Around Us

By Kalyan Deb

A spontaneous pouring out of events around us stirred up the exalted feeling that turned out the six-liners every so often with ingenuous outpouring of words with no premonition or delusion of any breed save purely as the spirited interaction of the human mind with the environment around us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447853411

Book preview

Around Us

Prelude

A spontaneous pouring out of events around us stirred up the exalted feeling that turned out the six-liners every so often with ingenuous outpouring of words with no premonition or delusion of any breed save purely as the spirited interaction of the human mind with the environment around us.

Chapter 1: Life around us

Some have it all

Beauty, health, wealth, life

Envy of others

Watched by jealous have-nots

Some have it all

Nursing secret misery

Having all the woes in the world.

Gift of tooth fairy

A quavering earth crying for help

Eight year old hides not her teeth

But sends away wishing and praying

Gift of tooth fairy

To bring joy and relief

Suffering melts, so innocent belief.

Give not what you possess not

Giving away so noble and supreme

Pride and fame lure to steal

Not knowing that fails the deal

Give not what you possess not

Can give truly what only is your own

Mighty or trivial fetches the crown.

You are so easy to talk with

You live to talk and talk to live

But find it hard to find one

Whom you can say

You are so easy to talk with

So do not talk but only listen

To heal others’ wounds so be he live.

(But) aging goes on maturing

Redolent of days that are past

Memories that do not ever last

Haunting fear of greying and fading

(But) aging goes on maturing

Like vatfuls of wine, genes of life

Perpetuate even death after.

My best days are past

The aged weeps

The young bawls

The child screams

My best days are past

They all cry foul

Today’s the best day of all.

We despise so dispose of our dead

We inhume our dead

We incremate

We feed our dead to the birds

We despise so dispose of our dead

We fear death not knowing

Death makes life worth living.

(Only) love illumes life

Health shines

Knowledge powers

Wealth provides

(Only) love illumes life

And shows the path

True to trace.

Famous lives inspire us

We hail them and follow their trail

Believe they are larger than life

We frame them as famous so

Famous lives inspire us

And we learn how only to earn fame

Being on our own not under their shade.

The dumb millions make their say

They till the soil and toil their way

To live beyond day by day

Invious and faceless but voiceless nay

The dumb millions make their say

In unison insuperable are they

Soever no might can stand in the way.

A respectful ye earns the fruit of learning

When you behold with esteem and

Listen with deference and

Read with the reverence due

A respectful ye earns the fruit of learning

Only so shewn the seeds are sown

Springing the tree of learning to life.

You get back what only you give

Life is not what you tend to have

Life is what you mend to live

You wish to possess all you can but

You get back what only you give

You learn from life singly by living

That cannot you undo stay away from doing.

Life is a leveller and death equaliser

When you go up you look down upon (others)

When low you gaze at (them) with dismay

Unaware you ride along the wavy way (to the end)

Life is a leveller and death equaliser

The lesson you never learn but surely face

The ample and the abased with equable grace.

Religion is all that but

A devoted fidelity

A belief in powers unseen

Pursuing holy rites

Religion is all that but

Never a retreat with blind faith

That eludes the path not illumes.

Truth is only a myth

Perceived by senses

Believed in by faithfuls

Proven beyond doubt thru’ learning

Truth is only a myth

As we renege to consent it to be true

If not it spills over that’s resiant as untrue.

The maiden voyage was slated by the wronged

Apartheid yielded

Equality endured

Privileged unscented for ever

The maiden voyage was slated by the wronged

Only then the course pursued (and)

Everyone avouched with no dissent.

Until you hunt for the valued treasure

Wisdom, patience, skill, perseverance

Immense of all that but unheeded

Gems strung splendidly but unglittering

Until you hunt for the valued treasure

Like a drop of pure water in the ocean

Reprieve of the verity in the humble lexicon.

Privilege once earned (is) never to part with

Power of men over women

Rich over poor, unjust over fair

Stem out of natural evolution (and then)

Privilege once earned (is) never to part with

Wars were fought and revolutions staged

Privilege altered places only to lord over again.

Every success story has a beginning

Like every journey begins with the first step

Every voyage with the first wind on its sail

Every wish the maiden effort to come true

Every success story has a beginning

Leading to its destined end

Anew with a prime stroke to the fore.

History evens things up in the end

The rise and fall; and rise again

Victor over the vanquished; reverses begin

No matter what you do or the way you tend

History evens things up in the end

Out wipes you and your acts leaving no trail

Immortal virtues over vices prevail.

A child jockey (weeping) on a camel’s back

Snatched away from his mother’s arm

Lured away for a paltry sum

Grinding poverty and abduction (made him)

A child jockey (weeping) on a camel’s back

Watching him for ages you wake up now (making laws) to ban

Give him back his best years (he lost) if you so can.

Two small bare palms and a hungry face

Deft little fingers tie delicate knots

Tiny hands hold the hammer, push, pull and knead

Weary eyes stare in the dark sweat shops

Two small bare palms and a hungry face

Appear on fancy wares you display with grace

The child labour, the icon of immodesty to the core.

Darkness melted afore the triumph of light

A festive mood in the crowded mart

Marred by the harrowing shattering blast

Slinking perils fordoing the Diwali night (but)

Darkness melted afore the triumph of light

With twinkling diyas; a glittering sight

Ushering anew the advent of life.

This is Africa (today)

Primaeval men first walked on its soil

Endowed by nature in abundance

Invaded and despoiled over ages

This is Africa (today)

With its indomitable spirit rising afore

Affirmed to reign over its own destiny.

Awesome courage in a man’s world

Cruel tribal custom patronising the sham

Dishonouring savagely in the name of honour

Woman victim seeks justice showing

Awesome courage in a man’s world

Insensible country folks stowing faces away

The world trumpeting only inane rhetorics.

No sinner without a future (but)

Inches away from Impeachment

Imposed for the playboy act

Restoring the veil with vigour

No sinner without a future (but)

Shame that he goes on to honour

The womanhood he so portrayed with horror.

They kill us (birds) in millions

We cause the flu, the bird flu

As they say we do

So to save them from us

They kill us (birds) in millions

We do not live for us but for them so

We die for them as well too.

The world is full of fantasy

Events galore

Hopes soar

Dreams pursue

The world is full of fantasy

Sufferings are only real

That precede all weal.

Dissent with others and puritans would waste away

Keep in religion at home

Inside your own heart

Bound only by your own belief

Dissent with others and puritans would waste away

Inequality causes and concatenates all trouble

Religion only a commodious veil.

To decide dress code of the millions

Trace back over the years

Pursue with hows and whys

Make bare nature preceded religions

To decide dress code of the millions

From head to toe, over and under, and thru’ all seasons

Do not put on and put up with those not defraying reasons.

You make a paradox in disgrace

You equate nation with your religion

Denying others equal rights

Crown your religion with tolerance

You make a paradox in disgrace

Fear not from others when

You have faith in your own.

Look for the attitude not the origin

Eternal debate goes on between

Private and Public ownerships

Both showing mixed fortunes

Look for the attitude not the origin

Of the owners that provides

The key to gain or loss.

The only way to breathe again

Free trade is a conjuror

Conqueror of the weak and the fallen

It provides no respite but

The only way to breathe again

Freedom is the spring of strength for you to muster

And limitless means for you to go after.

So you arrive at your goal with your ideal in sight

Fight for the goal not the ideal

Secure its aid only to set right

The way to trace and counter all evil

So you arrive at your goal with your ideal in sight

Ideal awanting you never reach your goal

Vainly striving for ideal makes you cry foul.

Be a part of nature not apart from it

In nature lies our origin

With nature may we live and grow

We forget and create our own outside it

Be a part of nature not apart from it

You may defy all laws still cannot nature

Our wisdom and senses thru’ obeisance only mature.

A garden pleases but frustrates

Tidy, clean and manicured

With lined up plants and colours

With beauty ordained so restrained

A garden pleases but frustrates

With a rude pasture, silvan and rustic, wild and random

With surprises at every step the thirst truly slakes.

We crown with it our own burden of worry

We love our friends dearly

And be all ears to their weal

But knowing even of a tiny misery

We crown with it our own burden of worry

And pleasantly carry on strangely

Feeling ever happier and lighter.

Life’s no fun without the extras

We pay when there’s no other way

We steal when you are looking away

We deal when we feel we got our way

Life’s no fun without the extras

We love to get no matter which’s a give away

Haves with have-nots meet at bay.

The making of a Saint

Love, dedication, service

Suffering and sacrifice

Virtues in abundance

The making of a Saint

Calls for a miracle too

A morsel of a scruple imbibed.

Every storey has a twist

Every story tells of a twine

Unseen until unveiled

Life’s a story of storeys where

Every storey has a twist

Above and aneath alike

Unfurled uttered unfeigned.

There’s no place like your home

You go places, live and grow

Seek solace, make pals and sow

Your dream, and stroam; only to find

There’s no place like your home

That you may truly embrace

Espying the pleasance you crave.

There’s no home like your own

You love to call it a home

Strinkling with hope and

Blending with desire; only to find

There’s no home like your own

That leads you away

Beckoning at the end of the spoor.

Help from others did help you to rise

You deny help but counsel instead

Proudly citing you’re only self made

Looking behind you’d find to your surprise

Help from others did help you to rise

Deny not what you’d go on to need

Be blessed bestowing what others to you did.

You look only the way you think

Not old but wise

Big but not fat

Not ugly but elegant

You look only the way you think

And so make others believe

And behold at you with grace.

In his black hat with a freak nose behind the veil

A wonder boy blessed with the gift

Of dancing and singing to everyone’s delight

Fancied for life; turning to fantasy

In his black hat with a freak nose behind the veil

Indicted but rescued into oblivion

Ever in the myriad world of suspicion.

A lady with grace and wit

Buy one and get one free with it

But it is hard to find

When you are looking for

A lady with grace and wit

Be wise and seek either

Try both and lose all together.

We all need support

One for all and all for one

Be a family, community or firm

To be and live beyond

We all need support

In peace and war

In trade or want.

At the end you crave for intellect

Strangely at the beginning you neglect (it)

In quest of beauty and wealth

In both men and women

At the end you crave for intellect

For the want of it

You remain ever awanting.

Good players but seldom cricketers are they

Tampering with the ball, scraping the turf

And appealing when far from due

Commerce fordoing fair play

Good players but seldom cricketers are they

Taking the shine off the ball and the game too

Baring hollow ugly desire to win.

Peace imbibes fear

Peace is more sinister than war

Not reassuring but demanding

Temporal being temerous

Peace imbibes fear

Of slinking into war

Pretentious as ever.

Our aspiring budding youngs

Our sporting talents and all time greats

Sprang out of poor slums

Suffused with sumptuous provisions

Our aspiring budding youngs

Must not slight the motif

That took their sporting heroes to the cliff.

New habits of life and recreation

Amazing results and progress

Developments in every domain

Grew out of the needs and

New habits of life and recreation

Desire to acquire unbounded

Meeting only with a dolorous end.

Let us do it again

We both have greyed

She said with a smile

He saw the spark and didn’t miss the twinkle

Let us do it again

He said approaching (and)

Together made the beginning.

Bowing to the perils of life

No woman walks down the wayward path

On her own; but when

Instincts desert her

Bowing to the perils of life

She so longed to live

Espousing only as an escapade.

A model poses for all but her own

Walking down the catwalk

Wearing a look and the attire

So alien and away from life

A model poses for all but her own

Trading her unwary soul

With the precious merchandise.

When at customer satisfaction quality aims

The race for quality has no finish line

No feat is achieved if no goal is in sight

The anomaly tends to happily end

When at customer satisfaction quality aims

Limiting now at a mark within might

Carrying the race beyond setting a new height.

Only if amalgamation proved peaceful

Migration ever followed a reason

Natural, ismal or of coercion

Benefacting the host nation to the full

Only if amalgamation proved peaceful

Never bring chaos by rebellion

Be reminiscent you too same way begun.

Motivation is what gets you started

A fervent desire, a dire need

Opportunity aplenty or wanting

You still are far from doing it

Motivation is what gets you started

Matters not how you gain your appetite

Only when you have it you dine.

To leave it unwashed till further use

My coffee mug used to get mixed up in the workplace

Even my special one was used by others

Until I devised the devil’s way

To leave it unwashed till further use

By me only as no one else would take the trouble

To wash it before using again.

Habit is what keeps you going

You do when without (doing) you die

You leave when without (staying) you live

Let-alone you stay away from doing

Habit is what keeps you going

So you learn and rote and in a hard way

Form the custom, which’s the only way.

Every one is a winner

Champion of the dictum

That the winner takes all

Lets loose the hell to be not the loser

Every one is a winner

Is decried as pusillanimous until

You descry the winner winning for all.

Life ordained to be without living

A marriage with a prenup

Like trying daily the cup-a-soup

Anon to be risible and banal

Life ordained to be without living

Being fearful of dying

Invites demise soon after.

I wouldn’t have begun if it was not there

I got going as it was made at hand

I gave up even it was still there

But after suffering only due to what

I wouldn’t have begun if it was not there

So it makes sense to wipe out by law

Of consensus what is sensed to be evil.

With the living that grieved

Mourning followed the death

Funeral at its heels

I watched and shared the sorrows

With the living that grieved

And departed to live beyond

Destined to return to the grave.

At your death bed extolling (you)

You live a full life

Fulfilling every of your wish

And of others who surround (you)

At your death bed extolling (you)

(And) slighting off the one who couldn’t

But who you only follow fonly (at the end).

A way of life for its followers

Hinduvta is a culture as ancient as mankind

With origin obscured, hailed as a religion

Only with others in comparison

A way of life for its followers

Believing in every other belief

That followed embracing its virgin edict.

And traveled far and away only to fall apart

Christianity, Islam and Judaism

All sprang out from the same source

Harmoniously; only at different ages

And traveled far and away only to fall apart

Seeking supremacy by men who preached

What the religion never proclaimed.

Embracing any while you (are born and) live away

Trace back and you would find

Language, culture and religion

Are bound to the places of their origin

Embracing any while you (are born and) live away

Makes you an alien in your own place of stay

Even when you are in your homeland.

Presently abandon peaceful means

Human culture and religion

That grew out of violence and

Pursued the path of invasion

Presently abandon peaceful means

Over the pretext of salvation and

Defying endeavor to undo stagnation.

Unless it dawns on you

Road rage is a menace

A nuisance for victims and culprits as well

Law and pursual failing to act

Unless it dawns on you

That you cease to be a victim

Only when you refuse to be a culprit.

But seldom a woman, couldn’t spare the time

You have been a daughter and a wife

No, wives, counting the times

And a mother too, many a time

But seldom a woman; couldn’t spare the time

Born and made to play the role

A body with the departed soul.

Dreaming to lord over all other

You’re born as a son and a brother

And grew up to be a husband and a father

Aiming to be a hero and a conqueror

Dreaming to lord over all other

The lure of becoming the master

Fails you to serve as a man.

Father of the first believer was a non-believer too

You nod to say you adore your father

And nod again saying he did your grandfather

Tracing in your vein the strain inerasable

Father of the first believer was a non-believer too

Even in his other belief, he was one of you

He is still the one, among others around you.

By people (amid people) who showed up as WMDs

Every one was wrong when

No one (in Iraq) could find WMD

Then (when) mass killings went on for weeks and months

By people (amid people) who showed up as WMDs

Every one was proved wrong again

About the wisdom, need and desire to have it (at all) begun.

The virtues are awanting

The need to attribute your religion

With peace, harmony and tolerance

Bares the fact disturbing

The virtues are awanting

Like you hail facts as true facts

Only to hide them from the truth.

Alike when you couldn’t (but only wished to do)

Do not grieve over what you didn’t do

It’s as good as if you did it (in the past)

Feeling you derive (from what you did do)

Alike when you couldn’t (but only wished to do)

Be the pain you suffer or your gain from pleasure

For not doing or in doing it, is no more forever.   

Making (mockery of) a marriage only when you must

Marriage was sacred (to you) in the past

Allowing (the other spouse) to abuse you to the last

Fearful you began to live together first

Making (mockery of) a marriage only when you must

Hoping (vainly) truly you found the recipe but

Staying together you only live far apart.

Let not go your man hungry ever

It’s only a simple truth behind

Our long and happy married life

A mother saying to her daughter pubescent

Let not go your man hungry ever

And you’ll be sure he shall leave you never

Till death doeth you two part.

Creating the peace of only the graveyard

Crying for peace in the name of religion

Having no regard for the human mind

The way Nazis, Bolsheviks, Talibans did

Creating the peace of only the