'BELONG'

Walked along the roads,
Ones you had shown.
Whisked along the shores,
Ones you had soaked.

Seethed in whines,
Yours and mine.
Even circled some shrines,
Trusting and trying.

Many worlds and
Their masters I watched.
Many sapient and
Their notes I scratched.

Hostility, piety I
Seek and desired
Within, without I
Embellished, quivered.

Like a nomad so
Wasteful, so lavish.
Fleeced seams and
Devoid treasures.

Along this voyage,
Of times and age,
Of grime and dirt,
Of wilt and search.

Have I not
Come a long trail?
Yet, all I
Feel is a droll.

To you and
Those all around.
I squirm, I plonk.
‘Just don’t belong!’

In between

While,
I’m walking a moment

to gates of another,
gasping through skeletons
of scattering present,
ruins from the past.

Pillar to post as they say,
this distance I map everyday.
dawn to dusk,
here till there,
one facet interspersing
realms of another.

I seek, I push
do the done.
trade joys for
greater sorrows.
Earn the earned,
pennies of wisdom
and lying dust.

While,
I’m on the cart of life.
While,
I’m surviving norms.
Bizarre and outlandish,
transactions between us.

In between,
those destinations of time
In between,
One norm and nine.

In between…
As my eyes smile.
At the sun skimming
through sieves of leaves.

In between…
As moonlight snow
pecks my cheeks.
As rain drenches
my blossomed grief.
As I squeeze,
trickles of fatigue.

In between…
As I dry
in blazed pain,
As I breathe you
fearlessly, unflinchingly.
As brazen winds
bash me to giggles.

In between….
As you, I hear in me
As you, I see in me
As silence loosens
As I pause

In these slant
In betweens
of destinations

In these slant
In betweens

Of lucid glares
In these slant
In betweens
I lie cold and bare!

Perfect storm

Shards of
Scattered notes
Unsung strains
Peeping sighs

Silhouette of a tear
Silence of a storm
Cryptic sounds
Strum music

Of an aching life
Blotched moments
Soaked in languish
Craving for none

Walking past
Would be a strife
For where will
I see this site

Shroud of a face
Parched eyes
Of all was
Is and will be

No questions
Bend her gaze
No answers
Those eyes delve

Shrugging moments
Like sand
Slipping in and out
Of her hands

Lost her pain
Skimming through
A scorched life
Imprinting her blues

Draped in shrieks
Ringing jangles
Clad in chimes
Barbarous songs

Of a Perfect Storm

YOU 'n' ME

Between you and me,
this queer we share.
Nibbling through it,
looking for the same.

Or am I,
knocking the waters
slipping in a stream.
Or am I,
clasping sands
dancing away in the winds.

Seeped in wonder and irresolute,
Dialect of errors,
steer to this bloke?
Are we friends?
Are we foes?
Are we indifference…impersonate?

Looking for an answer,
looking for a name.
Between you and me,
this queer we share.

Show me your cards
Show me your game
Show me that square
you’ll trap me again.

Or leave the court to me.
I’ll quibble some more,
I’ll hope no more,
Someday I will learn,
your indifferent forte.

U I know,
will not refrain.
Your sophism will play
its worth, again.
A fallacy, encore.

Elusive you-Life!
Chilly and shroud
Between you and me,
this queer…
This queer we’ll share.

Score Carding... again

At every stage in life, we pocket a different learning and here I really mean that mental note we make, the anecdote we'd wish to tell our children and their children. Wow!!! inked testiminials of wisdom for posterity!

So in a spurt of iconic wisdom and higher level of intelligence I chose to quit my job as a journalist and follow the pursuit of happiness! (whatever that means). I travelled, read and found out courses that would help me enhance my skills (yeah I do embody a few skills, specially the kinds that make me a highly curious but confused individual).

Somehow I zeroed in on a course that majority of the population in the country would crave to do (at least their dear parents would want them to.). So yeah I decided on doing an MBA (so much for the research.) Now this is where the action begins, here I am in this institution with all my heart and might and an earnest intention to LEARN and how?

I learnt about accounts, finance, debit, credit, GDP, public speaking et al. But in case you thought this was the epicenter of things, u may be in for well, a very predictable but nevertheless surprise! I learnt that the only faint fossil of learning was turning out to be a string of grades and marks.

Really it was all and nothing more than marks. So was I learning much or anything that I hadn’t before? At 29, was I not just revising lessons my teachers gave me on getting a high score? Was I not simply getting a high intensity skill on fetching scores and beating the other rat in the race?

Gazing haplessly, at my peers’ enthusiasm after taking their exam, their flabbergasting responses to all correct answers and their euphoria of relative success. I couldn’t relate to any of this, or may be I didn’t want to. For this is not why I stepped in to the classroom, or may be I was suffering from another theoretical dilemma called ‘Idealism’.

Irony is this- - I didn’t see an iota of this excitement in them after attending a single lecture. I didn’t see any of this excitement after learning any of the earlier mentioned traits! As for me, I continued to grope in the bright light of super intellectuals and economists.

And this is in the least a hangover of “5 Point someone or 3 Idiots”. It’s my story, my mental note, my agony that after slogging my butt for 17 years of schooling, graduating, post graduating , I chose to re postgraduate in the same thing….SCORE CARD!!!

But I am an adamant, obtuse case, so I refuse to learn it, accept it or even acknowledge it. And though I like to stay at bay from political comments, I'd want to second Kapil Sibal’s concerns and efforts on eradicating class ten exams.

Coming back to the mental note…would I want to tell my children and theirs that I loved studying but somehow lost it to a fight for better scores! Are we promoting education here or nurturing a breed of numerically frenzied ideas? So much for having a taste for education!!!!