Uncut Poetry

I Have Watched You Make the Ordinary Holy

We are what we make of the minutiae of our daily lives. Because love resides in them.
We have a simple choice - we can curse at the commonplace or be masters of the mundane.
 
The ability to observe and feel and let go, all at the same time, is what determines both the trajectory of our days as also the journeys of our heart.
 
Because the other choice is of getting overwhelmed with the negativity each relationship perforce brings. Because two people always mean two views, and often with no common plane to resolve them in.
 
It is at such times that our ability to look at the big picture by changing our focus to small things comes into play, and gives levity and counterbalance to everything which vexes us about the person we desperately want to love.
 
Love is scarcely ever a statement. It's a feeling which atomizes things into soul-pieces. 
 
A patch of sunlight on skin, her fingers gently touching flowers wilting in the evening, an un-sonorous note from her throat as she strums  an unstrung guitar, her proud serving of an unflattering dish made of quinoa, the irresistible urge to kiss her haphazardly reddened lips, the reassurance of holding soft hands with unpainted nails: the wondering if your name features in the lines in her palms.
 
And you wonder how someone can be an unhealed wound and a salve at the same time.
Love then is simply care, the care to look beyond quiddities, to where sunlight comes from inside the person you love.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the gentle art of loving - 
Lovers in the Morning
A Sense of Her Tenderness
The Girl Who Could Lose Everything for Hope
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 -
Die unendliche geschichte by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Die unendliche geschichte
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Let Me Sit Beside You, Quietly

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

Lemonade at the End of a Buzzing Day

I was reading poet Joy Sullivan's book of burnished sepia-tinged poems "Instructions for travelling west", and followed the footsteps of her poems into my childhood. Trying to catch the magic without sinking into syrupy nostalgia. And was amazed at how much I remembered - the games, the bruises, the sweat, the moths, ice-cold drinks - and just that feeling of unencumbered joy.
 
But much more than that was the closeness of friends - we were thick as thieves - and the refusal to break friendships because one of us was nasty to the other. We knew facts, and just swallowed them and moved on.
 
I think we learnt accumulation much later. The layers of anger and resentment and helplessness which, as time went by, made us smaller versions of what we possibly could be.
 
It was an irony of sorts - how we were much bigger when we were smaller.
 
I think normal childhoods glow because we have memories of goldfish for hurts.
Where did we lose it all?
 
When did we learn to layer our existences with slights and notions of unforgettable pain? When did we think memories are given to us to remember the worst of what life brings to us? We are supposedly the most intelligent creatures on this earth, and we let ourselves be buried under debris rather than stardust.
 
We are the privileged summer of fireflies, the vaunted recipients of a sheltering sky, we can crush flowers in our palms and know of its perfume, we can slip shoes and walk outside to save ourselves from scars.
 
Maybe it's time to reclaim the glow, which our lives have lost to the neon we thought showed the way to us.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the luminosity of childhood - 
Those Days of a Lost Summer
On Growing Up (that haze of sunshine & dust)
Letting Go (a childhood song)
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 -
Imagefilm015 by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/imagefilm015
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Do Wait For My Ashes

I am at that age when I see more deaths than births.
 
And, for some esoteric reason, such news arrives either as an early morning call - these are shriller, as if recognizing the weight of the tragedy -  or as a message deep in the night - when the night lights up with the neon glow of a phone which refuses to predict the darkness it predates.
 
And I skip a heartbeat. And the news seeps in. And then it takes a while to reconcile with a world with one loved one less.
 
Mansi's grandmother lost her husband six years back, and broke her back in a fall thereafter. Then an intractable disease made her lose her vocal chords. Then she lost her son a couple of years back to cancer. That really broke her. She became completely reliant on others. Deep inside she could not decide what was worse - losing her life partner, her son or face a future completely at the behest of others. She pondered killing herself. But she couldn't reach a fan and was just too weak to slide a razor across her arteries.
 
I met her about once a month. She was small in her bed, but her eyes shone ferociously, even as she gently caressed my cheek.
 
And when she died a few days back, she left behind a primer on things the bereaved needed to do, and not do, after her death.
 
She'd written -
 
"No one will give me a bath or change my clothes after I die.
No one will touch the feet of my dead body. That's not me. I have gone.
The mourning will not last beyond the time I'm consumed by the flames. Life has to go on and become normal immediately.
Everything I own will be donated to the Marwari Widows Society, including my zari sarees and my mangalsutra (please note).
Don't make my room a shrine. Remove all traces of me. I would hate to have my photograph put up with a sad garland.
Give my room to Sandesh. He needs a bigger one, what with him getting married and all. Remove that rickety cupboard. And that infernal painting by Asha that I've suffered for so many years.
Don't put my dead body in an electric crematorium. Burn it on a wooden pyre.
Do wait for my ashes.
And my last request. In time, take the ashes to the mangroves of Sunderbans. Not the sea, but the rivulets. And scatter them amongst the magnificent roots. I like the idea of vexing the roots a bit before floating into the infinity of the sea. 
If possible, can you do this in the monsoon? Then you will remember me as rain, someone who nourished you, teased you, but cherished life, and knew when to fade gracefully, leaving no traces behind, apart from freshly-hewn leaves."
 
And I know as I know myself, that we might lose the final shred of our faculties, but we will hold onto the last vestiges of our dignity.
 
Beyond the fug of appearances and compulsions, lies the burning presence of identity - often merely the idea of it - which we hold on to as a hungry dog holds onto a sliver of meat against hungry predators.
 
And we are all better people when we learn to embrace this reality of everyone we love, and those who love us.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on death and other passing ons - 
Sometimes Life Leaves You Alone
Assisted Suicide
I Heard That You Just Set Off On a Journey
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 -
Lonely bird instrumental by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Lonely bird instrumental
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Luck by Chance

So much arrogance!
 
I see people preen into their power, as if they owned every bit of what they are. Old wealth and position are often the worst. Privilege turns into a right; dissent sparks righteousness; power becomes a press drill; wealth is mistaken for intellect.
 
People forget they are humans - a bundle of gorgeous contradictions, always at the brink of errors, growing out of contradictions, alive inside abstractions, beyond simplistic judgements.
 
How can any man or woman walk this earth, be born into its beguiling aesthetics and lesson-worthy stumbles, its company of the wise, its examples of grace, and still arrogate themselves the illusion of knowing-it-all?
 
Decades into my life, I still sit open-mouthed at stories of unbridled resilience, and unrestrained joy; I still stand corrected - and I still let myself be a sieve through which the world flows and leaves traces of its infinite grace.
 
All  possibilities of life are on the table if only we let them be. The richness comes not from the dullness of veracities, but the magical world of infinite mistakes. When we swing our focus away from ourselves, we find a world full of possibilities - and we give ourselves the chance of becoming the flawed beautiful person we are capable of being.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how life is nothing by destiny - 
Sometimes We Remember So Hard
Waiting for My Flight For Chennai at the Calcutta Airport
I Have Often Thought About God
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 -
Lockdown by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Lockdown
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
 

On Falling & Failing

So much of our lives, nay, our heart-space, our mind-space, is about flying or falling, of binaries like coming ahead, being there first, being smarter than the other.
 
We live and die in comparisons.
 
And as always, when we wallow in shallow waters, we never ever get drenched fully.
Without realising that this is the way of the world, that we can be the maximum of ourselves, but never more, and that comparisons are a zero sum game, anathema to coexistence. And actually, if we apply our mind enough, they are the interim stage to combine strengths, compensate weaknesses and come out sturdier, more resilient, a team.
 
But much more than that, falling is merely the stage before getting up.
 
And to realize that in life everything adds up. How that happens is a matter of staying the course, and later, much later, looking back and seeing how it all added up to get us where we did.
 
The universe collects the debris of our heartbreaks, the whisper of our tears, the pollen dust of our regrets, and keeps them in a cachet of remembrance, pushing them back into our lives as accretions, as milestones, for us to know them as growth in time.
In the immensity of our lives, we should fall gloriously, fail with panache, and never forget to be kind to others - and to ourselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on failings and kindnesses - 
A Legacy of Kindness
Maybe, a Little Kindness
Return to 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 -
Your Name by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Your Name
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

When We Meet Again

Friends, lovers, relatives. People we know intimately. Who do we become when apart? Our bodies replace 330 billion cells every day. Every 15 years or so each one of the cells get fully replaced.
 
We do not remain the same person physically, then what about the metaphysicality, the psychology, the soul, the belief systems of us?
 
How much of us is built by the new people we meet? What is chipped away from the experiences we stumble into? Did an unshared sunset injure us? Did a random hurt hurled in the streets prove to be a last straw even we were not aware of? Did a birthday alone hurt us irredeemably? Did we pass through a crisis with no one to hold our hand?
What do we become when unobserved and unheld by the one we dearly love?
Like flowing water glides unhampered into every decline it finds, our beings slip every slope when there is no hand holding us through.
 
And then when we meet, everything familiar about us draws us in, the memory of what we have been, for and with each other, is the bridge and the magnet. We settle in quickly.
But slowly the stranger emerges; different reactions, differing views, till the person in front of us is not the one which we knew.
 
And our skin prickles, we sink into a growing dismay, and we realize we are holding a stranger in our arms.
 
Our decision to build a relationship anew with, essentially, a stranger is a matter for our heart and circumstances to decide. But nothing is simple.
 
Because, like in all relationships, we are prisoners, freedom fighters, compatriots and counsellors, all at the same time.
 
Who prevails finally is anybody's guess.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on arrivals and departures - 
En route (how I encountered war)
Here we are in the years
Aaschi
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 -
Andromeda by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Andromeda
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

En route (how I encountered war)

I was in Emirates business class,
on the way to Dubai, en route to a holiday.
I was happy with myself, my life.
A full meal, two rom-coms, one to go,
and the relief of my kids tethered,
as they slept after all kinds of indulgences.
There was a peaceful sea which awaited me,
massages, and sunset walks.
This is life, I deserve it.
I sighed into my smile.
 
Then there was static, peculiar to a plane,
the one which precedes an announcement.
Unusual,
as it was dark in the cabin,
and it was sleep-time.
 
"Ladies & gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I know I am disturbing you, as a lot of you might be sleeping. And I debated with myself before coming on. But I thought it would be fair to tell you this. You know about the war between Iran and Israel. If you would care to slide up your window cover and look down, you would see several streaks of light. They are beautiful. Those are missiles. From the direction you would know which country fired them and where they are headed. Don't worry. We are safe. We are several thousand feet above them. Don't worry. All I would like to say is - whoever you support, at the end of these missiles is death and destruction. Not awe. Not celebration. Hold a prayer for those who these missiles find. Because we are all humans. And we all die, when someone else does. Sorry for this intervention. But I thought a collective prayer might help. Good night."
 
I looked out and down into the clear space. And saw how calmly those beautiful streaks travelled with us. If they were humans, we would have waved at each other.
I looked on for long minutes, till the missiles veered and found a new direction. And we stayed onto our course. I am glad the children slept on. Else they would have wondered why their mother held on to the seat handles till her knuckles went white, they would have wondered why she had her eyes closed through the rest of the journey, they would have wondered why she was crying so inconsolably.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on wars of all kinds - 
Politics on the Dining Table
No Revolution is Complete Without a Ruined Soul
For Anyone Who Bleeds
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 -
 Cinema Blockbuster Trailer 10 by Sascha Ende
Begegnung Romeos Erbe by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Cinema Blockbuster Trailer 10
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Begegnung Romeos Erbe
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Survivors

I have always wondered about people who go through tragedy, and then fall into profound grief. Such that their lives change, trajectories bend, and a state of being moribund sets in.
 
In much of our existences, we are all living half-lives in our own way, pur-blind, half-dissatisfied, fully-disgruntled. The world refuses to work according to our diktats or wishes. And we are being continually rebuffed or embarrassed. Till we take it as normal. And then what do most of us do? Chin up. Take the blow. Move on. Things invariably add up somewhere. And find some sort of an equilibrium.
 
Because the future is a consummate stitcher of 'rafoo', a darner of torn existences.
 
But then there are those whose lives don't find their equilibrium, those who stay mired, however impractically we might think, in the turbid morbidity of past tragedies. For so many people, lives stop when their love dies, or heartbreak breaks a bond with life which they assumed was irrefutable, or a financial muscle breaks and their whole existence collapses.
 
They lose the will to find light, the flex to transition into an alternate reality, the humility to seek redemption, the ability to let go of happenstances and embrace realities, to learn, absorb, embrace and then become the light.
 
They never understand the value of taking life seriously but never so much that it becomes both a vice and a vise.
 
Because that's when they find themselves as castaways in their own stories, forgoing their ability to find a log, and the wind, to set sail again, this time with a fearlessness bordering on ferocity.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the dramas of life - 
Sometimes Life Leaves You Alone
Waiting for my flight to Chennai at the Kolkata airport
Why I Disagree With the Moon
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 -
 Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadness
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Tell Me, Tell Me, How a Tear Was Born

There are so many microscopic things which happen which tend to change our lives - not in cataclysmic ways, but in infinitesimal ways making us the persons we become.
A word said in passing, a kindness shown when not expected, a smile out of the blue, a touch when unexpected.
 
And when a person opens up to you with all her vulnerabilities, bare to her soul, regardless of consequences, regardless of the delicate position which she places herself in, is the time when something inside us shifts. We learn of the preciousness of trust, how simple keepsakes can be life-changing, how devastating and life-affirming can a peek into someone else's truths can be.
 
Paradoxically, our complex journey through our lives is made richer when our choices become simpler. To pause to see, to stop to listen, to go silent to let the noise subside, to acknowledge presence, to reach out, to reach in. Each person we meet is actually a cornucopia of dreams, actualities, hopes and compulsions. To breath with them is to travel with clear eyes and a pellucid heart.
 
To know that to know a truth of another is just another way to find our own truths.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on life and its infinite mysteries - 
Elegante Solitude
I Come With Mud
Assisted Suicide
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 -
Gracias by Sascha Ende
Kathrin by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Gracias
Link: https://filmmusic.io.en/song/Kathrin
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license