World Population Pie Chart

 

This pie we share, ever expanding,

Could be more gracious, less demanding

More generous and kind

On our neighbour's porches

More responsible and just

Like Polaris Northest

'Cause the value of a chart

Is not in its appearance

It's how it leads our way

As we think about experience

And as we think about ourselves

And the gifts we want to open

Made by Santa's elves

Or by aMMa's eloping

What diyas we want to light

In the core of darkest night?

I have a party to attend

I've got to catch this flight

What a world we could create,

With the rightest interest rates

This pecan, walnut, apple pie

Above the ground beneath the sky

Where percentages and ratios

Don't define our solo souls

But each person is heard

And no one is sold

Sweet and salted, gooey goodness

Gushy, crunchy, nutty hoodless

Gullible enterers of a gully narrow

Gulliver's travels of the mind's marrow:

Imagination will take you places

When you stop playing games

Stop running rat races

Put out the flames

(Dedicated to Jesus and the baker's dozen disciples)

Stairway to stairwell

Stairway to stairwell

 Enjoyed the Athens porchfest festival is dupehar aur sham. Caught the whimsical early wisps of the hair at the nape of my sky friend in the form of a pinkish blue sunsetting, not on the phone but in my arbitrary access memory. 

Chose wisely today after starting a quibble with my source, that was put out before it could trickle down like the water droplets that together constitute Victoria and Niagara Falls. 

Remembering now the time I excitedly and chillfully fell down the steep stairs of a once haunted home, dropping the green ceramic plate covered with Choo Choos chicken and rice all over the last steps down to the landing. The yellow sauce and rices I had to handsomely clean up but my life was spared by an Act of God, unlike our home's predecessor, who drunkenly lived out her last moments falling down the very same stairs.

Public health announcement: falling down kills more individuals every year than lightning, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Most people who are not homeless die in their homes. 

Say what you feel to your loved ones, for no moment is promised. If you know me, I love you, and I wait every mindful moment for the refrain that will bring us home. Om Shanti Om

Tabalchi

Tabalchi, Yours Truly

Throwback to the last time I had the great honour to meet Anindo Chatterjee in-person, touch his feet, with my guru Masterji (Amitabha Buddha), a disciple of Anindo Chatterjee. Through learning tabla and doing my best to return to it no matter how many hours, days, weeks, and even years I may have strayed away from it for, returning to tabla is always a mental-physical psychosomatic health check-up for me, and a spiritual saviour. 

I savour each moment in audience of such Masters of music, men and women who understand the whole life as music, who dedicate their whole life to music- and teach countless students. 

Ever since I went to an Indian reservation near the 4 corners of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona and took home a drum, singing and beating along to "Humma humma humma (ek a ho Gaye ham ur tum), I have been a percussionist (unless you count piano, also a percussion instrument, which came first). 

I wish all the love in the world to all my teachers, be they my friends, my acquaintances, strangers, frenemies--enemies (the one's I learn from how not to be)- I hope you know who ya'll are to me. I never forget a friend and I never forget a lesson, even if time elapses in the interim of my exercising of these lesson. 

Music is universal, compositions plan the way and distill the past into crystallised packages, much like the packages of data sent through the internet protocols. 

How you play music is what matters, with what in your mind, what love in your heart, what feelings in your skin, what beliefs about where to begin? "With what does the Science of Logic [philosophy] begin?" (George Wilhelm Frederique Hegel)

I pose that question to ya'll. Where have you been, tell me, where do you want to go, how can I help you get there, and which pathways will be for the betterment of all? "Via the spectrum road"? - (Tony Williams Lifetime)

signing off...your tabalchi

Sanam Manas

Reflections on 10/18/25

Reflecting on the days events, so far. Today was a good day. A young man and woman of our community got married in peace (I stayed home to watch the Dawgs beat up on Ole Miss- Rebels? that's a little archaic of a mascot, don't you think? Are they talking Confederates or Luke Skywalker? Definitely not the Mujahideen). Educate your young boys not to grow up to be Nazis or Mussolinies or Stalins or Musks or elephant tusk poachers (roll tide!), before it's too late and you're bailing them out of the prisoner of war camps of the Allies. Nuremberg Trial oncoming.
I have great respect for Richard Sherman (shoutout Clarke Middle School!)and William Tecumsah Sherman who said: "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
I've never been a prisoner of war, but I know what it's like to be systematically psychologically tortured (I'll tell you about my experiences at the Tel Aviv airport later one day- "What kind of name is Manas??" they asked me lol [one of a kind] ... "What do you know of Al-Shabab [well I am self-educated, too, you know] ... "why did you come to Israel first if you're going to Ethiopia first??" [clue: the tickets were cheaper that way, sorry, stereotype away!... ~ "You're saying your grandfather changed his name in America to escape anti-semitic racist persecution and discrimination? Since when do Jews get discriminated against in America?"... well I learned a lot about Israel after that point, but not before a month in Abyssinia, the best days of my life)- mind you, I was later in Haifa for a study abroad (HU has a magnificent museum on their campus, btw, check it out!), sponsored by UGA and got the best medical ride home after checking out the mental hospital where one young man ran around like a chicken with its head cut off running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and the other older guy giving me medicine kept telling me in English "I don't speak English!" (Medical translation is important).
All to say, it's good to have traveller's insurance if you plan on getting swept up by the mental health police because you decided to skip class to go on a walkabout (more on that later)..." Suffice it to say, sometimes I am suffused with enthusiasm (why shouldn't I be? Go read my undergraduate honours thesis, and you'll understand. Or just listen to "Hey Jude" (or watch the Youtube live version- I imagine John Lennon was thinking of my father when he was a boy, and soothing his soul with the beauty of the rock and roll) I LOVE CHUCK BERRY! (if you know, you know).
The following were some thoughts I shared with my mentor/mentee: The wise man's greatest challenge is the fool, and the wise man's greatest joy is the wisdom of others, of whatever age or vintage. "The wise man falters the fool, (or is it flatters?) [somebody call Flanders! I need a left-handed version of a record player, ASAP]"
Dha dhin dhin daha
dha dhin dhin dha
na tin tin na
te te tin tin tha
any job offers for a Master of Public Health?

Everyday Person (9/9/25, 8:21 PM)

If I free myself today, how will you?

Hearing and seeing from close and far,

We remember, forget, and remember more,

But I wouldn’t dare assume, 

I’ve been in your shoes

News reaches my ears and eyes,

A child’s crying,

A Mother’s wailing,

A Father’s derailing,

An elder statesman’s heart failing,

News reaches my body and mind

A billion men torn up inside today,

A billion women even more, and others too,

We can deduce by hearing and looking up what’s new-

Straight-faced and strait-jacketed,

Holding back tears to be worthy of one’s “work”,

We forge a copy of our authentic self,

 “Professionalism”- it’s called, well…

(We all know what that means)!

Wisdom may be passed from generation to generation,

Shared and handed off, warm, into soft hands-

Father to son, mother to daughter,

Friend to friend…

My neighbour and I are Thirty years apart,

And I see his wisdom and humility,

Maybe forged out of necessity,

In our local Southern-American scenery,

I mumble on and on, about what I can only perceive,

Combined with the facts that’ve reached me of our local history,

The spices sprinkled in the eyes of our County-

Brushed aside and marketed by the State Uni,

As Damn Good Dawg win parade confetti,

We speak peace and what could be-

I’d rather all my oldschool classmates graduated,

And got their tuition free,

Rather than trying to play the lottery.

While for others without this privilege of leisurely observation,

I see you out there in the economic wilderness-

Some doing good works,

Others more malicious deeds,

Conforming to orders from above-

Who’s commandments did you follow today?

And who’s commandments did that person follow?

When will you and I be free, to be?
To pick between our own free will decision tree?

I hear about “you” from a news article,

Predefined in neat categories with messy ramifications-

“Black, White, Latino, Indian, Chinese, African, Australian, Indigenous, Multiracial, American, Gazan, Congolese, Korean, Sudanese…”

Numbered for accountability-

This many dead, this many buried, this many cremated-

And these capsized at sea…

Calamities avoidable once and for all,

When we’ll work to preview what we see!

Let’s shift our focus?

How many lives saved today by unspoken means?

How many lives we’ll extend by a Malaria Vaccine?

How many couples married today?

And how many lucky marriage escapees?

How many children born,

How many brought home, happy and healthy?

How many with grandchildren, remarried?

How many political prisoners let free?

How many warheads spared, 

on our so-called enemies?

(Why the beefed-up arms? 

Why the patriotic insecurity?)

I think we need to have a little faith-

How many trade deals, 

bringing opportunity to the lowest rungs?

How many exceptional farm yields,

fertilised by simple cow dung?

How many farmers’ children-

enjoying a childhood their parents never got?

How many farmers literate with smart phones, 

taking breaks to share online their thoughts?

How many peacekeepers anticipating

The moves of power-brokers?

And giving a tip here, and tip there, gently guiding the canoe,

How many dreamers praising midnight, 

and how many gentle jokers,

Turning Green to Blue…?

Say bon voyage! 

Espionage be gone!

Trust in fellow Earthlings, 

the Unity of The Song!

Make America Better Than It’s Ever Been! I can say out loud, Easy- because I’m classified American,

And together with all of ya’ll, (Who aren’t demons!)

We can live more easily, effectively,

Trying to pick the right things to do-

Shall we come together now with peace,

Across national borders?

I say- Do Your Thing, Do the Right Thing, 

Even if it’s against (Whose?) Orders.

I’ve spoken a few words here, now take your turn,

We have long lives to live and many ideas to learn.

Waiting, leaning-in, 

I’ll be listening to your version

Of what it means for you to be you, 

As I dream of being an Everyday person…

Friday 5 September 10:56 PM - 11:59 PM (Midnight’s grandparents)

 Friday 5 September 10:56 PM - 11:59 PM (Midnight’s grandparents)

How can we on Earth bring ourselves closer together, or at whatever distance is most necessary to maintain an established harmony of our own, individual freedom, in a way in which we all personally find the happiness we may so easily reset and rest in? To begin each day, whether sunny or cloudy in nature, whether raining, thundering, or lacking in humidity; so that we go from what we are born to achieve as a species, a life of love, spread liberally around the globe without shame, from conversation to conversation; not seeking to convert others to our thinking, but rather seeking to understand and join with everyone in a way that will keep us bonded for eternity. I do the following:

Thinking of what situation others are in, listening to the stories travelling from the other side of the planet, protecting my innocence by judicious forethought and ultimate presence with each keystroke, footstep, thought, momentary forgetfulness. Reminded again, back on track, making no reference to anyone outside of my own self-knowing, knowing myself to the maximum limit of 24 hours, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year on my calendar.

Forgiveness is to halt and recover the perpetrators of intentionally malicious actors, to mould such bad actors in a way that allows them to understand the damage anyone fitting this description has done to our harmoniously envisioned ideal planet, and go on to participate in healing of immorality as sickness, and produce purification of heart, soul, mind, challenging of intellect, and enjoyment of the delight of living and knowing that we share our small blue and green and red and yellow and white Earth with billions of ones just like us in these universal desires:

To love and be loved, to build and maintain goodwill, to create and enjoy in fellowship, to choose our friends, lover, and the way by which we express our feeling of love and do the great work of loving, no matter what befalls us as a whole single civilisation in Modern time from the thoughtlessness of blind, unknowing nature. 

To master our self and do what is right, what is the highest good, the ideal in each situation, every circumstance no mater how wide or narrow in scope, to persist effortfully and succeed effortlessly with a systematic rise in spirits, to feel hope, fearless desire for improvement of relations between entire parts of our whole and singular self, and likewise to make singular in being unassuming in our outlook towards our neighbours, compatriots, and global allegiance to universal siblinghood, universal responsibility of citizenry, whether as netizens or members of communities within communities within states, within nations, across all borders and with love, for all, by all, freely given, freely chosen as to what form fitting the instant in time, freely receiving of others’ positive intent, wholesome and fully real and touchable, sensible, thoughtful; patiently building foundations of non-violent inter-state solutions to what babies understand not about the complexities of world relations, as to the eye of the newly born blessed with sight, the light of the sun or a bulb may reign on an entirely new movement of love for the midwifes and parents’ and custodians and village members and that each newborn be given an equal treatment by all who support the movement of life’s defeating of death, the hope needed to prevail, the perseverance necessary to go on, and to continue to go on, and to look in any which direction but never to return to the foolery that has led us here to swiftly reinstitute our joint-family of hand-holding, fun-loving, expressive, all-feeling, all-knowing, all-respecting, all blessing and hoping for the peaceful, harmonious success of joint ventures. 

I’m rooting for you and ya’ll, from the other side. EastWestNorthSouth and into the heavens and down through the middle of the earth (if one dares to dream)- I personally prefer the quiet of a simple life, organised home, and the privacy of love which only one can quite understand in their own way, as we swap pages and places, and get to task. 

        Number one todo: Work to benefit and increase the benevolence of all who are other to me, a single human being together with all my human relatives known and unknown to me on a lonely planet listening to the universal fusion of music owing its masterfulness to in addition to tradition, a special novelty, original creation to the recognition of the breaking down of categories not of our own deciding, branded onto us at birth and cruelly regimented onto our life even as we begin to fight these vestiges of darker ages, when we did not choose, but allowed the notion of destiny to carry us away. 

        Now the time has come to review words and escape the misinterpret able, to go deep into sleep and rejuvenation of the body, and to wake up tomorrow to think more deeply about where I am needed, who needs me, who does not need or want me, and who am I willing to become to advance my efforts towards solidarity for all those grieving those who never made it this far, and to prevent death from ever taking another of our human race, split apart by national borders and misgivings, when instead we could offer love for free, for what is the value of love that must prove itself to the beloved? All are welcome, and over the span of life, love truly will always prevail.

Us dang se bolte the

I used to write in images- now I just speak my mind. Have I lost my footing in the world that wraps around? Wind sweeping on a cold fall day, slapping my face and bellowing through soft clothes, reminding me of my fragile bones chilling, convulsing in a shiver. 

I used to feel the rhythm of language, each word in its place, each word in its time. Some hitting like a hammer, others waving with one other like a wind chime- writing with a fever for the musicality of rhyme. 

I used to write with all my senses, even if just in metaphors. I was a sky of many colors- orange, pink, and darkening late evening blue. The elements had importance, too: air, water, earth, and fire- changing forms with moods. Feeling now like a pond nearing evaporation, and now overflowing its sloshing muddy banks. 

Craggy, mountainous terrains on maps of obstacles. Falling burning limbs of forest fire telling of hopeless desire. Empty space and invisible distance, showing up as stretched-out arms. 

But now the abstract unfolds more freely, in the flipping pages of my book, and I’m here still, sitting with that vacant look. 

1996-1999-2025->.....................!

 My Tribute to Azhar

Kya baat, kya koshish

Kitne soch ko nikaldiye aap

Kitna jukh jukh ho ke focus

 

Litakthe hue Quran

Apne kande par nahi,

Lekin sir ki bilkul samne

 

Woh savaal hi puchte rehti

Pakistan bhi me

 

Ki yeh Aadmi hai ya kilhadi?

Yeh killhadi hai ya toh jihadi?

 

Bool jate ki kilhadi bhi ji the hain

Kel ke aakir ki baad

Aap bhi koya hai

Woh kilhadi ki kel

 

Voh chandaar balyabaazi ki bail

Voh Papaji ki chain mail

 

Kapil bhi rohte, apne liye yah toh kisliye?

Jab ek pura neeche vale ke log ki captain the aap

Aur upar vale ka bhi

 

Aap ki jhuk jhuk kande par

Ham duniya dekha tha

Eden Garden ki rassi ki andar

 

Ham rakhi jaise banda

Bhai- bhai

Tab bhai behan

Tab dost dushmon

Aur sala friend

 

Aur yeh masala mein

Ek lakh log aapki ped ko jukh ke kade hogaye

Nachte hue

Ithihas ki niyam ki rokhai me

 

Kya baat, aapki bat

Kya chalan, aage-peeche

Koy nahi nuxan

Aur log abhi bhi bolte hain

 

Aap jaada time diye ham sab ko

Binha kuch mangke

 

"bas khelne doh"

Kurukshetra ki ane ke liye kaafi gante hai abhi bhi