Innocent Questions

She was my destination

She was my path

Why then am I alone?

She came in with lots of love

Decided to stay in heart for always

Why then she walked away?

Heart questions why am I deserted

People were her worshipers

Was God her follower too?

For the first time, tried my hand on a nonnet, I hope it will be liked.

This one is for all the persons who want to question their loved ones as to why they are not in their lives anymore and why God has taken them away.

Big Fat Indian Wedding

They arrive, swathed in silk and smiles. And fish out a gold embossed thick, red card barely half a pleasantry later. Sometimes they whip out a pen and ask for full names. Uncertain smiles are exchanged, and card duly appreciated, while I try my level best to find out who or what the girl or the boy does, or where or she lives. And mom and dad pretend to admire the thick booklet of a card. Have these people considered that the card, which must have cost a bomb, is after all just informatory and not the work of art it is pretending to be and will be relegated to 'raddi' the very next day? I bet not.

Entreaties of 'You have to come!' and the earnest promise 'Of course, of course!' are exchanged before they leave and I wonder aloud, "How in the world am I gonna survive another get together with so many unknown people who are supposed to be my relatives?"

Mom too has her brow wrinkled, "I think I need to get a few dresses ready for the occasion. Are your dresses in order?" She tried to pass on the choice of attending the occasion on me but I back off quickly saying I will have to see if it fits in my schedule. So the moot question is, should I go? Like the idiot who never learns, bowled over by the anxious entreaties, I decide in favour.

Dressed in unfamiliar finery, one reaches the venue after a long traffic jam compounded by 'baraatis' moving at a speed calculated to shame a tortoise! The singer bells out the old and new songs with abundant panache and the dancing baraatis give intruding cars dirty looks, 'what business do cars have on road when they are there?'

Bypassing them is tough, but clever maneuvering sees us through and we find ourselves inside. The rest is a cake walk. Hand over the precious 'lifafa' to somebody keeping a meticulous list of gifts and walk over guiltlessly to the food side. Meeting or greeting the family? They have already bid us a hurried 'Namastey' before rushing off to tend to more urgent things than the invited guests. Wishing the new couple? The bride hasn't arrived from the parlour yet and the groom is still surrounded by his drunken dancing friends. Food seems to be the only logical solution and we get over the awkwardness of helping ourselves by socially asking some other  guests whether they have eaten. And leading the way to the most crowded part of the place.

Pandemonium prevails here as the service is slow and demand huge. Despite the mile long table and the cuisines on it, its a minor achievement getting a hot roti on your plate and getting out of the mad rush without a kid dropping an ice cream or a dollop of greasy daal on ur dress. The only thing you want by that time is to get out of the place.

Another tussle with the traffic and we are home! But if you think that's the end of your trouble, you have not accounted for the queasiness of the next morning. And cursing the green chutney, the curd - or was it the kulfi?

I remember nostalgically the days when society didn't judge you from the amount you blew on a wedding. Or how many guests you invited. The fresh fragrance of the marigold bedecked doorways and sandalwood adorned brides still linger in the memory, so far removed from the starchy orchids or the beauty out of cookie cutter parlours.

I must be getting really old or rather classical, for I also remember happiness, and not makeup lighting faces around me, the simple sitdown meals served lovingly on huge 'thaals' and people actually knowing their invitees!

Self Realization

After a while I learnt the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul. 

I learnt that love doesn't mean leaning, and company doesnt mean security.

It dawned upon me that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.

I began accepting my defeats with my head up and my eyes open, with the grace of an adult, and not the grief of a child.

I learnt to build all my roads on today because tomorrows ground is too uncertain for plans.

After a while I learnt that even sunshine burns if you get too much of it.

So plant your garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you will learn that you really are strong, and you really do have worth BEING YOURSELF.

NOTE : Its edited version (edited by me ofcourse) of the original article I read somewhere online.

Rising Petrol Prices And Dooming Rupee

With the rupee in decline, if not a free fall yet, and the petrol prices touching new skies, the political fallout is severe for both the ruling United Progressive Alliance (progressive, only in terms of corruption and scams, not in terms of development and prosperity) and the Opposition, as inflation touches new highs and cannot be easily bridled.

With the increased demand of petroleum products in the country, drop of rupee in comparison to dollar and the international price hike in the petroleum prices, the petrol prices are bound to rise. But, also our politicos should bring upon austerity on themselves and learn a lesson from the doomed economy of Zimbabwe, and stop coming up with flawed economic policies, which rob the public on the name of the taxes, instead of generating any substantial capital. Also, media hungry attention seeking people like Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, should put a stop to their nation-wide strikes and realize that their strikes cause a loss of around a thousand crore rupees a day to the country's economy.

Doomsayers predict recession, but the authorities have been hoping to ride the tiger and do not think that the economy is fragile, though it is. The regional parties ruling a number of States, in as much financial distress as the Centre, want their pound of flesh - huge funds from the Union treasury to balance their books. If rotten politicians like Mamta Banerjee, would stop threatening government on the name of withdrawing their support from the coalition, then maybe government will be able to work and function properly.

The rupee, as it is feared, could drop to 60 for a US dollar (the international reserve currency in which trade and balance of payments are measured) by the end of the second quarter of the current financial year. The Reserve Bank of India, may have sold 20 billion dollars and other banks might have pumped another 500 million dollars into the market, but is that enough? Have the foreign remittances, which used to be 50 billion dollars a year, declined or are the now insufficient, as the needs are manifold? Are the foreign exchange reserves of nearly 300 billion dollars inadequate?

The government claims that the Indian economic growth has been 7 percent in the bygone financial year, even though the stock markets and the commodity markets are in decline. Also, Banks and Life Insurance investments in stocks do not prop up the markets anymore. Sad, eh?

At the end of the budget session, the Government announced an increase of petrol price by `6 per litre, but oil companies are still demanding to increase diesel prices by `5 per litre. Even though the Central and the State taxes make upto 30 percent of the petrol price, the political parties to the left, right and  centre have found this issue to criticize the Government, instead of thanking it for the revenue generated. Dirty politics.

Capital inflows in to India have declined in the absence of economic reforms like permission to foreign investment in multi brand retail trade. The other factor is that a number of power plants are not generating electricity at their full capacity in the absence of availability of fuel. There is no solution for the power plants remaining idle, yet on paper, infrastructure has already been built, but will remain unused.

The ruling party and the opposition are holding executive meets every now and then, but the focus is not on crucial issues like that of petrol price, or that of decline of rupee, instead it is candidature of the presidential elections. The politicos have unwittingly sent out a message that, they make merry whenever they are in power and use the stick against the public, and are ignoring the aspirations of the rising young people of the country, who hate the fake idealism of the yore.

If given opportunity, I would like to ask :

• The Members Of The Parliament - Do you consider yourselves cartoonists, that you people are discussing cartoons printed in textbooks during the sessions of the parliament?
• Mamata Banerjee - Is your hunger for power so much so that, that you won't let the Union Government function properly for the sake of your vote bank in Kolkata?
• Narendra Modi - How can you consider yourself the face of good politics and development, when you ordered the massacre and the riots and your own hands are tainted by the blood of the innocents?
• Supreme Court Of India - Why is A Raja granted bail and where is the money he gobbled? Why is Kalmadi roaming freely after being plotting such big scams? Why hasn't the money from any of the scams been recovered? Is our law so weak that it cannot punish the culprits and give people what is rightly theirs?
• Manmohan Singh - If you want to act like a puppet in the hands of the Congress Supremo, Sonia Gandhi, and neglect your duties as the Prime Minister, then why don't you join a circus and not ruin the country?
• Lal Krishna Advani - When will you stop dividing people on the basis of the religion and let secularism prevail in the country?
• Rahul Gandhi - How can you call yourself the young face of Indian politics, at an age of 42, when all you do is nothing and fly off to foreign lands every now and then?
• V K Singh - Why you always blame defense ministry for your own flaws? Are you not a man enough to stand for your own mistakes?
• Anna Hazare - When will you stop fooling the innocent public on the name of the Lokpal Bill and do something good for the country, instead of those BANDHS that are destroying the country?
• Baba Ramdev - Is your circus on TV not giving you enough attention and media coverage that you have started fooling around with other attention seeking hogs on the name of anti corruption?
• Pranab Mukherjee - Why didn'[t you resigned soon? And while you were in power, why didn't you did something regarding the economy of the country, instead of imposing those ridiculous taxes on public?
• Vinod Rai (CAG, India) - When will you stop playing tennis and actually start doing your job?
• TKA Nair (Advisor to PM) - Will you advise something worth and real good to the PM?
• Duvvuri Subbarao (RBI Governor) - When will you take some substantial steps for stopping the downfall of rupee?

I conclude, with the hope that all these people will answer these questions to the people of India, and that too, before its too late.

Sisters Obsessed With White Skin

A few weeks ago, I went to saw a movie with my friend 'Nanita Singh'. One of the pre movie advertisements about a fairness product 'Clean and Dry Intimate Wash' angered and agitated her so much so that she took her cell phone out and lamented on her facebook status, "why each and every advertisement nowadays is about fairness products? Clean and dry has heightened the apartheid by launching their product Intimate Wash. FANTASTIC. Do they really want us to bleach our intimate areas into fairness? SICK" sarcastically.

The world could now welcome another product that makes people with brown skin feel bad about their bodies, invest in one more way to alter them. To someone like me, born and raised in India, encountering an American jab on anything Pakistani, surrounded by almost everything Chineese, offers some tantalising prospects nurtured by the fires of nationalism that burn on either side of these borders that British left us. There is the urge to gloat, to spout out, "no, no this would never happen in India" or smugly say, "well you know, this is not our problem", alluding ofcourse to the lack of superficiality, superior ethics, and caste-based equality India is so popular for.

While an American might fall for such a fable, unable to distinguish fabrications in the sea of brown, that is South Asia in the condensed western imagination, neither Indians nor Pakistanis can buy the lie. With our hostile histories, Indians and Pakistanis may disagree on borders and water treaties and terror suspects; but in denying our brownness and dreaming of whiteness, we r united. Indeed, 'Clean and Dry Intimate Wash' could not be advertised in India and Pakistan as freely as it is being hawked in countries with western culture, but there would, undoubtedly, be a profitable market for it in both these countries. The reasons for its popularity may be different, vestiges of caste and Aryan association among Indians; the desire to locate lineage in Arab conquerors in Pakistan. But even with missiles pointed and check points manned, the most fervent Hindu nationalist and the most martial Pakistani colonel can agree that whatever else happens, 'THE BRIDE MUST BE FAIR'.

While argument can be established, contradictions remain. It was after all, a fetal India and Pakistan who won the 20th century's most resounding  victory against white colonialism, showed down the British, sent them packing, and put full stop on the saga of the British Empire. Today, it is India that can mock by example all those who believed that democracy belonged only to the white, the rich or the elite; and it is contemporary Pakistan wracked with casualties and plagued by terrorism, that is standing upto the imperialist intrusions of the United States. If we looked at those portions of the story alone, we could never guess that our societies with their robust anti-imperialist genealogies could indulge in the chemical absurdity of bleaching ourselves white.

The conundrums, shared by Indians and Pakistanis could be less annoying perhaps if their burdens were equally applied to all Indian and Pakistani citizens. However, in the subcontinent, the self loathing of the people with fairer skins have deemed that this is not to be so; from 'Clean and Dry' in India to 'Tibet Snow' in Pakistan to 'Fair and Lovely' everywhere, the burden of escaping our burnished realities has been placed squarely on the shoulders of people with darker brownish skins. And because they must pretend that they and all their parts were born rather than bleached white, this war against brown is waged largely in secret.

In beauty parlors and bathrooms from Kolkata to Krachi, brown men and women, both Hindu and Muslim, the very poor and the newly rich, pay the price of a socially nursed delusion of whiteness, its imagined goodness, and its unquestioned purity. And as is the tradition, some are more slyly marketed than the others. The people who made the commercials for these fairness products, feigns innocence and denies complicity, it is all 'OVER-REACTION' in their words.

In our yet unconcluded first century of existence, India and Pakistan have spent a lot of time arguing our differences, varying interests, old wounds and new tricks, unwarranted armed overtures and all the tragic rest. On the issue of race it seems, our challenge on either side of the border is the same; the task of accepting without shame or subterfuge our pigmented reality; ending our quest for whiteness, so that we can finally become brown, and can finally say 'WE ARE PROUD TO BE BROWN'.

I Fell In Love With You

Somewhere in d middle of those conversations

I fell in love with you!

Being from strangers to friends

Then from gossips to sharing secrets

Don't know when I started to like you!

From those arguments to fights

From those likes to dislikes

From laughs to cries

I did share many beautiful moments with you

Somewhere in the middle of those conversations

I fell in love with you!

Don't know how the time passed

For hours our conversations used to last

And today it has been ages we talked

Now you have your guy by your side

Tomorrow someone else gonna be your groom

So today I wanna tell you

This was something I did 'hide'

Yeah! somewhere in the middle of those conversations

I fell in love with you!

And for the rest of my life

I will cherish my relation with you

And I will always love you!

This one is dedicated to the love of my life, in a hope she finds her way back into my life. Also this is for all the people who are missing their loved ones and waiting for them to come back into their lives.

Pain !

I keep thinking of different ways

How to express my love for her.

My heart beats for her

But she is unaware about it.

My God knows my pain

She is stranger to it.

I always wish, keep telling my heart

You love her, dye yourself in her colors

She will come to you, love you back

Alas! She doesn't understand my feelings for her.

My God knows my pain

She is stranger to it.

Always at a distance of step or two from her

Always she is in my heart frame

I have walked for centuries, towards her

The distance between us is still the same.

My God knows my pain,

She is stranger to it.

She is in my thoughts.

She is all around me.

I am so close to her.

Yet! She is distant to me.

My God knows my pain,

She is stranger to it.

How do I make you read my eyes?

How do I express my love for you?

How do I make you feel my heart beat?

How do I tell you what I feel for you?

My God knows my pain,

She is stranger to it.

Day and night, I keep watching her photo.

Day and night, I worship her like Goddess.

My God knows my pain,

She is stranger to it.

Oh God! Give christmas present to the orphaned heart of mine.

Oh God! Give back my Juliet to the Romeo me.

My God knows my pain,

She is stranger to it.

This one is dedicated to the girl with the most beautiful pair of eyes I have ever seen. I hope someday she will understand my love for her and come back to me.

Also, this is for all those persons, whose partners / friends are mad at them or are not with them, in a hope that they will be together again.

NOTE : The line 'My God knows my pain, She is stranger to it.' has been taken from the punjabi song 'mera peer jaane meri peedh, o jaane naa.' I was so much moved by this song, that i decided to incorporate its title line into this poem.