Screams of the Soul

Silent screams echo through the soul

hitting cold walls of empathy,

traveling through the void of the mind

afraid, anxious, petrified, to ask – Why?

Distractions become the norm

for truth is too hard to be faced

countless hours of sleep shield from reality

only to guide into the realm of dreams vilified

The heart bellows for peace, Alas! none can be found

for every step further, is really one back in the grime

Tears of surrender rush through eyes

Eyes hollow, vacant, looking up for a sign divine

What is left when fate robs the soul of imagination?

What? When myriads of noises cannot produce a single sound

Shaking hands write words for empty eyes

And the world we live in continues to turn around

Days turn to months and months to years

with life being expended as time marches by

Will a day come when we shall ask ourselves questions true?

Or shall we forget them in a life rusted to the hue?

We drown such sentiments on wet nights and empty holidays

with no strength to face the questions kept at bay

In a mad rush of meat and mead we forget reason

Not caring if we are pardoned, or shall be indicted in future

Ignorance is a common respite, yet shamefully so

For sentience is nature of glories whatever little be

All know, yet none acknowledge

Waiting, biding, till the wheel stops at their time

But I speak too much, for man possess no such elaborate thought

Evolved to nurture comfort, man remains a slave of dopamine

Quick to anger, late to let go, rushing for respite, anyhow that might

Sans reason sans judgment sans honor sans human

Wearing masks of habit, man veils his true nature

trying to live without prying eyes of society

In so he forgets, he is the one creating society

that the mask which hides him, works on both sides

Screams such mar the soul of sentiment

leaving behind a carcass of what was once human emotion

Sympathy, empathy, love, tragedy, become relics of the past

And I breathe, waiting for life as it lasts

Vishal Gupta
March 2016

Lost Consciousness

In the rustle of men shoving past each other

to be a minute sooner to their destination

In the land of crowds and speed, and wants and needs,

I take a break to get away from the madness

To look for respite, in some place afar

Without maddening crowds and no end times

where I can spend time listening to inner voices

which seem to have shut down for the moment

I reach for a plane, giant bug in the sky

which takes me above, away from the traffics

I look out to images surreal, of layers and layers of clouds

layer after layer, protecting one another

And between 2 such sheets, emerges the mighty sun

Lights reflected on clean sheets and angels beckon to man

to conquer them to walk on them

To wish to spend my life amongst them

The beauty the sight remains in my heart

For I need to leave it, for my journey has reached a halt

I drive amongst mountains, mighty and old

I wonder how what they’d have seen, since their births from yore

I wonder how they grew, fighting land and man alike

Or did they never care, and simply reach for the skies

Maybe if it didn’t rain out here, they’d have not been so rocky

maybe they’d be smooth, not having to had fought the storms

Virgin mountains, bereft of rains, unscarred, innocent, reaching for skies

Would they have been different, if not for their fights?

Perhaps the struggle was necessary, as told by the flowers which grow on them

for what even would be the point, of rock simply reaching sky

I wonder how He designed the world, where flowers grow on rocks

all it takes is a little struggle, and a lot of patience

Again and again my mountains were washed,

and again and again they grew further still

Finding new strength, to protect their children

Or for personal ambition, they never failed or listened

Perhaps that is their lesson, stoical hard yet gentle to love

Unfailing, unsmiling, living on in the world

Just then showers break

my clouds have come to life

Floating up there in the air as masses of specks

They choose to pour as water might

They drench me in love and terror

making me one with what I’d admired

its not the same as I had imagined

but I guess that’s how life works

I find shade and think of my struggles

So real in another world, yet illusions of some distant reality here

Yet this moment of mine shall soon be a memory

when I go back and fight my own times

Never have I ever called out to God for help during those days

Being atheist, I disregard such non-sense outright

I think I don’t deserve the right to believe in miracles of Hers

No, my struggles have been mine and mine alone

For the universe has never made things right for me

The universe has never played it right

and I don’t think the universe ever will

So I miss the connection so many feel

I miss the sense of false protection I may have chosen to have

And as I fight with aggressive and calm believers alike

I fight my battles alone, while being asked to believe

And believe I refuse to do, for already have I lost much to faith

For keeping faith hath never done me any good

and I lack the patience of waiting lame

In the calm of surreal natural beauty

I look upon in silent contemplation

Amongst clouds and mountains and rains and Gods

I hunt for peace I cannot find

For failed have I to search within, failing still failing will

Trying to find meaning in a universe without one

trying to look for inner voices now dead

I realize, I might be lost forever

Vishal Gupta

6 April 2016

Skies of Rust

Scars resurface when demons awaken

With grief, sorrow, remorse they threaten

Plagued memories make way to the soul

Death remains but the last boon for the bold

Hollow words now whet the times

Sans meaning, they stand divine

God looks, angry once now tired

For souls of men the devil has sired

Tears remain for those who think

Voices are crushed, brought to the brink

Winds from lungs too curb

The brave escape, the servile serve

Held hostage to our own affections we are

The struggle is within, not afar

Desires of a tranquil moment of peace grow faint

To be laid down one final time we lament                                                                                                            

Vishal Gupta

August 21^st, 2015

Lost Warmth

2 years had gone by, but the morning ritual had remained unchanged. Every morning, she would bring two cups of hot coffee to start his day. They had been through so much over those precious moments shared every morning. Fights settled, promises made, kisses shared, all with a sweet warm breath. She remembered how it had started… it was their honeymoon and she had woken up before him. Not wanting to wake him up, she decided to make some coffee for herself. He woke up from the sound of the pot and she offered the cup to him, which he accepted with a smile. That smile… she had never seen him smile like that in their year of courtship and she knew as long as he had that smile, there was nothing the two of them couldn’t go through. All she had to do was ensure he began every morning with the same smile, which he did till date. No words had ever been spoken. He had never asked. He had never needed to. The ritual had simply manifested itself.

She had come into his life hardly prepared for anything life would throw at her. Within a day, her life had turned around and she was not equipped to face it. Her mother had tried hard to instill some “household” manners in her, but she never bothered. As long as she could make Maggi and coffee, she could feed her husband, she used to think with a twinkle in her eye. Now she knew her words were true when in the middle of his sips he would sometimes silently come close to her and hold her in his arms, letting her know that her deficiencies didn’t matter to him. Sometimes, not often, he would allow small words of comfort to escape his lips.

The day of her miscarriage, he had brought her back from the hospital and simply laid her down on the bed without a word before going to sleep on the other end. The next morning, he woke her up with a cup of coffee for himself and a glass of warm water for her, taking her in his arms once again and telling her not to worry. Those were the only words she needed to hear. They had sounded so meaningless when the doctor had said them. Right now, they brought life back in her soul and she cried. Tears which had been held back then came rushing out now and he wiped every one of them. As long as he was there with her, no tear of hers would ever fall, she thought as she felt the taste of coffee on her lips. Coming back from the memory, she poured the bubbling liquid in two cups and made her way to their room.

As his bride walked in with coffee, he woke smiling… remembering the fragrance of his Aai’s coffee.

Vishal Gupta

October 2014

The Harbor Line 8/8 - Journey

A long time ago I’d read that every city has a word. For Rome it’s “SEX”, for Vatican it’s “POWER”, for New York its “ACHIEVE”, for Haridwar it’s “FAITH”. I have long wondered what the word for Mumbai is.

It’s “MOTION”. It’s easy to confuse Mumbai for a money hungry city with no soul. It’s difficult to think of Mumbai moving seeing hundreds of people idling about at the shores of the Arabian Sea after sunset on a weekend. But if you live here long enough, you realize that this city cares little for idle chats and somewhat lesser about money than what you’d expect. Mumbai earns, but Mumbai spends.

I come from a Maadu city where people hold the opinion that any expense should transform into an investment. Otherwise it is a waste of money. Mumbai doesn’t care. People here want to see their money move, even if it doesn’t grow. Maybe it’s the stress which is inherently built into Mumbai’s lifestyle. If that can be alleviated on a weekend by watching a play for 3,000 bucks, why not? But you need to keep moving.

I think it comes from to each Mumbaikar by design of the city. For no one grows up in Mumbai without being pushed inside a crowded train. No one ever thinks twice about taking up a job 3 hours away from home and spending a quarter of their day in travel. Being raised in such an environment, you get tuned to keep moving. You become impatient like the crowd. And life becomes a constant struggle to move ahead.

In many ways these trains represent everything Mumbai is about. A class divide. Crowd. Motion. Structure. Trade. Struggle. Friendship. Fear. Courage. And most importantly, movement. Moving on.

I remember the other day in the train I was engrossed in my Kindle that I completely forgot that the station had arrived. Not that it mattered. It was the last station and an emptying train would surely catch my attention. As I realized the station had come I packed my Kindle in my bag and started getting down when I heard the words, “Who’s bag is this? Get down fast!” Apparently someone had forgotten their bag in the overhead compartment and gotten off the train. Now in most parts of the world this would be a sight ignored. Or perhaps a good seminarian would take the bag to the lost and found section on the station. But for Mumbai, this was terror. At first I did not understand why people were running out of the train in sheer terror at the sight of the bag. It was a harmless bag. But more I thought about it more I realized that trains were a vulnerable point in Mumbai’s security. With a hostile neighbor attached to Mumbai by the sea, Mumbai had been a victim of repeated terror strikes in the past. Even though the last one had been 8 years ago, the memory of a 21 year old boy with a machine gun in one hand, and blue bag slinging on the other, on this very train station was still etched clearly in the memory of these people. It was a morning pretty much like that one. The station must have been as crowded as it was that day. And the people would have had been as unsuspecting. Proceeding to begin another day of firefighting with their jobs. Little did they know that it would be the last day of their lives. Mumbai remembered this. But Mumbai moved on. This city does not stop for anything. Not the wrath of Gods or men. Because that is what Mumbai is about. Moving on.

As time moves on, so does Mumbai. It is not a very old city. In fact till 1845, geographically it didn’t even exist as a single landmass but only as a collection of islands. Maybe that’s the reason the sea could never truly leave its hold on Mumbai and sends showers every year to try and reclaim its lost child. In the short span this city has been in existence, it has grown to account for nearly 10% of the country’s GDP. Most people would agree that this is an amazing feat and Mumbai is the most developed city in India. Others are obviously Delhites.

Still, as the Harbour Line moves down Central Mumbai, one cannot help but notice the heaps of garbage alongside the train tracks. To an amateur economist like me, dumps of plastic are also an indication of a flourishing economy, but one can’t help but wonder if the cost of such development is worth it. Those who are responsible for the mess are seldom affected by it, leaving the poor to grapple with the problems. An interesting thought came to my mind when I visited one of the many flourishing offices in Lower Parel, as shown in the picture below. There were air-conditioners on almost every window, and no single window was open. It wasn’t summer time in Mumbai, and I daresay the wind was pleasantly cool. Yet it didn’t seem as if those windows had been opened in a very long time, nor did anyone seem to be interested in such an ordeal. Closed boxes of offices with temperature regulation have become the norm and when something of this scale happens in a city like Mumbai, it cedes to become the action of a single individual. It then becomes what is known as an institutional phenomena, i.e. it’d be foolhardy of me to even recommend a solution like “turning off the AC and opening the windows” to any of my peers. Institutional problems are to be solved by institutional solutions.

But when did this ever become a problem? Was I too hasty in my judgment to claim it as one? No one seems to be really bothered by the air-conditioners running all the time. In fact, they welcome it. After all, one does need respite from the Mumbai heat. As the ocean proceeds to engulf the city once again, we happily seat ourselves in leather chairs and cool offices, never to mind what happens outside.

This makes me think, in our pursuit of development, are we proceeding towards our fall? The internet was invented to save time, yet it has allowed time to enslave us beyond the normal hours of any work. Air conditioners were invented to keep us cool, and now we’ve reached a point where they have become a bane for the planet’s atmosphere. Cars were invented to quicken and ease the journey, but one cannot drive in Mumbai without being stuck in dreaded traffic jams and shifting between the accelerator and the break. Our lives have continually progressed towards more and more complexity. Stress is at an all-time high. We strive to buy houses which we never have time to live in. We wish to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like with money we don’t have. Everything the wise had predicted once has come true. We never realize when the hands change the strokes on a piano to strokes on an excel sheet. And life goes on… As comfortably and predictably and you may imagine.

Yet, when the night falls, sooner or later it always does, and when it falls, leaving starry skies and quiet souls, the heart yearns for what it was born for. It yearns for the peace it has long left behind. Behind the tears of remembrance one dreams of enjoying the tranquil moments of serenity it was born for. And as the clouds approach you from the ocean near Marine Drive, a child beggar-performer begins to sing,

‘Ajeeb daastan hai ye, kahan shuru kahan kahatam,

ye manzilein hain kaun si, na wo samajh sake na hum.’