"BEEP BEEP"

Hello I am an sms.

You know what they call-

The Smooth Mumbling Shine

I love to mumble, murmur,

Moan, mutter, and also mediate.

Like bridging gaps and

Filling the vacuums.

Heart to heart, Phone to phone,

Soul to soul.

Whoever said our youngsters

are cold and lack skill verbally !!

Hah! You would be amazed

Of how highly they regard me.

Of my value they pen poems, ballads.

And hail me on the idiot box

Or in newsprint,

Superimposing my invincibility.

Oh, and go ask those distant lovers,

How much they await me…

Night after night, conveying complaints,

Dreams, Hopes, desires all unabashedly.

Ah, this almost makes me blush. Sigh!

So, this is how I mediate. And

This fortune of delivering Shine,

I inherited from my great grandfather:

The Postman. Hope he rests in peace

In his grave of lost, undelivered letters.

What pride would swell in his heart for me

Making the world smaller by the day!

How amazingly I became the catalyst for

The invention of the new “txt lingo”.

‘shrnkin’ all emo talk in2 160 chrctrs’,

I tell you, It is no mean task.

But, sometimes I also Meditate.

In the ‘silent mode’

Only vibrating my soul a little,

About who am I

After all, it is so fashionable

To be ‘existentially damned”.

Thus, I think I am suffering from

The “Mid-life crises”.

But of course I am so much loved,

So much needed by all.

Then why would someone want

To ban me, me of all!

Barb my freedom in this land

Blindfold my Shine in this land,

Fracture my constitution in this land

This land – the furnace of revolt.

Dismiss my existence all in all,

And rub away my traces however frail.

Yes, such a deep crisis to me it is!

They, some of those heartless, tech-less people,

Who oppose “azaadi” – basic freedom,

All that those vengeful demons do

Is kill people and impose Armed Acts,

Acts of inhuman obscenity,

Which disarm me and

Rob me of my only fortune

Of delivering Shine,

Unbound and unobstructed!

How I long to roam in the

Veins of that deranged Valley

From one phone tower to another.

From one heart to another.

Sending across signals of

Intimacy and what not!

I have known of texting carnivores

Devour all sorts of ‘interesting anecdotal’

Jokes about anatomy and the ‘bird n bees’.

How often they have evoked giggles

Frowns, and loud roars of curious laughter.

I have listened to those amateur poets,

When no one else would have dared to,

Impart their fragile craft of words.

To be honest, when I fell in this valley,

I fell straight into Love.

I have known all sorts of people,

Businessmen, housewives,

kids, students, unemployed youth,

Retired elders and lovers blah blah.

But in this Valley, angels reside.

Cooing and echoing their hearts divine.

Somewhere sobbing, sloganeering at other

Shedding streams of tears while

Somewhere Showering trails of stones.

These are people of wonder mysteries.

Their bereavement, their agony and eagerness

To mumble, murmur, mutter, and moan

in the smoothest and the most suave ways,

has been banished and causes heartache.

How can I not mourn then of my exile?

This separation, this abandonment.

Such coldness, such struggles of the land and heart!

I no longer dream, but see gory nightmares…

Of those lovely people asking Agha Shahid Ali

To reinstate the dead Postman out of his grave,

Into the existential Post office.

And in another I saw, young boys and women

Hurl their hearts filled with cold emotion

At the oppressor, again and again,

Conveying in blood all of their sadness..

And then another, in which I get my tongue

Trimmed, sewed, clipped, stomped and burnt

Only to be left as deranged as this Valley.

Able to “beep” but never able to sing of its joys.

Muted, gagged, silenced and hushed

Sobbing still in sleep, awaiting the end of

This long daunting slumber. Maybe

Till dawn breaks and ends this spell,

Mumbling smoothly its Shine into

Every demon of my nightmares.