Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Spring Fades


the days of youth dry up and perish
never to return again
the night of desire is wasted

----------------
Bhashwati wrote:
Finally i got a chance to look at Spring fades closely.

So many different hues.
To me the image conveys that although spring fades, life does not.
A beam of light continues to permeate it. 
Conscious life is bound to self destruct in a self fulfilling prophecy. Since it recognises beginning and end, it wastes away and ends never to return.
But the known cycle of non conscious life as unearthed by science and by history, continues to ebb, flow and regenerate itself.

This image like some of your other compositions, deserves a book. 
It is such an elegant cover for some metaphysical content.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Ladder to Heaven


In the Old Testament, Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven, with angels walking up and down it. God spoke to Jacob in the dream, promising him the land on which he slept, for him and his descendants.

Jacob's Ladder is also one of the configurations which can be made with Cat's Cradle, a string game.


What, and who, really were angels? Are they still around? In what shape, size, hue?

Priests at temples, threatening, brokering connectivity with God for a price, politicians dabbling or deeply entrenched into manipulative politicking, hoarders of wealth ill-begotten by mal-corrupt-practices, all nooks and corners of pathways and roads, protecting and shielding criminals--

-- or have they fled, like God himself, in chaotic incomprehension of his creation, not being able to feel safe in the midst of burgeoning, criminally inventive mankind....

Friday, December 25, 2015

Ruffled Feathers


Ruffled. Discontent, unrest, inequity, sinister intemperate activism... 

... Among people around the world, but mostly among the largest of human populations, among the deprived ones who cannot comprehend or cope with pressures of shortages, unaffordable costs, unmitigated and instant recourse to violence, deprivation of basics like rudimentary food, water, timely medication,signs of relief from being engulfed by unexpected forces of inclement weather, political and socio- economic uncertainties... 

... Being ruffled to the extreme...

----------------
Bhashwati wrote:

Looks like you took this picture late at night. 
Whenever you took it, it is very startling.
So many lines and curves and waves.
i can sense them on my finger tips.


The text for feathers connects with the image in a very unexpected manner and i heart that. i also heart that the words came not as a flowing account but in short broken clauses, disrupted and disjointed much like lives faced with devastation. 

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Journey



such is life
that to know
that you do not know
what it is
you have to live it

even leave eventually
in pain or enervation

a journey where
why and what for
forever are elusive

where the mirage
is the mirage of itself

to believe
in some understanding
is mostly contentious
reprehensible
and unforgiven

as there is no second chance
why not
better not

Friday, December 18, 2015

Undersea


the bottom of the sea?
or of human civilisation?

could it be
that when we perish
gradually but decisively
our total disintegration would be
through myriads of channels
ending at the bottom of the sea?

is the bottom therefore 
the bottom, at least
of our life as we know it?

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Decay


cycles of opposites
blossom
and withering
birth
and death

for us humans
sunrise
sunset
sun
moon

comprehension
but mostly
ignorance
mostly
darkness










Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Balika Badhu


a child bride


The subject of the child bride must be part of almost all human cultures, manifesting itself in different forms, like, at best, marriage; at worst kidnapping, molestation, rape, purchase, prostitution, enslavement, etc.

In India, while myriads of writers have dealt with the subject, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhya, arguably one of the best writers of prose of whom India, and particularly Bengal, are proud, wrote most movingly on the subject, to emancipate the girl child as well as women.

There have been countless books on the subject. The ones that have been filmed in India have, among them, one which recurs again and again because of its name, Balika Bodhu (English: Child Bride), written by Bimal Kar, who received the Sahitya Akademi award, India's highest award for literature, in 1975.

In reality, the premium on virginity or on very young females continues to fascinate the so-called virility and sexual dominance of men throughout the world, whether through marriage or without it.

Indeed, human sexuality, at best, is the most unfair among all living creatures. At worst, it is 'inhuman'. Apart from Men being the main benefactors, in a lighter vein, the second biggest beneficiary is the profession of psychiatry.

My picture is a contrast to what I have written about, because of the tranquility and joy of anticipation in the eyes of the subject.

Pardon me if I have been unfair to the fair or unfair.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Capsicum


allure of colours
or flavour and taste?

all.

Climate Change: In Paris, COP2015 vs. Ramesh Gandhi: Man and Nature (actually, man's nature)

Nations Approve Landmark Climate Accord in Paris (Link)
Summary: Representatives of 195 nations reached an agreement that will commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.
Traditionally, such pacts have required developed economies like the United States to take action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries like China and India from such obligations.
The accord, which United Nations diplomats have been working toward for nine years, changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor.
The new deal will not, on its own, solve global warming. At best, scientists who have analyzed it say, it will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by about half enough as is necessary to stave off an increase in atmospheric temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the point at which, scientific studies have concluded, the world will be locked into a future of devastating consequences, including rising sea levels, severe droughts and flooding, widespread food and water shortages and more destructive storms... (Link)
As far as I know, this is the first time that a phrase like "devastating consequences" has been so strongly phrased and emphasized. However, my take, from the year 1966-67, has been unchanged. The very nature as part of the DNA of Homo Sapiens is unceasingly inventive and therefore incapable of drawing a line in his quest constantly to alter, and in the process to defy the very laws which govern to protect our planet Earth. He cannot stop this compulsion which sacrifices everything in nature's order, and continues to increase in number, and what he considers levels of comfort by defying and changing these laws. Among all the harm this unstoppable tendency brings, the most important is the fact that the population continues to grow. That is where the problem is: the more his numbers grow, the more he consumes, and this consumption deprades the unrenewable ecological balance, which supports all life, but most importantly, his.



And this is not addressed or perhaps not addressable. And hence, perdition. The only question is, how soon the doom.

Please see my earlier writing on the same subject:

http://rameshgandhi.blogspot.in/2010/08/blog-post.html






Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Friday, December 04, 2015

Rain, Rain




More than at other times, during rains I get all worked up and ecstatic with Tagore's poetry, on a subject which seemed especially to inspire him: about, on, full of, rain, rain.

Today Nancy Gandhi has again stirred me with her two pictures of our balcony. But alas, I am not Tagore.

The above is with abject apologies to the people who are suffering all around Madras and the extended environment of the Southern peninsula of India. The only comfort or hopelessness which prevents me from breaking down altogether is that we who are affected by the current crisis are not the only people or place; that the whole world is by turn going to be bulldozed into submission and gradual perdition by man's belief that he controls not only the earth, but possibly the cosmos. He holds periodic meetings and conferences in the most affluent and luxurious venues to assert that man will overcome the so-called 'climate change.'

Ha.

See my earlier blogpost on climate change:

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Mayhem


not only in the month of May
but all over the world
throughout the year
not any longer bound by seasons
 or even nature's nature

germinated and executed
victim also being victimised
almost all by the growing omniscience
power or impotence
of mankind

the new name is
not May
or January
or December
it is All the Time

somewhere everywhere
every millisecond
hour
day and night
year, decade

the question is no longer
how long
the comfort is
how soon

----------------
Please also visit:

http://rameshgandhi.blogspot.in/2014/11/saving-our-planet-limitless-vanity-of.html

for additional material on the subject of Climate Change, which was sent to President, Obama, the Pope, Hillary Clinton, and other believers in man's ability to change the climate, even as he is being consumed by his own depredation of the planet.









Sunday, November 22, 2015

Khayyam


a book of verse, yes
no jug of wine
no bough
privacy, quietude
no thou

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Mother and Child


BORN FECUND
TO BEAR A CHILD
UNCERTAINTY OF NATURAL CREATION
OR INCLEMENT DENIAL
INDECISIVE
NOT IN CONTROL
OF CHOICE
OF CONCEIVING
OR NOT

EITHER WAY
A TREMOR
IN THE WOMB

Monday, November 16, 2015

Pattern


a pattern is
even if asymmetrical
intrinsically
an order in chaos

like a vagabond breeze
playing upon
the responsive strings
of a caress-hungry leaf

to explode
into rapturous fragments
of an unforgettable
symphony

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Cloudburst


RAIN, RAIN
I MUST BE REALLY PARCHED
SCORCHED AND BARREN
EVEN MORE THAN THE EARTH
WHICH YOU CRUELLY CONSUMMATE

TO WELCOME
RAPTUROUSLY
YOUR ADVENT,
HERALDED BY PROPER CEREMONY
OF DARK, OVERBEARING CLOUDS
LIGHTNING AND THUNDER-CLAPS
OR UNANNOUNCED WITH TEMPERAMENTAL OUTBURSTS

YOUR COOL SPRAY ON MY THROBBING TEMPLES
THROUGH THE WINDOW
THE SOUNDS OF YOUR CARESS
ON THE MILDLY PROTESTING PANES
AND WHISPERS
COAXING THE LEAVES TO SUBMISSION
AND THE INTOXICATING AROMA
OF AROUSED PASSION RISING FROM THE EARTH
DIFFUSE INTO MY BEING
AND STIR TO LIFE THE DEADENED HOPES

IN HUMILITY I SMUGLY FEEL WRAPPED
WITH VISIONS OF YOUR POWER
INFUSING LIFE OR DESTROYING IT
AS YOU REIGN UNRELENTINGLY
BESTOWING MOODILY YOUR FAVOURS
TENDERLY IN A COMPASSIONATE SHOWER HERE
OR LASHING IN DEVASTATING FURY THERE
GERMINATING NOW OR UPROOTING
IMPETUOUSLY, INEXORABLY
IN A STUPENDOUS ACT
OF INCLEMENT COPULATION
URGENT, HYSTERICAL
INSATIATE AND OVERWHELMING
DEMANDING NOTHING LESS THAN TOTAL SURRENDER

AND EVEN AS YOU DEPART
LEAVING THE EARTH
RAVAGED AND RAVISHED AND FECUND
IN PAIN IT PINES AND THIRSTS

AS ALSO I DO
AS I LIE ON MY BED BY THE WINDOW
CRIPPLED, WASTED, DISCARDED, EMPTY

Saturday, November 07, 2015

Search Within

1952

what is the path
that I want to choose

ahead
I see miles of silence

here
years of loneliness

what is the purpose
that I am

what will I give
what can I take

I can cry
tears of rivers
but can I swim in them

what is the purpose
why am I here
and not there

but where is there
where is, what is, there

nothing is mine
yet my eyes fill with tears
at losing it

if I cannot understand
why I am
do I expect to understand
to recognise, to embrace
  the place I do not know
where I am headed to

I am lonely
and I cannot see ahead
because my eyes are filled with tears

Thursday, November 05, 2015

Privacy


ideologically invaded

------------------
Bhashwati wrote:

some one's privacy being invaded by ideology, that is an ideology being thrust upon / injected into, a neutral space where the individual exists, or a (rare) unbiased consciousness being indoctrinated.

And the image almost a literal visualisation of my interpretation :)

layers of consciousness / pure thought being set aside by the invader, to delve into the deeper darker protected core of one (who) is not submitting entirely without resistance though.   

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Reflect


with our minds, hearts
and brains

tensely
on our present

future
and past

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Longing, Shortly


The moon came out again
But you did not
My heart was aflame with longing
But without you
It is cold and dark as the sky

------------------------

Lata, S. D. Burman, Nutan, Paying Guest



translation:


The moon appears again but you have not come yet.
My heart burns and aches.
What should I do now?
This night says those days are gone.
My heart knows that you are not mine.
Yet I am standing looking for you anxiously.
What should I do now?
The smoke rises from my burning heart.
Do come back please, for I find it difficult to even breathe.


------------
Update:
Subhasish Bose wrote:

Khudar raajje prithibi gadya maya, purnimar chand jaano jhalsano roti. (In the kingdom of hunger / The full moon looks like a burnt roti.)

-- KABI SUKANTA BHATTACHARYA,uncle of Bhuddhadeb Bhattacharya,ex cm West Bengal

My reply:

I honour a great poet, and a great simile that he versified. As a statement, it is indeed a very powerful image; but as much as I tried to recall any hungry, poor, deprived man or woman or child, or even myself when I was indigent, to even have thought of the moon, as an edible object, let alone a burnt one, I could not. Truly, among all thoughts that pass their minds, the moon, stars, clouds are excluded. This is not to deny Sukantobabu his greatness, or poetic licence.



Friday, October 30, 2015

Singed


what, who,
did I make a pact with life
that I will live it through?

look at it
the conscious life,
mine, humankind's
plants, animals not included

we humans are aware
of pain, longing, suffering
questing 
gifted and cursed
with enormous power 
to create
as much as to destroy
and devastate

storms are brewing
everywhere
seeking, spreading
in every nook and corner

look at that smoke
is that my own house, hearth
burning, scorching
being destroyed?

why?
I did not choose
to live, to endure

does anyone want this life?
take it, take my life

but that would be cruel
 to the taker

I will refrain
I would rather be consumed 
by the storm 
by the smoke 
by the fire

sooner than later

Thursday, October 29, 2015

The Invisible Man


From time immemorial, especially in infancy, people have longed to be invisible, roaming among the unsuspecting populace, living out their fantasies of power and freedom.

One difficulty in living it, living a life invisibly, was relating to the rest of the world. H. G. Wells found a solution, which was to dress the supposed invisible form in bandages, clothing, or some material, which would enable him to interact in society when required.

In 1897 H.G. Wells published his novel, The Invisible Man, in which he finally crystallized this fantasy, conjured it into words, gave it form, and immortalized it. To this day it remains a classic.

------------------
Update:

Edgar W Hopper wrote:

For me, Ralph Ellison's "The Invisible Man" 1957 is the definitive work on this topic. 


My reply:



I respect your feelings about Ellison's The Invisible Man, and the esteem and complexity of feelings it must have left on your psyche.

My Invisible Man, with allusion to H. G. Wells' pioneering scientific speculations, curiosities and tales, is entirely a different matter. Also, most importantly in the context of my picture posting, the allusion can by no stretch of the imagination be anything but to Wells' solving the problem of a human child's psychological, fascination and curiosity about the implications of becoming invisible, and then leading on to acquiring physical presence by bandage or equivalent clothing material. That was most paramount.


Please allow me to insist that, to the extent and in the direction I was headed, the first known work, to me, and therefore the establishing, authentic writing was H.G. Wells' Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison took the name inspirationally from the original, and altered the context. The question here is not the better or the best, or the most informed and influential work, but the one which speculated and roused curiosity in me for the first time by written language. That was Wells.


I hope you will accept my humble offering.



Sunday, October 18, 2015

Evolution to Extinction


To all my well-wishers, my gratitude for putting up with me year after year, and once again on the one which has begun staggeringly, uncertainly:


life is
moments of disarray
living it
at best is capricious

one, alone
in the city, earth
all the time - day, night
seeks meaning of life, truth --

these paths
which are longer
than any lifetime
have never been seen
any destination to reach

darker than moonless night
the well of life
draws smoke
instead of tears
from his unsheltered eyes

one, alone
has lived many lifetimes
and ONE MORE YEAR
let slip through his fingers
timeless sands
of meaningless, lies

now without reason to live
and inability to die
counts every passing moment
as a year backward
and instead of the truth
yearns only just to know
how long
onealone

------------------------------------------------

Humbly, and full of gratitude, thanks to


Reena Patel
Urmi Gandhi
Kirit Sanghvi 
Pradeep J Soni
Rita Lal
Pratima Gandhi
Shakuntala HV
Arijit Chaudhury
Kiran Bhatt
Subhasish Bose
Sonal Ganatra
Shyla Shanker
Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy 
Pravin Gandhi
Meher
Kushnawaz Ahmed Dar
Mamta Bhatt
Mukesh Soni
Aashutosh Namdeo
Jyoti Gandhi 
DrTaralika Trivedi 
SN Bhatt
Kashmira Soni
Devyani Gandhi
Dhananjay S Bhatt 
Pathma Raj 
Pixy Mukherjee 
Kirtida Gandhi
Utkarsh Majmudar
Minu Sanghavi
Purvi Goradia
Sanjay Gandhi 
Mahendra Dadha
Dipti Ranpura
Ramanidharan Ramaswamy
Shiva Kumar
Vivekanandan Vivi
Janak Mehta
Kanan Mehta
Hemant Manek
Dr. Ranjan Mistry Pratap
Moyna Manku
Vivek Syal
Fathima Sharafath
Ranjit Menon
Deepak Nair
Ness and Perin Pesikaka



Seeking forgiveness, for omissions above, and altogether generally.

Friday, October 09, 2015

The Swirl


the swirl and the twirl
will go on eternally
within the Universe
which is forever

with its contents devoid of life
or with some rare form of it somewhere
if at all

by the physical movements
of the total 
even if fragmented
mass of matter
their chemistry
their fission
fusion
forces of gravity
et al.

---------------------
Bhashwati wrote:

I saw the post 29 minutes after you put it and  reeled at the dazzling hues and their arrangement.
It is like a musical arrangement almost, with the tones (notes) placed for optimum effect.  
The texture mesmerises with its seductive softness.

And then there is the text, the vastness of the unknown juxtaposed against the insignificant scientific knowledge (mass matter gravity et al.) that ignorant humans wear like halos around their inflated heads as they dance merrily en route to perdition.

Monday, October 05, 2015

More on Climate Change, Progressing Towards Perdition

In conjunction with my post on Climate Change: Saving Our Planet: The Limitless Vanity of Man / Environment and Man, I am posting the following link to a series of videos about climate change, featuring Julia Roberts (Mother Nature), Harrison Ford (The Ocean), Kevin Spacey (The Rainforest), Edward Norton (The Soil), Penélope Cruz (Water), Robert Redford (The Redwood) and Ian Somerhalder (Coral Reef), who all join forces to give nature a voice.

Please watch the entire video series. It is brief, and will not consume your lifetime, but will enlighten your understanding of how life originated, and how We, Humans, are the only ones who are bent upon, and now choiceless, to destroy it.

Thursday, October 01, 2015

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Universe and in It the Insignificance of Earth and in It the Only Known Life and the Ultimate Danger to It: Mankind



Here is a transcript of the video, and a link:

209 Seconds That Will Make You Question Your Entire Existence

This is earth!
This is where you live.
And this is where you live in our solar system.
Here is the distance, to scale, between the Earth and the Moon.
Not that far, right?
Inside that distance you can fit every planet in our solar system.
With about 4,392 km or 2,729 miles to spare.
Jupiter is so large, this green smudge is North America.
And here's Earth (well, six Earths) compared with Saturn.
But that's nothing compared to our Sun.
Here's a photo of Earth from the Moon.
And here's that same Earth from Mars.
That insignificant little dot there, that's Earth.
From around 4 billion miles away.
Okay. So here's Earth compared to the sun.
Terrifying, right?
Well, there are stars out there much, much bigger than our wimpy sun.
Arcturus. Over 16,000 times larger in volume than our sun.
Alpha Scorpii A. About 690 million times larger in volume than our sun.
VY Canis Majoris. About 2.9 billion times larger in volume than our sun.
Our sun is barely even visible at this scale.
That's nuts, but it's nothing compared to the size of a galaxy.
So, the sun is just under 1,400,000 km wide. That's big, right?
Well, our Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 LIGHT YEARS in diameter.
That's roughly 950,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers.
The Milky Way galaxy is huge.
Here is where you live inside there.
And in this yellow circle are the only stars you're able to see at night.
But even our galaxy is a little runt compared with some others.
This is IC1011, it is 6,000,000 LIGHT YEARS wide.
Just think about all that could be inside there.
But let's think bigger!
The Hubble Telescope took this picture.
It contains thousands of galaxies...
each galaxy containing billions of stars...
each star orbited by its own planets.
And all of that was seen in this small patch of sky.
So if you're ever feeling upset, just remember...
This is your home.
This is what happens when you zoom out.
and farther out to the Solar Interstellar Neighborhood...
and farther...
keep going...
just a little bit farther...
almost there...
Here it is. Everything in the observable universe. And here's your place in it.
Oh, man.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Interred


Small leaves
blown by a cold wind
scutter over stone.

Linen cool under my hand,
and the door ajar
to ease his passing.

This is his new address,
where forever
he will be unreachable.

Traveller, if you pass this place,
be gentle,
he is resting here.