What the fuck is happening?

We, the people of a modernized India, bound by the greatest document of the world- the Indian Constitution- are provided with six well deliberated Fundamental Rights, that protect us from every possible wrong doing anytime; everything apart from the occasional slips in the thinking, attitude and behavior of the people, which is only very frequently; anytime except when heinous acts are committed in broad daylight, when the perpetrators choose to openly violate the contents of our great document.

The past couple of days have been nothing but sad, frustrating and humiliating. Shame can never hit this nation harder than now, because we have become so powerless that we cannot protect our women. A girl can be stripped and assaulted by a mob of over 20 people for some god forsaken reason with the whole scene being caught on camera. And such an incident can take place on a normal, busy road of Guwahati and continue to invite more and more people to have a little piece of the teenage girl; a girl who has been mentally damaged maybe for the rest of her life.

We are a nation where the Khap Panchayat, in one of the most prominent states of the country, can rule the inhabiting women’s lives by disallowing them to move out of their houses after 8 in the night without a male escort. And the ultimate illegitimate administrators (so declared by no one else but the Supreme Court of India), that the Khaps are, can also openly challenge the Chief Minister of the state to stop them from passing such a ruling.   

Call it Talibani or Draconian, the fact remains that despite achieving modernization, we remain very backward in our attitude and thinking. We sit in our couches and think what could possibly be the reasons behind these men committing such acts, and come across none; ask an extremist, he’ll enumerate 10.  And that’s what more than half of the society comprises of- extremists, chauvinists, misogynists, assaulters, rapists and other such bastards.

The police rendered nothing but useless unable to even catch, forget punishing the criminals, and our polity anything but assertive; this is the justice our women get from this ever-so-magnanimous nation.

 It’s just a sad moment.

All Things Black

Canopy of draperies obstruct

the light that enters my dark room.

It formulates funny patterns on the wall,

and reflects the reality
of particles of dust.

My milky way turns into a galaxy

of an overly blackened sky,

as the sun fares westwards,

kissing the luscious horizon

that displays its fancy.

Symbolism plays a cruel joke

as I see my own dark shadow

dancing along the floor of my room.

It stays there blackened by charred times

and disappears like a puff of smoke.

Grunge is Dead

Crumpled newspapers and stinky trashcans,
Secluded towns and street corners unaware,
Struggling to cross over the area and their minds,
And figuring out how to get out of this labyrinth of life.

For cornered by the winds and the crowd were they.
Narrated stories of the distant sky and rays,
Twisted shadows of the dark past haunted them,
Progressive creatures in a regressive society were they.

Belongingness and bondage never held a difference,
Marks shone on their bodies like jewels on a celebrated throne.
Frisked in futility and wilted up in a void,
Sarcasm became the way of life and irony their sustenance.

Songs of wisdom with words of fury came out of their mouths,
We said they were godmen, in an inexplicably obvious way,
We followed them with wagging tails and wishful eyes,
The crown of thorns was placed, the creep committed.

The transition was almost surreal,
For they lived in a trance now, a parallel world,
Producing the essence for a thousand wasted lives like theirs
And that very essence the world owes to them.

Blinded by the million lights we shone at them,
 They screeched, they begged,
We never heard, we never saw; we connived, we committed,
For innocent creatures in a corrupt media were they.
                                                                                                                                                                         
And now they are gone like a lullaby suddenly interrupted,
For they chose to ‘burn out than to fade away.’

Unbound Captivity

The goblet of wine stood so close to me,

emaciated by the entrenched lonesomeness,

It fed the dead and the hungry,

and beseeched me to gulp it down my throat,

that suffered from a soot-like dryness.

The mansion appeared twice as large

through my double-crossed vision,

as I sat across digesting
self-loathsomeness with the wine.

Equanimity ceased to exist.

A cruel chill surrounded the spread,

but was it chill to me?

A melancholic tune played in vicinity,

but was it melancholic to me?

The wine began its play on me, did it really?

With sardonic smiles and clueless compatibility,

I took leave from my now emaciated chair

And turning to the mirror, said to the image, 

“Have I ever to get out of the harrowing chambers

Of the dead and the hungry?”

The image, distorted and frantic,

screeched through the mirror, seeming to digress,

rummaged around and found the weapon

brought the dagger to its neck,

and served its head on a silver plate.

An Impasse

The clock struck eleven, 
maturing the night,

ticking fleeting glimpses 
in the presence of ignorance.

Their bodies tensed 
due to the nightly routine.

Noise struck the walls 
as diagrammatic sound waves,

almost visible with the intensity of it.

He said she treated him like a child, 
alluring him with sparkly things.

He said she restrained him in a 
strangely condescending way.

He said she was a semblance 
of an earlier self.

And then a long silence ensued

-cursed eternity, it seemed to him-

For there was no retaliation, 
or yet another diatribe that followed.

He screeched hungrily 
as he fed off of her,

as she lay defunct, 
with nothing left to be fed on.

She lay there still alluring him,

still restraining him,

as a semblance of an earlier self.

She lay there with no heart 
beating inside her chest.