OPTIMISM

Why this darkness within the soul? Mind’s pendulum swings aimless as in a clock without needles, ticking away count down to doom? Darkness has acquired its deepest hue! In the abyss of despair nothing stirs, not even a leaf in the tree of hope; yet in that shadowless world reason murmurs, gently to fallen dreams…….. There lurks hope beyond eclipsed moons!

Announcing the formation of The Rajiv Gandhi Literacy Fund [RGLF] at the Trivandrum Press Club

CRSJS - Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign

Can I Stop Loving Her?

I was happy in that garden
which you asked me to tend,
it was carefree; I slept under
cool shades of big trees sans

cares or dreams. Were you
jealous my lord? Just for a
fleeting moment? Else, why
did you break off my rib as
I was slumbering and give
me a woman? “For company”
you said. I trusted you as I
always did and loved her
with all of my heart and ate
the bitter fruit she gave me.

The sweat of my brow now
drips to the ground as I till
the cursed fields under harsh
suns; I crib not! The frozen
winter chills my bones; I cry
not! Hunger gnaws me even
as the woman nags; no issues!
But sometimes songs of Eden
come to haunt me and I pine
for the solitude of happy days
beside those singing streams!  
Eden beckons with its clear
skies; fragrance intoxicates
as breezes of memory blow!

And sometimes now the wails
of Eden creeps into the stillness
of my soul, filling it with this
yearning for a paradise lost!

It’s then that I ask, why oh
why my lord, you didn’t put a
flaming sword and cherubim
before the tree of knowledge?
Was it because you wanted to
destroy my tranquility and bliss?
Was I condemned before sinning?
Was woman a God conspiracy
against me? Can I stop loving
her and come back to Eden?
--------------------------------------
24/08/2010      R Jayachandan

                    

International Walk for Human Rights, Thiruvananthapuiram - 10th December 2011

Human Rights Day 2006

ONE WAY LOVE AFFAIR

Your bosom is soft as the lily

So once a poet wrote,
Your heart too is soft my love
It’s the song the cupid sang

Then why be so cruel, my love
And blind to my love for you?
There’s a devil,
In your heart, my love

He’s given you a shield to wear,
Of metal stronger than steel
To blunt and even break
The arrows from cupid’s bow!

Did you not hear my love
The twang of cupid’s bow
As he aimed to pierce my heart
And fill it with love for you?

You could have lent your shield
Just for a minute my love
And saved me from the agony
Of a one way love affair!
-----------------------------------------
1980’s                R Jayachandran

              MIDNIGHT BLUES

It's a dark moonless night...............
The pit pat of rain,long ceased to be,
But,an awful loneliness tugs at my heart
With its icy cold fingers,as I lie in bed,
Waiting for the pink of a new dawn to break
With hope fighting desolation to its bitter end.
And everywhere an eerie silence,broken
Occasionally,by the barking of a dog,
Echoed by another,down the lane,
I lie awake this midnight,with an ashtray
Full of cigarette butts,half burnt like my dreams,
But the night has a fragrance,I long to share.............
-------------------------------------------------------------
1980's                                              R Jayachandran

      TEAM ANNA DISBANDED!

IS IAC INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION
OR IDOITS AGAINST COUNTRY?

              

                  LOVE CURE!

           
   I am lying in a hospital bed,
       In love ward, bed number three
                         They gave me the cure for love
                                    It’s penicillin, my syphilitic love!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                1980's                   R Jayachandran

                         LET ME REST IN PEACE

Sometimes when memories poke through the verdigris of mind

you remember me guiltily and try to make amends 
by leaving some flowers to rot on my grave.

Just like you left me here long ago, to rot 
forever in a casket lined with satin white.

Do you know that on cold nights I shiver 
and on sultry ones sweat in this coffin 
in which you have entombed my soul 
along with my dead body?

Why did you have to seal it so tight with memories
that refuse to release me from this world?

I do not blame you for having moved on with your life, 
I understand you have to, there’s no other go!

But now that you have found someone else, 
just leave me alone here in this graveyard 
amongst the weeds of time.

I still love and miss you with all of my heart,
but do not come back ever to refresh my pain.

At least here, in this black hole, let me rest in
peace beneath the surface of time.
------------------------------------------------------------
23/04/08                                     R Jayachandran

                     LAJJA

 (a dedication to Ms. Taslima Nasreen)

Sometimes words tumble out of the heart

Like pus from a swollen wound; it is then
That the artist comes out of his closet and
Shouts at the world through his medium
With a clenched fist, bothered no longer
Whether they would stone him to death or
Crucify him for daring to speak unvarnished
Truths; it is then that motives are assigned
Arbitrarily and the moral police step in with
Pointed fingers and the secular government
Of this secular country, where freedom of
Expression is a fundamental right; panics and
Bans creativity and condemns him to undeclared
Confinement in an undisclosed place like they did
To that woman from across the borders who came
To our shores fleeing from the lunatics in her own
Nation and believing in all that bullshit about our
Fundamental rights and our freedom of expression!
JAI HIND!
---------------------------------------------------------------
10/03/08                                            R Jayachandran

                 INNOCENCE LOST

Lured by mad desire he stood transfixed

Like a cobra’s prey while adolescence froze
To fear at the door step of manhood,
One by one she took off her clothes, in slow
Motion seducing innocence, ruby lips mocking
His virgin fears, she unhooked her bra and
Let loose delicious melons dangling life;
Suddenly, thirsting juice of a forbidden fruit,
His opiated lust threw caution to winds and
Crushed wanton desire between adulterous
Thighs as she thrashed about in the ecstasy
Of another conquest; years later, he still dips
In a thousand Ganges, trying to wash away
Guilt pangs as she seeks to resurrect pleasure
In other men’s arms!
-----------------------------------------------------------
07/03/08                                     R Jayachandran

DEATH

Each nanosecond draws me slowly but closer
to your arms, sweetheart.

Reluctant, I glide to your treacherous embrace,
drawn to a magnet.

At this life’s journey’s end, where you wait
an ever-patient lover,

I must transcend the borders of my destiny,
meet you and surrender my soul.

Accept the kiss of death,
and account for even obscure misdeeds.

Helpless, a prisoner of my Karma!

                     BRAHMOS

This city of Anantha the snake, rejoiced

as did the rest of the state, the defense
minister, who as the state chief minister
had initiated action for the take over of
the sick, ailing, state PSU by the defense
establishment, proclaimed it as the centre’s
new year gift to the people of his state; while
the ageing chief minister and his party men
called it their victory, claiming it was their
relentless pressure on the centre that produced
the results and the saffron party’s leadership
declared that the credit was theirs since they
started the Russian joint venture to produce
Brahmos while they were in power at centre.

Amid all the claims and counter claims,
for once the people of ‘god’s own country’
too rejoiced with the chest thumping
politicians, despite the corrupt deals and
cracked roads of gaping incompetence and
rising prices and unemployment and sex
scandals involving Tantris and police atrocities
and all the power cuts and water scarcity; they
hoped for missile induced jobs and development.

Acclaimed as India’s pride and Russia’s joy,
the fastest missile in the world in its class,
rupees one thousand crore, promised the
elated defense minister for the new Brahmos
missile factory and the crowd cheered him
on, at the handing over ceremony where a
gloomy chief minister had to play second
fiddle to the one who truly deserved all credit.

But, both citizens and politicians were blissfully
unaware of the communist and Islamic missiles
in the north that had quietly locked on to their
new target down south, ready to nuke Anantha
and his people when the next war breaks out! 
-------------------------------------------------------------
09/02/08                                       R Jayachandran

 

      ATTUKAL PONGALA

Tomorrow, yet another mass hysteria
in my home town, induced by saffron
clad fanatics, a million women take the
streets and burn mud pots filled with
nivedyams of sharkara payasam; amidst the
cacophony of conch shells and nadaswarams,
the holy fire is passed on from the sanctum
sanctorum of the temple, down the roads to
kilometres and kilometres of dazed women,
waiting with misplaced devotion in scorching
sun, a drama reminiscent of some pre-historic
tribal ritual, while this mother of all pongalas
helps sow divisive seeds of fundamentalism in
the fragile minds of a secular nation’s citizens!
------------------------------------------------------------
21/02/08                                      R Jayachandran

DID YOU HEAR THE TIGRIS WEEP?
              
                   Part I

Today, Tigris wept
Silently for her proud son
Defiant in the face of death
He stood with bound hands
Before his captors, like Porus
Before Alexander the great.

But, the ‘Born Again’ upstart
In the White House
Is not magnanimous like Alexander
He did not win any wars
Marching in front of his armies
Like the great king.

Hiding behind the tears of
American widows and orphans
And missiles and deadly bombs
His wars are won by the blood
Of dead women and children
And the sick and the defenseless.

They matter little, Asian lives!
Poor, poor, collateral damages!!
In shock and awe stood Christ
As Tigris wept a silent rage, for
Saddam, brave heart,
Victim of the Anti-Christ, Bush.


                Part II

When Victor’s vengeance
Sans justice condemned him
To the gallows, in a trail………
Held in Iraq with a
Made in the USA verdict
Three dead defense lawyers
And two presiding Judges removed
For playing fair and square……….

He stood with head held high
Looking very presidential
Saddam, it was then that you were
Truly President, not just of Iraq
But of the whole of the third world
And all the subjugated peoples of the world
Brave death has made you immortal
And your enemies inglorious!!!

As they tightened the noose around you
Oh, Mesopotamian, did you hear the
Desolate wail of a woman coming from afar
Across several centuries, for all the dead of
Iraq and Palestine, Vietnam, Hiroshima
And Nagasaki…………………………………..,
The list is long and never ending, all
Victims of an evil empire’s blood and oil lust!!

She knows that some day soon, her son must return
To pay for the sins of all the pseudo Christians
Who swear by him while they kill
She knows that he must again be crucified
To save them from their sins
Oh, Saddam did you hear a mother’s
Cry coming down from the Golgotha?
President, did you hear the Tigris weep?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                     R Jayachandran