FLOWERS FOREVER

My pathway along the flower bazaar
is hiding its face in utter shame
under the carpet of discarded
faded yesterday’s flowers rising
a stinking aroma as the sun rises up.
They have no salvation and no way
of reaching ever the mother earth
to sustain life eternal, the destiny
denied by the high profile culture
in this flourishing metropolis.


Dirty soil is buried under the tar
layer – no way for a drop of water
to reach thirsty streams below –
as the sun comes up oozes vapour
in the golden city ruled by high culture.
Beside the flower-bazaar lays flesh-bazaar
flourishing spreading its infectious cult
on the high ways and in by-lanes
to other bazaars of hedonic tastes.
A plucked flower here is eye’s pleasure.


Flowers and flesh are graded and priced
from expensive orchid to cheap minor ones
according to affordability in fairness.
Calling the call-girls as sex workers
to honour the labour, the socially awakened
class absolves itself of cultural taboos
and makes way for them to the altar
of progressive newfangled civilisation.
Flowers are offered here to the idols –
the gods or leaders – among the moderns.


The orthodox tribes offer in worship
flowers with grasses ? gains ? leaves ? fruits;
their women who adorn vermilion and
the maidens aspiring for marriage wear
flowers on the heads, celebrate fertility.
Flower is sex, sexual communion in nature
love and romance, fertility and abundance
for all living beings, a healer,
a selfless sacrifice in unison in nature.



(27/11/2002)
((Flower Bazaar at Dadar, Mumbai is a landmark place. Though officially it is shifted to a new place about half a kilometre away, the place is still being used as a flower bazaar by hundreds of vendors who make their living sustainable. Read more on my blog ARCHETYPES INDIA in a coming post.)

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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

When we meet death face to face

"...What you do today, do it now." — Kabir

When we meet death
Face to face
Once too may times
There is nothing to loose.

When we meet you,
When we return home,
When we attend work,
Each time last time.

Each meeting,
Each returning,
Each day waiting
Each moment now here
Is celebration of life,
Veneration to death.


Remigius de Souza
28-4-99



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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Rain! Rain! Come again -5

Farmers’ agonies and ecstasy: sixtytwo years passed since Independence but there seems no end to farmers’ miseries

White cloud takes
charming colours –
Does not rain.

(written: 1999-2000)
(White clouds are like promises by the politicians.)

The educated elite may believe the farmers work only for four months and idle away rest of the year. Even the experts like Amartya Sen may not be an exception. Then what about the government and the bureaucrats, market and the industrial society of the First World?

More than Nature and natural calamities, it is the governments and bureaucracy, market and industrial society, by their lopsided priorities of development and progress, inflict harm on them; they are the real cause for their agonies.

There is much to learn for the governments, policymakers and the experts from the farmers: See "Watering the farms: Learning fro the people".

Remigius de Souza
August 15, 2009

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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Rain! Rain! Come again - 4

Monsoon showers
Rejuvenate the flames
Of forest ever —
Streams deep enter
Suckle suckling
Mother goddess.

(written: 1999-2000)

Sculptors, who make Ganesha and Durga idols during the festivities, year after year, knowing these idols will be immersed after the festivities; they work with devotion. Farmers too work on their piece of land with devotion. Thus their work attains the status of “vocation” – work with the element of contemplation – Spirituality.

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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Rain! Rain! Come again -3

Sowing seeds
Missed showers
Waning moon
Trickle of stream
Hanging hopes
On a moving cloud.

(written:1999-2009)

Farmers are not only artists, they are planners too, unlike city planners who flatten the land, or lakes, with bulldozers and divide it into to plan cities. Farmers’ planning uses contours of land (to manage water).

Farmers are also management experts. They manage land, water, seeds, weeds, fodder, tools, storage, logistics, and other ancillary crops and animal husbandry.

And the last but not the least, the ongoing maintenance of all the aspects in farming as a policy, which involves scrutiny, corrections, improvisations, repairs and strategies, within their available means.

Farmers may be illiterate but they are not uneducated as some elite believe.


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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Rain! Rain! Come again - 2

Cloud dark and heavy
Pours showers —
Resurgence.

(Written: 1999-2009)

Farmers’ art is in the domain of reality unlike painting, photography, words etc that create “virtual reality”. Farmers work on a canvas of a piece of land – small or big – with colours (!) of Elements from Nature: Prithvi, Apa, Tej, Vayu and Aakash (Earth, Water, Energy (Heat and Light), Air and Space); though consciously but never verbose about it.

Farmers are conversant with every nook and corner of their farms, and health of their plants.

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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.