This thought has always haunted me.

People you meet once
and never again in your life.

You have a static picture in your mind
of their face
the small conversation
their little story they tell you
the place you met them
in a bus, a shop, on the road
interactions not long
but meaningfully small
yet leaving a memory in you.

I think of all those people
I stopped by to ask for time
seek direction of my destination
or asking where I might find
food or a resting place
in an unfamiliar area.

Once and just once you meet them.

On a summer trip, I was looking for icecream
in a strange place off the highway
walked ten minutes to find a shop
where for that brief encounter
the seller made me feel like
he had known me for long
shared the history of that area
the migration and culture of the residents
before helping me with the right icecream.

Sometimes I wonder
if they would have enriched my life
were they part of my association.

Not scholars, not rich, but simple men
who bring you down to earth
and carve a space in your mindscape.

Sadly you meet them once in your life.

I feel it's so designed.

these poems here
tethered to me
by some unknown
uncontrollable force
I didn’t ask for this
I didn’t ask for any of this
all I wanted to do was to play
with the women and the music
and maybe even my kids every now and then
not knowing, not caring,
not believing, not searching
for a higher purpose
for a greater meaning
for an elixir of divinity
but they have arrived
in different variances
& mass quantities
I didn’t ask for this
now it is here
I can’t stop
I won’t stop
until it kills me
until it kills something inside of me
until there is nothing left
except
these poems here.

They are watching you

A dilapidated billboard sign
From a time, unable to rewind
Large blue eyes behind a pair of glasses
Overlooking the valley of ashes
( F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.)

They are watching you

The haunting waste of the past nothing lasts
Which linger through its irreversible varnish
The eyes, dimmed vacant, eternally blind tarnished
Forgotten , too many days under the scorching sun
A solemn dumping ground can be found for no one

They are watching you

What’s left of the world is unrecognizable
A waste land, It’s a small world after all
Wake up Rise up Here God’s call
Echoes of the past voiced by the small

They are watching you

A Draconian government grew
All communist too
People didn’t realize what’s in store
Reminiscent of the Book 1984
(George Orwell‘s dystopian novel 1948)

They are watching you

Limited words concept control
Government’s grip won’t let go
People stifled language remove
No praise stand above or to prove

They are watching you

No freedom to think or speak
A slave No better life to seek
Obey don’t ask don’t say
If you try, they’ll take you away

They are watching you

The Past rewritten History gone
A citizen’s job all day long
Dumb society down
Shopping malls in town
Closed burned to the ground

They are watching you

Issued items from the government store
Refused a new razor blade on the knees implore
Yet expected to be clean shaven evermore
The week seek Black market contraband
If caught you lose your hand

They are watching you

Reeducation they proclaim
They know your name
A cog in the wheel, food you sought to steal
The government knows what’s best they maintain
Stay docile. This is not a game.
Driven MAD your mind breaks plan insane

They are watching you

Food scarce people emaciated
Every race creed color Martyrs created
The rich people are getting fat
They retort nothing wrong that

They are watching you


Death of the poor that’s what’s in store
For the good the betterment of mankind?
The best of humanity can no longer find
Too many mouths to feed if they have worth
they are spared beyond that no one cared

They are always watching you



Inspired songs
1) what the world needs now is love
By Jackie DeShabnon

2) Song of the old communist(Russia)
by Karen Kerr

Footnotes
While attending university a minor in literature two books that stayed with me throughout my life are the great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, and George Orwell‘s 1984. Gatsby, the billboard always watching and the symbolism throughout the book that permanently in my mind that billboard and its significance. George Orwell‘s 1984 was laughed at for so many years , there’s no way it could be a possibility. But today many things in that book are coming to pass. It’s as if “they” use that book for a roadmap to where we are today. Yet people live in a bubble they don’t think an out anything outside their bubble, they stay out of trouble while man’s freedoms are slipping away.

I’m a Bengali in sombrero
An Indian from Kolkata
I live at a stone’s throw
From where flows the Ganga.

I speak in Bengalee
For me the sweetest language
Like the Ganga flows freely
Has Sanskrit as lineage.

Rice is my staple food
So are dal and fish
A cup of tea is too good
With two biscuits on a dish.

Around me spreads green countryside
Where grows all the foodgrain
Rivers flow wild and wide
Their banks home joy and pain.

I was born and reared in this riparian land
Where soil is tilled in peasants’ sweat
Sparkles in moon the Bay’s white sand
Weaving dreams for many a poet!