Nothing is exact!

Inspired by the innocent question on a song called "Mathura nagarpati, kahey tum gokul jaao?".

What does it mean, she asked. And this is my answer:

What makes it oh, so hard

For you to understand

The feelings that the bard

Wrote in a lyrical hand.

What makes Krishna so right

And Radha oh, so pure?

What makes their trysts at night

Blameless to the core?

What makes Krishna devoted

To Radha AND his wife?

Yet deified and quoted

As the perfect form of life?

What makes Radha’s character

So strong and full of glory?

What makes us resurrect her

By repeating her love story?

What makes immortal romance

So elevating in our eyes?

What makes us want to chance

Everything for that prize?

What makes that song appealing

Is not its logic but in fact,

It’s a vague resonance of feeling

Because “Nothing is exact!”

What makes nothing exact, you see

Are questions with no replies.

My truth is my answer for me

And your truth, for you likewise.

Faith is dead.

Faith is dead.

It could not survive

In the worlds that thrive

On passion and lust

And a greed for stardust

And variety in bed.

Faith is dead

Faith is dead.

Words carry no weight.

Sentiments change with the date.

Promises are broken

Kisses are a token

Of inhibitions shed.

Faith is dead.

Faith is dead.

Relationships are nought

But an emotionless knot

Of arms and legs.

Starving morality begs

And pleads to be fed.

Faith is dead.

Faith is dead.

I must confess that I dread

The order this age has bred.

In shame I hang my head

But now this must be said:

Love, with suspicion is wed.

Faith is dead.

A DROWNING MAN’S COME UP FOR AIR

 

My boat that sank

Like a ten ton tank

Has gone down without me.

I’m wet and cold

But I’ve got the hold

Of hope that’s floating free.

I swim and kick

I try every trick

To keep my head above

The sea of charges

Of who sank the barges

On which had sailed my love.

I cough up my bile

With a shrug and a smile

Discarding the flood of despair.

I struggle for the shore

To live once more...

A drowning man’s come up for air.

A DROWNING MAN

No hope in sight

No will to fight

An ocean full of grief.

Hands that clutch

At nothing much

But impossible belief.

That he will endure

Till brought to her shore

In a dream filled golden boat

But as time flies

He does realise

That wishes do not float.

His boat of gold

In which his bold

And reckless love had sailed

In stormy weather

Got together

With betrayal and failed.

Memories evoke

Emotions that choke

Engulfing all senses in pain.

Wave after wave

Of nostalgia enslave

All thoughts of loving again.

Tear dry eyes

He shuts and tries

For unconsciousness and bliss

And as he sinks

In sorrow thinks

A drowning man must feel like this.

A day in the life of a clerk

Sunrise

Dawn stealthily stealing

The nightly cover and revealing

Smog, and those irritating flies.

Eyes

Gummed with sleep and yesterday’s dirt

The pillow made of the other shirt

And the youngest baby’s piercing cries.

He sighs

A toss of the blanket over the head

The creaking of joints of the weatherworn bed

The smell of leaked milk on the wife’s chemise.

He dries

Himself after a scanty bath

Combs those graying hair as the aftermath

That he plans to but never dyes.

Chastise

One child and scold the other

For troubling the youngest baby brother

And hurriedly leave, no waves, goodbyes.

Futile tries

To impress the boss with the typewriter’s clatter

And shabby compliments aimed to flatter

The boss’s acknowledgement, curt, concise.

The despise

For those interminable files

Evident in the complete absence of smiles

And the vacant look under a busy disguise,.

Socialise

Over soggy lunches and cups of tea

Discussions on the boss’s secretary

Then back to work with tired sighs.

Scrutinise

The yellowed dial on a tired wrist

Through cigarette smoke and a sweaty mist

And hurriedly leave, no waves, goodbyes.

Noise

In the street and in the house

Shrieking of children, complaining of spouse

Go on till the darkening of the skies.

Economise

The uppermost thought in either mind

Evident in the trouser’s patched behind

And the children’s clothes, too small in size.

They arise.

After the evening meal has ended

And sound sleep on the kids has descended

He retires for the night between her tired thighs.

Realise

That life of checking files by light

And passionless love to the wife at night

Is nothing but a slow drawn out demise.

Aching eyes

Dreaming of a paradise

Which the frustration and pain belies

Welcome a sleep that will anaesthise.

Six Years

Your absence

Like a hollow space

Reverberates at night.

Vacuum can be painful,

I realize.

Six years

And you still are

Like a breath of fresh air

In my life.