Category : English Poems

Elemental Love

One day when I woke up,
Rays of shining sun just lit me up,
Disintegrating me in a way that I can’t sum up!
What’s happening with me I just couldn’t look up,

Felt every cell’s vibration so strong,
Every element inside was singing its own song,
Since everything was asking, where does it really belong?
Struggle to hold or suppress it felt so wrong,

Earth :

Part of me wanted to lay on the land,
Seduction of soil, easy to understand,
Before I knew, I started to expand,
Solidity of existence, started to cover the land,

I let the body quench its elemental quest,
Thinking if I’m the nature then nature knows the best!,
Covering mountains, deserts and forest,
Desire was so strong that I couldn’t rest,

Water:

While I was grabbing every possible terrain,
It just suddenly started to rain,
Before I realize what’s happening again,
Part of me started melting in the vein,

Love for water came so gushing,
Thirst to catch the rivers rushing,
Before I can look at springs blushing,
Fell from the fall,
and felt ocean’s weight was so crushing,

Fire :

When with every drop of water I wanted to melt,
Part of me started burning and about to smelt,
A fire consuming existence like nothing left to be felt,
Like millions of sun-rays coming for you to welt,

But within that flames I saw the light,
Made me calm and I gave up the fight,
Nothing left to check whether it’s wrong or it’s right,
Welcoming the fire within for disillusion and for delight,

Air :

While burning like a candle which doesn’t sway,
Gust of air passed through and swept me away,
Floating and buffeting I kept asking about the way,
Air didn’t know any destination and has no place to stay!

Space :

Slowly that thinning air was gone,
I started wondering, was I forlorn?
While elements were leaving the physical self torn,
Then came the realization how ‘l’ was born !

From something the decoration of ego was created,
Dance of soul with the elements was so celebrated,
If everything is me and I’m everything, what’s get separated?
How ‘I’ was born and how ‘I’ was gone, can’t be logically debated.

I got the inspiration for this poem from two things. Since today is valentine’s day, something came to mind and I started writing. But since it was usual sarcastic take on the subject, I deleted it. Not because it wasn’t good ( I think so LOL 😉 ) but because I thought, why rub salt into the wounds ( let’s not get into the origin of the wounds 😉 ). Anyway, that was just 0.01% of the inspiration but the huge part is from the exceptionally amazing Vedantic verse.

प्रातः स्मरामि हृदि सन्स्फ़ुरदात्मतत्वम् ………..तद्ब्रह्म निष्कलमहं न च भूतसंघ:||

Who else can write such a beautiful verse which is the ultimate distillate of Vedantic philosophy, than the greatest Adi Shankaracharya. Every morning when I stand on the terrace and when the rising sun ( yeh I think it’s still rising at 10 am when I wake up 😉 ) is filling me up with its rays, I remember this verse and then it makes me forget everything else. Not going into the detailed meaning of the entire verse but the first line means, “At dawn, I contemplate on the purest form of the essence of my existence springing within my heart…” and the last line means something like, “… That ( essence of my existence ) is pure Bhram and not the collection of elements …”.

There is a very interesting story about this verse. When ‘Ashrambhajanavali’ ( collection of the songs for prayer ) was being created for Gandhi Ashram, this verse was included in the morning prayer. When Gandhiji read it, he thought about it and after that he requested to remove these three verses from it. Why? Well, it needs little explanation so I’ll include it in the recording of a lecture on Geeta or any other related lecture.

Happy Valentine’s Day. When you love another person, you come closer to discovering yourself more. Of course, conditions apply 😉

Category : English Poems

Independence With Attitude

If educated people won’t speak out then who else will,
You cowards can stay quiet but I just can’t stay chill,

If capable will cave and simply succumb to the drill,
Who else will show courage to climb this steep hill,

Those who died for you, wasn’t just for the thrill,
Prove, you are special and not just run of the mill,

Love for the land demands, you stand up and pay the bill,
That life is damned, from which lava doesn’t ooze and spill,

If you want, you can do it, but show the nation a strong will,
Be the best and don’t settle for bargain, either it’s all or nil,

Be the ferocious fire, that no one can dare to touch or kill,
That’s the way to earn respect and world will watch your reel.

Some are free because nobody can dare to touch them e.g. lion in jungle can nap anywhere without any worry. And some has got the status of freedom because of other more powerful is gracious enough. Luckily we are living in a time where imperialistic attitudes of nations are fairly restricted due to some factors. Otherwise many nations can lose their freedom overnight.

If we talk specifically about India, then it has never acted as a one nation in history and chances are very less that even in future it ever will. It was a smorgasbord of thousands of different cultures coexisting but still light-years apart in attitudes and probably will remain the same for at least a next thousand years or more. People usually utter some bullshit like, India is a unity in diversity but the reality is different.

Normal Indian person can’t think of any more freedom than just to pee, spit and defecate anywhere. Earlier foreigners used to loot its prosperity and take it away, now our politicians and fraudsters are looting it and putting that stolen wealth away. But hey, at least we can say that we have democratically given that right to loot us instead of someone looting us unwillingly. Another interesting term is ‘Freedom to practice any religion of choice’. In reality that translates to ‘The freedom of being and expressing utter stupidity, bigotry and dumbness in the name of a disease called religion’.

India might have got physical freedom but a real attitude of freedom and independence is still far far away from the majority of people’s tiny subservient minds. In rich and prosperous nations, politicians have got only a couple of tricks to divide the people like race and economic inequality but in India, there are millions of ways to divide people and play with them.

I don’t know whether more literacy is good or bad for India because from 18% literacy rate to almost 80% in the last 70 years hasn’t changed the mindset of the people. Earlier someone needed to try to brainwash the people but now since they can read, they are ‘independently’ numbing their minds via WhatsApp education.

I believe, a strong nation can be defeated in a war but it can never be enslaved. So while saying ‘Happy Independence Day’, people should introspect why the nation lost its independence in the first place. Otherwise, we – sorry not ‘we’ but only those who can understand – know the future of such a nation. India has got independence but let’s hope one day people will be able to break the shell of stupidity and develop the attitude of independence too. 😉

Category : English Poems

An Ode To The Intellectual Existence

What I’m saying,
People are not understanding,
I can differentiate,
Their passion and pretending,

It’s not me, but,
they need mental upgrade and mending,
Quality thoughts,
Are never going to be trending,

If I try to pander,
Their basic instincts by descending,
It will be the beginning,
Of my intellectual crash landing,

I never have and never will,
Succumb to any bending,
Even if alone,
I must try whatever deserves upending,

What will you do,
When you are on top and outstanding,
I’ll still look up and not down,
It’s grit, not grandstanding,

As cold’s destined for contracting,
And fire is always expanding,
My burning thoughts,
Don’t really need anybody’s branding.

First and foremost, even though the first person singular subjective pronoun ‘I’ has been used in the poem, actually it represents all those rare exceptional intellectual beings. No it isn’t egoistic to know and describe oneself as it is because only dumb are unaware about who they really are 😉

Fortunately or unfortunately to be ‘intelligent, exceptional, genius etc’ or not to be is never a question asked to us by the creator. So what to do when someone is gifted with exceptional abilities? Well, everybody will give different answers ranging from, to use such potential for social good, to make some money out of it and retire in a remote place for good. But no matter what such individuals choose to use their ability for, one advice I would like to give is not to let your edges be dulled by the pressure from surroundings.

Incredible thoughts given via philosophy, literature, art, music, science etc   by such individuals are acting as beacons for many budding Buddhas. Why the knowledge of Geeta is still relevant today and why we are still trying to prove the theorems and formulas proposed many decades or centuries ago, and why exceptional literature still exerts more force than the pull of black hole. No matter in what field these geniuses belong to, the only thing common is that they walked on it all alone like a Bright Star ( previous poem ). Because they knew that some of the thoughts this world will not be able to understand even after a thousand years.

Most of the time something which is understood and appreciated by the masses is cheap. It is easy to explain because if everybody is able to understand exceptional things then well, they are exceptional! But we all know that’s not the case. Advent of social media has laid bare the utter foolishness of the masses. In such ugly situation, it is even more pertinent that few of the remaining beautiful people unite and use our energy in more creative work. 🙂

Especially in a country like ‘you know what I mean‘ where there is no respect or reverence for being thoughtful, it is very important not to waste energy in dealing with fools around. 😉