Yama
Last night I dreamt of Yama, the God of Death.
He drives around in a white Toyota Xl, looking slightly rusty on the sides, possibly because he never stops roaming in our city, day and night, rain and shine.
I saw that people die when they live their home, on certain fateful days. Yama drives into them and collects their soul for later delivery. Those who die at home, I have no clue what really happens to them. My dreaming mind is a coward like me, and worries to explore unknown spaces. But what I remember from my dream is the death of an old man, gone for a strolling drive with his mistress or wife. His name was Mr Stag I think. When Yama hit his car, a frontal direct hit, his door opened, and my ear and eyes somehow went telescopically closer to his face. I saw what happens when your soul is on the verge of departing. You pass this graceful breath, ‘ Ahhiissssh’.
Rattan
- Champ de Mars –
I remember a day at the races, sometime during the late 80`s.
My dearest father holding my hand, encouraged me to hip-hop on my feet to see the whizzing mass of horse flesh pass us by.
I was very young and happy then.
Somehow, during the ‘ligne droite’ finale, I remember seeing the winner pass the post.
His eyes, like the redness of an infected eye, pointed straight at me.
Out of thousands, the eye was pointing at me, and yes (don`t laugh), the horse spoke to me, and everyone else froze in the air.
The Horse speaks: “ Do you see the wretch that I am my son. I am stuck on this track, condemned to be the perennial monkey of y`all. What in the hell do I care about the cup, the family honor, and the cash !
…But take heed son, because little do you all Men here know that they themselves are the wretched horses of life. Condemned and bound to run, to fight, and be whipped by destiny on the very race-course of life. Remember son, never follow this mad crowd. Take your bag and leave. Leave this vicious circle of Champ de Mars.”
Rattan
Yet another “New Year”.
I have always looked at the crowd at Trafalgar and Times Square with some modest disdain. What are we really celebrating, I don`t get it? It all seems futile ? Is it not a simple switch in the gregorian calendar, from 2005 to 2006. I see the faces in the crowd. How many will die this year? How many will be told they carry some small cells lurking around, and will need months of horrendous treatment, not knowing what the end results will be?. My apprehension seems to have gotten the best of me, but rest assured reader all is not dark. All is not lost. All is not futile, please bear with me my reader.
There are no New Years, let us remember and agree about that. There is the continuum of time passing and legitimising all as it marches on. Take 2005 for example, there was the shocking, unbelievable, unacceptable flood that engulfed New Orleans. Then, at a widely smaller scale, there was the death of a 42 year old cousin I knew. Death at this age, especially with siblings barely old to walk, a young wife, and an old father and mother, also seems unacceptable, unbelievable, mysterious. Time somehow, now makes this a reality. A ‘now’ that we urgently need to live with, and to create a bypass to move ahead. So many houses vanished by visible and invisible forces, yet we need to find a way out of the mess. No choice !
Yet despite all these physical and mental cataclysmic events, there were many happy moments. The marriage of a lady with a grown up child, after so many years of wanderings. Almost a miracle everyone says, knowing well that she now carries child. Hope reborn out of harrowing despair. Life torn, and now life rebuilt, almost feels like, the detours never took place. Happy moments. Then of course there are the normal little things that bring happiness in our lives, better jobs, new houses, new cars, new friends, new loves, some poem we read somewhere…..
Yet despite all, there seems to be something else that uplifts us, and orders us to move on. I get reminded of this man who once lived before time also claimed him. Faced with the might of a super orderly british army breathing down his neck, he wrote,
“ The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.”
He won the war. He defeated a grand british army with a team of rabble-in-arms.
Hope this uplifting energy (spirit) moves us ahead this year, and teams with us to defeat the various small wars that have yet to be fought !
A very happy new year.
Rattan
Visiting Disney Land.
As wife and kids do the merry-go-round,
I sat under a tree down thinking about Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri Poet.
Around the gory colors and mirages, the fakeness, and hopelessness (why is everyone so darn happy), I whisper,
O Ali come to my rescue !
“Nothing will remain, everything`s finished’
I see his voice again: “This is a shrine of words. You`ll find your letters to me. And mine to you. Come soon and tear open these vanished envelopes’…
This is an archive. I`ve found the remains of his voice, that map of longings with no limit
The mind finds a little solace.
The mechanical engineers, a great job at the park,
The gear and brakes in the core work in perfect unison, a marvel. (and why the hell would anyone notice that one?)
At the center of this maha illusion: the merry-go-round of sponge bob. That which matters O dear friend must be at the core, the arte, the essence.
All else says Ali, is the idea of death !
Ode to Ms Rice
Madame Rice….nice house in the suburb of Washington,
I see your yard is paved with the choicest basalt,
The garden is created a la Martha Stewart,
And Madame by the way,
Your dining room is truly exquisite.
And you play the piano too, WOW !
Been to Stanford, I suppose…
And dear Madame, I saw you on TV the other day,
O! what an announcement you made, gave..
How important it is to carry on the pounding of Leba,
Carry on..Carry on…
In the interest of…`democracy'..or 'pornography'..whatever it is..I get confused.
Backing out now, will send the 'wrong signals' to the terrorists,
You seem to say.
O dear you were in shock. How dare they aim their guns at Haifa !
How dare they do that, yeah !!!
Don`t they know there are kids and women in these buildings.
What are these idiots thinking ?
Indeed ! C & W, Children and Women.
Our Latest update:
No C & W perished in Lebanon !
No C & W ever died in Palestine ! Take my word for it !
And the displacement, the exiles, they never really took place,
No teenage rock throwers ever died of shrapnel wounds,
No mother ever buried their 7,8,9,10,11, 20, 21 year olds in Gaza.
The prisons of Gaza are empty, silent they stand !
None have been arrested for god-knows-what in Gaza.
Nope ! None of these ever took place.
Carry on Carry on in the name of some unique, flexible, polymeric, form of morality.
The Death of Hinduism
I am a great fake and so is my great religion.
It used to be a great immense powerful river, now dried up by diversions and canals
It does not exist anymore.
It died few days ago, under a banyan tree
Now Hinduism is a synthetic product
Packaged for every home, everyone with his own version
If you have the best statue
Then your version is indeed the best.
The fresher your rose, the better your ‘Puja’
God is now on Zee-TV singing goody songs giving us tips about fornicating and eating tips
No one understands the ole Sanskrit and no one remembers anything
This religion, created yesterday, will die tomorrow
What they felt, we will never feel. They roamed everywhere,
Went house to house, passed the woods, and told us something about a strange beauty
This beauty, like a green parrot with red eyes and silver claws, is lost to us
We wrangle about this and that,
Each pundit telling a lie over a lie. A lie fucking another lie
A line of lies
A battery of lies
Books about lies,
Talks about lies
Lies everywhere,
And there goes a car, registration plate: LIE
R-
An Israeli Soldier
I saw in my house, the spirit of a dead Israeli soldier
Handsome, tall and twice my size
I felt he wanted to say something,
Then his mother appeared walking around with a 6 year old,
His brother, may be.
We stood in the kitchen
The dead soldier and me,
Talked about India and travel,
He seemed to have visited Himachal in his past life.
I felt in him, a great desire to tell me something,
Urgently.
Then came the time where I said something stupid, silly, inattentively about his mother,
The spirit, in despair, left. The dream ended.
That was how his life had ended at Bin Jbeil,
In a stupid, silly, moment of inattention,
A shrapnel to the head.
Does war make sense to you, Friend?
The walk
I have never seen anything with open eyes
I lived in Mauritius, like a blinded blind man in a blind room,
Never did anything for anyone,
Then i left, one sunny day.
Today in Sunnyale
As i walk around tonight
I see a spider trapping a prey, a snail curling back in it shell, and a line of ants,
All busy living, killing and being killed.
Is this what this is all about?
The hunter and its prey
A spark of light,
A man gets out of his car on El Camino
A painful wrinkle on the face, he had hurt his right leg
Someone dying in Ghana today, struck by a truck.
Is this what this is all about
Killed, being killed and living
Rattan
He drives around in a white Toyota Xl, looking slightly rusty on the sides, possibly because he never stops roaming in our city, day and night, rain and shine.
I saw that people die when they live their home, on certain fateful days. Yama drives into them and collects their soul for later delivery. Those who die at home, I have no clue what really happens to them. My dreaming mind is a coward like me, and worries to explore unknown spaces. But what I remember from my dream is the death of an old man, gone for a strolling drive with his mistress or wife. His name was Mr Stag I think. When Yama hit his car, a frontal direct hit, his door opened, and my ear and eyes somehow went telescopically closer to his face. I saw what happens when your soul is on the verge of departing. You pass this graceful breath, ‘ Ahhiissssh’.
Rattan
- Champ de Mars –
I remember a day at the races, sometime during the late 80`s.
My dearest father holding my hand, encouraged me to hip-hop on my feet to see the whizzing mass of horse flesh pass us by.
I was very young and happy then.
Somehow, during the ‘ligne droite’ finale, I remember seeing the winner pass the post.
His eyes, like the redness of an infected eye, pointed straight at me.
Out of thousands, the eye was pointing at me, and yes (don`t laugh), the horse spoke to me, and everyone else froze in the air.
The Horse speaks: “ Do you see the wretch that I am my son. I am stuck on this track, condemned to be the perennial monkey of y`all. What in the hell do I care about the cup, the family honor, and the cash !
…But take heed son, because little do you all Men here know that they themselves are the wretched horses of life. Condemned and bound to run, to fight, and be whipped by destiny on the very race-course of life. Remember son, never follow this mad crowd. Take your bag and leave. Leave this vicious circle of Champ de Mars.”
Rattan
Yet another “New Year”.
I have always looked at the crowd at Trafalgar and Times Square with some modest disdain. What are we really celebrating, I don`t get it? It all seems futile ? Is it not a simple switch in the gregorian calendar, from 2005 to 2006. I see the faces in the crowd. How many will die this year? How many will be told they carry some small cells lurking around, and will need months of horrendous treatment, not knowing what the end results will be?. My apprehension seems to have gotten the best of me, but rest assured reader all is not dark. All is not lost. All is not futile, please bear with me my reader.
There are no New Years, let us remember and agree about that. There is the continuum of time passing and legitimising all as it marches on. Take 2005 for example, there was the shocking, unbelievable, unacceptable flood that engulfed New Orleans. Then, at a widely smaller scale, there was the death of a 42 year old cousin I knew. Death at this age, especially with siblings barely old to walk, a young wife, and an old father and mother, also seems unacceptable, unbelievable, mysterious. Time somehow, now makes this a reality. A ‘now’ that we urgently need to live with, and to create a bypass to move ahead. So many houses vanished by visible and invisible forces, yet we need to find a way out of the mess. No choice !
Yet despite all these physical and mental cataclysmic events, there were many happy moments. The marriage of a lady with a grown up child, after so many years of wanderings. Almost a miracle everyone says, knowing well that she now carries child. Hope reborn out of harrowing despair. Life torn, and now life rebuilt, almost feels like, the detours never took place. Happy moments. Then of course there are the normal little things that bring happiness in our lives, better jobs, new houses, new cars, new friends, new loves, some poem we read somewhere…..
Yet despite all, there seems to be something else that uplifts us, and orders us to move on. I get reminded of this man who once lived before time also claimed him. Faced with the might of a super orderly british army breathing down his neck, he wrote,
“ The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.”
He won the war. He defeated a grand british army with a team of rabble-in-arms.
Hope this uplifting energy (spirit) moves us ahead this year, and teams with us to defeat the various small wars that have yet to be fought !
A very happy new year.
Rattan
Visiting Disney Land.
As wife and kids do the merry-go-round,
I sat under a tree down thinking about Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri Poet.
Around the gory colors and mirages, the fakeness, and hopelessness (why is everyone so darn happy), I whisper,
O Ali come to my rescue !
“Nothing will remain, everything`s finished’
I see his voice again: “This is a shrine of words. You`ll find your letters to me. And mine to you. Come soon and tear open these vanished envelopes’…
This is an archive. I`ve found the remains of his voice, that map of longings with no limit
The mind finds a little solace.
The mechanical engineers, a great job at the park,
The gear and brakes in the core work in perfect unison, a marvel. (and why the hell would anyone notice that one?)
At the center of this maha illusion: the merry-go-round of sponge bob. That which matters O dear friend must be at the core, the arte, the essence.
All else says Ali, is the idea of death !
Ode to Ms Rice
Madame Rice….nice house in the suburb of Washington,
I see your yard is paved with the choicest basalt,
The garden is created a la Martha Stewart,
And Madame by the way,
Your dining room is truly exquisite.
And you play the piano too, WOW !
Been to Stanford, I suppose…
And dear Madame, I saw you on TV the other day,
O! what an announcement you made, gave..
How important it is to carry on the pounding of Leba,
Carry on..Carry on…
In the interest of…`democracy'..or 'pornography'..whatever it is..I get confused.
Backing out now, will send the 'wrong signals' to the terrorists,
You seem to say.
O dear you were in shock. How dare they aim their guns at Haifa !
How dare they do that, yeah !!!
Don`t they know there are kids and women in these buildings.
What are these idiots thinking ?
Indeed ! C & W, Children and Women.
Our Latest update:
No C & W perished in Lebanon !
No C & W ever died in Palestine ! Take my word for it !
And the displacement, the exiles, they never really took place,
No teenage rock throwers ever died of shrapnel wounds,
No mother ever buried their 7,8,9,10,11, 20, 21 year olds in Gaza.
The prisons of Gaza are empty, silent they stand !
None have been arrested for god-knows-what in Gaza.
Nope ! None of these ever took place.
Carry on Carry on in the name of some unique, flexible, polymeric, form of morality.
The Death of Hinduism
I am a great fake and so is my great religion.
It used to be a great immense powerful river, now dried up by diversions and canals
It does not exist anymore.
It died few days ago, under a banyan tree
Now Hinduism is a synthetic product
Packaged for every home, everyone with his own version
If you have the best statue
Then your version is indeed the best.
The fresher your rose, the better your ‘Puja’
God is now on Zee-TV singing goody songs giving us tips about fornicating and eating tips
No one understands the ole Sanskrit and no one remembers anything
This religion, created yesterday, will die tomorrow
What they felt, we will never feel. They roamed everywhere,
Went house to house, passed the woods, and told us something about a strange beauty
This beauty, like a green parrot with red eyes and silver claws, is lost to us
We wrangle about this and that,
Each pundit telling a lie over a lie. A lie fucking another lie
A line of lies
A battery of lies
Books about lies,
Talks about lies
Lies everywhere,
And there goes a car, registration plate: LIE
R-
An Israeli Soldier
I saw in my house, the spirit of a dead Israeli soldier
Handsome, tall and twice my size
I felt he wanted to say something,
Then his mother appeared walking around with a 6 year old,
His brother, may be.
We stood in the kitchen
The dead soldier and me,
Talked about India and travel,
He seemed to have visited Himachal in his past life.
I felt in him, a great desire to tell me something,
Urgently.
Then came the time where I said something stupid, silly, inattentively about his mother,
The spirit, in despair, left. The dream ended.
That was how his life had ended at Bin Jbeil,
In a stupid, silly, moment of inattention,
A shrapnel to the head.
Does war make sense to you, Friend?
The walk
I have never seen anything with open eyes
I lived in Mauritius, like a blinded blind man in a blind room,
Never did anything for anyone,
Then i left, one sunny day.
Today in Sunnyale
As i walk around tonight
I see a spider trapping a prey, a snail curling back in it shell, and a line of ants,
All busy living, killing and being killed.
Is this what this is all about?
The hunter and its prey
A spark of light,
A man gets out of his car on El Camino
A painful wrinkle on the face, he had hurt his right leg
Someone dying in Ghana today, struck by a truck.
Is this what this is all about
Killed, being killed and living
Rattan
posted by khulipatang at 7:26 AM
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