MANASKAM KAKATI MID TERM

In reference to prompt no 1 here are my two poems based on two historical characters , who have also managed to inspire me big time :
* Lachit Barphukan ( Commander of Ahom Army at the battle of Saraighat)
* Freddie Mercury ( Singer of the rock band Queen )

    LACHIT was known to have hacked his own uncle who refused to do his duty at the post and instead sleep , the poem here is about the same incident and the circumstance.
                   

                LACHIT

 You the protector  of the realm,

You the savior of East,

The one to fight the mighty MUGHALs,

The one to kill the heroic Jumla,

You brought back the two lost brothers,

Jaintias and Khasis, from the Adobe of cloud,

You defended the Sarai ghat, 

You did your duty, you kept your word! 

You killed many of theirs, you beheaded many of theirs, 

But you also killed one of yours! 

One of yours who was only slow and only lazy! 

One of your uncles, one of your commanders! 

Wait!! 

you modern man, 

you the man of gadgets and engineering,

You the man of virtual memory and 

Programmed reality, 

You cannot travel five hundred years back, 

Only if your Einsteins and Newtowns did that,

Let me tell you, 

We had no cranes and no dumpers,

Neither did we have an airforce, 

We had more man than machines, 

The storm was approaching, 

The northern attack was closing on us,

Fate of hundred thousands, vested on  my man! 

My duty called me, I had a vigil, 

I saw and what I saw shook me! 

What I saw angered me! 

What I experienced made me question, 

My ability and my experience! 

They failed, they failed in thier duty, 

They slept and slept,

The bank was not manned 

My uncle? 

Our second commander? 

He was in his sweet river slumber by the bay! 

My answer was a hack! 

A hack of the sword, a gush of blood, 

A feeling of duty, a sense of guilt, 

Fear of the future , memories of the past! 

I rationed my deed, 

With my duty, with my need! 

I faced the north, 

With the anger of the guilt, 

I killed them all, 

East was mine, but he was not! 

He was gone, by far many miles, 

All I have are the memories good and bad

Of the glorified present and the tarnished past, 

Of an uncle and his nephew, 

Former  killed by the later, 

In the name of duty and honor! 


Here is the second poem based on the moment of closure of Freddie Mercury .

                         Oh Freddie!

 Stage is lit and the sound is checked,

Guitars tuned and the drum heads tightened,

Thousands await the glimpse of the champion,

The one who would sing the rhapsody bohemian!

From Zanzibar to London, 

Your journey gave us queen, 

Your queen have us rock! 

The epitome of love, 

Of man and woman alone, but you chose man! 

you were the champ for sure, 

You still are! 

You empowered, you touched,

Millions with the four octaves, 

Were you at all afraid to live with  AIDS? 

I am sure you were not, 

For you were the champ 

And you still are! 

Scared are the cowards, 

 you loved men in the men's world, 

And that was the power, 

For dead fish follow the stream, 

And you're not dead yet! 

You knew life was short, 

I am sure you cried and cried a lot, 

You hid it from us, from the world 

But it was pushing you to rot! 

You didn't give up, you didn't break, 

May be you did but we didn't see! 

You became the icon, idol that lived, 

Idol who made death wait, 

Idol who sang 

Idol who grooved before death, 

"Mother love" you wrote, 

Even when death was waiting, 

You spoke of love, 

You may be dead, you may be gone  

But you live here everyday, 

The rhapsody is alive, 

The champion is immortal! 

You're the example to man, 

Of courage, of life and of passion! 

You are true, you're legend! 

You were the champion, 

Ohh you still are! 

In response to prompt no 5 . here are the two poems based on the news events and I derived them based on the two biggest news of the year
1. Assam Floods which went  unnoticed once again 

2. The brutal lynching of Nilutpal Das and Abhijeet Nath

           East so forgotten 

The folks at AUD asked me to write

A poem that talks a recent sight

Of the nation or the nations might 

Of something we see and hear, right? 

Well I picked something we don't, 

See on the news heads or the big font, 

Of the houses with the huge lawns 

And the coconut tree  surrounded ponds.

 the land along  brahma's son

Of thousand sons and  daughters, 

Who had their house washed, 

Yet innocently wait on, move on 

That little chap whose school stopped,

Or the trader whose finance robbed? 

 Well I am talking of the east, 

Which has all the might beasts, 

Kaziranga or Manas, be their home. 

Tall grass, knee deep, 

Water below! 

Year after year, the waters wash, 

Year after year Majuli is cut, 

Mitigation denied,as lacs  cried 

In vain and in  agony, of the watery fight 

When one in kerala cried, 

Ten in here died, 

This algorithm of weird paradigm, 

Only brings to  us, a catharsis of vicarious

Mediums,

Mediums of this age, mediums of imagined discoveries, 

Mediums which don't tell the stories, 

Story of the little champ who hoisted the flag, 

Half submerged in water, 

And the story of the couple sitting vague, 

Whose only shop did get washed by the red River (Ranga nadi).

Tell me why 

 Is the east so forgotten?

Where have all the eyes gotten ?

To the people who know of our tea leaves 

And (of course) our rhinoes, 

Where were you when they faded 

When Bhupen's Lohit crusaded, 

To all the people who know of our tea leaves 

And of rhinos, 

Is the east so forgotten? 

Why is the east always forgotten!

About the next poem , I would like to add a few things , this poem is in memory of the two young men lynched in Assam's Karbi Anglong district in June 2018 by a mob of angry villagers mistaking them to be child lifters instead they had gone there to the Kanthilangso falls to fish and make music .
The poem I wrote is in a 4/4 rhythm pattern and the last two paragraphs are actually verses for a rap . I used rap/hip hop to get this expression cause historically RAP ( rhythm and poetry) and also rock/metal (in music) is known to express angst , horror , and revolution and this is a revolution we need right now , a revolution of awareness , a revolution to end the age old primitive customs and beliefs associated with witch craft or child lifting and bring an end to mob lynching altogether . 

                  Man Who Sees 

Beyond the emerald clad blue sky, 

Within the lucid transparent boundaries of dreams, 

I see, I see the dreaded imagery 

Of the boy, 

Beyond the grids of media and the social, 

Within the narrative of life, time and again, 

I see, I see the unseen burial, 

Of the sensitive jugend.

The mother perished , the father  died,  

 Even when living alive, 

I see in me dream, 

The colloidal films of a requiem, 

For the memories of the Lynched youth, 

A youth of music 

And a youth of nature! 

Said the mother he hated to kill a fish, 

And they left his face blemished, 

The other, said his friends, 

Played the guitar very gently, 

Like the maestro he was, 

in every instrument he bends, 

He was smashed, torn and his dreads? 

Cut into pieces, in hours he became a corpse, 

From the lovely human the friends adored! 

A mob of modern cannibals  

Killed them like animals, 

People blamed the tribals, 

Savages, said the tribunals, 

Isee the need now,. 

Of awareness, of reason, 

But what about  the men who committed the treason? 

They are not yet in prison! 

I see, I see the dream is a reality, 

I am the man who sees, the missing

tranquility, 

I see the protest in the virtuality, 

Of smart phones and connectivity, 

But where is the real positivity? 

My good folks, where is the sanity? 

To answer the inhumanity, 

Of the forsaken brutality! 

Or have you forgotten the atrocity, 

ALREADY!

In response to prompt number 6 , here is my photo story on my daily "journey" to the classroom(407) in the academic block .


Well , my day starts with the beautiful silhoutte
In the confusing staircase ,

                                                                                                   

     Back seat of the auto ,
      Images run through ,
       Over the shoulders
      It is called though

                                    Ridge forest has all the glow ,
                                    When it is rainy and low














                                                   

This road is familiar much ,

Three years of my life ,
I traveled daily 

Words fall short ,
Of this building tall,
Class is there, where it is all .

       

 

This is where the fun is ,















Commotion !
Commotion!
Emotion!

 This is where the food is!

This is where ,
The godfather is!