My New Poem "THE HALT"

THE HALT

The uncertainty of climate change...
The fear of the looming pandemics...
The moral and cultural decay, washed

Forcefully by ruthless torrents and distressing wails –  

The fire within and in the forests sparkle with
Ashes of plants, trees and animals;

Blistered souls and mourning heavens…

For, the world doesn’t know when things will hold?

Lost poise and faith deepens

Swelling across the escalating evolution

Of disastrous inventions by men;
And emerging diseases shrinks a fearful humanity

Retreating movements – calling for self-purification!

Timescales set to tune ‘nature’ has boomeranged —
Infecting individuals, isolating economies,
As the strings of globalised world
Risks this expanding contribution of the divide...

Whilst a sanctuary of refuge retreats into harbouring asylums!

Clustered amongst migrants and piling labour force
Countries carry the burden of decades of 

Cheap trust, bestowed with blindness and concealed justice. 

The giant magnet entangles. 

Breaking the isolation, the foot soldiers await survival...
And the world compensates the decay of progression!

It is time to halt.

Rajdeep Pathak

                        April 06, 2020                      

My New Poem - The Enchantment Trap

The Enchantment Trap

I am trying to teach a language

Whose future undermines our embellished past;

Where semblance of sanity is a façade

Exposing our attitude towards humanity…

In the frontline of deserted streets

Lay in rows of coffins and white spreads

Morphing into chains of interconnectedness,

As world blinks for relief!

Living into an unceasing constrained mobility,

Fragmented lives struggle in their resilience,

Scaling and reinventing powers and forces,

As survival strategies hang in strong winds.

Stumbling into the narrow passage of crushing austerity,

Humanity finds scarce land to bury the dead, whilst thousands

Mourn the anarchy of a few – hopes dwindle.

Fragile souls intrudes into the solitary reverie with

Crumbling images of flowers dancing in the dusty breeze

Battling obstacles of breathing oxygen and overflowing confusion!

Here freedom and choice clings into a fashionable

Cohesion of imbecilic legitimacy of materialism and greed;

Here industries return to necessities, crying solidarity.

Here closed landscapes and communities assemble their

Magical endurance of dodging the enchantment trap – once again.

RAJDEEP PATHAK

APRIL 2, 2020

“World beyond COVID 19”

Some Passing Thoughts: My New Poem - The Black Swan

Some Passing Thoughts: My New Poem - The Black Swan: The Black Swan Crisis on the horizon looms as the black swan flies Across from one distant land to another engulfing souls Figh...

My New Poem - The Black Swan

The Black Swan

Crisis on the horizon looms as the black swan flies

Across from one distant land to another engulfing souls

Fighting for survival!

Travails of people on the road struggling for safe passage

Through long arduous walks, beating the blackened clouds

And dark nights pierces the soul, as the impending flight awaits!

Distanced yet nearer, bitten and smothered,

The closure has dried up the sources,

As they march for safety and bread...

Stranded on highways, the masked diktat beacons them,

Whilst their resilience smiles upon them!

Who knows where life or death awaits them?

Who knows where danger and safety mocks them?

Who knows when the swan binds them?

Who knows when panic and resentment grips them?

And those that risk their lives day and night for others’ safety,

Bigotry mocks them from their own breed –

Harassed and tormented they await justice – security!

The black swan watches all behaviour – curling up slowly yet firmly,

Gripping impregnable men...

Careful for the black swan flies high...

RAJDEEP PATHAK

MARCH 29, 2020

(A poem on Covid 19)

Article - Women Empowerment - Miles to Go published in The Shillong Times

TIME...

Time…

Enclosed within the corridors of timeManagers rule over a world of desktopsAs office workers snuggle with their strategic coffee mugs;
Away from these power centresBathed in solitude, stories of wandering travellers and fakirs
Define life with elegance.. Far beyond usTime floats,
Life rolls on as the evening
Matures in quietude – restless, yet pristine!

                            RAJDEEP PATHAK

                                                                                   

Unsung Builders of Modern Bharat – Following Gandhi by Deeds_ A Review

My New Poem INTRUDERS

Intruders

Screams of innocence hung in the night air

For silence of sudden death pours forth bleeding soul

Upon the sleeping multitudes who rise in fear and pain!

Red skies cloud the fragrance of jasmines,

As scores of wailing mothers and wives

Mourn the young and old whose

Blood stains now get removed by water cannons

From stained brick walls and muddy streets!

Echoing sirens of fire tankers fulfill their rituals;

Whilst water splashes the thumping chests of

Few thousand voices that still bemoan the last hours’ loss!

Many in the alleys arrange for coffins and flowers;

Assembling pieces of memories and drawing sketches

Of bundles of moments, lost to a single bullet!

Candles and marchers capture the images once again

On a night vigil, as machines defy lost tranquility.

Like a work of several seasons, this cobweb of lies and loss,

Gazes from the doors and windows spinning more truth and untruth,

Into an ever intruding rhythm of solitude and crumbling whispers;

As the dusty breeze of fear and quietness survive in fragments…?

Rajdeep Pathak

May 19, 2019

Tribute to Kasturba Gandhi on her 150th Birth Anniversary

Article on January 30th 2019 - Gandhi Smriti - Tribute to Mahatma Gandhi

https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/no-greater-tribute-to-gandhi-than-a-minute-of-silence-in-his-memory-comment-january-30-is-martyrs-day-the-death-anniversary-of-mahatma-gandhi-119013000640_1.html