Uncut Poetry

Replay - Let Me Sit Beside You Quietly

This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, replayed here with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it.
 
A colleague committed suicide today. 7 am. He woke up early, took a bath, did his pujo, and then hung himself from a fan. His wife discovered him when she didn't see him in the pujo ghar.
 
I'd met him the day before getting into office, and asked him how he was doing. He was cheerful. I asked him to drop by for a cup of coffee. Another colleague did two meetings with him. Another one said good bye to him at 7 in the evening. Just another ordinary day.
 
Last year his wife had come to me with their son and talked of how there was something which had snapped inside him. He wanted to resign. There was immense pressure, and he had an unsympathetic and cruel boss, who went unrelentingly after him. It was often ugly. And the pressure was getting to him. And he was doing frightened office-talk even in his sleep.
 
I and my HR colleague got him aligned with a good psychiatrist. And in a few months, he was as near normal as possible.
 
Till today.
 
Do we all have breaking points? However strong we might think we are. That point where our heart breaks and our mind splits. And a strange duality emerges, of moving ordinarily in an ordinary life, but carrying a soul in turmoil.
 
Didn't he have anybody he could talk to - with full vulnerability, unfettered by judgement? What was that last thought, before he took that decisive step? Didn't he think of the wreckage he would leave behind?
 
Is suicide then, intrinsically, a sad amalgam of despair and selfishness?
 
But more than anything, I'm angry at bosses who let go without constraint on hapless subordinates, without the sensitivity of the overwhelming effect their position has on those whose livelihood depends on them.
 
I only wish I had stopped for that coffee when I'd met him. Maybe he would have opened up. Maybe things would have been different.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on ways of dying - 
Assisted Suicide
Living Tragedy Forward
If I Commit Suicide
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Lonesome by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Lonesome
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

A Home Which is You

A home is a person.
 
I think I realized this a long time back. I loved all the homes I've stayed with my parents. Every time my dad changed jobs, and consequently cities and homes. And then in his final assignment in pristine Tribeni, on the outskirts of Calcutta, he kept getting promotions and we kept changing homes. The last one was a colonial bungalow with an acre worth of gardens, and a view from the terrace of the river. It faced west, and I've witnessed the best sunsets of the world while tucked into a comfortable wicker chair, a cuppa tea in my hand, just watching the skies change colours through a thousand shades in front of my eyes.
 
My mum has innate artistry, and in her heydays kept our homes immaculately appointed. The art and artifacts she'd picked up from her travels was displayed with an innante sense of aesthetics. Everything was squeaky clean and there was hell to pay if anything was found askew or a smite missed whilst dusting. 
 
And then I visited homes of some of my best friends. Messy, stuff thrown all over randomly, kitschy stuff fighting for attention with expensive mantelpieces, odours wafting from the kitchen. We could loll on the sofa, run in the drawing room and use any chair as wickets for an indoor match of cricket. And nobody cared when the balls hit frames and marks were left on the wall. This was lived-in, this was fun, and very quickly became the final definition for me of a home!
 
I could sense the strange dichotomy I could not understand at a subliminal level. I was too young. So I spoke to my mum about it. How it was such fun being in that auburn disheveled house, and I could be 'myself', whatever that meant at that age. And in our house,  there were so many rules - everything was restricted - running, throwing, jumping, shouting.
 
She was silent for a bit, and then smiled and said. "Done. Go ahead. Do whatever you feel like. No issues." And gave me a hug.
 
I was ultra-excited and invited all my friends home for the next raucous bout of indoor cricket. My friend entered the drawing room where I had shifted the sofa sets and the center table to create the 'pitch'. He looked around with his mouth open, in absolute awe, and then said something which turned everything upside down in my head. "Dekh, tera ghar mandir hai. Yahan baith kar shanti milti hai. Khelne ki doosri jagah hai na, mera ghar hai na. Yahan baith ke kitna acha lagta hai." ("Hey listen, your home is a temple. There is so much serenity here. There are other places to play, why play here? Let's sit down, I just feel doing that.")
 
And I understood. Homes were people, their personalities, their beings, their inner selves finding expression on the walls, the decor, the sheets, the furniture, the conduct.
 
And that was the day I learnt to immerse myself in all the homes I visited. Because the people I loved were as much their homes as they were the people I dearly loved. They were inseparable.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the places we find homes - 
A Home as an Open Dream
Finally Home
As We Meet at the End of The Day
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
A Sad Toy Story by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/a-sad-toy-story
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Naked, My Love

We complicate relationships because we deny simplicity or simple ways of loving or - maybe - the simple solutions to complex things.
 
Every relationship starts with a clean slate. Pure, unencumbered. Then it gets layered. One incident at a time, one feeling expressed at a time, and often (more vitally), one feeling unexpressed at a time.
 
And the grooves get cut and get deeper, sharper, as the unresolved creates acid and bile and sarcasm and anger. Love doesn't disappear, it gets buried deeper and deeper into crevasses which can't be seen, brought out when needed, indeed, often forgotten but embedded as bitter nature.
 
The tragedy is not that it happenes. We are humans. We have mind-fades, we are fools, we have unreasonable expectations. That is our charm and our curse. We never see a good thing for what it is, we take what is good for granted, we mess up, big time.
Unfortunately realization is slow, redemption is complex. Until it is not.
 
We stop making statements and start asking questions. We stop having expectations, and see the beauty of what exists. We stop comparing and fall in love again with what we had fallen in love with in the first place.
 
And we allow each other to grow into our inner beauty - by making it easy and pellucid and non-judgemental. We begin by believing that the worst he does is not personal. We begin by realizing that you are not the center of his very existence, and neither is he of yours. You are moon and the Venus - maybe Neptune also - but definitely not the solar system. Because we have needs beyond each other  - she could have a travel best friend, he could have a coffee best friend, another who he loves gossiping with, another with whom he discusses office politics.
 
That's why we are in this world, that's why we have the bounty of so many people in our lives. They all add something and make us complete and fulfilled and beautiful.
 
Neither of us has the right to deny that freedom to the other.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on relationships and how we navigate them - 
The Space Between Our Words
The Ironies of Love
Marriage Made Me a Philosopher
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
This world instrumental by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/this-world-instrumental
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

This light like love

To awaken every morning is to reward oneself.
 
The day is desperate for us to discover it, to unravel its mysteries and find its surprises.
We do not have to fly or be special. We merely need to be excited.
 
Then we can see birds with new eyes, and feel the air on our skin. We can sit quietly, sip a cup, gaze out of the window, and know this is what it is to be alive.
 
An ordinary life.
 
Many things could happen, maybe nothing. We might go to office, a normal walk in the park, or spend time with a friend. Or maybe fall in love. It could all happen just now.
All this in one mere life.
 
To see the universe in the very fact of our own day. To know that things pass even as they happen. 
 
To know we can be anybody, anywhere, anytime, and find ourselves to be sundrop and stardust and moonglow.
 
All in one solitary life of breaths.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how life is richer if it is slowed down- 
I Like the Ordinary Life
I Have Been Thinking of Life Again
Stealing Beauty
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Motivational soft piano meets cello by Horst Hoffman
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/motivational-soft-piano-meets-cello
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Before Beauty Takes Its Toll

There's so much in this world to be unhappy about. The reasons are endless. And we can fallow in the silky self-indulgence of not being in control and letting circumstances take their toll on us.
 
It's an irony of humankind that in the positioning of action and result, we bring in destiny as a critical component, and instead of letting it be a possible catalyst, we seek to substitute action with it. By further combining it with religious suppositions, we give laziness an exalted position.
 
And lose out on life.
 
We face life with slumped shoulders - and a severe indulgence in self-pity. We go to temples to first cajole god, then bribe the poor unsuspecting deity, and finally to confront and demand.
 
We seek to find happiness as if it's a commodity waiting to be excavated and distributed - as if it is  in short supply hence rationed by celestial diktat.
 
In all these years if I have learnt anything it is the simple challenge which life throws at each one of us - to use it to the hilt, to challenge it, to confront it, to squeeze it of its last giving life-affirming juice.
 
We are the stewards and guardians of our own destiny. Only after we've done our work does the magic of any stardust - which we often mistake as god's indulgence - falls on us.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the trajectories life takes  - 
On Falling and Failing
Lemonade at the End of a Buzzing Day
A Child Mulling on Life Beside the Sea
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Last Breath at Dusk by Sunil B
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/last -breath-at-dusk
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

A Poem as a Gift for a Girl With No Confidence in Herself

Don't we all know people who are gold - talented, beautiful, attractive - but who deep inside are uncertain about themselves. They doubt their abilities, and for ever (and ever) they look at every decision they take with trepidation, and consider themselves inadequate. And nothing one says to them, nothing, convinces them that they are talented and just fine the way they are.
 
Until something magical happens. Maybe a poem, maybe a person with insight, maybe a sentence, maybe a song, an art piece - anything which splits something open inside them, and lets out the feelings lying prisoner.
 
They are able to again look at the mirror and see themselves afresh, not with disgust or inadequacy, but as someone just right, just right to fit into the skin they inhabit, gorgeous because they are flawed, and happy to be who they are.
 
Is this transformation easy? No. Will it happen in a jiffy? Possibly not.
 
But when the touch of alchemy comes by, in whatever form, and whatever length of time it might take, it could transform the person. And then it is a resurrection, a rekindling, a reawakening.
 
And the gold always discernible to others, is the person they recognize as themselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how we blossom into the person we truly are - 
Lemonade at the End of a Buzzing Day
I Have Watched You Make the Ordinary Holy
When We Know Love as Found
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Oil by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/oil
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Closer to Death. Nearer to God.

Haruki Murakami said "Death is not the opposite of life but a part of it." 
 
Loss is an inevitable part of life. It could be the loss of a pet, the end of a relationship or loss of a loved one, the loss of a friend, the loss of a child, the loss of a parent or even our health.
 
No matter the kind of loss, it is never easy. It leaves a yawning crevasse inside our soul. Even if we recover, it's an unfilled pause to our life, a hiatus which often remains one.
At such times, to have someone beside us, someone who does not bring words, but just presence, a hardened softness, cool as breeze, with a depth that is not gravitas but air, someone who tells us that all relationships are sand, and finally sand in the wind.
 
As Rob Liano said -
"The sorrow we feel when we lose a loved one is the price we pay to have had them in our lives.”
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on death and the ways we move on - 
The Final Goodbye (or Why Lovers Decide to Die Together)
An Epitaph Made of Light & Air
I Love You
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
The Way to Kataka by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/the-way-to-kataka
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Marriage Made Me a Philosopher

Marriage:
it was the end of all illusions
and the beginning of philosophy:
 
marriage was a lesson in impermanence -
not an idea, a daily unfolding.
 
To remain calm in storms not of my making.
Dinner is late.
      Plans change.
          Cushions are moved.
I nod, smile, adapt.
an ardent disciple of Aurelius.
 
Closet space shrinks mysteriously.
my belongings become
philosophical concepts.
 
Arguments teach a truth:
words are insufficient.
 
“Where do you want to eat?”
“Anywhere.”
(Anywhere is wrong.)
And I discover the absurd
as Camus sighs in his grave.
 
I broach the thesis: “Let’s watch a movie.”
I receive the antithesis: “Let’s talk.”
And confront the synthesis:
talk about why no movie is being watched.
 
“What did I do wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
But something is wrong.
And thus begins a lifelong inquiry into metaphysics -
 
what can truly be known?
 
I examine questions of existentialism:
what gives life meaning?
Choice?
     Duty?
         Love?
 
I lay in bed,
see the fan whirl, and ask -
what is love, bereft of drama?
what is self, when it must bend?
what is happiness, when it must be shared?
 
What, indeed, is life,
when it seeks surrender,
but masquerades as gift.
 
Essay:
I sometimes feel that a philosopher dissects the deeper meanings of life, only to figure out that it is meaningless.
 
And invariably, it has to do with human interaction, thought, foibles, decisions, reactions. And within the rigour of its investigation and compulsions is the real time change which humans wrought on each other.
 
Marriage is the ultimate test of change and resilience. Crafted inside the crucible of love, it continuously tests the human power to forbear, resist, surrender and claim victory in survival.
 
A less cynical view would view the wedded journey as a partnership which keeps on recalibrating itself until it hits a rhythm and a seamless marching cadence.
 
In actuality it is a flawed construct, with a societal burden of "till death do us part". Which of course provides a longevity to breeding, rearing and mutual survival, but comes up wanting in providing universal succour.
 
We are complex creatures. Feeling, hurt, chemistry, comfort, vulnerability, ego, belief, residual memory, remembrance, all swirl inside us like a Milky Way seeking their pre-eminence. And invariably coming up short when sought singularly. Luckily we are social creatures , necessarily living in a world which won't exist if not for cohabitation and coexistence.
 
Thus ironically, the most successful marriages are the ones which recognise this need and build an ecosystem of relationships rather than one rooted in ownership, bound in jealousy, and closeted in insecurity.
 
And just this musing is what makes a simple man transition into philosophy.
 
Unknowingly, a man walks into marriage a simple human being  and walks out wiser.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on marriage and its consequences - 
She's a Fierce One, My One
Love's Night of the Long Knives
How She Knew (that he was unfaithful)
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Rising Sun by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/rising-sun
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The Long Now of Us

I sometimes feel we would be better people if we were slaves to love. Not to work for it, not to fantasize about it, not try to record of its wonder - but just to ease into its trust and surrender.
 
Because the secret of love's power is not its ability to sway but its strength to render vulnerability as an essential ingredient.
 
It's contrarian in concept - showing your weakness to strengthen your relationship - but that is how love gifts nesting space. We are allowed to show our worst, safe in the belief that we will be accepted, advised, admonished but adored. And in that paradox lies the crux of our ability to survive the worst of what life invariably throws at us.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the beautiful paradoxes of love - 
Where We Start & Where We End
The Space Between Our Words
The Ironies of Love
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
About Moments by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/about-moments
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

A Child Mulling on Life Beside the Sea

The whole process of growing up has an inevitability- and a tragedy - attached to it. A child grows up believing - trusting everything and everyone. An innocence which is endearing - and often encouraged, possibly because of it's anachronism and the fact that an atavistic urge inside us reaches out to something which makes us remember days when we were less cynical, less pessimistic, less prone to mistrust.
 
But how fast realities catch up.
 
Our desire, nay, our encouragements for children to grow up to be 'good' human beings, bumps into reality checks. The advice is then tempered with small counsel like - be practical, don't be an innocent, you have to look out for yourself because who else will.
In a wildly confusing world, our children end up being human beings who are copycats of others- self absorbed, confused, unreconciled and ultimately neurotic.
Innocence - moribund or ignored - seeks its own burial grounds.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the sea and what it does to you - 
I Heard the Other Day
Kripa (a blessing from a daughter)
The Art of Living
Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Sea Waves
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/sea-waves
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license