Clockwise and Anticlockwise

by Sharon Thomas

It is an art only my generation knows.

Moving clockwise and anti-clockwise

at the same time, try! You too can.

While time is defining time you see…we slide,

smother and stamp on two worlds simultaneously.

For our convenience or theirs,

we call it real and virtual distinctly.

But the old school is unnatural.

“It’s bliss that we have landed here”

would say no Gods henceforth

until they have created FB pages and

Instagram accounts sponsoring them timely shout outs.

Wait! Some still believe in crackers and ducking

Bible has become a smarter version

through mobile phone applications.

Oh we are not even going to think about it

as luxury versus necessity.

Maybe the second coming is closer

I need to get my ‘Bible v.02’ updated (notified).

What about development and modernity - atom bombs in a way.

Americans dropped them recklessly.

If you can catch the vocabulary,

you are mind jacked by the trap laid by letters

NRI RBI GOT GST ST SC LGBT ‘ETC’.

I wonder if I don’t know all the alphabets yet!

Countries comparing themselves to other countries and their weapons!

How is it inspiring? I fail to understand how patriotism makes me

feel proud of any deaths in any kind.

Blood is blood. Soldiers, farmers or terrorists.

I think all the isms should be having a round table tea talk.

And talk about how to rediscover love for a nation

whether it shall be established by a Messi or Messiah.

Ah! It’s just few words here and there

but there are surely more than two goalposts; right and wrong.

Don’t you know that the love for a Muslim girl is love

even if you are a Christian, Dalit or Black?

The books can’t talk about love differently.

But you should learn to differentiate ‘Love’ and ‘Lust’.

Like the way you might think tadpole and frog is the same

but-Nah-Nah! I’m a student and there are

a lot of things that I “should” do and I “should” know.

But guess what I read?

“The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” and I recover from the noisy neighborhood.

Go-Sanghis screaming from the other end that

TOI, DNA, BBC, NDTV and Zee is better than

nil, n/a and all others.

I see people who get fame by click of a butt..on!

All I do is see are notifications and buzzes

and see this world, the one in my hand,

melting with low battery.

For seconds one world dies.

I see the golden roof of a temple

which was a world ‘disclaimer’ site

where beggars beautifully arranged with sticky notes, “sharing is caring”.

When the phone resurrected

I learnt there was rain, thunder and a nightmare.

A flood was in due.

Life of my one world goes 3, 2, 1….

no power for three days.

The beeps no more burr…burred!

The holy, bearded, lazy, lonely,

pretty, pretentious, poor, prayerful,

strong, weak, mighty, gods and goddesses

had a tide break. And they gazed

at the other world, a world

in whose eyes life was beating.

Their eyes reflected each other.

They saw how hunger tasted the same.

When the waters left the rooms it flooded their hearts

and made it heavier.

They couldn’t still appreciate the beauty

of ‘nothingness’. The saga continued

in two worlds simultaneously…

clockwise and anticlockwise!

Photograph Credits: Verrier Rex Elwin