The Celestial Library

Perched atop the water tank

I see myself reading the advesperating sky.

 

The Sun is an epic prose

A novel whose closing pages

Paves way for lunar poetry.

 

Gently appearing sidereal companions

Help the moon bedeck the firmament

With fluorescing nocturnal rhymes.

 

The lyric of the breeze

Gently buffets the homing birds

As they arc their way nest-wards.

 

At the other end of the horizon,

Roving cloud mail-men

Drop pluvious letters of love

 

As sky’s telluric lover

The earth laps up the romantic missives

And reads it with fragrance.

 

A few forgotten sentences

Find themselves suspended mid-way.

 

But connive with the

Crimson chapters of the novel

To concoct one final act of play.

 

The arched heptad of characters

Illuminate the bibliotheque

With a mystical drama,

 

The darkening cerulean Vista

Pans out in full glory

Best seen in solitudinous recumbence.

 

The sky is a celestial library

Craving for more bookworms.

Washing Utensils - A New-found Meditative Avocation

I never thought the day would come, when I would say, that I have developed a strong proclivity for washing utensils. Our womenfolk are so lucky to be dabbling away at this chore for generations!

If this were the opening lines of a speech, I am sure a few awkward moments of silence would have precipitated upon its completion. But even if this is to be read, as it is being now, I am pretty sure, it has already equipped our snowflake millenials with enough munition to start firing away judgements and abuses. To wit, I can see from a mile away, epithets in varying degrees of calumny such as “What a misogynist” or “Bloody male chauvinist”, or more patronizing pontifications such as “I feel sorry for the poor boy, it boils down to his upbringing” or “He needs to be put in his place” all in the process of being rolled up into one big wrecking ball, that is soon to be despatched my way.

I should have possibly thought twice before standing precariously close to a powder keg with an alighted matchstick twirling around my fingers. In a country like ours, where proliferation of social media has brazenly amplified, the polarization of opinions, misconstrual of even those comments spoken with tongue firmly in cheek, and the goading of pugnacious spirits of my fellow compatriots to take offence at the drop of hat, I ought to have been more careful before aberrating from my usual scrivening of non-controversial themes. Considering the intolerant times we live in, we live in perpetual danger of angling towards some controversy of sorts, which precariously waits to be dished up and served in mouthfuls.

But I will do my best at explaining fully what I really want to convey and then people can re-think and re-judge.

In late June, my wife and self returned back to Hyderabad from Chennai, where we were locked down in my parent’s home since March. It was a conscious decision we took, weighing the pros and cons of the perilous flight journey when the COVID-19 caseload in India was just beginning to spiral out of control. The pro was simple, single and straightforward – We missed the solitude of our own home, which was waiting empty in Hyderabad, where we were miles away from the nearest kith or kin. We could wake up when we wanted, roam around in more ‘comfortable’ clothing (otherwise considered unbecoming for a quasi-orthodox family) and have our much desired privacy without the fear of prying eyes or furtive ears. This incontestably was the sole incentive that drew us back to our loveable alien city.

The arguments notched up against the cons side of the ledger were more – We would certainly miss the comfort of our familial company, the quality time we spent breaking bread together, memorable dinner table banter with a skilled deipnosophist in the form of myself calling the shots, games that we used to play such as Rummy, Scrabble or Mastermind which weren’t touched for years, and newly cultivated fitness fads that had become part of our daily routine in the lockdown period. To boot, it was one of those rare stretch of weeks where I paid very little from my pocket for running the household, which facilitated a tidy accumulation of reserves in my bank account and most importantly, despite our best intentions to partake in the household chores, we didn’t break much of a sweat as we had ample help around the house – My father, my brother and I took the onus of procuring all essentials for the house, I helped with the laundry, whereas my wife and mother managed the household chores of cooking, utensil washing, sweeping and floor mopping (since we deemed it too risky to avail the services of our housemaid) with a bit of help from everyone chipping in from time to time. In short it was a rather comfortable setup, but deep down I knew all these fancy perks would come to an end sometime sooner than later. Which is why when the government announced the resumption of flight services, despite the huge risk of travel, I flirted with a major gamble, and booked a flight to get back to the environs of my Hyderabad home. My decision was eventually vindicated as thankfully neither my wife nor I contracted this debilitating virus.

Now having made ourselves at home, a difficult decision had to be made – how do we split the household management? We were pretty used to having the cook and maid help take a huge weight off the management of the household chores. The apportioning had to be equal and impartial. I, of course offered to take the ownership of groceries procurement/shopping and laundry management, as I am the more outdoorsy person, but I knew that simply wouldn’t cut enough mustard. My wife being a stickler for cleanliness, wasn’t too keen on handing over the reins to me in the floor sweeping and mopping departments, knowing jolly well that I would do an awful job at it. Considering that I was anyways neck deep in capacity planning work, if capacity is what I plan, she was good enough to take on bulk of the heavylifting, leaving me to gleefully lap up the less strainful of the lot. Well with the addition of one little thing, which I almost forgot - Washing Utensils. Little did I know, what I signed up for!

Washing utensils is a simple skill really that just needs a delicate pair of hands, and some finesse in your fingers. You first bathe the piece of chinaware with running water, then daub it with a bit of washing soap, and then massage its predominantly steely structure for a few seconds, and then again bathe it in water before you drop it off into a basket. Repeat this ritual over and over till you finish all the utensils.

I must admit, the initial days of this task wore me out, as I had no prior experience in this endeavor. Thanks to the flexibility of my schedule I could always pencil in a 45 minute slot between 10 PM and Midnight, but my approach to this hour of drear was marked with an air of significant lassitude. The repulsive sight of overflowing vessels plonked up the sink gave me the daily dosage of nocturnal blues.

My start in this undertaking was not very successful either. Neither would, my timeliness or my adeptness at wielding the culinary weapons, have qualified as a hissing and byword. If I were to describe my initial performance with an arresting one-liner, ‘Making a mockery of the crockery’ would be a fitting critique! Within the first week, I broke the handle of a tea pot and two plastic spoons, while giving them an intense scrub. During the second week, too much of soap application caused the cooker to slip from hands and break on its head. During the course of the third week, I shattered my wife’s prized glass soup bowl, nearly causing her a fit of apoplexy. In short, within one month, there were a handful of mutilated goods that had been defenestrated, and my wife said she regretted ever having asked for my favor and I was nearly forbidden from entering the kitchen, during the witching hour of the sink!

But I persisted. We Bharadwajs belong to a spirited clan. Of what use is a man of grit and gumption, if he can’t get a grip on a vessel or two! It was a rejuvenated Nikhil, who squared up at the old grind for round number two, albeit this time, with a stratagem. I decided to use music as my companion for the duration of this activity. My idea was that if I were to make a stultifying activity into a more engaging one, I could use a source of divertissement. There, thankfully exists a small pedestal atop the chimney right next to the sink, where I can mount my mobile and also have a good screen view. Having ascertained that it was fit for purpose, I decided to put it to good use.

So began the second innings of my utensil washing sojourn. I re-started the activity with the companionship of my usual playlist which hadn’t undergone much insertions or outsertions since I transferred my favorite songs from my laptop to a newly purchased One Plus 6T a couple of years back - A staid medley of world music – A.R.Rahman Classics, peppy feel-good Kollywood numbers from Harris Jayaraj, Beatles, New Age Albums such as Voyage and Enya, and Indian Fusion/Rock bands such as Agam and Local Train etc. Little did I know, this would bridge the vast chasm of memory lost to the recesses of time and form my re-union with long forgotten music which I last heard in my teens and even before that. I caught up with one of my favorite techno-pop bands Kraftwerk whose tunes I addictedly played on loop (purely going by my parent’s hearsay) when I was a toddler and devoured every single album of my favorite bands - Enya and Massive Attack which we used to listen frequently on long car journeys in my boyhood. I fossicked for my favorite 90’s songs such as Colonial Cousins, Vande Mataram, Deva’s Kollywood chart-busting Gaana songs (some of which are not in Youtube), which stirred up a heady brew of childhood nostalgia. And to top it all, thanks to the effective inveigling of Youtube Recommendations, which the fellows working at it seem to be doing a dashed good job of it, paved way for my bonding with newer genres of music which I socially distanced myself from, despite years of persuasion from friends and cousins! I decided to give Linkin Park, Metallica, Akon and Eminem a try which never caught my attention even two decades ago, when it was a rage with my pals, as I had deemed it to be too philistine for my own liking. My pre-conceived notions finally came to light now, as listening to them, I realized, there was more to it than what met the ear (with a slight tweak of the more acceptable phrase). In all honesty, I enjoyed them and realized that there is a certain meditative cadence about music, which is soothing to the soul, and  acts as a sedative to the fingers that ply the vessels.

It didn’t stop with music. It laid a neat segway into other kinds of informative videos on science, technology, psychology, sport etc. In the four months that have lapsed since then, I have seen atleast 50 insightful Ted X talks on topics such as Increasing Productivity, Creative Writing, Sustaining Relationships, Healthy food habits and lifestyles. I have devoured videos on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data that has always piqued my interest over the last several years, but that remained no more than piqued thanks to my purportedly ‘frenzied’ work life in Pre-COVID times. I have subscribed to several ‘for the most part unbiased’ Youtube channels such as The Economist, Khan Academy, National Geographic Channel, Science Insider, Fire of Learning and many other smaller channels (in both English and Tamil) which have drip fed my thirst for knowledge in a neat manner on various fields across the spectrum such as Politics, Science, Geography, History, Literature etc.

The cliché that ‘The most negative thing about 2020 has been the word positive’ has been employed ad-nauseum and I feel sickened whenever I hear this line. I don’t know how many real tangible positives are there that we could take away this year, but surely there is one according to me, which is the seemingly notional concept of a temporal slowdown. Short of saying the world has ground to a resounding halt, it would be undeniable to admit that there seems to be more time in all our hands. In pre-COVID days, life careened at a dizzying pace, seemingly providing no time for anything outside of the usual fixtures of quotidian life. But now a few useful hours have been reimbursed to the 24-hour circadian rhythm. Of late I have been sleeping for 9 solid hours a day, and have woken up with the insouciance of a man, who knows there is no need to hurry, gladdened by the knowledge that food is a stone’s throw away, and comforted by the fact that there are no physical distances to be covered and the provider of my daily bread - The laptop is at a touching distance. There is suddenly more time to pursue hobbies such as to read books, to take a few potshots at writing the premise for my first novel which never got beyond a few pages or to pick up and polish the short story ideas that have littered my laptop over the years, to do a solid one hour session of Yoga or Walk or to initiate little virtual connects with close friends and relatives across the globe. In short there is a profusion of ‘Me Time’. The concept of weekend has blurred, as all days look pretty much the same (I have time to watch a movie on the morning of a Tuesday, and if needed I could even clock in a couple of hours of work on a Sunday) and as a result, the notional feeling of Monday Blues has also diminished significantly.

To top it all, I owe a little note of thanks to this wonderful little hobby (having accorded it with a well-deserved promotion from a chore) which has wrought about a thirst for knowledge and learning. I no longer view vessels with the weariness of a looming ennui, instead I look upon it as a 45 minute capsule of learning and knowledge enhancement.

Yet another rare benison of a wretched year! So much for a damn virus which research has proclaimed to be ten thousand times smaller than a grain of salt!

The Romance of Geometry

This poem is completely fictive from my perspective and there is not a modicum of inspiration behind it. Even otherwise it is perhaps in one in a billion chances the events transcribed in these lines below may have played out to reality, however I would term this one as perhaps the most outrageously imaginative topic I have ever conceived till date. It is written in the eyes of a mathematics teacher on his nuptial night, who pours his heart to take his newly wed bride on their long life ahead and how they can derive inspiration from simple concepts of geometry. How good or bad it is, is purely left to the reader. Needless to say, the feedback of this poem in particular, amongst all the other ones, is eagerly awaited the most!

Oh my dearest wife!

While the world leaves us in peace

For this one night, let’s put ourselves at ease

Ahead of us lies a long life

So let’s break stereotypes of the nuptial night

Come with me and take flight.

 

Oh my new better half!

You might initially stare at a future bleak

Having plighted your troth to this mathematic geek

And unwittingly ended on the wrong side of an institutional gaffe

But not after you listen to this tune of Poetry

As I will take you into the romance of geometry

 

Do you remember the geometry box?

Of your nostalgic mid-school grades

Yes the very one whose memory never fades

Imagine a version of it more unorthodox

And reminisce its unwieldy contents

We are inasmuch those contents in every sense.

 

With you, the ruler on the chart of fatwas

I ‘the pencil’ will delineate our pathways glittered

And will endeavor to erase out encumbrances that lie littered

On the way. Wisdom shall sharpen the pencil for the canvass

To problems, we won’t remain chained and captive

We will deal them with wit rapier and incisive.

 

There will be times when we protract and contract

For the fickle path demands changing angles

But remember whenever we end up in tangles

We will default to the righteous path and not distract

We shall use integrity - Our moral compass

To cut out our angled paths on the canvass.

 

‘I’ and ‘You’, like legs of the Set Square

Might, at times, clash on views particularly

Polar and may diverge perpendicularly

Let us not forget, in such times of wear and tear

We’ll be bridged by US in the connecting HypotenUSe, in lieu

Of the shorter lone legs ‘I and ‘You’.

 

Let us remain at the center of life’s circle of raging fires

And keep troubles, upheavals and interference

At the maximum possible distance to it’s circumference

We will still be tested with jagged javelins and searing spears

Some will diametrically cut us, some will fly off at tangents

Some will remain internal like a chord, some will come and go like secants.

 

But whatever be the nature of these outrageous arrows

We shall be like the center

And display immaculate moral fiber

Treat with equal composure, both joys and sorrows

The circles may grow in differing radii

But we shall remain strong and govern right in the eye.

 

‘Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing’

Sings the proverbial Bible, but I’ll gently contravene

You aren’t just a thing, you will be my queen

And I shall strive to be worthy of my ring

Let’s treat matrimony as a voyage of discovery

Life shall be good if we toe the dictates of geometry.                                                                                                            

Twin Days are Win Days

As a sequel to the poem – ‘COVID’s Witching Hour’, I try and discuss what a perfect COVID era weekend quarantined at home would look like.

Forty Eight Hours lie ahead,

Precious hours that will never come back.

Life has been scattered off-track,

But I’ll endeavor to use it to my advantage instead.

 

I don’t have plans grandiose,

If grandiose is the word I want.

Lockdown has made home my favorite haunt,

But what I have planned will be far less otiose,

 

Than exertions on a usual weekend which would

Have in Pre-COVID times been unduly

Spent far more wastefully,

Doing me more harm than good.

           

So let’s see what I have billed,

For the best days of the week.

Here goes a sneak peek

Of the schedule I have penciled.

 

Saturday’s dawn has been reserved for Yoga,

An art that was never learnt proper,

Still in process, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

In the weeks to come, I hope to complete this saga.

 

By perfecting the onerous head stand

And champion,

The inimitable poses of crow, peacock and scorpion,

The toughest of the lot in Asana land.

When the mercury will rise,

Heralding the arriving of noon,

The hunger games will begin soon,

And the kitchen shall see a new chef.

 

Dabbling with esoteric recipes at will,

To concoct a Biriyani,

With ingredients zany and style uncanny.

My repertoire will welcome the addition of the culinary skill.

 

As the evenfall approaches,

I will make a beeline to the terrace

And shin up the dangerous

Water tank, unguarded, ignoring reproaches.

 

I’ll immerse myself in the splendor,

The spectacle that a ravishing sunset

Will produce and one that will beget

Darkness, welcoming the full moon which is even grander.

 

As the cool breeze sets in when time turns nocturnal,

Sans pubs and buddies, a solitary guzzle of beers

Fizzle out of bottle, to myself I’ll say cheers.

And then finally indulge in primordial love so eternal.

 

An almost impossible act to cherry-pick,

One fine star from the vast Wodehousean sky

And curl up in its sublime wry

Humor, and get lost in its pages idyllic.

 

With that I hope I will conclude,

A near perfect day, as Saturday

Will segue into its twin-day.

This is what will lie in store for Sunday.

 

The early morning’s toil

Will be for a spot of gardening,

Watering, plant tending

And composting the soil.

 

Add to the pleasurable strain of backs bent

A couple of hours of work done hard

I shall loll in the small patch of greensward

And savor the time well spent.

 

Following an icy shower and quick bite of bread,

I will have time finally to catch up on loads

Of missed Instagram activity and couple of episodes

Of the riveting ‘The Walking Dead’.

 

There is nothing that beats,

The heavenly siesta on Sunday afternoons.

As post-prandial torpor kicks in eftsoons,

I shall clock in a good three hours between the sheets.

 

Yet another evening to drink the dying color burst

Of a retiring sun that will bequeath,

The reins of the sky to the effulgent moon, as it sleeps beneath.

A sight that will never quench this opacarophile’s thirst.

 

As the first drops of Monday Blues trickle,

I will tuck in an early dinner.

A humble meal nevertheless an outright winner,

Such as a bowl of curd rice and lemon pickle.

 

The last activity, as I retire to my room,

Will be a long coming virtual hangout of friends,

From lost halcyon days of college, it’s time to make amends.

Isolation has been made far less painful, thanks to Zoom.

 

COVID-19 has made the smaller pleasures in life,

Visible by what is invisible to the eyes.

And teaches us to spot the blessing in disguise

Even though the outer world is rife with strife.

 

On a note so philosophical, the twin days of peace shall end.

I would have loved the weekend to tarry,

But there is nothing to worry,

For after five days it will knock on the door again my friend!

Breviloquence

Never usually a fan of new year resolutions, I for a change persuaded myself to take upon one at the start of 2020. Having learnt lessons the hard way on many occasions, where usage of words either excessive or inapposite, have landed me in trouble, I decided to make a conscious effort to exercise brevity wherever possible and let my actions do the real talking. The profundity of Thomas Jefferson’s immortal quote – “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do” has been the cornerstone of my life this year, and I must say it has largely held me in good stead so far!

I haven’t taken a New Year resolution

For several years now

All those I took, ended up in dissolution

I reneged on every single one of them, I abashedly avow

 

This time around though, it is quite clear

That I will have to buck the trends

Due to what I have gone through the last year

For my own peace, I aim to make amends

 

As we break into a fledgling decade so young

I will, looking back, readily acknowledge

That, the problem always lied with my tongue

So this shall be my momentous pledge

 

That I shall talk less and more less

I have had too much trouble

Words have plainly added to my stress

Now I pick my pieces up from the rubble

 

It was construed as flattering, whenever I praised

When I spoke with sweet intonations, I was judged pretentious

People however viewed hostility, when my voice slightly raised

As even facts, I pointed out, turned out to be contentious

 

When I attempted genuine criticism

I was chided for being snarky

When I tried to sugar-coat, donning the hat of pacifism

I was asked to abandon the rot and talk turkey

 

I hardly managed to instill

Much impression, managing feeble attempts at humor

Neither did plain Jane talk help, making me run-of-the-mill

Stuff, but I nonetheless drank it all without a murmur

 

This year, I resolve to mellow down my spoken word

Seek I shall, the tempering help of many an experience

A tough task lays ahead, and I hope to continue undeterred

As the theme of my year will be breviloquence

 

I resolve to not fall prey

To any ways, shapes or forms of animadversions

Or unintended bouts of lapsus linguae

Which cause me to cast aspersions

 

Wherever possible, a reverential nod shall suffice

As long it achieves it’s communicational motto

Though it may take people by surprise

Largely to silence, in the coming twelve months, I will kowtow

 

I will largely speak through smiles

And remonstrate through tears

Abandoning my animated reviles

While I shall express only what are truly my arrears

 

Emotions will run high in Twenty-Twenty

But my eloquence I will not fritter

Verbal statements, waiting to be spoken are aplenty

So neither will I turn a quitter

 

I aim to eschew admonishments courtesy free flowing verse

While against no one I hold any malice

I hope to win the world through words succinct yet terse

By spilling a few nectar drops time to time from my golden chalice

 

On paper rather than speech

Through poetry, my pearls of wisdom I will reserve

For this medium is more conducive for my outreach

To people, those who truly deserve

Thought for the Day – Decoding the Argument of Relative Secularism

In the intolerant times we currently live in our country, I have often complained that we are becoming increasingly polar in our attitudes to different faiths. This new culture of othering is extremely concerning to the very idea of India which has always stood as a shining emblem of social and communal harmony. I have lampooned the current ruling dispensation which is effectively championing a distorted version of Hinduism and Hindutva which is merely a political doctrine that is deeply imbued in an ethno-centric, illiberal and bigoted version of an agglomerative, flexible and inclusionist religion. One of the greatest religions known for its acceptance and capaciousness to accommodate differing views of spiritual beliefs, Hinduism has been narrowed down to a re-fashioned virulent avatar, which goes against the very ethos of pluralism and diversity whose cause it has so eloquently espoused for millennia.

Almost immediately after I have uttered thus or words to the above effect, the immediate rejoinder that follows, from friends and relatives whose views have changed colour in recent years and who now sport a firebrand version of themselves, is a pathetic hate-spewing diatribe -  “If you were a Muslim in Saudi Arabia and if you said similar about Islam, you would be tried guilty of Haraam and subjected to one of the most inhumane form of death – A blood-curdling decapitation in broad daylight in the Deera Square of Riyadh to enthrall a blood-thirsty crowd that would throng to catch hold of the spectacle. Instead we tolerate anyone who insults Hinduism, including Hindus like you. This should tell you how secular we Hindus truly are. We are several times more secular and tolerating of such open blasphemy, than the Abrahamic faiths.”

My rejoinder to that:

Firstly it is a shame that you would term the democratic questioning of the most perverted version of Hinduism which has been fanned by you as blasphemy. In reality it is folks like you that have been perpetrating blasphemy by going against the very constructs that undergird the greatness of our religion.

Secondly, let us for the sake of reasoning hypothesize that I have indeed been blasphemous. Here is my response:

Consider two students, let’s give them names – Shiva and Ahmed. Shiva has been the perennial topper of his class and has been acing all his exams with 95+ scores. Ahmed is a relatively less bright student, who has been notching up 50’s and 60’s but has never been able to better these scores.

However in recent months, we have been witnessing a new trend. Shiva has been keeping bad company, and his distractions have paved way for a drop in his scores to the early 90’s, the 80’s and in the most recent exam he hit a record personal low with a score of 70. Ahmed continues to languish in the 50’s and 60’s.

The rational argument that spouts forth is - Will a good teacher, be more concerned with the drop in scores of Shiva or will she continue to train her efforts on Ahmed whose scores are inferior but more consistent. Or to reframe it better, will the teacher merely derive satisfaction that Shiva’s scores despite plummeting are still above Ahmed’s or will she be focused on efforts to improve Shiva’s performance to get back to his ‘A’ Game?

Think about it.

The Trinity

Written in one of my sombre moods when contemplating life. Honestly there isn’t much to add to what spiritualists and great texts of wisdom handed down to us over the ages have conveyed that in life, the ultimate truth is death.

Birth

Here we cry

Exiting the womb

To herald our arrival

As the world’s new guest

Clasped in maternal warmth

Embraced in tight grasps of love

Unblemished life, waiting to be blotted

 

Life

Here we try

To make a mark

Treading the measure

On thin borders of morality

To carve a purpose for existence

Finally, making peace with ultimate fate

That in the game of life, death is the winner

 

Death

Here we lie

Taking retirement

From a job held too long

The ultimate freedom beckons

As we unite with the ineffable truth

Our body is pulverized into sombre ashes

The soul transcends into an ethereal oblivion

P.T. Period

Nostalgic memories came gushing forth when I wrote this poem. I was in an instant transported back to the hallowed portals of my high school and its fusty classrooms. It also brought back memories of the pressure and competition of board examinations, which till date is regarded as one of the most important rites of passage for students by parents, teachers and students themselves alike. During those days, the only relief from constant studies was the solitary hour of leisure called P.T. Period where we could unwind with sports and games. Even these were robbed many a time by teachers in what were infamously regarded as sheer acts of sadism, masqueraded under the pretext of finishing portions.

Afternoon. Quarter to Two.

The second half of the antepenultimate period,

Was easing to closure.

 

The subject in question was Civics.

Boring and listless in itself,

Further added to the drear caused by the teacher,

Who babbled Federalism, Secularism,

And the four pillars of democracy,

In a somnolent voice, akin to lullaby.

 

As minutes trickled down the clock,

Which now announced the time as five minutes to half past two,

The drooping eyes and comatose bodies,

That lay seated in files of benches in 10-B,

Slowly began to come to life.

 

The P.T. Period, was finally here.

The one hour saving grace of the week.

The solitary hour of escape,

From the confines of merciless schedules

Of board exam year.

 

The window was open for catharsis.

A temporary one though,

To flex the muscles,

And to forget the tensions rendered by

Piled up studies and academic rat races,

Late night toil and burn of the midnight oil.

 

The insipid book and notebooks,

Were put away in the bag,

Much to the chagrin of the teacher.

 

The last benches were now buzzing with activity.

Tough boys split teams for the cricket and football.

The girls, even the bookish nerds, were whispering plans

Of Tennikoit and Throwball.

The middle benchers who had dozed off

Like wilted flowers arose as if watered.

 

The bell rang sharp at Two Thirty.

The boisterous class dismissed itself,

And was preparatory to leave the room.

 

When in entered a hard boiled battle-axe,

Nodding to the outgoing teacher.

 

The woman of science thus spoke the dreaded words -

“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

The boards are just 3 months away.

So I am taking the P.T. Periods to finish portions.”

 

For about five seconds, the exasperated class froze in horror.

Then the dung hit the ceiling.

 

“Ma’am!!!” “Please Ma’am!!!” the front bench girls squealed.

“Ma’am!!!” “We need a break!!!” begged the middle-benchers.

“Ma’am!!!” “This is killing us!!!” appealed, both in unison, to better senses.

The last bench toughies didn’t speak, but belched uncouth noises,

Whistled and hooted like owls, with a few thumping the tables.

 

After fifteen seconds of mutiny,

The science teacher, hit back with equal measure.

Banging the duster against the table three times,

Spoke in a stentorian voice -

“That’s enough. P.T. Periods can wait but portions can’t. We are already behind schedule.”

 

The voices subdued.

The teacher took chalk in hand, turned her back and moved to the board.

 

The voices began gathering steam again,

The teacher swiveled around and quelled the rumble.

“Shush. I said that’s enough!

One more word and that’ll be it.

Turn to page number 230.

Today we will cover Chapter-11: Body Health – Nutrition and Fitness.”

 

“Priyanka”, she pointed out to her pet student.

“Can you read out loud the first paragraph?”

 

“Yes Ma’am.”

 

“Physical health is very important for the body. Regular exercise and physical activity like running, cycling, swimming, Yoga and other sports helps strengthen muscles and bones.  It improves respiratory, cardiovascular, and overall health….”

 

Travesty Called Sancti‘Money’

A vast majority of Indians seek succour in a supernatural force widely termed as ‘God’. Including myself for the record. But why God-men? Why do we need an anchor that channelizes a path for us to access our creator, when we have HIM readily accessible everywhere? While history has handed down few great examples of well-meaning saints who have truly embodied the spirit of spiritualism and more importantly dedicated their lives to the service of humanity, a large number of present day so called self-proclaimed godmen continue to exploit the latent insecurities and vulnerabilities of many of my compatriots. Many of these men who have successfully cracked this model run large business enterprises paraded in the name of the godhead. A larger part of this conversation is explored in an another poem which can also be viewed in these archives – ‘The God Business’

The godman walked in

Escorted by his sycophantic claque

As the auditorium bursting at the seams

Fell into pin drop silence.

 

The coterie climbed up

The dais and the godman

Was helped to his throne

As he ensconced himself in his seat of poise

 

A girl came up

And invoked the divine

With a recitation

Of well-rehearsed shlokas

 

Having prepared the audience

The godman started

“Today we are here to teach

You the ultimate secret to happiness”

Instilling a frisson of hope in

The miserable masses seated affront

 

“Money isn’t everything.

It is the root cause of all evil

Here in the pristine precincts of this ashram

We will take you on the path

To reach exalted state of the ultimate realization

That money is the last thing you will need”

 

“When you die,

Will you carry the millions you made?

Or the homes you built?

Or the land you bought?

Or the materialistic pleasures that weared

You out all your life?”

 

“Make peace with your fellow humans.

Shed your materialistic dispositions.

Forgive.

When your mortal remains

Enter the graveyard,

Only your name, your thoughts, deeds,

Will accompany you on your farewell journey”

 

“In this course you will be taught

How to decouple money from your life

And shed aside the avarice of materialism

By the end of the week, you will be taught

To regard money and materialism as

The 2 goal posts of Suffering

And surely no more”

 

And with stereotyped and over-wrought

Platitudes of bed not buying sleep

Food not buying hunger

Clock not buying time

And the likes

The soi-disant godman bored on and on and on

 

The benighted crowd listened with messianic zeal

With five minutes to go,

As the strategically timed hour rang in

The claque shimmered down and split themselves

To cater to each aisle in the throng

Handing out neat glossy brochures

Of what the camp entailed -

 

Pictures of the ashram, a promising schedule of lectures

Shlokas and a strict diet regimen

Marketed by embellished words

Calculated to inveigle the wariest of

The hoi polloi

 

On the last page of the brochure

In words that neither blared nor were hidden

Text of an unsuspicious font said

“The duration of the rejuvenation camp is Fifteen days

It starts on the 15^th and ends on 29^th May”

3 hours in the morning everyday”

From 6 AM – 6PM, Saturday and Sunday

“Early bird registrations last till May 7^th”

Camp fees - Rs. 50000/- only.

Extra donations for the noble cause are most welcome”

 

 

 

Douse

An expression of solidarity with one of the most stigmatized groups in our society. Transgenders don’t need sympathy. They need respect and deserve to be treated as equals as much as you and me. Having said this it is oxymoronical that I feel the urge to take out money and give when they come demanding for it, as that is not an action of equal treatment. But by not doing so tantamounts to disdain and abject neglect of the third gender. The poem is latent with pain and remorse of the way we have treated our conspecifics for millennia. With hope for a better world where they get their due respect in all walks of life.

 

A familiar sound produced by

Two clapping hands,

Shook us from the reverie

Into which we had fallen,

Thanks to the soughing melody of the Express train.

 

This time instead of pretending to be asleep,

I welcomed the stranger with a smile

And thrust the first note, I could get hold of

When I reached my shirt pocket.

 

I smiled as she blessed me

Well built, dark and swarthy

Nature’s beautifully carved unique product

Not a mistake emanating from God’s laboratory

But an experiment, mistakenly interpreted

And punished by his less worthy creations.

 

The least I could do was to

Pay a token of the indemnity

Long deserved by this neglected society

If not condemn exactly

The discrimination that her conspecifics

Had to endure since millennia.

 

Pouring a pail of water won’t

Entirely douse the ocean of fire

A conflagration of stigma

That we lit up to burn

These unfortunate beings

 

But I hope every drop will matter.

COVID’s Witching Hour

With the COVID pandemic having convulsed the globe this year, many like myself are still coming to terms with the new norms of life that have been imposed upon us. For an outdoorsy person such as myself, the quarantine period has taken a big toll. I still tend to take the optimistic view that we should soon conquer this debilitating virus, however more importantly the life lessons it has given us are worth pondering and introspecting.

I try to engineer the slightest excuse

To wander outside

 

Exploring well-rehearsed excuses

And errands that I have refused to perform

In all these years

Take grocery shopping for example

 

Whenever I step outside,

A flex board outside

With letters emblazoned in alarming red

Blare – “Stay Home. Be Responsible.”

 

My conscionable self-retreats home-ward

But my heart isn’t appeased

 

My fidgety fingers and shuffling feet

Need action

 

The house, feels like a prison cell

The same four walls that guarded and nurtured me for 3 decades

Arrest my presence

 

I switch on the TV in sheer boredom

There is only one thing being talked

 

News channels, sports channels, vernacular programmes,

Hackneyed soap operas all are centered

On one grotesque theme -

The theme of the hour

The idiot box is gravid

With COVID-19

 

Death, doom and destruction

Foretokenings and instructions

Are all that are being purveyed

 

I switch off the TV and head back into the bed room

Scrolling down, the over-wrought mobile

For new sources of divertissement

 

The Instagram memes are only a temporary pain-killer

Facebook has been employed ad-nauseum

I need one ultimate cure, a panacea

To wash away the ennui

 

Till the time we can step our toes

Into the waters of normalcy

 

Till the time we can proclaim

The sky is ours again

 

Till the time

Life becomes life again

 

Till then we will do what we can

Contribute in the slightest possible way

To tear away the pandemic nets

That have been cast upon us

 

Corona is basking in it’s witching hour

But this too shall pass

We will do what is in our power

To end this impasse

 

 

Pluviophile

As many would readily admit, one of life’s sound pleasures is to wake up on an early rainy morning, with the intention to head outside for the much disliked yet indispensable routine of exercise, and find a genuine excuse handed on a platter to go back to sleep.

Nimbus Clouds in the morning,

Mask the touch of the sun.

The gargle of the sky stirs me up,

Pipping my alarm to the waking post.

But this time I don’t clear my misty eyes.

 

Deliberately avoiding instinct,

I walk up to open the windows,

To see the sheeting rain,

Clattering on the window panes.

 

As the algid wind blows in,

I turn my eyes towards you.

You, who lies in deep slumber,

Dreamless like a baby.

It would be a sin to shatter

Such tranquility.

 

Every morning we find an excuse,

To resist waking up.

But still do by virtue of quotidian discipline.

But today my girl,

An excuse is knocking at the door,

And waiting to be availed.

An excuse to renege on our morning promise

Of sauntering out for our brisk spiritual constitutional.

 

I draw up the blinds, and close the curtains,

And tune down the sound of growling rain into

Loving whines.

 

I tuck in between the sheets,

And switch off the alarm clock,

A few seconds before it tinkles out

Its rousing summons.

 

I place your arms on my chest,

And close my weary eyes,

Letting the soporific pill

The somniferous rumbling of distant thunder,

Lullaby us,

As I slither back,

To join you in the Arms of Morpheus.

 

 

Tombstone Piledriver

Much of my early teen years were spent lapping up every minute of post-school WWE entertainment on TV with relish. Those were the days when the matches broadcast on Smackdown, RAW and Heat were the subject of hotly contested school debates, passionate adulation of our favorite stars, and animated card games. ‘Chest 57 inches, clash!’ Does it ring a bell somewhere!?

It took several more years when the ultimate truth dawned upon me that the entire farce was a neatly packaged dose of entertainment rigged from the very start, its organizers were shrewd businessmen and the stars themselves were excellent actors.

One of the few greatest thrills,

Of our juvenescent boyhood,

Was primitive yet iconic.

 

The ‘Deadman’ wakes up alive from the coffin.

The ‘Caverner from Death Valley’

7 foot monster, whose eyes

Blares death and destruction.

 

He pulverizes the opponent,

Picks him up with ease,

Inverts him,

And locks his head between his knees.

 

Sends flames shooting out of his eyes,

With a death stare.

Bang!

Tombstone Piledriver!

 

Epic commentary ensues.

The Undertaker’s Dead Man Walking theme

Reverberates around the stadium,

As waves of frisson ripples through the spine.

 

A classic 90’s kid’s moment of thrill,

When we believed, all that

Precipitated on the great stage of WWE.

Was real, unplanned and not show business.