"bihari" poems
I wake to the news of another lynching
As our boys scream Bleed Blue
And over the border, the Green Girls rejoice
And somewhere in Jharkhand
Two families mourn the death of their men
Cattle traders? Terrorists? Muslim?
With cloth stuffed in their throats
And arms tied behind
Hatred showing in the mob mentality
Another dark blot on our secular fabric
And I watch a short film, India, India
Of a young boy on Tuesday selling ganeshas at a temple
Another image of the same boy on a Friday
Selling taweez and chanting Ya Ali
Outside Mumbai’s Haji Ali
And on Sunday, the same boy singing the praises
of the Lord outside a church, selling amulets
And I smile
This is the India I love, the different faiths
The acceptance, the co-existence
As the morning drones on, I watch and participate
In the endless debates on Facebook and Twitter
Of people posing, taking sides, sounding pedantic
While they sit comfortably in their homes
Sipping ginger tea made by an underage maid
While their Labrador retriever is taken for a walk
By their Nepali driver and the Muslim cook smokes a bidi
In the garden with the Bihari maali where their son plays
But what will happen to the sons of the lynched cattle traders?
What will happen to the brothers of the women *****
What will happen to the mothers of the sons killed?
What will happen to the fathers of the unborn children
Killed for their mistake of being a girl child?
Is this the India we want to grow up in?
Is this the India we want to have children in?
Is this the India we want to grow old in?
Wake up, my country, it is still dawn
The road is long and far and we have miles to walk
Towards peace and freedom and love
Towards acceptance and equality and oneness
Get off that sofa and make a difference
Participate, vote, empower, create, enable
It’s up to you whether our country goes this way or that
So, wake up, my country, it is still dawn
Wake up, my country, it is still dawn
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 7:57 AM UTC
Today,
This tree was the very picture
Of a pair of birds
Who had a fight after mating.
You will never understand
The eagerness of this tree
In making every morning a new one
Or daily showing me a new movie,
However I try to describe it
One day
Leaves, that cry
“don’t go” “don’t leave”
To the wind
That passes by
Another day
Of shooing cats feasting in the shade,
On fish bone, from someone’s leftover meal,
After dribbling pigeon-droppings from a branch,
Another day
The tear-filled eyes
Of its own branch
That cries
And supplicates the sun
To heal its wound
Another day
Of its own sister branches
Or, in human parlance, wooden chairs
That have become prostitutes;
On which strange people sit casually.
One day
The Bihari
Who is scared stiff of his lord,
And who runs every time a wind blows
To sweep away the dried leaves
Which the wind has killed,
Having made violent love to them.
On yet another day,
The fruits that laugh their heads off
Along with the little blossoms that laughed once |
At the silver-blue sky
On still another day
The tap root
That suddenly burst into tears
Gazing at the dusk
That draped golden strands on boughs and twigs
On yet another day,
The aged middle-portion of the tree
That unveiled the hitherto unexposed
Moss-green nursling
And prayed that it be named
Another day before this,
Had made me sad
By asking
“Are you wont to see
the other tree-friends
Throughout the countryside ?”
Had made me heartsore
By asking me
“Would you forget me?”
Once, have asked
Whether I would point out
The mother-bird
Who sowed the seed after she ate the fruit
I have made myself broken-hearted |
wondering
Where or how mother was.
At the moment
When the mind gets shaken up
And becomes even more fragile,
In the memory of
Some trees
That have helped some lives thrive,
Have given shade,
Given oxygen,
Crucified,
O tree,
I am hugging you,
Giving you
A frozen, but still very passionate kiss
With the Alloyed numbness of death and life :
A tree-kiss
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
Like a well oiled engine, my heart whirrs in pleasure at your sight
Found a biker boy and rode into the sunset
I'm a ship honey. Take me from my harbor
A sailor caught my helm and sailed into the horizon
Are you a black hole? Because you **** me in.
The physicist sat me on his lap and we got lost in space
Are you Messi ? Because I'm a Ballon d'or.
Shots were fired. Goals were scored. And they ruled the field together.
I have reached the top tier of Maslow's needs.
After extensive psychoanalysis, we found our counselors in each other.
If you're a rebuttal point, I'll always have you covered.
She and the debater found their grey patch amidst the black and white.
I'll make you a sandwich if you are male, white and a misogynist.
She found love with the racist and waited on him hand and foot.
I'll draw your heart with HB pencils and make an acrylic out of our relationship.
The artist found her bluetiful and incRedible.
I'm a South Indian who loves dosa, an uneducated Bihari, the patanjali promoting Hindu, the Muslim terrorist, the Christian converter, the Russian spy, the fake Chinese, the blond cheerleader, the ladyless female football player, the classy British, the poor illiterate, the fat American, the mannerless slum dweller, the conservative Indian woman, the dumb **** the unromantic geek, the bald science teacher, the old librarian, the charisma less nerd......
Stereotype found it's soulmate and lived happily ever after.
I fall in love with words. Ink is my blood. Emotions and thoughts are my food.
The poet smirked and said," Haha! Nice try."
~Pacific Wolf
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 12:06 PM UTC
The BJP has impressed me,
Welfare is their priority,
They have improved as a political party.
They used to be the capitalist kind,
Completely rightwinger it used to be,
They used to be crony capitalists.
But they have improved,
Their worth they proved,
India administrated by them will be happy.
They have made sacrifices,
Who can forget Shyama Prasad Mukherjee?
Once they know him - they can't.
Who can forget Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji,
Or the living legend, Lal Krishna Advani ji,
Or the fallen soldiers, Sushma ji or Arun ji?
We have many more leaders,
All distinguished in their spirit of Indianness,
Narendra Damodardas Modi, their scion.
They used to be plain capitalists, yes,
But now they are very different,
They are the Left of Right.
Sep 24, 2019
Sep 24, 2019 at 2:46 AM UTC