If Gandhi Speaks out Now,

       If  Gandhi Speaks out Now,
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      I loved and fought;
      Loved truth and fought violence and aggression.
      Loved my country and its people;
      Fought their frenzy of religion and fanatic feud.
      Loved, thinking high and living simple;
      Fought falsehood in thought and deed.
      I loved freedom and fought for it;
      I loved my dreams of independence and safety
      Of men and women alike;
      I fought slavery of the soul by the self and society;
      When my nation became free,
      I knew not to rejoice or regret;
      For,passions were on a parade of hatred,
      And peace was mortgaged again to mortifying modes.
      I thought my men would soon learn to rule and get governed.
      But now I need to relearn what to love,
      And what to fight for and against.
      It looks now, as if my men pulled out my clothes,
      And left me in my loins,to lift their lifestyles,
      In my name and in the name of my clothes.
      The colonials were not at least this much corrupt.
      They treated me with more respect than my men
      Who keep my statues as resting spots for birds,
      And visit my tomb twice a year to translate
      Their self promoting programmes in short spells; 
      Today I love my country more than ever
      And have to fight my men to let the world know,
      That I left my clothes for my loins, 
      To let my nation turn rich and not help a few fowls, 
      To rob my countrymen in the name of me and my clothes. 
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                                                       P.Chandrasekaran. 
      
  

The Screen Prototypes.

The Screen Prototypes.

Life is a Television Watch.

Life’s routine revolves  around

A remote switch, stuck magnetically,

To an audio visual system programming,

Carrying shows of several genres,

On screens, small and big, at the money’s byte.

Choice of programmes   goes by fixed  schedules.

Childhood hovers around days of the Pogo

And the Tom and Jerry merry row.

Showers of the Cartoon shows steer joyous hours.

Adolescence  is  on a discovery drive,

Clicking the remote in simian style,

From channel to channel through the self- prone tunnel.

Aggressive programmes augment its frenzy.

Teenage, in a tantalized trend, touts the body bets,

In a romantic round, on its self- choreographed sets.

Channels of music and fashion show, make a major flow.

Adulthood augers well for austere slots.

Compered events on screen, are compared at a regular pace;

Verdicts on issues through debates, set the domestic ball in motion .

Ageing, like an automated teller machine,

Dispenses  with serials, light and grave, in a series,

Like currency of different denominations for the clicked figure.

In the event of system failure, news and spiritual channels fill the bill.

From the crib to the grave, the events of life, 

Pass on like preset episodes on a colour monitor,

Boosting and booing one’s pattern of living.

                                           P.Chandrasekaran.

Enough is Enough.

           Enough  is  Enough.

Fancy is enough,

To  inspire a flow;

Flow is enough,

To tap the words;

Words are enough,

To hold one’s thoughts;

Thought s are enough,

To speak out one’s mind;

Mind is enough,

To make heaven or hell;

Heaven is enough,

To generate love;

And hell is enough,

To provoke hatred;

Love or hatred is enough,

To kindle one’s fancy.

All this is enough, to ensure the cycle.

The cycle is enough, to certify survival.

                                                P.Chandrasekaran.

Oh, My Independence!.

                    Oh, My Independence!.

A Commonwealth I am.

When my ‘Colonial Cousins’ left me free,

The bells tolled at midnight,

Sounding the volume of my independence.

I am Six decades plus old, now.

But I have my peace only on parole.

My kids here seem to walk low,

With a bag load of books binding

Their tender arms from behind.

The education of my children, stays enslaved,

To texts,tests and exams,touted by politics.

Their life is shackled in witch-hunting

For jobs,with degrees of various hues,

Earned or received through merit and might.

The marriage of my wards is yet another story,

Whipped up by passions of the communal glory.

The rich-poor divide is an exploding chasm,

Battering and banging my sinews and spasm .

I am rocked, when my ruling men statistically say,

That my people do survive, on a paltry sum a day.

My land is far more secular than others', I know;

The hate seeds sprout here, with a booming blow.

The exit of colonialism has eased my birth throes;

The excess of Corruption has worsened my woes .

Twice a year,my sons and daughters hoist my flag;  

Their salute and anthem, augment my pride's tag.

Great would I grow, if all my children are free to share,

Views and values,across the counters of the world Fair.  

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                                                                               P.Chandrasekaran.

Something That Matters.

   Something That Matters.

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Life is full of matter.

Feeling emotion and sentiment,

Instinct, intuition, intellect and wisdom,

Are mere tributaries running their

Invisible scales of measurement.

The soil knows the body more than the soul.

Utility is the yardstick, qualifying life.

Life’s abstract contributions are supplementary.

The language of the body matters most.

Soothing words are sidelined by structural support.

Being physically close and useful  means, being needed;

But being physically close as a burden, looks unenviable;

Running out one’s utility, ruins the style of matter;

If ageing sickens the environment,

Life’s matter asks for being laid to rest.

Life is after all more matter than spirit.

                                            P.Chandrasekaran.

An Elegy on Vaalee,The Lyricist

     An Elegy on Vaalee

The throb of Tamil film music beat well

On your trendy thoughts’ literary spell.

It looked as though you lived to write;

Born endowed, with a creative might.

Ridding your roots orthodox, you moved,

To the broader skies, booing your brood.

On the poetic pan of an Ariya-Dravida mix,

Your lines put the parochial notions in a fix.

                             2

You learnt to live from instructive quotes,

Emerging from your contemporary’s notes.

Heroes and heroines of several decades,

Sang your words through  lip sync grades.

Lyrically a Ranger, with your radical rhyme,

You freed romance, from its controlled clime.

You knew the commoner by his pulse and beat;

Your ideas propelled his dreams,without retreat.

                              3

‘Let us praise those who share what they get’

You said, making the socialist mode, well set.

‘Will the breeze refuse to enter the doors of a hut?’

You asked,making the mouths the greedy rich,shut . 

‘Will the moon hate to throw its light for the poor?’

You raged, raising your voice with empathy sure.

You outlined values for a kid to become a leader

And said, good children were a country’s ladder

                                   4

‘When the sky sheds tears, the earth will smile’ you said;

The earth sheds tears now, watching you smilingly dead .

Your loss will make the creative clan profoundly grieve;

But your lyrics will live here  long, their hopes to retrieve.

                                                    Prof.P.Chandrasekaran.

The Punctuated Female.

''You have ever been the capital letter,

 Beginning my sentence.

 I have been allowed letters small,

 For an in-between fill up of ideas.

 You will bring a full stop to my words,half said.

 But you will enjoy the pleasure and privilege

 Of several commas and semi colons.

 You will always bracket me as a parenthesis;

 Whereas,you will manoeuvre to stay quoted,

 Within inverted commas and bold letters,

 As the truest maxim of life,being said louder than

 The well spoken words from my choked voice.

 While my life is a riddle of question marks,

 You live under blazing exclamations such as

 Hurrah! Bravo! and Oh!What a man!.

 Am I here to helplessly supplement

 Second level  punctuation marks

 To your body language and  bragging life style ?

 Look! You have once again made me

 Question the fate of my unfair lot,

 Putting me again in a punctuated spot.''

                                                    P.Chandrasekaran.