Skip to main content

My car has no headlight


Chasing the headlight you drive the car
With single-minded determination to the destination.
You are in a hurry. Hurry!
There’s a whole world to be conquered.
The highway is as alluring as the holy grail.
Highway is a mark of development.
Development is the key to happiness.

In the undeveloped underbrush
In the darkness on either side
Lie mysteries sighing mantras of bliss
Fairies and dryads beckon
Unheeded
Rivers and mountains sing songs of beatitude
Beside the highway

Highways are full of light.
Dazzling light.
The world stands bathed in brilliance.

I embrace the magic of darkness
Away, away from the highway
Far away from the brilliance of your lights.

PS. Inspired by Indiblogger Edition 164


Comments

  1. Durga Prasad DashApril 8, 2017 at 8:55 AM

    Nice metaphors - highways, holy grail.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pranju chakrapaniApril 8, 2017 at 12:07 PM

    I am afraid of missing out on things that lie on both the parts of the world. The highway for the societal pressure (pleasure?) and the starry nights for self contentment. Afraid of getting stuck at the middle of the road vying for both yet afraid of choosing one over the other.

    A beautiful poem. Hopefully someday I will get the much needed clarity to start my blog afresh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 8, 2017 at 12:52 PM

      Clarity is a difficult thing to achieve, I think. Better to move on and clarity will descend in its own time.

      Some people just don't fit in on the highway. They have to find their own way which will be much better.

      Delete
  3. VeidehiApril 9, 2017 at 4:44 AM

    This is awesome :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Abhijit RayApril 9, 2017 at 10:21 AM

    "Development is the key to happiness". We are where we are because of development or lack of it. Human development is also development. Is it not unwise to expect human development when basic physical development is not provided?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 9, 2017 at 11:35 AM

      When it comes to poetry, there's only understanding or no understanding. No questions 😁

      Delete
  5. jayashreeApril 9, 2017 at 12:00 PM

    Good one !

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownApril 11, 2017 at 10:32 AM

    nice article
    visit our website : http://swamidevidyal.ac.in/b-pharmacy.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownJuly 24, 2017 at 10:29 AM

    Car Mirror Power Non-Heated in USA
    ackauto.com offers Car Mirrors in USA, Car Mirror Power Heated in USA, Car Mirror Power Non-Heated in USA, Car Mirror Driver & Passenger Side in USA.

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownSeptember 12, 2017 at 7:45 PM

    Aromaxfire.com Fire Extinguishers in Bahrain we provide high quality fire extinguishers, Fire Alarm System Suppliers in Bahrain, fire protection products & security systems in Bahrain. We also Provide Solution for Risk Assessment, Gap Analysis, Fire Audit in Bahrain.
    Maintenances and Services of Fire Alarm Systems in Bahrain
    Fire Suppression System Suppliers in Bahrain
    Intumescent Fireproof Coating Suppliers and Applicators in Bahrain
    FM 200 System Suppliers and Contractors in Bahrain
    Fire and Safety Companies in Bahrain
    Fire Fighting Companies in Bahrain
    Fire Equipment in Bahrain
    Sprinkler System in Bahrain
    Fire Extinguishers in Bahrain

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
10 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
19 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

Nakulan the Outcast

Nakulan was one of the many tenants of Hevendrea . A professor in the botany department of the North Eastern Hill University, he was a very lovable person. Some sense of inferiority complex that came from his caste status made him scoff the very idea of his lovability. He lived with his wife and three children in one of Heavendrea’s many cottages. When he wanted to have a drink, he would walk over to my hut. We sipped our whiskies and discussed Shillong’s intriguing politics or something of the sort while my cassette player crooned gently in the background. Nakulan was more than ten years my senior by age. He taught a subject which had never aroused my interest at any stage of my life. It made no difference to me whether a leaf was pinnately compound or palmately compound. You don’t need to know about anther and stigma in order to understand a flower. My friend Levin would have ascribed my lack of interest in Nakulan’s subject to my egomania. I always thought that Nakulan lived
16 comments
Read more

Octavian the Guru

Octavian was one of my students in college. Being a student of English literature, he had reasons to establish a personal rapport with me. It took me months to realise that the rapport was fake. He was playing a role for the sake of Rev Machiavelli . Octavian was about 20 years old and I was nearly double his age. Yet he could deceive me too easily. The plain truth is that anyone can deceive me as easily even today. I haven’t learnt certain basic lessons of life. Sheer inability. Some people are like that. Levin would say that my egomania and the concomitant hubris prevented my learning of the essential lessons of life. That would have been true in those days when Octavian took me for a farcical ride. By the time that ride was over, I had learnt at least one thing: that my ego was pulped. More than 20 years have passed after that and I haven’t still learnt to manage affairs in the world of people. That’s why I admit my sheer inability to learn some fundamental lessons of life. Th
8 comments
Read more