It's a rapidly greying, gloomy world
and the Lord has to hide and peep
through a hole
to spot any trace of truth and honesty
that may be lying around.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Saturday, May 31, 2025
My poetry books
The Oasis Hunter
In an enthusiastically absurd world, why not be a peace laureate, a poet? Walking on a solitary trail, away from propagandist overtones, luminously imaginative, enjoying the regaling vocal varieties of bird songs, hewing his own convictions, reverentially visionary about the religion of love, flowing with the meticulous splurge of emotions.
A poet is a poorly clad rich man laden with inner wealth. A golden lamp in a thatched hut.
There was a time when even the brightest flicker of optimism inside him ruled out the possibility of redemption. The waves of fate spared no pains to land him at a lonely, wretched shore. It’d take loads of pain to arrive at the littlest gain. It felt like he’d just followed a futile circle—returned to his idiotic basics. A nihilistic romanticism. A shipwrecked piece at the freewill of chance, tossed by salaciously flowing freeways of stormy waves.
The storms churning in his soul make him a poet. Mystically enriched. Richly resonant with the hymns of love and peace. In tune with regaling restfulness. From his basket of agonies now he draws out ecstasies. Crossing the desert he now arrives at his oasis. He has taken long-long routes to sandy failure. Success and failure lose their meaning. The golden sands—that’s his oasis. It’s pure karma. He gets in splendid unison with the constructive spirit.
The Shape of My Love
The Shape of My Love invites readers on an introspective journey through the myriad emotions that define the human experience. Spanning themes of love, loss, and the eternal rhythms of nature, these verses by Sandeep Dahiya (Sufi) resonate with profound depth and lyrical grace.
From the tender exploration of love's many facets to the poignant reflections on heartache and resilience, each poem in this collection offers a glimpse into the complexities of human relationships. Nature serves as both backdrop and metaphor, from the solitude and pain of ‘Lonely Trees’ to the majestic presence of ‘Mountain Eagle,’ mirroring the joys and sorrows inherent in life's journey.
Through verses that contemplate existence itself—its fleeting moments and enduring truths—the poet captures the essence of being human. Themes such as renewal in ‘Spring’ and the melancholy beauty of ‘Dying Leaf’ evoke universal emotions that resonate deeply with readers.
The book is a testament to the power of poetry to illuminate the soul, offering solace, insight, and a profound connection to the shared experiences that bind us all. With exquisite imagery and emotional resonance, Sandeep Dahiya (Sufi) crafts a collection that speaks directly to the heart, inviting readers to pause, reflect, and find beauty in life's most profound moments.
The Lust of Life
Plato: “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” And as love caresses you, you are supposed to turn a poet. And your life a poem. A life lived poetically nourishes your soul. The prose approach to life is simply to earn the conveniences to support you materially. The brushstrokes of poetry softly touch the soul without disrupting its restful muse and bring out the nuggets of love, compassion, harmony and peace. If you are poetic in nature, you have the potential to be anything because all these elaborate extensions of your life, your dreams, your professional and personal goals, your milestones, the world around you, all these and more are nothing but a reflection of that poetic pure seed.
The Kashmiri Girl
Most of these poems were written during the turbulent twenties of my life. In the early twenties, one is pursued by the glorious uncertainties of life. It’s a slippery, exciting and critically opinionated path. Don’t worry, it’s just a surge of extra energy, nothing else. The stage is shaky and realities are yet to get a foothold. You trample a lot of turf like a young colt spraying legs in all directions and galloping just for the sheer causeless fun of it. Of course, there are consequences but they hold their miserable importance in the eyes of the elders only. To the youngsters they are just irritable speed-breakers on the thrilling path. One’s hormonally buzzing self floats in a hazy mist of unripe, raw, juicy, sweet-sour tart of dreams and imaginations striking the moron mass of established norms. The hormonal-storms-fuelled beliefs, views, opinions and dreams create sparks and sometimes thunderstorms. Nothing wrong with that! That’s all part of our making. It’s a pretty noisy and shaky groundwork born of your ‘making’ that provides a bit of stability later in life. Ask anyone, most of us are very lenient and forgiving towards our youthful gallops even if these have given us many bruises after the hard falls. We wear them with pride like the symbols of our reaching the peak of the mountain.
Chimp, Champ and Chops
Holy Harlots
Holy Harlots is a rippling bouquet of emotions and heart-felt songs which have been the poet's companions during the toughest phase in his life. Most of these have been written in the charming countryside of the poet's native place at a small village in northern India. The poems try to capture the softest nuances of perceptible and imperceptible naturalities against the background of human trials and tribulations. The verses chime with an enamouring softness of the heart which sound Godsent against the present times viciously self-obsessed noise. The poems are exceptionally laced with silent spiritual reflections over the comforting quietude and teasing tranquility of the countryside. These simple swathes of aesthetics take the reader to a slow-paced world...far, far away from the 'maddening crowd'!
Lovebites
Without the seed of poetry there won't be any prose. Just like without the tiny seed there won’t be a tree. The canopy, the full foliage of the tree, is just an extension of the dream lying with its realistic potential inside the small seed. The elaborate network of trunks, branches, twigs, flowers, fruits and leaves is nothing but a commentary on the small poetic seed. So all ye wannabe writers of a good life story, nurture the poet in you, who understands the value of pause in life, who moves slowly to watch everything, sight and smell everything. Whose senses are open to the inclusive interplay of wonderful harmonies of the supreme song, the universe, the one song.
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Twilight
Twilight
When there is just enough dark
to hide the light;
and just enough light
Stand there, dear,
in the twilight
to feel the fragments
swimming in a grand totality;
to peek into the endless existence
from the little window of your being;
to feel the grandeur of cosmic freedom
from the toe-hold of your organized slavery.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
The silver lining
Never lose your trust
in light,
It might be
temporarily out of sight,
While you are
caught in a situation tight,
But it's always seeking you
to giver your heart full delight;
to help you fight
when even the stars
went out of sight;
when in the dark
the fears came with demonic hark,
Never lose hope
in the shining lark.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Sunday, April 6, 2025
The rainbow in a stormed sky
Brave and foolish youth,
The sun-baked verdance of
curiosity,
The moth, the flame, the
burning,
The rain of passion,
A riotous blizzard of
emotions,
But the storms die,
The clouds get empty,
The skies clear,
Leaving a brief rainbow
behind.
Love is a little arc,
a tiny rainbow,
It’s drawn between two points:
joy and ecstasy at one;
The book of silence
A little sad smile
that briefly dispelled the
dark
like a lamp does with
enlightening hark,
Then it vanished,
But in that brief light,
I read the book of pain in
her eyes
written in a strange
language.
It was just that little
smile
that connected him with
the stranger,
There wasn’t anything to
say,
It wasn’t required in
fact.
A suitable time
It was the time to
unlock the fears lodged in
my guts,
and get in step with the
chaos of life;
to take slander, gossip
and mockery
as relevant and lofty as the
scriptures.
It was the time to
take it as success to be heaved
and propelled by the
current of pain.
It was the time to
take chipped, chaffed,
moth-eaten humanity
as the post-modern
goddess,
and worship her
while wearing clean clothes
outside
and a filthy mind and heart
inside.
It was the time to
be like everyone around,
And be a hunting hound
devouring the rabbits soft
and stay in the highest loft.
It was the time to
keep cupping the ears
to avoid any chance
pick-up of
the upbeat melody of life,
And get used to the
strife.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Miserable by default
Very rarely and very few
get finally really
settled,
We are forever migrating,
We are a jumpy species,
Never on solid earth,
It seems the only inheritable
things are
pain, sorrow and
suffering,
But joy and happiness
we have to create in this
very life,
Nurture as a dream, a
destination
as we move on the
default mode of misery.
Rain in vain
A hardness building up
in the soft, mushy zone
that enveloped us,
And the night even though
aglow with fireflies
lost its charm
like candles going off
when hit by
a howling blizzard.
She was silent outside
but screaming inside,
Crispy above
but pain-roasted below,
Flitting, flirting and
dancing on surface,
but weary and bedraggled
inside,
There we were
forcing ourselves to
assume that
things were normal, even
though
there were many proofs to
the contrary.
There we were
pushing each other
into the pools of pain,
Earlier it was a
joyous jaunt in the rain,
The true pearl
A fragile world we set up
around ourselves with our
dreams,
destinations, envy, hope
and fears,
Then we create a shell of
hate
to keep the pearl of love
in it,
It glitters,
But it isn’t a love-gem,
It’s our hate crystallized
for self-deception.
Love comes with the
inclusion of
more and more around you
into your care,
And in this fertile soil
blooms a flower,--
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Metallic maggots
Mother earth says:
O ye children, give me all
your blood,
gore, filth, garbage,
poison, chemicals,
I’d still give you
flowers, trees, pastures.
A mother can’t stop
giving,
She has to keep giving,
Till her last breath,
Till she perishes.
When the last flower on
earth will die
along with the mother’s
last breath’s sigh,
Her children would then
be replaced by a new
species,--
the humanoid machines
that’ll infest her rotten
corpse,
It’ll be a global grave
swarming with metallic
maggots.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
The pack mule
Sometimes apparent luck
is leading us into bad
luck
further on the way.
Then you realize you have
a mountainously bulky
foolishness
inside your little shallow
brain.
Out of the whirlpool
The more he came to know,
the more he realized
how little he knew her,
It was all there to see
now,
Her pointless rambling
pride,
Concisely pointed
narcissism,
Habitually despondent
demeanor,
Her efficient effrontery,
Swift certain selfishness,
Extensively ornamented
body
covering a poor soul,
Her manners laced with
coquetries and jealousies,
All this he saw now.
Earlier, the whirlpool’s
vortex
sucking, pulling him into
soft languor and pleasure
swoons,
Shaken, swirled by the
eddying currents
now he got spewed out of
the vortex’s pointed base,
Gasping for breath,
he came to the surface
from the edifying depths,
Looked at her with a
frigidly disagreeing look
on his face.
Falling out of love is perhaps
just to know more about a
person,
Maybe we are addicted to
the fall,
And fly just for its sake,
Because, however high a
kite flies,
it still survives by
constantly eyeing earth,
Maybe love also flies
to enjoy its habitual
crash-landing.
Monday, March 24, 2025
The witness box
When you steal
and nobody is watching,
Remember You are there
as the judge and police.
When you tell a lie,
And all believe you with
an ‘aye’,
Remember You are there
standing mute with a cold
sigh.
When you are angry at your
enemy,
And find the cause in your
foe,
Remember You are there
looking at the enemy
within.
There will be a day
when this You in you
will come forward
and make you stand
in the witness box
to turn witness against
yourself.
Don’t meet in the court as
enemies,
Meet You in you
before it’s too late
and die as your own enemy.
A tiny lamp
Go to some little shrine
of love
where even eagles turn
dove,
And light a lamp,
Carry it to your life’s
camp,
Hold it
from the wind’s hit,
Keep it safe, the glow,
The joyous flow,
Walk slow,
Rejoice
this lovely choice.
The creator
Life is a throw of dice,
You have the choice
to aim, roll and throw
with all focus on your
brow,
But the outcome is open
to many probabilities
beyond your control.
Then why should one throw
with so much determination
furrowed on one’s brow?
One should do it,
Because if you just sit
without creating chances
the least bit,
Even the probabilities will
die,
Left you’ll be with a cold
sigh,
When you put your effort’s
stake
that's where all probabilities
and chances
lie in a creative lake.
Your effort is the mother
of the myriads of
outcomes,
They may look beyond your
control,
But you’re in the central
role,--
the shining pole
around which creations
flow
and chancy stars shine,
sizzle and glow.
The winds of change
Mankind’s truth
is a weathercock,
It will swing
to the direction of his
winds of desire, ambition,
greed, hate, anger,
It’ll suitably point to
where it’s desired.
The protagonist
There is a point
when one has to change
from a spectator to a
participant,
And jump onto the stage,
Play, act and sing,
Perform one’s part well.
Not that earlier was no
part,
It was,
But it was too small
for a big character,--
like a spaceship
locked and docked
in its hanger on earth.
The dark-hearted torch-bearer
Sometimes misery sneaks
into
such a secretive corner in
us
that even we can’t see it,
And thinking it to be
gone,
we take a torch
and go seeking happiness
outside,
But we fail,
Wherever we arrive
with our tiny puddle of
light,
darkness jumps one step ahead,
keeping happiness at bay,
It’ll remain so
because we carry
that bubble of misery inside
us
and try to light the
outside world.
Go within,
Look inwards,
Hunt that hiding darkness;
that hidden corner,
The moment
the light of your
awareness
falls on it,
it vanishes,
Darkness bows out,
Then you needn’t run
around
to annihilate the gloom.
Gold
The weighing scale doesn’t
differentiate
between gold and iron,
But the human heart does,
In the human heart
a gram of gold is worth
thousands of green trees,
It’s more valuable than
even many other human
hearts,
The trees can be cut,
Trust broken,
Air polluted,
Earth poisoned,
And souls singed,
All this can be done
to uphold the value of
gold;
to maintain its ruling
crown;
its authority and
superiority
over life, love and smile.
Effortless win
A screw-shaped swirl of
life
taking you in its eddying
grip,
The tourbillion pool of
adversities,
The maelstrom ring of trap
in the stream of your
life,
The ghoulish outfall,
The mouth of misery
pouting to chuck you up,
The overpowering vortex of
uncontrollable
taking you in its
whirlpool.
Fight it on the surface
and it’ll eat your
energies,
Swaying, splashing you
as you try to stay afloat,
It gets a sadistic
pleasure
watching you tossed like
a twig on its eddying
surface,
Don’t allow yourself to be
kicked like a ball on the
surface,
Cooperate with its
screwing drill into its innards,
Dive without resistance,
Its own fury is its
undoing,
You go into its guts,
Your acceptance and faith
it can’t digest,
Your unresisting flow
eats its stomach,
Then it spews you out
of its pointed base in the
depths,
You are delivered
with your energies intact.
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