A winter poem

An evening it was,
december was the month
and everything seemed
to wrap in a blanket of cold.

stillness, all around
melancholy, of death
smoke, as if arising fom a pyre
filled the grey sky

everything lay silent
motionless, numb
an uneasiness enveloped the ambience

the sun eaiting to be set
caste a gloomy shadow
and a vacuous dark
finally seemed to spread.

was it the end of the world ?

of thoughts into exile: Shivdeep lande

“He came, he saw and he fell short of conquering”
This age old adage comes to mind when one thinks of now former city sp of Patna, Shivdeep Wamanrao Lande.
No one remembers clearly when did he actually take charge of his post but when he did it was with élan. Newspapers were suddenly so fondly painted with the pictures of this stylish young man, taken in various poses at various places. Places the man raided. Places like cyber “sex” cafes, fake cosmetic factories, factories where children worked.
Weeks passed and newspapers piled on. So did this man’s achievements. Stylishly dressed in his khaki uniform, he was an extension of bollywood cops of the likes of singham and dabangg into real life. His valor must be praised for he dared to put his hands into the vicious circle of black marketing and other under the table work, something nobody before him had the guts for.
His was an aura that seemed to transcend all barriers of social life. He made his numbers public so that anybody in distress could call him and on more than many occasions it was the girls who solicited for his help. A man with a rank, he was a nightmare to the street hooligans- those who rode their bike in “lahariya” style and taunted girls, made ugly remarks.
He thrashed them, beat them up, and summoned them.
As the months passed, his popularity increased and so did the infamy. More than his work it was his style of work that goaded many.
He began to attend school functions and inauguration of sports meets. He was the face of a ramp shows and cultural programs. He, over a period of months became a celebrity. Camera persons and news reporters flocked him where ever he went. He was snapped  all over as if paparazzi followed him everywhere.
Last month, he raided a record 27 illegal proceedings.
This week, he was transferred.
He was asked to pack his bags to araria, a small district of Bihar in the foothills of Nepal.
What was his fault??
That he dared to expose the vicious circle of crime readily flourishing in the underbelly of the city and around.
Was he a threat to the police nexus, which despite seeing a hundred problems turns its back to rest in peace (pun)?
Or that he was given the title of super cop- a man who could do anything to save the people of his city?
The reason might be any but what disturbs me more is the reaction of people. The way they have responded to his transfer is insulting to every one of us, as individuals or as a society.
Girls and parents of girls gathered together outside the man’s gate and pleaded him not to go. They believed he was the savior of their girl’s dignity.
Is this how weak have we become that we need another man, whosoever he may be, to protect the dignity of our daughters?
Why do we need to rely upon other shoulders, however strong they may be to defend what’s ours?
If newspapers reports are to be believed, then before mr. lande took over, every girl of Patna was raped or at least was tried to rape in almost every street of Patna.
Is this true?
And as they say, nemesis can be delayed but it’s inevitable. He had to be transferred, if not now then may be next year or a year later.
This comes at a time when the chief minister of bihar, mr. nitish kumar is busy producing the report card of his tenure.
Doesn’t it raise a question on its integrity?
Why do we need to engage in imbecilic idol worship and disregard what’s important and matters most?
There’s a why to everything prevalent around.
Why am I not getting my answers??

An open letter to Ajmal Kasab

Time, as they say, is the master of all.  Three years, three long years have so blissfully passed that it’s impossible to think of our existence without you.
Three years ago, on an old November evening of 26/11/ 2008, you with your impaling bullets landed at the VT station, Mumbai and entered straightaway to our hearts. Your blue Armani t shirt and beige cargo pants we all still fondly remember. 
the courage you shot millions of innocent or to put it bluntly, dumb Indians whose life are of no value, with was almost gladiatorial as the AK 47 in your hand that seemed no less than a scepter. 
Court cases, numerous proceedings and the usual political stuff followed after the massacre you and your friends dared to. Your story was so truth defying that some even wanted to make a bollywood potboiler on it.
But you were and still very much are profusely valiant, for it’s not a kid’s joke to enter a country, kill a couple of high rank police officers and a few other hundred people and still hold one’s head high in public just on the account of being a teenager.
We even provided you with  lawyers. not one or two but three , someone to talk on behalf of one who killed and conspired to kill millions others. Doesn’t that sound lame if not quadriplegic that we wanted you to defend you, one who has a visible proof of being mercenary??

Three years, for three long years, we have fed you the most exotic of Indian dishes from biryanis to aloo dums. 
And as you may have heard during your stay in India, we Indians religiously follow the adage “atithi devo bhava”. In English it means, the guest is god. But sadly, you can’t appreciate any of these since you only speak, read and write in Arabic. 
We in India are not much of a technology freak but we have installed CCTV cameras at some places to show off and some of them actually work. Fortunately or unfortunately, blame it on your bad (or was it good?) luck, one of them mistakenly caught you (sic) while you were on the killing spree. But videos can be distorted with. They can be altered and even be animated. You have a valid reason to be free.
To me, you are a celebrity-ette. Newspapers carry your photographs, everybody from our PM Manmohan Singh to the teas stall boy discusses you as you pass your days, lost in the solitary gloom, perhaps thinking of future plans for mass destruction.
Sixteen crore. Sixteen crore is the amount we have spent on you during the past three years. But in a country where ministers so proudly engage in scams worth a couple of thousand crore, sixteen crore is really a minuscule amount. Isn't it ??

Judiciary in India is supposed to be the highest of all but some political parties, for their own benefit tend to influence its decisions. Thus, you with your distant cousin from the world of terror, afzal guru relax in a Indian jail, partly sure that both of you will walk away someday, breathing fresh air, on the wobbly promise of human rights.
America has already finished off your grandpa Osama, but you need not to worry as you will be pretty safe in Indian jails.
As I end this letter, I pray to the god almighty for your long, happy and prosperous stay in India ahead.
Jai hind! 

Nostalgia

A smell sometimes
takes me back to the times
i don't know of
or i don't clearly remember

sometimes, while walking through the lanes
i can smell the fragrance
unsure of what it is
but it evokes a sense of deja vu

on a November evening, when it's not that cold
i freeze in my way, the moment, i feel the smell
restless, i become, and try to remember
but fail, and move on.

a rain of dispair

the October sun
shone high in the sky
the sun, of a sepia tone
till the clouds came by

clouds of hope, they seemed
but weren't
clouds of rain, uncertainty
they were

they brought with them
the rains of death
and not of belief,
that was shattered

monstrous, ferocious
vehemently dark and gray
they cast a shadow,
a shadow of gloom and dismay

they thundered, and roared
and rained till dark,
and it has rained ever since
to wash away my hopes, miles apart

सड़क और माँ

बात कल शाम की है

सड़क पार करते समय

मेरी चाल कुछ धीमी पड़ गयी

और फूल गयी मेरी सांसें

एक कतार से आती हुई गाड़ियों को देखकर

सकपका गया मैं 

याद आई मुझे मेरी माँ

जो मेरा हाथ पकडती थी,

मैं निर्भीक सड़क पार करता था

आज मैंने देखा

मेरी माँ कहीं नहीं थी 

अंगुली मेरी पकड़ने के लिए

डबडबा आई मेरी आंखें

में हमेशा सोचता, कहता और झगड़ता था

सड़क अकेली पार करने के लिए

आज मैं अकेला था 

और सामने एक अंतहीन सड़क  

days to remember

Days to remember
memories to cherish
you gave my sights to behold
in minutes you’ll perish

you were a start
as well an end
my horizons
you helped my transcend

You made me free
from the grips that clutched
you made me sit
and look what mattered

You stayed awake
wide eyed all night
dawn did come, you left
I was alone, with memories to fight


This is an allegorical poem i wrote on the eve of new year 2010.

from son, to father

I guess, you would never be able to read this or it may not ever reach you, nevertheless, I write this to you because you are special to me. As kid you were my hero- the tallest, strongest and the most intelligent person in the world I knew. You were my superhero, and perhaps you still are and forever will be.
But somehow we grew apart. That I am a part of you and an extension of your being will always be a fact that can not be doubted upon. However, with the course of time, a few things shaped up our course of relationship which can never be forgotten.
I know I am a bad son, and I have my vices yet you could have been a good father. You always had your virtues you could rely on.
I don’t know if you still remember the day I had scored just 47 out of 70 in mathematics in the third grade. You might not be, as you have other things to take care of…but I do. And I do remember your sarcastic remark. I was a kid, and didn’t care about marks. No one does. Nor does one purposely try to score less. You may not have noticed but it felt as if a bullet had pierced my puny chest. It still has the same effect when I remember that. Since then, perhaps in my subconscious I had this motive of proving you wrong every time I did something.
I also remember the cold winter morning you made me stand outside the house just because I was calling out my friend’s name and it disturbed your sleep. It’s not your fault if you don’t remember that incident, as you had other things to indulge in.
Even today, a foggy December morning evokes an identical sentiment.
It was my 10^th birthday and I came to the house we lived in, just 10 minutes late after playing with my friends and you shouted at me. I know you apologized for that later that evening but the damage was already done. I didn’t cry that day but I do now…whenever I remember the day.
There are many more things that come rushing to my mind as I write this but it would only fester the wounds.
I also know that sometimes it was my fault. You must have felt bad when they called you at the school to say nasty things about me; but I never wanted to be bad let alone make you feel bad. But I was caught in the cobwebs of this big, bad world.

I still remember the day when I essayed the character of bishop in one of the school plays and you were a proud father, as it was obvious from your smile. And the day the results of class X th board exams were announced and you hugged me because I had scored 92 %. But those were days I brought laurels, days I achieved something.
The picture of you waiting for me after the first day of school is still very fresh in my heart, although it has become a bit faint. Every time I feel lonely on these roads of life I wish you would come out of nowhere and carry my piggyback. I wish you could love me not because I was something but because nothing…just your son.

Every now and then, I feel it would have been different had you understood me…u never did, or at least tried for it. I sometimes hate you for not being tolerant and giving but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. The truth is; I can’t part away from you, for it’s your face I see every time I look into the mirror. And I am going to miss you when you are not around.
Your son!!

i wont cry

The pain is inflicted
deep in my heart
yet I won’t
cry tonight

my eyes are laden
with clouds of tears
shaking, convulsing
trembling with fears

yet I have pledged
I won’t cry tonight

much has been said
and written ever since
but I’ll sail through
without crying tonight.

The song of death

this is something i scribbled in my diary an year ago :

Every time i fall asleep
lying in my dreams deep
a tune i hear
its the lullaby of death

Ennui

sitting alone on my porch
i spend my days alone
with nobody to share my
sorrows with

lonesome,  i look at the sky
gaze at the patterns
which clouds make and fly

only companion, of my nights
is the moon
miles away,
i look at it, in retrospect
sink in abyss
to find my way

Late nights and movies

Asphyxiating smell of Cigarette smoke combined with the fragrance of incense sticks filled the fourth floor of hotel corridor. Standing shirtless in the balcony, I could see a deviant scene below. The clock had struck and it was midnight but still the street below didn’t show any sign of inactivity.

Here, it was, bursting with energy as every restaurant seemed to pack in the last moolah for the day. It was the night before comedk and the street seemed to be an influx of the cultural diversity of India.

My eyes, heavy due to the long flight and all the rice I had since morning, though intoxicated, refused to sleep though. The shadow of a big banyan trees in contrast with the yellow light of street lamp casted a silhouette on the wall, which was intimidating to say the least.

Bored of looking around I switched on the TV.

 Streaming through an ocean of kannada channels I could breathe a  short sigh of relief as I found an island in the “discovery” channel, it was later I realized it too was dubbed and being telecasted in kannada.

After a few minutes of exploration and investigation, catching hold of SET-PIX was at par with being strangled on a deserted island surrounded by sharks which be au fait with our language.

The movie being shown was ong bak 2. I was hooked as I found the steel grayish cold ambience of the movie quite enchanting. The plot wasn’t too good but I stuck on to it in dearth of nothing better to see. After wading through the movie for an hour and half, I was hardly able to comprehend anything. The movie left a meaningless void, which perhaps was the precursor to entrap the audience for ong bak 3, which I haven’t gathered the courage to watch yet.

I was reminded of the incident today, as after almost a couple of months, rocky 2 was something that I bumped into. One hand pushups were the one of the reasons I watched the movie for, an oscar winning screenplay being the other. The murmuring dialogue delivery of Mr. Stallone coupled with ‘you know’ in almost every other line was infuriating, if not frustrating. As I watched the boxing sequences where the protagonists taunt each other, I was vaguely reminded of sunny deol’s antics from apne (word check wants me to change it into acne; is it right??). The best part about the movie was the way it started

“Metro Goldwin Mayer presents”.

It’s something rarely seen in the movie these days. But who’s complaining??

p.s.; the lion of goldwin mayer had more expressions in the 15 second clip than sly stallone bestowed upon us in the 2 and a half hour of junk. Avoid if you must.

Going Nuts

Groundnuts, cashew nuts or hazel nuts- there are many. Each have their own benefits, advocated by doctors universally. But this article is neither about nuts nor about their apparent health benefits. Instead this is about the nicknames we students gave to our teachers with all due respect.

Of all funny names that come to my mind, Chinese butru tops the list. We were in class 5^th and he never taught us but some invigilator duties were sufficient to rechristen him. The reason behind this hilarious name, I am told was his short stature and mechanical approach (fake Chinese gadgets –the inspiration perhaps) to teaching. Incidentally, a friend of mine told me about this while we were playing and we both ended up in tears of laughter. Another such uproarious name that we invented almost half a decade earlier than the rajnikant starrer ‘robot’ was , yes, you guessed it right, ROBOT. His punctuated style of speaking was probably the reason he was named so. Nepali master was another such name we gave to one teacher of ours (do I see accusation of me being a racist?).

It was in class ^7th, I changed schools and was introduced to new teachers with new names. At this point of time, I felt how creativity sweeps all barriers of physicality. Even at distances as large as a few hundred miles, students name their teachers with comparable zeal.

Here, in spite of the city life, nicknames awarded to teachers were laden with ingenuity.

Sample this. A teacher called chiniyabadam was baptized so because of his customary statement:

“Nahi padhiyega, nahi likhiyega…station pe chiniyabadam bechiyega”.

But jokes apart, he was dexterous in his craft and more than that he was a good human being who rose above teacher – student relationship to help his pupils. Another was called Prem Chopra purely because of his voyeuristic poetry and striking resemblance to the said actor. Krrish and chhota chetan, despite being clichés were hit among us. The teacher who loved his students but was abhorred by one and all was called “baka”, which I guess was because of his eccentricity which everybody confused for wackiness. He was a senti-“mental” guy who got carried away with his emotions.

To forget dumdum mai and her beetle chewed face would be a mistake execrable. Another such teacher was thermos, she taught us geography and disaster management, which is a pun in itself as nobody but the first bench of the class used to listen to her. The rest were heavy eyed enough to doze off.

Pele, our math’s teacher, was funnily named thus with no such reason whatsoever. He knew his students called him with such a name and almost appeared to enjoy that.
dholu and raavan were 2 such another names, purely based on the physical appearance of the teachers, the former had a big paunch and the other one was huge in size.( no, he just had only one head )

It was again in the summer of ’09 I changed schools after graduating from high school and a new world of nicknames opened to me. This time I had the privilege or perhaps, become smart enough to moniker people around me.

“solanaceae” was the name which we used to call a teacher, simply due to his strange infatuation with the foresaid plant family.

I had my share of fun all through school life, experimenting and dubbing everyone around me. What’s your story??

p.s.: another nut was, well, a coconut. The man taught us mechanics – the physics of freely falling vaddies.

It hurts

 The poem was written on 31st mach '10:

It hurts

When you have nobody back home,

It hurts,

When people don’t trust you,

It hurts,

When belief is a word that’s strange

It hurts

It hurts,

When you realize,

The smile is fake,

It hurts,

When people sympathesize,

For god’s sake

It hurts,

When you know,

You have no shoulders to weep upon,

It hurts,

When you know,

There’s nobody u can trust upon

It hurts,

When you have to face it,

All alone in the big bag world,

It hurts…..

Never Did i say

This piece was written during the week I had to pass in isolation, and I realized that my friends were my real foes:-

Never did I say,

I want to walk with you,

All I wanted was,

You speak the truth.

Lonely days, cut off from the world,

Seem much more beautiful these days,

More, much much more,

Than your ugly false ways.

Your lies, your consolations,

Of no use,

Your evil notions.

If you’d have told me what it was

I would have never fled away,

A bit of trust, and lots of love,

I still want to come,

All the way.