Leadership

Spies are eyes across the wall
Climb up a hill to a broader horizon
If only outlook mates with insight
Can a commander a leader become.

He and her men within the organic whole
Are a matrix and how does it perform
Is a question linked to its raison de etre
And hence handling people is so crucial.

Not to manipulate as if a mechanical being
But to see his intrinsic worth
Each person, a bundle of difficulty
Heralding the hope of what she can become.

Hurdles come and are meant to be overcome
In order to earn a sense of triumph
An innate urge of self-exceeding
Is the secret of success alone

Harmonizing the contraries is the key
And to unshackle resistance to change
To stoop to conquer by being a servant
And capable to pardon if to punish.

Games of adult or parent and child
By recognizing the other as nothing but you
To be a master of oneself, Swarat
In order to lord over the world, Samrat.

[Mon- 100901]

THE THINKER

Man is the measure of all things
I think, therefore I am
The real is rational, the rational real
Man is something that is to be surpassed

To be is to be perceived
Existence precedes essence
The mind of a child is ‘tabula rasa’
The phenomenon manifests the essence

Know thyself, and you’ll know the universe
Flight of the alone to the alone
The incognito of the eternal
God is dead.

War is the father of all and king of all
The child is the father of the man
Man is born free, but he is in chains
Workers of the world unite!

Pleasure of the text, death of the author
Signifier precedes and determines the signified
Love is giving what one does not have
To somebody who doesn’t want it.

Conquer yourself rather than the world
Your action is limited, obviously, by your death
Man is free, but he is not master in his own house
There is no thought which embraces all our thoughts.

[Wed-050901]

POSSIBILITY

Myths and legends, fables and lullabies
Fodder for gossip, food for thought
Lilies and birds, wolves and lambs
Birds and bees, bulls and bears.

Fairies and angels, cabbages and kings
Batman Spiderman, birds of same feather
Whales and seagulls, cock and the crow
Mountain and squirrel, dog in the manger.

Tarzan and Phantom and the Trojan horse
Godzilla, Dinausers and Jurassic Park
Hound of heaven, tiger burning bright
A spider saves, another seduces a fly.

Sphinx and dragon, unicorn, centaur
Goat meets rat, fickle Mickey-mouse
God’s eye view, pre-thought life-world
While one bird eats, the Other looks on.

Jackal and black-cat, camel and lion
Two goats on a bridge for right of way
To bathe like a crow and contemplate crane-like
Vehicles, Avatars, Gurus and zodiacs.

The bat is a mammal, dolphin humanly
The parrot speaks, postal-pigeon, police-dogs
If a squirrel comes to collaborate with God
Why can’t man forget his animal past?

[Sun-050801]

ARCHETYPE

There are worlds after worlds, they say
Whether flying or perched it matters not
Imagination is an endless game
And so is creation as its outcome.

The magic-lights of the rain-soaked town
The lilting music from a broken pot
Are real, there in the worlds beyond
Like Rimina tip-toeing behind the mirror.

Colours splashed on a large canvas
May appear as cowherds or circus-tents
Or human forms quite weird and strange
But they exist by their own right.

Each tune is a town, each song a world
Each Raga a whole universe, delightful
Music beckons to wander in the wonder worlds
One sings and strays into worlds apart.

Truth and beauty and good and justice
Must be having their own home somewhere
So also pity and love and brotherhood
Radiating their virtues upon us.

Trees and flowers the sky and the moon
Should not bind us, we must see beyond
Fermions Bosons and the receding galaxies
Need not blind us, we should invade the unknown.

[Sun-251294]

LIFE, A PRETEXT

The countless words that the cosmos hears
Everyday and the numerous rehearsals
Are a text of proportions, mind-boggling
Reality is just another TV-channel.

Call it meaning or theory or truth
It’s all merely some interpretation
Oscillating between history and culture
And stirring conflicts and suspicion.

The dynamics of reciprocal reference
Is an elegant structural scheme
It is an arena of free-for-all
Bake your own text according to your sweet will.

Whatever is said or what remains unsaid
What is feigned, concocted or concealed
Are grist to the mill of games people play
Loose talk needed for inauthentic life.

And that is praxis and the lived-world
The word spoken walks in regal status
Whatever is scripted gets a bad name
Thus we return to the life of the nomads.

Granted that discourse is always uncertain
And communication tends to be tentative
Our existence is a construct of language
And life, a pretext to unravel a text.

[Thu-030403]

GLASS, HALF-FILLED


When you throw tantrums
And I take umbrage
We forget it’s churlish
To crib and quibble about.

A tangled skein of lies
Or a slew of new demands
Is enough to bomb a day
The crater to fill takes long.

To punch your careful rationale
Just to break the humdrum
Is not taken kindly
The poor humbug wails.

A silly little thing
Is not worth ruing about
Why to fret and fume
It’s infinitely better to forget.

Meeting in the half-way house
Beneath the half-moon at midnight
Why ask for the plenary sun
Life’s always a half-cooked meal.

So let’s stop worrying and start living
Make friends and influence people
For if I’m OK, you’re OK
And shore up our EQ by positive thinking.

[Thu-270901]


NOT A DROP TO DRINK


When you know that there are, to be sure
A hundred ways to look at a thing
Then you know that you do not know
And how difficult it is to take a stand.

It is surely impossible to know for certain
Just about anything or any petty affair
The truth is always at a discount
Invaded by falsehood and exaggeration.

How easy it looks to sail in a small boat
Well insured in its cozy comforts
But come the waves from a large vessel
You tend to panic and tumble and fall.

Little learning is a dangerous thing
That blinds and binds with rigidities
It’s knowledge and ideas that set you free
And leave you at the shore high and dry.

Whence you are unsure which way to go
Whether to say yes or no at any point
The thin demarcation between good and bad
Or true or false is obliterated.

When one thus enters a blind alley
And is driven to the wall of doubt
Then only it often dawns upon him
That only Grace can come to the rescue.

[Sat-220901]


A DROP OF INK


It’s a different game altogether
For the words-industry to prosper
Silence and solitude help
Huge output for the pen-pushers.

Armed with a calm without
And a tormented heart within
They write as if with their blood
Turned blue with anguish and disquiet.

Self-love turning a love for man
Suffused with utopian aspirations
Even when everything seems to be lost
They see light at the end of the tunnel.

A quiet resolve and certitude
To find a way amidst the darkness
With enough sagacity and fortitude
They essay on to write the right.

To write is again to fight
Against a host of hostile values
Tyranny of the contemporariety
Hedonism and the herd-mentality.

By cultivating the nation’s mind-space
They strive to make it more fertile
Be it commerce, economy or politics
All follow their edicts and their will.

[Sat-220901]