Far away from the maddening crowd

 

Far away from

tiresome illusions; 

the rancor and bitterness of

abundant moral rigidities;

where love’s crazy preambles

push one against the other

for mad passion leading to

loveless entanglements and relationships;

where the best plan can be

to gulp down humiliation

in a single swallow;

the dormant grief seeking exit

through illusionary pathways;

helpless, exhausted mind

ironing and re-ironing the past;

ensnared in custom’s captivity;

sickened souls infested with bugs of gloom;

ruled by the confidantes of whispering shadows;

the embittered paradise

with its wreckage of social weight;

where one ought to

learn to love practically and survive;

the ghosts of guilt

soaping and cleaning the dusted conscience;

where one’s always pursued

by an unknowable shadow

with its secret impulses of

tenacious longing,

catching one in a blinding flash of immaturity;

where what strikes as love

is usually an assemblage of conveniences—

name, fame, home, hearth, security and wealth;

where the mistress of fate

rules with fantasies of sin and whispers,

‘You can be happy in love many times’;

Where the custom of normal love

is simply for routine use;

where dreams are always shifting away

from the zone of possibility.

 

Away from all this

wreckage of social weight,

Away from the

cuffs and collars of pretensions,

Here in this restorative solitude,

The seed of joy sprouting

from the mystery-shrouded soil,

Here I feel love without lies,

Here fears reconcile to refreshed vitality

and the soul feels pure love,--

the one primary love

that is immune to all contagions.

 

A portrait of love

 

She thought she’d found an exotic bird,

All past disappointments blurred,

Love adopted a new word,

Joyfully her female self stirred,

But alas he turned out to be a nerd

deeply absorbed in black and white;

carried just a quite light,

It was no rainbow bright,

The prince of her dreams out of sight,

Again a restless night

after that free float and frolicking flight,

Vanished that fresh delight

when arrived the repackaged love,

The bruised self coming to life with fresh shove,

It was but the same hand

in a different glove.

 

There she stood with her broken dreams,

Shorn of newfound themes,

Trashed were all schemes,

Dry went the ripply streams.

 

Back to the same self,

Again the same painful yelp.

 

But was it his fault

if her feminine fancy hit the vault

and soul absorbed in new exalt?

Fault wasn’t on his part,

Like hers it was similar heart

passionate about some art,

But looking for a new start

she assumed him to be high, apart

and extremely smart.

He was just the same,

Like anyone for blame

or simple, common acclaim,

But the unmet dreams in her eyes

filled up the colors of fame

in his empty and simple canvas.

 

He was just a creation of her own,

A normal man put on illustrious throne,

He was no king

to whom her creation could cling

and joyfully sing

the ever-fresh love song,

And before long

she realized something was wrong

because missing was heart’s gong,

She saw the reality with sad eyes

and read many lies

that her colorful dreams had told,--

As gold stones were sold.

 

Whose fault is this?

Whom to blame for the miss?

Who couldn’t sustain the bliss

of the fresh love’s kiss?

Is it the man for being the cast

spread where her dreams vast?

Is it the woman who cast colors her own

with her spirit all excitedly flown?

The Gift by a passing cloud

 

Such killer June heat,

Sun greedy for a new fiery feat,

The wind doth burn,

Almost melting the fern.

A little swab of cloud

pitied life caught in smoldering shroud,

Thundered and struck a lightning note,

With its little waters it fought

a small garden’s thirst and pain,

Aha, a brief spell of rain

on a sunlit noon,

An unexpected boon,

Godsent sprinkle of water on a face

withering without moisture’s brace.

The cloud is very small,

But showers its waters all

and wets a little garden and its sunburnt flowers,

Bathes them with blessing showers.

As a cloud tiny

it may not make it all rainy

for all the land

and salvage the burning sand,

But it knows its duty

to the sun-singed beauty

in the yard

of a small-time bard,

It’s beautiful to see

a little rain among noon’s full glee,

The little cloud knows

it can’t thwart the fiery blows

to kill the fire,

but it can sire

optimism and raise hope

with its brief watery mope,

It drops a little message

with its brief watery passage

that I’m here for you,

Good times will come with night’s dew,

And the soil

writhing with pain and on boil

dances with life

among the fiery onslaught and strife,

Comes it back to life,

Its joy one can smell

even in this burning hell.

A small journeyman cloud

makes the entire sky proud

with its brief downpour on a sunlit noon

when the heat is at its peak in June,

And a poet in his small wet garden,

Joyful over this tiny divine pardon,

Soaks in the beauty of raindrops

and forgets life’s flops.

Moved on the cloud small

after giving its waters all,

After a thundering greeting it left

with airy dives deft.

The sage dispelling haze

 

Lynched by life’s rage,

All puzzled, shaky

and in the grip of debilitating daze,

I run around

and seek the help of a sage

living in a hut in the hills,

where many throng to get spiritual pills

after failures with materialistic bills.

The ascetic is all joy,

Says, come my beaten, bruised boy,

I tell him the story of my woes,

Show the empty rows

where I planted loving, caring seeds,

But ‘their’—the others—unfaithful deeds

undid my loving labor’s creeds.

Seeing me all lost,

smiled the kind host,

Gently he took me to a place,

Aha, paradise in full embrace,

Such a heavenly brace,

Trees, hills and sky’s blue,--

Nature’s pristine hue,

The beauty was spread out there

like an otherworldly layer,

Joyfully lit my eyes

far away from painful cries.

Then he pinched my earlobe,

Winced I with pain and sob,

The beauty instantly vanished,

All joy banished,

Though it was there still,

But I lost it due to my bitter pill.

Says the kindly sage,

dispelling my illusions and haze:

Other people and situations just are

as they are here and far,

We are primarily at war

with our self own,

The seeds that are sown

within our own self

decide fruits, crops and pelf.

Gently reminds me the sage,

softly turning wisdom’s page,

Long before others cause us pain,

the prickly seed has already lain

within us for a long time,

The externals merely chime

with the seed’s potential prime,

How will you get sweetness from a lime?

A wounded sapling

 

A tiny sapling bruised and injured,

Just a centimeter left

with its sole leaf intact,

It was a storm

on a free roam,--

A careless gardening hand

digging the sand

cut the sapling small

with a careless scythe-scrawl,

And the flowering prospects gone,

The wounded sapling with inaudible moan,

With a conscience asking for reparation,

I wet the soil around the wounded sapling

and carefully take out the thready root,

My effort’s little fruit,--

The tiny root is intact

and promise someday a new shoot,

I replant it with care

in the shadow where

the scorching sun can’t reach

and breach

the little wounded sapling’s fight back.

Sprouts the sole leaf

after a few days of pain and grief,

A new shoot

after the destiny’s miserable loot.

Fight back is easy

if your pain hasn’t turned you grumpy and sleazy,

And intact are your roots,--

The core values and basic attributes;

the fundamentals of one’s faith;

that sublime soul’s weighth,

If these aren’t lost

passed as you through biting frost,

and the storms laid you bare,

Ate your well-deserved share

and cut you down

leaving you with a painful frown

and a single leaf

completely mired and lost in grief,

Even then if your root

doesn't lose faith in a new shoot,

It will draw the sap of life

even from the sharp edges of circumstantial knife,

And new shoots will sprout

with a victorious shout.

But if the root is broken

and the substratum web of your

core values is uprooted and shaken,

Then even a canopy all luxuriant

with sheen and smile brilliant

won’t sustain you

if you have to reshape a life new

after being arrowed by destiny’s arrows few,

In the face of accidental throws of life

and all the uncontrollable strife

try we must

and stay just

clinging to our roots

even against bloody, blinding shoots,

Even while you groom well with swanky boots,

Never abandon you earthly roots,

Good clothes, modern styles

and much concerned about worldly hoots,

Please brother, remember your roots,

Keep it intact and in good health,

For it’s the real wealth,

The cause of all the superficial shine,

The basic sustaining spine,

Spring, hop, drop, lop, mop

and reap the life’s surface crop,

Change colors as much as you like,

Enjoy undulations, dips and hike,

But keep rooted

even while well suited and booted,

Never abandon your core values and faith,

Only this much this poor bard saith.

The summer rose

 

Sun-singed summer rose,

I remember luscious days those

when your spring-kissed smile

rose over all hate and vile,

Thy buxom, fresh, healthy

petals laden with dew

whereupon well-fed butterflies flew,

Fragrance carrying mystical clew,

That was then

the spring was at its peak when,

Now the very air on fire,

Waters gone to sire

rain somewhere else,

While here the fiery summer yells.

Here you stand in June heat,

Singed, burnt with a feeble greet,

The heat can’t beat

and eat

the essential core of your smile

with her fiery guile,

Though beaten, shaken and

pushed against the wall,

you still avoid the final fall

and flash the call

of your essential nature,

and behold the dim beacon

of beauty with a proud stature.

You still carry a smile feeble,

The once big stream reduced to a dribble,

But still it mans the post,

And avoids a complete, fiery roast,

Your small, dull pink, sun-lynched flowers

still hold the chance of beauty and showers

and raise a toast

with a defiant boast

for the dew-kissed autumnal nights

drenched with misty delights,

These fragile little smiles and petals

in the pit of fire

will sire

the blossoms all rosy

enjoying the climes all cozy,

They are like

the surviving columns of army,

Holding their little petalous sabres

against the fiery onslaught swarmy,

The will to survive against a total rout

with their rebellious shout,

They won’t be out

till the rains reach home,

And cool nights return

after the other hemisphere’s roam.

I call these the flowers in the fire,

Adamant beauty with a challenge dire,

Smile will win over fury and fire,

Another spring awaits

with its full blossomed baits.

The pickle seller

 

In this fast-paced, worried world,

he is slow-paced and relaxed,

The elderly pickle seller

who visits the village on Wednesdays,

Gently pulling his bicycle,

His wooden tray

bearing jars of different pickles,--

Mango, lemon, chili, mixed,

Made at home with extreme care.

He doesn’t shout,

He gently trills,

As you hear his kindly hawking notes,

you suddenly know it’s Wednesday,

He must be visiting seven villages

on seven different days,

A small target audience

for his little business,

Following his weekly rules

as obediently as his mixtures of spices,

It might be a world of

ultramodern foods, tastes and culinary techniques,

of home deliveries and swanky food courts,

But a bit of his pickle

still brings water and taste

to the poor disadvantaged tongues,

And even the well-off

may sometimes go for a taste change.

His Wednesday visit,

going from years after years,

from his youth to old age,

fills the vacant culinary space

left there by the economic disparities,

He has his little world

in this big, clamoring, clattering bazaar.

He doesn’t run,

he gently walks,

He doesn’t shout,

He merely whispers his hawking notes,

He isn’t bothered about factories and corporations,

He is happy with his portion of his room

where he prepares his pickles,

Beyond jet-flying complexities,

he is joyful on his bicycle,

Beyond celebrity chefs and their philosophical cooking,

He is happy with his ever-same pickles,

Beyond the stampede of more and more,

he still weighs his world

in grams of pickles

and calculates the finances in one, two rupees and paisas,

He carries lots of change in his pocket,

Small notes and coins to deal with poor customers,

But he brings big culinary delight

to many a poor heart.

He owns his Wednesday in the village

more than anyone else,  

It’s his day,

Arrives he with the sun’s fresh ray,

A gentle hawking walk,

And then goes away for the next six days.