My daily ordeal!

I hop a cab, a metro and an auto,

On my lucky days, I take the non-AC bus.

With music piercing through my player’s soul,

I manage to fight the daily Delhi-Gurgaon rush.

I somehow reach the deaf school,

Hoping I’m late, skipping the dull assembly.

I peep into classes, there is an endless yawn,

And the mannequins on the chair are rather unfriendly.

Teach us, teach us, every single face screams,

But, you see! Nobody gives a damn!

I quickly find a class with no teacher, and hungry brains,

And pour it all out, all that I possibly can.

But it’s not enough, and it’s not fair,

I can’t watch this horror in silence.

Why is incompetence paid so well?

Why has there been no defiance?

And then they explain - We can’t even write a sentence,

How would we ever complain?

Plus we need to cheat and pass in exams,

Without these mannequins, we can’t really sustain!

The damage is massive,

I am insane to think, I can heal,

These curious minds lying dormant for years,

Tormented by copying without comprehending - their daily ordeal.

‘Behind the scenes’

Filled with the looming gloom over several severed ties,

The protagonist, now panicked, tries to improvise.

Moments before the curtains rise and spectators rush to criticize,

She sees that it’s over but wishfully believes otherwise.

From the swollen sheets, covering the scars and the terrible lies,

To the scribbled sheets, announcing her grandiose good-byes.

An assortment of options, what if one may not suffice,

Pills and Poison, Blades and Rope, Kerosene and other supplies.

A list of pros and cons, one last attempt to self-actualize.

Memories bottled up, spray painted ‘momentarily’ over the skies.

She stands immobilized, “I want to be rescued” – she cries,

But she’s already in flames, and to her own surprise,

She is now witnessing her own demise,

Meanwhile, the audience enters and is mesmerized.

Ethical Loneliness

I recently saw a post by Reshma Valliappan, an inspiring 'Schizophrenist' whom I met just once but I feel an intense connection with till date. She wrote about ethical loneliness. And I finally found the word for 'it', something I had been misconstruing as a deep and disturbing uneasiness.

I should just quote Jill Stauffer here - "Ethical loneliness is the experience of being abandoned by humanity, compounded by the cruelty of wrongs not being heard. It is the result of multiple lapses on the part of human beings.... "

The definition goes on but I think for me it suffices. From the indifference to outright brutality, I witness what happens in the world and the meaningless drudgery of it all. We breed in large numbers and feed on other lives, we destroy everything beautiful to build an insanely insecure and insensitive world - plastic in its glory and gory in its plan. We mock those who are true and cheer for idiots and fanatics. I often feel like it's not worth watching till the end, but I stay on as I'm still a hopeless romantic who is okay being crushed and resurrected each day. I debate within my head, I reassure myself and then plunge into a black hole for hours, naively affected by it all. I come out of it holding the bars - my family, my work, my love and my very few friends. I wish I could live a plastic life too and die a plastic death - it's just too exhausting to feel such dramatic upheavals and yet feign it all.