Life often beckons me to reach out
In so many subtle ways
To go beyond the mundane, ordinary
To embrace the unknown

I falter, stutter, in life’s greying autumn
For years of routine drudgery
Has gnawed me out hollow
Leaving only a bare skeleton

Can I again become what I once was
Rising like the Phoenix
From my own grave of routineness
To brave the headwinds of uncertainty

Driven to the impregnable wall
I can perhaps reignite the lost spirit
Which once signified my gait
And laced my tongue

Discarding the cobwebs of diffidence
To discover myself anew
Meaningful, significant, unhesitant
Raring to invest in life

How strange is it then
That we pray only for tailwinds
When the catalyst for evolution
Lies hidden in the sting of headwinds

Subir Chakraborty / 22nd Dec 2018

I stood arrested by my immediate present
Not daring to look back with ease
Letting the moment sink in slowly
With tingling numbness, with extreme unease

Did you also feel the same
When you saw me fleetingly that day
Your eyes posing a thousand questions
Your mind reminiscing the near forgotten way

It was indeed brief
And yet it seemed the telling of a tale
When your eyes seemed to half whisper
The advent of a gale

The unanswered questions
Continued to remain unanswered
The half open lips
Left the precious words unuttered

And yet you said it all
Your sheer anguish rising to a crescendo
Only the circumstances as always
Standing like a rock between the duo

Only some strands of air
Separated us that day
Only our sense of individuality
Held complete sway

‘If only and only if’
Will forever ring in our ears
If only we could muster the courage
And scale back the long lost years

Subir Chakraborty / 16th Sept 2018

The peace that I seek
Is not the peace of the grave
Where a thousand mute voices
Yearn to speak and crave

Who cannot utter a single word
Being bound by the code of death
The stony silence of the cemetery
With bodies trapped in a cage

The peace that I pursue
Where a million voices bloom
Where dissensions are appreciated
And conflicts resolved in tune

Where to harbour a difference
Does not tantamount to a crime
Where debates are encouraged
And a disagreement just fine

Where a sense of tolerance
Forms a solid bond of trust
Where lack of convergence
Does not break the crust

Where diversity is celebrated
Enriching the human fabric
Where unilateralism is shunned
On par with radioactive debris

Subir Chakraborty / 12th May 2018

Talks, arguments, debates
Yet what goes completely missing
Is the beauty of sweet interactions
Creating the human bonding

Tourism, airlines, cruises, travel
The mad rush to capture moments
Too busy to assimilate, while
Uploading snaps with comments

The crazy bustle of human existence
Taking you on a new high
Each day that you live
While heaving great sighs

For in the midst of this make believe
You know one thing for sure
That you are missing out on something
Sublime, pristine, pure

Time is simply not available
Yet time is what you desperately need
To be able to appreciate beauty
Before you go to seed

To be able to drink with your eyes
And see with your heart
To enjoy the earthly treasures
And to set you apart

Subir Chakraborty / 17th May 2018

The curfew outside
Brings me to the curfew within
At the locked gate of my heart
Self closed, wilfully quarantined

Over decades of neglect
Mired with cobwebs of mistrust
Over fellow humans and other harmless species
Over the earth that is our home and hearth

Leaving the living gasping for breath
Throttled by relentless devastation
Choking in venomous, malicious air
Sacrificed at the altar of human greed

We believe this earth belongs to us
Total ownership, complete dominance
Over all resources, all of nature
Over all that the earth has to offer

We spend our time relentlessly
Creating rules, groups, biases
Dividing one species from another
Estranging one human from another

Do we ever pause to ponder
That what if the reverse were true
That perhaps, we belonged to the earth
Along with all others to savour and to share

It is high time to deeply introspect
And unlock the locked gate
With long lost tears and feelings
With empathy and with compassion

So that we can leave this earth intact
For our children and for our children’s children
So that our home can be nurtured
Back to its state of health and cheer

Subir Chakraborty
22nd March 2020

The Bodhi tree is growing within me
Spreading its roots, branches, stems
Each leaf representing the unbundling, and
The disentangling of my hidden fears

Can I transfer my being to the tree
Embracing nothingness in my stride
Thereby surrendering myself
To a process of total transformation

The only obstacle that lies in the path
Is my ego which stands guard
Reluctant, recalcitrant, obstinate
Refusing to lose its identity

What must I do, who must I seek
How should I engage, within or without
The holy books, a messiah, a guru
Or penance, chants, pilgrimage, ablutions

I shall do none of these
And merely sit back and watch
While nudging my ego to diffuse through the leaves
And evaporate into the ether with gentle ease

Allowing the Bodhi tree to flower and flourish
And spread its presence in my consciousness
Enabling it to grow to fruition
For in this lies my ultimate salvation

Subir Chakraborty / 6th March 2018

When love traverses the distance
Unshackled, boundless, limitless
Buffeted by the evening zephyr
Buoyed with the sweetness of spring

Union may not be the ultimate outcome
For union, crystallises, culminates, satiates
Bringing with it a feeling of finality
A sensation of cessation

Then what should draw lovers
To this nameless process
Where the objective is blurred
Where denouement lurks in absentia

Perhaps the imagination of union
Swirling intensely in the mind
Gives rise to inexhaustible hope
Spirited by illimitable energy

Where there is no stagnation
Burdened with loads of familiarity
Where predictability sounds alien
To hearts devoid of equanimity

Where a constant sense of turmoil
Ignites two restless souls
Without a sense of closure
Without a want for certainty

Subir Chakraborty / 8th Feb 2019

When memories remain as strands of conversations
Amongst a family torn by miles
Each trying to earn
A morsel of a livelihood

Each seeking out hideaway moments
During the busy, runaway day
Or the runless, restless night
To recollect and to recherish, tirelessly

A string or two of those words
Followed by more words, laughter
A pair of eyebrows raised, lowered
A hint of a hurt, the comfort of a touch

Almost like existing in two worlds
The world of reality
And the one of longing
Separated by cruel light years

One complementing the other
Fuelling the fire of hope in the bosom
Counting time, patiently, ever so patiently
For the twain to meet

Subir Chakraborty / 30th June 2019

The evening stretches endlessly
While I sip tea in a quiet corner
Watching the exhausted, mellowed sun
Preparing to say goodbye

The evening knows not
That I treasure its essence
The evening knows not
That I wait with patience

So it embellishes the sky
Treating it like a canvas
Splurging it with the rarest of hues
Creating a riot of colours

Trying to change my mood
Which lies supine
Lazily intertwined with my thoughts
Floating in the reverie of the moment

Which will continue unabated
Till you arrive on the scene
When I shall begin to blend my daydream
With the beauty of your unfolding presence

Subir Chakraborty / 16th July 2018

Persons change, personalities alter
With the passage of stars and comets
The wearing of years
The procession of moments

Even I change but do not notice
The minute variations in my nature
The halting gait, the balding pate
The stoop developing in my posture

My memory remains rooted in the past
Generating expectations out of old friendships
Long lost emotional threads
Desperate for a needle of kinship

Which I try to revive, revitalise
Very often stumbling and failing
For they have moved on and so have I
In life’s tide and ebbing

Why have you changed so much, I ask
Not at all, they say
Why have you changed so much, they ask
Not at all, I say

Two lost memories frozen in antique ice
Cannot unravel the mystery
Which has consigned two old friendships
Into the pages of history

Subir Chakraborty / 25th May 2018