We weep

When sense, most common, evades all and sundry,

When a modicum of chivalry, remains a strange need, 

When missiles and bombs from devils,

                                    orange and pink,

           blush painted for sordid cameras,

pulverize all that we have built,

When judges, wigged or otherwise,

                in their avarice,

coffers lined with currency and kind,

                strike with pens,

                            humanity dead,

When there's no parliament or king,

or a spokesperson for imprisoned Gods,

to wake us up from our blue-tint-doom-scroll lies

When we blow up homes,

one by one,

burn our planet,

inch by inch,

Forsake our dreams,

byte by byte,

When we kill the last whales and rhinos,

and grind and char their bits for cure and fuel,

When we lend ourselves to the bottomless needs

                                    of vice men and their apostles, 

When we remain as we are,

sticks and rocks,

just stronger than before,

for tribe and race we can't feel,

for the borders that we can't see,

for algorithms that we can't perceive, 

We weep. 

We weep,

Not for us, 

But for our children, and theirs 

and all those who come after. 

We weep. 

Not for us, 

But for our children, and theirs 

and all those come after. 

We weep. 

Not for us, 

But for our children, and theirs 

and all those come after. 

Endless. 

We weep. 

Despair and Hope

Despair 

You stand still;

Forever in movement,

In a gridlock of systems, 

                     Of systems

                      Of systems,

  

                       Ad infinitum,

Bound, wound and contrived to be, 

A clockwork, a sextant, 

Left to time and guide, 

On a path as rigid as religious dreams, 

In a network of minds that fail to perceive. 

A scuffle of people, 

Tightly stacked in seats with belts,

Holding on to prayers with foibles and vice, 

Wishing for no theater, stuck in anticipation, 

Waiting for an anticlimax,

            

                                            A moment of nothing 

                                                       A safe landing,

Into a world with dreams 

Of chaos and headlines, 

Blaring 24*7, in ears shut under microphones 

Brains fried till they know no hope 

Stuck in gungho sordid cacophonies  

About crumbling carbons and iridescent lights 

A tomorrow as lost as today, 

With cities that send out roads 

To nowhere,

To nowhere,

To nowhere,

You are lost and affright,

Stuck on a vigil while starring into headlights,

To be runover, and left as roadkill,

Plastered on tarmacs

Laid and relaid

Till no one knows what lay.

Hope 

If you were to believe the earth is a home,

Like a berth on a train,

On a journey to infinity,

The sky a window,

To deep azure and distant stars

A mirage and a light

Perceived only through yearning and sight, 

You are here, alive. 

Hold your breath and count, 

Let your mind be unbound. 

Breathe.

There's hope is the farthest stars you can see, 

And in the skyline that forever recedes to allow you to be. 

There's hope in the little steps you take, 

The tickle from a breeze at the end of a hot day. 

There's hope if you believe, 

In yourself, and life as it is, and as it can be. 

There's hope if you believe, 

And with that belief

You stride to infinity,

Or a morrow at least.

The Light shines the brightest.  

The Forever city

Suffocating, Struggling,

Strutting along,

Huffing and puffing

In the heat, and rain,

A moment is too precious to lose,

The now lasts forever,

Lest the money drops

And the rents raise,

The meters recalibrate

To tell, you aren't enough,

And there's another to take your matchbox

With fire within, and a hunger burning

To conquer all that's in front, and behind-

A forever jungle of hidden dreams, and varicose cement.


Bombay,

An assault on your senses,

An invasion on all you know,

A dichotomy reclaimed from itself

Yet

Where no one has a moment-

A second isn't enough to earn a living

And you need more than a vision-

For all you can see is the concrete or the sea;

An innate urge to live,

To be,

Thoughtlessly driven,

A mind without knowing its own exhaustion.

Bombay,

A city that breathes, as it chokes,

Counted and counting,

Pumped by dopey fumes,

Jacked by vitamin M,

Deluded by its own grandeur

Growing and growing

Till all it sees is itself.

Parel or Vashi,

You can stand at a point of no return,

With some hope,

Peer at the sea

And still think you are here,

In this city, endless,

The forever city,

Bombay.

The paths to home

All paths lead home,

And you reach on a somber dusk morrow,

To find that the garbage smell is now perfumed,

The dark alleys are now with rude advertisements of hope,

The silent corners now choke with fumes from SUVs and their desperate honking ruckus,

The broken windows of a forgotten home, is now a mall with anonymous black glass panes.

All just a moment away from the truth,

Clinging on, tight-fisted, red-eyed, lest dreams takeover

And you see the fecund fake rumble and rubbish,

In crass giggles and matchbox homes,

Cenotaphs for a drugged nation.

All hope spun from trauma,

Of generations upon generations,

Caste, creed, skin color, religion,

Thoughtless rage, and mindless veneration.

All vanity, a patented hubris,

3D holograms of smiling bearded men,

Posed and poised upon a pedestal, all too high,

For those of mere commonsense to question.

All roads lead away,

A journey through forsaken lanes,

Where myths of muscle and grit,

Grime and slime, farce phases of progress,

Peel away like hastily laid tar,

Sophisticated pancake for the real man,

Lest you think everything is a hologram.

All homes smell of old ancestors,

You just have to live long enough.

Layers of roads upon lakes and towns,

How far deep do you want to dig?

Maybe to strike water,

Or oil,

Or maybe an effigy,

                                Of an old truth,

Which still hasn't been burnt at a stake.