winter

Stooping cranes like vultures,
over dead bodies of lifeless cargo,
perched on a dock staring,
into the frozen Gulf of Finland,
bring cold fear across thin air,
through layers of glass,straight to my heart
into the taxi playing strange music,
which is slowly taking me inland.

Trojan

the yellow moon so holed but whole
rising up slowlylike the satisfied soul,
of the tired sun somewhere over the bay
that thankfully died earlier in the day,

this ascending moon soon will realise
that though glad abou tthe sad demise,
there's no heaven in that cold darkness above
just cosmic dust & frozen clay.

Cliffhanging II

Its a mystery
because i'm still young
i haven't yet sung
all the songs of life
or how to throw the dice
but so haven't you
so take care of yourself
and take care of me too
i could have been your son
i could have been maim
everything...is not the same.


just couldnt help write more to that haunting melody.....perhaphs i spoilt it?

cliffhanging

She's pushed me down the cliff again,
and while i fall i'm thinking, if again
history repeats itself,
the bird that eats itself,
with beauty that beats itself,
then i'll change my trade,
from the knight to the knave,
with periscopic eyes,
of large and small size,
with no religious ties
and no one to save,
from stumbling down cliffs again,
while falling,thinking "if again..."
of the future shaping history,
but the end is still a mystery.

inspired by the song Idiot Prayer by Nick Cave

Loved people admired people,
respected andsuspected people,
speaking people withoutvoice,
can't waste time with limited choice.
lost&lost, never won,
even cold under the sun,
under the saddle McKenna's gold,
joys bought sorrows sold,
bandits&loves of lives,
sanddunes&guns&knives,
mucked a little,
ducked a little,
made the hay,
on my way,
inspired action,time runs,
wise deals,winnerfor once,
But open your eyes, what you found?
your little ship has run aground,
Rights wrongs expectations trust,
crumbleddown &turned to dust,
clever gentle lovely people,
very nice but filled with vice andsuch,
though i should have realised,
i'm afraid i havent changed much,
Aren't you glad to be able,
to intend to buy even though unable?

season

When we talk of love
and trust and honesty,
it's like god...and prayer and rain,
it's the similarity
that's become so complicated,
But the differrenceis quite plain.

everytime with the
coming of autumn,
it's not always that
the brown leaves fall,
Sometimes it also
happens such...
that the autumn never
comes at all.

scales

do you have a plastic packet,
for me my love to put in,
i'll try and fly to your land of clouds,
where i have never set my foot in.

its not better, anywhere else,
its not that good out here,
its the same way even where you are at,
but thats not my primary fear.

it was always painful when
i used to break my favourite toy,
but i'd lose interest in unbreakable ones,
and thats what makes pain, more precious than joy.

plastic rain through a plastic window
in a plastic world of plastic planetsfloating,
in a plastic skygive plastic fear to my plastic heart
for a plastic love and her plastic dream
of a plastic life that my plastic sweatcan not provide

Your plastic touch to my plastic feelings
hides the plastic sorrow behind my plastic smile
this plastic feeling has become so real that
the only time reality shows itself is when i occasionally shed, a plastic tear.

inspired by the song plastic girl by ELOY

you lie

you kept the clothes
when the baby died
living banana skin
thinly applied

7 weeks to beat a heart
one moment to die
careful or careless
however you lie

day one

to be expedotious is perhaps one of the prerequisites to an achievement. i dont think i lack it, but an occasion appears every now and then, lest i forget intrinsic tendencies. I couldnt locate the right address in time to send my article for WOGS. so i ended up searching the net, where wogs turned out to be a racist derogatory term for people from somewhere, and also for the women of grace, and also for loads of other things mr.www wants to throw at you. anyhow, todays highlight is the loss of wogs. lets see whats there to lose tomorrow.

set the ball

the universe can either collapse, or go on expanding. strangely this is applicable to such an implacable multitude of things. the chatterjees have taken me on till i get a steady job.........huge relief........now the next jump is the monday i talk to bev.......if she confirms the place......i ought to unwind for a while.........thats the best thing about writing........its shit today.......so mundane......so banal.......but years down the line.......beneath the secure patina of experience.........the taste of this hortatory period will be enriching. but more than that, i want it to be humbling. i know so many who have forgotten where they came from.......got too used to ease.........i dont want to forget.......i am just setting the ball.......in motion......to reminisce at a later time......

that lies beneath

its always good to go for teaching..........HIV today......there is always more to learn......you can swim eternally in thi sea of knowledge........a life of thousand years would be short.......there would always be another page in another book that would want you to know more.........such is the beauty of life when there grows a love for learning..........then i also gave my blood test today......and maybe i'll get an upgrade on my banlk account............aaaah......how i wish to have a credit card.....and surplus money in my account.......and encouragement from natasha...........then i could bid on ebay.........i wonder if there will be a time like that.......we winded up the day with a movie on Partition.......what a contrast between dawn and dusk.........i woke up and floated in the sean knowledge........and now will go to sleep with the images of mindless killings by religious fanatics.........fuelled by personal pain and the ventilators for bottled anger..............but i am pathologically optimistic.......we will either all die or all live.......of course........you immediately think of the two races of HG Wells...........the swedes and the subterannean monsters........the two eventual branches of evolution............but i am concerned about a closer future........maybe we will all learn someday.......that earth is our country........humanity is our religion.......but there are many caveats to this train of thought.......but as life goes.........often the tougher decisions are the better ones which very few take.........we still havent yet overpowered the reptilian brain that lies beneath......

short term memory

seeing 50 first dates reminded me of the patient i had seen with short term memory loss.......she was pregnant......and needed counselling......and have a plan in place......but she had these episodes when she would switch off.........and then wouldnt remember what has happenned in the last five minutes...........she had a very supportive husband.....which i think is of prime importance........one wonders that are such people bestowed with some other special capability.......a compensatory benefit to replace the unfortunate deficit........or is it just a disease.........its there as a loss......just a loss.......which i think would bring the most powerful player in action.........for those who believe in god......there should be equations.........however bizzare.........for those who dont.....they would have to accept losses on their own.........i include myself more to the second category than the first........and thus make no presumptions about equations..........even if they seem brutally counter-intuitive........the national museum of welsh life was also a journey through time........you could feel life 400 years ago.........just at the end of the dark ages..........when the light of scientific thinking had begun to dawn on 2000 years of chosen human ignorance..........ah.......how interesting a thing is time.........the fastest itinerent.......which the memory forever chases.......

miracle lab

i got up as i had planned.......despite coffee and cigarettes last night......took the 44 to kingsway......then the X4 to merthyr.......then the No.6 to aberdare.........then the no.9 to aberaman..........the S bend.......and the surgery........went up the stairs........sat in front of the larger-than-life window.........felt for the piece of paper in my pocket.........my mother-in-law sent it by post.........two pages of prayers, in ukrainian.......of the old orthodox church.......it was there for sure........neither am i superstitious......nor do i believe in god........but the old lady will be overjoyed to know that i do..........so i did........and then i went to the phone.......agog and iced..........i have been waiting for 13 months......since the day that i landed......when you are closing 360 months of life.......with a message in a bottle.......every wait is excruciating.........especially when you are being connected...........so i spoke to bev......even she didnt want to commit to a 100% guarantee...........but thats because i scared her maybe........like oliver twist did......but she couldnt help telling me 99% yes...........is this the turning point........is this my eureka......will this be my small step.......or am the billionth bottle.......waiting to be washed up on the shore......sad that you only live once........life is an experiment i would love to do over and over again......and keep the memory of each life past.......i am going to find work in the miracle lab

seven for a secret

the best thing of the day was the accuracy of the weather forecast......especially when you come from india........where the meteorological department seems to be getting paid for to ensure the that weather remains a mystery.......the british weather prediction is almost spooky.......in fact......i had met one russian fellow when i was strawberry-picking in sweden.......who claimed that proof of god being present was the power to predict the future with which he bestowed his chosen messengers.........christ being one of them and so on.......we had long discourse on this......and now i wonder if he would have found me rebarbative.......if i would have suggested to him the heavenly status of bbc weather..........anyway......from the chat i had with bev...........there is a 50 50 chance for me on the job........1st may maybe..........it might get clearer.....in the meanwhile.......one for sorrow.....two for joy

inkpot

i am cresting and troughing daily.........today is a sitting-on-the-fence day........perhaps i should be thankful for that.......i am even scared to admit that the fax has been sent..........that the council will have recieved it when it opens its offices on monday.........of course.........like sorrow just pointed out.........when i call they will tell me that the fax was too hazy..........send the original paper...........troughing again..........and in fact........i am thinking of going to the hospital tomorrow.........even if its a sunday.......my wife.........my strength..........is with me in it.........i dont even know how to operate the jazzy electronic bp machine..........what the eclipse on my planet shifts.........i get a job in the ward.......and destiny asks me to switch the machine on...........i wouldnt have a clue.........enthusiastic cutlet that i am...........i want to go on sundays and learn even the mopping bit.............is it my dedication.........if it is then it seems quite fruitless.........considering my directionless state and my soon to be thirty nerve cells...........because cells dont multiply and regenerate..........once made, they remain for life.......anyway........tomorrow i should trough........because today was a little cresty.........presence is a parlous disparity...........lets see what tomorrow brings.......

suspended sunday

tomorrow brings sunday!..........layers of mundane life cover the undercurrent or torrential thoughts........the waking eye with every wink glances at the dark corner.........neurons connect to unfold the image of all possible probabilities...........from the most straightforward success.........to the most unthinkable eventuality.................but i have a PLAN B for every situation.......armed to the teeth with an answer to every combination the dice of destiny is to deal me, i will go to sleep tonight, reminscing the comics i spent all day reading, blissing my ignorance, daring the code............to deliver or be severed...........at the south pole, wind blows only in one direction................................north.

a morsel of memory

its going to be a long journey.....espicially with these religious turmoils........oil well wars.........cartoon killings........to make sense of all this pulp fiction......and then have people understand.......that the most precious is not most evident...........but perhaps the most neglected........... my earliest memory is thane......since i was a kid......that playfield green with grass enormous in my memory cell must have been a yard in front of our house.........and a vague recollection of a childhood friend.......he was a sardarji......patka and all......probably younger than me......because i now percieve him laughing at my jokes than me at his...... i have ascertained that i must have been two and a half years then.......something i have taken extra effort to demarcate........also because i want to know from what age will my 16 month old daughter have a memory when she grows up................so that i can start behaving myself then on...........fortunately as it turns out.........i can carry on misbehaving for another 14 months.........quite a relief.

smokin'

dad was born in west bengal.....panagarh......whenever......and he moved out from there when he was one and half.......so he doesnt remember anything of it anyway........then they went to jhansi......where his youger brother was born..........his elder brother studied in the same school in jhansi that i went to 35 years later hen dad got posted there himself..........sound strange.....but there it is.....anyway.....the interesting incident that happened in jhansi was with my grandma...........she was educated only five classes of primary school..........and got married to my grandad young..............i used to call grandad vaddepapa........so vaddepapa was a dynamic personality..........fond of shikar........and royal tastes.....was an intellectual.........and so vaddemummy also got liberated in her thought and mind..........and the marriage made her into a woman of substance.........and as she was strong of character..........her presence commanded its own identity........at least thats how i remember her in her later days......a little before she died............anyway.....vaddepapa had newly shifted to the MES house he was issued.......a large house........the servant quarters of which were yet unoccipied............which had their owm little gate at the back................it was sometimes left open by mistake by those who came to work at the house.....and since the servant quarters were em[pty......no one closed it thereafter...........vaddemummy was in the lawn in front of the house.......when a stray dog came into the kitchen from the little gate..........and slurped away all the milk wich was on the shelf...........vaddemummy already got the whiff that something was on......and by the time she got to the kitchen......she oly saw the dog..........going towards the back of the house......its face still wet with milk on it.......................infuriated at this unacceptable behaviour..........in she went to the house........got one of vaddepapa's guns...........loaded it with two acrtridges.........and ba bam.........the stray dog became a dead dog.......................................................what was interesting aboput this incident was the message that spread soon.........and the servant circles knew that the new lady who has just moved in that house is a smoking barrel........and stray dog came and stole her milk...........and she plugged it with a double barrel gun in seconds...........what would she have dished out to some thief if there were one...........................................................and the effect of this story was that for the three years they lived in the area.........the rate of burgularies in the region dipped to record levels.................in a place which was notorius for thugs and thieves!!

the story as far as i know, starts with ishwar singh......who owned loads of land in gurdaspur......at a certain point in time......before the partition. he was not very educated.......probably not at all.......and a hard core farmer.........the land was a lot to take care of..........and he did every bit of it himself..........tilling...ploughinh........watering.......i cant even think of what else is there to do..........but more than half a century ago.......things were far more sweat based than they are today....... . for marriage, his fate brought him to kandila............where there was a farmer who had three duaghters.......and on of the daughters he decided to marry.........ishwar singh had a younger brother........chacha something.......i cant remember........while ishwar singh was a hard core farmer.........a complete son of the soil........chacha something was less so...........but he had the gift of gab..........and could work out a very good PR......not a stormy petrel, but he was almost a few years ahead of the others.........not completelyneoteric in his outlook....but just about...........and together they made a good pair.........ishwar singh worked and toiled......while chacha something bought him the goodwil of the populace.............and then ishwar singh was to get married....