In the Urban Wilderness

Illustration: Stuffed Crested Lark in a natural history museum

In the Urban Wilderness 

Perhaps I could sing words of birds  

Along smiling shoots of spring  

In the company of mango bloom  

And soothing green of cuckoo's Pancham,  

And dance under the canopy of clouds  

To the peacock's call in the backyards  

On the pathway of Meghdootam  

There in the abode of Saras;  

Or inscribe them on deadly diskettes  

For the posterity.  

In my mega-city, mummies  

Of birds celebrate, sing silently,  

In the tombs of Natural History.  

Who shall cherish the memory  

Of my jungle of skyscrapers  

And of glass buildings which scares  

The heavenly eagles away;  

Of serpentine Metro that snatches  

The abode of Shesha's descendants away!   

[29-2-1996]  

Illustration: Stuffed Crested Lark in a natural history museum: species of plants and animals are becoming extinct with progress and development of Industrial Civilization.(Image source: Internet)

Note: Pancham: the Fifth note of the seven tones. Eagle is considered Lord Visnhu's vehicle by the Hindus. Meghdootam: The classic literary work in Sanskrit by poet Kalidasa. Saras: a bird. Shesha: Primeval serpent that lives in lower world, the bed of Lord Vishnu, the ancester of snakes on the earth.

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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

सृष्टी-स्तवन

रेमीचे सृष्टी-सूक्त 

सृष्टी-स्तवन  (कविता), रेमीजीयस डिसोजा, मुंबई 

 दुवा पहा : सृष्टीयोग 


© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

COOL Legacy in the 21st Century (Poem)

All fall down

COOL in prestige – power – politics
with CAR-CAD-CLASS-COM
Quickies come handy
to push away or out easily
a man or matter alike.
Quickies all fall down
like a house of cards falls down.
(23-04-2004)
Note: Image source: Internet
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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Song of an aborigine in our times

By Remigius de Souza
(Originally published in Archetypes India)

Image 1: Bhills celebrate Holi Festival

In our ancestral Land and Waters
I am not a residue or a by-product,
of this monstrous civilized chaos
that challenges at every breathing
the honour and dignity of humanity.

We aren’t depressed or dejected
by our lack of wants; for us
Life rises above all artefacts.
Every breath is indeed an occasion
in deed for celebration
of Life forever to Rejoice

despite the chaos around so base.
It falls free at its own equations
and impositions, the notorious
and famous; all are about to be
washed off in time through
the floodgates of anonymity.

I assure you of my loyalty
to reach back in antiquity —
our spirits are ready to spring
O, my kinsfolk, in aboriginality.

Image 2: Bhill aborigine damsels’ impromptu dance

Image 3: Bhill aborigine damsels’ impromptu dance

Note: 
Image 1: Bhill aborigine tribe celebrate Holi Festival
Image 2 and 3: Bhill aborigine damsels’ impromptu dance at time of maize crop gets ready.Images by Remigius de Souza

© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

LIVING IN FOOL’S PARADISE

 LIVING IN FOOL’S PARADISE

Once conditioned by the system
Subjected to a quarter century
Of rigors of the mass schooling
It is not easy going, easy keeping
Aflame awareness
In the cyclonic waves turbulent
By the anarchist housekeeper
One tends to buy time
In the memory (of events, images)
In future (projecting hopes, images).
Transient is but Time;
Remi is racing with Time.

Mumbai
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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Hail Careerists!

Hail Careerists!
By Remigius de Souza

Arjuna sees only the parrot’s eye.
Hail Careerist!
Unblest me, I see
   the eye
   the parrot
   the twig
   the tree
   the earth
   that gives food.
I see the reflection on his eye
   of the sky
   that gives rain.
I see through its dark interior
   the picture
   on his retina
   of the clouds.
Arjuna’s arrow transcended;
Parrot was delivered of his birth.
But my bow and arrow dropped;
And I received my boon of mirth
(To be born again?)

CAREER is glorified in Industrial Age; it wasn’t different in any civilized society since its inception 5K years ago: It is power-oriented. The recent example is Steve Jobs, who recently expired. He was so possessed by his occupation that he had no time for his children, or to write his autobiography. He lived life compartmentalized, so much so, he did not attend to the aspect of “recycling” his own products when they are obsolete. This is a major lacuna created by the Industrial Civilization, which is against Nature’s Laws!

(Translated by the author from the original text in Marathi: See Link)
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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Circus (Marathi Poem)

Dombari are a caste of acrobats in Indian Society

Circus

From South Pole
To North Pole
Life —
A tightrope walk
. . .

Dombari are a caste of acrobats in Indian Society. In the democratic India’s changing economy, they are now vanishing: No rehabilitation, No education. Who cares?

They are mentioned in Siddhartha Jataka that date back to 3rd Century B.C. Would they ever reach Olympics, or vanish?

© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Firefly (Marathi Poem)

काजवा 

आम्ही आहोत क्षणभंगुर

पण आमचा आहे 

उजेड स्वत:चा 

नकोत आम्हास 

प्रेषित आमच्या न्यायचे. 

* * *

Firefly

We have a short life
but we have our own light.
We do not want
prophets of our justice.

* * *

With the woodlands and forests vanishing, with the use of chemical pesticide and insecticides in aggressive farming, the fireflies too vanish. Where would the younger generations see the firefly? Would they comprehend what a firefly is? Is it on the TV, on the internet, or in the Natural History Museums, which most unlikely?
Firefly inadvertently represents generaly the peasants and particularly Adivasi, the tribal, who are upright people.

Mumbai
[6-3-1989]

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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

INFORMATION AGE

INFORMATION AGE

In hogging without ruminating
I forgot my Fourth Need -
To release without polluting. …
Alas, to my help no Guru, no God.

* * *

19 – 03 – 2004
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Indian Budgets 12 years apart (2 Poems)

Fence-sitter

Indian Budgets 12 years apart (2 Poems)
By Remigius de Souza

Fence sitter's view (Year 1994)

Grand old Adam
From heaven
Of free enterprise
Wonders, watching
The acrobatics
Of the finance expert
How he manages
Indian rope trick
Of the annual national budget
In between the holes
In the sky, by
Terrorists' acts
And Bofor's kickbacks
So also, securities' scams
Until bomb-blasts sneaks
And Mother Earth shudders,
All of which rise on and on, along
The progress chart of GNP
Successively year after year.

In the arena of circus
The first rows
And the second rows
Are entertained with
Intellectual kicks,
While the acrobat makes
Those in the stands
Forget their woes
Back at home, awhile.

The Marx, the Thoreau
The Gandhi and Leo
Watch with thumb in mouth
While grand old Adam
From heaven of free enterprise
Relishes.
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(Mumbai: 8-3-1994)
__________________________________________

Ways to Wealth (Year 2006)
1 
Once a god adored adorned
many a head of door to an abode.
Now the gods take to the road,
beg for patronage. And the rich
beggars go globe trotting for
finance, know-how and trade.

2
Once the children of communities
cohesive received learning free
in the life-supporting skills in
branches of wholesome life-tree.

Now in the forward societies
they buy it at the trading malls
turning their clocks fast forward
until late to their adulthood
to earn their dough of uncertain
value to buy the living and life-
supporting services from expertise
at the thriving market place.

3
Now the bureaucrats – the masters
from the branches of expertise,
at their highest level of incompetence
in Peter Principle – take chairs;
replace colours faded of feudal-ship,
at the helm of the people’s affairs.

Now no wonder the prostitution goes
rampant and the pimps thrive on
as they make it quick with smile on
the by-ways and highways to wealth.

4
Now no wonder all the world children
– you and I, yours and mine –
are the cursed ‘unwanted generation’,
as much said, the ‘growing population’
by the stakeholder – the rational animal – man
as much done: the rape of Mother Earth.

(Mumbai: 04-03-2006)
Remigius de Souza
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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.