You Know, Jesus...

you know, Jesus, today is your birthday
You were lucky to be born as the son of God
and kings from far of lands, paying tribute , with myriad of gifts…

but here, dear friend; if i can call you like that
new born kids, sometimes are food to dogs
or seen thrown into the garbage bins
or even just born to be sprayed by bullets or rockets
as in Palestine, the holy land
and the big brother says, they deserve it….

maybe, you were unlucky, as your parents had to flee
with you, from the evil designs of lesser mortals.
but here, we can’t even flee from hunger
and the imminent starvation and death
or sometimes, my mother had to sell her to feed me….
or sometimes, even sell me, so they have the luxury
of a meal in a day, for another one month, without trouble......

in that case, you were lucky, you learned carpentry
from your father, and helped him, and ‘grew in wisdom’
but we had the stigma of class & caste, and have to prove
that we are meritorious, even to have our say in life
and many of my friends said they existed, through death
as they had no other option to be heard…….

oh Jesus, you were really lucky
because you came to save the world
but what the fuck i am going to do with my life
whom am i going to save?
or who is that fucking savior to take me,
and the like of me, from abyss…..

and i don’t know, Jesus, my friend
on your birthday, this year,
another innocent was sentenced to life imprisonment
for sedition, you know, that was the complaint raised against you
in front of Herodias, the King.

at least Herodias had the courtesy to ask you
‘what is truth?’

but for our judge, he had no doubt at all!
and he emphatically said –
maoists and terrorists are big threats today
and they don’t deserve mercy….

but do you remember, my friend,
you forgave the one crucified on your right….
do you remember….

DEDICATED TO BINAYAK SEN.

i don’t believe

i don’t believe
not in the sun, that sponge my pain
and lamp the hidden crevices
after all, there is no question
of believing or not believing in the sun…

nor in the moon, that waits for me
to rock the cradle, as its soft smiles
gently feathers my anguished soul…

and never in the winds, that shakes my
being as a tree in a stormy rain
and put me in trance, so serene and blissful

neither in the rain, that showers
its passionate dreams bringing forth new lease of life
making me wonder at the rainbow covenant …..

oh god! then what don’t i believe, in You?

fallen in love

finally,
your lips bloomed into a kiss
as innocent smile from the cherubic lips
while asleep…

the fragrance
cleaning out the hidden hurts & hatreds
as the summer rain washes the city pure…

i coiled inhaling the sweat of love
lullabyed by your deep smiles
surging through the clouds of disdain…

and i knew,
i have fallen in love
i have fallen in love, again.

i feel born agian

i feel born again -
born to the vastness of human experience
with a vivid memory of the irretrievable past,
but sans any powers of communication
or any means to transmute the haunting past
to a livable reality.

i breathe this vastness -
i breathe this colossal silence of the vast dunes
of memories....

i wanted the joy of the dance,
in stead, i feel the grit of the sand
and its moisture-less grip over me.

perchance, never in my life
i have been carried away
rather haunted by such an image -
a bright, vivid and penetrating image of the woods
responding to the winds and rain.

it stands in silence as if in a trance -
frightening, but so solemn a silence
listening to the call the rain
from a far off land...

dancing violently its impassioned joys in the winds
to the frenzied rhythms -
- the lightening, thunder and rain -
such a shower of passion
whirling and whirling into a sharpened pitch,
gradually falls into a silence -
so serene and blissful.

a savage, but sacred reunion -
and so poignant its impact
that my own heart strings being plucked
to a maddening rhythm
and slowly resonating to the plaintive notes
like that of the 'solitary reaper.'

maybe, under a parching sky
and the infinite dunes
i relive the images -
branching out my soul like a banyan tree
re-experiencing the lost music of harmony,
bathing in the shower of love and passion...

to my mind, which is a battlefield
of such contrasting, unfailing
and incessant clash of images -
- of darkness and light -
- of a grain of sand and the infinite blue -
where the wholeness of the vision, always bullied by
my own devilishly dissected views -

all what i sculpture here
at least it seems,
to lengthen the distance to the abyss,
or rather, my own faked self,
betrayed by the irresistible passion for flesh
and the impotence of the creative winds
shortens the distance?

i don't know....

eternity

the zigzagged black ribbon
sandwiched between the green
slants to eternity
with my life tossed up on the wheels ….

will ‘he kindly stop for me’
to free me from the dizzying speed to stillness?

waiting for the winter

deserted and out of dunes
you picked me up
blanketed my being
like the twilight of an early summer.

do you still remember that summer
when the gulmohar was ablaze
and the fallen dreams
made a bed of embers?

life was so hot and so red, once…

my friend, the warmth has oozed out
like the freshness from the cucumber pieces
over my eyes, in this unbearable summer...

or from a match-stick, when burnt
bent and brittle, as water dries up...

now,
for that inevitable and unavoidable winter
do i wait…

for the comforting silence
just six feet down from the
insanity of usual certainties
for that inevitable winter i wait now ....

either ....or

“One should be either a beggar or a rich person to live in this world.
Otherwise, death will be the only solution”
…..Dinesh Reddy#


yes, dinesh
you are right.
life has become an ‘either…or’ game.

as the earth revolves ROUND the axis
and FOR that axis –
the axis ironically called ‘middle class’
life has become an ‘either….or’ game.

either…
the landmarks, the ‘ten downing streets,
the ‘imaxes’, the ‘bowling alley’s
or…
the bastis and the gallies and the infamous streets
where lives are packed like sardines …

like a pebble thrown into a silent lake
the middle class pushed the ‘cattle-class’
to the periphery, that always slants to the invisible
life has become an either….or game.

from the treacherous but their comfortable forte
be it beast-fested forests, un-mapped villages,
on the sandy edges of vengeful rivers or seas.. `
to cities with a name
they live in groups, to live as beggars,
cheats, criminals and anti-socials…
known as ‘breeding grounds’ of what not…
life has become an either….or game

or as mass without a face, but one that of an ass
sometimes, as often known as,
and comfortably labeled as BPL
for the lifeless statistics
that adds life to the hollow speeches of leaders …
life has become an either…or game.

the guy with a 7,000 crore scam on his collar becomes the brand
with his personal library, homely food and with all other paraphernalia
in the so called jail….
life has become an either…or game

this is for the ‘mass’, the common man – the NANO’
EITHER ….
buy this, specially engineered for you, product of our Indian brain
that can silence the multinationals..
………
…………….
…………………..
OR…..
and dinesh, you filled the blank with death
the only solution you know….



# Dinesh Reddy (26), of Ramnagar, Hyderabad, India, jumped to death from the fifth floor of Radheshyam Complex in Sultan Bazar on Wensday (27th January 2010).

you never felt the buds

dreams fallen
like leaves in an autumn eve
my nakedness silhouetting the sky .

there was no one on my left
nor on the right

in a world of demands and accusations
accusations and demands
i forgot to leaf again like a birch in a winter

i turned back, saw none
no crowd to jeer at me
nor to test my prowess
left alone on the mountain, all alone.

in the morning sky
my prayers & pain silvered down
the hill…

and you never felt the buds coming out …..
as force never break open a seed’s shell into green

it's my life

like mosquitoes
needs breed
and get stuck on the web of life
designed so perfectly
even to absorb the impact of a
'wayward' beetle...

over a period
like in the detention camps -
where even a drop of water
continuously falling over the forehead
of a prisoner*

the web breaks down

and here i am -
jumping up & down
jumping to & fro
just to connect two points
with my silver dreams
so as to weave a new web of life..

and there is no king to get inspired
and to fight for the 'lost paradise'

the silver web, dancing in wonder,
along with the breeze
unmindful of yet another wayward beetle...

the permanence of repetition.



* one of the several torture methods used.

why

Why, you brute
why you did leave me?
like soul from the body…

didn’t you know
that the rest is preconditioned –
a meaningless repetition.

mourning sans emotions
wreathes of dead flowers
words of praise,
which has never been showered
when alive..

and the final journey,
stinking prayers,
the unbearable stench of incense,
and the suffocating space finally allowed.

oh why,
why did you leave me?
why did you leave me, dear friend?

i combed the dreams

i combed the dreams
that have fallen on your face
like the foliage in an autumn,
with my lips.

then, as a kid, i looked
into the sheet of water
in your eyes, as if in a prayer
'narcissus' broken down...

and your lips reddened, like the clouds
when the sun melts into the sea...

we felt that silence -
the ancients named it god
and we named it life.

under the statue of Buddha
we silently laughed
laughed to nirvana....

on love & betrayal

that intensity of passion
that incredible force of love
that madness in your eyes
are all lost, she always told me…

even a mad guy
is not mad always,
i reasoned, aside.

and when i rushed back
with spring on my heels
with all those what once missed
she said -

'lemme go to Tom
or he may get hurt'.
'maybe, you can drop me there'!

hide & seek

were you there when i was born?
i don't know, nor i think you do...
no one has then ever told me anything about you
may be, the lights over the operation table
where my mother waited in pain, swallowed you
or rather, on one noticed you, lurking under the light....
but you were there, i know for sure

when did i meet you for the first time, do you remember?
was it on the daylight, when you play hide & seek?
or when the sun ritually had to cast off its light?
or when the tantalising silver disc was too mischievous
that i had to scurry to my mother
to river me with her lullabies.. i don't remember...

over the years, when i grew up, as they say
you were there, always, either left or right,
sometimes in my front or back...

too long or too short, sometimes
too fat, or too thin, many times
most of the times, threateningly invisible
like the Christian god...

why the hell do you follow me
or rather i do follow you?
i don't know, really...

when you grow so big
i smell the big mushroom in the sky in my history book
that always made me puke, in pain

why the hell don't you get out of me
may be like the tic tic sound that left for ever
from that broken clock, in that August morning..
even then aren’t you a fucking winner,
and me the loser, being eaten by worms
silently in the infamous six feet mud?

the curse i will never outgrow.

why don't you leave me alone
why don't you leave me alone.....

parallel lines

on the invisible plot of scramble for markets
the seemingly parallel lines of democracy
and religious fundamentalism, merged,
conveniently, with high decibels
of the urgency of a ‘safe nation’…

i remember, i built castles on the sand
and watched merrily as the waves
leveled it, again & again

but you hammered the bloodiest of nails
of nationhood into us,
cemented with lies, lies & lies
that even the strongest of waves of reason
got shattered, along with our dreams
of having a respected identity

division, i learned with numbers
in my age of innocence
but yours sharpened & perfected by the Court
so that you could demolish minarets, then
divide ‘the structure into equal parts’
you could aramse trisul the foetus of a pregnant
woman, just because she was a muslim
could burn alive a missionary
as he seemed to have threatened your territory;
and call for a national debate on conversion…
annihilate the other, as your faith reasons it
and sanctifies it as dharma …

what else i can expect from such dharma
that forced him to take the weapon against
his own brothers & sisters,
least bothering the consequences

and what a shame, you people still pawns
to the abominable war waged by the state
against its own people….

Parallel lines are no more parallel…….

i am hungry #

it's just four days
since i had my last meal -
a torn piece of dried chappati
that my daughter unearthed from a
treasure box on a road side bin.

'take a bite',
'it tastes like
honey,' she said -
and danced the dance of Ophelia.

i cursed the moments i taught
her the Russian tales and classics.

in my new abode, under the newly-built flyover
where the gaze of the passer-bys changes colour and intent
when the dusk melts into the neon-darkness
she put on the cloak of madness -
starts to strut, some times strips the cloak...

as i crouch like a beaten snake
she starts to whistle and dance
when the symphony of mosquitoes
are drowned in the roaring slogans
their flesh lighting* the darkness with hope now
for a separate Telengana**
and for a 'united Andra' then....

she spits, spits, and spits
until falls on my lap
like a modern 'Pieta'
only to jump as if pricked by
multiple of Judas, to shout at me...

'you dirty king', 'you stupid Lear'
for your fucking arrogance
for your fucking ignorance
i pay with my sanity'.....


# written sometime back when AP was burning as the struggle for a separate Telengana
lighted with many suicides for the cause.


* the number of students committing suicide for the cause of a separate Telengana
is on the rise. the struggle for a separate Telengana state is over five decades of history.

** the state of Andra Pradesh, in India is burning - one group asking for a separate Telengana state, (which is the need of the hour, may be) and the other asking for a 'united andra'. and they form the back bone of investors...

where is my home

cut-off from what is without, i feel plugged out
and broken within, nowhere do i fit in
can someone tell me, where my home is ….

on one side of the slate, you wrote lessons of hate
and said it’s my fate, which i really do hate
can someone show me, where my home is ….

blank, the other side, and love, you did confide
as a dove, I, but did not in that reside,
can someone guide me where my home is…

not at home with self, and nor with you, I fear
not at home with the world, that I do not wear,
i know not what gloom lurks at my rear…..

terrible I feel, in anguish I do reel
please, can someone show me, where my home is
can someone fly me where my home is……….

miles away

miles away, from the dear ones
pressure-cooked, on the job-front
i reach for her, amidst the Chaturti dins
‘when are you coming’, she asks upfront….

tomorrow night, I say in wanton gay
‘what use for me’, then, she did say
crestfallen & speechless, i sit in dismay

is relation a prescription like 1-1-1
morning-noon-night, well defined one?
so what is this love, what you talk about, boundless
just measured by convenience, it’s meaningless….

A misfit, all through my life
struggle I, to get out of this worthless strife
wondering when i do come rife, in life…..

on love

love drips from my eyes
drop by drop,
as dew from a flowering cherry
when the sunrays slowly un-shell
the snow-shelled cherries
in a winter morning
like i unveil my beloved
eager to bathe in the brown light
of the timid sun on the little mount...

love falls from my body
like the leaves
from a birch in an autumn breeze
making me freeze
in to the loneliness of song-less trees.

love recedes from my heart
like a stream in a summer,
down, down to the abyss of being
as the merciless sun
dewater the dunes further
in a hot hot summer..

but it springs again
from every cell of my being
like the tender shoots
after a spring rain
from the mother earth
making my beloved merry
as the hornbill swallow the raindrops
shattered by the breeze.

and, oh my friend,
you blanket me with love
like the twilight in blushing evening.

an easter poem

you have been such a crowd-puller, oh Jesus -
a rebel in the historical sense,
a magician and provider to the faceless mob,
and, moreover, a perfect comedian
hitting on the very foundation of power, tirelessly...

when you had been thoroughly interrogated
you made the foolish king ask, in wonder,
'what is truth?'

that was a marriage party
you came to the limelight
turning water into wine...

it was just the beginning, oh Jesus.
and we effortlessly continue your feat
celebrating your resurrection
drenched in water & wine.

and your resurrection followed by more & more deaths.

your words played magic
as much as it rigged deep holes in the hierarchy.
why don't you come back and see
how much we have fortified the very foundation
manipulating your life & your words?

on a glass of red wine
i wonder at the irony -
that you reduced the number of sinners
and we created them, in millions,
just using your own magic words.

on a glass of red wine
i wonder at the irony -
your laughter brought the people together
and we stripped you of the very human quality
and projected you as sad, but serene & calm.

your immaculate merciful look
that we never had -

Jesus, our altar is decorated with your tortured body,
blood oozing out -
and we have really become serious, Jesus.

why don't you come back?
not to walk on the seas,
not to give life to the dead,
or to make the blind see,
nor to make the lame, walk....

those feats no more make us wonder
nor we enjoy...

but to see
how your own chosen people have divided
not only the lands, but the minds...

maybe, any of your new feats in the kitty
can make us laugh again
and help us get out of the cassocked pulpits.
and laugh again merrily
and laugh again merrily.

either....or

once you are on the field
you need to be ruthless
as the objective is to outsmart
and win over your opponent.

but i never understood
why in a relation
the same rules are followed.

- rules of aggression, brutal power
cunningness and calculative approach
where even the body becomes a powerful weapon…

if the objective is a win
then it is no more a relation.

nor the so called ‘sacrifices’
that simply means a sense of lack…
rather, a way of powering your hapless victim….

pity, it is an either….or game

‘you are either with us
or with the rogues’
either a feminist or anti-feminist
either a ‘terrorist’ or an ‘Indian’
either an ‘academic’ or a ‘fool’

i still wonder
why a relation needs to follow the same rules…

the glaciers melt down

the glaciers melt down
into crystal glasses
as the sun too takes a dip
in the 'antiquity blue'*
neatly measured and divided in pegs...

yes, it's time to celebrate 'our' struggle
to save our earth
through long long discourses & discussions -

to talk about climate change
and how we suffer because of
these fucking undeveloped & under-developed nations...

'exterminate all the brutes' **
and let us save the world....

fuelling deadly wars for peace -
making more & more deadly weapons
so to use them as 'deterrents' -

fighting the so called terrorists, with all means and ways
and by manufacturing the truth that they have nuclear weapons
so we and our methods are never questioned -

dividing nations into 'rouge and the best'
so we can stand united -

saving our hard-earned wealth in the Swiss bank
so these beggars can never, ever steal away our sweat -

let us teach them about lateral thinking
or else, their common sense
will devour all what we have created
like the tsunami waves -

yes, it's time to baptize these niggers
and bring them into salvation...

the glaciers melt down
into crystal glasses
as the sun is forced to take a dip
in the antiquity blue
neatly measured & divided in pegs
upheld neatly by the blue & black blazers..


* name of a whiskey available in India

** the protagonist in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad writes over 100 pages of report on how to save the tribals, and signs of writing 'exterminate all the brutes'

time to turn back

it’s time to turn back
not just to clear the rack
but to make a new pack
filled with joy & peace.

filled with joy & peace
a life for, i race
in the maze
only to realise that I am in chain

only to realise that I am in chain
as my anger adds the pain
I long for a life, sane
but never willing to drop the ‘I’

but never willing to drop the ‘I’
I end up in hell,
as the centre is just ‘my’
sans ‘thy’
I wait for Shanti, on me, it turns its back.

it’s time to turn back
to be considerate on others’ joy & peace
so in my life joy & peace rain
as i seek the kingdom of ‘thy’
and paradise, in my life, comes back.

i took the same old path

i took the same old path
trod by millions
knowing well that it will be secure
and the most trouble-free.

but lo, i find myself
bored to death
my each breath wasted to make myself free
out of the clutches of the silly demands
that bricked the house intact…

had i taken the less traveled
i wondered –
may be i would have fallen prey to a tiger
while venturing the forests
or could have got drowned in the current
trying to un-ocean a treasure
or worse, i might have added the number HIV positives
being myself the one..

still that would have been better
than sitting heavily webbed
and shuddering at each drop of demand and accusation
falling on my being, like hammer blows…
that drops on the forehead of a war prisoner
in an unknown cell…

i took the same old path
traveled by multitudes
and pay the price with my life..

what's in a name

like a magnet, certain names,
all of a sudden attract bullets,
out of nowhere…
or the silent touch of a knife that slice open the veins
in the midst of a prayer…

certain names, they say
like a sacrificial lamb, may
always be destined to the butcher’s knife.
oh mother, will my name attract his knife?

‘what’s in a name’ so
sung the bard, long ago

perhaps
just because of a certain name
you may disappear, without a trace, in no time.
statistics may tell your name was latif
muhamad, ansari, or hanif

thousands of such names
with a TAG attached
been knifed or pierced
on the wayside of listless encounters.

oh mother, what is that TAG
they are going to attach to my name?
a terrorist, a dalit, anti-indian, or anti-social, or a christian ….
is that certain?

in those streets
that hold the night like secrets
scores of names are even burnt alive
so the sun will never, ever thrive
on those names.

and when the secret crumbles
like the citadels that kids make on the sand, tumbles
what you unearth, if chance permits
is a piece of nameless bone
that failed to record the pain
or a piece of frock, torn
that resisted the decay, in vain.

oh mother,
why did you give me this name?
- there is something in this name
there is something in this name
that attracts a knife
when time is rife
or a bullet, or worms in a gutter

an ocean of love

you sent me an ocean of love
softly encased in a tiny raindrop
delicately gift-wrapped
with a tender shoot of sunbeam….

i hid it in my red red heart
lest someone would steal it.

but lo! i started blushing
like a glowworm
and the whole world now knows
that i am in love with you.

your eyes told me

your eyes told me
what oceanic depth be
lighter in shades near the shores
as merry laughter from its banks soars.

tell me my friend -
did you drink the night
full, with all its pain,
to spread smiles on the shore in the light
as pain and sorrow, in you rain….

tell me my friend –
from what deep sorrow
that beaming star that your eyes borrow
and from what deep dolor
that you brushed the life with so much colour…

tell me my friend –
what mischievous glee
made that crescent upwards climb, as if to flee
from the shadow of the overlooking bridge, standing still
and slanting into the eye-browed sky, rays of hope did fill….

tell me my friend –
and what gloom made you groom
wings of sorrow to fly over life’s throe
soaring high over, in life so to bloom…..
and your eyes did tell me
what life’s depth be
so in rapt joy, the life-boat, alone, i too may, row…….

a big lie

my beloved,
it’s the limitations of our eyes
that created the horizon, seamless.

for ages,
words
and dreams made of words
have been cheating us.

freedom & eternity
love & equality
are all big lies.

born out of lies,
and being prisoners of these lies –
of caste and creed,
of religion and of profession
we divide and rule.

with misplaced passion
we kill and get killed
cheat and get cheated
for the very permanence of these lies -

until we fall prey to
the biggest of all lies
called death...

when words fail me

when even words fail me, in every turn
where do, and who to, in life, i turn
someone hoist me out of this wordless well
dry and abandoned, that did once swell….

did not we swam merrily, when it was full
drank enough of its sweetness, mouthful

life, baked and bare, like a desert, barren
a wordless pit where conflicts do deepen
and sans rainy words, love too have failed us.

the Word failed us, miserably, or rather
we failed the Word, isn’t it a state of bother
in an emptied sky, we play with mushroom clouds

where shall we take shelter, when hatred reigns
from skies – left or right, Islam, Christian or Hindu
and what difference it makes, whether the marking
on the bomb, is a crescent, or stripes, or stars,
or Ashok Chakra; total annihilation,
that we bring, in the name of peace & conciliation

*‘how shall we fill, this empty spaces
where we used to talk’ in merry faces


* Pink Floyd

a portrait

once i sketched a Gulmohar in full bloom
standing tall amidst its fallen embers
as an invocation to you, to flare my life.

but all of a sudden, you left me
like the sun, breathing its fragrance
into the clouds.

a seamless portrait is born-

life flowing and moving,
connecting, and changing continuously.

but mind framed it,
life frozen.
as the landscape of memories faded
i was left with just the frames –
monotonous rectangles and squares.

machines invaded my life
bull dozers, loaders, dumpers, cranes, excavators,
crushers, and what not…

suddenly, i smell the portrait once again
and feel it throbs in me
as i watch my son sketching a Gulmohar in full bloom
amidst the green, with crayons, invoking the sun
from behind the mountains...

a seamless portrait is born, again...

a peg of time

‘a peg of time
on a sea-shore’
just to feel life in its free rhyme,
that's all i asked for.

from the frothy milk on the stove
to see surfers on curved froth, row

from seamless irritation of detergent foam
to the magic freshness of the blue
waves, laughing merrily, roam
the spoilt chances, i never had a clue

from the suffocating humidness of the four walls
to the cool nakedness of the moon on waves, that rolls

from the intimidating arrogance of pots' rattle
to the lullabying waves’ sweet prattle

a peg of time
on a sea-shore
to transform life into a hymn
that's all i craved for.

poetic landscape

The poetic landscape

i hid my woes
like that tiny fish mouths its roes
starves for days,
and finally, spits the young ones
in to the vast ocean, safe and sound.

but i writhe in pain
as on the hook, in vain
as my wounds rebels into a new form
a new being, heavily celled with words,
and knocks on the shell, to get out in the sun.

…..like a grain of sand
trapped in an oysters heart
transforming into a pearl.

i lay relaxed, like a mother,
half conscious and half-dead, contentedly dreaming.
people on the shore, screaming and shouting
at each find the ocean throws at them.

will some one find the oyster
that my failing heart waved on the shore
and break open its shell
to find the pearl intact?
picks it up, as a kid
gleefully palms it

….his lips suddenly lighting into a crescent
as the cool silver drop
all of a sudden transforming the shore
to a poetic landscape….

on love

love is like that ‘widening gyre’
from a pressure cooker nose,
when it whistles..

not seen, when it begins
it burns you, but cleanses;
and as it widens, collapses
and get frozen on the walls
to be moped away by the maid.