Soliloquy,
Words said
With no one to hear.
No words spoken,
A thousand words heard.
Monologues,
Thoughts written
With no counter arguments.
No replies had,
A thousand thoughts given.
Solitude,
Time spent
With no one around.
No company had,
A thousand hours spent.
Alone, he lives,
In soliloquy,
In solitude,
In monologues,
He thrives.
~Aditya
I have spoken about this to many people and I am yet to come to a conclusion.
People, they talk and talk,
Saying things
They really don’t mean.
Narrations,
Explanations
Of daily events,
Of daily deeds.
Things I don’t need to know
Things that mean not a thing.
Are they open,
Open to me,
Open to the world?
Here I am,
So closed,
So unknown.
Every thought,
Every deed,
Known to me,
Unknown to all.
I let you in my thoughts
I show you what I think,
The things that matter,
The things I hold dear,
Closest to my heart.
Who is open,
Who is closed?
Who is secure,
In insecurity?
Who is insecure,
In security?
Who has a need,
Need to know?
Who has a need,
A need to say?
Who is real, who is not,
Who is to say?
~Aditya
Over the last few weeks, my inspiration seems to come off the internet. More and more the people that I talk to and meet over the net are engaging me in meritorious conversations that bring out thoughts that lead to posts. This is one of them.
There was this general discussion, during which a topic came up which I had not given much thought about before. Even though I have not thought about this before, it appealed to me and here I am trying to put my thoughts into words. The topic of discussion is Sympathy.
Why is it that when we are at a signal we feel a sense of sympathy seeing the wrinkled woman carrying a crying baby asking for alms? Why is it that when we are travelling by an air-conditioned car in the sweltering heat, we feel sympathy seeing a person pedaling a cycle? Why do we feel sympathy when we some one or something that is not in the same place as we are?
The only reason is that we are better of than they are. The reason that I say this is because unless one is in a superior position, there can be no sympathy.
Imagine you and me are two beggars on the side of the road. The reason I am taking two beggars is that they are almost on the same standing in life. As long as we both have not received any alms, we will not feel sympathy towards each other. Once one of the beggars gets a small penny, he will begin to feel that sympathy towards the other beggar. Again once the second beggar too gets a penny, the sympathy will vanish and the competition will take over.
So is it not possible for a person who is not in a better of position to sympathize with some one who is in a better standing?
The answer is no. the standing here is not just monetary; it can be moral, physical, psychological, it can be anything. It can be from who has the most beautiful wife, to who is the strongest, from who has had more girlfriends to who has not, from who is the best in academics to who is the best in sports. It is across domains.
Sympathy, I feel,
When I am better off
Than what you are
The basis of my sympathy
Is my superiority
The basis of my sympathy
Is I am better than you are.
The poems following this post are those that were written eons ago. In fact I do not even have the dates for them. I decided that I needed to put them on the blog on a spur of the moment.
The posts are
I can see a marked change compared to the poems of yester year and those that I write today.
I have changed, so have my posts.
~Aditya
Everyone expects something,
From life, from friends, from all.
These expectations are based
On how we view them others;
The better the opinion formed,
The higher the expectation had.
But not everyone's perfect,
Not all are what they seem.
Times will surely come
When expectations are lost,
When they are not lived up to.
Times like these shall cause pain,
Give a sense of being let down.
My approach is simple,
Never expect anything at all;
From anybody or anything.
So what's done by them
Shall always be a lot more
Than my expected value, null.
If nothing's done it is fine
As nothing was expected,
No pain felt, No loss.
Expectations unfounded cause pain,
Only loss never gain.
No expectations founded or not,
Cause no pain, only gain.
I am not scared of any ghosts dead,
Too old and mature for that I'd say.
But I am truly scared, petrified
Of being haunted in the head of mine;
Not by ghosts, but by memories of time;
A time, I had in the trail, left behind.
All I have now are glorious memories,
Those that come and haunt day & night.
Showing me things that used to be,
Giving rise to dreams that may be.
Too powerful to ignore, I succumb
To the ghost of a time gone by,
Brooding over what could have been
And comparing with what is now.
I am not scared of ghosts alive,
People and behavior I shall face.
But loss of these I cannot meet,
Too weak I am to show the weakness.
I struggle to hold back those tears.
I am not scared of any ghost
But am rather scared of haunting,
Of memories held inside the head,
Held on to till the day I am dead.
The only truth known of life
Is also the one most bitter.
It comes around unwanted
Taking away those close to us.
Leaves us in a feeling of insecurity
One of not knowing what to do.
You've always thought they'd stay
With you, always, they'd never leave.
But time shows to you often.
Nothing is eternal but time alone.
Slowly it passes by quickly
The bad feelings of fear depart.
They are replaced by memories,
Memories of love you shared.
The memories of times treasured,
Of persons you loved & they you.
Of the person who'd now onward
Be there by your side always.
I talked to a man yesterday,
A man I have known for years,
One who was not really there,
My doctor told me today.
Words have taken leave of me
To portray the muddle in my mind.
But is the mind mine,
Or is it the property of another?
Me, just a fleeing sense of insanity
In a perfectly sane brain?
In those fleeting moments of insanity
I ponder over the truth, that is my mind.
How can a person I see
As clearly as I see you now
Be unreal, a figment of my imagination?
How can I be sure ever
If what I see is true or not,
Some mirage brought about
By the mind, unknown and unseen?
Now I shall look at each face,
Both the ones known through my eyes,
And the others seen through my mind,
With a new look of fear;
Asking the closest true neighbor,
"Do you see the person that I see
Or is he seen only through me?"
Dear Son safe inside
Your loving mother's womb,
I heard your tiny voice
When you spoke last night
You asked for freedom
You wanted to be let out
Said the womb was too small
Compared to the world outside
You want to see the world
So splendorous and so bright
Staying in darkness you cry
Let me out, I want to be free.
Dear Son, safe deep inside
Your loving mother's womb
You do not know the world
Is too scary a place for you.
The noise shall deafen you
Lights turn you blind
Greed will make you hate
Money will buy you love.
People will cause harm
Just for passage of time
Your feet will be pulled out
From under you by your pals.
The life's lost its meaning
Rivers of blood everywhere
Good gone into the earth
Rising in its place is evil.
Dear Son, safe deep inside
Your loving mother's womb
Do you want to leave peace
And come out into dust
Do you want to leave safety
For the danger lying outside?
Do you want to leave love,
For outside you'll find only hate.
Dear Son, lying deep inside
Your loving mother's womb
Come out here if you must
Put me there if you can.
Blood runs from the mountains,
Down wild raging rivers,
Into the valley,
The Valley of beauty,
The valley of fear.
The mountains bleed,
The rivers of blood
For every Kashmiri’s death
Killed by the friend
They grew with
Born from the Ka,
The waters that dried up,
She is being reclaimed
By water again,
Running in people’s veins
Her history is proud
Her present bleak,
Her future doubtful,
For even as we speak
Death runs riot.
Torn apart by strife,
By wars waged over her,
Waged on her
Destroyed the beauty,
The beauty of Kashmir.
The sounds of the children
Playing in the valley,
Have now been replaced
By sounds of guns,
And silence.
She is alone,
She is surrounded
Waging a war,
Over religion
That she did not start.
What do they fight for?
For the people,
Or for the place?
To call Kashmir their own
Or just to save face?
Her people have left,
Her soul is dying.
She is being desiccated
Of water
Running in her peoples veins.
