FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Our gods reside in the cannon balls In the sermons of carpet bombings One god fights the other Amidst the sands of the east One god prepares to ambush On the bank of a middle-eastern oasis Another runs wild with .50 caliber sniper With the peace stamped on his forehead From 2000 feet above sea level The lord almighty spotted the man’s red keffiyeh As a reddish spot on the heathen land Gazing at the distant black beast in the sky The man kneeled as he saw the slow parachute mines descending As if to prepare himself for the divine vision Somewhere in that muddled image, he witnessed the power. When they removed the pall at the graveside They saw a complacent puzzlement on the dead face It seemed that he died believing in the love of his god.

BEING WATCHED.

Its a disturbing thing to realize that you are being watched over. Not by the inconsequential supernatural but the overtly consequential people, capable of consequential damages who exist in the real world.

We are the epicenters of our own fragile worlds, delicately built. Each new step we take is equally hesitant as the first step we once took, if we take habits and confidence as worldly adaptations. We would never stop expecting a listener for a word or a reader for the written like we once searched for a corners to hold on to while treading the house with our baby steps. But with the education that teaches to divide life in for and against, access to the kind corners is being denied.

In a world where people want to know everything about you, your religious views, political views, your favorites and reasons for you to justify it all and reasons for them to oppose most of it.... I would say I AM SIMPLE PERSON WITH IDEAS WHICH EVOLVE.. may be the ideas keep evolving inside my grave ... my views will not come in the way of your ascendency to the top.. so keep climbing with the bagfull of judgments and ideologies on your shoulders, while I sit in the corner-most branch of your tree of knowledge and have peanuts (if u will).
(ahhh... so much of bullcrap to escape the eye)

Denial of Artistic Responsibility

Those who talk about co-existence are at biggest odds with the world. If religion and ideologies were to make this world perfect then believe you me, it would have happened before Christ. And now that the gods have come and gone, allow my art to share my share of prejudices, biases, contempt and beliefs (see how we have been taught to name each differently). Because when the world will become flawless (opposition says after the next election) my art will cease to exist because new versions of the world will no longer please you.

Art demands nothing but individualism, a sort dominance of only me over myself. I’d quote Oscar Wilde ..he says “The only creative thought one can have in an institution is how to get out of it”. So when I look back I see not where I’ve left your institutions and beliefs. The first step towards artistic excellence is unlearning morality. New gods can rise only when the old ones razed down. So the artists need to take the responsibility of the essential blasphemy in the society and question. The best artist will be the last believer. All I ask is to not strangle the artistic freedom to question. For the muffled questioning voice will shake the faith of the faithful not the faithless. If my thoughts do not conform to that of the utopian image that your religion has constructed then consider me the purveyor of the doom …which you have been taught to fear and believe in it’s inevitability.

“Artistic responsibility”. For the world which unlearns tolerance with education…. Responsibility seems to be a word so inadequate. Why should I persuade you to believe in my art, when all that I am not convinced about is my art? Am I some trader in the market of the filth of morality who would bargain and haggle for better ideologies and faultless beliefs. This is no banker’s literature which goes out in the open market with a price tag on its head and like a rainbow-clown who aims to please all.

In a civilization of disastrous inconstancies and ruinous revolutions, I should laugh at the intolerance at a change that an artist proposes through his thoughtful musings and not political jargons. Acceptance and rejection are the two choices which human mind will possess till eternity. So let art be for art’s sake.

"A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return."
-Salman Rushdie-