change is good. change is permanent. change washes away the old, and welcomes the new... blah blah blah blah... and so shall it be, and so it shall come to pass... hmmm.this is what i feel about the horrific attack on mumbai - the aftermath and reactions from the people... this time things will change... because it's no longer the middle-class commuter on the train that has died... or the hand-cart pushers in a dingy alley... or just nameless faces with no standing in the social strata... things will change because the rich have lost friends and family, industrialists have been mowed down, and 5 star hotels in whichnthe elite hob-nob have been damaged... really a sad thing to say - but it's true... how many news reporters just went on and on abt the taj being the icon of bombay - and how it is being damaged!! screw you!! how can you even bother sobbing over a structure (historic, regal, much loved etc no doubt) when human lives were at stake... and we had a "peddar road" resident come out and say "oh i go to the taj when i feel depressed, and i had to come here today..." wrong thing to say - but guess what? this time things will change, and leaders will be pulled up. this one has hit where it hurts most. We have insensitive journalism, irresponsible politicians and leaders and the system is corrupt... and then we talk abt the "bombay spirit" crap! we pay the hoghest taxes in the country - do we get any back? and when we do it just disappears... did anyone notice Mod telling a person to shove off and not block the frame, as that person was standing in between the news cameras and Modi!!! the cheek and cheapness of it all - that idiot wanted the world to see that he had arrived and was mourning - when we have leaders like these... will there ever be salvation? when will our cops get proper equipment, when will our leaders stop passing the buck? on a show, barkha dutt asked shobha de about how the politicians for the first time seem united - shobha de replied - they ae not doing anybody any fvors - this is their job... how ironic but true - that we have a nation being torn apart by corrupt politicians and an inefficient system - who needs terrorists? in the USA, the different positions are given to leaders with credentials so that a banker does not get home ministry (as we have in India) - shouldnt the army/genral/armed forces be in charge of The Home Ministry - who else is better equipped or knowledgeable... a 75 year old man who has a criminal record or some such person who the nation has elected!! we are an incredible nation - we are doomed to say the least if we don't see change now!! because soon 26/11 will remain a piece of memory - or garlanding photographs of the martyrs where political leaders will show their "solidarity"... when will we change?

the mad man by your car window

He sits by the wayside

The tide has washed

Away his mind

Be kind and don’t ask

What is it that he wants…

If he could just step back in time

The pantomime that plays inside his head

Is not his.

Strange dull ache is all that he feels

Because all that remain

With him are flash-cuts from

An Oliver Stone film

Which, has nothing to do

With what he felt, saw, touched or sensed

Or the life he once had,

Or did he have a life at all,

He doesn’t know.

 

He cringes in the dark

Like a rat that knows his end is near

But he wished he only knew

Who he was, what he was

And put aside his fear

Of dying a nameless death

On the side-walk

And get collected by the cops

With a toe-tag that only gives a count

Like the endless white screams

The mindless dreams

That he hears every night, every time

The sun begins to fade.

His little tattered blanket

Keeps him warm, dry,

And sometimes acts as a shield

From the prying world

When he begins to eat his only meal

Of half-eaten fruit thrown at the dogs

Which he grabbed for hunger’s sake.

He wishes someone would throw

His memory back to him

So that he could understand

The reason behind his pain.

 

Someone once said that

He carried a picture of a girl

Faded, now dirty

Like the old t-shirt which he wears

says Levi’s 501.

There was a time when he stared

At passing cars

Trying to match the picture to a face.

Till all that remained

Was a blur of wheels

Burnt into the depths of his mind

Where now,

The wheels have long stopped turning,

And it’s just a roar that remains...