Skip to main content

The Love Song of Masks

Source: Here


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening threatens with phantoms
of nightmares rising amid
the gongs and chants in the Baba’s kingdom.
Let us go, through certain half-deserted corridors,
The muttering retreats
of restless souls in search of what they know not.

Netajis and Lalajis meet to conspire,
Having donned the mask to suit the affair,
Baba ensconced himself on god’s throne,
His women standing around
with smiles on ready-to-serve masks.

The chanting rose in the huge pavilion
Like ghosts in search of their places of rest
While the gongs resounded in the vacuum 
of yearning chanting hearts

Baba stood up having signed the latest deal
With Netajis and Lalajis
And the women’s masks smiled

The eyes met furtively.

And I have known the eyes already, known them all –
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase.

Baba dictates formulas to chanters and gongers
Netaji to chelas
Lalaji to bankers
Women to Baba’s staff

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase
Are staring from behind a mask
That’s hungry for what it knows not.

PS. This is written for Indispire Edition 133 #masks

Note: The lines in italics are borrowed from T. S. Eliot’s poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.


Comments

  1. Durga Prasad DashSeptember 2, 2016 at 9:06 AM

    Of course sometimes the masks of babajis, lalajis and netajis fall off. Still, the game goes on. It was great reading your post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 2, 2016 at 9:10 AM

      They think we don't see through their masks.

      We are helpless, that's the simple fact. And so we too put on masks in order to survive in the hell created by Babas and their people.

      Delete
  2. Anupriya KumariSeptember 2, 2016 at 9:53 AM

    Once again a great post!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Renu VyasSeptember 2, 2016 at 10:57 AM

    The Babajis, Netajis and the convenient world of masks..it never stops, does it ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 2, 2016 at 11:03 AM

      It won't stop ever because nobody dares to disturb the universe created by the nexus. There's no survival if they dare.

      Delete
  4. Amit AgarwalSeptember 2, 2016 at 11:52 AM

    Stupendous indeed!
    (It doesn't matter what your political inklings are)facts are facts..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 2, 2016 at 12:11 PM

      Such openness to facts is rare too. Thanks for that openness.

      Delete
  5. Utpal KhotSeptember 2, 2016 at 1:23 PM

    It never stops.. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. MansiSeptember 2, 2016 at 4:30 PM

    And yet again.. It's so good to read your post.. Liked it :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 3, 2016 at 9:04 AM

      Glad to know you liked it. Some themes refuse to leave me. They have become part of my being because of what they did to me.

      Delete
  7. sunaina sharmaSeptember 2, 2016 at 6:19 PM

    You chose my favorite poet.....And I smiled at the very first line...and frowned while reading the rest of it.....No babas with Eliot.....intolerable.....:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 3, 2016 at 9:04 AM

      Eliot had flirted with Indian spirituality too. Probably he understood it better than our Babas.

      Delete
  8. Pranju chakrapaniSeptember 2, 2016 at 9:43 PM

    That's a different take on masks. The ugly but truthful nature of masks worn out of desire for power and praise and politics. Loved it. And as I always say, I ought to be reading more of such poems.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 3, 2016 at 9:06 AM

      I had firsthand experience of one Baba's fiefdom and his close associates. I have never seen more crooked and villainous people than them.

      Delete
  9. SaketSeptember 3, 2016 at 12:57 PM

    Effectively written.

    You chose Netaji, Lalaji, and Babajis to tell about masks. Agree that these are the ones who are proven mask wearers.

    But this makes me think that there is a little of Netaism, Lalism, and Babaism in all of us :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 3, 2016 at 1:46 PM

      Survival requires that we adopt the strategies of our enemies.

      Delete
  10. UnknownSeptember 3, 2016 at 7:25 PM

    Nice one sir. Its true we can't change this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 3, 2016 at 7:57 PM

      We can't. The world has always been run by that nexus.

      Delete
  11. Anupam PatraSeptember 5, 2016 at 9:18 AM

    Compelling work Mr. Tomichan. This needs to be shared widely.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ivan the unusual friend

When you are down and out, you will find that people are of two types. One is the kind that will walk away from you because now you are no good. They will pretend that you don’t exist. They don’t see you even if you happen to land right in front of them. The other is the sort that will have much fun at your expense. They will crack jokes about you even to you or preach at you or pray over you. This latter people are usually pretty happy that you are broke. You make them feel more comfortable with themselves even to the point of self-righteousness. Ivan was an exception. When I slipped on the path of life and started a free fall that would last many years before I hit the bottom without a thud but with enormous anguish, Ivan stood by me for some reason of his own. He didn’t display any affection which probably he didn’t have. He didn’t display any dislike either. There was no question of preaching or praying. No jokes either. Ivan was my colleague for a brief period at St Joseph’s
14 comments
Read more

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher
14 comments
Read more

Joe the tenacious friend

AI-generated illustration You outgrow certain friendships because life changes you in ways that nobody, including you, had expected. Joe is one such friend of mine who was very dear to me once. That friendship cannot be sustained anymore because I am no more the person whom Joe knew and loved to amble along with. And Joe seems incapable of understanding the fact that people can change substantially. Joe and I were supposed to meet one of these days after a gap of more than two decades. I scuttled the meeting rather heartlessly. Just because Joe’s last messages carried words that smacked of intimacy. My life has gone through so much devastating fire that the delicate warmth of intimacy has become repulsive. Joe was a good friend of mine while we were in Shillong. He was a post-graduate student and a part-time schoolteacher when I met him first. I was a fulltime schoolteacher teaching math and science to ninth and tenth graders. My dream was to postgraduate in English literature an
11 comments
Read more

Kailasnath the Paradox

AI-generated illustration It wasn’t easy to discern whether he was a friend or merely an amused onlooker. He was my colleague at the college, though from another department. When my life had entered a slippery slope because of certain unresolved psychological problems, he didn’t choose to shun me as most others did. However, when he did condescend to join me in the college canteen sipping tea and smoking a cigarette, I wasn’t ever sure whether he was befriending me or mocking me. Kailasnath was a bundle of paradoxes. He appeared to be an alpha male, so self-assured and lord of all that he surveyed. Yet if you cared to observe deeply, you would find too many chinks in his armour. Beneath all those domineering words and gestures lay ample signs of frailty. The tall, elegantly slim and precisely erect stature would draw anyone’s attention quickly. Kailasnath was always attractively dressed though never unduly stylish. Everything about him exuded an air of chic confidence. But the wa
9 comments
Read more

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse
8 comments
Read more