The Unadorned

My literary blog to keep track of my creative moods with poems n short stories, book reviews n humorous prose, travelogues n photography, reflections n translations, both in English n Hindi.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

The Looking Chink


Once: long long ago
We used to creep a lot
Belly-aching, begging for a choice
And that's the test of freedom
So would people say.

Times changed, somehow, as if on cue
 Lo, here you are
Your telly has arrived at last
Kaleidoscopic, crisp, captivating and cuddly
Every pixel to emerge from all dimensions
At your service, and go, feast your eyes on it  
It’s your choice after all, fulfilling your wish.

Past is a picture: the reel story
Present is a picture too: the real story
Future is a sketch: a picture in making
Where can you find the real world?
The shadow is now the real thing.

Look! How fast choice matures!
Into monotony, too hard a lump to melt
Despite everything
Moments merge into hours, and hours into days
Sagas unfold, endless, of quarrels and contests,
No longer relents the evil, the plot convoluted
And hanging down the cliff…what next?
Farce to follow the gossip and the point dissipates.

Know a lot, to forget what you know
No longer, it’s willing deferral of disbelief
Now, how easy it is to doubt everything!
Eyes bleary, night beckons to stay awake
There’s a picture before you to see and believe.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Shimla
25-10-2014
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Sunday, October 12, 2014

Tiger and the Truth-II


Once the great Greek mathematician Euclid, as the legend goes, proffered a coin to one of his pupils and asked him to pack up. Why? It was so, because he dared to ask the teacher, ‘What’s the gain from studying geometry?’ So when I completed today’s bicycle trip into the dense forest of Shimla Catchment Sanctuary [Hasan Valley], I asked the same question to myself, ‘Now, man, what’s your gain at the end of the day?’ I should give myself the list of benefits from the whole thing.


Getting lost in the thickets of a well-preserved jungle: is it not so very pleasing? What else do you want from life? Listen to the sibilant whisper of the coniferous forest, feel its coolness, look to the distant azure horizon, smell the shrubs, feel the music of the trickling streams—what else you want from a mere Sunday?


And what about the flowers? A flower is a flower; it’s not necessary to know its name. So goes the proverb: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. How true!
 


Agreed, you don’t know its name, and it matters little, but the connoisseur knows it. The butterfly knows where beauty lies, always without doubt.



How dense a forest you want; even denser than this? Ok then, hold on, let me show you another snap, man!



Won’t you like to see the sky? Where all these cedars and oaks are trying to reach? They don’t need a sky-glider; they can reach there by themselves.
 


Even in death, the tree is beautiful; it proclaims its beauty. Only it’s waiting to meet the beholder’s eye.
 


I could not find a tiger. And how do I produce one? Here you are: this is your tiger. Manage it until you get to see a real one.


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By
A N Nanda
Shimla
12-10-2014
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