Burnt Down!

One gaze and you burn me down. You swim into my heart like those hungry crocodiles that are adept with their moves to attack all the beautiful zebras that try to cross the river. I can sense you moving through my nerves and the very thought of it intoxicates me - leaving my eyes red and head numb. I see smoke forming weird shapes everywhere, and everything appears blurred except your countenance that turns from lovelier to the loveliest. I collapse every time you hold me tight and whisper those few words into my ears. The best defences of my heart fail terribly and I topple into dust like those twin towers.

It took some time, but now I know that I'm under siege; you have placed your armies round about - so it is impossible for me to even think of planning an escape. Quite clearly - I am going to get killed as love would swallow me up completely like a deadly python. There is no option left for me, but to cooperate and get thoroughly digested inside cupid's guts and metamorphose into someone crazy and special - only for you. If I ever think of resisting love, I know I would be consumed by the unbearable heat of brimstone, and see my instant hell.

The time of drizzles has set in, monsoon is on. The climate has changed - I could now clearly hear the sound of kisses, and those cute faces you keep making every time you blush or turn playfully angry - they brighten my soul like how supernovas bring merriment to the skies. You personify all the desires I have never been open about; you are all the love songs I have ever written. Keep watch, see the clouds turn black, smell the earth, don't lose a moment, wait for me - because the way I would meet and storm into your life is going to be epic; trust me, our grandsons and granddaughters are going to talk about it with all the pride even after we are long gone.

Hearty Avalanche

Mesmerized in your thoughts, I stumble at the elegance that overflows from the gleam that beautify your face. I see no flaw in you, there is no shade of dubiousness either. You strike me hard like how the warm rays of the Sun dry up the twigs, triggering a deadly forest fire. There isn't enough magic left in the grasp of my vocabulary or I could have easily expressed all the visuals that keep forming in my head about you. If ever you could take a glimpse into my mind, I am quite sure you would be awestruck at the imagery I have quietly woven inside me with much care. There is a wonderland that lays wait for your occupation, a paradise where all of your simple pleasures and other loveliest fancies would see the light of day.

My eyes are filled with you, I am drunk with the innocence in your smile. The way you twitch your lips when you passionately talk about all the things you like - has the same effect as that of bullets fired from a shot gun pointed right at a frozen mountain. The avalanche that comes down after, kills me a million times over. You are all the woman I had dreamt of all these years. You would blush if I told you that you are that spotted deer with a pair of chubby cheeks; the more I look at you, the more it drips honey from every sweetest comb hidden in the chambers of my heart.

I'm all set to infest your life with happiness and the best of laughter - only that you have to manage to find your way to my heart. Trust me, there is going to be surprises all your life - you have absolutely no clue about the thousands of tricks that I sincerely am capable of pulling to bring out merriment right from within your soul. As we hold hands and look deeply into each other's eyes sitting by the pond with our legs dipped in the chillness of the waters, you would clearly hear the lubs and dubs of my heart whispering to you that our eternal togetherness would - hold no threat of boredom, entertain no time to weep or be sad and negate all disappointments - but assuredly promise you a lot of madness, ridiculously overflowing humour, much teasing, wide-eyedness, awes, chills and tickles, kisses, snuggles, warm hugs and cuddles.

Found!

I want my eyes to close, it just cannot be open all the time. I want to jump into the fire, quench it like how cockroaches are killed with the press of a thick thumb, and belittle the fiery flames into a small heap of powdery ash and extinguished smoke. The gruesome death that is destined to kill me in the far future has already robbed me of my sweet life. Few nightmares have slipped through the rocks into the deadly bay, never to resurrect again but leading to a disturbing dull. The music is fled, taking along my shadows too with its eerily soothing ending notes.

How I breathe now, I do not know. I went in search of me to nowhere, but within my own self - circling around and banging my head to the thick walls of my conscience. It was pure horror and insanely frightful abyss. I was gliding into the dark and the gloom only intensified in its abject blackness as I skated into the depths of my soul. What are we, but mere men and women seeking deliverance and waiting for our redemption day.

It wasn't long before I realised that my sketches have been breathed into new life by a power that is incomprehensibly supreme. Those were the very images I drew of the monster that sat right in front of me in the guise of a sheep. I knew from the beginning that it was a monster, but I made a mistake - a mistake too grave that I even had the verve to adorn the monster with those artistic beauty touches in my pages that it almost started looking like an angel. I have to admit that it is after me now, haunting me to sleepless nights with the same questions and the same lies. So I started running, ran too fast - away from all the arrows from its armoury. Fortunately in the process I bumped into myself and finally found me. Sitting by the river that flew from my heart - allowing my limbs to be caressed by its chills, I kept splashing water all over me. Then I turned to look at me and when we saw each other, we smiled.

Sugar!

It is time for us to get into the boat and sail through the waters, quietly lying down inside the small hull with our shoulders touching, beholding the morning sky - which surprisingly has no sign of any blue whichever direction we turn our heads to! Because the firmament is painted completely in white, full of clouds moving everywhere in its abject divinity; and it slowly starts to drizzle drenching our heart and soul. And that is how every memorable journey begins not knowing where the route leads to and the boat freely sails in the direction of the current - because the best thing about us is that neither of us would want to sit up straight and row in the direction we are supposedly expected to go - following a plan. Sometimes in life, control messes up the beauty that lies hiding in the smallest things that pile up to make the bigger ones. We should just be at peace and allow ourselves to be taken through the lotus farms, get scratched by the itchy leaves of the coconut palms planted by the banks of the river and play splash games with the flowing waters.

I turn my head to you and my countenance brightens a hundred fold in an instant. Surely yes - if I be the day and the night, you would be my sun and the moon. Because you are the first dream I remember waking up; you are also the music that mixes with the air in its right proportion - whispering sweet nothings into my ears. I am too scared to be tickled so much with your musings - so I distract myself but fail and fidget, and in an attempt to hide this I quickly turn my head away to the beauties of nature, but secretly enjoy the magic in the moment - sporting a poker face, trying to prolong it for some more time. There is nothing as lovely as the you and me warmth and the silence that holds our spirits together up so close even without we touching or kissing. I know things could get sensuous the next time I turn to you, so please do not look at me that way - your eyes moving down from my eyes to my lips and back up to my eyes, then to my lips again. No Sugar, please stop it now!

When you read this one day, I am sure you might wonder who this Sugar probably was! No, spare yourself the discomfort of breaking your head over this! Have no doubt, it was certainly you! Yes, all along it had always been you! Only you!! As I write this now, I have no idea where you are, what you do or how you might even look! Why don't you just close your eyes for a moment and think of the day I first met you. Just rewind and play it in your head scene by scene like how they do in the movies - how things happened and led us to the place where we currently are in today! Does it make complete sense to you now? Ah there, there - look at how you smile. Okay, I must be in office now and you at home probably on your day off - sipping your coffee, polishing your nails and doing some internet stalking on me to find out what kind of a person I really was before you happened. Sugar, it had always been you in all truth - even before you came into sight! Just that you were invisible, playing in my mind and soul all night and all day! Aw your sweet blush, how it manages to travel back in time - interstellar style; and oh boy, how it tickles me here now!

P.S. I know tonight's going to be special! :)

Critique On The Christian Religion

The intent here is to not create any kind of furore - for I am no atheist or a backslider who has fallen from grace. However, if you would like to judge me - you could please go ahead and do it the way you want. I have no problem, I shall only smile at you and walk past.

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I am completely disillusioned with religion. But it took some time for me to reach the state where I am currently in. To be honest, I started with religion at a very early age. My dad never stopped me from reading the Gita or the Quran. There were so many religious books at home - so I could spend most of my nights reading and writing notes on them. By eleventh standard, I had completed all the Vedas, few Puranas and other supplements - adding to the Gita and the Quran. But the Bible has always remained as my daily read till date. So it makes more sense for me to write a critique on the Christian religion more than the others.

First of all, why do we need a million organisations falling under a thousand denominations - calling themselves churches, each one fighting for its own survival wooing the believers with all of their membership, tithe and offering schemes! Even if all the arguments on the church revolving around fellowship and building each other's faith are duly accepted, why do we see everything else happening in the church except fellowship and faith? Why are there fights, politics, elections, unnecessary pride over tradition, theological battles and misunderstandings, backbiting, fake love and humility, judging, dogmas that go by the name of doctrines and all the other inhuman rules and regulations? Why is there no love? Why is there more emphasis on giving and sermons revolving around offerings pushed into the minds of the believers so they give generously - while the church does not want to give anything to the socially deprived? You might argue saying a swift no and that your church is doing a lot. What, to you, appears to be a lot is in real - only a handful of peanuts when compared to the enormity of social issues found in your vicinity! If every church had been an organ of social reformation and change, no one in your city would be sleeping on the pavement in hunger, abandoned! 'What is church?', a young man asked. The priest replied, 'Church is where God resides!'. If church is where God resides, is not a man or a woman with a heart full of kindness and love more rationally and meaningfully a church? Yes, by all means - because God dwells in the hearts of people. Why don't we just disregard all of these man-made systems dancing around religion and just become those people filled with love and kindness so we could go about lighting this dark world - in its real sense!

I know a lot of people who call themselves, healers. But sadly all of their magical stunts seem to work only inside an auditorium setup where there is music, choir, a huge audience to watch and howl, and of course - a few good cameras. Why is it that the god who is supposedly working through them goes dumb, deaf and blind when they are out on the streets seeing a leper walk towards them asking for alms? If God really worked through them, poor people dying because of weird diseases in all the slums around could have easily been healed - but that never happens. I know of reverend fathers who are child molesters, pastors and preachers who are into extra-marital affairs, and few evangelists whose intent behind giving poor people food and clothes is only to convert them.

There are also double standards that many have gotten so used to. On one hand, they would say that the razing of Babri Masjid by the Hindu Nationalists was wrong; and on the other they would shout hallelujahs if by any chance the Al-Aqsa mosque that sits right on the spot of the Solomon's Temple be destroyed by the Israelies in future. To them, the Palestinians who rightfully fight for their own land - are all so evil, and the Israelies who occupied the erstwhile British Mandate of Palestine with pure deception - are all so good. One group worships Mother Mary without knowing who her mother was, and the other group is too busy making fun of them. One group says wearing jewels is sin, one more says taking tablets when you are sick is sin too. Ironically, the religion that talks more elaborately about love has fought so many religious wars under the banner of cross - after that fool of a pope called Pope Urban II introduced the concept of Holy War at the Council of Clermont. Who could possibly forget all those religion sanctioned wars fought costing millions of lives - Thirty Years War, Crusades, French Wars of Religion, Lebanese Civil War, Second Sudanese Civil War, to mention a few!

Jesus Christ was killed because he questioned all the rotten religious beliefs and other nonsensical sentiments of the people of his times, and continuously tried to drive some sense into their minds with his moving speeches. His way was love and just that. He never started or even vaguely intended to start any religion of his own. The Christianity you see today is sadly Christ-less. It might sound slightly weird to you but I have to admit that I believe in Jesus - and that is why I am completely opposed to religion in every sense of the word. I accept everyone irrespective of their caste, creed, background, race, region, religion, language and nationality - as brothers and sisters. Yes - I trust only in love, and sincerely live with a hope that all my weaknesses would slowly be turned to strengths and that I would one day have hinds' feet to stand on love's highest places!
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Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (I Cor 13: 4-7)

A Call For Tolerance!

I am distraught with grief, sobbing over the fact that the nation today is swarmed by divisive forces trying to mangle the most serene and balanced socio-cultural fabric that has always celebrated diversity. To the sore displeasure of many politicians and people who are soaked in excessive religiosity, the Dadri incident is very much an Indian problem just like how Nirbhaya was. They say that those vile looters the Brits sowed the seeds of division in the soil, but to me this bitterness sprouted much earlier comfortably hiding in the minds of men and women who have been taught those unscrupulous ethos of social stratification and order - from the law books of Manu Smriti. After this came the Mughal invasion - which got way too worse during the reign of that fool of an Emperor called Aurangazeb, adding to the wounds that had not dried yet from the already prevailing complications. We were a society that had long accepted divisions and were very much comfortable deranging our own lives with such lowly levels of obnoxiousness that goes by the names of caste and overdosed religion, so it just required the right trigger from those cunning Whites after the Mutiny of 1858 to help us blow this out of proportion in order to spell our own doom and that was how we gave birth to Pakistan, the fruit of our own hate.

There are two lies the right-wingers would love to feed you - one, that India belongs only to the Hindus; and two, that the Hindus are being made to behave like second grade citizens ripped of all the benefits because of the secular nature of the republic. Both assertions are gravely wrong. If you look back, there was never a ONE India - before August 15, 1947. We were 562 princely states with 562 different rulers warring against each other. Moralities and sensibilities have always evolved over time. And in a medieval setup where there were no pacts and treaties, invading another country was never seen as violation and the Mughal invasion luckily happened during those times in history. Unlike the Brits, the Mughals did not loot the country and run away - but they settled here, mixed with the soil and became sons and daughters of the land. Of the 562 princely states that were collectively called as India, there were a considerable number of them ruled by Islamic kings. So clearly with all due respect, India cannot belong to the Hindus alone - this nation is truly mother to every man and woman born here irrespective of their caste, creed, region or religion!

We are a democratic republic by all means. All our MPs and MLAs are picked by the electoral college that functions with clearly defined rules and regulations. The minorities do not get to vote twice or thrice during the elections so the results could swing their way. In 1949 - when the Sri Lankan Government stripped the Tamils of their nationality and the right to vote, they became second grade citizens. In the last 67 years of Independence, no government has ever treated the Hindus worthy of being called 'second grade citizens'. I personally see this is as an insult and offense of the highest order. About the remorseful talks on benefits, it stemmed from an institution called the Mandal Commision set up by Prime Minister Morarji Desai with an intent to identify socially and educationally backward groups in the nation - so funds from the government could be streamlined to uplift them. Faced with a lot of criticism, it was never implemented until Mr. VP Singh came to power in 1989. If you deeply analyze the report, there are more benefits listed for the Hindu backward castes than the religious minorities. So benefits being channeled only to the minorities is a blatant lie. The idea of caste-based and religion-based reservations, to me, doesn't hold any relevance to the current day setting of the state. What makes more sense is to quantify backwardness based on earning - that is how you would get to know who the real poor are!

In the preamble to the Indian Constitution, it is clearly mentioned that India is a Secular state. The Modi government is trying its best to erase that word from its usage, but fortunately being secular is not an abominable thing at all - it is in fact highly honorable! All the right-wing fanatic groups we see in the nation needlessly take offense at the very mention of this word. They fail to understand that without India being a secular state, diversity can not be preserved by any which way. They think that being secular is to give in to the demands of the minorities. As opposed to all of their pre-conceived wrongful notions, being secular, simply, is to respect the beliefs of others. That would mean to not impose whatever you believe onto them and to not poke your nose into their personal freedom. I respect the nobility in the devotion few people show towards religious rituals though I do not believe in religion, but that does not give me any right to forcefully ask the whole world to stop believing in religion altogether - reasoning that their very belief in religion provokes me to take the dagger and go kill them. That is exactly how a psychopathic retard would react, not a human in his right senses.

I was in Mumbai last week meeting with the children of the sex-workers from Kamatipura. I could tell you a thousand gruesome stories from there that would leave you sleepless - night after night. There are young kids trafficked and put into those cages, they knock, knock and knock at those metal doors from inside - sitting in the dark - hurting their hands and wailing bitterly till they finally budge to becoming a prostitute and allowing men to violate their bodies. When such heinous acts of human rights violation are happening in broad day light, all that people worry about is the imposition of a measly beef ban and killing of those who allegedly eat it - because somewhere it is written in the religious texts that cows are not just animals but gods - however chickens, buffaloes and goats are not gods so - no offense - you can eat their meat all you like and slurp their marrows down your throat. Pathetic, illiterate and highly inhuman! All these mongrels know nothing of love! This is a humble call to all the dear (Hindu and Non-Hindu) brothers and sisters of this country to please not get yourself dug into that quicksand of religious fanaticism, but to rise above all of these mundane issues that those right-wingers are cleverly trying to pull you down to. They do it for political benefits, because they have seen it in the past how hate-mongering has reaped huge dividends. Kindly do not give in! There are real problems in this world that you can concentrate your thoughts on - where every religion has deeply failed! What the land badly needs is love and not another religious riot!

The Revolution

The boisterous shrills from the underbellies of my mind repeatedly harps the taboo word - R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. How and when would it happen and how long would it prevail, I do not know! But by any measure, I see it coming. Like a horrendous torrent from the mountains that would break the trunks of any giant tree downhill, it would come gushing. It would try setting right the paths that lie corroded with potholes spread everywhere. It would roar, shake the nation, intimidate governments, destroy the corrupt, free people from their bondage, lift the poor, bring down the ones that have given themselves up to their heart's pride and all the appalling vanity.

When the day comes, the evil would hide themselves in their dark dens. The plague would run amok in the land weeding out the venomous seeds from the grains in the garner. Then would come the wolves in their packs howling, setting fire on all the dens, leaving them rot to death - stained in their own lowly blood. Chaos would go out of control, pillars would fall, tsunamis would violate the coastlines, quakes would swallow the relics of the past. But after all this, there would come the calm and the serene quiet. There would be peace and order and harmony, and certainly - a blessed assurance that would soothe all the troubled hearts with the promise that there would no more be foulplay.

The system badly needs a cleansing. All we need is a band of sincere dextrous hands at work adept at showing love. We need men and women married to kindness. Those who do not fear death, the ones who are called the brave, the exceedingly wise who could effortlessly confound the brains of the machiavellies and the chanakyas, those who speak through their actions more than words, those who are capable of defying the societal laws of gravity that for ages had successfully fizzled out uprisings after uprisings with one powerful weapon called time. We need a phenomenon and those who - with ease - could put together all the equations and work out the massive explosion in real.