In life

In life:

Some days are too tiring

Some nights are too busy

Moments descends into minutes

Minutes melts into Hours

The Hours of daily routine

Comes to define

What we are

I wish to fly away

Just like the birds

At the slightest hint

But not like a coward

But with free will

© Tarun Mitra

Faith sees no Time

Faith sees no time

A devotee at Bhairav Temple at Midnight,

At Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, Jammu & Kashmir

Road and Life

Road and Life

For the Road

Have its both ups and downs

Light and Shade

And the by-lanes

The walkers there

Walk their way

Irrespective what Road might say

On some the sun beats down

Some relish

In umbrella’s shade

But the Road

Takes in on its sway

What if Life

Is that Road

With its Lights and shades

Ups and downs

And the Walkers

Walking their ways

And the Sun beats down

And drained by Rain

With all its by-lanes

Amidst all

Its stays there

Just like the Road

Even if

Walkers have their way

Sun beats and Rain drains

Light and Shadow

Play their games

And some might follow

Like by-lane

For the life

Is just that Road

© Tarun Mitra

The Waiting Hands

The Waiting Hands

The Petals showered

When they said “Yes”

And the ceremonies

Came to an end

They both sat

As elders hailed

Their blessings

And good wishes

Amongst these cacophony

Of laughter and grin

Their hands waited

With reticent zest

Amongst the petals

But at a distance

Just like dew drops

On the leafs’ edges

They both waited

For their time to come

But who’ll move first

They wondered

And among the cacophony

Of laughter and grin

Of shared jokes

And leg pulling

Their hands waited

With reticent zest

For a moment

Etched forever.

© Tarun Mitra

The Rose

“Beauty and love pass, I know... Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Another Hero Before his time (now available in Color)

Another Hero Before his time

(now available in Color)

Another Hero

Another Hero Before his time

Alleys of Chandni Chowk

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have’s mine own,

Which is most faint.Now, ’tis true,

I must be here confined by you,

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands.

Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill,

or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be,

Let your indulgence set me free.

-        William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Because Business is Business (Black &White Version)

B&W Version of Previous Photograph

Because Business is Business

Because Business is Business

A Vegetable seller plying his Trade in Chandni Chowk 

Knock Knock

"Knock Knock!"

"Who's There"

"Bugger off.."

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Sleep came silently

Sleep came silently

Amongst the hubbub of the place

And the man slept indifferently

To the harshness of his bed

As the world moved around him

And the cold wind wrapped its blanket

He slept nonchalantly

To everything else

Without a hint of luxury

Without the lament of poverty

The sleep came and he slept

Just a like a death

But unlike death He’ll wake up

To his piercing reality, sometime

And his stomach will speak in a language

Which only a stomach can understand

Till then he sleeps

Indifferent to everything else

Even if he had a dream

His dream will be realized in this harsh bed

© Tarun Mitra

Streets of Chandni Chowk

"I know he's there"
"But who?"
WHAM!!

At Chandni Chowk

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And she drove him around

And she drove him around

In her new-found freedom

The City is Busy

The City is Busy

At Jaipur

Lonliness

Lonliness

@Chandni Chowk

The Long Wait for Hope

A Long wait for Hope

Chandni Chowk, New Delhi

I too was young

I too was young

I was a smokin’ gun

Now ages have passed

Putting me into disuse

Now I am just a Showpiece

With a dilapidated view

In old crumblin’ palace

Which once was Royals’ abode.

© Tarun Mitra

Master and Commander

Master and Commander

Yak dance at North East Festival at Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts.

Sometimes....

Kabhi kabhi mere dil main khayal aata hain
Ki zindagi teri zulfon ki narm chhaon main guzarne pati
to shadab ho bhi sakti thi.

Yeh ranj-o-gham ki siyahi jo dil pe chhayi hain
Teri nazar ki shuaon main kho bhi sakti thi.

Magar yeh ho na saka aur ab ye aalam hain
Ki tu nahin, tera gham teri justjoo bhi nahin.

Guzar rahi hain kuchh iss tarah zindagi jaise,
isse kisi ke sahare ki aarzoo bhi nahin.

Na koi raah, na manzil, na roshni ka suraag
Bhatak rahin hai andheron main zindagi meri.

Inhi andheron main reh jaoonga kabhi kho kar
Main janta hoon meri hum-nafas, magar yoonhi
Kabhi kabhi mere dil main khayal aata hai.

(Written by Sahir Ludhianvi)

Aye Aye Sir

"You Ready"
"Aye Aye Sir!"

Babaji ka....

Snake of the snakecharmer at City Palace, Jaipur

The Flight of Birds

They too shine

Just like the stars

Dotting night sky

They too fly

When they are free

From their bondages

In a vast expanse

Above the solid base

All during day and night

They fly.

As if free

Without any boundary

Or any bondage

Borders or scale

With only sense of living

Feeding and procreating

They fly, throughout the days

Over those vast expanse

Above that solid base

They too get scared

And often scarred

They’re hunted

And devoured

In spite of all

They are free

Like the stars that shine

But during the daylight

No sense of boundaries or borders

Spreading their wings

Crashing on one another

They are free as they should be

© Tarun Mitra

India and Bharat

India and Bharat

On way to Garh Mukteshwar

The Cobbler at Chandni Chowk

If it was his destiny.
Then doing it properly is all that mattered.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

In the dim light of the lonely lamp

Shining amongst the millions lights

Lighting up the night

The lamp stood still, and dimming

Only one in that home

One soul had left

“Went to heaven” some say

But the void he left

Will be felt everyday

And on the night

When world was merry

And Skies brightened up

That solitary lamp

With its dimming rays

Recounted the days went by

‘Life Hangs by thread’ they say

But was this thread so weak

Snatched at a single pull

Scattering other threads away

As the lamp dims

So did his life

All of sudden it pulled

Where it went one cannot say

Dream or reality

Illusion or delusion

Or just some hallucination

As the time went by

The pain of loneliness was felt

And in memoriam in write

In memories of time we spent

In memories of your life

In memory of my genesis

In my untold love for you

Now I feel the solitude

Pulls and pushes of life

Filling your shoes I feel

How was it like

But the lamp finds it destiny

In an hour or two

This too shall pass, as saying goes

Memories can be bitter too.

© Tarun Mitra

The Old Man

So what! I am standing here

Doing nothing,

Smoking my heart’s content

Why do you bother, you kid

With strange thing in your hand

Don’t you have any work to do?

© Tarun Mitra

The Sleeping Man

The sleep came silently

In the middle of the day

And without the care of this world

He fell on the pathway.

It was near a tourist place

Where the world converges

But he lied there inanimate

Even as world crossed his way

With a sandal on his feet

Other floating in the drain

Flies on his mouth and feet

There he lay, almost dead

Beside him stands the taxi

Claiming to be ‘City Service’

The very city he came to work

From a village far away

This the world we live in

Loving emptiness of monuments

Amusing ourselves with the dead

Even if world is dying

We simply don’t care

Just move away, carefully.

© Tarun Mitra

The Sunset

“One day,' you said, 'I watched the sunset forty-three times!'


And a little later you added:

'You know, when one is that sad, one can get to love the

 sunset.'


'Were you that sad, then, on the day of the forty-three 

sunset?'

But the prince made no answer.” 

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Hard Work is Poetic

Hard work is poetic

In a sense

That

When a man sips

His first cup of tea

We click him

With our cliché

Terming him, with emotions

Coloring him, with our thoughts

And a deep sense of romanticism

Presenting it

As fruit of our labour.

But Hey!

Wait a minute

Did we forgot

Or failed to remember

That his first cup

Came after some hiccups.

Unlike us

Who tasted tea

Before we clicked

He’d clicked himself out

Before earning his tea.

© Tarun Mitra

German Cafe @ Bhagsunath Falls

Love
Grass
Bob
Himalayas

The Setting Sun

As the sun gets down
Amongst the floating clouds
Throwing its last rays
Scattered through the trees
My life, I guess, will move on          
To the beauty of nocturnal darkness
Amongst the spikes and shines
Of Stars of the lunar sky
Reflecting the days gone by.

But this evening is special
This twilight is about me
Seeing the lights going by
And hope a for the dawn
As I swim by the night
With those stars and sights
For a new dawn’s allegory.

© Tarun Mitra

Her Face

Sandhya Aarti

O Goddess

O Creation of Trinity

I honor thee

This and every evening henceforth

When the Sun Settles

And Darkness engulfs

Devil, Demons, Ghosts, Monsters

Openly they roam

Protect me

Preserve me

Shower on me your good grace

And peace

O Mother!

Accept my humility.

© Tarun Mitra

Sublime

The Fire
The Statue
The Sublimity

Preserving the Faith

A Priest Chanting Mantra At Durga Puja at GK II, New Delhi

The Faith

Durga Puja 2013 at Amra Sabai Bengalee Association, Vikaspuri, New Delhi

Jholu Ram Came

The Angry bird Jholu Ram Padharey

Deep and Watchful

Deep and Watchful
Were his eyes
Before being selected 
to play his role
In Annual Bengali Pride.

The Eyes

prakritis tvam ca sarvasya gunatraya-vibhāvini
kāla-rātrir mahā rātrir mohā-rātris ca dārunā. 


You are the primordial cause of everything
Bringing into force the three qualities (sattva, rajas and tamas)
You are the dark might of periodic dissolution
You are the great night of final dissolution and the terrible night of
delusion

The Bench

The Bench

The bench

On the old road

Within old Fort

Waited for its occupants

Who came their

With their little stories

With lot of love

And affection

Little nitty gritties of life,

Shared and declared.

Small fistfights,

Fought and Forgot.

And Remained was smile

And a cool embrace

From the good ol’days.

Now it waited

For them to come again

For their chitchats

For their fist fights

For that steal speck

In her cheek

Or that of her flying kiss

It waited, in spite of

Night or day

Hot or cold.

For the stories untold.

No one came again then

Only the birds sang

And people changed

Road was redone

And benches painted

It waited for its old occupants

But no one came again.

© Tarun Mitra