Frustu

I'm really frustu yaar... but a bit stuck too.
I just don't know what course to take. Lying back and letting things take its own course can be too taxing at the present pace of things.
Moreover, I don't know that I really want. Not that I'm in a hole here on anything, its just that thing have been sort of... well constipated for a long time... and there is no castor oil in sight for a long time too.....
yuck, i should mind my language...

Is this my holy land?

This is what i wanted to be always. "I'll be a journalist some day," i used to say as a teen. Friends thought i was mad, want's to write... The lazy guy.
But now that i have been there, done that for the past five years... i have started having my doubts..
Was this it... i thought this would be fun...
But you must be getting to write a lot..? naah, that's the last thing i do these says.
Changing someone else's draft, and giving him the credit for it, is another thing.
A veteran of the desk had told this rookie in my first year: "but this is a thankless job?"
Come on can't it be this thankless....
I give so many headlines a day that i can't think of one I like...
Make so many pages that i know what you learnt in class about design and symmetry for the page was a whole lot of B*S*.
But i still like what i do... that's seems to be the only thing that keeps me going... drags me through pages and pages of text and pages and pages of gray...
Maybe sometime i'll get to do what i like... what i thought (and still adamantly believe) was journalism...
Writing to bring a change, a least a smile....

We still fly planes

Skies of my land used to blue
Birds from the west were the only one that flew
They had long destinations to reach
Dreaming how they would live and give birth to life
Skies of my land are now all black
Filled with plans on way to attack
They too have destinations to reach
There they will just kill
In my little hamlet by the foothills
We were kept warm with fire chimneys and smoke
Some still spills out from the rubble of my village
Spewing into the skies like souls of dead hope
Me and my friends from across the hills
Used to fly planes made of paper
I now fight my enemies from beyond the hills
We now fly jets and our swords are sharper...

This, like the one below, was written during the Kargil conflict. Not great poetry or even interesting reading, just the ramblings of a 19-year-old who felt disgust at the killings.

Well Fought Peace

Fight for your peace
Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
They call it politics, or was it diplomacy?
No wonder, all bad things have good names.
They show us the Valley
Tell tales of a line
Myths of its movement terrorise our mind
By the border we killed
Or was it just the hills?
Our foes hid in bunkers below
We killed their dreams from above
Soldiers in green, airmen in white
All kill and then die… they had peace in sight
Then the leader will come
Light cigarettes on our pyres

…Peace is back, all is calm
The tourists are back, now money will flow
The border is quiet, the line is still
Thanks to the deterrent… ah, our martyrs too

Written on 1.6.1999

Moon Shadow

It was days since the moon had made an appearance. Then as the rain slowly dried up and clouds cleared, the silver disc slid up from behind the veil of coconut palms.

Moon Shadow

It was days since the moon had made an appearance. Then as the rain slowly dried up and clouds cleared, the silver disc slid up from behind the veil of coconut palms.

Calicut Beach

Used to think this was a boring place. Five years away from home and I can clearly see the rose tint of Home Sweet Home.