The lost city

Fire! blood! arson!! weapons! a city torn apart by violence that had no reason to trigger, no reason to continue, no reason to kill!! where??? Kashmir? Ayodhya? Gujarat? no folks! bangalore yes u heard it right BANGALORE!!! pensioners paradise, the place that was hailed for its tolerant ways and peaceful co existence! it all sounds a farce, a bloody dream of despair, my city is no more safe! my city is no more a dwelling place of the by two brotherhood, my city i hate to say is mine and yet so alien in the ugly face of violence!!! just in my neighbourhood, about few kilometers away, today,
3 buses burnt, 22 injured in police firing, 3 autos burnt, 1 police constable critical and a 12 yr old boy DEAD!!
DEAD!!! DEAD!!! yes DEAD!!!
A 12 yr old boy... innocent, unaware, carefree, he must have just casually cycled down the empty road whistling his merry tune of freedom and joy, he mustve wanted to breathe a wisp of free air before going back to school to face another boring monday morning, but all the joy, the freedom the innocence now lies wrapped in a white shroud beside his charred bicycle , shrivelled and still shivering with the fright of those icy hands of violence that slashed him to death. who is This little boy who lies there? ya he is probably an answer to the search and the struggle of proponents of love and brotherhood of hindutva and islam.
The whole thing started off as a protest in bangalore east to the killing of most reverend mr.saddam hussain (saddam who? dont u know that mahatma who saved his race from hunger and strife or better described a protector king who led his country to peace) so my group of stauch human rights activists as they begged to call themselves take out this protest against the inhuman trial and hanging of the great humanitarian Mr.Hussain, then on the way to the grand mass gathering, they pluck a few limbs of passers by, burn a few buses, molest a few women, afterall they had to appease the cause of justice and sacrifice the aforesaid to the sacrificail fire of justice for all!! , that done they also burn a stary flag in saffron that probably hindered their vision during their march, Wakes up the hindu soldier... they injured human limbs i pardoned, they burnt and arsoned civilians thats pardoned too but how can they burn the most precious piece of coloured cloth, surely that deserves a hit back!! that deserves a call to all ye faithful to come together and show the might of our religously righteous self!!! We will build that temple there even if it means we are snatching away homes of ppl living there, we will show them our resolve even if it means break their very lives!!! The peace loving other community gathers to address its people and as a part of the ritual... burn, arson and kill , in the name of the holy ram!! wow!
Behold my bretheren of both faiths and the few others who belonged to neither!!! Well done!! u have eastablished the will of god over human corpses! you have proven the might of justice over fresh and free flowing blood!! you have done justice to a dead president by killing a few others and sending them to give him company, you have established a legion of limbless people to build his temple of pride bravo!!! my country men bravo!!!
But where the heck do i find sleep cos each time i close my eyes i can only see a 12 year old boy whose charred cycle lies beside his mutilated body. long live YOUR GOD OF HONouR MAY HIS KINGDOM ACTUALLY COME!!

a first hand video coverage by cnn-ibn
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/31760/tension-runs-high-in-blore-city.html

HUSH

Hush, beat softer
Like her footsteps on the sand
See, but do not linger
Like the wind, that kis'd her hand

Hush, beat softer
Or you'll drown her tinkling laugh
The lucky wind Oh! he sways her hips
As she walks along the wharf

Hush, beat softer
Oh! don't make me sigh
Or she'll know i'm just an island
Under a lone, dark sky

Hush, beat softer
She's just passed me by
I feel like the moment after
An unsaid goodbye

Hush, beat softer
There like a whisper she stands
I see her shoulders heaving
And the breeze at play with her strands

Hush, beat softer
She turns with a tear and a smile!
The smile that tugs me closer
A tear for each lost mile

Hush, beat softer
My love is in my arms
The clouds have kissed the ocean
And the sky is blue and calm

fleeting moments dedicated to the sea at dawn

"Caravans Of poetry travelling amoc
unable to decide what to say what not
all it knows is this journey celebrating
the new beginning the meet and depart

Sometimes its funny how one is unable to understand certain inclinations, certain feeling high phases. times when some stranger just comes into life's journey from the most unexpected of quarters and leaves you misty, touched, enriched and at rare times bound. all this in just a fleeting few moments. ya sometimes those fleeting seconds last a little longer and gets stretched through forever. like the lightning, lightning in a dark alley, it is so fleeting and short but the consequences? consequence doesn't sound like the right word but well... u know what i meant to say. those fleeting moments just remain unnamed and unrecorded. Those people we are touched by in those moments remain special yet unbelonged, No matter how hard we might try to change its nature, these moments and those relationships remain just that - abstract and fleeting.
i recently saw two films that sort of dwell on this idea of fleeting, Mr & Mrs Iyer and Shabd, both films have the female protagonist coming across an unexpected and unplanned for rendezvous and being taken up by the sheer beauty and child like freedom in the relationship with "the other guy" but the relationship or encounter comes to an abrupt halt and they resume their lives like that phase didn't affect them much. No! neither of the films portray extra marital affairs, they portray situations (fleeting situations) that results in a catharsis of sorts for its lead ladies. a discovery of the childhood laughter, teenage freedom, revival of old interests, ability to laugh uninhibited laughter... But both the films despite ending in a politically correct climax, do not offer judgements of right and wrong. i guess cos emotions teamed up with fleeting cannot be branded Right or wrong.
So?... so nothing, its just virtue to let go of that phase, let go of attempts to define these moments of poetry, so that these put together become a new nest in some remote corner of the self. and at times of solitude or retrospect become the place to go to for a quite retreat - bask in the warmth of those unrecorded moments, take a deep breath, heave a sigh of joyful separation and come back enriched to reality.
Let the moments remain fleeting, let them remain unnamed and undefined, lest the formality cause them to degenerate and decay.

Happiness

Happiness for me??? money? friends? a heavy purse to shop? no visits to the office? well... after a lot of thought i chose the following few moments as my tangibles defining happiness
hold !! before that..

Disclaimer: The ideas stated below are strictly of a helpless poet kind, cliches abound and full of sentimental rambles, so if you are the poetry aint my kinda reading material, its best in the library n fairyland types, please skip this post. this post is just that


Little thangam, the girl who works in my place (she's 16 so by rule not a child) comes running to me and shows me her new clothes (which by the way are my old clothes that are altered to fit her petite frame) and tells me how everyone in the neighbourhood envied her and said she looked pretty with a frown.
thangam's proud and happy eyes... thats happiness numero uno

life is down in dumps, its that no job, no studies, peer group settled and me unsettled, best friend in the ICU, love life in rocks, home scenes irritable kinda phase... when the phone rings and friend 's' on a loooooooong distance ISD call in the most demanding of voices asks "why are you isolating yourself? whats wrong", u fake a bad cold and PMS and tell m its all fine, he reads thro and tells you its ok, this too shall pass. days to follow, almost from nowhere all old pals from long distances and accessible neighbourhoods call n give u a shoulder to lean on... and everybody says the same thing, "i got to know from 's' that u're down... its ok da, why didnt you call?" life seems in place... s actually makes sure everyone around knew i needed help....
s' efforts - that is happiness

i am at my wits end with a boss that doesn pay politely telling me that he p[ays according to deliverables n not time, corporate morons who dont care to respond to meeting schedules n plans, a website that fails to take off more than the initial two pages, colleagues who are as frustrated with the job and a celll phone that does not have a network even on MG Road!!! when i hear a knock on the office door, someone's come for me the receptionist says. I go unconcerned not even interested inthinking who it might be, and the guy from my hometown florist shop hands me over a whole bunch of red frsh roses, the prettiest i've seen and says "flowers for u ma'am". and the delivery reciept has his company's name in the sender's column
Those flowers the sender's thought and my colleagues' chiding - thats happiness


i drop into college to fill in the convocation form thats been pending for the last 2 months its the last day of the deadline, cheesed off by the long queue i take a casual walk up to the staff rooms o drop in and say hi. Knowing i'l have to step out bafoh i actuaally meet the staff. When i bump into a teacher in whose class i said the stupidest of things and got away, she gives me her warm "hello dear, so good to see u" one liners, i make polite enquiries about her new batch, and like most teachers she too says they're not as good as my batch, and as we walk her handbag falls down n the contents spill all over the place, and amidstthe piles of official stuff i find a card i wrote to her one teachers day... she smiles through the facade and says "oh thats something i carry with me always, it reminds me of the fact that sometime down in life i made a difference in my student's life, and i read it each time i feel low... " smiles.
that tattered piece of paper with my writing in her hands - thats happiness

a dull birthday again as it is every year, i hope someone will make it special, somebody will plan a surprise (that works!) somebody will care to remember and send a card, but the day passes by like a normal dull day of gloom, i am giving up, changing into old clothes, when suddenly at 9 pm i get a call all the way from lucknow and a friendly voice greeting me to say happy birthday i am surprised she remembers, even knew my bday, and just as that call ends another friend drops in to whistle my favourite tune as my bday gift.
Those planned rememberences form unexpected quarters - thats happiness

a leisurely evening, carelessly sipping a cuppa, no hurry, no emails, no escalations, just being able to unwind with myself, then have time and the mood to clean up the racks, finding an old tape with the most soothing voice ever singing for me melodies of jagjit singh, kishore n rafi, the small msg at the end of the tape , the smile that lingers hours after the tape ends and the memory of a train leaving a station , me next to the door and a familiar face waving out to me from the platform, the train starting and stopping thrice and then chugging out hesitantly, for the first time not feeling bad about parting but being able to bask in the thought of poetry...
That leisure, that space for self, that voice, that person, that memory - thats happiness

Happiness is a way of life, it is to be able to see through the nuances of joy woven into daily mundane rituals, it is the ability to smile through tears, to have hope in despair to believe in the sunrise at dusk to be myself for a while, to have the time to be late, to eat what i want to eat, health without hidden costs and energy to do what i did as a teenager... that for me is happiness.
At the end of this post i wanna thank all u folks who played such a big role in me sitting to think what happiness means to me. My life is made up of these fragments of happiness, yes i too brood, i too crib, i too throw tantrums, i too have my mood swings but these fragments of happiness cheers me up again.
I wish for all of you loads of such fragments, these fragments are all what we could access without a need for a sign in or password. SO... Happiness anybody?

HAPPY HAPPINESS TIMES !!!