Showing posts with label romanticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romanticism. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Kal Ekush - A tribute to revolutionary poet Sukanta Bhattacharya

Sukanta Bhattacharya is synonymous with revolution in Bengali culture and literature. His fiery narratives and inspiring declamations on the decaying human society around him is incomparable. Considering all these voluminous works were within a diminutive 21 years of blazing existence - the extents he could have attained (if he lived longer) is well imaginable. But better not. Maybe age would have mellowed him down. Family responsibilities would have made him compromise more often. Maybe forever hammering of this boorish, 'bollywoodish' world we call exciting, would have made him docile and slaves of time - just like us, the way we are today. Quite clearly his relevance even to this day is unavoidable.

This is our tribute to his undying spirit, with which we seek to touch others'. Here is a little bit Sukanta, as we discovered, in all of us. We fought, got frustrated, gave it up, dared to compose own script and our own music (Yes! We have lent music to 3 poems of Sukanta. Please don't copy our music! Get inspired, everybody else does! :P) got back, tried hard and got this done. Thanks to everyone of us. Hope you enjoy it and get inspired.

Keep revolting every time!

*****
P.S: Bouquets and brickbats are earnestly invited. These will come in 5 parts -- so watch out for all! Cheers!





Friday, November 9, 2012

Real



You are real.
You are the one.
Today I speak to you –
And I give myself.
Let this build –
Within, whatever I am.

A slow a kill it is.
A slow pill it is.
Your music moves –
Moves my bones
Till they melt to water
And rains down
I will quench myself.

The symphony renders psychedelic,
The tenor sounds clear and sound.
Your magnificence screams through.
It is but an adoration of my love.
It is a confession of my hidden fears.

What do you know of my unrest?
The unrest that shatters through –
This moment of my unpleasant dream
You stand there laughing.
Laughing at my ignorance –
And I repent my inability.

Your rotting bread,
Your blessed grass,
Your roughened sword,
Your perennial scar –
Etched on my very being,
And I fall in despair –
The unknowing –
The unforgiving,
The forsaken –
The dying…

I twist and turn.
I quell and I burn.
I seek peace.
I miss –
The very reason you sent me unto.
Your sun burns me.
Your rains does console at times.
The freeze embitters me –
Till it mellows in watering frost
And yet I complain.

I complain of variety.
I shred my sobriety.
I lay down motionless –
Inert in my senses,
Till you send the thunder of passion –
It rains down on my inglorious being.

I am but just a ‘faqir’ 
I am but an absolved soul.
Off your generous abode
Cursed to haunt this very land you promised,
And yet I lay at ease.

I have got nothing to ask for.
I have nothing to cry upon.
I have no remittance.
I have no home.
In this wide world you left –
I roam wherever I belong.
And whenever I feel bereft,
Whenever I feel undone,
I hold on to my straining nerves.
And I say –
I am your puppet
You are my puppeteer.

*****

Sunday, January 25, 2009

On Love

What is love?

How easily we utter this monosyllable. How easy it is to profess the same. How difficult is it to realize that. How seemingly impossible it is to get it for the same. Sad but true - as the sandman might say. But then none of us are sandman, none of us are superman - none of us know the answer to the question.

Sometimes love seems like a leap of faith. Sometimes it feels like life itself. Truely, what is life worth unless you have known what it is like to love somebody. What is it worth if you haven't been loved back?

Unfortunatley or fortunately these are unwritten rules which nobody has ever read. So, it is near impossible to figure out. Here, those who tend to differ, mind you, fortune is only perceptual. The ones lucky enough will know the sweet pain of longing. Those who are unfortunate enough will never know the way the first pure love can exist over a lifetime - maybe beyond.

We are only human. And there is only so much a human can realize. I cannot force it.

"Chahe kitna bhi pyaar ki bheekh maang lo, sajde karo ya cheen-ne ki koshish karo - pyaar nahi milta. Par kya tum kisiko itna pyaar kar sakte ho ki woh bhi pyaar karne pe majboor ho jaaye?"

(No matter how much you beg, plead or force for love - you will never get it. But can you love somebody so much that the person can do nothing but love as much?)

Maybe it is true... who knows?

*****

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Hell Risen


Hell Risen

Once there was a wish
Of many lives torn apart –
Let them heal now.

Here trod the fire feet
Blazed earth stood bye –
Make way for them now.

Things fell together
Like a dramatic illusion –
They make sense now.

Heat and dust flew
In the maddening wind –
All seems clear now.

Whatever seems like a dream
Will fireball into reality –
Do not wake me up now.

*****

Why will Man dream
Where hope is but blind –
To the unbound Phoenix.

*****

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

It Rained That Day


It rained that day

It rained that day – incessant, unyielding,
Overcome with such grief, that it rained –
And it kept raining that day.
That stranger came looking, he looked for you.
He looked outside, he looked inside –
He looked me inside out.
In my eyes, under my skin – across my mind,
And yet you were not there.

Let him rest in peace.
For he could not see – You,
Coming again and again,
Splashing on the window pane.
Pacifying his soul with a whiff of life.

Life rained that day
You touched and I lived –
A hundred lifetimes and beyond.
Such, that it rained inside –
And it kept raining that day.

*****

Thursday, April 24, 2008

O Bulla! I know not who I am...


O Bulla! I know not who I am

Bulla, I know not who I am
Bulla, I know not who I am
Neither am I believer in mosque
Nor am I in idol worship.
Neither in the pure or the impure
Nor am I in the Vedas.
Neither am I into intoxicants,
Nor am I the carefree deviant.
Neither am I union nor grief.
Neither am I the pure nor impure.
Neither am I of the water nor of the land.
Neither am I fire nor air.
Bulla, I know not who I am.
Neither am I Arabic nor from Lahore.
Neither am I from the Indian city of Nagaur.
Neither am I Hindu nor a Peshawari Turk.
Neither did I create the difference of faith,
Nor did I create Adam and Eve.
Neither did I name myself,
Beginning or end –
I know just the self.
I do not recognize ‘the other one’.
There’s none wiser than ‘me’.
Who is this Bulla Shah?
O Bulla! I know not who I am.
*****
Bulleh Shah

Saturday, March 22, 2008

A Breeze


A Breeze

See this shore on the island of my heart,
Come break on its parched sands.
And you will know how long monsoon
Has turned away and left me dry.
Can’t even find tears now – this moment,
And the dream of your dreams rises
Falls like an unsure yearning of ages gone.

Give me sight now, one miracle touch –
Balm my tired eyelids softly,
Hold my hands and let me walk beside.
The sun never craved for more.
Never the earth craved less for your feet.
I am hardly breathing now –
For one last time I breathe so easy.

You can save me now or let me die –
Here, where flowers bloom.
And I forget once again that I ever existed,
For it has never been quenched.
But please, my lady, when we stand –
Say not what you can say best.
For all these I shall feel no more, then –
The universe might crash inside.

The winds remain to speak unspoken.

*****

To Take Daffodils away


To take Daffodils away

Literally speaking...
An exciting and mysterious quality is
What I want, will come...
Just like that.

Daffodils whisper...
Lies are never more beautiful
Never ever anything else...
Hop along Sunshine.

Blade’s caress...
Mornings strew and I picked hurried
Stringing a new world...
Last in procession.

Suddenly snow...
Recollect bouts of cold, always hides
Licking icicles to water...
Daffodils shall prance.

Practically simple...
As irrationality of the transparent globe’s
Irresistible belief to shed...
Crafty – unknowingly brook.


-----

Soul Pot


Soul Pot

The silent drop of mellow orange
Slides down the sides of my soul pot.
Slowly seeps into the darkening, –
Molten measure of my sensibilities.
I get as close as I can get to me,
Without fear, neither relief nor angst.

I can’t see myself on that bank –
Not as clearly as I want to. And yet,
I seem to know the figure out there
As if it was nothing – other than me.
I see stretched across about to tear
Apart, from my being and all of me.

A thin green line marks boundary
And I ignore rule to be on other side,
Midget scratches on the drop’s face
Acrylic peace dissolves in the flight –
Of tethered wings and et al...

Eyes transfixed and clouding –
A restless search in the lees of soul pot.

*******

Good Morning Sunshine

Good morning Sunshine

Hovering over a silvery platter,
Watching elements pass by –
Wishing hellos and greetings,
Or just a passing glance enough.
Good morning Sunshine.

Gulps of life and dollops of soul
Drained of laze a hapless bird
Far – far away from its nest,
Shrugs its wings off all purpose.
Happy biddings Sunshine.

Happy now or ethereal solitude.
Dust of last night’s storm –
Subsides under its dry skin,
In peace of atoned dissatisfaction.
A very good day, Sunshine.

Still not overcome by the snow
That fell so incessantly last night.
Never thought of a day with you,
Night was cold and blew me away.
Welcome back Sunshine.

A cup of coffee?
... With me, Sunshine?

_____________

Shores of Paradise

Shores of Paradise

As I think, you hold my hands,
You look up to me
A smile dawns on your rose petal lips.
I look down on the golden sands
As they stretch far –
Ambling across, the Shores of Paradise.

You unfurl your radiant frock –
Over the dry waves
And settle on single petal of first daffodil,
In my precious private garden.
And then you speak
Pearls grace words as they tumble inside.

Your hair floats with the breeze
In your carelessness
A caress it deserved, only from your palms.
My last few wish tries to touch
And I hold back –
And let you stay, on my Shores of Paradise.

My eyes dilates for a split second
On a singular thought
For the Darkness approaches soon and I pray.
For a Moon for my starry eyed sky
I open my dry eyes –
I find you still there, staring at me quizzically.

I am left sorry again and grounded
For you are still there,
Basking in golden sunset as you kissed the air.
You prance away for a moment,
And turn and kneel –
Sprinkling waves of sand in unusual trajectories.

(Snap)

...The Moon shines,
Full Moon on my night sky
As I amble along my silver Shores of Paradise.

Tides ebb at a distance
The lost sea-gull takes a dip,
In the frozen confines of my fathomless, dark, blue sea.
It is painful...
It is close enough.
____________
*******

Tiring Eyes


Tiring Eyes

Then the sky falls asleep.
In the heart of darkness
Timid, glow bug’s fire –
Glow on dinghy’s sides.
Distant strains or a hoot!
Some engine huffs home.
Flowers of roadside bush
Gather, with stories new.
Dusty, virgin flowers –
What stories do they say?

Then the Atlantis sinks
In space of apocalypse
And the empire melts –
On a generous dream,
Of a sparkling goblet,
Brimming pearl red –
Life or honey? Beheld
To my lips, my breath,
In hands of moonlight.
If need be, let it flow –
Along with my religion.
And I shall lay in peace,
And sink into the breast
Where river of blue wine flow.

And like these dreams,
The nights have gone by.

Now all those flowers
Swing silent – lifeless,
Their tired, withered bows
Reach to snatch the moon.

*****

Guilty of an Embrace


Guilty of an Embrace

And then I lost it once again.
Loss never came so precious.
Feelings haven’t touched yet.
Lips they speak heart’s words
And so it doesn’t matter why.

Love came in silence of dewdrops
Never knew when it left weeping.
It came again – it never knocked,
And again it left blind, unknown.

Many years have past since then,
Many days have melted in spring.
What difference does it make now
Now, that I can feel all over again.

Thirst to feel is satiated now.
Deserts turn back from oasis.
Heart of sand breathes again.
The lonely door stands – still.

All around, walls that stood,
Came crashing down in dust.
Anguish lay in a ruined heap.
A single streak of brightness,
Tore apart – descending mist.

*******

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Oh! Woman.


Through the City of Women’s Gates


What are you – woman?
A vision
A dream
A passion
A sin.

A flower
A tower
A color that –
Changes every hour.

A beacon
A temptation
A baton –
Of redemption

A hog
A dog
A fog
A log

A mention
A tension
Apprehension?
Revelation?

A tide
A ride
A pride –
Astride.

An epitome
A filthy gnome
A place called home.
A picture worn

A storm
A norm
A scorn
Adorn

A relic
Psychedelic
Acrylic
Oriental vase.

Oh! Woman – who are you?
An idea
An emotion
A spirit called –
Devotion.

_____

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Under the Pillow


Under the Pillow

Everything is just like getting through.
Pens turn into buttons –
Just let go of me writings, I am too tired now.
Too tired to think, to act, to observe –
To react; for I am not of the generous kind.
I am struggling now – my breadth heavy,
My throat sore and my senses even more numb.
And yet like the last straw
I; wrenched to my skin – dry, raw, inert thing.
Specimens of choice around me
We all got choices to make – what if I don’t?

I will mount the steps of Djongrila
Where all of them have gone praying for me
To ask them to let me be –
For all that matters to me are these;
Stars falling in flakes on the snowed fields
Of solitude and peace.
Where moments stare at me like my nemesis.
Pray not for me o the knowledgeable ones –
For I have wronged none
But for one within. So pray no one comes along
This path I have walked too far.

Pray for them o generous ones
Whom I unknowingly led in my way
For the souls who know not where they come.
Neither in a cauldron nor the bed of petals,
But an unforgiven spirit which lingers
Along the banks of the dry river bed
Lamenting such, the river may come rushing back.
To be sure if somebody had knocked
On her abode’s shackled door.
*****

Friday, February 23, 2007

On a Full Moon


Bitter Moon

Pretty dreams, swift drizzles, generous whispers
Garnished in a tumble tin –
Spiced with green and red,
Served hot, or chilled in no time.

Ripples golden and black,
Useless – doubtful, how did it come to know?

Waves don’t come,
For, waves have dried on sunspots.

Speak over lines for clearer answers,
Sensible senselessness –
The buzzword, of importance
Garnering it is gnawing, though pitiful.
The point is gainful earnest.

Ideas are not always ideally dealt with –
So take a chance.

Blahs include ‘et al’s.

Working is a religion –
Practiced in great earnest.
Ability is a language –
Often twice misread to be understood.

And somewhere down
You begin enjoying the show...

Be entertained.
After all, what have you got to believe,
But, in the very same ‘it’?

*****

Monday, February 19, 2007

Dementia


Dementia (This is Last Grass)

As the margins blur
On a silent camaraderie
Of bohemian grace
Static electricity flows
In Pharaoh’s ante-chamber

Mystic lady beheld
The gilded, golden goblet
To the thirsty eyes
And let it flow down
Below the melting skies

Elephantine shoals
Swarmed over cities awash
Of silent memories
Stories long dead speak
On a past pleasant dream

Drink to the lees
Sirens whisper lullabies
To Ulysses here
As he slept content
Sinking into golden sand

Devils old and new
Now gather in earnest
They dance merrily
Around soul’s bonfire
Mist descends to warmth

On these hillsides
Of rocks and old moss
Disturbed on them
A spirit lingers singing
Till daisies lull and sleep

Ethereal foam rides
On waves of unseen beasts
From the depths
Of silent unimaginable
As the oceans lie in peace

Heavens crumble
To ashes of loneliness
Lemon grasses
Waft in the restless winds
Gently hang down sleepless

The barmaid flatters
To deceive intimate millions
Craved on flesh
Carved on scarred faces
Demented souls of the gods

The lone sentry stands
Holds the glister tipped spear
The century old stand
Of earth smeared red of blood
With souls rung tearless

Cauldron of destiny
Seethe on the horizon of dawn
Albatross of hope flies
Destiny woes the wings aged
Over the waves he sinks to rise

Like a bird endless
An idea boundless of time
Unspeakable silence
Of universe collapsing inside
The rhythm began churning round...and round...and round...and...

__________________________

I Justify


Mercurial Mentations
Something never changes – like realization. It is always an on going process that observes, deciphers, hypothesizes, reasons, deduces, believes, rechecks, recalculates and then again begins the whole cycle all over again. It is a mysticism borne in restless spirits which refuses to die out on a single whiff of time. It is a struggle – a struggle to relieve the passion of deconstructions and rebuilding towers of faith on basis of proof.
Whoever uttered the line, “a bird in hand is worth more than two in a bush”, then stands corrected. For, of what use is the bird in hand, if the other two are birds he will never get to know? What is the use of living then? You might as well live a whole life in diapers. However, this is not an inspiring argument. It is rather a truthful documentation of obvious reality. So, the writing stands justified on its, own stead.
Now that I have my point, there remains apparently nothing to be discussed. Discussed? How can I say I am discussing? In this darkened room, my friend lying in peaceful midnight slumber, two eyes of mine trying hard to argue my senses to sleep, effect of late night nicotine, incessant, unyielding rain pit pattering on the glass panes, Colonial Cousins softly crooning ‘Krishna’ through the precariously hung headphones and a glaring screen, what devil does beseech me to seek whatever I know not?
Maybe it is my prime need. Need? Need for what – a constructive deduction to a certain culmination of this writing? Or do I seek acclaim? Ah! Dear me, you should have known by now. Since, the very first cry you strained through your throat, smeared in remains of origins, naked, lay bare before the whole wide world – you clenched your fists, to prove your existence. There you are then. It is the pure need of being accepted as an existent being that you do the entire thing you do. I guess my very existence depends on these black scratches on the whites of time.
These days, in fact these sleepless nights, which I spend regurgitating on the facts and fiction of my existence I find a peculiar resemblance of me to a rhododendron for whatever existed has passed eons by and whatever remains, are decomposed fossils of a self I have left behind in time. In a sense we all are serpents – crawling on our chests, sniffing traces of life to consume on the vast desolate parched extent of a desert. Here, the oasis' have their waters muddied. Yet, no regret at all, for the willingness is ours.
The need basically is of freedom which unfailingly eludes the Ulysses within. It is only for the ones who have already known that from the blithe moment of our conception we have been put into this framework of existentialism, which as frameworks should be, are limited in themselves. We refuse even then. But facts require justification and so I justify. So, you think senses are the routes to emancipation – to freedom? Well you are already there my dear friend – in a web of deceit, which your senses have so cleverly knit around you. You think it is ground you are walking upon? I see you crawling my dear and that too comparable to that of a slug.
All the world’s libraries are not enough for you and you travel places – ‘places’, and yet you know not how far. Knowing knowledge can be dangerous propositions my dear. It is not knowledge you are after, you are after the rat race of knowledge – it is the race that matters, unfortunately always far, far ahead of you as your sixth sense perennially picks up the scent of probability. You think you create? Hardly there son, you are putting things, already there, into place for your comfort. And then you say you create matter, anti-matter, super-matter and what not. Feel not ashamed for that is what, the framework of your existence, has been put to use; and yet, by whom or what?
Questions fly here, questions fly there, not a single answer to be found. Why answers? Why not only questions? Questioning questions is a way of life for us after all. All that matters is a way of life and not life itself. If you haven’t had a way about your life you are never the ‘good’ man, no matter how well you have lived your life. We all are butterflies here. All wearing different colors – or is it camouflage? Either way it smacks of sweet deceit. So, enjoy.
Whosoever discovered or accidentally thought of a whisky on rocks is the omnipresent god in my eyes. Here the working thought is somewhat convoluted, somewhat like this – “All fluids look good when splashed on rocks.” The interpretation can be varied in distinctness and emotional quotient accordingly as the phase of psychological limitation the reader is into at the time of reading the sentence.
Metaphors are no accidental discoveries but natural consequences of a typical human’s inherent preference for privacy. This exists not only in concrete forms of lifestyle but also in intangibles of emoting. Secondary self is one’s tryst with existent entities beyond the outer boundaries of his primary limited self. For, if not that, why must I and you be here? The inner boundary draws the area of reprise for ‘everybody is his own, best consolation, confidante’ and et al’. Questions arise from the bases of answers to them. We lesser mortals, travel far and wide, tracing a round about route, back to the point where our quest originated from. Everything we do we judge more than we believe and there lies the satire of fate.
Enmity is frivolous and as well fictional for whatever happens has got a lot to do with backward aggregating expectations. Expectations in themselves are flawed and hence incorrigible. Misdirected thought stimulation leads to the final leap of faith which finally often ends dumped and caught obsolete in the fleet of time. Doing away with expectations, however, does not help the cause – mind you. What it does is to imbibe cynicism.
I do not allow, for I have known since my conscience has spoken to me, that we all are picking random hearts in our way of life. It does not matter if it is a pitiable bunch of a-day-old violets in a roadside bin or a – “What was that, a fairy in red?” It always that split second which determines the deliciousness of the next experience we relish. Whatever we eat is experience. Prove me salt tastes salty and I will say you are asking only from a human who is taught the language which is a code for communicating amongst them. Metaphorically speaking, there are in fact many – in fact everybody, who knows salt can taste sweet and sweet, bitter. Did you hear me chuckle?
Nomads were ramblers. Rambling is nomadic. We all were nomads. We are all rambling nomadic. No wonder I have much to write and yet, more than a universe to express. Maybe universe is a throbbing heart of some larger form. How would that living be like? Well I guess much like us. With good and bad ‘cells’ sharing the body in a precarious equilibrium, it can only be only as much human as we are. Thoughts are horses and wild ones too. Nomads ride wild horses. Nomadic thoughts saddle my dream horse. I will ride the horse.