The Brave Pedestrian

I write this tinged with sadness. I feel sorry for us... For the tragic comedy that is the essential human condition. In the midst of a carnival of plenty, Some of us are dying of thirst. In the midst of a deluge of love, Some of us feel left out and lonely. There is no dearth of emotional give-and-take in the crowd of relations that we stand amidst... Father, mother, brother, sister, son daughter, spouse, lover... And yet we suffer bouts of feeling heartsick and unloved. Yes, I feel sorry for all of us. Poor forked animal, whose overdeveloped mind afflicts him, Ambushes him with emotions that have little to do with the present. Poor forked animal, who carries a baggage of emotions from the past, And borrows some more from an imagined future. Poor forked animal, who cannot be simply happy With things as they are. We live our lives with the sour aftertaste of Yesterdays and yesteryears. We live with the bittersweet foretaste Of what the morrow will bring. We live in a world that has...

    I keep looking for images and words that express what I feel our world should be like. Well, here’s a pic I saw on L Kini’s Rediff iland blog. What does this picture signify? I see humankind, having voluntarily given up all their technological achievements and all their acquisitions, all protections, comforts and clothes, bowing in the midst of the grandeur of nature. I see people bowing before nothing in particular. (Maybe in reality they were bowing before a guru, an idol or a symbol when this picture was taken, but that need not concern us.) They seem to be bowing reverentially to the world in general, which includes themselves. I see all of us at ease with our own nakedness and humanness. Our shame and self-consciousness is replaced by a superconsciousness, a supreme fellow-feeling, a sense of being one with all others. A serene oneness pervades this picture. ...

Mother if it please you if it be your will On this mountain of unreason this illusory hill That I embrace and call sacred ground Let the pebble of Truth be found. Not knowing its shape size or colour I search From round stone to rough rock to red thing I lurch Scraping like a creature possessed Grasping each new thing to my breast. Truth is indifferent to light and to shade By people’s opinion not unmade nor made Neither blooms in profit nor withers in loss Then teach me to equally love gold and dross. Mother take my hand guide my feet be my eye. Confused by intentions no compass have I I do not  know how to look where to turn Sift harsh truthfulness from deceitful concern. Like a candle in the winds my faith flutters Oftentimes I doubt my purpose my sanity. Help me guard the flame Mother don’t let it die Else what shall I live for and why? -- Krish   --------------------------------------...

Mother, You who alone walk the hidden passageways of my heart, You who sense my every twist and turn, You who know my littlest truths and subtlest lies, You who see my most secret desires and lusts naked, Even ones that I do not dare acknowledge… Hear me, heed this prayer: Let my all be taken, returned to the good earth. Let the slow-burning fires of my many thirsts be quenched. Let my various hungers cease their endless creeping about the earth Like sleepless ghouls seeking satiation, saturation. Let them die unfulfilled For they are never silenced by fulfilment. For far too long have my brothers and sisters been cast away into the cold. The eloquence of this two-legged child who prays too frequently Makes you deaf to my legless and many-legged brethren Who suffer and die in silence. Their hunger and pain, their indignity As they are driven from their waters and their lands, Their homes desecrated, torn from their roots in the earth Are plain to those who see and hear. Why...

My neglected Mother who is largely unworshipped, You gave me dreams and daydreams Of being your footstool when I was tiny. I have not forgotten the ecstacy of those dreams. Mother, decades ago, I pledged my right hand to you And gave only my left to your rival. Bless me then to fulfil this oath. Let her be at arms length May I never prostrate before her. May I never pray to her whom the world worships. I beg you, Mother Don’t curse me by casting me away Or lose me by letting me drift. Or let me be one whom the world swayed. Don’t let me wake up one morning, Mother, And discover that somewhere along the way, I mortgaged myself in bits and pieces To the bitch goddess of wealth. Bless me that I may watch the dance of this goddess With amusement befitting your child, your plaything. When she turns her face to me, let me not be charmed. When she turns her back to me, let me not be anxious. When it looks like she has gone, let my heart not sink. When it ...

Forgive me, Lord, this broken drum speaks In a unworthy voice — now true, now untrue. Sift truth from the lies if truth there is, Else spill me in the dust. My quest is the quest of a one-eyed man Whose vision oft deceives him; He depends on his poor eye not because he trusts it, But because people who offered to lead and show him the way Did not earn his trust. Dimly-remembered voices from a past So distant that it is doubtful Whether it existed at all Echo in my skull Half-voices, half-noises… Disturbances in a cave of unknown depth. With the tips of my mind I seek out the cracks Between wakefulness and sleep Where I hear these voices loudest, And glimpse faces that I recognize – Faces not of those living Nor of the dead I know. Fleetingly with forceful gestures they speak. Seeking to grasp their words, I awaken Only to find my awakening empty Bereft of the meaning of what I saw and heard. Something I knew and trusted was lost And so I grope a...