Me

Well it has been a bit tough ride so far, but believe me every sweat-lorn step has not been without big-big revealations. The greatness lies not only achieving lofty targets, but in dodging the failure as well. I have been doing it so long that the CONTRADICTORY thorns dividing success and failure have been burnt to give rise to a beautiful rosy realization that only karma, the selfless work, is supreme.

Tauji

Tauji

While the world was lost

     in the frenzied tunes of urban lark,

In the countryside a faint flicker was

     tiptoeing through the dark,

Slowly-slowly the torch

     burnt high and bright,

Dynamic dimensions of its raylets

     woke up the slumberous masses for a fight.

Dignified confidence and exalted impulse

     of light went flunging forth,

Historically harassed and exploited millions

     got fresh hopes in south and north,

Lo! The fringe folks arrived

     at the forefront,

As the brightest star of Haryana

     in the sky brightly burnt.

Tauji, how high and mighty thou were!

     Still so down to earth and simple!

Corpulent informality thine

     brought always a smiling dimple

On every face tormented by

     a worrying wrinkle.

Thy simple soul,

     Always solemnly cuddled into

the paternal throes of composing

lushly-lustrous future

     for each and every one of us,

And when the brightest son of Haryana

     was gone for the eternal sleep,

A scar was created incalculably deep,

     While our helpless sky

fell into a mourning hush.

Still, O Tauji!

     Thy steady and unvacillating goodness,

And that persistently pronounced forthrightness

     will always remain with us

to guide us clear of every trouble's crush,

     Thy enlightening sagaciousness,

And the robust bravado of your heart

     will continue to inspire new green

sprouts in land troubled by thirst.

How fulsome was your love

     for the common people!

How refreshing was your smile's verve!

     Temper so gracefully proportioned

and enchantingly simple!

     How immensely forseeable

was character yours!

     Just like a path straight

and an open book of pleasant hours,–

     Without any twists and turns,

O Tauji great !

Thy large-hearted liberality

     was simply unbelievable,

Sacrificed the Nation's highest post

     without tiniest trace of grumble,

Now, others follow thy legendary step

     and reap the political fruit,

But alas, hear they not

     the cries of masses mute.

Who can forget

     the old-age pension,

Aha, an enormously elaborate

     example of public work !

Gone was crippling old's tension;

     Rhythmically gleaming

smiles now lurk.

O thou farmers' messiah !

     You tactfully removed

the noose of debt from their neck,

     Gave then a

fatherly pat at the back,

     And they – helplessly hemmed in by

the merciless loops of modern banking–

     found utmost solace

in thy patronage loop,

     Heavily indebted backs with a droop

got straightened with pride,

     Launched thou then

a new tirade against hunger,

     New hopes now linger

in peasants' dry eyes of yore,

Opened as thou a new door

     to pride and prosperity.

Mystic subtlety and exuberance

     of thy demeanour,

And freely elaborate freedom

     of the 'human' in you,

Reach O subjects at the King's

     threshold at any hour,–

Aha, no officially reprimanding queue!

Your legacy burning

     like a lamp

in stillest of silence,

     And thy charisma holding

in spellbinding balance,

     While time's arms

swinging helplessly and silently,

     Grows as the great man's

legend almost exponentially,

     Continue it will to

shine as our path's light,

     And we the sturdy sons

will toil to reach the height

     where you wanted us to reach–

A new, fighting determination

     in heart each;

To get the justice

     for everybody wronged;

A new prosperity in homes

     where it never belonged;

For the youths a fresh start;

     Evolve we'll a new art,

Whereby everything is in

     exquisitely fine-proportioned

parallel to your cause,

     Brethren! Let us prove our gratitude

to the man who brought

     in teary eyes a smiling rose.

Long live our

     grand spellbinder's legacy!

God! Let it perpetually

     cut the time's fabric mazy!

The Ever Flying Kite

The Ever Flying Kite

See the kite's sway in the sky:

Papered soul pull for escaping fly,

Corded attachment but to the earthly;—

The life force to its limits finally.

The will of soul for free float,

Alas! Possible only jerks lot,

Till the last drop hot,

The instinct, the desire leaves not.

And the momentary penury released,

As if to get the prisoner appeased,

What a beggar the besieged!

Pious but still teased.

Yes, broken at last! That wondrous free flight,
Alas but until fall for earthly delight.

                           

SPRING SEEDS

⋯and now the April has also gone,

Where are the seeds that I’d sown?

Like a ploughman I worked

in the summer almost melting bones,

Removed the stones,

Rattled which the spirit like someone

caught in desert’s sandy moans.

Then during winter my toil lit up a bonfire

amidst blinding blizzards and nature’s icy deeds,

These were my spring seeds,

embedded, impregnated in earth through my earthy deeds,

Spring seeds meant to

conceive, germinate, grow, ripe, flower and fructify,

But the spring came and went with a sad sigh,

Sorrows in my barren fields hit another high,

My spring seeds thus lost,

And me the farmer standing forlorn

without that harvest of which I used to boast,

Now the scorching May sun

beats down the dusty land with a fiery pun,

Peasant and his field thus stand mute,

Almost complete has’n the plunder and loot,

To gallows was sent my crop,

The hangman just mechanically pulled

the handle at the hanky’s drop,

Efforts’ dead body hangs from that noose,

And even the last strains of

faith, will power and hope getting loose.

People say that too much is my browbeat,

‘Why not clear another stony plot

to get something to eat?’

Perhaps they don’t realize

the blind, illogical passion’s treatise

which I wrote over stones with a pure soul,

Impractical, insane I stand out

with cracks and brain’s hole,

How could I expect fruits from this very plot?

And now I stare at the nullifying dot,

The desert storm meanwhile hisses with its lust hot,

Seeds have most probably been killed,

Aah, with amazing precision

the Goddess of infertility drilled!

While the songs of my fertile efforts in a chorus trilled,

But She has’n successful in its swipe,

Its blinding gung-ho and macabrous hype,

Lolloping its greedy tongue to

dejuice and deflower everything ripe,

Now I lay my back against a

hard, hot, unshaded rock,

My weariness, fatigue and torture

put me in a sleepy dock,   

In that short uneasy sleep

I get some relief from the pain of this injury deep,

A luxuriant crop I see in my dream

and nearby gurgling goes a stream.   

Being with the Self!

I know life has rejected me,
And death when will accept me
that time is yet to be!
Till then, O Sufi, is there any light to see?
Yes fella! 
It's in being with those who have been discarded by fate,
Who have laboriously scrawled and scribbled lifelong
but still have a clean slate;
It's in smiling with innocent dawns;
It's in basking in the sunny charms of forlorn lawns;
It's in the faded twinkle of distant stars;
It's in saying goodbye to the intrigues of my own internal wars;
It's in being with me,
And the way it is, let it be!

Self-defined World

The Spring's traces last,
Hot summers approaching fast,
Languid notes in the air,
A solitary bird's forlorn chirping for musical share,
Drowned in stillness
this late morning bright and fair, 
Sky's dull blue,
Overhanging the earth in paling hue,
But a smaller world is there,
The overall lethargy cannot reach where,--
In its self-defined world
in a corner tiny,
The luscious wild flower
still stands brave and shiny!

Hope Melting out of Frigidities!!

There is light beyond the deepest dark depth,
There is a bright day after the ghostly haunts of nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight there is a blossomed springed delight,
After pining pangs of seperation there is a worthy end to the desperation, 
After crashing in the gutters there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips, a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last deafeat, still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair, there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate love still lurks somewhere!!!!

Dark Shades Under Light

It has been months since 
I last lit my faith's lamp,
So many days have passed since
prayers chimed in my dark den's air damp, 
My meditating self,
Now gives atheistic yelp.
Lost my faith!
Lost my prayer!
Lost my rituals!
Lost my meditative trance!

Dark Shelter

Too far and deep I have gone into the pit of gloom,
And lost in the cavernous folds of the impending doom,
Even the brightest big suns now appear too far,
Faint stars these now and just flash their inspiring rays,
Feeble raylets reaching me cannot take out the ship caught in treacherous bays,
I know the futility of the beckoning light,
Even in its brightest folds outside, hope was always out of sight,
Now i go deep into my night,
With nobody as a witness to my plight,
All cherished dreams out of sight,
A wingless bird that tried to fly but then crashed from its struggled height,
Now I just silently walk into the dark hold of my night,
Alone
and forlorn,
Musicity of my soft moan,
Carrying me into hitherto unreachable zone!

Frozen Rose

Life

It is good that

we must cultivate dreams,

But most often

man’suncertainty and destiny’s certainty screams

to shatter them to pieces.

We, though must hope

to evade the deadly anchor’s drop,

It is our futile, and not so futile, duty to

carry the life’s ship through heaving waves,

Wonderful! So many winds one braves!

Like smoldering coal in the hull

the passion ever craves,

The tiny flicker braves

against the mightiest swathes of stormy dark,

Storms, meanwhile, play against the timber strong,

In the wooden frame, but, many dreams throng,

And enjoy the journey, though, unfinishable and long!

Time’s worms eat the timber,

And stealthily doth eventuality limber,

to sneak through the destiny’s holes,

Longly piled up agony of the storm furiously rolls,

Carried thou so far and wide;

tattered are those soles.

We carry a mountainous bulk of hopes

encased in some ash and tear drops,

How meticulously time thrashes its harvest,--

From buxom ripe fruits

it reaps only peelings and stones,

From life’s crop

death reaps only the lifeless drop,

The majestic reaper

wants but few grains of soil

from all the juicy, lifeful, thriving tissues.

Still, we have to live

and we need to hope

till that final mop,

We know that the slate will be

cleaned up after all,

But we have to play our part in life’s ball,

For crammed will be the hall

tomorrow as well,

When in other bodies life will dwell.

Whom Should I Blame?

What we do and what we don’t,--

May be it is our choice,

ormay be the hands of providence

guide or misguide?

Don’t know

whether it is our action’s rejoice,

or partisan fate’s prejudice?

Stealthily we try to ensure

the credit for the good falls in our own bag,

And if things go wrong

our stage-manages throng

to put all blame on the old hag.

Whatever we may think of ourselves,

We’re, but, the good- or bad-chanced kids

of the parental—earthly and other worldly—topsy-turvies,

If not so,

What person is there to wish

directly his doom;

Which life’s light voluntarily seeks

to be extinguished to gloom?

Still—less directly and more indirectly—many

against their will are brought to the wrong end,

Where the expected destination

does not exist not even its name;

Where the undoing swiper chuckles in all its fame,

And the half-willed animal

gets tethered to a peg for a chained tame,

Then follows the great game,

Many try to put each other to blame.

It is but a futile mockery,

Mere verbosity cannot bust

the secret of that trickery.

Ever-lorn to justify ourselves,

Many-a-time we put the blame

squarely on destiny’s elves,

saving just digestible morsels for ourselves,

And feed mammoth dose of

unwanted garbage to the uncomplaining lady.

What does it matter

if the blame lies with us

or it is borne by the

speeding wheel’s crush,

The loss, after all, is a loss,

Whoever is the causing boss.

To me, either both of us go scot free,

Or both are put under the accuser’s glee!

Victory

O thou poor lady of rich virtues

and big but spent eyes,

Thy rosy, soft, tempting lips

bear the blood-drawn scar of a

timeless, incessant, ever-greedy, lusty kiss;

On your fair cheek, tireless pursuer’s mouth;

Muck with saliva and pitiless, sadistic hiss;

Your majestic head,

heavily diamonded with uncountable,

innumerable, romping homes and wins;

Smartly, smirkly are tied under this crown,

thy mercilessly, heedlessly, heartlesslytresses

tamperedby the fingers committing sins;

Thy firm, upright breasts have been

bobbed to excitement so many times

that stonily they no longer feel the lover’s lick,

They now feel the pathetic kid’s sickly blood-suckling.

I wonder after so many love-romps, intercourses,

love-makings, rapes, smotherings and sex games

—the victories—

what thoufeel in the area of focus of such tireless passions!

Is it still the titillating sexual ecstasy,

or every endeavor is as repulsive

as the stealthy, predatory approach of a cowardly hyena?

Thou were once the Goddess of the realm of

commitment, excellence and diligent striving-forths,

But for thousands of years,

wars were lustily ravaged against thy beautiful body

and thy blissful skin was bombarded with

human passions and pestilence.

If the lofty destination all but becomes

finalsteps of the mucking path,

Mud will definitely clung at its own apron,

As the stained devotee falls at its feet

after all those gutted baths,

And in its insurmountable helplessness

the Goddess of yore has been turned into a prostitute,

Though they still worship it in its oldphysical avatar,

But that soul banished and left destitute,

The herculean endeavors and efforts

of these throbbing masses

go on squeezing from all sides,

Thou in a tight corner,

Dressless and pitted against the wall;

Only that small, soft hand hides thy honor,

Thy Godly spirit now driven back to the

edge of a fearsome precipice,

Thou are no longer the Queen,

for thy own fate seems

worth decidable by the throw of a dice.

The poor lady now stands all exhausted;

Tattered, battered, bruised at the lowest tide,

The most coveted, prized virgin

now sulks like a dejuiced, unsuitable fruit

ready and waiting to give its stone and hide,

What can I get from thou O poor lady?

Thy treasure trove is all but famished now,

You are left with just

monstrously compromised Satan’s diamonds,

Even my beautifully courting pursuit

will seem a poor robbery and loot,

So here I step aside

from the blood- and treachery-rutted path,

and think of some long-drawn, circuitous path

that can take me

—after a life-long hard-worked journey—

to an isolated place

that may provide me thy pure, unstained sight!