Teleology

Parents, grand-parents and great-grand-parents
My life is half-way of a long story
Of innumerable births, growth and deaths
Like philosophies rise from each other.

Earth’s solar parentage and Milky-way
With its fraternity of galaxies
Speak of a fine mysterious epic
And sing the glory of epiphany.

History or science and technology
Are garlands connected by unseen threads
Events or objects are mere facades
Imbricated, inter-penetrated.

The world we see and live in with others
Is crowded by our countless worlds within
And in constant exchange of the forces
And influences of the other worlds.

Tales like Bush & son vs. Saddam, Laden
Are therefore not easy to comprehend
Social sciences which fail to factor in
The ET are futile speculations.

The many-layered existence of truth
Complex-notions of teleology
Must seize our thought and action all the time
That’s how we become true to ourselves.

[Wed-031104]

Logistics

After Krishna Chaitanya left Jiwan Pani
And Raghav Menon followed suit on Tuesday
Music or dance, art or philosophy
The brute body is the bottom-line.

Whole life spent on deciphering right
Between the lines or behind the screen-
For being creative is to have ‘vision to lie’-
And finding beauty in her original home.

In times of mass massacre by missiles
When freedom is in ferment, justice means war
And oil is the issue and not ideology
Ethics and aesthetics seem as distant dreams.

From invisible hand to surplus value
Survival of the fittest to reification
Nothing comes easily, nothing comes free
And ‘everybody is against everybody.’

Peace and non-violence and human values
And such other cherished goals of civilization
Appear as a false promise and a sham
And the future of mankind a hope forlorn.

But again it’s the play of Time-spirit
What it aims at is quite hard to foretell
Still, in spite of its rough exterior
It loves to chase a bit beauty and order.

[Thu-300801]

Juggernaut

Gandhi was a radical, wrote Jerry Rao
Who moulded conservatism to suit him
Kishen pattanayak died almost unsung
The rebel at heart was most unassuming.

Indu Jain calls for a non-violent army
Neera Chadhoke dreams Civil society
Peoples war-groups are settling for dialogues
World Social Forum is a jamboree now.

Musharaf ditches military solution
The world is one voice against terrorism
Borders are breached by Satellite TV
Oil-pipes and train-lines are knitting the world.

It looks like that portentous End of History
Where the cool law of Mammon reigns supreme
The sun doesn’t set in the on-line exchange
Equity, debt, commodities and what have you.

For de-mat money, the world is its oyster
Silence! M&A talks are in progress
For which democracy is docile courtesan
And all this in the name of liberalism.

So never again say ‘there are alternatives’
Let revolutionaries be pragmatists
Business must flourish in peace and calm
Hail! Economy and technology.

[Sat-021004]

Doom as boon

From chrysalis on to apotheosis
When toddler dreams are about to take wings
Is heard the calypso of apocalypse
And lucidity is limped by a lisp.

The sight of a spider weaving its web
Or a chameleon changing its colours
Speak us of the mystery of creation
Through a process of steady expansion.

Then the law of the hand-drum operates
Thus begins the era of contraction
And the whole thing recedes progressively
Till it is ingathered in a point.

A cold cathartic cancerous kill-joy
Stealthily takes out the lynchpins of the carts
And then how far can be the disaster
Catastrophe follows as per the script.

The frightening fury of a vast flood
Or the volcanic ruin by an earth-quake
Are mere modalities of destruction
The driving force being the dissolution.

Seeds of detriment broadcast all over
Are waiting for their hour of sprouting
Still another insurgency can strike
The message of the new-age may mushroom.

[Fri-011004]

Senators

A Star-shaped salver-form fragrant flower
Petals cream with orange corolla tube
Blossoms in the night, falls on the day-break
But blessed to represent Aspiration.

Periwinkle in colours rose or white
Rounded petals, narrow corolla tube
A common flower represents progress,
To say ‘the reason why we are on earth.’

Dense pendulous clusters of fragrant white
Rotate flowers changing through pink to red
With long tubular calyces, creeper
For ‘we can count on you’ Oh! Faithfulness.

A golden-yellow funnel-shaped flower
Is Victory, ‘will triumph over all obstacles’
Marigold, yellow or maroon denotes
Plasticity, ‘ready for the progress.’

Zinnia, double compositae flower
Admiringly represents Endurance
‘Going to the very end of the effort
Without fatigue or relaxing’ that is.

Dahlia, small and large double flowers
Some are obstacles, Pride and Vanity
Others Dignity and Nobility
No pettiness in Aristocracy.

[Fri-011004]