Night it was....

Night, my dear,
Night when darkness is near,
Night when words fade and thoughts rise,
Night when the day dies,
Night, it was when we parted,
Night, it was as the fog hid you from me,
Night, it was when I cried in the rain,
Night, when I wish I died of pain,
Night, that kills all light,
Night, that kills all life,
Night, when my life got dark,
Night, when you kissed me the long kiss goodnight...

Earth Revisited

He got a day to revisit this earth, to meet the men
He so loved. The goodness of whom he believed in,
He wanted to go under cover. He knew, that people feigned
Devotion to his words when he was around.

So he came in the guise of an old man, although a bit different,
From what he looked like when he himself was an old man.
He wore no glasses and carried no long sticks,
But had a long white beard and turban to match with.

He wanted to see if his dream of Ramarajya had come true,
As he had been promised on his death bed,
So he visited his beloved Ram’s supposed birthplace
The old, yet dynamic and of late, turbulent city of Ayodhya.

He got into the main artery of the city and merged with the locals,
Unperturbed by the queer glances people threw at him,
He walked along the roads, believing that he walked in a free and united India.
An India where Hindus and Muslims walked hand in hand.

He was sweating profusely, it was a sunny day.
He looked up at the clear blue sky and lowered his head,
His eyes shot up into the distance, something was wrong,
Something was missing in the familiar Ayodhya skyline.

A dome, an old battered yet monumental dome, was missing.
He tried to check his memory to see if he had forgotten,
But no, he had definitely seen it when he was last in town,
It seemed just like yesterday, though from a different life altogether.

Nevertheless, the dome was missing, and the man knew it.
His curiosity broke his initial resolve against speaking,
He went to a bystander and enquired, after describing himself,
Not as a father figure, but as an alien who had been living under a stone,

The man looked at him in an intriguing fashion, then replied,
He told him about the bloodbaths the country had faced,
Where brother had killed brother and torn the fabric of amity,
Where hammers and hands broke more than they had built.

The listener was deeply pained; this was not what he had expected,
He had thought that his death would be the final sacrifice on the altar of unity
And that there would be no more bloodshed in the name of God.
He had given up his life willingly, but in vain.

When he heard that a handful of fanatics broke what he had built
With his sweat and bones and blood, he shuddered,
An overwhelming sense of helplessness passed through him,
He stood aghast at what he had fathered and what it had come to.

He was a martyr, and believed in his cause to the core,
And yet he was a victim to the very fanaticism he fought to end,
It had instead ended his life, and more importantly, his efforts,
And still he believed in his cause of non violence.

The speaker continued talking about the clashes and counter clashes
Stories of revenge to avenge blood through more blood,
Fights in courts and on roads that had been equally ineffective,
Saints and Sufis who had begged for peace.

The old man felt hot iron poured through his ears,
As though this news was nothing, another explosion ripped his drums apart.
It shook the soul inside his temporal body,
The innate soul in him strived to get to the centre and save lives.

His new acquaintance told him to leave the area,
He reasoned that the man’s dubious looks were prime prey
To the explosive brew of young vigour and old dogmas.
The man begged to disagree, he rushed in to find out and help.

The blast was at the temple site, which was built on the site of a mosque,
This allegedly was built over a temple, in the spot where a god was born,
A god who preached tolerance, brotherhood and love for all creatures,
And people fought in His name, trying to obliterate each other.

Saffron turned red with rage, and tried to burn up the green,
No colour cared about the nameless girl, who lay bleeding on the ground,
The man picked the girl up and begged for help, he was unaware
Of how things worked fifty years into his future.

None turned up, people busy with sticks and spears
Had no time for sympathy or good sense,
He carried her on his shoulders, to anywhere there was help
To save her before all was lost.

He weaved in and out of the mob, solely intent on rescuing her,
Depositing her in a van that had arrived to help,
He went back to stop more death and damage,
As he had done all his life.

He lifted a man out of the debris,
The man was priest in the makeshift temple,
Despite his injuries, the man shrugged him off,
And began chanting, to cleanse the touch of a Muslim

Our old man was perplexed, he was not a Muslim
Nor did he belong to any of the millions of religions,
He was a man of Men, a man who was love and sacrifice.
And yet he faced rejection from everybody he tried to help.

Aghast and horrified, he moved out of the mob,
A cocktail of religion and hatred was being stirred
He wanted to get away from it all, breathless and stifled,
He walked aimlessly down and away, calling out to the Lord.

Whether his calls reached the lord or not,
This we may never know, but it did reach
The ears of another gun-toting fanatic
Who believed that he was fighting the war of God

He appeared in front of the man, called him an infidel,
Told him that he had to die, so a warrior could reach Heaven,
The old man was ready to die, if he’d be the last to do so,
But all he heard was a sarcastic laugh and a deafening gunshot.

A second time, he went to the rigor, of shock and pain,
Nothing had changed, he still believed in the goodness of man.
Nothing had changed, Man was still a beast led by emotion
He felt life rising out of his body, though not for the first time.

As he ascended the steps, to reach his heavenly abode,
He had already petitioned for another chance,
To go amongst men and teach them the lesson of truth and justice,
For he still believed in the basic goodness of Man.

The men he believed in, sang his glory, on his birthday every year,
They shut his eyes with garlands, to hide the billions they embezzled,
They shut liquor shops for a day, to sell it in the black market and earn more,
They circumambulated him religiously, perhaps to appease him.

Perhaps he was appeased and even blessed them, by smiling
On every piece of currency they looted right under his nose,
Or perhaps he has been shocked to a coma, by their plunder,
And stands frozen in stone, holding a helpless stick in his hand.

Time and Tide

A walk down the beach on a December evening
Brings forth a lot of memories to my mind
As the cool breeze caresses me, it reminds me
Of your gentle touch and caring warmth.
But it just ain’t the same.

I turn around to check these sands
To see if my footsteps, made moments ago, still exist
Well, they don’t. They’ve been eaten by the last tide.
As fleeting as time, the tide erases all,
That has been, is and will be....

But the power of these tides is limited,
It exists only on the sands of time.
It cannot rule the realm of the mind,
It can remove the footprints of existence,
But it cannot remove your memories from heart.

The walks we had, on the sands of the sea and Time
Those will never fade or disappear
For, we still continue to walk, holding each other’s hands
In the pristine beaches of my heart,
With happy tidings flowing out from the sea of bliss...

The Dance and the Promise

She danced above the waters, her green fins aloft,
Accompanied by the dolphins, with their nimble feet,
And while the shoals of small fish admired from the water,
Her graceful dance brought the stars out of their slumber,
Making their watery ballroom into a disco,
While I watched from the sandy shores, their beautiful show,
It was a scene from a beautiful poem....
How I wish I could’ve joined them!

I would’ve for sure, but for my two left feet,
Tied to bonds of mortality, I could only admire from a distance,
She waved at me, told me she was waiting, for us to meet,
Told me that she would teach me how to dance,
With a promise to return later and join them, I bid farewell,
Only I know, that till then, in my dreams she would dwell...

The All-mighty Devil

I was a kid, when I first heard about him,
Wanting to buy every drop of chocolate
And every bar of ice cream ever made
Probably I was too young
To have known him. But then,
I didn’t know a lot of people then!

Wide-eyed I watched an ice cream seller,
Stop his cart and offer a huge bar of vanilla,
To the man in the dark suit,
After he left though, the seller turned to me,
And claimed that the man was so powerful,
Coz he had exchanged his soul with the devil.

I was intrigued, who was this devil guy?
And if he could make a man so powerful
To get free ice cream any time he wanted,
How much power would HE have?
I really wanted to meet this guy,
But he didn’t live in my lane.

The next time I heard about him was in my teens,
My eyes trailed behind the latest rage on the silver screen
Her ample bosom, no wonder aroused my teenage fantasies,
But then, the bald priest interrupted the erotic quest,
And told me that the woman’s beauty arose
From the pact she had made with the devil.

Now, I really wanted to meet this guy,
And I roamed around the country looking for him,
On my travels, I saw stretches of wheat fields,
A farmer working on one of them, lamented,
That all the fields belonged to one man,
Who the devil had blessed with immeasurable riches.

Tired as I was, with desire and desperation growing,
The more I heard of his power and the more elusive he was.
And that was when I met him, tall, jolly and simple he was.
I was awestruck at how cordial he was to me.
I was no match for his powers, and the boons he gave
Yet he was the symbol of hospitality and kindness.

He asked me what I wanted to know,
I came out of my reverie and inquired,
Did he make people powerful, beautiful and rich?
He shook his head in the negative,
There was a hint of smile on his lips,
A gentle mischief at play.

He said that despite his wish, he did not have those powers,
People who did have those qualities,
Did so by their own merit. I was puzzled.
I told him what I had heard about him,
His mischievous smile widened from ear to ear
While he informed me that I had been talking to his PR agents.

The Man On The Lighthouse

He stood on the lighthouse, all through the night,
Looking out into the sea, into the rolling waves,
Waiting, for something, for someone, he wanted to meet,
Someone who he was sure would appear anytime soon.

For the last few years, the lighthouse had become his home,
He no longer wanted to walk in the city,
The city had changed, but not he, and all that he knew
And held close to his heart had disappeared.

And so he had retreated, to the desolate lighthouse
That stood in the middle of the sea, with its water-washed walls
Through the months and years, the lighthouse had become
A part of him and he, a part of it.

For they both lay in wait, to fulfill their life’s purpose.
The lighthouse, for a ship to cross its feet and he,
For his mermaid to rise out of the waters,
And walk with him to his world.

He knew that the ship would never come,
It had never done in the past and never would,
The lighthouse knew that the mermaid wasn’t coming
She was well ensconced in the depths of the ocean.

But they remained brothers in waiting,
They had nobody but each other for company,
What they waited for, the rest of the world cared not,
What happened in the outer world, they cared nought for.

He stood with his hands on the rails, and eyes red with waiting,
Expecting his mermaid to turn up any moment,
For her to rise above the waters and meet him,
For them to walk together into his world.

He had spent many a happy moment with her,
A long vacation plan they had spoken about,
Visiting the white sandy beaches that lay not far
From the very lighthouse that he now was standing on

They had wanted to dance on the shores,
To swim together in the blue lagoons,
To build their own little hut near the waves
All not far from where he stood today.

She had left him, forever, but he did not know that
He looked over the frothy waves, for any hint
For a glimpse of his beautiful mermaid,
To see her rising above the waters.

This was where he had last seen her,
Walk hand in hand with her dad,
The king of the seas, had taken her
To his palace under the waves,

But she had turned around, at the last minute,
And promised to be back, for him,
And to take him with her, forever,
Now, he waited, for her to come.

He waits there to this day, now aged and wrinkled,
His skin shows cracks that rival a crater-hole,
His eye can’t see his own toe,
But still he waits for her.

He no longer hears the roar of the waves,
The sun and the moon have failed to amuse him,
The very lighthouse on which he stands is in ruins,
But still he waits for her.