No Time to Stand and Stare

[Lay back on the garden of leisure/hold on to the new-find pleasure/let go off the oppressive stress/ hands and legs you may stretch/switch off the mind/off load your worries/let happiness bloom around you???

My composition abruptly stopped. The adamant pen, giggling at my verbose, refused to move further on the A4 sheet. Hmmm, even a pen knows about a grain form the chaff; knows the worth of a write better than the writer. Thus my attempt to write a prescription for how to live on and how to sing a song of peace through a poem ended in a fiasco. However, W.H. Davies came to my rescue. His poem ‘Leisure’, which I present here, reflects my thoughts of how to walk through the debris of the modern life. Amen.]

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad day light,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Image courtesy: Google

Two Musketeers

Banggggg …! I was shuddering to hear a deafening sound and saw the antique clock, a precious link to a glorious lineage, lying in state, shattered in bits and pieces. The two musketeers nonchalantly examined its broken needles. They were at it again … at their chivalry act after twelve long months.

Over beaten and virtually turned upside down, my house now looked like a site after a bomb blast. Freshly painted walls were disfigured overnight. The two little terrorists, making the walls their easels, drew on them a riot of portraits, doodles, cartoons and caricatures—all with pieces of charcoal.

It was Ganesh [my brother’s son] who would always start sowing wild oats. His caricature of Deena [my sister’s daughter]—with a big, swelled head, pigtails and flat nose—would provoke the little Joan of Arc to retaliate with all her feminine power. Ganesh would thus be shown standing in a puddle with a footnote telling us that he used to wet his bed at night and get slapped by his mother.

Let the walls wail in silence for their lost gleam. But, no good was the drawing room, which, to my horror, resembled like a vessel shop having had a herd of elephants for visitors. Contraption at home were either dismantled or displaced. Thus the DVD player took refuge in the kitchen and the Wet Grinder had a new home in the hall.

The book rack looked bare. The kids had since shifted the books in the drawing room and littered them on the floor. Lying down on the heaps of books, Deena would be reading ‘The Oxford Thesaurus’. Not to get beaten by her, Ganesh would immerse himself in the holy ‘Mahabharata’. On his nose was my pince-nez.

Sometimes, there broke out a fierce battle between the kids over trifle matters like, who would watch Pogo on the TV or who would play games in my lappy. What started as a war of words would end in violence; the two would be found either exchanging blows or throwing missiles at each other—missiles like, combs, hair brushes, spoons-- and they would always miss their target and hit either Kala, my wife, or me. At times Kala would broker peace between the two warriors but to no avail.

Gosh! We were in the midst of the summer riots again gleefully sparked off by the kids the moment they came down to our house from their country homes to spend their summer vacation. They were so enterprising and industrious that their no-holds-barred antics always put us on tender hooks for a month or two.

It was on a summer evening, I went berserk. It was now my turn to ransack the house and make it a virtual hell. I had misplaced the fine print of the ‘Blah Blah’, one of my writes, and that made me disoriented. I had to send it to a Weekly magazine and the deadline was fast approaching. The tyrants, as was their wont, had deleted this piece from my Desktop.

Moved by my predicament, Kala too joined my ‘operation-search-blah-blah’. We rummaged through the house not leaving the wardrobe and laundry, but drew blank. Missing out the ‘Blah Blah’ became mystery and I was upset over its sudden disappearance.

A new ‘Blah Blah’ came to life with unbearable birth pangs. I sat through the whole of the night and reconstructed it in the morning. It looked pedestrian; lacked in its original josh. I was then distracted by the tumultuous thunder claps and boisterous laughter coming out of the drawing room. I raced over there, Kala in tow.

I saw half-a-dozen neighborhood children sitting on the floor and clamoring for attention. Deena was standing beside a table stacked with some of my books. She draped herself in a shawl, brandishing a wooden scale at the children to keep them quiet.

‘Deena, why, what the hell is going on here?’ I flared.

‘Easwar, I’m not Deena, but your class Miss. Come and sit here. I’m distributing all your exam papers.’ She shot back, eyes serious, voice commanding.

‘Kala’, Deena turned her head to my wife.

‘Yes, Miss’, Kala spoke respectfully; her hands were submissively folded across her chest.

‘Kala’ Deena now smiled and spoke softly. ‘This is your exam paper. Well done. You got 98 out of 100.’

OMG! That’s my grocery list’, Kala screamed. ‘Been searching for it for days on end.’

‘Shush’, Deena put her finger on her lips. Kala became quiet. She was happy since she got back her grocery list.

Deena stopped me when I tried to move out of the classroom. She told me to get my paper and then go out. I stopped abruptly, smiled sheepishly at her. She then flipped through the pages of a heavy bound dictionary and took out a set of papers.

‘Good heavens.’  I screamed as Kala did a few minutes back. ‘Look. Kala, that’s my ‘Blah Blah’. My eyes gleamed as if I accidentally stumbled upon a long lost treasure trove.

‘Easwar,’ Deena snarled. ‘Your ‘Blah Blah’ is all rubbish; full of grammar mistakes. I’m sorry. You failed in English. You got only 30 out of 100.’ Kala laughed aloud seeing my discomfiture. The whole class looked at me contemptuously. I saw my write was hit with green pencil and disfigured beyond recognition.

The summer had gone and the kids too. My house now falls back to its usual, intriguing silence and somnolence. Though every room remains clean and clutter free, I find sort emptiness and void surrounds them. Kala and I are now waiting for another summer … longing to have the kids in our midst. For, we know only where children gather is there a real chance of fun.

                                   

The White Stick

White- clad, brown-headed, but looking sleek

the stick’ been the bête noire of health geeks.

But not to me, buddies, never for once in the past.

 My alter ego the stick was and my macho’s logo

vicissitudes of life together we faced with cheers,

and puffing on her ever, braved I’d life’s fears.

But soon came a day-- a day of reckoning

when off she went from me with a smirk and in a huff

as I’d vowed to my gods not to puff. Neither she’d

 now caresses my craving lips nor fills my lungs

with smoke and keep my blood warm and me charm.

Thrown I’d my dear ciggy and got her bond broken, not

for health sake but after seeing a shriveled

 lame beggar in a fast moving unit train and hearing his

piteous cries for a single rupee coin.

A scrawny lame beggar hardly he could walk

and his face, a crushed lemon rind, everyone’d sulk.

A strap of loincloth on his hip was only his outfit.

 With unkempt hair and blowing grey beard

hands he’d extend to all for alms: food or coins.

Drumming on his hollowed stomach, he’d sing old

songs from past flicks with a caressing voice.

Peeving at his presence, people in the train

threw at him coins, not out of sympathy

but to shift him elsewhere as they began

to die of the foul smell his outfit was emitting.

Piercing my soul was the beggar’s heart-rending plight

and goading me it was not to pursue the smoking delight.

‘No more ciggy. Flirt with her not and give the mendicant

all the money you would save not smoking’. A voice

I heard calling me from under my heart and

 obeyed it at once as a tusker to his mahout.

Folding his hands over his empty tummy and

Curling himself up in the floor of a train station

I saw the beggar at last after a long search. When

A fifty-rupee note he got from me thrust on his hands

he cried in ecstasy not believing his eyes.

Kneeling down at my feet and wetting them with tears

he mumbled thanks and ran over to a food-stall.

In jitters went my blood craving for nicotine, but

firm I was clinging to my vow for the beggar’s sake.

Going well on my bucks that I gave him daily, he,

with gaiety, limped thro trains and cringed for alms.

New robes he wore on now, showing no more hunger pangs.

None in the train now shooed him away, as

he was so clean and tidy, singing new movie songs.

Elated I was reveling in what I’d done to a poor soul,

Which, besides saving me from the stick, gave a new

purpose to my life and a new meaning to my existence. But,

short-lived was my elation, as I didn’t see the beggar for days.

‘Who knows, he may be dead and gone now’ said a train colleague

making me search for him every train station.

Good heavens! I saw to my relief alive was the mendicant. But

lying inebriated in a secluded dark pavement, he was

with a shabby beggar woman. Puffing on a long ciggy and

letting out bellows of smoke around him, he was in a stupor.

Around him littered were cigts butts and empty bottles of beer.

Kissing and caressing the woman he babbled in booze:

‘I’ve a moron for my benefactor. Why should I go then and beg?’

The woman laughed when she heard him mimic my voice.

Petrified, I felt my head reeling and heart breaking bits and pieces.

‘Is showing compassion to a poor a crime?

Had I thrown pearls before a mud-smearing pig?

Did I mistake a serpentine a coil of rope?

While I stood speechless and got slapped by questions,

the beggar took the woman to a loo.

Link:        www.miraarvind.blogspot.com 

vasuarm@yahoo.co.in

Remembering ‘The Blitz’

Flipping Through my diary 2008 …

 The World of Journalism becomes poorer by the sudden death of Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia, the editor of the Blitz, a magazine that reveled in felling many a bad sky during its regime. The prominent place Karanjia had occupied in the portals of journalism will never get filled-up. True to his journal’s mantras – ‘Free, Frank and Fearlessness’, and the masthead of a bulldog-- Russi Karanjia, with a rare daredevilry, uncovered corruption in all walks of life.

 Blitz never trotted on beaten tracks like its fellow-journals who, for their existence, chose to play safe. Being a different mettle, and a wrought iron at that, Karanjia took up cudgels against corruption and aberrations in public life; unmasked those who’d used their positions and public offices for their self-aggrandizements; and he thus caused ripples in the stagnant waters of Indian journalism. A true, no nonsense investigative journalist, Karanjia strove hard to bring cleanliness and order in public life thru various scoops and investigations, which stoked fires of a neo idealism in the young and budding minds of his days.

 Quality Journalism and honest reporting of truth were the watchwords of the Blitz. Features like ‘The Last Page’ by Mr. Abbas, and the ‘I don’t know son’ humor lines heightened the mag’s standard and brought to its fold scores of young and old. I still remember that I’d walked miles from my house just to get a copy of the paper every Saturday from a faraway railway bookstall. I never regret having done so because Blitz had then become one of my acquired tastes and, holding the paper on hand, I tried to convey to the youth of my age that I was a notch or two higher than them in realm of knowledge and intelligence.

On the flip side, damsels [with wardrobe malfunctions] appeared in the pin-up columns of the journal hooked us every week and made our young hearts palpitate so rapidly. We were thrilled and excited when the pin-up girls started doing rounds in the classroom under the cover of note books. But as bad luck had it, our caressing of the girls with our eyes would not last long. For, our History Prof, a la Vishwamitra, caught us red handed many times and sent us out of the class as punishment. But then, such a happening came as a blessing in disguise for us and enabled us to go to a nearby theatre and watch an English movie more profane than the pin-up girls.

 I got all my memories and thoughts of Blitz relived when I recently read Mr. Sainath’s tribute to Karanjia in ‘The Hindu’. The fact that Karanjia had memory loss at the fag end of his life triggered me thinking: how could a colossus of intelligence, a sterling journalist of great acumen, and a fire-breathing dragon loose his memories and live with a mind, so bald and blank. I still keep some of the back copies of the paper in my scrapbook as my treasure-troves. Whenever I glance at them I feel as if I’m being transported back to the world of my youth, - my dreamland-, which in every respect was different and distinct from the intriguing one that’s going around me now.

Image courtesy: Google

Let the Day Come …

Let the streaks of Dawn seep

thro my window blinds, driving

out the darkness to those hearts where they belong.

 Let the godly ‘ushath ‘hour come, spilling

solemnity and warmth over the universe, and cleansing

the Earth off its sins and impurities.

Let thick plumed birds of morn light

chirp in chorus from somnolent trees, making

the awful silence of night to vanish.

Let someone switch off the dull moon

and whitewash the grey sky. Let the

indolent night wind awakens in the scorching sun.

Let from my memory go off all black dreams I'd

the night before. Let the sun come,

burn out my fright and brighten up my hopes.

Let women wake up with a bang, hearing

temple bells, covering their bareness with hands

 looking impishly at their sleeping hubbies.

To wake up my love, to look at her cherubic

face in the daylight and to re-kindle my sagging spirits

let the Day come.

If the demon of night hugs you again, don’t

be afraid. For, the Angel of the Day will

soon bloom around you and take you back

in her gleaming golden lap.

[This poem just tries to mimic Jane Kenyon’s ‘Let Evening Come’]

Image courtesy: Google

Wall of Shame!

 Wall of Shame!

For decades stood there in the village a wall

built with bricks of shame and tears of dalits.

Keeping in exile senses of mutual trust and honor

the upper caste built the wall, parading airs of supremacy.

A long and huge wall-- it wasn’t built by cement, but

by unjust and unruly ethics-- hatred being the Mason.

Poor dalits, mute they became seeing the wall in their way;

resigned timidly to their cell of subservience … a bequest

 they got from the Varnas. “It’s another albatross on our neck”

muttered the Dalits wrenching their hands in despair.

Happy they became when down went the wall of shame.

For, in its debris they saw no stones and bricks, but

the pride and arrogance of a haughty caste.

To the ground gone the village wall, but yet to go from

our minds is the sturdy wall of casteism, which

we still keep for revenge.

[A sturdy wall that was built across a village in South India which blocked the lower-castes to have access to the main road was recently demolished.]

Image courtesy: Google

Some Things Will Never Change

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world/ I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change the nation/ When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town/ I couldn’t change the town too/ Now as an old man I tried to change my family, but to no avail/ I then realized that only thing I can change is myself and if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact my family, the town and the nation.”- Rabi Israel Salanter.

 While taunting man’s helplessness to achieve what he wants in life, this poem also underscores the impossibility of changing certain things in the world… things that remain immutable to change… things that go past human efforts.

 Some of my friends are always switching jobs and going in for new, green pastures. At the time of their migration to new companies, they would blame their old ones being regressive and dead to the changes happening around them. The new companies my friends hop in suddenly catch their fancy and I hear them speak highly of them. But, their fancy is a short- lived phenomenon. For, I know they would quit the new concerns too calling their bosses addled headed morons and the company lacking in long range visions.

So fastidious are my friends that they go on switching their jobs and adducing reasons for it. A deep study of their behavior may reveal that they have sort of mind-set that refuse to appreciate the goodness in other things or persons if they go against their pre-conceived ideas and thoughts. With the ‘I-am-always-okay’ thoughts ever filling in our minds, we built an imaginary world in ourselves and weigh the real world with our so- called self- worth.

 Like nature, we should have equipoise in life. We should appreciate that while there are many things in life that are liable to change, still there are some things that are immune to change. My friends who are switching companies are well qualified. They have all the know-how and expertise in their respective fields. However, they are not ready to adopt themselves to the atmosphere of a company, which requires a change of mind-set. They quit their jobs feeling it infra dig to work with companies that are incompatible to their self-worth. If they had been a little patient, they could have brought desired changes in their workplaces.

 ‘I am always infallible, doing things right,’ is the thought that drives many of us when we pitch in to change things around us. While we perk up our ears to hear the ideas and thoughts of our contemporaries, we never open our minds either to accept them or evaluate their merits. Unfortunately, we expect such opening of minds from others when we preach our notions and thoughts. It is a sort of ‘I am okay, but you aren’t okay’ mind-set that refuses to see the worthiness in others.

‘My mom doesn’t understand me; my family doesn’t understand me; no one in my office hears what I say; and the society too is not ready to travel with my thoughts and ideas,’ are some of the monologues we continuously indulge in all through our life without realizing that it is we who need to change and not the society.

 Why do we indulge is such mawkish monologues? Why people including our family and friends don’t understand us? Why the society is lukewarm and looks askance at us when we try to change things? This happens because we always sit in a high pedestal of vanity and expect the world to rally around us and adapt to what we preach or ignore what we impeach.

There were a lot of leaders in our midst who changed many wrong courses in the world. The world accepted their course corrections without resistance as the leaders did it smoothly without the air of ‘I-know-all’. They did not swim against the current; they rather went with the stream and turned it to their way at a right time. So, success becomes elusive to those who try to force feed others with their thoughts and opinions, however good they may be.

 We cannot bring changes in the world without changing our mindset which only reflects our pride-self and know-all-character. We’d better remember that the world will never for once fall at our feet and adapt to the change we preach. Rather, it is we who should turn our thoughts to the course of the world. For, course correction, like charity, should begin at home.

 “My god, give me powers and prowess to change those things that are susceptible to change. If not, make my mind more pliable to accept such things that are immune to change,” has been the prayers of those who want to sail smoothly through the hard waters of life.

Image courtesy: Google