Painting-Poesy #12 - Reflect

Deeply focus, reflect.
Deeply engage, resurrect.
No time though in between the frenzy
Of emails, meetings, deadlines crazy...
To look deep, to let the mind blank be,
To rethink, to reenvision, to then rewards reap.

Writing is tough, needs dedication.
Creating is tougher, needs relaxation.
Necessity may be the mother of invention,
But surely there needs to be time for contemplation.

Collective brainstorming is all good and welcome,
But when do we unwind and let the mind wildly jump?
In between work and household chores and family illnesses and technology problems,
How do we ensure creativity blossoms?

I am in the black and white stage, right now. 😭
#digitalart

- Written on 19 May 2020. Posted on Social Media on 20 May 2020.
- Artwork done on 19 April 2020.
- In reaction to a reply that said we must take a day off to answer EMails and another that averred that we will Deeply Think in our mid-week calls to a colleague sharing the following article!!!!!

https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/business-of-life/what-s-your-pick-staying-on-top-or-at-the-bottom-11589820636097.html

Painting-Poesy #11 - May Day

The mom story is best untold

Her tragedies better not unfold

Like the migrants, she is best unseen

Unheard, unspoken, just felt unknowingly.

She toils, her hopes she rarely uncoils

For often the world uncaringly them foils.

She gives even as she lies hungry,

She pays even as the privileged get more luxury.

Sleepless, homeless, stateless, nameless, 

Often past the use date discarded.

Oh! Stories of her are lovingly shared,

Her importance underlined threadbare. 

But nothing is really done to help her any, 

Not a vessel cleaned, no one else makes tea.

A thank you, a wonderful token

In her love all is forgiven.

But the migrant is not our mother,

Tolerance might not stretch for much longer.

Beware, learn, appreciate 

In actions not just words truly emancipate. 

Not the mother, not the migrant labourer 

They know how to care for the other. 

No. Emancipate yourself of self-absorption

Stop with the empty gestures and an odd token.

Live to ensure equality, not live off slavery. 

That will be Mother's Day and Labour Day victory.

#mothersday #migrants #MeTooMigrant

- Written on Sunday, 10 May 2020.

- Today is Mother's Day. Yesterday's headlines screamed of the callous disregard that migrants are met with. A sample https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/coronavirus/news/sorry-we-have-run-out-of-all-words-today/articleshow/75638674.cms

Painting-Poesy #10: Flowers?!!

Roses scattered overhead
As millions plodded ahead
Hungry, thirsty for days
Filled with dread of even 1 positive case

No money to buy a seat on a bus or a train
India's coffers were not theirs to drain.
PM CARES! Yes indeed!
For showbiz and mockery!

And tear-filled drama some day will ensue
It is to lesser actors that this week we have bid adieu.
Corruption comes in all forms
A lack of heart, the refusal to see, the worst of all.

Classist India, not classy nor classic
What you sow today is tomorrow's arsenic
Shameful! Wasteful! Governments State and Central
Remember: Today's weak and meek will one day be powerful.

Liberty. Equality. Fraternity: The French Revolution
Swadeshi. Swarajya: India's Evolution.
Remember: It is mass, not class, that does a nation make
Remember and act before it is too late.


#FoodorFlowers #MedsOrFlowers #IndiaBleeding #IndiaWeeping #ClassistAttitudes #BestUseofArmyNOT

- Written on 3 May 2020.
- Today, India took the historically brave, the unparalelled sensitive decision to shower flowers from the skies, to thank frontline workers, roses mind you, and using Army jets at that, while lakhs of migrant workers had to pay 30% more than usual bus fares and sleeper train prices to go home.

Painting-Poesy #9: The Australian Bushfire

The screams I hear in my dreams
Through a curtain of orange dancing beams
Tortured animals seeking shelter
No respite. Mankind's blunder.

As we debate people's rights,
Trees and animals gasp their plight.
World over the climate change danger
Is shown escalating, but we just ponder.

'Now' is all we seem able to think about
Economics all we care about.
Stock exchanges soar as forests burn
Oh! Against nature what a drastic turn.

As 10,000 camels get shot in Australia,
So much coverage of Megxit to Canada.
This self-involvement of humanity
Has been the cause of many a calamity.

The world is burning, drowning, self-destructing.
But development metrics to money we keep linking.
Someone told me the other day "Why care who gets included or educated?
In a decade or so, we might ALL be anyway dead."


#ClimateChange #globalwarming #AustraliaBushfire

- Written on 11 Jan 2020.
- Self-explanatory

Privilege

Brutalised. Bloodied. She lies on the road.
"In death lies justice " is the crowd's roar.
"Her cries were ignored, her pain must be avenged,
Shoot them. Hang them. They must pay for their offence."

But some cry out otherwise
They are in turn reviled.
As enemies of women
As ruthless, as craven.

I wonder if justice always leads to peace.
Can revenge ever be to progress a key.
Fanon said of decolonisation
That it can't occur without violence.

But is that true?
The Rwanda story shows a different hue.
As for those protesting death sentence
They worry that then there will be less deterrence.

See, life is valued by those who have plenty,
Those who feel they have little to lose may be more freed
To commit crimes aplenty,
For death can't be revisited time-a-many.

Also then would girls and women come forward
To report family and friends of behaviour untoward
What about a woman raped by her husband
Will her trauma be ever subsumed by fear of this punishment?

Or does one think there are levels of rape?
That some can be forgiven, because, you see, PRIVILEGE.
That some people deserve it
That not actions, but persons and stations judgements merit.

I wonder...
What we value better,
The need for long-term reforms
Or a temporary feel good action acknowledgement?

This is not to say that those who suffered or are families and friends of those who suffered rape be sympathetic to abusers. This is a reflection on society as a whole and the value systems we seem to practice regardless of theories we spout.

- Written on 24 Jan 2020.
- Nirbhaya's killers were finally hanged to death. But...

Class Privilege

In our privileged homes with just our family
Even if they do drive us crazy,
Even as of lockdown travails we crib and moan,
The poor, the migrants yearn for home.

We tweet away #BharatPadheOnline
We promote #ArogyaSetu as our defence line!
As hungry and thirsty, millions fear
Losing their sole connection to those dear.

Are #Mobilephone companies even listening?
Are governments of the poor even caring?
No pay, no way. Will utilities be cut off?
Do we care if millions their slow death sob?

#MiddleClassPrivilege #UpperClassPrivilege #IndiaDoesNOTCare

- Written on 15 April 2020
- Reference: https://www.bloombergquint.com/coronavirus-outbreak/not-rs-500-indias-poor-need-at-least-rs-3000-a-month-george-mason-university-researchers 

Breakneck Pace during Lockdown

The breathless pace, a lack of space
Family aghast, peace frays.
The silence outside beckons
One dares not though for work summons.

Phone in one hand, plugged in earphones
One sweeps and mops as colleagues drone.
Carefully vessels are handled in the sink,
So the other side may not hear how insanity is on the brink.

No time to eat, food made in a hurry,
Forgotten in the rush is our legitimate worry,
Of how we fare as a society, as a human,
Whether we need change for redemption.

Deadline to deadline, call to meeting
We ever rush even knowing we are sinking,
Is the pandemonium over the pandemic worth it
Is this quest to find answers NOW the right fit?

What will happen if for a day or two or a month even
We do nothing organised and let our thoughts deepen
Would we reach a new realisation
Could there be another solution?

How will we ever know, if we never pause?
How will we ever grow if we still chase goals false?
But how do we dare to do nothing
When the world demands our everything?

- Written on 1 May 2020. Labour Day.
- Lockdown extended for another 15 days. Deadlines even more rushed and more work than ever piles on. 

Social Distancing

As I hear of millions of people walking miles across states,

as I hear of more and more cases of ostracism of health care professionals and delivery personnel and air line crew (all in societies with members who have earned degrees - I refuse to call this group educated -),

as I read more and more on some groups I belong to how unclean this other group (so many euphemisms for basic caste prejudice)  is in a situation completely wrought by a more privileged class,

as I hear the moans of those stuck at home who are wondering what to buy and how to buy when they would have enough food for at least three days to a week of survival,

as I hear the sorrowful exclamations of those losing money as the stockmarket plummets

and as I hear stories of how poor kids are cooped up and how poor parents are dealing with this

I sympathise A TEENY-WEENY bit.

For I hear the growls of stomachs hungry for days now trudging home on feet,

I hear the cries of children on streets unable to make ends meet

I hear the sniffles of parents whose families survived on pav and tea from the vendor

I hear the angst of the doctors and nurses grappling with dwindling supplies and worries for their own kin

I hear the delivery personnel needing to balance health and pay check be questioned for late delivery,

I hear the maids and drivers calling anxiously if their pay would be docked

I see the suffocation of 10 and more crammed in a 8 by 8 room with little to eat and no money to test

Stay Home! How wonderful! In a country with millions homeless.

Complete lockdown of hotels and such in a country with millions of migrants and poor who survive on buying food.

Complete lockdown of transport because the poor can die or they can walk, how cares a jot.

No. No. Yes, Yes. We care. Absolutely.

In the meanwhile let's crib about internet speeds and organise 10 hour long calls for productivity.

For a revolution to happen, I think we need the middle class.

For that to happen, they must either be empathetic or SUFFER.

I have given up on empathy.

Maybe suffering will teach me

Less complacency, more proactiveness,
Less dramatic speech, more foresightedness.
Less (nothing) of building temples or mosques,
More of hospitals that care for people on the ground
Less (nothing) of SOPs to people with billions,
Immediate money transfer to Jan Dhan accounts,
Appropriating all statues, places of worship and such's money
Emptying the coffers of every single political party,
Every marketing campaign to thrice over contribute to environment and health
All of us stopping this crazy rush to accumulating wealth.


No milk for 3 days or seven
No food supplies even
Water scarcity, every drop would count
May be then we can finally, superficially understand
The suffering of millions (the majority), our true strength grand.

- Written on 26 March 2020
- Migrants dying of hunger during #LockdownWithoutPlan 

When books don't captivate..

Busy. Busy. Busy.
The mind an ever humming bee.
When so much noise is there
Can you to relax even bear?

For words flow best from paper in silence
Not world's mind you, but your quiesence
If there is inanity even disturbing the peace
Thoughts interfere. Reception does cease.

Mindless ramblings your mind sojourns
You wonder why words it shuns
But no more ideas can it take
No more, not to one more person can it relate.

So in this cacophony, let yourself be
Forgive yourself, don't feel guilty
And actively seek to yourself release
From the mundaneness that holds you in captivity.

Then words will come to you on paper and in dreams,
The novel, the poems, the drama will be all beams
That bathe you in their light,
That make you laugh and cry
Ecstasy too you see
Needs some calm, some peace.

- Written sometime ago.
- I had written these lines for a teacher who complained that she was unable to read anymore. I think it applies to us as well in these times of Corona.