​life, hope, and the now …

 … …

navigating the path ahead, negotiating the thorns scattering the cold bleak ground,
we walk oblivious of the ravages of tomorrow, not knowing the catapults of bliss and of sorrow,
seeking only peace and contentment here in this torrid realm, adrift at times on waters choppy, hands tied far away from the helm,
yet and still, hope breathes in, the soot of departed yesterdays, seeking evermore the promise of uncharted pathways,
yes, hope breathes, infusing fresh air banishing the stale putrid stench,
urging us ever onwards, imploring us to grab each day, from the detritus of the past,
stilling the mind,
now, today … … …

​for men everywhere …

Stop! Listen! Think! Act!

Stop!

Stop the abuse!

Of grand-daughters,

colleagues,

daughters,

girlfriends,

partners,

mothers,

sisters,

nieces,

wives,

all women.

Listen!

Listen to the voices!

Of grand-daughters,

colleagues,

daughters,

girlfriends,

partners,

mothers,

sisters,

nieces,

wives,

all women.

Think!

Think of how you treat,

grand-daughters,

colleagues,

daughters,

girlfriends,

partners,

mothers,

sisters,

nieces,

wives,

all women.

Act!

Act now to change yourself!

Stop! Listen! Think! Act!

The violence,

the abuse,

the rape,

stops when you stop,

the violence,

the abuse,

the rape.

Stop! Listen! Think! Act!

The violence,

the abuse,

the rape,

is perpetrated by,

grand-fathers,

colleagues,

boyfriends,

husbands,

nephews,

brothers,

partners,

fathers,

uncles,

men,

all men.

Stop! Listen! Think! Act!

The violence,

the abuse,

the rape,

stops when us men stop,

The violence,

the abuse,

the rape,

today, now.

Stop! Listen! Think! Act!

my meandering mind … … …

Billie Holiday by Banksy

… … … on cycles of trepidation,
on waves of flagellation,

galloping thoughts scatter,
misfiring synapses shatter,

twisted suspension of unbelief,
scorched neurons bereft of relief,

whistling tuneless solitary epics,
soon to be half forgotten relics,

my mind plunges,
my heart lunges,

grasping,
                grappling,
clinging,
               clawing,

scraping the veneer away,
revealing the emptiness of day,

succumbing to slumber,
soothing my meandering mind,

where thoughts no longer plunder,
and where my restless dreams,
are no more torn asunder … … …

a few minutes scribble …

a quick scribble …

aren’t we all the same?
aren’t we all confounded broken pained ecstatic fractured joyous sad indescribably happy proud secretly snooty twisted within our own hearts yearning for something more than this crappy deal called ‘life’ cos’ there’s got to be something better something bigger than the lustful pursuit of monetary physical emotional psychological sexual gratification that last but the blink of an eye yet we hunt prey upon choose profits over people whom we see as cannon-fodder for our wiles schemes capitalist profit filthy rich obscenity and still we bring up our kids with (trumpets sound) traditional values religious beliefs norms cultural shackles the need for greed by emphasising material and social gratification over respect and understanding for one another as a race, the human race and we shove this down our very young ones’ collective conscience and then in mock shock and horror we feign surprise indignation even at what they’ve become while we carry on living our hollow lives an empty shell that needs to be stuffed with God and Nations Flags Religions Castes Tribes Ethnicities and yet we feign horror we plead ignorance

I like that. Pleading ignorance.

because it is true

words paltry meagre words that are just that ink on page binary on screen meaningless if not imbibed drunk soaked in absorbed lived breathed made love to lost hurt cried over beaten up

because nothing changes until we you I me him us her them she all of us the race the human race shun greed love one another repect tolerate at the very least each others uniqueness in this cosmos of unimaginable size our pallette our shared human night sky and just as the ancients spoke of the night sky as a blanket and the stars as being little holes in that blanket piercing through seemingly all-encompassing darkness so to may we know that the stars are suns like our own and that like all suns they too must flicker and fade and i dare say that if that cosmic connection, between the singular you me him she her and a star of immense mass, the shared fate of both star and me her him she you are essentially the same – to burn out and to have the embers spread through the oceans of emptiness that float between you her him she I and the  countless blazing suns – if this insane weird  worthless nugget of cosmic coincidence or not is not enough to keep us from tearing at each others throats perhaps then I shall concede defeat and yield to those who cling to hopelessness but not today

not at this moment

not now

not yet

“The Justice Boat”* – A Poem for Judge Sueli Pini …

“The Justice Boat”* – A Poem for Judge Sueli Pini …

sailing through Amazonia,

“The Justice Boat” traverses the archipelago,

bringing justice,

a measure of human dignity,

to those who are almost,
always,

the forgotten.

There is a Dentist on board,
extracting molars at midnight,

with the aid of a pocket torch,

and there’s Judge Sueli Pini,

tirelessly striving to bring justice to those most in need of justice,

from neighbourly disputes,

to child – support payments withheld by errant fathers,

the Judge brings the courts to the people,

“The Justice Boat” sails on,

and may the boat of justice,

sail ever on …

* – “The Justice Boat”

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/fightforamazonia/2012/02/201222713552170402.html

Song for Springsteen …

For Bruce …

it was a rain-swept monsoon day

way back then, so many moons away

when i felt the music strumming in my veins

setting me free like a runaway horse without any reins

you sang of simple truths,

your verse spoke to people just like me

in my lonely, wasted, and desolately quiet night

as you screamed out tragic human wrongs, and of everyone’s plight

‘bobby jean’ spoke to me

of that girl down the street

glimpses of whom, we as innocents would furtively meet

and ‘the river’ that flowed through my ever-barren heart

led me down further roads of thunder

when slowly i finally learnt that the hardest part was fighting on

and never to surrender

to the hard-luck dreams that were born to run

while i danced in the dark

with memories vivid and stark

even as i whined like that dog who for forever lost his howling bark

and then a ‘human touch’ came along

and ‘better days’ seemed real, not just words in a song

and still you sang and swayed and spoke straight into my unseeing eyes

as gardens of secrets were opened, and as your fist punched the skies

in an anger that i too felt and in whose cauldron i too burned

as we saw murder get incorporated, while on its wobbly axis, our fragile world apathetically turned

and then suddenly i was told that i was all grown up

working on a highway of scattered ideals

and absolving myself by sprinkling some coins in a waiting cup

well, after all these years of walking along so many a thorny road

with an armour of your verse covering me, even as i hear them taunt me and even as they continue to goad

but now i can feel myself fading away, into the bleakness of this coming night

just like the ghost of that old tom joad…

Seducing my Soul

caressing the seductively swaying marmalade roses,

teasing the stealthily approaching morn,

the smell of you lingers,

on,

and on,

as I lie awake and allow my vagabond thoughts to wander,

to the thoughts of you, seducing my soul entire,

as I sat,

and as I basked,

intoxicated,
teased,
raging,
transfixed,

and warmed,

by the healing glow,

that embraces your being entire …

My mother (with tears in her eyes)

(for Lata Sethi’s late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi)

…a wife left South Africa in the 1960’s to join her husband

who was in exile at the time…

 
in 1970 the husband was sent by the African National Congress to India to be its representative there…

 
the husband and wife spent two years in Bombay…

 
one afternoon the husband fell and broke his leg…

the wife knocked on their neighbour’s door, in an apartment complex in Bombay

the neighbour was an old Punjabi lady…

the wife asked the neighbour for a doctor to see to the injured husband…

a Parsi (Zoroastrian) ‘Bone-Setter’ was promptly summoned…

the husband still recalls his anxiety of seeing ‘Bone-Setter’ written on the Parsi gentleman’s bag…

by the way, the ‘Bone-Setter’ worked his ancient craft and surprisingly for the husband, his broken leg healed quite soon…

but still on that day, while the ‘Bone-Setter’ was seeing to the husband…

the wife and the old Punjabi lady from next door got to talking about this and that and where these new Indian-looking wife and husband were from as their accents were clearly not local…

the wife told the elderly Punjabi lady that the husband worked for the African National Congress of South Africa and had left to serve the ANC from exile…

and that they had left their two children behind in South Africa and that they were now essentially political refugees…

the Punjabi lady broke down and wept uncontrollably…

she told the foreign woman that she too had had to leave her home in Lahore in 1947 and flee to India with only the clothes on her back when the partition of the subcontinent took place and Pakistan was formed and at a time when Hindus from Pakistan fled to India and vice versa…

the Punjabi lady then asked the foreign woman her name… 

‘Zubeida’, but you can call me ‘Zubie’…

the Punjabi woman hugged Zubie some more, and the two women, seperated by age and geography, wept, sharing a shared pain…

the Punjabi woman told Zubie that she was her ‘sister’ from that day on, and that she felt that pain of exile and forced migration and what being a refugee felt like…

Zubie and her husband Mosie became the closest of friends with the Punjabi neighbours who had become refugees themselves, as ‘Muslim’ Pakistan was created…

then came the time for Mosie and Zubie to leave for Delhi where the African National Congress office was based…

the elderly Punjabi lady and Mosie and Zubie said their goodbyes…

a year or two later, the elderly Punjabi lady’s daughter Lata married Ravi Sethi and the couple moved to Delhi…

the elderly Punjabi lady called Zubie and told her that her daughter was coming to Delhi to live and that she had told Lata, her daughter that she had a ‘sister’ in Delhi…

Lata and Ravi Sethi then moved to Delhi…

This was in the mid-1970’s…

Lata and Zubie became the closest of friends and that bond stayed true, and stays true till today, though Zubie is no more, and the elderly Punjabi lady is no more…

the son and the husband still have a bond with Lata and Ravi Sethi…

a bond that was forged between Hindu and Muslim and between two continents across the barriers of creed and shared anguish…

a bond strong and resilient, forged by the pain and trauma of a shared experience…

and that is why, and I shall never stop believing this, that hope shines still, for with all the talk of this and of that, and of that and of this, there will always be a simple woman, somewhere, anywhere, who would take the ‘other’ in as a sister, a fellow human…

and that is why there will always be hope…

hope in the midst of this and of that and of that and of this…

hope…

(for Lata Sethi’s late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi)

For Mother Teresa

to see…

the clarity of beauty between the murky folds of life

to see…

the simple truths of living
between the horror and the endless strike

to see…

the innocent smiles of the children at play
while the elder preach hate and division and continue to slay

to see…

the endless yearning for that simpler better place
away from the hollow emptiness of this ostentatious space

to see…

the open vistas of this pale blue dot
the soft reds and fruity greens as this home is all we have got

to see…

the tears of the dispossessed who have been cruelly cast aside
and while we look the other way from their tears we may never hide

to see…

the endless hunger and despair and killing and greed
in the name of God or of ideology or of some or the other creed

to see…

and to see it all

and still stand tall

to hold on to the humanity

that resides deep within us all

may be our only saving grace

and though all of this sounds quaint and saccharine sweet

I need to remember all that I’ve said

the next time I look into a teary-eyed desolate face

to see…

that being human is simple if we only look beyond ourselves and see

that we are all one, him and her and them and us and you and me…