CONTRADICTIONS

If compasion is within you,

You'd spared innocent souls. 

If relations come from you, 

You'd built one, not destroy. 

If culture is your way of life, 

Your life would be cultured. 

If piety is your preference, 

Flaws won't be your quality. 

If you know that you know, 

You'd know that you don't. 

Yet you place yourself high, 

Above all that ever existed. 

With free will on your side, 

You became a contradiction, 

Of your own, on your own. 

Boastful of your existence, 

A mere embodiment of flaws, 

You ignore His perfectness, 

For perfection reveals flaws. 

Yet His compassion awaits you 

To find your way back Home.   

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Wishing You

WISHING YOU 

Before chilly night turns to dawn
Before daylight beckons to chores
Before the heart wanders far away
Before I miss you again and again
May I wish you well once more?
May nights be of sweet dreams
May days be filled with laughter
May your life be of contentment

When the curtain comes down
When the crowd is out of sight
When laughter turns to sadness
When dust is mingled with dust
And they remember you no more
And on the other side, we'll meet
And we shall be together forever

Love Note

A LOVE NOTE

Sure as dawn follows night

My heart longs to be yours

Make me yours, take my soul

Let me die but in your arms

Sure as sunshine after the storm

My being craves for your love

In comfort or agony, I 'll endure 

Let me die but don't let me go

My Mother

MY MOTHER 

She's gentle and sensitive 

But she seldom gives up.

Through ups and downs 

She's always there for us

Bearing the mother's pain

Of labour and raising kids

Of health or mental stress.

Four brothers who made it 

Tougher as we grow older.

The hope she pines on us 

Were tested umpteen times

Not once did she give up on us.

We aren't the easiest kids

Nor the promising kind

Yet she clings on to the hope

Of her kids doing well finally.

Thank God I have a mother 

A mother I could be proud of

Who refuses to give up.

Loneliness

LONELINESS

Lonely and shady is the path

Trees lining up as onlookers

Save for the occasional whips

Of breeze swooshing the leaves

Silence escorts me on and on

As the moon plays hide and seek

I asked where the path leads

All I see is tranquillity in motion

If I wake up from this reality

And there’s a beyond reality

Would it still be this lonesome?

Though drowned in doubts

A certainty remains afloat

When You hold and walk with me

In loneliness, in reality or beyond

You will always be my comfort

Prevail Peace

PREVAIL FOR PEACE

In the woods, no soul dwelled
Where silence is deafening
Footfalls and broken twigs
Hastened the heart and mind
Abides peace I seek elsewhere

Amidst gunshots and wailing
Where noises are deafening
Dawn of peace ever doubtful
Mere survival highly expensive
Sits my home I find nowhere

In deafening noise or silence
Where might seems to be right
Justice be denied or delayed
In fearful whispers or loud cries
Truth 'll prevail for peace to reign

All for Sale

ALL FOR SALE

What good is relation

Based on ethnic lines

What good is religion 

That divides or hates

What good is society

That kills the weaker

What good is politics

That fools the masses

Men's organs for sale

Mom's womb for hire 

Boys for cheap labour 

Girls given to brothels

Innocent people die

Nobody cares or cries

Are we really doomed 

To be mere materials

Everything is for sale 

Not just Kalashnikovs

The mercenaries too

Self-styled extortionists 

And the vote capturers 

And the bandh callers

Babus are now cheaper

But not the politicians

All for the right price 

In a shop called Manipur

Stranger at Home

A STRANGER AT HOME

Ten years ago I left home leaving behind everything dear to me. I spent three long years in a city and a life of struggle trying to secure a future for myself. Not a day passed without the hope or anticipated excitement of returning home to everything and everyone I ever cherished and love. When I finally came home with all the excitements held up deep inside for all those years, the home I long to come back was no longer the same. All the sweet memories are now mere memories of good old days. I found myself a stranger at home because "home sweet home" have become "home strange home".

City of Indians

The City of Indians

You make them grin, you're an idiot
You give them food, you're a fool
You give them love, you're in lust 
You give them shade, you're in shit
You're innocuous, they're poisonous
The paradoxical city of my country
The hunting ground of perverts
Neither of deers nor of wild boars
But for prey in human avataars
In slit eyes and in spiky hairs
In fair skins they'd often bare.
But all delhites aren't scavengers
There're others who care and dare
To keep Delhi the city of Indians
Embracing the northeast Indians

What Remains

What Remains

What remains is the portrait
Of yesterday's careless vows
On the wall of shattered dreams 
Hung pieces of a broken heart

What remains is the echo
Of yesterday's careless words
On the mount of empty promises
Flows the river of forgotten tears

What remain are the memories
Of yesterday’s careless deeds
On the sandstones of myriad hopes
Surge the mighty waves of life

Note: The last stanza is added by Prof. B. Panda