If unfolding the daily is only a waste of time
i don’t mind
but it saps my energy, eats into my vitals,
makes me sick
Catchy headlines don’t arrest my eyes,
breaking news breaks me
too much light—I seek shadow for a shelter
One nation, a few parivars; Delhi’s AQI
due to bursting of banned crackers;
Murmu’s chopper wheels sink; Operation Sindoor;
Why Pakistan matters; COP30;
Nutrition needs nuance; Israel-Ukraine-Palestine-
Kashmir-Ladhak-Nepal-Bangladesh; Char Dham Yatra;
Men can mishit sixes…women need to be precise;
SEBI’s crackdown on insider trading;
Govt. working for smooth supplying of rare earth minerals;
2030Commonwealth Games,
Tesla’s launching of ‘affordable’ models;
Bihar election; SIR; 60 lakhs Under Adjudication,
Private solution for public pollution; Fights for jal, jamin and jungal;
Hindu Rashtra, RSS; Sensex is at 85,000; GDP Surges,
US-Israel-Iran War, Khamenei’s death, Oil crisis,
Pakistan strikes Afghanistan, Elon, Trump, Election,
Epstein files—all packed in a day’s daily or a week’s
Headline after headline,
Global, national and local; print and online
News of war, weapon, terror, hunger, death, disease, destruction
vie with the hues of fairs, fashions, festivals, shows and sports
‘The world is too much with us’ but how long?
I soon seek some ways to live—watching children
playing in fields, birds flying in the orange sky,
workers cycling home at sunset, peasants harvesting,
men taking tea at corners, women in scorching sun selling vegetables
at Kandi Bazaar, people buying evening lottery,
shopkeepers selling sweets, fries, and tarpaulin sheets,
missiles, missing children of, say, Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, etc.
are beyond my physical reach…
