When The Building Came Alive

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Kasturi Dhama Apartments — the play area where many evenings came alive. The lights would go out without warning. For a brief second, the entire building would fall silent. Then, from somewhere in Kasturi Dhama Apartments, a chorus would erupt. “Yayyy!” It is difficult to imagine children celebrating a power failure today. But in the Bangalore of the nineties and early 2000s, a power cut did not always feel like an inconvenience. Especially in the late evenings, it felt like permission. Permission to stop whatever we were doing, leave the darkness inside our homes, and step into the building outside. Before Kasturi Dhama became home, we had moved through a few different parts of Bangalore. My family had begun in Srirampuram and Vyalikaval before gradually cementing ourselves in Malleswaram for the next few decades. My earliest memory is of living in a vatara —a Kannada word loosely used for a building or a cluster of homes—on 15th Cross, near Karur Vy...
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Today!

In deep retrospection or rather introspection, I had a flurry of thoughts hitting me. This was just the right time to translate my thoughts to words!


It was the time of kings,
When there weren't many a thing,
A life full of joy and peace,
Every reason to feel at ease!

Today, the days of democracy,
Where life is getting crazy,
Many a people in the race,
To run the country through a maze!

In the darbar, subjects and ministers,
Many a talks, but none sinister,
A clear solution fell in place,
There was a feeling of solace!

Today, a mess of all sorts,
Leading a life full of torts,
Everyone fighting for fame,
But none to share the blame!

Those were the days,
When law had its say,
Morals and values formed the core,
People followed it without a sore!

Today, people have no time,
Anything other than a dime is a crime,
Morals and values today a sore,
Dime, dime and dime form the core!

True values have lost its meaning,
It is upto us to relive the feelings,
Of honesty, trust and mutual respect
Before it is wiped out; the last speck;

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 8, 2005 at 9:51 PM

    good one...but i like the dimes:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 9, 2005 at 12:45 AM

    Nice one ! food for thought...

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 9, 2005 at 8:31 AM

    Good one :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 11, 2005 at 12:45 AM

    had not read any of your poems before. u are pretty good at this man! and it was certainly an interesting poem.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 14, 2005 at 8:02 AM

    "Those were the days..." - hello?! aint u just 23 out in the big bad world for the first time? :P

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJanuary 23, 2009 at 1:38 AM

    Good one and really creative one

    ReplyDelete

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