A Poem for Peace in Times of Upheaval

Inkwells run dry, as

Masks accompany gasps

People picked up like litter

And deposited like trash,

In detention centers made for profits

Despairing and vast,

Not for the good of the public,

But out of blustery political 

Bravado,

By chest-beating chimpanzees

Playing out their fantasies

Of a world dominance hierarchy:

Blacks at the bottom rung,

Browns one step up,

Undocumented or not-

White supremacy isn't as far-flung

As the silent majority thinks,

Operating deep in the unconscious,

A test for our moral conscience,

Analyzable by a shrink?

Who am I to say?

I'm none of the above-

Half white-half brown,

American and Indian,

Still, with fair skin

Soon to witness,

the unity of Chindicans,

And Planet Earth citizens,

Because when one nation and its enterprises

Own the whole world wide,

And the world wide web,

Where we watch, along for the ride,

When it's obvious who does most the work

On the immigrant and outsourced side,

It's only a matter of time

Before this world order crumbles

Because it's just not right

Signed- 

Simple, sincere, and humble

-sanam manas

The Falsity of History

I read through the comments

Of people on Instagram

Going back and forth about what happened

In history,

Never without an agenda,

Even if that agenda is simply

To set the record straight.

Though…

Truth can’t be carved out of eroded valleys,

Which time has already coursed through

Leaving behind only fractions of remains—

And not the other great expanses of events

That time sweeps away unflinchingly

Without making any marks.

The geniuses you’d never have heard of,

The crimes left unresolved,

The billions of everyday experiences,

The mundane, the profane, the sacred,

The goings on until expiration,

Lost, forgotten,

Impossible to name,

Impossible to describe,

Out of sight and outside time,

(For all intents and purposes).

Here, then, I honour all that has been wiped away,

Deleted,

Carelessly or carefully

Or by chance,

Knowing that history is not too far from a sham,

As best as we want to remember the glorious pasts,

We hardly have any connection to

What preceded our grandparents—

Not that our grandparents would speak of the killings

They committed, in wars and in peace

Or the “spoils of war” they “claimed.”

History is more a tool than a science,

More our artistic creation than 

Accurate observation,

A way of showing more than knowing,

Revealing what interests you more than

What actually occurred.

Because when you think you know something

About everything that has ever happened

You’re probably wrong.

Action, Delay, and Time’s Revelation of Consequence

        At any given moment in time, we are faced with a moral imperative— whether we know it or not. That is, we can seize the moment by taking action in whatever various ways our situation, creative imagination and willpower allow us, or we can delay taking action until further decision. When is waiting prudent, and when is patience not a virtue but a vice? Only time will tell, goes the oft-repeated adage, when we live in a realm of uncertainty, when each choice we make may carry a good intention at best without any guarantee of our hoped-for aims materialising. 

It’s important to realise in life the context-dependency of the manifold choices to act we will get if we carry with us the luck, care, and/or tenacity of those who continue to survive— as also the circumstantial effects of delaying action—, for no one moment in time can ever be repeated, even if we can discern patterns of likeness emerging whereby we may find ourselves in similar situations over and over again. If experience is capable of being our guide, we must learn to learn something of what appears repetitious, in order to play the hand we are dealt to the greatest perfection. But ultimately, each moment is an opportunity that we cannot expect to get back, and there is usually less guidance from above shined forth on us than we would like to admit. 

What does this mean today, in our current situation, in our current time and place? This question we must remind ourselves to ask, as delay in action is in itself an action and one that I am all too guilty of, when receding to my inner world or being dragged out into the cybersphere of social media notifications, endless bite-sized bits of information and content, the viewing of which is likewise another action. 

The question here is when are our actions choices and when do we stop thinking of them as matters of choice? People today often speak of social media as an agent with a mind of its own that seduces us into swallowing hours of our time without us even noticing how or why we continue to remain immersed in staring at our phones. Internet and social media use becomes an addiction, in which due to prior choices, we find ourselves in a position where our ability to choose has been replaced by blind compulsion. 

And though I speak of social media and internet addiction, I did not describe in much detail the vast ranges of content, which to varying degrees entice the viewer to continue to view, until moving on to the next image or reel, ad nauseam. What we are being sucked into absorbing into our psyches and how it is affecting us is just as vital as being aware of the simple fact that we are becoming conjoined with the cybersphere ecosystem of our phones. The ‘what’ matters just as much if not more than the simple ‘how.’

However, do we really lose the ability to choose? If addiction is a lifetime term and condition, how would we have in the world so many people who have broken free of their addictions? And if we ask ourselves when the best time would be to break our habit, is not the answer always ‘now’? 

Some look to the philosophy of ‘now’ as a way to break feelings of anxiety and the rumination of depression, directing the mind to objects of observation perceived by the five senses, our sense of proprioception, the emotional awareness of our empathy towards others, our awareness of our own thoughts and mental images, our instincts, and our gut intuitions. To choose to live in the ‘now’ holds no moral content by itself, rather being value neutral and detached from, for example, the vast canons of the various lengthy traditions of moral philosophy the world over. We can, though, by practicing reclaiming the moment we are in as being within our domain of choice, choose what to do with our ‘now.’

While sitting down to write this essay, time has elapsed, many events in the world have transpired, I probably have even received some notifications on my phone that I have not checked yet, and yet, did I do anything to improve myself, improve the conditions of my family, my community, my world? The irony in writing about action is not that writing is a form of inaction. Writing is also an action as much as delaying to write or not planning to write at all. As our actions are always context-dependent, what I seem to be finding out here is that to uncover universal laws that will govern each and every choice made, or each and every action or non-action, seems futile. 

However, falling into the spell of a lack of awareness of one’s ability to act certainly gets us no closer to finding the golden recipe for conquering all our existential doubts. If we cannot always be assured of moral, just, successful action, we can at least make a sincere effort to remind ourselves, as often as we can in the flow of moments, of what we have the power to choose, what our options are in any given situation, and what action or inaction will move us closer to a communion with what our goals as a living collective of thinking, feeling, dreaming, loving, sentient beings ought to be. 

As writing this essay has so far been a solitary activity, I end here by pondering to what extent my action can be considered worthwhile if it exists in a political vacuum, that is, away from the world of such sentient beings. That is why, when I move back to opening up a social media screen, hit copy and paste, and submit to my (m)eager audience online, I will be finding out more of the worth of words, shared with like minds (are any of us really that different?…To be determined).

"Black, White, and the Cost of Grey"

        In the school of psychotherapy called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, though based on positive psychology, there is a list of “cognitive distortions” that are pointed out to each patient as a matter of educating them on flaws in thinking that could be causing psychological distress. The idea is that by changing one’s thinking, one can change one’s mood and behaviours, in a positive way. One of these thought distortions is known as “black and white thinking.” To think in terms of extremes, polar opposites, or absolutes, rather than seeing the nuance of all the “grey” in the in-betweens. One example might be: “If I don’t know everything, I don’t know anything.” This may also be considered “All or Nothing Thinking;” so, a better example may be “If I don’t succeed on every task I attempt, I am a failure.” This type of thinking, the psychotherapist attempts to “reframe” with the patient, so that the patient can change their thoughts, mood, and behaviour and not be plagued by feelings of despair, anxiety, anguish, etcetera, to just name a few mental maladies.

Now, I am wondering whether I fall into this trap of having a thought distortion all too often, or if I am rather sticking to certain principles about which I will not waver, and should not waver. For example, is sticking to principles such as the 10 Commandments’ of God given to Moses in Judeo-Christian-Islamic wisdom: “Thou Shalt not Kill”… and the 4 other basic precepts for laypeople to follow in Buddhism- not lying, not stealing, not using intoxicants, and not engaging in sexual misconduct- rigid conformity to black and white thinking? I would say, it is, and that’s not a bad thing at all. Black and white thinking becomes a distortion when the inherent complexities and nuances of real-life situations are overly-simplified out of fear or the desire for a sense of certainty. But, there are certain matters of principle that each of us ought to think about for ourselves and understand their necessity, if we want to live in the world of our dreams. 

For context, I broach this topic with you as I just today had a conversation with someone close to me, who told me that wanting vengeance and to see others harmed who have harmed oneself is a natural consequence of being harmed, as well as a glowing review of gossiping as a pleasurable activity. I didn’t have to think too hard to know that I couldn’t accept this logic, as much grey area as there may be in the vast range of particular experiences of people on Earth. I stood firmly- one half black, one half white, with Mahatma Gandhi’s quotation that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” and with Dr. King’s message that “only love can [root out/conquer/defeat] hatred.” Though I was called naive, I knew plain as the difference between night and day that human morality and the matter of our character is not a matter of blind nature, but rather appears through the purview of our chosen decisions given what options we may have.

Back to choosing the choices that will bring us the world of our dreams- then again, what is the world of “our” dreams? What are your dreams, and what are my dreams, and how do they differ? 

I dream of a world where everyone lives a life of as much leisure as meaningful, productive activity, as of their choosing, being remunerated fairly for one’s effort and one’s impact on the economy at-large. Also, a self-governed society that will assiduously guard against discrimination against anyone on Earth due to any factors identified in them (such as caste, race, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, etcetera) not of their own choosing, and thereby not a marker of their character in the ultimate equation of the scales of personal and public justice- the relative impact of right and wrong we have done in the world and to what extent we have lived in a way such as to honour and recognise the human rights of each person. Which, when we as a society agree to recognise in others en masse (e.g. “Love thy neighbor”; “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”), we will find ourselves able to exercise to our fullest freely willed extent these reciprocally recognised human rights of all of ours. Sound complicated? It’s really pretty simple, in my book. 

Thank you for reading my book… more to come. For now, I ask you for your feedback here: is there right and wrong in this world? And how does our personal moral conscience about what is right and wrong connect us to the ultimate goal of civilisation- the reciprocal realisation and free exercise of our universal human rights?

Arriving

Walking up the stairs,

The same stairs I’ve hopped, skipped, and

Pondered over, most of the vacations of my life,

My mind flashed to the happy scenes of pre-marital bliss,

Those first co-vacations,

The occasions 

When photographs could not hide my joy,

My happiness, my

Gratitude—

Now bereft of

That source,

Who must be scattered far and wide even if self-contained,

Deep and vast and across dimensions,

As people of that caliber do not simply 

Vanish from this Earth,

Even if living subdued lives,

I know,

Her impact reverberates…

Now thinking of my late uncle,

Who barely would have made it to 28,

if not for a sudden eviction from our realm,

In the hands of my forevermore-scarred aunt,

Disappearing and appearing,

In the numbers of his death anniversary,

13/1,

The role number of my ex-wife when she was in school,

The number of test matches played by my favourite cricketer,

The hours and minutes spoken to my long-lost soul-friend,

When I first revealed my true self to another,

Who hit me with the shock of loss,

Forever numb,

Deaf and dumb,

When she chose to end her life…

Now sitting up in the bed,

That those dark stairs lead up to,

The room in which so much fun was had,

An idyllic childhood of monsoon summers

And dark moods pervading an otherwise

Beautiful life,

Filled with every privilege and experience one could ask for,

Debts impossible to pay back to parents,

For their long-suffering patience and 

Buoyancy of loving labor,

On we three kids’ behalf,

None the least for me,

And as I continue to live, 

Half-child, half-man,

Drawing spontaneously,

Letting these words flow out,

Thinking over and over and over,

Of bygone days,

Finding myself with the challenge of establishing

Myself

In this city,

Where we all suffer,

Though I suffer less still,

This City of Joy,

I embrace with open and patient arms,

Hoping for a prolonged hug with this unique civilisation,

Enough to keep me charged for another day,

Another year,

Another life,

Starting now.