Introspectrum I have come full circle And I don’t see colour now I look out through the window It is a colourless world. Cars pass by, labourers work Sarees or shirts, either check or plain Bricks or cement or iron rods All there, but there is no colour. The same bricks or the same shirts When come in a picture or a painting Acquire tantalizing hues Stirring feelings sensational. The tyranny of TVisuals The chicanery of Sunday mags The depravity of fashion scene We are all colour-victims. [081198] Mutation I was so fond of sweets And now it’s the opposite Why does the taste change And how does it happen? If taste-buds are the same And dishes the same old So, what was favourite Why fails to appetise? What we hear see or smell Or touch does not change Over a period of time Why the taste keeps varying? In view of its value For upkeep of the body Perhaps the food affair Is little complicated. The mind must foreplay The eyes must agree And the mouth consent For full enjoyment. Or taste remains the same And we as persons change Our likings and leanings Get distilled with age? [Sat-080901]

Plenitude

Abundance knows no order or symmetry
A précis or a summary is out of place
The summit is the only destination
Every thing spills over in all directions.

It won’t brook minimal miserliness
And betrays no semblance of being tidy
Caskets are busy running helter-skelter
Lavish prosperity is having a field day.

All symbols, icons and simulacra
Are run over by the juggernaut of plenty
All restraints whatever is thrown to the winds
But no chaos is it, simply anarchy.

Anomie or Onam, the carnival is on
El Nino brings the news of the El Dorado
Idioms of the past, get ready for Nano
Dance when it pours, in joyful abandonment.

All ugly and hideous now pass for art
Objects are multiplying, signs in short supply
Texts in demat, soon to claim the three worlds
Apologists of economy, Unclasp!

Once one qualifies for the oceanic vast
Worlds of plenitude swim in in plenty
Revel in the joy of beauty and beatitude
Why settle for the tiny, mean and puny.

[Sat-280804-Onam]

PRE-VISION

Many a time I come across newspaper headlines which prove to be prophetic subsequently. I may recount a few of them. Hrithik Roshan should not be front page news, wrote Wilson John in The Pioneer edit page just to make the point that the terrorist killings in Kashmir deserve more attention of our mainstream newspapers than films or fashion. But to my surprise, anti-India riots broke out in Nepal over a reported repartee of Hrithik Roshan and he was adorning the front page for almost a week, just two or three months later.Similarly, Bhasker Ghosh wrote a feel-good piece on his visit to Kathmandu in The Hindustan Times edit page. And within a day or two the Royal carnage took place exerting a spine-chilling effect the world over.More recently, just two days before the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, Dr G.S. Rajhans was dwelling upon the need to clip the wings of Taliban and its terrorist outfits, in Hindustan.Chandan Mitra recounted the shenanigans of Report Murdroch in destabilizing the media scene in UK in The Sunday Pioneer and in a matter of a few days the Tahelka pandemonium broke out.Yogendra Yadav wrote a stern piece on the food shortage and famine-like situation in many parts of the country in the edit page of Hindustan and laced it with a ‘Vikram Vetal’ quiz. And lo, when I open the Delhi Times, an ad splashes a picture of ‘Vetal’ escorting the king ‘Vikram’ to a Delhi restaurant.The same ad featured ‘Ravana’, the next day, his ten heads adorning the single neck. I was reminded of a letter to the editor of The Statesman complaining a few days earlier that the Ramayana depicts him as ‘Dasagriva’ as well, that is, as possessing ten necks and how it is difficult to imagine their position atop a set of twin shoulders.

TUSAR N MOHAPATRA
[2002]

TOMORROW

He will come tomorrow, the Alien
Who has the key to all our ills, the clue
To all our jigsaw puzzles and problems
In one stroke he will solve all our mysteries.

Why are we born in different skins
Why do we speak in different tongues
Why we sing and dance in divergent ways
Or what makes us write in many fashions.

He has the formula for words and things
He has the link for art and aesthesis
He will tell us the master-recipe
And bring with him the sure remedy.

Why do we worship disparate icons
Why do we believe in philosophies
What makes us fall for rival theories
Or why do we love to kill each other.

All computing are on his finger-tips
All the worlds show up upon his thumb-nails
No gadgets he needs for tele-talking
His palm is the archive for all texts.

Pathetic calculations of our maths
Thanks to him will be laid to rest for good
The tortuous aparatus of labs
Will mercifully be things of the past.