To the child of the wireless grid

I wish I could help you see the world beyond your smart screen-
And teach you that the plural of mouse is mice not 'mouses'-

Which doesn't 'click' alone but squeaks too,
That the gaming fun can be experienced outdoors 
Where sunlight dances with a gentle breeze 
And the sights and sounds are not that of a static screen,  
But a medley of cries - melodious and cacophonic, alive in every breath 
Unlike the perpetual combat mode - with the rifles rooting n swords swooshing.
Where instead, you can set the ball rolling 
in gentle camaraderie.
Beyond your smart screen and the maze of the virtual world 

There are secret alleyways and hidden treasures too-
In the world of nature - from the bud to the butterfly , nothing ever ceases to amaze 
When you pause from that manic race & media craze and take a deep breath,
Feel the real for once, without having to stand on the ledge of validation for a viral reel!
Fight the virus of the wireless grid, my dear child,
Let the storm troopers of mother nature barrage those walls of the virtual world,
Hear the knell of the death star - before it detonates fully 
Free your human self from those morphing avatars of the multiverse 
For this real-life quest, 'May the force be with you!'

Uma.S

Photo courtesy: AI prompts 

I am HER, SHE is me.

In the churning of everyday lives 
The poison oozes from the nether of the world's being 
I'm not the SHIV for sure 
To drink this poison and become the Neelkanth-
 as the Shakti within lies imprisoned in the lowly minds of worldly hollows 
She rises not to stop the poison - 
The blue ocean it is , of my being .

Dark in the dumps, the draining into the shallows of what people think
To fall into their 'likeness' spectrum -
The haters will hate, the spite will spew, 
Without rhyme or reason 
Then why question the affliction? 
The poison will always ooze 
It will hover like a cloud banishing one to self doubt 
Need I cower down everytime - 
Even if countless snakes bite
Or the lapping crocodiles take a piece of my flesh? -

I'm in my barest - NOT the seed sown by a hollowed out Brahm or the whimsical maya - 

I'm beyond the transient, 
I'm the offspring of the Shiv- indestructible! 
His Shakti might lie crouched for the time being -
But in the timeless cycle of creation - the hiranyagarbha never stops to pulsate - 
That Shakti waits to express herself in the silence and stillness - 
In the darkness, the Goddess rises in due time, 
Undoubtedly, unfailingly!

Seeking the Shiv

 

If the searing pain of grief could melt down in these burning pyres- 
I would leave behind my world,  as an illusion-
But I haven't seen or felt the other side of the threshold as yet , 
Where Shiv supposedly dwells, 
Doubts and fears haunt me-
In this known reality of mine, 
I have been in the loops of happiness and sadness - 
The strings of love and hate- tug at me,
Tear me apart - yet I hold on 
For,  through calm and storm

The transient seems like the eternal sun 
Its spectrum as limited, beyond which my eyes will never see- a mind walled into the Panchaboota being 

Till the burning pyres crackle to reveal a different truth - 
The final release of the prana- the life energy 
Indestructible as the Supreme force 
Has to find it's way home- 
How else could it be - 
That energy manifests as matter and vice versa just as an act of randomness ? 
How,  life in our construct of reality unfolds? 
 the bonding and binding to the temporal  
To our fellow beings is not just the blueprint of a larger organism
But the design of Rinaunbandh - 
From my past to present - the lifetimes, I have crossed through these pyres -
Won't the Remembrance reveal Who I am -

 
Even as Shakti dances through  my being 
To the music of life - 
( She has through Sati, Parvati before becoming UMA- the one purified by penance)
In somberness and ecstasy 
It's the Tandav of the dancing flames 
That opens my mind - 
So, in total surrender of all my belonging to this world- I bow to the Shiv - 
The stillness, silence & stolidity that stands as Kailash- 
It unravels at that instant, 
Just as the earth beneath me becomes the ground of Kashi  
The searing pain of grief  dissolves in the burning pyres of Kashi - 
Pure,  true  and eternal,  the soul borne of the timeless pulse of the universe , 
Begins its ascent of Kailash  to unite with the Shiv! 

Us Women - why drape in conformity?

** Draupadi is an iconic character from Mahabharata (great Indian epic) married to the five Pandava princes. Her disrobing by her own brother in law in the open court of Hastinapur , leads to the epic battle of  Mahabharat. While the disrobing (Vastra haran)is not just about her modesty violated, it stands symbolic of the crippled fairness of a social system that could not uphold the honour of it's women. And, the grotesqueness of such a system crumbles in bloody battles, where Shakti rises as Kali!***

Us women , the way we cling on to the social fabric, just for conformity, 

That we drape our honour and dignity, to worldly norms, 

To see our worth ever in the eyes of others- 

Their 'ayes' uplift us, and 'nays'  banish us as the outcaste , 

We pull that fabric in tighter - just for acceptance.

Despite the iron fists of patriarchy that knuckle us down 

Stifling, forbearance is a cursed virtue, you see! 

A fleshed out Shakti, fatigued  lets that  fabric wind around our being like Draupadi's vastra - 

Ready to give the slip, but not by a depraved man, this time, 

There can be no _vastra haran,__ when a woman chooses to tear free from it all! 

Bare, stark in her fiercest form, she's Kali

Stomping all modesty and the 9 yards of social fabric  lies beneath her feet- 

Shrunk to a strip dripping with her menstrual blood !

Why need i camouflage my greys?

 Why need i camouflage my greys?

Or bind tight the frizz of my mane?

Let it remain unbound or matted, 

For, there are no praises or accolades for a woman even in her braided hair or with a veiled face! 

Even if she wields a hundred ladles by the hearth 

Or bows down(to every whim) under those heavy eye lids , 

She will ever be scrutinized 

By the lens , a man's world views her with, 

 With that tint of aberration, a   judgement bias

For the most microscopic detail of error , zoomed out,

Understand, in a man's world it's never an observation error! 

But why drag patriarchy at all,

When it's women who nurture a monster under the label of a MALE lineage?

This surge to subjugate  Shakti continues when she remains the _saumya_ ( the demure 'n' domesticated) ;

The balance of polarities thus disrupted.

So Kali rises to stomp, 

Drinking blood, her matted hair let loose, 

Her dance breaks the chains of  conformity 

To restore the  balance of every microcosm of the cosmos;

Her blood-stained tongue says it all - 

That the poison of demonic power consumed, 

She reveals the gray shades of a woman in the darkest of nights,

 When I see her rising , need I  camouflage my greys, for subservience to a society so depraved?  

The burning ghats of Kashi

 How blessed it would be,

To be at the threshold of Kashi Vishwanath,

And watch the burning pyres absorbed in his aura,

The mortal residues never awaken in us - the mortality of innumerable lifetimes,

Even as the Chandala prods and pokes the last skein of the once-alive flesh

To release the prana from its entrapments - 

The illusions lie in that ash ,

The bhasm smeared on Vishwanath 

Adorns the one , who embraces vairagya 

What would spell detachment 

When Maya's mists lures us 

Weaving a web of pleasure 'n' pain 

Those threads warp me in sheaths - just like my layered body

Stifling my core, my being -  

The urjha of the para brahman throbs in me as well - 

To realize it  takes the crossing of many thresholds of Kashi 

To let my limited being annihilate once and for all

On these burning pyres,

In ultimate surrender without question, fear or regret.

The bells reverberate through the spires of Vishwanath

The river swells to carry that undying flame

Time and again the truth of Vaitharni tries to seep in

As the Chandala pokes and prods through the crackling fire 

The offering to Kashi begins 

at this threshold-

 When I hold the pind daan from the Chandala, ready for the plunge!

O' Ganesha, wherefore is my beginning?

To become the Gajanan or the elephant-faced

He let the Shiv behead the  'Aham' - 

The illusion that he was Shakti's alone, 

The power and ego - the obstacles to his core truth, annihilated 

To then be consecrated by his Father 

In an equanimity of Shiv 'n' Shakti

 the harbinger of the Shubh

the Vighna-Vinashak, rises from the fallen barriers of one's own doing. 

The Gajamukh beholds the memories of many lifetimes,

As the  soul manifests from one life form to another,  

Travailing through its karmic rites 

The Ekdanta, of universal wisdom scripts a story  about quelling the goblins

And unfolding a path beginning from the fallen walls of the mind! 

Uma

27/08/2025