KHURSHEED AHMAD

KHURSHEED AHMAD

Struggle For Survival 1

Striving for survival is not a prompt to try pen at

It needs pens to be hanged on the wall and loins girded,

Grey matter calmed and red blood boiling,

Tongue tamed, ears trained to listen

To the unstated unspeakable woes.

Four chambers endowed with eyes and ears, four.

Delving deep in the emaciated faint gurgles

Dying at the dry sagging breasts of young widows.

A hungry stomach sprawling like a mushroom

Under a nude starless polluted sky

On the Rickshaw which has devoured bone marrow

From the Carcass in the scorching heat of the cruel sun.

The struggle dances naked on the red lips of a prostitute

As it is in the hymns of a Train beggar.

It is in the hope of cataracted old eyes of a mother

Waiting for her NRI son to return,

Just to run her trembling fingers through his hair,

To tell her only friend, left from a crowed of hundred,

That she is a prosperous mother.

Hope of surviving from terminal cancer,

Requiring bundles of denominations high,

In a family which puts fires off often to save for rainy days.

Faith of Bombyx mori in its cocoon,

Tolerating long starvation and air gag,

To fly as butterfly after caterpillar,

Is the struggle for survival.

Struggle For Survival 2

Living a common life ordinarily,

Not walking on fire, water or air,

But weaving the hopes and dreams,

With the half spun threads,

On a loose loom with a tired reed

Into a rainbow of tensile fabric,

With a heavy old shuttle,

Tired of resisting the wrap-threads

Of miseries, and holding to week

Hopes of weft-threads, are survival tactics.

Burdened under sinking weights

Of witch’s crown,

Surviving the taunts and blows

And reaching ninety at forty

Is struggle to survive.

Uprooting from the yard of parents’

Home, from the moist soil of love,

To the sunbaked soil of in laws,

Adjusting to cultures and manners new,

Wearing a perennial portrait smile,

Camouflaging sharp word pains,

In the draper of frying pans and smiles

Are the ways to live.

Chauffeur’s chaffering to get an extra penny

From his indifferent king,

Who doesn’t know the name of the man

Who holds the door of his luxury car,

To buy a doll for his darling,

Selling his long held pride and honour,

At the narrow gate of his fat boss,

Is way of life.

Heavy steps pushing a light cart,

Puny hands disintegrating banana bunches,

Monotones guttural feeble voice calling

In a street full of penuries,

To earn an evening meal for ten hungry chicks,

Waiting open beaked patiently at the stinking

Door less six square feet polythene hut,

Is the struggle to survive.

Struggle For Survival 3

Fear on the face of a young boy,

Whose nursery primer is mutilated,

Along with the drawing of his family tree,

Out of ten photos there are only three,

One is half and two are rendered arm less.

In the fires and gunpowder explosions

His vision and auditory senses permanently impaired,

His hope of living a normal life

Is struggle to survive.

Two lovers caught in the fires flames,

In their dreams in honeymoon bed,

Firefighters gushing fuel to douse the flames,

The doors and windows locked from outside,

Pinning hope to be saved by the firefighters,

Is struggle to survive.

Scratching the rubbles gently to dig out

Bodies of the loved ones underneath,

Commanding a tear, succumbing to gravity,

To stay still, till the watchful eyes are shut,

Hoping peace to return in the perpetual hell

Is struggle to survive.

A young bird trapped in a cage

Surrounded by thousand hunters,

With poisons arrows and bows,

Fearing the bird to flutter its wings.

To shake itself free,

Set the cage to fire to ensure it dead.

The hope in the dying heart to see his clan

Flying free in their own skies,

Is struggle to survive.

KHURSHEED AHMAD

KHURSHEED AHMAD WAGAY: The poet has done M Phil in English literature and works as a teacher in school education department in the UT of J&K, He teaches at IGNOU in the capacity of an academic counsellor and B Ed students of correspondence modes as well. He works as a District Resource Person to train the school education teachers. He is interested in writing flash fiction, short stories, and poems of his own style. His themes are usually depicting nude realities of life, the human struggle to find meaning in life. He likes to be called a feminist as he strongly believes in equality among all human beings. He is a confessional poet and is very subjective in his themes, which connects him with his readers. He has lived his life in the conflict of the valley which has shaped him and his poetry. His poems always have a tinge of violence, he has experienced and the love which flickers between the perennial phases of destruction and violence. He believes that literature is the strongest weapon and has cathartic qualities to eliminate the pent up emotions of the writer and the readers. He is a passionate writer and writes for himself. He has a lot of readers on the Facebook. He writes blogs as well. He has an urge to get published and read. He is a member of various art related groups on the FB wherein he contributes poems, prose pieces and critical comments on his fellow writers. The poet is a voracious reader and reads all types of works, classical and modern. He likes Urdu and Kashmiri poetry as well and writes in these languages as well.