The Mirror

And wings I had all the way
The skies were always open
The clutter waiting to be cleared
And fetters meant to be broken

The stars always shone upon me
The turbulent rivers on the underside
The madness on a platter of dust
It’s dancing shadow in my mind

And I looked up for omens from angels
And dreamt of greens and greys
Of a spring time in my saddle
In the fleeting moments of the day

And no tiny pearl of wisdom
Poured down the mighty sky
Under the bristling winter leaves
It seemed an endless flight

Till I ran into a mirror
Saw a reflection of my thoughts
And I returned to the child I once was
For then I knew what I had lost

The Selfish Gene

It’s strange, the ways of life. The way we’re brought up with subliminal survivalist instincts bred into us right through our childhood. All those years that we’ve spent seeing people around us bargain. And we learnt to do that too. Bargain with the vegetable vendors and the rikshaw-pullers. Bargain with the innumerable people we meet on the streets to the ones working in our houses, cleaning the dirtiest corners of our homes. We bargain, and stay suspicious and wonder how much they might be robbing us at that moment. Overcharging on a KG of onion or a ride back home or for a month’s house work, within which there were easily 3 more days of absence than had been decided.

All that bargain to save us a tiny fraction of what we would spend otherwise on a dinner at a fine-dine or watching a lame rip-off of an English Hollywood drama. Or even worse, what we would spend on that silk kurta that would hardly ever see the light of the day.

That really does skew my perspective of human generosity. Of all the people, whom we could choose to exploit and bargain with, we choose the poorest. The uneducated ones, incapable of defending themselves and the ones to whom a little extra money would mean a thousand times more than to the owner of my neighbourhood spa.

It’s almost hypocritical. We ask and plead god to give us things and care for us when we cannot care for anyone but us. It’s almost like that advertisement by Naukri.com in which the mistreated employee is complaining to a colleague about his boss and then behaves in the same disrespectful way with the boy serving tea at the road-side shop.
And if it is not the indifference, then only one more reason cold possibly explain this hypocrisy. Our high degree of obtuseness, or ignorance, or both that makes the consequences of our actions oblivious to us.

That most of us in-spite of a relentless debate on sustainability and warnings of energy, food and water shortage, can indiscriminately continue to use and waste resources and not once think about the price that the lower end of the pyramid might have to pay for it. The value of their lives for us must really not even be measurable on the same scale that we use for our regular down-town acquaintances.

All we seem to be doing is caring for ourselves and out of our petty concern for our social needs, doing a little bit for our immediate family and friends. That’s as much as what marginally evolved animal species do. Seems like a rather meaningless way of living, doesn’t it?

Jamboree

The songs of the play-ground
Rise up a knot and drape
This rumbling hoot, weaving
A dream of rhythmic tales

Convinced all frog-kind are princes
He croaks loud to greet the sun
As a marching rabbit, the Mad-hatter
Drops by to wiggle his bum

The play-rules gets more chaotic
They’re seeped in the daytime glee
And commanding the aerial universe
Is the tiny freckled Mr. Bee

The chip and the chipmunk
Both dodge past the hovering pun
The parrot which can’t stop preaching
Oblivious to its unpopular run

Tis a day in the life of a dreamer
Who spins a story as bizarre as this
But it’s all for that playful grin
That I see on your face now, Miss

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Reflection

Down came a tear drop
Rolling on the cheeks
Seeking earth, with it's daunting mirth
That fall was very steep

Out came a timid sigh
Steeped in the wounds of time
All of mankind's casual liberties
Reflecting in his stark decline

All the years of greed and grandeur
That had coloured the life of few men
At the cost of agony to others
And the sparse resources for zen

We used it all and more
We fed ourselves and deprived
All we could, and the earth that stood
A testimony of our false pride

Now the waves wash down the islands
As quakes rock shores and land
The droughts aren't far and few between
And the floods, no walls can stand

And lost is the merriment of autumn
The carnivals of an early shower
The fall hues and the cuckoo
The blossoming of the spring flowers

The many delights that held us
That inspired our muse and our rhymes
They were all the poetry in our lives
Now they fade away sublime

And as much as our heart grieves
The script cannot be undone
Lest, the heart feels guilty
Prudence shall not awaken

Enter, the new decade

A decade of hope, beckons.
A season gone by reckoned.
Time warps can take a rest.
Tis the time to look ahead.

...Happy new year people