The Caste Conundrum

 

She was raped, broken, cut, and strangled,

It meant a lesson for her and her likes,

To stay within the limits, their caste had defined.

 

Sweep the streets, Clean the drains,

Meant to be labourers, bounded by the system,

Oppressed and dehumanized in their existence.

 

To be depended, to be servile,

To please the master as he desires,

Precisely the web of caste system defined

 

Centuries passed,

Being duped, thugged, and robbed,

Brainwashed to not fight the system ordained servitude in disguise.

 

No rights, no voice, no capital, no might,

No entry in the village, no entry on roads,

Their sight a pollution, their shadow called for bathing.

 

No lands, no education,

The very body is their means of subsistence.

They toil hard to earn two square of existence

 

 

The system still defines the roles,

They toil, they migrate, they labour,

Never to realise the System ordained desperation.  

 

The privileged understands,

The disadvantaged are to be kept in disguise,

To make them in-fight, never to unite.

 

They get murdered, raped, mutilated,

Their properties burned and looted,

When tried to showcase their pride in a moustache, bullet or a horse ride.

 

The System serves well and is self-sustaining,

The underprivileged are also graded and Sanskritised,

Instilled with the caste pride, is tutored to see his own kind as a lowly tribe.

 

Blinded by religion, caste, and tribe,

The Bahujan fight among themselves,

From his living room, the privileged smiles at the buffoonery in sight.

 

 

The streets are being swept, the drains are being cleaned,

The dead  carcass is pulled, the night soil is getting disposed,

Convenience for the privileged is garbed as Virtuosity for the exploited.

 

The system  of caste runs unbound and the privileged gets rewarded     ©   

Akshay Mohan 

I can't breathe

This is unjust, you can't treat me like this,

I am not your slave and you no master anymore,

I am not a pariah, and you the pure anymore,

I am not weaker sex and you the dominant anymore.

This is the 21st century, 20 years have passed, yet you are not ready to see the fact,

Your Declaration and  your Constitution, Everything said that all are equal,

Everyone has the dignity and rights on account of being a human.

No one will be discriminated for any birth ordained condition.

Yet you do not recognize my value as an individual,

Beaten and bruised I am to be kept under the tight noose,

My life  worthless, breath not important,

My gasps in those last moments, nothing ever mattered.

Only a desire to see me down on my knees,

That I am rendered voiceless and meek,

This was never limited to the geography of a continent,

The exploitation of the weak has been the history of glorious human feats.

A lowly being is to be controlled by force,

Should behave and give in to the so-called civilized world,

No voice for the Equality no place for the Justice,

What left is just a relic for decoration of the Constitution, 
In a society where the order of the day is the exploitation of the weak!©

Lockdown Perspectives

Sourced from Twitter

Lockdown has lifted centuries of restrictions,

As the inhabitants claim their lands,

Someone had got their world to shrink,

Exploiting, causing many to extinct!

The exploiter multiplied like a virus,

Mutating at the cost of symbiotic interactions,

The Age of Man violated Mother Earth’s Right,

 He turned everything into an exploitation site.

The egoistic Man was blinded, in his desire to rule the world,

He disrespected what he worshipped once as ‘Sacred Grove’.

Deforestation, global warming, and pollution,

Man’s existence was looking like autophagy in action

Mother Earth, ‘Gaia’ faced a crisis of existence,

To see the flora and fauna it breeds gasping for even subsistence,

Gaia had to fight, to set the imbalance right.

To see it is a fair play for all her living tribes.

Now, all of a sudden, Man is in his own prison, out of fear for his existence,

Man, armed with every possible technology is perplexed in his reaction.

Gaia has given an indication of what could possibly be the repercussions,

Of mindless acts of plundering and not recognizing her existence.

A virus has set in motion, the long lost freedom of plant and animal life,

Man is witnessing a long lost site, which he himself had destroyed.

He needs to realize, as is his right, so do the other inhabitants have their right.

And that it was not the virus but humans that caused the suffering of every living kind.  ©

The Modern Contagion.

Sourced from internet

The rituals of purity and pollution,

Have always been in operation,

A shade or sight of an unclean,

Called for a ritualized bath, ensuring a virtue intact.

This pandemic seems so familiar,

Like the untouchability contagion of yesteryear,

Hardwired and inculcated too deep,

The privileged are keeping the distance with unnatural ease.

The obsession of handwashing, sanitizing,

And avoiding the strangers,

Everything so unnatural and unsocial,

Comfortably adopted by the ritual followers.

Some blinded, others not ready to recognize,

The casteist underbelly of the society,

This disease although of a Chinese origin,

It is so much Indian, with its feature of social distancing.

                    

Now the times have changed,

Digitally empowered, are working from home,

With the street vendors, farmers and the blue collared,

Left lurching in the quarantined zones.

New technologies seem hand in hand with old rituals,

Differentiating against those toiling physically on roads.

The capitalist modernity favors the privileged and empowered,  

Modern Contagion is playing along with the age-old discrimination.  ©

                                                                                                                       

The Wait

 sourced from internet

Out of the desperate looks around,

An eerie confusion grips me,

Nobody around is sure enough,

Life has become just a ritual in waiting.

The hollowness of the time,

Seems never-ending,

But still, I peep out of the window,

As if forcing the Sun into fading.

With no more sirens and breaks and a timetable shunted,

Already an informal life now seems even discounted.

In a fragile market system with a fragile body,

Life has become mired in an endless wait.   

I get to hear Markets, economy and business,

Is there no society of humans in this age?

Lockdown for some was leisure and boredom,

While I lost my purpose and means of subsistence.

But I wait, making silver of hopes,

Expecting, anticipating dawn,

But to witness its collapse every night,

I wait, just wait to return to my normal life!©

Seasons of life

@Brahmputra

I experience days and nights,

Seasons, harsh and mellowed seemingly alike.

Longing for the choices,

Imagining the winters in scorching sun,

cursing the chilly cold expectant of a balming sun.

Everything has its beauty so are the vices,

But seldom I remember the good, somehow always occupied by the crises.

Mind tricks me to imagine an expectant future,

Past as they say always hounds,

Perhaps to escape the present which stretches the mind apart,

With fogged thoughts, longing for good times in the womb of an imagined spring,

Irrespective of my imagined thoughts, occupied with a scorn Sun or chilly wind,

Not ready to accept that the present too is an outcome of one’s acts,

The mind never rests but always on the run,

With peace available only in an imagined Spring, Or perhaps in imaginations only!©

     

The worker and the Corona city

My clothes may be soiled,  face unkempt,

With a pair of rough hands and a set of bruised heels,

I shoulder the burden, I power the growth,

I take pride that I am the maker of the world

I am the worker

Who fights daily for bread,

I know no rest I know no riches’ chest,

But to toil in the Sun and earn the night’s bread.

But not every night I am a victor,

I deceive, win it, sometimes I succumb,

But never have I given up nor got disheartened.

I Stand my ground, fight my war of hunger and despair. 

But now I don’t understand,

Why everything has shut its door on me

My toiling, my services have not been honoured,

Left stranded, I feel disturbed and unsafe.

Let me go back to my near and dear ones,

Let me fall back on my trusted brethren

My village still provides for everyone,

Not like cities, where one feels alienated from everyone.

My life and wellbeing never considered worth it's due.   

Now, with everything shut, no means to earn my bread,

I hope to be shown a little respect,

As a fellow human, I want my share of breath,

The Right to a dignified life,

to at least be heard when you decide my fate.

I see my voice lost in the cacophony of learned sounds,

I wonder if they can imagine what a hungry belly sounds.

I mean no harm to anyone just let me be by myself,

Just give me my Right to life, just be a little considerate.

I too am a fellow human though little unkempt,

I too earn my bread toiling dawn to sunset,

Show me some respect, be a little considerate.   ©

    

Shades of Success

@Shimla

  

They always said life is,

The events of pride and,

In achieving a station beyond self-doubt,
In being someone noticed aloud.

The name for you and fame for your family

Glory to the kin and some more of it all for one’s ancestry and posterity,

Success, achievement, triumph and a little more of them all.

I thought I will have it once I am at that mark,

The so called 'success' of catching the eyeballs.

But now,

That mark seems getting distant and blurry,

As I keep on desiring every time a little more of them all,

The so called 'success' of catching the eyeballs.

I asked him and her, everyone said you could do better,

That there is no stop until you get better of every other,

That the biggest loser happens to be none other than the second finisher.

Confused and frustrated all the while doubting myself,

Do I or don’t deserve the sunshine glory,

In melancholy my mind numbed,

After all my struggles I had been announced good for none.

Came my dog wagging his tail,

With his ever gleaming eyes and spirited trails

We went around the park, and had a good time,

We sat at the pond, felt the wind and bathed in the sunshine.

It was then that I decided,

Never again to get blinded by,
The Janus faced successful ones,

Their flimsy glory and the pompous tones,

Life is what one makes out of it,

A hearty laugh, some good friends,

A loving partner is what it takes,

To get the utmost warmth and truest admiration for lifetime.©

                                                                                                

A Love Letter

My dear,

I wish someday I figure out,

I wish someday I find,

The reason for your love,

The secret in those eyes,

The rumblings in those heavy breaths.

My dear,

I find you ever tempting,

So much are you desirous,

I am addicted to your lips and the mole just underneath.

The touch of your palm,

The melodious voice,

And the songs that you sang in the middle of the night!

My dear,

The heavy eyelids,

And the piercing eyes,

Sometimes troubled but the ever mischievous look.

I see a face in glow,

So welcoming, so pure.

And the moist eyes,

With a trembled voice,

When the separation between us grows!

My sweetheart,

I feel the devotion, the love,

But I wonder what good had I been,

Awestruck I am at this fate.

You are a dream come true,

How much should I appreciate,

My fortune.

Like the advent of spring,

In my wintery longs,

You touched everything with your warmth

And have given life to my frozen prose!©

                                                          

   

Conversations in silence.

Between our conversations, there is a silence,

Between our silence, there is a conversation.

And I long for both because so intense is the feeling,

We can't afford to waste it in just words.

Just as the stars Twinkle in the middle of a dark night

So do these silences utter, which can't be described.

My sweet love talk to me, say whatever,

And I will hear out each and every word.

But don't trick me with those expressions of you,

For I am hardly a match for the subtle expressive eyes of you.

So to think, imagine what you mean and why,

I dare not, I dare not for every time you make me look too novice.

For I do remember you through  sounds, words and thy sweet smell,

Tell me, tell me, oh my dear will you remember me!

Just as the wind blows, and sounds originate.

So do you communicate without it!

Silence​ at times is the best medium of communication,

Attending to the unsaid, and an effort to feel you!©

                                                                           

The Churning

@Pachmarhi,MP

Let world go by,

I don't want to run with it.

Just want to remember the times

When I had the world to myself,

Nothing else required,

Very little and simple desires.

I was happy every moment every day,

I  screamed, I shouted never I doubted.

The days were privileged then,

Never needed to hide one’s ignorance,

A chance to be amazed at every other thing .

I wanted to achieve and prove,

I was true to myself, was cared and loved.

Now I find myself crooked and crippled,

My mind is filled with memories of hatred,

jealousy and envy for every other.

I see the problems of life,

Some I inherited, major I created.

I find I am ruining myself,

I find myself left behind.

I don't know what I am really looking at,

If this is the world, I was so excited at,

Where I was my actual self,

Where everything seemed so true and perfect.

There’s a child inside every one of us,

A curious mind, imagining everything with no shortcuts

It never dwelled in past,

It never worried about the future.

The child believed in and remained faithful to others.

It is the time to unleash the child within,

Time to rekindle the divinity in waiting,

Facing the fears,

Welcoming the change,

Being true and respecting the self inside,

rather than being an outcome of circumstances outside.©

                                                              

The Mist.

She comes so silently, seldom one notices,

But ends up lighting the evening as if an enchantress,

She never lets me have my way,

For spellbound charm is what one sees all the way.

Whatever one may say,

She makes things seem more beautiful, than they really are.

Let me know if you are, what my heart longs for,

I wonder if you are, the one I am in search of.

Wait wait oh dear for let me ask the question

But, like every time you are gone,

Lost in the darkness of the night,

Just when I start to feel that we had the whole night

Now only you see me and I can't,

But let me tell you,

Through this scribbled lines I feel you

For our trysts are too intense to disappear

For they are real not fickle,

Like you !!!©

                                       

In the lap of Nature

Birds singing, leaves dancing,

The evening dusk slowly,

Putting on its cloak.

The orange sky, the green meadows,

And the fragrant flowery rows,

Waving with gentle strokes.

The cricket's calls to mate,

The moonlight's teasing glow. 

The distant bells ring in the temple,

espousing the depth of this moment and its flow.

                                                                                 

I feel like immersing myself,

Like a boat at the deep sea.

Gliding through the starry sky with the flow.

Freedom is here for me,

Wanting nothing but just to be,

In this, I find the moment of rest,

In this, I discover the moment of flow.

Experiencing the moments,  

Of Spring in mind and the creative juices.  

Getting this gypsy to sing praises,

Expressing gratitude to the artist divine.©