#OrhanPamuk (Inspirational Writers) #AtoZChallenge

"Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world." 

— Orhan Pamuk (Snow)

Image Courtesy: Google Images

Home is a memory

Istranbul, Lhasa, Rawalpindi

a river called

terrorism, partition, war

pins it on a map

like a dead butterfly

and calls it 

just a city.

Metaphysical musings on Republic Day

Representational photo of small tableaus on The Ridge, Shimla
Source: Google Images

 

Sitting atop an Electricity Board tableau that had the permission to drive through the generally restricted The Ridge and The Mall in Shimla, my 4-5 years  old self back in the eighties understood nothing about republic or the need to celebrate it.

 

A  small procession that began from the old Telegraph building up to the Christ Church  and the perk of a good refreshment was enough to get me excited about it.

 

That year the theme was how electricity had changed lives in remote areas and the moment the bulb hanging on my head was to be lit , I had to give excited expressions sitting there with a book.

 

All the "artists" were chosen from the residential complex of the board for ease of access.

 

Cause and effect are such a strange phenomenon, what we think is the cause might be the effect of something previous to it.

 

For decades I had completely forgotten about this  but now as I struggle to pinpoint the meaningfulness of a republic or its celebration, the memories are back.

 

My father's family paid a huge price of freedom in 1947 and lived for years with the label "refugees" from across the border. Home was always a very fluid concept for them.

 

I spent a large part of my life in the hills and in some parts of my state democracy or republic has still not changed quality of life services much.

 

The city I live in now, the glorious capital is struggling to find clean water and fresh air.  The disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" we overlook everyday because we are all helpless in its face.

" Things are changing" is such a lame argument because I feel my 7 years old girl is still as unsafe as my grandmother was in 1947.

 

Yes I am the sceptic, I am alright with being labelled  "naysayer" for asking the cause and effect questions, for asking what use is a latest radar to me if I don't have clean air.

 

To me glorifying the soldier without his human rights is pseudo, to me the façade of a republic where all voices are not equal is a sham.

 

I was reading  Emil Cioran earlier and I so relate to - I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person.

 

PS: I will do a follow up post for all the trolls labelling me "traitor" after this, if need be.

In a city winter looking for a home

A dead pigeon
on the sidewalk
bare feet children
begging at the signal
destitution written large
on faces and souls

life's pathways
as complicated as
the routes of the metro

what ifs hanging
like half-constructed pillars
why? why not?
changing like traffic lights

Christmas lights, blinking at wealth
emptiness, deep, dark
and hope faint, cold

a shiver runs down the spine of
the silhouettes of tired trees

its cold
very cold,
winter is a state of mind

all knowing is frozen
love runs down
as a warm, salty liquid
from the eyes

the security guard looks
straight into the fire

we are all looking for home.


 

To Ghalib

drowning
a lifetime into
this city's sunsets
and decades
of despair
to be a legend
I breathe
your angst

dead souls
masquerading
with fake smiles
lust wearing
love's cloak

words die
a silent death.

referendums
and regrets
life is worst
when it is
a pending decision.




 

GRAVES, MYSTICS AND POETS

The fuchsia queen
of some erstwhile carom board
abandoned on a sidewalk
forlorn
waiting anxiously
for a befitting
royal burial

alone
by a busy city road
which cares
for neither life
nor death

in the footsteps
of the Great Mughals
or the corridors
of the empire
in which the sun never set

thousands of souls
that are lonely together
trying to fill
that same blank
with books,lust
power

the Sufis and the poets
the revolutionaries
and the mystics

square pegs
in round holes
misfits all
hiding their rough edges

looking for
the perfect other
to fit in
to smoothen out

stories not
worthy of
any telling
live and die

phoenix-like
the myth of the city
feeds on people
and lives on

how many graves
I walk on each day.

This isn't a post - 4 THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS SERIES

Triumphs and tribulations are the same situations in different lights. sometimes we relish a moment and at others we just wait for it to pass but there is no escape from this passing. This non-permanent is the only permanent thing about life.

In the rush to reach destinations the fun of the journey is lost. Like horses with blinkers we keep looking at how it will be ten years from now, missing this moment completely. Everyday living takes its toll on life and most of us grow only in years while our souls keep shrinking in the prisons of what ifs.

Sometimes the loss is irreparable but there is no need to keep trying to fill the void. Everything is not for us to make right, to change or amend. Expert opinions are also opinions, some situations should be allowed to be untouched by analysis.

If Eliot was born in Delhi or Manto in NewYork would they still be the same? Would The Love song of Alfred J Prufrock become The Love Song of Anand Janardhan Puri? Would it make any difference?

Each moment is the slave of its context and each context of its perception and we the biggest slaves of everything because freedom is scary, because operating without set instructions is risky.

SOME HAIKUS

i
friends sorted in lists
people as profile pictures
life is a timeline !

ii
scratch the skin of a
city, look for its soul,lost
on a busy road.

iii
The lines on your palm
the moves of planets and stars
destiny by chance.

 iv
cities may change
and so do centuries, this
bond is eternal.

v
Stones washed in
milk,kids on the street wish they
were stones instead.

vi
I shred a cabbage
nature's multi-layered
haiku lay open.

vii
a contested space
zig-zag back lanes of my mind,
hide behind my smile .

HOMES

Beyond the organised
rows of bungalows
clusters of beehive flats
mazes of 'working class areas'
known as slums
flyovers and underpasses,
skeletons of  future
concrete monsters,
shiny colourful tarpaulins
shelters in cities come
in a variety of shapes and sizes

sharing the luxury
of the only blanket
or delaying the dinner
for the yet to come
in all nests alike
this human warmth
makes them homes.