How much of India is Bharat
And Bharat is India
How much of the truth
Can be obscured from the media

With how much inequality
Can enough be enough
With how much inequity
Does the going get tough

With how much poverty
Can a nation be comfortable
With how much depravity
Is the conscience agreeable

With how much of inhumanity
Can humans coexist
With how much of indifference
Can the indigent subsist

How much of Bharat
Is burdened with serfdom
When will this Bharat
Wake up to freedom

How much of Bharat
Resides within me
How much of India
Bothers for thee

How much of deprivation
Is necessary for noise
When will this country
Find its voice

Subir Chakraborty / 7th June 2018

* Bharat(another name for India) refers to the underprivileged and the poor segments of the population

I have touched lives
While others have touched me
In the continuous ebb and tide
Of this life’s unique journey

What does it really mean
To genuinely touch a life
What does it actually entail
To join in happiness and strife

Is it merely the high fives
The hi and the hellos
Or does it mean to reach out
Beyond the superficial and the hollow

Does it mean to outstretch
Where others do not dare
When the people all around
Prefer to just stand and stare

When you feel the caring touch
Or extend your hand in trust
Your spirit gets re-energised
Invading the peripheral crust

Creating a feeling so exclusive
So very exemplary
That you begin to start believing
In the goodness of humanity

Subir Chakraborty / 5th July 2018

Happiness is a man thing
A woman thing, a together thing
Perhaps something meaningful
An illusion or perhaps nothing

It can be a puddle of sunlight
Splotched on the pavement
Or a bundle of hugs and kisses
Waiting in the basement

Can be the smile of the moon
Giving you friendly tips
To utter the romantic trio
Eluding your quivering lips

Can be the joy of sharing
Whatever little you possess
With those outstretched hands
In anguished and dire duress

Or an evening of gossip
With your family, your own
Comfortable and cosy
In the warmth of your home

Coming to think of it
Maybe nothing at all
Which you can count or touch
Tangible, distinct or tall

Just a state of mind
With the heart on a song
Sailing the zephyr
On a sunlit everyday morn

Subir Chakraborty / 1st June 2018

Faith that clings
Faith that murders
Faith that heals
Faith that plunders

What is in this faith
The sweep of collective consciousness
That seeks to unite and separate
A cauldron of unity and divisiveness

Why does it sometimes pit
Man against man
Man against woman
Making us all so inhuman

Your god, my god
Your way, my way
All searching for their souls
In hell’s pathway

While ignoring the really needy
Who deserve your deference
The deprived and the oppressed
And the children of innocence

Why can’t humanity and love
Be the sole guiding faith
Without a morsel or trace
Of disgust or hate

Why the you versus me
Cannot converge to we
Why can’t we live in harmony
Leaving the gods to live in peace

Subir Chakraborty / 7th July 2018

Two bodies
Entwined, enwrapped
Interlaced, twisted, entangled
Mingling, mixing, fusing
Swathed with wild heat
Draped with uninhibited passion
Propelled by raw energy
Sweat for sweat
Groan for groan
Gasp for gasp
Breath for breath
The peak, the pinnacle
The crescendo

And then…..

Whisper with whisper
Touch with touch
Kiss with kiss
Tenderly, delicately
Cooing, murmuring, cooing
Again, again
And again
Eventually
Nesting in each other’s arms
Lullabied
By each other’s breathing
With sleep tiptoeing
Caressing the eyes
Ever so slowly, softly, finally

Subir Chakraborty / 8th May 2018

Money was initially created
As a means of exchange
An alternative to barter
Facilitating interchange

Then people realised
Of the unique benefits
Of hoarding some money
To take care of life, its titbits

In this process of discovery
Money continued to traverse
In people’s minds and hearts
Till it bordered on the perverse

Leading humans to believe
By throwing around some bills
Anything can be purchased
Happiness, morality, even ethics

What they learnt much later
That it is a double edged sword
While it gives, it takes much more
Peace of mind, values at the core

Humans chasing their bank balance
Which in turn builds their hubris
Accumulating, stumbling, accumulating again
While searching for happiness in the debris

Only a human can do this unto himself
Allowing a mere tool, a convenience
To take total control of his life
And become a slave to its jurisprudence

Subir Chakraborty / 21st March 2018

Flights, meetings, hotels
Not necessarily in the same order
Each time I travel on work
Each time I’m a blip on the radar

There are those in-between times
Those pauses, the leisure hours
When I am not swimming in work
And the deadline showers

When wisps of loneliness descend from the heavens
Taking possession of my feelings
Floating in my mind’s dusk
Like feathery snow on a wintry evening

I miss you immensely in these moments
Feeling the trajectory of pain
Splitting my tormented chest apart
Striving for the tears to be reined

I must do what I have to
To continue to retain my peace
With myself as well as with my work
And suffer my heart on a leash

Subir Chakraborty / 27th June 2018

The caste system is undying, imperishable
Blessed with immortality and a rare sheen
Cast as it was aeons ago
Not in copper but stainless steel

The edges are being honed
Getting sharper with age
Causing a bruise or a cut occasionally
Tormenting multitudes in its cage

Those fortunate to be born high
Enjoy the cold, steely shine
Which screams from rooftops
Your status is lower than mine

The razor sharp rays on steel
Reflect with magnified intensity
Blinding one and all in its grasp
Daring to question its rigidity

Creating a mirage of orderliness
History and golden heritage
While the vultures swoop down
To devour the morsels from its garbage

Subir Chakraborty / 24th March 2018

The thunderstorm, untamed, wild
Swept me off my feet
When I saw you waiting in the corner
Getting drenched in sheets

Your eyes caught mine involuntarily
Across a sea of vehicles and more
As you were waiting for a bus
On the opposite side of the road

A split second and a second glance
Was all that it took
For the thunderstorm to vanish
And roses to bloom

Not on the busy street
But in our innocent hearts
Bubbling with trepidation
Trodding the untrodden path

The rain was still beating down
But then who cared
For the moment was precious
For the feeling that we shared

Who cared
That we were wet to the bone
Who cared
That we were far from home

Subir Chakraborty / 25th March 2018

Death of a friend hurts in inexplicable ways
Reminding me of the departed
As well as those in the queue
Waiting for the cue from up above

Removing me from the transient
And placing me in the permanent
The mind under free float
Where the present assumes irrelevance

Where I begin to analyse the basis of this life
And all the accumulations, I’ve fought so hard to gather
To protect and to preserve
So as to trumpet my name endlessly in the plazas of posterity

For the belongings shall finally gather dust of uncared years
And my name shall remain just a whisper, if at all
In the minds of those I loved and those who loved me in return
Ever so silently in the woods of anonymity

Subir Chakraborty / 11th June 2018