Read the poems at your leisure

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Monday, December 14, 2015

Whole Soul

Flying high, you see a sight
Brilliant sun, shining bright
Though the mist of clouded sky
Robs the orb of its light

And down beneath on flooded plains
Pray the people “no more rains”
Rain your warmth “o Mighty God”
Break the spell of Indra’s rod

And so it happened, the sun’s ray
Seeing, the clouds parted way
Relief came, flooding in hope,
Fortitude and new strength to cope

And all was well in a little while
Tears of joy and unrestrained smile
And men thanked men and men thanked Him
For parting the shadows of days grim

And on went life as it always did
Man only prays in times sordid
And cometh the summer, a bright gold sky
People cursed the mercury “So High!!”

Men comment as men see fit
Human flaw eternally writ
Yourself be always true and whole

One awakened, one with a Soul.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Wishing Stars



At night as I lie awake
Several thoughts running around
Only one does centre take
Good night, sleep sound

Every night I make a wish
Hoping, a shooting star passes by

Be it cold or scorching sun
Or the rain comes pouring down
Or the news of psycho guns
Just you be safe and sound

Every night I make a wish
Hoping, a shooting star passes by

Through the life’s' twists and turns
Across the trough or over the crown
Keep the memories that you earn
Always be happy, never a frown

Every night I make a wish
Hoping, a shooting star passes by

Hope you meet again one day
When and where I cannot say
Till that day comes, as it may
I shall look up, and pray

Every night I make a wish

Hoping, a shooting star passes by

Friday, December 4, 2015

What's in a shape

We live in a square world
Wishing it was rounds
All the lines drawn around us
Hoping ‘twill never be found

The sharp edge of the justice system
Overlapping with the underworld
The ever changing paths of society
The veritable labyrinth of all.

The strong arcs of family support
The dotted lines of love
The uneven edge of burnt bridges
the self-arc of things selfish

the crossroads on the way forward
surrounded by self-imposed horizons
a circle of kin within our comfort state
adjoining a sphere of things we hate

Forget for once these worldly lines
For they keep good within and without
For all you need cannot be defined
By lines or shapes, inside or out
At the end of it all, we all are
A rectangle , six feet underneath

Or 3 feet of logs overground.

Don't ask, Walk

A step to another
Hopes strung together
A man walks ahead
Prior baggage shed
Ignoring the wondrous eyes
Singing to the passer-bys
“Don’t ask, walk”.

Most of us in our lives
Don several masks at once
Seeking to fit in for a while
Pasting on a fake smile
A mask once put is a devil’s call
To the true angel within, a fall.
“Don’t ask, walk”

We fall in love,
We change for love,
Forgetting the one we were
A shadow of our precious self
Wanting to impress a world
Itself in a state of whorls.
“Don’t ask, walk”.

Let the past be where it was
Let the future be as it will
With a string of hope lighting the way
Don’t bother about what people say
Up the path you merrily go
Let people point and gawk

“Don’t ask, walk”.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Why Question?

Who am I to question why

What happens, when and how
To whom, whereabout
It’s all a big, yet simple maths
With as many variables
As many hats

Who am I to question why

A butterfly flaps in the west
Creating a terrible tempest
A persons’ poison is anothers’ wine
Some like shade, some sunshine

Who am I to question why

Some act in the name of God,
Some do not believe Him at all
Sometimes event occurs so,
“Oh my God”, atheists go.

Who am I to question why

For all I know is this one thing
Live your life and merrily sing
The song that you are made of
Be it off-tune, be it right chord

In the grand old equation of hats
Some rise, some fall flat
Some win, some lose out
Some race ahead, some crawl about
In the end, it all evens out.

Who am I to question why
Live, let live, do and die.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The Hope of a Leaf



Picking up the withered leaf
I could not help but feel
The leaf was a bud one day
Lived its life and mellowed away

Then came a time, a gust of wind
Broke the leaf from the bow
And down it came from its high seat
To become a part of mud and peat

But then a kindred soul came by
Feeling lonely and alive
Picked up the leaf mellowed away
And thought what it might have to say

The yellow leaf then spoke to him
About its life, great and grim
From the first frost to the last wind
A life of joy, laughter, hope and whim

One never knows when decay creeps in
Like a creeper climbing a trellis ring
Before you know it, the sun is waning
You now hope for a full moon, stars shining

It was hope that made the bud grow up
It was hope that kept the leaf hang on
It was hope that the wind will blow
it away, a place where it might mellow, slow.

When a leaf can have hope from birth to death
We creatures of a sentient mind
Lose hope at the first trough of life
When the crest ahead is shining bright

The leaf now lives in a park bin
Still hoping for a better life
Maybe, a kindred soul might pick it up
And make it a leaf, in his book of life.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Child with a Rose




A child on the street corner
dirty, hungry and pale
an object of everyone's stares
cheeks hollow, living bare

he plucks out the roses
torn and frayed
from a public park
and quickly runs away

and runs around in the rain
shriveled and shivering
trying to sell
the symbol of love

and the brave souls
walking in the chilly air
or bunched and hunched up
under their cozy wares

ignore this child
and pass him by
leaving him with
a broken smile

the smile that mends again
seeing another hunched pair
the smiling face,
the extended hand
yet again
the expectations began

at last a man walking by
bought all the roses at a time
the kid didn't even count the fare
ran to the sister and split it fair

his duty done
the day's work
he splashed around
and the rain and mud

the symbol of a carefree soul
still intact, still whole

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Crossroads

I am at a crossroad
in my stroll of life
a turn that will define me
and everything that is to be

such turns are few and far
a one way door left ajar
to be or not to be
is the choice now before me

fear and anxiety take their roles
unsureness and apprehension take their toll
what lies beyond one does not know
taking solace in going with the flow

whichever door one chooses to take
whatever baggage you take or forsake
it is only your own decision to make

Saturday, May 16, 2015

A Story to Tell

Life is pain
Life is pleasure
Life is work
And some leisure

You go through life
With a wish and a hope
A hint of adventure
And courage to cope

With baggage of past
And lure of the next
Singing out of tune
Sometimes in context

Meeting strange creatures
Some with wings, others red
Pushing some away
With some breaking bread

While the sun plays on
It’s daily hide and seek
Subtly reminding
“You have a goal to seek”
Mindless of the time
Be it day or night
To never let it go
Out of your sight

On this journey to your goal
Be it small, be it bold
Persevere
Revere
Revel

For life goes through
Heaven and hell
At the end of it all
You are a story to tell.

Harbinger

Before she walks in
In all her glory
My heart and mind
Weave about a story

The wind sweeps in
Her fresh essence
The harbinger to
Her coming presence

The floor shouts
The clapping of slippers
I hear it all
If only a whisper

The eerie way
How minds connect
I see her coming
As always… perfect

You do not need eyes to see
Ears to hear or heart to feel
All you need
Is her to be

Monday, May 4, 2015

ACB - Storytelling #1 Measured Up - Unedited

Long long ago, so long ago, nobody knows how long ago, in a remote village near the coast in China, lived a rice farmer whose name was Fu-Hsing. He was a soft-spoken, gentle man who toiled hard on his rice field which has been in his family for 10 generations. He was a well-known and respected person in the village. Hsing was tall, a bit plump, gentle brown eyes, flowing long hair tied in a ponytail, and had a heart of gold. Hsing was not wealthy but he earned enough from his farm to support him and his beloved wife, Soong. Soong was a beautiful woman, tall, slim, big dove-shaped eyes, lush long hair which flowed till her waist, dainty hands, and the spark of intelligence in her eyes. She had an elegant, graceful manner and a pleasing personality. Soong loved her husband so much that she went to the field with him every morning and helped Hsing all day long mindless of the sun and the heat. Hsing always protested about this, but Soong always won the argument. Soong possessed such intelligence that her devoted husband, used to call her “My Wisdom, My Intelligence, my dearest Capability”. 
So much so, that he had a scroll posted on his gate which read

“My Wisdom, My intellect, My Capability, is so bright and beautiful,
She can make an impossible task, look so easy and wonderful”

People who knew the couple saw the scroll and admired the adoration of Hsing for his wife and went away smiling with warmth and love in their heart. But even good intentions can be so easily misinterpreted.

One day the village elder was passing by Hsing’s home and read the scroll. Rage and fury filled up inside him and he shouted “Who is this Hsing. Surely he is conceited and an ignoramus who is harping about his own intelligence. I shall put him in his rightful place.”

And so, the next day, when Hsing opened his door to go for a walk, he found an order to appear in front of the village council and answer for his conceited words and action.  Terror took the heart of Hsing in the next instance. He stood frozen in the morning sunshine, cold sweat glistening on his forehead, eyes reading the same words again and again, without being able to comprehend its meaning or reason.

He took the summon and showed it to Soong. Soong immediately understood what must have happened. The elder must have seen the scroll hung on the door and the summon was a way to punish Hsing for appearing conceited. Keeping her wits about her, she consoled the shivering Hsing, calmed him down, made him a cup of soothing tea and helped him get dressed for his appearance before the council.

At the appointed hour, Hsing presented himself before the council. The village head was sitting in a high seat with an ancient pagoda surrounded by the other village council members and curious villagers. With barely controlled anger, he said, “Hsing, you have the impudence to display such a conceited message in front of your home. Lies are not tolerated this village. You will now have to prove your mettle but completing three tasks that I shall set. If you fail to complete even 1, I shall have you publicly lashed, and paraded around on a donkey.”  Hsing didn’t trust himself to open his mouth, so terrified he was. He shivered, sweated and kept silent. He nodded his head and accepted his fate, whatever was to come.

The elder banged his fist on the chair and said, “the first task is to weave a cloth as long and wide as the road”, he banged it again on the table and said “the second is to make wine as much as the water in the ocean” and with a final thump he said “and the third is to raise a pig as big as a mountain. You have 1 day to think about the tasks and you should come with your tools tomorrow to begin the work. You may leave now”

Hsing didn’t need any further encouragement. He hurried home and told everything to Soong. Soong listened intently to all the Hsing had to say. Once he had told whatever the council had said, Soong thought for a moment. Suddenly her eyes lit up and smiling she said “My dear husband, the tasks the elder has given doesn’t require any special tools. It is already with us. I shall tell you exactly what you need to tell the council word by word tomorrow and everything will be all right. Do not worry and sleep with peace.” Against his will, Hsing went to sleep but he was anything but at peace. He twisted and turned, and woke up shivering. But somehow, the night passed away.

The next morning Hsing woke up earlier than usual and just sat on the bed staring into blank space. After a lot of poking and prodding, Hsing got dressed up. Soong handed him his hat and said “Now say exactly what I tell you to say to the council.” After Hsing heard it, he smiled, woke his hat and laughed “You really are the cleverest of them all “. He hugged Soong and with a new found spring in his stride, he left for the meeting. Hsing arrived at the council meet and said “Respected sir, I have come prepared to start the 3 tasks you have set me but before that I need some more information regarding the task. Please help me with it.” With that, he took off his hat said “Using this hat as a reference, please tell me the exact length of cloth I need to weave, kindly let me know how many hat full of wine to be made and how high a stack of this hat should the pig be”.

The elder was stumped. The other members were stunned. The curious passer bys were stunned. But slowly it dawned on them and they nodded and smiled. The village elder too smiled and with a bright red embarrassed face, realised that he has been outwitted by Hsing. He pardoned Hsing for his transgressions and acknowledged that his wife was really intelligent and resourceful.

When Hsing returned home, he saw that the poem in front of his home was replaced by another one

“You may travel far and wide, hoping for a light to shed,
On all your lofty questions, whose answers are in your head.
The answers for all the questions, be it hard or be it smart
Forever lies within you, in your mind and your heart.”



Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Elements

The wind is blowing
frolicking around
with a twig and a leaf
abandoned on the ground

the sun is playing
hide and seek
once aggressive
and once meek

The rain is here
or is it there
'tis for sure
its in the air


The earth is mud
the earth is sand
feel the petrichor
in your hand

The heart is pumping
in and out
beat by beat
shouting out

to the soul within
the mind above
"give me a drop
of pure love"

The elements are
as they always were
pain and pleasure
wrapped in one.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Even at Vedanta - Its a RAT race

For someone having gone through 12 years of school, 4 years of graduate course, 2 years of post graduate course and 3 years in the industry i.e in total having 21 years of serious education, academically as well as in industry, the least he can hope for is that at the doctoral level application, he will be spared the pain of writing another competitive exam. But it seems that the doyens of academic education are sadists who take pleasure in seeing even 300 odd people battle it out for 40 odd seats.

It is quite understandable that at the UG and PG levels, the number of people applying for seats is humongous , so much so, that the funds generated through application fees itself runs into hundreds of crores. At such a juncture , it is logically to have a gauntlet which will act as a filter to separate the husk from the grain; and in most cases it is effective.

But when the number of people are a few hundred, for a programme that although sought after is not a necessary qualification for the majority of the crowd, when the people who apply to it must have done so after serious consideration about their own capabilities and future prospects, it seems illogical, or rather, irrelevant to put them through another competitive examination.

It seems to send a wrong signal to the world - "Even after 21 years of education, you still need to prove yourself, rather than be given a chance for having proved yourself till now." How about having a face to face discussion with them all, all 300 odd of them?? its a daunting task, but its well worth the time since you will understand your candidates , the people who chose your institution all the more better, helping you fine tune your requirements to the people you want to have in your institute in the first place.

But I guess we live in a square world, where a well rounded idea has to be shaped into an existing box. Its a Rat race even at the end of knowledge. 

Saturday, April 4, 2015

B-C-D

Its been a while since I have put pen on paper (e-ink) , partly due to the fact that I was busy searching and adjusting to the new state of equilibrium and partly because it was my choice to do so. Choices, I have realized is all that there is to life. To give a very technical analogy, choices are like an Turing's Algorithm. The next state purely depends upon the previous state. The same choice, made at different times in different circumstances, lead to different results. Sometimes the resultant state is the state in which you had originally intended. Sometimes, it is a different one because even after all the variables you analysed, the outcome was not something you could control.

However, the irony of life is that people think if the choice is the same, the result should be the expected one, no matter what.

Take, for example, the choices I made over the last several months. Some I cherish, some I regret, some I ponder and some I wish I had made. Choices in friendships, work, health, family, emotions, words, actions. Every choice let to a state and every state led to another set of choices.

Choice to work in an MNC didn't pan out very well, choice of friends did, choice of city was not in my control and choices made in interest of health were a mixed bag. A choice is like a drop that creates ripples, you know where it started, but you don't know where it will end, or how it will end. Choices affect us on different planes of existence, be it physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.

And thus, happiness and sadness is also a matter of choice.  In fact, a greater control can be exercised over the mental state. It may not be in your control if you are short , or tall, or fair or dark or dumb or intelligent, but it is your choice to be happy the way you are.


We are our choices, no doubt in that; but are we able to live with our choices? Some people cannot. There lies a serious pitfall. There is a saying "the hind sight is always 20/20", but one does not always have the courage/mental fortitude to live with the choices. When I say live with the choices, I mean that one can accept the choice made in good faith, learn from it, and be able to make more choices without the previous ones haunting him.


To apply this in real life, it means that one should not hang onto the remnants of decisions made in the past, nor be afraid to make decision in the present. And which every decision you make, no matter what the outcome, the mental state may fluctuate for a while before it comes back to equilibrium, but it should come back to equilibrium. An equilibrium where you are at peace with your decision, with the result and at ease in making the next choice as well.

This is where the categories of people are defined
1) Those who are afraid to make decisions
2) Those who make decisions and regret it
3) Those who make decisions and accept it

People in the 1st category are the ones who live a petrified life. They may or may not be in an ideal state of being, but they are afraid to challenge, choose and change as they fear that the new state would be worse than the existing one.

People in the 2nd category are the ones who are unable to live with the consequences of their actions. They are happy when their choices are in their favour, but they take it hard if the choice goes against them and lose the confidence in making more choices. Eventually, they deteriorate and fall into the 1st category of people.

People in the 3rd category are the ones who have achieved a certain fortitude in handling the consequences of their choices. They take the results head-on , be it favourable or adverse and learn to live with it, and continue to make more choices.

This ability to adapt, accept and appreciate changes makes their life more fulfilling, flourishing and flavourful.

I wont say I am a perfect fit in any of the 3 categories, but have semblance of each one of them. I hope I achieve the 3rd state of being, but that again, as I said, is my choice. 

Friday, April 3, 2015

Fix It

When the snow is falling
and the fire is low
you fix it

when the rain is lashing 
the ceiling has holes
you fix it

when your car is running
and the tyre is shred
you fix it

when you're going to a party
and the button is missing
you fix it

But when the heart
is split in two

when two of you
had a bloody feud

when the words were sharp
and the heads hot

and life doesn't feel
worth this part

you....fix it.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Love and Pain

There are thoughts I cannot think
There are words I cannot write
There is love I cannot feel
There is life I cannot lead

As light comes before thunder
love comes before pain
The flashes of happy memories
precede the thundering rain

Just as a wound takes time
to mend and to heal
our numb, broken heart
takes time, to once again feel

The wise old veterans
softly say "This too shall pass"
While the green young ones are still
picking up the shattered glass

Love and pain go hand in hand
Much alike the Yin and Yang
A little this in a larger that
Or a larger that among a little this

If you are going through hell
Keep going and stop not
As you will find, life is about
Going on.... Inspite off...