Wednesday, September 27, 2017

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.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Conversation 2: Past Present


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

Actually not one but several conversations are happening here.

The diminutive adult who may have been a helper or attendant at an earlier point and could be conversing with his memories of those "better" days which actually may have been hard days of toil for him but considering the ravages of time on the building and his own life, the present must seem far more unbearable.

And then theres the gnarled knotted tree bent but not broken and still visited by spring. conversing with itself and with the walls that will never be revisited by old glory.

And the doors windows pillars passages conversing together in a perennial assembly of mourning.

And the light outside and the dark shadows within, they may be conversing too.

To say nothing of the embedded traces of lives that have lived loved lost within these premises. 
Would they not be conversing with each other too?

Bahut khoob hai.

i wonder where it was hidden all these years.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Up the Downstairs


when I went up and down the stairs
I stopped midway
and looked into the letterbox
where I found only cobwebs

and I wondered why
my heart always sank

and then I thought that somewhere
there was another letterbox
with someone looking into it
and not finding my letter
and feeling as disappointed
as I did
and saddened
as I was

***

As I grew up 
I learned to give 
before I took 
except unhappiness 
sadness 
depression 
which were mine 
and mine alone 
not to be shared

but that could not be
cannot be


(written in 1956)





Sunday, September 17, 2017

Conversation: Future Past



between the eroded wisdom of the past
and an uncertain future

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

This time round what has struck me most is the texture, actually the many textures that are part of the image. The grainy, the lined, the soft, the hard, the solid and the shadowy.
It caught me by surprise because i have always only noticed the boy and his communion with the stony wall. There is so much more that is kneaded into the composition.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Shadowed


A baby, fallen from the nest, frightened of everything; even gentle, fond protection, trembling so much that friendly caring became cruel. Our efforts to feed nuts, and anything other than that, all were suspect. Touching it, not touching it, all failed to reassure it that we wanted to be friendly and play with it. Nothing worked until we let it escape, even as we feared that it would become instant prey.

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

How scared it looks of the unfamiliar protection that is being proffered.

Instantly brings to my terribly troubled mind's eye the millions of refugee infants and children who find themselves at the receiving end of conflicts they have no conception or comprehension of and ejected and evicted from the familiar environs of their short life they have only fear and mistrust of the entire human world.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Kashmir on Fire



In Man's history of war, peace, greed and lust for territory and whatever goes with it, a time always comes when the cause and reasoning are not only challenged, but all factual veracity is wiped out. Human tragedy in political and other arenas that he both suffers and inflicts, ceases to be within reach of comprehension, and, irony of ironies, if solutions are reached, their being right or wrong is not only ignored, but becomes meaningless.

What then, one can pertinently ask, Is History? A bunch of variable lies.

Photo-collage by me, using broken glass image by Amarjeet Singh Nagi for India Today.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Doorway


the door is open

just behind the white light
you will find fulfillment

hurry! or darkness
will quickly swallow the light
leaving you groping
and lost forever

Saturday, September 09, 2017

Spangled


spangled
tangled
soon to be mangled
purged
submerged

who can
swim or fly
or writhe our way out
of what we have wrought

Thursday, September 07, 2017