A Long distance strand

He checks for the messages on his phone,
Doesn't have the time and this sets the tone,
Waits and waits for the end of the meeting,
Longing for a sense of comfort, be it fleeting,

His partner resides many leagues up the north,
Pursuing a career which she has just set forth,
Two cross two they live to earn their corn,
Proud of the strand which they have worn,

Earlier, the two were really a struggling lot,
Always holding onto every shilling they got,
They both were loyal to their vocations,
Regardless of where the job locations,

They do meet each other on the weekend,
Switching apartments for the time to spend,
Its not a luxury they can always afford,
One might stay back as the other gets bored,

For now they are willing to sit and wait,
With the wish to share each others plate,
They don't want to sit behind a plush table,
Just want enough to make their lives stable.

                                              - Rajmohan Yadav

Battling Geometry

This facet of Mathematics is what had beset me during my school days, I had competent scores in both Algebra and Geometry. However, scoring in Geometry took a real back breaking effort which can be assigned to its idiosyncrasies, the poem is just about that.

Its said two parallel lines never meet,
This was Geometry's page one greet,
Knowing these axioms prior was expected,
They made sense, hence tough to be accepted,

We had to know what are secant and a chord,
Without the basics, we were put to the sword,
For everything you need to know value of 'pi',
Only two digits after the point is what I can try,

The simplest of them all was the square,
You can solve it without giving a care,
It was all manageable till the rectangle,
I used to solve it without any wrangle,

Then came those bizarre quadrangles,
And this then gave way to the tangles,
The sides were all distorted,
Many sums I simply aborted,

The textbook had added one more dimension,
Felt it was time to finally get some redemption,
It now had the cylinder, pyramid and the cone,
I then had to get the calculation instinct to hone,

My bete noire were those triangles to construct,
Setting the scale was where I mostly got stuck,
My compass wasn't drawing arcs like a magic wand,
I took it upon myself to just scribble them by my hand.

                                                             - Rajmohan Yadav

The Painter

Gently wending his way through the slush,
Carrying that woody and bristled brush,
Unlocks the door with a rusted key,
Putting in place that well earned fee,

His hobby is his everyday work,
For his talent had no dearth,
He started off with making sketches,
Trying as much as his mind stretches,

His sketches were nothing extravagant,
Though his working would never relent,
But he found out how to make it better,
It was when he started using his colour,

The improvement was beginning to tell,
His handiwork had now started to sell,
Though the sum earned was modest,
He was happy that it was honest,

He painted walls that were alongside the rail,
Completing work was where he wouldn't fail,
The everyday struggle had not changed,
Some minutiae were now better arranged,

The paint and varnish had now taken a toll,
The hands looked squalid like smeared coal,
He could care less for them to look clean,
For him, it was all about living his dream.

                                                 - Rajmohan Yadav

Mall Fall

Given the grandeur of the malls these days, I had lost my way in one of them, it was only a momentary lapse, but I wondered if someone would get a serious dose of it.

Good old Jonny went for some shopping,
Discount, so the budget can take a cropping,
Mall at an arm's length, so no need to run,
He didn't really know what was to come,

At the door, the security take the bag,
To collect it later, they give you a tag,
Took a basket, putting it on the hand,
A gaping aisle in front where he stands,

The escalator is there for another floor,
He takes it going up to tier number four,
The temp is down, can it get warmer?
There is some fast food around the corner,

He thinks whether to buy or to eat?
Every shop has someone there to greet,
The inflated menu didn't look nice,
Hey, where was that merchandise?

Bemused, he takes a step back,
Outside the store, he loses the track,
Some difficulty in reading the signs,
Obscured by folks standing in lines,

In a circle, he walks again and again,
Has lost too much ground to regain,
Now the plan is to get out of the store,
A smiley Johnny asks to be shown the door.

                                                - Rajmohan Yadav

The Lottery Winner

In the evening he frenetically runs back home,
Looks at the screen and takes out his phone,
A little ticket he had brought last week,
Trying to match that statistical streak,

For him, it is more of an inveterate habit,
Thinking of the winning sequence to track it,
He has done this since he started earning,
Every draw always get his mind churning,

Once there was a winner he had read,
It is a path he intends one day to tread,
He doesn't have a lucky number,
Feels his luck is in deep slumber,

He always misses out by a number or two,
His instinct seems to go wrong without a clue,
The lottery ticket by itself is not expensive,
But the accrued amount does look extensive,

Just when he thought about giving it a skip,
His luck turned and the fortune took a flip,
A number sequence had managed to align,
Amount was modest and it was about time,

Asks himself if he deserved a bit more,
Good and bad luck was even in the score,
He thinks of giving it another try,
But quietly retires on a minor high.

                                    - Rajmohan Yadav

Engineering Submission

Submission, a word ingrained into engineers,
The one which is to bring the sum of all fears,
People hear the words going out to submit,
They know now they have to be quick,

Most are files, while others are assignments,
Pages need to be taken care for alignments,
First thing you need is the grade sheet,
Then you are set for the semester treat,

The assignment questions are eclectic by nature,
At first you are willing to solve and dare a wager,
You make a mistake or two in a haste,
Later resorting to friends, copy and paste,

You move out to get your assignments checked,
That red pen leaves the grade status wrecked,
You are determined to level it up in the file,
Changing the conclusions to suit your guile,

Searching a lab for the outputs to be printed,
Too many pages and the printer itself wilted,
You squeeze your writing to save one index page,
Doesn't matter, you always need one at a later stage,

Writing details on the file by putting it on the ground,
You wonder why would anyone want this to be found?
Then you get in the ruckus called the submission queue,
Xerox outweighs the wallet, you wish to have saved a few.

                                                               - Rajmohan Yadav

The Gaze Maze

A busy office can be a very bizarre place,
Putting shoes of love without tying the lace,
My desk was public at that phase,
Plus, didn't have much of a space,

First, I didn't realize she was there,
Luck is not always fair and square,
She had simplicity that was striking,
Her desk was distant for my liking,

Only got a glimpse from corner of the eye,
Wish I could at least say a welcome or bye,
I marked the time whenever she passed,
Had nothing which I could have asked,

I knew the moment when she would turn up,
I pretended to be working with a coffee cup,
It was the only thing up my sleeve,
Was not hard for her to perceive,

Though it never became a craze,
Sometimes she did requite a gaze,
Our eyes met with a fleeting stay,
Only for one of us to look away,

She got a new job and moved out,
I heard that and tried to stay stout,
A genuine mystery is the mutual gaze,
Your prospects are really in a maze.

                                          - Rajmohan Yadav

Office Day

This is about that Monday morning and the day thereafter which jolts you into office work from your cosy weekend. 

The Calendar turns with a change of week,
This is the end of the Weekend streak,
You have to put an end to the play,
Its a Monday, its the Office Day,

Hasten the brushing and the bath,
Put on the shaving cream for a start,
Razors are out and you wield it anyway,
All in the attempt of a proper Office Day,

The shirt and the tie are out in a haste,
There is not a moment to waste,
Cannot afford to have a delay,
After all, its an Office Day,

The door gets shut and the shoes are out,
What is left from Friday? That remains a doubt,
Embarking in a taxi you forget how much to pay,
You don't want to get late for the Office Day,

You are earnestly trying again to get in the zone,
Taking help from the office chatter to set the tone,
Tasks set in stone, now you enter the fray,
It is an uphill battle now on Office Day,

Its all over and you begin to clear off for a return,
Any interruptions now will be treated with a spurn,
'One nick lesser till weekend' you say,
You just completed this Office Day.

                                             - Rajmohan Yadav

Defining Religion....by programming!

      This is something which is being said for the umpteenth time, however here I have tried to give a frivolous illustration of how the myriad religions give the pied picture of the same force of God. Yet, for some reasons it seems that they don't get along. Anyone who works in the IT sector or has at any stage studied any programming language will be able to comprehend the following pseudo-code which I have written.

abstract class God
{
         abstract help();

         abstract seek();

         abstract guide();

         abstract judge();

}

class Religion_1 :  public God                       class Religion_2 : public God
{                                                                  {
         help()                                                          help()
         {..............}                                                {..............}

         seek()                                                         seek()
         {..............}                                                {..............}

         guide()             // ---------                           guide()             // ---------
         {.............}                                                  {.............}

         judge()            // ---------                            judge()            // ---------
         {.............}                                                  {.............}

}                                                               }

class Religion_3 :  public God                         class Religion_4  :  public God
{                                                                    {
         help()                                                          help()
         {..............}                                                {..............}

         seek()                                                         seek()
         {..............}                                                {..............}

         guide()             // ---------                           guide()             // ---------
         {.............}                                                  {.............}

         judge()            // ---------                            judge()            // ---------
         {.............}                                                  {.............}

}                                                              }

....ad Infinitum.

Now, I guess I just need to shed some light on it. God happens to be an abstract class which is there for everyone to follow and seek. 'Abstract' simply means that God as an entity which is present but remains intangible. Leaving the open question whether God exists or not and also if it is possible to find or at least get acquainted with God. This class is being inherited by every other religion and they, as per rules of programming, everyone of its methods get overridden. And needless to say everyone modifies these methods as per their own outlook. Plus to help others see the footprints in the sand everyone adds their own comments. And this my friend, is the crux of how any of the religions work.

P.S. - I am not an awfully talented programmer as you can see, so ignore, or better, point out my syntax errors of the C programming language.

P.S.S - I am not an atheist, but I feel religion dilutes the tenuous bridge between your soul and the one up there. Plus, I could have written the names of real religions instead of religion_1, religion_2 et cetera, but I guess that naming anyone, and more crucially not naming anyone, would only digress from the subject under consideration.  

The Assassin

This is a fictitious tale of a fellow who aims to assassinate an anonymous American president, however, he abandons his plan after accepting the ideal that democracy gives him a chance to bring about a change without betraying any humane principles, no matter how 'callous' the leader might seem.

Its the small hours and the clock goes off,
He is irked and goes to shut it with a scoff,
Reaches for the daily to peruse over the headline,
He tries to pretend but things are not really fine,

Some new initiatives have left him frustrated,
Decides to act as he feels much grated,
He is true to the principles of Red,White and Blue,
And is proud to see Uncle Sam saying 'we need you',

Reckoning that war is being waged over casks of oil,
He doesn't want a conflict for the nation to embroil,
He takes it upon himself to address the balance,
Whistling in the wind, he doesn't need a phalanx,

He slides the gun in his front pocket,
This he believes is a means to stop it,
A fragile ribbon of tolerance, he is about to cross it,
As it breaks, his conscious watches the step to block it,

Believing what Kennedy had told to be true,
Thinks of what can be done for country by you,
Founding Fathers had christened his democracy,
He feels that his blatant act can put this in fallacy,

He looks through the visage of Nixon and Carter,
But doesn't want violence for freedom in a barter,
The inner Assassin begins to shiver,
By Democracy's arrow in his quiver.

                                               - Rajmohan Yadav