A Valentine's Day Single

Another fictitious tale of a fellow who is single on Valentine's day but is in high spirits about finding his perfect mate and always wears a smile over his veil of loneliness.

Walking along the pavement he is chirpy,
By no means he is on anyone's mercy,
Frolicking into the shop to buy the chocolate,
Broken down to the details of platter and plate,

Goes out to pick up his finest suit,
Wants to make sure it looks a beaut,
To the shop for the bouquet which is fresh,
Thinks love is simpler than a game of chess,

A year ago his date didn't really show up,
But still loves being caught in the love's rut,
The spirits are not dampened by inclement weather,
Eternal optimist, the heart still lighter than a feather,

Slowly it becomes dusk of the dawn,
He sits waiting for someone just to fawn,
He moves to dinner table to place a candle,
A perfect gentleman who avoids a wrangle,

But across the table, nobody is sitting there,
Nobody to return the gaze or the sense of care,
Content with his mind, he gives the candle a snuff,
This has now become an annual February trough,

The loneliness he feels is truly unrivalled,
But hope is something which can't be bridled,
Asks no favours from Cupid or Kris Kringle,
He is proud to be the sweetest single.

                                              - Rajmohan Yadav

Fast Food Fan

This is about a fictitious consumer of food chain restaurants who revels amidst capitalism :-P

It started when he was surveying a map,
There was an offer which was up for grab,
So he took out his good old bike,
To get some delicacy at first strike,

Across the lane,the shop is in the eyes,
Housing some cuboid French Fries,
Delectable, but the destiny is further,
Wanting a piece of that green burger,

Guzzling the burger, a moral victory lies,
Having the veggies which he never tries,
Done for day, but comeback for more,
Much is left to try in the fast food lore,

Walking on the pavement, a wonder he sees,
Piazza store adding that extra layer of cheese,
Numbers on the menu do look silly,
Here he doesn't mind onion or chilly,

There is that bespoke piazza topping,
Served up, now there is no stopping,
Such is the virtue of eating to your brink,
One will always need something to drink,

The ordered coffee is shade from being frozen,
Waiting, as your schedule is ripped and broken,
All this was the fast food fan in a gist,
Pre-eminent admirer of the capitalist.

                                        - Rajmohan Yadav 

Great Stroll of India

This is the fictitious traveller who tip toes its way across India's boundaries.

I travel to north, straight to the great heights,
Home to Kashmir of the awe-inspiring sights,
Seamless and spread across the landscape,
Sleeping conveniently under the icy drape,

I turn south where the tufts where seen,
This is where the revolution was green,
A desert was sweeping, majestic and grand,
An aroma of royalty through the shifting sands,

Sauntering across my throat had parched,
To the salt land, where Gandhi had marched,
Watching the footsteps of Father of the nation,
Peace and tolerance had a shared an intimation,

Then comes the marquee of India's finance,
A city where everyone waits for their chance,
It flows along the pace and also has its own grace,
Then you turn west and find the vast sea to the face,

India is there, stretching across as millions of islands,
Scattered and much further away from the inner-lands,
Trampolining  across the ocean, following the evening star,
Here comes the pristine and wondrous Andaman and Nicobar,

I undertook my natation through the Bay of Bengal,
Landed in Kolkata, so bustling it brings you to a stall,
Standing upon the misty brow, you lose yourself in the calm,
Inseparable is the North-East alongside Assam and Mizoram,

Straddled across India and Nepal, standing as a colossus,
Himalayas are imposing for any traveller who crosses,
India is culture who borders are open to blend,
As I mark through, this journey comes to an end.

                                                         - Rajmohan Yadav

Entrenched : World War I Tribute

Adjust your wristwatches by 100 years, and we are slowly approaching the phase of World War-I when the Western front descended into a trench warfare where soldiers where mowed down for seemingly worthless swatches of land. This poem is based on World War-I.

The Archduke's driver took a wrong turn,
Shedding gun powder on the map to burn,
Bullets were embedded in the Austrian's chest,
Peace in the continent was toppled from its crest,

A cascade of furtive treaties had followed,
Within a week, all majors powers were swallowed,
The Germans were nimble and decisive in their move,
Pouring through the Flanders for their might to prove,

Their march was halted by the French and British force,
Dead level, now the war was about to take a new course,
Both the belligerents had their gains to keep,
They were tacitly willing to take a back seat,

Likewise the conditions boiled at the farther Eastern front,
It was not the only place where the Czar would bear the brunt,
You wondered how much more horrid could it get?
Troops were stretchered off by a poisonous breath,

Mowed down were brigade after brigade,
Few were spared in the ensuing enfilade,
Escalation reigned, as the methods grew efficient and cold,
Everyone forgot the hat doffing glory that they were told,

The monarchy in Russia was toppled to everyone's dread,
The Czarist calendar had the month of October painted red,
America took notice as scribing of a telegram were revealed,
Crossing Atlantic, Allied resolve had garnered much needed steel,

Final manoeuvres were made and later they came to the table,
The warring nations were crippled and the mark was indelible.

                                                                          - Rajmohan Yadav
  

Engineering Attendance

This is dedicated to all the Engineering students who are on a wild goose chase of maintaining 75 % attendance all throughout the semester.

The new semester had now started,
Ways with the vacation had been parted,
The first lectures were right from the morning,
Attendance compulsory was told as a warning,

Somehow the first lecture had gone,
With cases of having multiple yawn,
Really struggling to make any progress,
There was an urgent need to refresh,

The clock said lunch was long way away,
Three hours left, we were there to stay,
The lecturers were true to their trade,
From the subject they never strayed,

Finally, the lunch clock had petered out,
Much needed break in a drowsy drought,
Not everyone turned up after that,
Some wondered what they were at,

The days followed as the pattern repeated,
Our department felt more and more cheated,
The students throughout the week dwindled,
Few even left the attendance sheet swindled,

As expected, it didn't go down too well,
Now was the time to ring the defaulter bell,
The class had given the notice board a cram,
And everyone gave that open book exam.

                                               - Rajmohan Yadav

A Lover called Government

A nation's government is much like a lover which makes promises, goes back on them and always expects you to give them one more chance. This poetry is dedicated to this quiddity of an elected government.

Five years up, they stood there outdoors,
Suddenly there were manifestos in the stores,
Ideally they should be under the rack of fiction,
It suddenly struck that it was season of election,

They trumpeted their way to the seat of power,
The promises had resembled a daunting tower,
Slowly the grains of time had started to flow,
The strains of the task had now begun to show,

My expressions changed as I was left surprised,
Some of the promises were being compromised,
Going back on their word had become a regular habit,
Every now and then they seemed to be at it,

But they also had a few tricks up their sleeve,
They skewed statistics to make you again believe,
They planned a retreat with a barrier ready to defend,
You wonder whether evading answers would ever end,

Years passed, they started again to look humble,
There was an admittance of a path with a stumble,
The talks of about not 'I' but rather a tentative 'we',
And you ask yourself how this could possibly be?

There is an earnest appeal for a second chance,
Another invitation to join and relive the old dance,
I guess the real character could finally be determined,
It is just a fickle lover which is called a government.

                                                                         - Rajmohan Yadav

A Mumbai Local Tale

This is about the travelling in the lifeline of Mumbai...the local trains...

I had never really travelled by them before,
But then long distances had come to the fore,
I got the chance to travel by Mumbai's local train,
And my friend, this is what I seem to have gain,

First I had to figure out the west,harbour and centre,
Doing that can sometimes leave your mind in a welter,
Then to buy the ticket you get into the ever burgeoning queue,
Given its nature, you begin to wonder if you are to get through,

You make your way to the station across the gate,
Almost bound to bump into someone who is getting late,
Going up the way on what looks like a steady staircase,
Whether you know or not, you are already a part of the race,

Better get down the stairs before any train arrives,
Otherwise you will be stuck and really have to strive,
On the station, stand and you better stay on your mark,
Getting through the door is well and truly not a walk in the park,

Stand, push then hold yourself and always be aware,
You get the feeling of being in a Roman Infantry square,
Mind the luggage, always stand and secure your position,
Don't forget the mark and the side of your real destination,

Time to disembark, and it is not really the difficult part,
A congested station has a go, you just melt into the flow,
Another staircase, and you see that the race is again going to be on,
You realize the pointlessness, and you wait for everyone to be gone,

                                                                     - Rajmohan Yadav

The Facebook Look

This is dedicated to the folks who spent a good lot of time to meticulously engineer their Facebook timeline including myself recently.

Waiting for the login page to load,
Sluggish internet truly gets you bored,
Finally something is up in your chrome,
Your Facebook page makes you feel home,

I was looking for a regaling status update,
Something that would be funny and great,
Then you wait for anybody offering a 'like',
None appear, you wonder if there is a strike,

There is a cover picture on your timeline,
For your wall, you think it looks fine,
Later on, it does get to manage a like or two,
For the news feed, respectably it got through,

I changed the display picture in a rush,
No likes on it, there was a unsettling hush,
Suddenly I see a display picture with likes replete,
I quietly proceeded to my timeline for a delete,

Folks jauntily update their location along with friends,
Commoners gleefully like just to show that one pretends,
People do add some events of their life,
Its a shiny world without any sort of strife,

Facebook is there to make your life look good,
It may not always show the truth that it should, 
But do carry on to login and chat away, 
It does keep you pseudo-social in a way,

                                                 - Rajmohan Yadav

Exam Hall Blues

This one is dedicated to all the folks who have been distressed in an exam hall, and that should be quite a hefty number.

The notice board uncoils and the dates are up,
You look at it and hope to rope in some luck,
You take a good look at the time-table,
To study you try to get ride of the cable,

Sheets are distributed and the bell rings,
In anticipation what the paper will bring,
You look through what questions you can solve,
It suddenly turns into a test of your resolve,

It is the end semester paper of full three hours,
Unlike cricket, you can't even hope for showers,
Given the time, you are slow to get off the blocks,
Saving your fastest and illegible writing in the stocks,

Two hours are gone, and you find yourself stuck,
Start to look around furtively for a stroke of luck,
You find the look of strife on your friends,
It kind of portends how this finally ends,

You take a break only to find 30 minutes on a drained clock,
40 marks still left, its time to give the inner engineer an unlock,
Going through the questions you are suddenly leaping,
Handwriting and ethics are taking an absolute beating,

You come out of the exam and the memory of it turns hazy,
Friends flock together to discuss solutions which sound flaky,
You do pass the exam, how? you begin to look for clues,
But all you can remember however, are the exam hall blues.

                                                                          - Rajmohan Yadav

Irate of the great (Spoof)

Rajmohan Yadav....what to do??

                 A bit of a background on what you are about to read. I have written this article as a spoof on some of the most famous quotes ever said by great luminaries over hundreds of years. So, the subtext of great quotes tend to be a message, for a person or possibly for a situation. But what if the main purpose of the 'quote' was to deride someone? So I have decided to bestow that honour upon me. Yes, I will take it on my chin as a means to create a light-hearted spoof and indulge in self-depreciation. So sit back as I play this out we a view on humour and my sarcastic self-promotion. Now we begin...apologies to all the folks who quotes have been mentioned here...no malice intended :-P 

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss about Rajmohan Yadav" - Eleanor Roosevelt 

"To be or not to be....whatever it may be...just don't be Rajmohan Yadav" - William Shakespeare

"To become truly great, one has to stand with people, and away from Rajmohan Yadav" - Charles de Montesquieu

"I am the greatest, I said that when I saw Rajmohan Yadav in the ring" - Muhammad Ali

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished by Rajmohan Yadav" - George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things and small people talk about Rajmohan Yadav" - Fran Lebowitz

"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is lost when you hang around with Rajmohan Yadav" - Phillips Brooks

"I believe the first test of a truly great man is how de deals with the likes of Rajmohan Yadav" - John Ruskin

"If you're going through hell, and happen to run into Rajmohan Yadav, just keep going. - Winston Churchill

"Don't ask what you can do for Rajmohan Yadav,very little, ask what Rajmohan Yadav can do for you, not much either" - John.F.Kennedy

"The pen is mightier than the sword, but if Rajmohan Yadav on either, then the contest goes into balance" - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"No culture can live if it attempts to open to Rajmohan Yadav" - Mahatma Gandhi

“To talk with Rajmohan Yadav for a meaningful conversation is the same as climbing a tree to catch a fish”- Chinese Proverb

"Never tell Rajmohan Yadav how to do things. Tell him what to do and you will be left scratching your head, thinking why you gave it to him in the first place" - George S. Patton

"Rajmohan Yadav is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one" - Albert Einstein

Battling Coding

Another one from the battling series,

I was introduced to coding in engineering,
Oblivious to what would be its future bearing,
Initially I didn't really have problems at hand,
I wrote programs like a magician with a wand,

But my bete noire finally had been found,
Its was the ultimate one of being time bound,
Somehow the clock played tricks with my solution,
Accelerating the same pattern was the real confusion,

Coding didn't feature in the intermediate semester,
By now that old wound was beginning to fester,
My first job process didn't really need to code,
The academic skills were enough to take the load,

At job my coding skills were jocund and free,
Though many could not come to terms for agree,
The point was that its essence was in the fun,
If rigorous or repetitive, then I would be obliged to run,

Then I enrolled for a masters course,
Now I was about to feel the real force,
Time drained, my coding skills were now a vestige,
It really had now taken a real beating on its prestige,

I was at it again vying for another job,
Some rejections felt like a daylight rob,
I was beginning to wonder why so bumpy was the road,
I was descending and had totally forgotten how to code.

                                                           - Rajmohan Yadav