बचपन में एक सलाह अक्सर सुनाई देता था
ख़ासकर बड़ों से, बुज़ुर्गों से, शिक्षकों से
कि, अच्छाई फैलाओ, अच्छा बनो
अपनी कीर्ति से अपना नाम रोशन करो

बचपन में इसका एक ही अर्थ होता था
न्याय और अन्याय के फ़र्क को समझना
बड़ों और शिक्षकों का इज़्ज़त करना
सही दिशा में अपने ज्ञान का प्रसार करना

जब बचपन से जवानी के तरफ बड़ा
तब देखा कि अच्छाई का अर्थ बदलने लगा
न्याय के सड़क में अन्याय झाँकने लगा
बड़ों की बातों से झूठ की बू आने लगा

बड़ों ने कहा कि अब तुम बड़े हो गए हो
जोश तो ठीक है, पर थोड़ा होश भी दिखाओ
जग की भलाई, देश की भलाई तो ठीक है
अब थोड़ी अपनी भलाई को आगे बड़ाओ

आज मैं बुढ़ापे के चौखट पर खड़ा हूँ
और यह आज तक समझ में नहीं आया
क्या सब की अच्छाई में मेरी अच्छाई नहीं है
क्या अन्याय से समझौता में ही समझदारी है

क्या बचपन की अच्छाइयों में बेवक़ूफ़ियाँ छिपे हैं
क्या न्याय के राह पर सिर्फ काँटें ही बिछे हैं
क्या अच्छाई की अच्छाई में कुछ मिलावट है
क्या दिल का सुनना इतना ही मुश्किल है

सुबीर चक्रवर्ती / ७ अप्रैल २०१९

Impotence does not always occur
Between the legs
Impotence does not always happen
While in bed

When your voice chokes and stutters
While taking up a just cause
When you prefer the veil of a lie
And give your conscience a pause

When your factor of safety
Makes you shy from the fore
When a lone voice crying for justice
Makes you deaf to the core

When the dying on the street
Evoke no sympathy
When your heart is flooded
With waves of apathy

When an act of charity
Seems so totally alien
When you’ve sold your soul
At the altar of affluence

When the plundering of nature
Leaves you unmoved
When all that you do
Is solely for your own good

When all your achievements
Can be captured in one word – money
When you did not affect even one life
Leave alone many

All these cases
Are impotence of a kind
A conceptual construct
Of impotence redefined

Each one of us living
Will leave one day
Without our possessions
Shall depart from this fray

Only we shall leave behind
Our deeds, for others to say
Whether we were potent or impotent
During our decades long stay

Subir Chakraborty / 15th June 2019

In my reinterpretation lies my salvation
Of the life I have lived
And the one unlived
Nesting precariously in my mind

Of my life with me and those with others
Where I may have fallen short
Needs cautious revisiting
From a new perspective, a new dimension

Of my near and dear ones
Who tried sincerely and faltered
Of their imperfect years
Of their failed tears

Of my own choices chosen
And the ones rejected
Due to lack of courage
Due to hidden fears

Reinterpreted they must all be
To bring about closure
To bring about peace
To my heart tormented by unease

And as for my soul
Which desires to exist in harmony
Crying for reinterpretation
Pining for redemption

Subir Chakraborty / 7th Dec 2018

Love and happiness the twins
Rowing the sail boat of eternity
Are they really two
Or are they one

For what is love without compassion
Without the giving or sacrificing
Of a portion of your own life force
To sustain another

And in that space so surrendered
Springs the well of happiness
Filling up your bosom
With the nectar of contentment

Which nourishes your soul
Imparting unimaginable fertility
Sprouting green shoots of empathy
In joyous abandon

Love and happiness intertwined umbilically
Never in isolation, the conjoint twins
Rescuing drowning souls
Sailing the ravages of humanity

Subir Chakraborty / 14th Nov 2018

Wherever an alternate idea blooms
Whenever a real threat looms
My immediate reaction
Is to burrow back into my hole
And take solace, find succour
In the rigid bureaucracies
Of my imagined supremacies

For every threat must be countered
Actively, both without and within
Lest it becomes larger than life
And attain a life of its own
To influence the weak and the gullible
The questioning and the guilty
Of its veracity, its logical fluidity

So, I need to resist and fight
With my head still buried in the hole
To convince others, by words or by the sword
To drown out all voices of dissent
To usher in an air of claustrophobia and stasis
So that ultimately, only one idea can remain supreme
The impassioned serpent, the reigning queen

Subir Chakraborty / 6th March 2019

I come to myself
In the deep recesses of my mind
Where precipitous dichotomies
Are crowding me out of line

Painting illusions of should ‘bees’
As well as should have ‘beens’
In the surrounding chaos and din
Of ambitions, regret, failed dreams

The dilemmas that present
Are real, causing serious lesions
Disturbing my mental balance
Consuming my well of patience

To welcome and accept the new
Through the prism of my past
Or discard the smouldering emotions
Tearing off the age old cast

Each time I loosen a bond
A new one germinates surreptitiously
Wainscoting the edges of my consciousness
Parading the images relentlessly

I come to oneself
In peace, aloneness, serenity
When both past and future
Fail to cause any anxiety

I come to myself
When the gale has all but receded
I come to myself
When the self has all but evaporated

Subir Chakraborty / 30th March 2019

At times I have only myself to talk to
Not lonely, just joyously alone
With my own voice echoing softly
From the perimeters of silence

Which determine the boundaries
Of my self imposed solitude
Amidst a potpourri of city life, intermingled
With the ravages of daily existence

Sometimes I speak to my voice
Sometimes the voice speaks to me
When it rebounds, ecstatically fresh
From the far corners of my mind

The dialogue is refreshing
Soothingly vibrant in its hues
Peeling away layers of unreality
Dawning a touch of reality

Where my ambitions are rephrased
My disappointments revisited
My anxieties re-tempered
And my sanity re-established

Subir Chakraborty / 3rd May 2019

Am I alive
Am I really alive
Or am I being eaten up inside
With dead habits on the rise

Is my passion on a song
Is my heart feeling free
Do my senses sway gently
In tune with the springtime breeze

Does my laughter reverberate
Like a gushing waterfall
Do my tears silently tiptoe
When my mind is on a recall

Can I take a stand
For a just and righteous cause
Or do I always get paralysed
Forever hitting pause

Can I just be myself
Without the shroud of vanity
Can I burn all these myriad costumes
Which conceal my true identity

Subir Chakraborty / 23rd Nov 2018

Blares the loudspeaker
Hurling a slew of slogans
It’s election time folks
In our dear Motherland

The eyes are shedding tears
The heart is torn asunder
As the politicians hit the streets
With their palms joined together

Every manifesto is curated
For humans under the weather
Creativity knows no limits
In changing for the better

After the results are declared
Promises are quickly forgotten
For now it’s deal time folks
Requiring astute political acumen

For the man on the street
It is just so much of fun
Free entertainment, along with
Occasional doles for lunch

Subir Chakraborty / 14th May 2019

My journey towards wholesomeness
Is not without risks
For it comes with a growing sense of detachment
To the material life, which exists

Which is where I live and breathe
And participate each day
Treating it as ongoing drama
As a mere audience in a play

Where I laugh with all the highs
And cry with all the lows
Yet knowing only too well
That the show will take a bow

I notice the emotions of others
Of egos ballooning or lying in tatters
As the serenity of existence engulfs me
Together with all that really matters

I also notice my own ego
Gasping for its last breath
As wisdom energy seeps in
Unfolding its wholesome breadth

Subir Chakraborty / 20th Jan 2019