Gentle waters. 

Almost still. Deep green. 

And the sun in it. 

An uncertain little sun. 

Dancing on soft ripples. 

I saw those lines. I read those words. 

And the boat sailed on smoothly. 

An ancient boat. 

Ornate. Sturdy. 

I stared into the waters green. 

And saw those lines. And read those words.

The boat glided on. Softly. 

Not a murmur anywhere. 

All quiet. All still. 

Amidst  ripples now and then. 

And each ripple a silent verse. 

In waters still. And waters green. 

Brimming with layers of poetry. 

All glistening in a shaky sun. 

As the boat sailed on. Softly through. 

Smoothly past all poetry.  

Lines breaking. Lines abrupt. 

Bursting forth from depths unknown.

And broken lines rejoining. 

And complete lines breaking apart.

As the boat sailed on. Softly through. 

Smoothly past all poetry.  

You dawn upon my old lost self

Like distant slants of hazy light

Softly defining foggy contours

Of a rough rugged ruined scape

I live you as my memory

Your name is count of time to me

And ours is a tale of bright sunshine 

On a rusty shutter painted green

For an obscure shop with scanty light

Whereon sits a butterfly

I live in you as memory

Your name is count of time to me

Another petition. 

Another hashtag. 

Another outburst of outrage in the virtual space against violence and bestiality in the actual world. 

Had the times been better, there would have been more protest marches, reactionary poetry-reading sessions, candle light protests...seeking that elusive chimera called justice...though mostly for fictitious metaphorical names, as far as rape is concerned.

Forgive me, for this might seem like apathy but I honestly see no point.

I see no point when the capitalist industries of mass-entertainment continue to make money by instigating scopophilia and voyeuristic pleasure in a world comprising flesh-hungry men who have "needs". Add to it spokespersons of the civil society who explain the rationality of such "needs". And then mass entertainers who throw out half-clad visual delights - men and women alike, to pull crowds and excite the instincts of a largely illiterate, patriarchal, flesh-ridden audience. And then raise storms of protests when an incident is reported...

Yes, as I write all of this, I am so aware of the counter-arguments and logic - bring it all on, for I have lost all of it. 

I have lost logic and rationality and then again, lost it repeatedly in the arguments of liberal or even radical, philosophies. 

All I understand is that the unguarded, the unprotected, faceless women - who become fictitious metaphorical names for your civilized hashtags claiming 'justice' - pay a price way too high for them and their families to bear, for every little capitalist sport indulging in the pleasures of the body on the big screen.

And that does not imply that I am trying to figure out the sole cause of rape. 

No. 

Rape has existed - with or without the entertainment industry. Across age groups - be it a ten-days old or a six years old, and across class, castes and religions. 

We fail to control or eradicate it. 

We, as a society, fail to put an end to this repeated act of brutal assault. 

We, as a society, fail to understand how we may assert ourselves against this inhuman atrocity.

So I think,  to begin with, at least let's not anymore encourage these capitalists who despite their social knowledge - of crime, violence, assaults and rigid hierarchies of power -  choose to make money by playing upon the scopophilic aspects  in a morally and sexually illiterate social structure.

For after all's done and said, we are receptacles of news...all news...all hashtags...all verdicts...all words...all meaning and all meaninglessness...and all the statements which claim (or should I say establish?) that no one did anything - to this poor land or to its people.

Have you ever explored 'empty'? 

The word? The shortness of it which ends as soon as it begins. The sonority of the -tee sound which might be stretched to the last point of breath.. 

Yes, the sound. 

-em-tee...-em-tee

And then you look at the word. And you see that only two alphabets out of the five mentioned in the spelling actually survive. You see that the fancy little unnecessary alphabets just seem to be hanging in there for the sake of linguistic credibility - you know, just so that you recognize the collaboration of these two sounds -em and -tee as a word. With a meaning. 'E' 'p' and 'y' simply as silent markers out there, granting sanctity of meaning to the union of -em and -tee.

Further, look for meaning and the Oxford dictionary says, 'empty' implies 'containing nothing'. 

Zif 'nothing' could be contained! 

Nothing is such a difficult thing to contain! Nothing is so amorphous. So all-engulfing. All-encompassing. So replete with everything and yet amounting to an unrecognized mass of blankness - that's 'nothing'.

Think of the last time you were thinking or doing nothing, and you sat to write...didn't you feel like a pepper-crusher? The almost little nothing kept there on the table... You turn the top of the container and sprinkle a little pepper called nothing on the empty page. 

And as you do so peppercorns are being crushed inside your head. So much, So many. Sometimes merging, sometimes overlapping and sometimes diffusing into each other - for what's the identity of a peppercorn, if not a faceless collective, merged in order to be crushed for a certain finesse of flavour?

 

 

What makes it so difficult... this global pandemic. It comes with the mantra that the world has been chanting so long...Suspect all, Trust none. This isn't the time to sit and lament. And lament what really...! Injustice? As if that began with the pandemic! Forget about the larger picture, for there is no one world. We all have our own worlds and the larger world is just a composite collective of all these little worlds which constitute life. Injustice has been rampant in all our worlds. Think of the last time we returned another's trust with unreasonable calculations. The last time when in the name of wisdom we crushed the child within us and those around us and dismissed it all as incoherent craziness.. What are we craving? Absence of love? Remember the last time you suspected the motives of love coming your way quite unnecessarily...? Lack of human touch, human interactions? But weren't we getting accustomed to interacting with the world and the fellow human beings only to satisfy our own purpose...What hurts? Uncertainties, I guess. Quite justifiably so. The uncertainties linked to the realization that no matter how much of a grand halo we have imagined behind our heads, we are still unthinkably small...so very small that we must sit and wait to be rescued from this threat to life. We have all spoken big. Inside our heads. Grand narratives of the quintessential human goodness embodied by our divine existences. All our stories about ourselves stand threatened. We are upset by this disturbing violation of the omnipotent story of existence we had construed about humankind in general and our little selves, in particular. Our large leaps in ambition where we deserted humility... This time comes to us as a lesson in the lost humility... Perhaps just to show us that we are collectively as a race, indeed insignificant. It is important to acknowledge our shortcomings. It is important to accept the finitude of life against the infinite eternal. Oh yes, we can still go on with grand debates of theology, religion, theism, atheism and lots of more existential wisdom. Our stories have carried us along long enough. We've floated boats of futile egotism in the sea of these uncountable stories about ourselves, our theories, our arguments. And here comes the tempest. And it's time we also ask ourselves - for those believing in human beings to be at the top of the hierarchical order of this living world, how does it feel to be stuck endangered? Nature may be healing, but how about the Homo Sapiens?

Let's not make it just a prolonged endeavour in stroking our deflated egos with stories of how everything will be alright once again...

What wounds be these that do not heal

That sit dumb and hurt no more

As dumb as though they never knew

They were meant to hurt and born to bleed

My glasses are hazy. Too many scratches, they say. Every totality I look at seems distant and somewhat blurred. It's difficult sometimes. But then, I also feel thankful. Thankful to be spared the sharpness of the world around. Sharp edges hurt. It's almost a refuge from distinct demarcations. Every individual, every object seems surreal...almost at the verge of fading into thin air. The boundaries are diffused. Very comforting. This experience. It spares you the trauma of registering details. You no longer complain or object. Everything is at the verge of disappearing. Very momentary. Very fragile. It's like looking around through the veil of time. Layers accumulate. So much so, that there's a feeling of security, as in a cocoon. The world doesn't know that you do not register its sharpness. You no longer feel like complaining about crap - runny or otherwise. You can transcend the factual dysentery of the world,  at will. Everything is peaceful. At the point of dissolution. You live on the margins of fact and fiction. You can belong wherever you choose to. And choosing fiction can be fun. For instance, today. In the midst of a horrid traffic, this lady walked up to me. She expressed her happiness at having seen me after such a long time. I smiled back at her. Of course without telling her that I had seen her for the first time in my no-longer-very-new span of life. We shook hands. Followed by a warm hug. She asked me at length about my family - every member of the unit being a fresh acquaintance for me. I replied to all her queries. Much to her satisfaction. And we parted. I was left wondering at the possibly hypnotic effect of my dear hazy glasses. I had become a character in her story. And lived my life in the duration of her script the way she appreciated. What is the point of disturbing another's imagination. Happiness is rare. Achieved at the expense of the sharp edges. Curtains will fall anyway. Whenever they please. With or without consent. Performance is the least we can do. At the expense of solemn facts, if you please.