started on his assignment, he observed that everyday between ten and eleven in the morning, the sun shone directly through the window. Often he felt that the rays hit him directly on his face. Though it was a silly reason he found it very difficult to concentrate on the work at hand. He would be frustrated at the mere thought of the approaching hour and the annoyance would snowball to affect his work for the rest of the day. His productivity levels continued to dip drastically because he always imagined that the world beyond the four walls of the room is very beautiful. Within a month he had to be replaced for his inefficiency.

 

The new carpenter who came in looked at the room from a different outlook. He sensed that the intervention of sunshine in the dark room was a welcome relief. He would be rejoiced when the clock struck ten daily, and the smile on his face lasted till the late hours of the evening. During summers, when he realized that the sun shone very harshly through the window at the appointed hour, he would take a small break, but only to get back to work with double the rigor. He was strongly convinced that his work among the four walls of the room is going to lead him to the beautiful world outside. 

 

 

In due course of time his work was recognized and he was awarded a huge contract to work on the king’s palace.

More often than not, it’s the way we look at things that affects the way we live our lives.

THE 'CROSSROADS' DILEMMA

There were men whose unprotested submission led them to an internal conflict to introspect if they were played the scapegoat; there were men whose indomitable spirit urged them to scale those perilous heights, but ultimately landed in the jaws of death; and there are those unfortunate souls who backed off at the last mile only to discover later that they missed their big ticket to fortune.
When faced with certain events, some people blend into them, some remain unfazed and others just shy away.

There is no single defined course of action applicable to all situations at all the times. So choose your option wisely.

A PRECIOUS FEW

Some men
Have minds like an abyss,
Exhaustive fountains of innovativeness
That promote human thinking to the next level.

Every generation produces a handful of maniacs who come up with offbeat ideas which might be ridiculed as crazy daydreams by their peers. The individual members of such an unusual herd are mostly loners, isolated by their own sense of superiority, and their behavior is looked at with extreme contempt in social circles. But strangely, it is the spin-offs of such eccentric minds that define the destiny of their generation, and the subsequent ones that follow.



Some men
Have hearts like a sponge,
Highly accommodative to the sufferings of mankind
That elevate human consciousness to a higher plane.

One attribute common across all the centuries that passed by is human suffering. Most people turn a cold shoulder to the downtrodden because they understand that the easiest way to deal with somebody else’s agony is to ignore it. But somewhere, lying among the rubble shines a noble heart, which is a humble possession of a few giants. They are giants, not by physical disposition, but for the reason that they have the courage to hug a leper’s dejection, accept his misery, and to reinstate the moral conviction that kindness conquers all.

THE STARE

Everyone left the burial ground.
Its been four hours now
And I look intently at the remnants of a few glowing cinders.
A wave of winter-cold creeps into my bones.
The day slowly resigns into the late hours of the evening.
I’ve been sitting in the car for a long time,
My melancholy weaves into the engulfing darkness.
At sporadic intervals, tears would flow freely down my cheeks
And without a conscious effort they would stop suddenly
Caught in a strange confusion between dream and reality.

The air inside the car is infested with a swarm of mosquitoes
Murmuring the tales of the dead into my ears;
By now my eyes got accustomed to the darkness.
At a distance, a few feet away from the car,
I see two tiny playful animals nibbling at the bark of a tree.
They hurry up and down the tree, chasing each other,
And for the next few minutes, I was completely lost in their busy, sneaky bustle.
Breaking into the eerie silence a pair of violent gigantic wings
Swoop down from nowhere and the vicious claws dig into one of the squirrels,
And grab it with the ferocity of an overwhelming predatory instinct.
I look around for the other rodent.
It already escaped somewhere deep into the wilderness.
Carried by the occasional breeze, I can hear echoes of a frightened, panicking life;
A life still breathing. 

Perched on a mounted rock,
The bird pecks into the warm flesh with greedy strokes
And within a few minutes the prize is completely devoured.
After the meal it stares into a void. Or directly at me.
I stare back at the large disturbing eyes of the owl.
The eyes reek of a cold emptiness: a void as certain as death.

As I drive back home that night,
I silently savor the memories of a strong friendship that dates back to my college days.

THE OTHER HALF

To understand that home is not a dump yard for office tensions,

To cope up with lecherous looks and snide remarks on the streets,

To instill confidence in her little son that he can count beyond five,

and to gladly reward him when he does,

To relate to her responsibilities at home and work from a mature perspective,

and to balance both,

To make a thirty-two-year-old man realize the relevance of the first sentence mentioned above,

To forgive him for some unspoken indignations,

To lie to her friend that the swelling on her face is just because of a nasty fall from the stairs,

To take her son into her reassuring, warm hug when he is terrified by a bad dream in the middle of the night,

All in all…it takes a lot to be a woman.

CAN ART BREAK FREE?

The artist
Dips the brush carelessly in the passion of his soul
And stains the white canvas with his fiery emotions.
(Picasso inspired)

To a casual onlooker,
The painting might mean nothing but a disoriented assemblage of human thoughts,
But on a closer look
It is art stripped naked to the most fundamental form of abstractness;
It’s a creative merchandise from the mind factory.

The interconnectedness
Among the seemingly distracted patterns
Translate into volumes of artistic fervor, an absolute treatise to the five senses.
But the beauty of the painting
Lies in its complexity,
The way it teases the scrutiny of the staunch critic.

The unperceived expressions,
Which are inconspicuously hidden in the masterpiece,
Want to ‘break free’
Like the dripping lust of a tethered elephant bull
In full musk.

HAPPINESS IS EVERYWHERE

From the hand that pats, to the delight that smiles,
From the heart that feeds, to the stomach that is fed,
From the ego that gives, to the need that takes,
From the touch that heals, to the hope it gives,
From the lips that kiss, to the passion that blushes,
From the assurance that speaks, to the consoled that listens,
From the past that teaches, to the future that learns,
From the times that fly, to the memory that relishes,
From the values that bind, to the legacy they build,
From the authority that pardons, to the wrongs that are forgiven,
From the flag that flutters, to the fervor that salutes,
From the sweat that ploughs, to the gold that harvests,
From the autumn breeze that sways, to the dry leaves that fall,
From the seasons that roll by, to the colors they bring,
From the wings that soar, to the heavens that shine,
From the dark hanging clouds that contrast to the silver lining that borders,
From the rains that fall, to the mud that exhales,
From the thought that sparks, to the form it takes,
From the mind that conceives to the world it delivers;
Happiness is not what you see
But how you perceive what you see.

To be a happy man, imagination is the key.
And when imagination looks around

Happiness is everywhere.

DOORS

You don't jump into turning points. You make them happen.
While you are walking down the road of life you will find doors that are open, some that are closed, and a rare few that are abruptly pushed open by the fancies of the wind. It's often the third kind that will lead you to the most important turning point in your life. So watch where the wind blows, or the best part of life will be gone with the wind.

BOSS TALK

BULLS EYE:
A leader should have an eye for talent, an ear to listen earnestly to concerns, an acute mind to adapt to circumstances, a positive morale to build trust by respecting others, a magnanimous heart to take full responsibility of failures, and a strong will to challenge adversities.
It takes a leader to get it going.


TWISTED TALES:

• If your boss is wrong don’t ever say it when he has company - he might take offense, don’t say it when he is alone - he might never accept it, but then, you can always whisper it to the winds, or change your perspective, or last but definitely not the least, change your job.
• Never display your helplessness, instead throw feelers that you are open to ideas.

FLUTTERING SAIL, THE

Never back off at the sight of the storm and never quit until all is over. Once the sail is set, bad weather should not be a reason to give yourself up to the sea. The sight of land might be a distant dream, waiting to be realized, so hold on firmly to your conviction and never give up. If you have to go, go down with the ship, but until then, bare your will against the waves and fight the forces with all your might.

THE ROMANCE OF WORDS

Words flow
In the shade of the bougainvillea bloom.

Dignity
gives way to small pranks.
The romance
In both the hearts
Spins the guests
In a vertigo of flirtation.

The emotional intercourse, the genesis,
Gloats
With an analogous orgasm.

Picture credit: Vishal Anand Reddy, Hyderabad.
(Pencil sketch of a scene from the Hindi movie 'Rain Coat')

BLACK

BLACK – I

Dark
Is the humor of the stubborn thorns
In the waves of the desert stretch;
The spirit of the cactus evaporates,
Body left in the monotony of ashen grounds.

Wasted talent of the chameleon
On a moonless night
- The color
As opaque as the philosophy
Of the remotest star.

Abstinence,
That holds the reins,
Strangling indulgence;
Bitterness,
That holds on ransom,
The verse of honey drops;
Despair,
That holds a hope,
Breaking into the tides of happiness;
Black,
That holds the suspense
Of animated hues.



BLACK – II

The language
Is manifested
In a pair of jet black eyes;
The frontiers of beauty
Begin and end
In the windows of the body.

Femininity
Wrapped in a veil,
The ceremonial attire
Melts
In the murky veneer of the night.

Black melts.

SEEDS

Some seeds remain buried for decades, and all it takes is a moment’s magical intervention for the first leaves to crack through the layers of mud and whiff with life; nature never gives up on the possibilities.
Read 'seeds' as 'ideas'; read 'nature' as 'your strong conviction in your ideas'.

THE FORGOTTEN CHAPTERS

The air is robust;
The breeze from the sunflower fields
Fills the lungs with spell-binding joy.
Fifteen or twenty minutes ago, at the western horizon,
The sun dropped the day
In an orange sea of glory;
The dissolving light
Paints the silhouettes of retreating cattle.
The hermits of darkness
Unweave
Out of their cocoons.

At a distance,
An oak tree is flocked
With an elation of skylarks.
A few yards away from the tree,
Inconspicuously hidden
Behind the fencing of a full bougainvillea bloom,
Is a small house
Ornamented with falling creepers,
The season’s blossoming best.
From the chimney,
A thin smoke of supper brew
Masts into the evening sky.
Twilight’s music is orchestrated
By the cacophony of the crickets and the frogs.
A dragonfly hangs head-down
To a ripening orange in the garden.

It is life in the country;
Life ‘grows’ in the country.

MISSION

Live life in a broad spectrum of ideas with perfect balance of ideals, that includes fresh thinking, and a fresher perspective to make it to the top.

SCENT OF A WOMAN

The sun sinks into the horizon.
Long after it’s gone,
The western sky
Still carries a memory of crimson & orange.
The warmth still lingers in the breeze,
In the wheat fields, on river sands
And between the ebb and flow
Of evening’s Theatre.

It’s a room of unforgettable dimensions
-to one corner
There is an unmade bed
And to another, a messy wardrobe.
The objects in the room are dusty and unattended.
A middle-aged man with disheveled hair and dirty clothes
Is slouched in an arm-chair.
He is staring
At a window that has not been opened for the last two years.
The wall beside him
Has numerous cobwebbed photographs, thirty maybe, of a woman.

A scarlet scent
Hangs among the objects of the room.
It’s the scent of her vibrant, passionate moods.
It’s the scent that keeps him alive.

One day
All would be gone –
The Room, the Objects, the Man in the arm-chair, his Agony.
It’s just the scent
That stays...... the scarlet scent.

CLAWS

She has innocent looks,
Tender cheeks, soft lips, graceful limbs,
And a pleasant countenance.
Her appearance
Is like the surface of a moon-lit lake,
And her voice
Like the whisper of ocean breeze seasoned in a shell.

When in deep thought
She puckers her lips, crosses her hands
And her slender fingers gently tap
To the rhythm of the flowing mind.

And then, you can see her long, manicured nails
-wherein underlies the intensity of the animal.
When in courtship,
She entwines into her partner in a clammy posture
And her nails are dug into his back like the claws of a predator.
The innocent looks are now fiery,
The tender cheeks turn crimson,
Her soft lips – sensuous,
Her graceful limbs – numb in ecstasy.
A blazing inferno belies her pleasant countenance.

That evening,
While riding back home,
Her partner winces in emotion
When the rain-drops damp his sore, bruised back.

THE NEW AGE

Live life to the fullest...let the world be your playground.
Seek excellence always,
Fight fear and never give up;
Discover newer horizons,
Imagine ways through impossibilities
And connect yourself to higher realms.
Declare, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of my life’.

WHEN I LOOK AROUND - the power of imagination

Black, white and gray shades
Fill the flickering images
That haunt the mind’s studio.
The eyes
Stare into a void, into volumes of nothingness.
Lost, forlorn, desolate and bored,
I resign into a corner, crouched in, what seems like
Perpetual unpleasantness.

Desperation leads to a restless mind
And a restless mind is never out of options.
The mindscape
Spots a hazy rainbow and the thoughts take a new shape.

The rainbow
Renders an imaginative dimension to the imprisoned instincts.
I look around.
The air turns feisty, the mind turns into a kaleidoscope,
And the thoughts script a new language – colors.
The mosaic, the cobweb knit,
The yellowing pages of an old diary,
The blotches of red ink on an envelope,
The steely shine of the hinges,
And all the terrains of the unexplored world
Pour into the soul
With a new sense of exhilaration.

I walk to the window
And stare at the evening sky.
My voice sings an unknown, happy tune
Where I see some swallows disappear into the green foliage.

Steel

Steel endures.
Steel shines. Steel outshines.
Steel rams into adversities…head-on
Steel lasts. Steel outlasts.
Steel humbles the impossible.
Steel performs. Steel outperforms.
Steel is ‘the’ metaphor.