POEM_: Dialogues with Mother: IV

You do not understand 

Do you?

Y’know,

it’s easy to forgive strangers. 

We expect nothing of them;

if they hurt us, well,

who allowed them inside, in the first place? 

We were at fault too.

It is also easy to forgive one’s friends. 

We can afford to forget them,

if not the hurt. 

And one can always make new friends.

It’s easy to forgive one’s children:

they are, after all,

one’s own flesh and blood;

our vehicles to immortality.

And, of course,

if not easy,

it is still not very difficult

to forgive one’s lovers. 

Whatever we gave,

we gave voluntarily; out of love. 

And what is given away

cannot be asked back.

What about Self?

It is often difficult

to forgive one’s self. 

But this is one person

with whom one has to stay always. 

Those who cannot forgive themselves

often do not live long enough

to tell the world of their pain.

What is most difficult,

is to forgive one’s own parents:

the memories, the thoughts

the humiliation of utter dependence,

Man’s worst fears confirmed-

trust me, they are not

easily banished into the kingdom

of the dead and forgotten. 

Every little hurt, every minor pain

springing from a child’s powerlessness

adds a new fiery drop

into the disconsolate ocean of his discontent;

and finds for him, his very own scapegoat-

in the form of his parents.

I am trying, Mother,

I am trying. 

Just do not make it any tougher, please!

Trying to forgive you.

- owais

--

This was published earlier in "Love?"

.

POEM_: Dialogues with Mother: III

I am sorry, Mother,

that is the way it is. 

You have no parents,

I, no offspring. 

And neither likely to be found.

You will never know

how suffocating it is

to be smothered in love. 

And I,

never the pain of growing up an orphan. 

You shall never know, first-hand,

how a child sees his parents;

and I, the view from the other end.

We live in two worlds,

occupying, approximately,

the same place in space-time -

yet unable to reach the other.

- owais

--

This was published earlier in "Love?"

.

POEM_: Dialogues with Mother: II

Do I value love? 

Do I? 

You should know the answer,

Mother. 

And do I value you? 

You should know that too. 

Twenty-seven years; it’s a long time y’know. 

And if you do not know me now

you never will know.

Anybody.  Ever.

I have loved you

and trusted you,

like nobody since. 

But do not ask me

to stop worshipping Eros

and “the heavenly Aphrodite”. 

They are my gods.

My raison d’être.

You are not in the habit of losing, Mother. 

Do not ask me to choose.

- owais

--

This was published earlier in "Love?"

.

POEM_: Dialogues with Mother: I

Do you know

who a mother is? 

That to whom

one can go –

when one fails

and bare all: 

all one’s bruises, hurts, inadequacies;

drop all defences

and all make-beliefs

and be acceptable for what one is. 

A person with whom

you find tenderness and love

simply because you are you. 

With whom

you need not put up a show

of the confidence of a breadwinner

of the strength of a father

of the bravado of a lover…

Mother,

you were good

but this one thing

you could never give me. 

So rarely could I come to you

with a failure. 

And when I did

it would be to hear you say: 

“I told you so.” 

You could never really accept:

Incredulous, you’d say: My son? Failed?

My son? 

And to this day

I know no greater pain

no greater failure

and in retrospect, no greater betrayal

than this.

- owais

--

This was earlier published in "Love?"

.

POEM_: Good Guys and Bad Guys

There are good guys
and there are bad guys.
The good guys are ‘We’,
and the bad guys are ‘They’.
‘We’ may not be as good
as ‘We’ want to be.
And ‘We’ may not even want to be
as good as ‘We’ can be,
or should be.

But the bottom-line is –
we are ‘We’.
So, the good guys are always ‘We’,
and the bad guys, always ‘They’.

- owais

--
This was earlier published in Poetry Chronicle and in the book, 'Love?'

POEM_: As I Grew Up

As I grew up
I found
that life was not all
we were led to believe.

I found
that it was not fair.
I found
that it was not just, nor equal,
that it was not pure, nor virtuous.

Until one fateful night,
we were children,
who were allowed
none but the “pure” kind of love.
Overnight, we were told to call
the “dirty” love, “married bliss”.

We
who were not allowed
to look each-other in the eye,
we, who knew that sex was bad,
were told to have it.
And the men, and the women,
the elders of the family,
waited for the job to get done.
The cardinal sin had become
the very meaning, the sole aim of life.
The rite of passage, the ultimate duty.
With the ultimate disgrace
waiting for those who dared fail.

That was not fair
nor just, not pure nor virtuous.
When one sits back, and reflects
he finds that there are
two great realities of life:
Power and Love.
And each has its own scales.
One provides the means to life,
the other - meaning to it.
One is called
power, money, health,
knowledge, beauty, brains,
skill, status, pull…
The other is simply called love.
One is achieved, performed,
the other is simply felt, and expressed.

Power has no feelings;
Love no right to perform.

And that is why
it was so unfair.
They asked me to perform!

And as I grew up
I found Love.
I made it- one of my gods-
my only God,
and started living by It.

I met those whom I loved,
those who loved me, somewhat equally;
who desired a life with me.
But we always went our separate ways.
And never gave each-other for long
the love that we had promised.

Perhaps, because
Love is also of two kinds:
One that I was asked to desire,
One that I did desire.
And the two were, and are,
not equal.

Perhaps,
those who loved me
desired to be more equal,
than I did.
I just wanted more equality.

And so,
as I grew up
I found
that life was not just, nor equal,
that it was not pure, nor virtuous.

No one had told me that.

- owais

--
This was first published in the book, 'Love?'

POEM_: Virus

Virus.
Would you not call it noble?
Lives,
while its foe is alive
and dies with a dying foe.
Oh, the sacrifice, ultimate!
Not like us,
the inhumane humans,
who need to kill,
even before we eat.
(And then
wish to live ever after!)

Doing its job
with a single-minded devotion,
vacillating not like humans
never looking at any but the chosen species:
It could teach us a lesson
in determination and integrity.

And yet:
Armed with an awesome power
over its eco-system,
it is ever ready to destroy it.
How very human!

- owais

--
This was first published in the book, 'Love?'

POEM_: A Birthday

Birthday!
The tenth of Ramadan
my sixth birthday
Mother is ready
with the iftar snacks,
to be sent to the mosque
for the faithful. To be consumed
at the end of their day-long fast.

I leave, holding
the hand of my cousin
and the box of goodies.
In the mosque
a clean cloth is ready
with some iftari already spread
and some being spread.
Happily,
I set forth my offerings.

An old man totters by
Looks at the goodies
with a gleamy lonely eye.
I offer him a piece
and he grabs it thankfully.

A furtive glance
at a long-coated man,
bearded, respectable;
and quickly, the piece
disappears in his mouth.

The hawk, disturbed
by the sudden change
in the steady pattern
closes in: hits the man
on his weary little head
and shouts -
Sabar nahin hota buddhe?
(Can’t you wait, you silly old man?)

I return home
crying,
my birthday ruined.

.

- owais

--

This was first published in the book, 'Love?'

POEM_: My Mother; My Life

There was, once, a woman in my life,
She wasn’t in my life, she lived my life.
Then one day, I asked her for my life,
and she told me –
Your life isn’t yours at all;
It is mine, for I gave it to you.

I said –
You live one, and I live one;
we are equal, one and one.
No, she said –
You are unjust, you are cruel,
I shall have both,
And you have none.
How dare you call us equal
when I am the creator and you
The created!
How could you be,
if it were not for me?
You are, because I am,
and still I could be,
even if you weren’t.

I did not know what to say.
I looked around, then said:
I wouldn’t be if you were not,
yes, and I wouldn’t be if Time were not,
And if Love and Beauty,
Desire and Liberty,
Mind and Matter,
were not;
and so wouldn’t you be!
Why shouldn’t I give my life
to them?
And I have none,
and you have one?

- owais

--
This was earlier published in Poetry Chronicle and in the book, 'Love?'

POEM_: An Arrival

And lo!
It is India
My long awaited, long lost India.
India, in rains.

Far from the dust and sand
the burning sun, the scorched earth
the dead land
I come back to you
My everloving India.
In rains.

Life I see
in every breath of the monsoon,
in every gust of the cool fresh wind,
in every blade of glistening grass.

Life I see
in the grey muddy slums of Bombay,
in the shoves and the jostles at the VT,
in the speeding and the stalled locals
which acquire a certain elegance
with the ground wet under them;
even in the sulky faces
of the Indian Airlines hostesses
who are either incapable of joy
or short of the glue
that makes the plastic smiles stick.

And life I see
in the gay frolics
of the young and not-so-young boys
naked on the Chowpatty beach,
celebrating the youth, not just their own,
but of their earth too.

Life I see in everything
for I am in love
with India,
in rains.

- owais

--
This was first published in the book, 'Love?'.

POEM_: Of Success, And…

You ask me
of my biggest success
in life. It’s been you.
Of course.

From you,
I learnt love.
With you, I knew passion.
For you, I left the world; from you,
I came back to it.

I discovered, how much I could care,
what I was willing to give,
and what not,
in order to catch that mirage
called Love.

I created new limits,
I invented a new self.
I discovered a patience
within me, I never knew existed.
I waited for years
for one, just one
lover’s kiss from you.

You kept your distance.
You made love.
And yet,
it wasn’t love.
You never liked the touch of my body;
never got rid of the guilt
of having made love to me.

With you, for you, I have known
the greatest feelings
the greatest thoughts, ideas
a man is capable of. And for you
I have imagined pains,
I would not inflict on a foe.

You have given me
great pleasure, happiness, the feeling of
almost ecstasy.
And you have given me the pain, the agony
I would not have, otherwise, known.

You never said if
you loved me.
You had no plans for our future together.
You never touched my face.
With your fingers
you never combed my hair.

Yes, my dear,
you have been the biggest success of my life--
And the greatest failure.

- owais

--
This is first being published on this page.

POEM_: Why?

Why do you fight with me?
Is it because
you lack the courage
to make love to me?

- owais

--
This was first published in the book, 'Love?'.