“Wrong Way” – Nayana Nair

They forgot to teach me
the most basic thing-
to know which side I should take
to keep a check on papers, to see sense
when someone tells me what is politically right
and to agree when they tell me that identity is everything
not only mine, but of all those who live on same piece of land as me.
They forgot to tell me to fight and argue
in the name of and for the sake of people
who didn’t care about the fight,
who were fine living the way they did.
I ended up believing
that I could just exist without belonging to any shore
and maybe make my own
and pray that no one joins me
and turn my life into something to live by.

How could they have overlooked this ,
didn’t they foresee how I would sit awkwardly
midst strangers and have nothing to say
about how the world was run.
Would they consider me silly,
would they think that I am shallow
if I was thinking about the fictional character from a story
and his conflicts?
Would they judge me if the story in question was not about
wars, rivalry or mid-life crisis
but one of romantic ones with cheesy lines
that everyone seems to detest?
They should have told me to memorize lines from papers
and opinion columns
and pass it as my own,
when I was not interested to form opinions
on topics that seemed to be of grave importance to others.
I should know better than to write poems on love and sadness
when people are dying around me.
But I don’t.

I think I may have been brought up the wrong way
and there is nothing I can do about it now.
But I am not even sure whether
I want to fix the things
that I asked to feel ashamed of.

“Driving Towards Chaos” – Nayana Nair

Now that we are past the point to be bothered
and entertained with petty things,
and have moved on to greater ambitions
or heavier slogans.
The more dense our propaganda become,
the more we argue over the future we envision
for people who we assume to be clueless
about the perils that live among them-
I start having doubts
and maybe this is where my unravelling starts.
At the face of doubts
that have nothing to do with what I do
or how world works,
but the suspicion that maybe I am as clueless
as anyone else.
And maybe our enthusiasm for a better world
is what is driving it towards chaos.
What if the our judgement is clouded by the same
but stronger demons
that we want to exorcise from this world.
What if we are driving around in dense fog
and not even realizing it.
Or have we decided to go for it anyway
and count the casualties only when our heads clears.

“Heart” – Nayana Nair

I do not believe
that a heart can think or argue.
Or have its own opinion.
So what we call ‘heart’
is just a part of mind the rebels against logic or reason
with feelings so beautiful
and so heart wrenching,
that people felt the need to
name it something
more simple,
more fragile,
more powerful.

Heart.
It’s the right word.