Humane is My Village

 

The air is laden with cooperation,

No thorny apathy;

No mob to throng the cornered self,

And murderous individualism axing hearts,

Here, we have a mixed self: the kind behemoth.

 

Neither bucolic love and unity whole,

Nor nucleated as in concrete jungles;

Limited is the spectrum; holds which

tender human bond still strong, and

live we all in slow majesty of decent unconcern.

 

The hunger and thirst for electricity and water,

Though dents the moral fabric a bit,

But in patience and forbearance the real self prides—

To bear all hardships and deprivations;

And adapt to disadvantages all.

 

The people still carry habits, conventions old,

Burdened further by the stuff new,

Still, carry they the rusted self with rural pomp,

Habituated to ignore and move on,

Veneers which as rough pride of the ruralites.

 

The commuters to the city carry old bags,

Hoping to fetch something new,

The very same villagers still they are

whose rough-hewn character

breathes with unease in the city big.

 

Still able to smile and laugh,

Holding a big open heart

in its tanned, work-beaten, hairy chest,

Priceless it is for the modern world,

Very few as there are places such.

Friendship Unsocial

 

A lot of relations throng,

God creates some,

Draw we some in the social garb,

But nothing relates humans,

as does friendship divine.

 

Lynched by formality is this world,

For nothing is society but rules of convenience;

The individuals form society by

becoming ceremonious, social to all,

Doctrined are thus the relations here.

 

But, friendship evades laws,

Most informal as it is,

Sheds away all cautioned, decorated self;

Enlarges the individual’s scope with soul freed,

Suffocated who earlier with the chained self.

 

All behave stilted, skewed here,

Some for their own greed,

Also, some for others’ harm,

Thus framed in cunningness becomes each,

As nothing else is society.

 

But friends share all,

Break they walls of social norms and etiquette,

Multiplies individuality to

become a spacious whole,

Ethereal is this ‘unsocial’ supplement.

 

Many envy the enhanced persona;

Individuality lost among the friends,

But, the enlarged self never

goes astray; such is

friendship, fracturing formal rules.

Live Bright in Dark

 

Dream it was, happened

between conscious and unconscious,

Lost I was in gloom, but

made it the flaccid self alive,

Passing was the night and

lying I was, stretched piteously.

 

Weak to the extreme;

Lined horizontal I was and dormant,

Existed so low, puny and dwarf,

But raised it me, telling

so little was left of the night;

Awake! Compensate the scrawny past,

I now realised, obscured was I by

my own fears in the darkness of night,

So low I’d made myself,

And piteously near to the ground.

 

Certainly some were there,

Who valiantly fought the gloom,

And were alive among the dead,

Realised I, lived they more,

Enjoyed the panorama swathed in darkness,

Made they full use of the pitch dark,

While the rest slept among the dog’s bark.

 

Vertical I turned myself,

Decided to be among the few,

Little was left of the night,

And lived then brightly,

With that great dream

shining in my eyes.

Footsteps Lost

 

Walking I was, some day,

Along a track; a tracery it was

of those who passed in the past;

‘Hurried only they,’ I mused; left poor trail,

Mingled which easily in the earth.

 

The beaten dust beneath looked

easy for a venture fresh,

Swayed I with pomp and pride,

for easy was the poor path to tread;

And admiring all, went I with a happy song.

 

The soil below seemed

only poorly tottered in the past,

As no footprint was distinct,

I will leave a permanent one,

Thought I, proud of youth and time.

 

Praised I everything,

Fresh and exuberant all,

Trying I was, to put

steps distinct, firm most,

So that mingle they not in dust soon.

 

Alas! Pinched the sun bitterly,

Shrewd wind howled; Hated I all,

Lost rhythm and balance, and tottered,

Vanished my footprints right there,

Sadly sighed I for their short span.

Thrives my Village

 

Life and people stroll easily,

Fast and furious urbanity outside

being the sole kicker at the easy pace,

It’s a rickety creaking pace,

Measuring minutes in hours,

Hours in days,

It retains its creaky pace

even if the land share may shorten,

or enforcing come the modernity’s grip.

 

They are all here,

and the same poor villagers,

Nature’s cruel bite or the soft hand,

It’s all but life whole;

Be the dripping roofs,

Mud in the streets,

Or ‘life drops’ in the fields,

All are the basics here.

 

The children too simple

and the creations of adaptations,

Stuffed in the studies captive

wait they for the last bell,

God’s pity or else,

Weak and empty they are not,

and will survive through life all.

 

The elders amazed at the change,

Try to catch up with the new,

But survive they only,

Age is a curse,

for it deprives one of the productivity,

Outcaste they are;

assemble and remain in a unified maze.

 

Simplest is the society here,--

The psyche prone to ignore,

The hands eager to work more,

And hence the life going with easy lore.

Heaven under the Hot Sun

 

The sun marches north; sultry evenings,

Bulging wheat pods await rituals last,

The wizened golden stalks ready

to surrender the fecundity crowning them;

Farmers cut, gather, reap and mow

with bull’s eye and parental care,

Birds filch every lost grain in the soil,

Crops smile daughterly in the days bright,

Hats off! Accept they the rites last with smiles.

 

A dog, dry-mouthed, awaits master’s lunch,

Birds, their beaks full, ferry the cargo to the nests,

A bunny runs in the fields bare,

looks for some hideout any;

Above, a gibberish crow caws a laugh,

A sparrow looks into a waterhole,

Few drops there and a hornet gnarls over,

A child plays under a tree’s hot shadow,

The air dances around the working mother;

Plays with pollen in hair long,

And she doing filigree with grains,

The locks of her hair try to protect

the ‘moon’ shining in the glaring day,

She jerks them away and smiles.

When I was Small

 

Bird was I, flew tirelessly

in what was to become golden past,

And the innocent, humane most,

Matured are the wings now,

But lost is ‘big’ in its bigness.

 

World was then,

as small as me, and beautiful;

Distorted are both today,

As I trample the ‘soft me’,

And the world grows up harsh.

 

Things only trivial now,

Hugely inspired that delicate heart,

The urge today being fat;

Lost is imagination and heart shrunk,

Mind has become iron clod almost.

 

Weak was then I,

for flying too high and far,

I flap wings too much today,

But tired I am,

as wings fall short of the desires.

 

Then I had only heart,

Too big and I lived,

I only survive today

with a tiny heart;

Vast is my mind today.

 

Frightened was I then of

most common, simple things,

But now, bold I am,

not to fear any inhumanity,

Present of that past, I am.