Bad seed:

The Enlightenment

It was the most violent awakening.

I was burning with high fever - & yet
my instincts were sweating profusely.
Parts of me were still raging
with an unknown emotion:
which is nothing like fear nor anger.
It took all my senses a long time,
& a soul-sapping effort ,
to realize that I had abandoned
my ego along the way.

On mediocrity

On a clear day like today,
when the rush of the maddening hours has been subdued,
when the alarm of the bedside clock has been hushed,
and when the 'fight for survival' is a distant call of the memory,
I would let the music bask in my head
until it lasts.

And when tomorrow comes
I wouldn’t want the genius to raise the bar once again.
(Like today, let the average run the show.)

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’)

The Blockhead (click image to enlarge)

Comma (click image to enlarge)

Buddha - The 2nd coming

And now,
what he shall seek for
is the beauty of the world.

23 1/2

At the mercy of a whimsical tilt
are the phenomena, the seasons,
the patterns & the migrations.

Spiral (click image to enlarge)

(The theme is inspired from the visually disturbing imagery of Darren Aronofsky's movie 'Pi'. The cinematography lends to the viewer the protagonist's bizarre perspective of a reclusive world.)

Grasslands - poetry in pictures (click image to enlarge)

Green (click image to enlarge)

BLue (click image to enlarge)

(The 'changing-room' refers to a hermaphrodite's paradise.)

The flamingo affair (click image to enlarge)

Most often, reality is about what the stated truth is not. (click image to enlarge)

(The background is an excerpt from an editorial review of Clyde Prestowitz's book 'Rogue nation' @ Amazon.com;
Concept inspired from Alter Ego's comment on the post 'Gray' that reads, '...imagine being identified and named about the the only thing you lack...'
Alter Ego might get back & say, 'Well, I don't see a connection.'
Don't worry. Even i am trying really hard to.)

Monsters (click image to enlarge)

(pic credit: Hannibal rising; concept worked on ppt)

Perspective (click image to enlarge)

The final rebellion (click image to enlarge)

Gray (click image to enlarge)

(Theme inspired from the setting of Kieslowski's 'Dekalog' series - the harsh winters of Warsaw)

Hyderabad Blues

In true democracy, educating people about their freedom to choose overrides the existence of freedom as an abstract, theoretical concept.

Oxymoron (click image to enlarge)

Emotion is what made us human;
intellect is what made us human beings.

The destiny of evolution doesn't depend on our material progress but on our collective sensibility.

le dernier mot

Pain, i deserve;
pleasure, i deserve;
and hence, to live, i deserve.

The trials & tribulations of life render more consolation than the uncertainty of afterlife.

What comfort of the Unknown
Have you ever dreamt of,
That you so deeply despise the Known
- to contemplate the noose of eternity?



(Well I remember Micky Doyle
he shuffled off this mortal coil
with no message for "that special girl"
just thank you and goodbye cruel world
then for the sake of Auld Lang Syne
he put his head on the railway line
looked up at the morning sun
and waited for the train to come...
...Everytime a churchbell rings
Another angel gets its wings.

- Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine in their song "Everytime a Churchbell Rings")

A Fine Balance (click image to enlarge)

(The title is inspired by Rohinton Mistry's book of the same name. His work exposes the turmoil of the Indian emergency period between 1975 & 1977.)

In the study of inflationary economics the term 'cheap' relates to the undesirable, & deliberately, not to the (easily) affordable.

In any country there must be people who have to die…(Idi Amin) (click image to enlarge)

Everybody Comes To Rick's (click image to enlarge)

jaune 2 (click image to enlarge)

jaune

The Yellow Umbrella is a pictogram that conveys the message 'under the shade of joy'.

the instrument

Sadhana (Sanskrit term) translates as 'means' to an end

Alternate caption : Let us be kind if fate isn't

I.D. (click image to enlarge)

EXPLODE!!!

How much longer will it wait,
the steam,
unless summoned away by a dying fire?

-feelers-

---they might know how you feel but they'll never know how deeply you feel---

'slippery' as in slapstick! (click image to enlarge)

the Wheels of Change 2 (click image to enlarge)

the Wheels of Change (click image to enlarge)

Renunciation

i
renounce the capitalization
of the first person.

...i have to say with utmost conviction that the world, after having witnessed all the genocides so far, needs no other philosophy or religion than the one that teaches the virtues of equality & tolerance...

CRAVINGS

My feet
are tingling to walk on the sands
that leave no footprints.

(inspired by Albert Camus' afterword to his book - the outsider)

mea culpa

there is a crack in the soul's mirror
-the past,
& all the while i thought it was just a smudge.

Blurred Visions

Embittered and weary,
i'm on the look out for a tower
from which my voice can be heard.

muteness

the evil
casts shadows in the dark.
the moonless sky trembles.

THUNDER!!! (click image to enlarge)

Under hypnosis

The truth,
and the lie,
are a part of reality.

the cliff

I stand on the edge
but something is holding me back
- is it the force of life?

Freedom

Outside the cage
the choices are mine,
the consequences are mine.

Vendetta

To put the horror in your eyes
and to revel
while you squirm.

Schadenfreude

To see the horror in your eyes
and to revel
while you squirm.

Identity

You are
What you were
& nobody cares what you will be.

(the emphasis is a trap; introspection is the way out, & then some adventure.)

Superstition
is ignorance and so is evil,
but on a higher plane

The season

Drawn
to the gravity of the speeding headlights
the wings, for one last time,
perform the ritual
-the dance of death.

Conscience

When you look into a mirror
would you stare into your eyes,
and nothing else?

Lamentation

Through the seasons & a thousand different colors - we travelled,
and all i have got for you my friend
is a handful of dust & some teardrops.

Consequence

Water ripples, in spite of their symbolic transience & (supposed) infantile circumstance, can have a profound effect on the overall countenance of a lake.

Without posterity there are no grand designs. (David Brooks)

It's for the future
that the present ticks
but to be trapped in the lure of the present is to perish in the same tense.

Darker

Life is a silhouette
& against death
contrasts.

Bibliophilic reflections

Its a well-laid misconception which states that people can find answers to their questions in books. Books just give random answers and the rest is introspection.

Ibex (click image to enlarge)

Crowned with a head that harbors a migraine,

I thank the heavens for my 46 chromosomes

- for I am neither of their ilk nor their fury.

Pebbles on a riverbed (or just rhetoric)

Evil is where good isn't, satan reigns where God fails - the vacuum merely denotes a lack of faith and to challenge His omnipresence is to brazenly entertain a paradox by submitting to blasphemous qualms (reference: "If God be for us, who can be against us." - Romans 8:31). On the other hand it is also true that the evolution of humanity (& mankind) has constantly been guided by the fear of God. Various religions through the formative ages have taught that the goal of self-actualization can be achieved by faith that is further branched out into their respective means like the path of chastity, the path of discipline, the path of redemption, the path of spirituality - to name a few.
And the only way out of human suffering is to place total conviction in secularism that subliminally teaches resilience through the path of unconditional love.

Refuge

'twas a great relief
that in his art
he unabashedly resigned his stoicism.

on possibility (click image to enlarge)

Karma (click image to enlarge)

blend in...(click image to enlarge)

The theory of free will (click image to enlarge)

Darwinism - the essence (click image to enlarge)

The wisdom of the capricorn

It's with the head that we reason,
it's with the heart that we desire;
to choose 'what overrides when'
- is to lock horns with destiny.

Final chronicle

I lost you
between yesterday & today,
between now & eternity.

I drag
the soulless frame with a nonchalance
dictated by those little moments
- when I lost perspective
of will & destiny,
of passion & reality.

I become a slave
to hope & memories
to time & its certainties.

The paradox of religion & blasphemy

Autumn dreams

I sip into the deep fountains

of soundlessness

- the headiest wine of all.

I rejoice

in the memories of spring,

memories that drift like an unleashed kite

near the foaming clouds.

I look beyond myself

into a voyage of discovery...

waiting to fly

with the mirth of the falling leaves.

Regret

- For all the things I wanted to say but could never say,

For all the things I wanted to do but could never do,

For all the things that came and passed by, but once;

And for each compromise there was regret

And for each regret there were some frozen moments. 

Evolution

And to whom shall Man be ape to:

a foreigner to our soil,

or to ape itself?

(pondering over Nietzsche's Ubermensch)

Shackles

Slaves don't have wings

and its such a shame
to be one by choice.

Remoteness - the heart still yearns for a glimpse

Thousands of miles away,
thousands of moments away,
thousands of memories away,
O' dear one.

Phoenix

To burn to cinders
in your simmering passion,
& to rise again
in the abode of your love.

Chagrin (Click image to enlarge)

Take your call (Click image to enlarge)

Foreplay - an allegory (Click image to enlarge)

The Egotist

He gloats
as he wanders
in the 'House of mirrors'.

Painting Green

Wailing in the shadows
Cast by the tree that bore no fruit,
Her eyes glimmer with the dream of the distant sands

That bore the footprints of Kokopelli.

(Kokopelli is a Native American fertilitiy deity)

You may say that I’m a dreamer

Fading with the miseries of uncertainty
And the horrors of gun-smoke,
Yet searching for hope gone astray
In the stench of the killing fields.

(Inspired by the original movie by Roland Joffe, title inspired by John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’.)

To miss the last bus home... (Click image to enlarge)

The passing

He drifts across the stage, suspends midway
and gives a performance.
Some applaud,
others give a thumbs-down.
When time beckons
he scurries for the exit.

A discreet teardrop 
reflects the dance of spotlights.

Innocence

Little children
Tease the wrinkles and the plodding walking-stick,
Like a firefly
That mocks at pieces of a broken lamp.

Visitor (Click image to enlarge)

Sepia - II (Click image to enlarge)

Sepia - I (Click image to enlarge)

The Crossing (Click image to enlarge)

Minus the dimensions (Click image to enlarge)

In death there is no being or knowing,
In death - the endless nonexistence.

Voice of the world (Click image to enlarge)

(The story of the war, and thence history, is always told by the winners.)

For a few decibels more!

The crowd swings in a wild trance

Feigning tonight is their last chance,

Some just shake a leg and surrender

While others jive their passions to the thunder.

(Best wishes to Jags on his new venture)