Growl

Outside the thunder growled
 inside it broke into a burp...

Relief

Relief

He fell on the cold floor,
dead.
His ancestral rocking chair
smiled,
free to rest its 80-year old bones
at last...

The Beloved

She takes the right side of the bed
I the left.
Above me
dressed in nudity
my beloved
from the western window
the moonlight...

Subconscious Mask

The ashes of my last poem

are not scattered, let me say,

in my room.

A pinch sits on the top right corner

on Freud’s book,

clinging to his Oedipus Complex

in a shattering calm of guilt

when it had drunk its mother’s milk

making an honest endeavour

at that fifth month of its birth,

when it was driven to do so

from a conscious to a subconscious state.

Another bit sits on the golden frame

of Bob Dylan’s collected photographs,

in my study

trying to get to the singer-poet’s various mood.

I find a tiny bit, like my beard,

on the white metal beer mug

to polish clean the layer of dust

beginning from its handle

down to its belly button.

Another one squats on the militant

pushing itself between his face

and his mask

to make him realise

love comes not through bloodshed.

Yet another on the baby bump

of my girlfriend’s desire

penetrating into her mind

to stop fretting between the thought

whether the child born

will be a boy or a girl.

And another bit of ash

pushes itself

between the tolerance and intolerance

of a country’s political monkeys,

before a city is raped

by an intolerant flood

and yet another city

chews its lips of tolerance

for a damaged winter

yet to arrive.

(from my latest book, A STRANGER LURKS IN MY BRAIN up on Amazon as e-book via Books Mango)

Twitter of a bird

Life is such a beautiful gift.  When we look around us we realise its invaluable gift.  Even to a simple pavement dweller life has given him a gift.  As a resident of India,  I have seen the simple things giving joy to others.
These pavement people seem to possess a certain charm in their lives. The other day I was strolling down the road next to my writing-cum-teaching room. An aged man was sitting at the end of the pavement. A bag lay next to him. And curled around his bag was a street dog. But wonder of wonders,  he was singing at the top of his voice. He had no care of the world. His voice rang true as a lark. He was singing the full-throated song in Bengali. I stopped short at the edge of the pavement and bought a cup of tea from the vendor to be the pavement singer's audience. Some pedestrians threw him a glance. But I was the audience who was enjoying. The artist didn’t look at the audience but remained submerged in his art.
This is what I'm trying to say. Enjoy what you do, and do it with passion as this pavement singer did. Forget everything around you. It's your life. Give it the best.  Live it the best way. And this can only happen when you love yourself. Because it is only then you can love others.

Body Talk

Hello guys
I simply couldn't stay without sharing this poem with you. Though this is only stanza 1,  the lines run with love.

Body of a rickshaw-puller

sweating gold through labour

moon-shine glisten of sweat streaming down

like prayed-for summer rain.

Chest heaving, mouth gasping

proud of the wrenched -out breath.

No one dares to call you a human quadruped, my brother

for my love has reached your heart

and in you I have discovered the language behind my lines.

Loving others is loving yourself

Hello Beautiful People, my previous blog said how you can capitalize by loving yourself and how to go about with this invaluable yet simple tool.Here I'll tell you more on this.

When you begin to love yourself, this feeling makes you be heard and seen by others. A time comes when we all desire to show others our work or our actions. 
This is the reason why many people do philanthropic work.
In your case, when you go out, you can throw a smile at the security man who has stayed awake guarding your building from negative forces. You can look at the shopkeeper who waits for customers to stop and buy some stationeries.

 The point is never say no to yourself because the world is beautiful.

Life is good.

Positive living

Hello you beautiful people.
Let me first wish you a very good morning. Then allow me to give you my first message, which is LOVE :)
Yes, Love. First love yourself, because by doing this you will create positive energy inside you. A feeling of well-being will gradually flow inside your beautiful body. Then very soon it will crawl into your mind and then fill your heart.
This is the first and foremost positive juice which detoxified the rishis and sages over the ages; and this will also detoxify you. Believe me, it's true.
This is what it does to me every morning, and it's this that embraces me and whispers, "Get up Bob. Time for another beautiful day."
I get up and start to continue writing the next pages of my new novel.
Isn't this a feeling of bliss? Isn't this finding heaven on earth?
Wait for my next note on positive energy from everyday life's little stories on the go.
Love you all :)

Finding inspiration

Inspiration is a quite an interesting word. No, it's a character by itself. As writers, we are perpetually looking out for inspiration. But we don't allow it to consciously play in our minds. It comes from anywhere.
Look around you, soak yourself to all that's taking part in their own way.
I was walking down an avenue of trees. When my eyes fell ahead at the tops of trees arching themselves, the arch resembled the door of my mother's main door. My mother had recently passed away and an occasional sad thought had been rising in my mind. Witnessing the arch ahead, my mind raced to my mother's flat now empty, filled with silence. However, the arch of the bent heads of the trees made me suddenly feel that my mother is there. and if she's there, then she's everywhere. Yes, her spirit lives in all that I see around.
I had suddenly got the inspiration to the poem I was desiring to compose. I drew out the pen and the notebook and, leaning against the wall of a closed shop, composed the lines of the poem. Yes, I would read this poem in the forthcoming SAARC International SUFI Conference I was a delegate to. I have named the poem,
               Mama, Don't Take This Badge Off Me

Return of the author

It's been quite a long time since I last scribbled in my blog. A lot happened in these months. But the lesser important news is my romantic novel, Lost, came out in ebook form from Bangkok Books & the paperback from Art Publishing, Kolkata.
The story is based in Bangkok, a love story between an Indian youth & a Thai girl.
The book was launched in the Arts House,  Singapore this July by AP Writers and Translators.

To write don't begin with writing novels, but begin with short stories. A few thoughts that come up can be jotted down in a notebook you carry. Remember to be human. So meet people, understand and feel their reactions. In brief, get involved.

The UNKNOWN

The unknown and the mysterious attracts me, and of late I've been coming across bizarre dreams of unknown people suddenly appearing in a mist and making an effort to tell me something, but somehow their words getting carried away by the wind by the time they could complete their sentence. This has been happening since several days.
This has drawn me to scribble their torn messages so that that a story line can be formed.

There have been times people have asked me why I have named the God and Goddess of Love in LOVE AND LIFE IN A CHANGING CITY, Brief and Panty. Well, I've told them that's my attitude, my lifestyle. Attitude to thing unconventionally !!

Life is a gift , and you only have to see it through the right lens. It was a wonderful experience to be a part of a humble mixture of people from so many communities. 

There I read a poem on Inter-faith unity at the Regency Maple Banquet Hall supported by Turkish-Dialogue Cultural Center. Thank you Mr Mourad of TDCC & Imran Zaki, Faces

Allnes in Oneness

No men are unequal

For there is only one sky.        

Roofed under it, you and I breathe the same air

Dressed in whichever religious clothes we may be.

The same sun shines on you

And the same stars glimmer for me too.

My feet walk over the same soil as yours

And the water which feeds my thirst feeds yours too.

The cold winter touches you as much as it touches me

And the warm summer air brushes past me too.

Your heart boasts of the same colour as mine

For there is only one colour, the colour of blood

And clothed by its redness we share the same language

The universal language of love.

No men are enemies

For there is only one sky.        

Roofed under it, you and I breathe the same air

Dressed in whichever religious clothes we may be.

My new novel No New Mail but Mail from a New Girl. 
Wow!! Isn't it lovely? It's like a new baby you are holding in your arms!  You know, it takes months and months of systematic hard work (which I, of course enjoy) to get a book completed. It's out in e-book form. You may click on the link below, read the sample chapters 1 and 2 and if you like the story so far, you may but it. It's out in Amazon worldwide.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Mail-but-Girl-ebook/dp/B00AWR72GQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1357411044&sr=1-1

The second day of AKLF saw a host of interesting back-to-back events. It began by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, British journalist & writer speaking to Sujata Sen and Reba Som about her experience from her book Food Stories: Stirring Moments.
This was followed by Transgressions: Essaying the New in Indian Films with filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Onir, actor Dhritiman Chaterji and film critic Mira Hashmi.
book launch of Shobha De's Sethji followed with chief guest Rakhi Sarkar and with interaction with Rita Bhimani.
Afternoon saw a host of panelists in conversation with Urvashi Butolia, touching on topic of Tomorrow and the Written Word. They touched on topics of finding a publisher, what a publisher wants and what a writer should write.
Evening brought William Dalrymple too talk on his Return of a King, the First Afghan War told through the lives of unforgettable characters.
Lastly, it was the announcement of winner and presentation of the 2013 prize by Tibor Jones South Asia Prize Avni Doshi received the prize for her manuscript, Girl in White Cotton.

Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival, Jan. 9-13, 2013 began their festival with the first day with a cinemagic: A TRIBUTE TO A CENTURY OF INDIAN CINEMA where an exhibition on An Enchanted Look at Hindi Cinema Through the Priya Paul Collection. This was followed by A Filmmakers Forum and finally Inauguration Ceremony of AKLF 2013 at the historical Victoria Memorial. The inauguration was done by Hon. Governor M. K. Narayanan. This was followed by keynote address by eminent filmmaker Shyam Benegal.
The second day seems to be an exiciting day for writers with several book launches. The day has started and I'm off to Rosewood, the banquet hall in Park Hotel for interesting back-to-back events!

I waited. Yes I did. For  some news to put here in the new year. The outpourings in the shape of the first few words of 2013. I was in my teaching centre falling into a day-dream. And then it happened...
The screen of my cell-phone showed the name of Kulpreet Yadav as the cell woke up from its New Year's slumber. "Mo Tejani is no more!" The shell-shocking news caught my voice unawares. Kulpreet went on to say that our writer friend had succumbed to a massive heart attack at 2.30 am on 1st January.
I rushed home, my heart bursting with the news. I wanted to share this with the others. The group message box in Fb showed some waiting text to be read. Andrew Bond, one of our writer friends had already put up the sad news.
We shared the sad music of our hearts by filling the vessel called Mo with our tears. However, Mo's personality was so endless that our tears were ashamed as it failed to reach the brim to overflow. Mo was filled with humour. And his life always gifted him with sudden surprise risks at most bends.
Each and every word that we exchanged in the message box were insufficient to Mo's sky-reaching personality. Now I realize that each and every moment of life is to be cherished. This realization came this time from our departed friend, Mo. Funeral flowers were given from us by one of our writer friends residing in Chiang Mai.
Here is a tribute to Mo in the shape of a poem from all of us the AP Writers community.

Mo, the Humorous Bomb

A humorous bomb is a bomb

which is built within you from the moment you are born.

And when a storm from Uganda attacked you

this bomb kept you alive

because it was fireproof

it was bloodproof.

It gave you courage, this bomb

it confidenced you, this bomb

it united you, this bomb

it loved you, this bomb.

This bomb

became your passport

your beloved     your friend

your son    your daughter

your father    your mother.

This bomb made you sing

it made you dance

it made you play.

And you told Idi Amin,

“You may go to hell.

I have my humour

a stronger bomb

and you cannot destroy me.”

And with your bomb of humour,

you united the people around you

you got us drunk with your humour.

We laughed aloud

danced with funny caps

and cartoon sunglasses.

We tapped our feet in your rhythm.

We became you

because you became us

with your love.

YOU HUMOROUS BOMB!!

 

I know that all of us are really shattered with the brutal atrocity on Damini. Like you all, I am not the left-out one. I have been constantly composing poems about the atrocity on Indian women's insecurity. The poem below, had been posted in Facebook>

To One and All (with due apologies to Mark Anthony)

Friends, Indians, countrymen, lend me your ears;     
I come to bury the 23-year-old girl, not to praise rape.
The evil that men do lives after them;
the good is oft interred with their bones;
so let it be with Damini, the twenty-three year old.

All of you know that she was returning by bus
from a late-night movie show.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
and grievously has she answered it.
Here, under leave of the laws of your country--
for the laws are honourable;
so are all the law-makers, all honourable men--
come I to speak against injustice.
She was young, pretty and studying paramedics:
but the six men say she was over-ambitious;
and that her youth-hood was what drove them to rape her.

She wore a smile which captivated her boy friend
and her smiles filled his heart:
Did this in her seem over-ambitious?
When she cried, she rested her head on his shoulders;
over -ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet the six say she was over-ambitious;
and the laws of the land are honourable;
so are all the law-makers, all honourable men.

You all do know she and her boyfriend boarded the bus at 10:15 pm.
was that a wrong time to travel?
Yet the six say she was over-ambitious;
and, sure, they are honourable men.
I speak not to disprove the laws of your country,
but here I speak what I do know and what you know.

You all did love your country once by throwing the British out;

and that was not without a cause:
What cause withholds you then, to redress your country?
O judgment! You have fled to brutish beasts,
and the country has lost her reason.
My countrymen, all our hearts are with the 23-year-old,
so let me pause till they come back to us.

  Hi there, everyone!
  I am I am.
  And when I say those two words I mean another step has been taken by me. Yes you got it right. The e-book version of LLCC is already out, and I'm thrilled to see one review already sitting close to it.
   Now let me share something with you. Of late I've been pondering a lot on introducing some more relevancy into Jill and Jack, the sequel to LLCC. JJ is all set and ready to sail in the e-book ship; however, I just woke up my mind to the face that something more can be added to make the life of Jill and Jack a bit more interesting.
   In the meantime, I will see you soon as JJ is calling me!
   Have a great day:)