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There are good guys and there are bad guys. The good guys are ‘We’, and the bad guys are ‘They’. ‘We’ may not be as good as ‘We’ want to be. And ‘We’ may not even want to be as good as ‘We’ can be, or should be. But the bottom-line is – we are ‘We’. So, the good guys are always ‘We’, and the bad guys, always ‘They’. - owais -- This was earlier published in Poetry Chronicle and in the book, 'Love?'

As I grew up I found that life was not all we were led to believe. I found that it was not fair. I found that it was not just, nor equal, that it was not pure, nor virtuous. Until one fateful night, we were children, who were allowed none but the “pure” kind of love. Overnight, we were told to call the “dirty” love, “married bliss”. We who were not allowed to look each-other in the eye, we, who knew that sex was bad, were told to have it. And the men, and the women, the elders of the family, waited for the job to get done. The cardinal sin had become the very meaning, the sole aim of life. The rite of passage, the ultimate duty. With the ultimate disgrace waiting for those who dared fail. That was not fair nor just, not pure nor virtuous. When one sits back, and reflects he finds that there are two great realities of life: Power and Love. And each has its own scales. One provides the means to life, the other - meaning to it. One is called power, money, health, knowledge, beauty, brains...

Virus. Would you not call it noble? Lives, while its foe is alive and dies with a dying foe. Oh, the sacrifice, ultimate! Not like us, the inhumane humans, who need to kill, even before we eat. (And then wish to live ever after!) Doing its job with a single-minded devotion, vacillating not like humans never looking at any but the chosen species: It could teach us a lesson in determination and integrity. And yet: Armed with an awesome power over its eco-system, it is ever ready to destroy it. How very human! - owais -- This was first published in the book, 'Love?'

Birthday! The tenth of Ramadan my sixth birthday Mother is ready with the iftar snacks, to be sent to the mosque for the faithful. To be consumed at the end of their day-long fast. I leave, holding the hand of my cousin and the box of goodies. In the mosque a clean cloth is ready with some iftari already spread and some being spread. Happily, I set forth my offerings. An old man totters by Looks at the goodies with a gleamy lonely eye. I offer him a piece and he grabs it thankfully. A furtive glance at a long-coated man, bearded, respectable; and quickly, the piece disappears in his mouth. The hawk, disturbed by the sudden change in the steady pattern closes in: hits the man on his weary little head and shouts - Sabar nahin hota buddhe? (Can’t you wait, you silly old man?) I return home crying, my birthday ruined. . - owais -- This was first published in the book, 'Love?'

There was, once, a woman in my life, She wasn’t in my life, she lived my life. Then one day, I asked her for my life, and she told me – Your life isn’t yours at all; It is mine, for I gave it to you. I said – You live one, and I live one; we are equal, one and one. No, she said – You are unjust, you are cruel, I shall have both, And you have none. How dare you call us equal when I am the creator and you The created! How could you be, if it were not for me? You are, because I am, and still I could be, even if you weren’t. I did not know what to say. I looked around, then said: I wouldn’t be if you were not, yes, and I wouldn’t be if Time were not, And if Love and Beauty, Desire and Liberty, Mind and Matter, were not; and so wouldn’t you be! Why shouldn’t I give my life to them? And I have none, and you have one? - owais -- This was earlier published in Poetry Chronicle and in the book, 'Love?'

And lo! It is India My long awaited, long lost India. India, in rains. Far from the dust and sand the burning sun, the scorched earth the dead land I come back to you My everloving India. In rains. Life I see in every breath of the monsoon, in every gust of the cool fresh wind, in every blade of glistening grass. Life I see in the grey muddy slums of Bombay, in the shoves and the jostles at the VT, in the speeding and the stalled locals which acquire a certain elegance with the ground wet under them; even in the sulky faces of the Indian Airlines hostesses who are either incapable of joy or short of the glue that makes the plastic smiles stick. And life I see in the gay frolics of the young and not-so-young boys naked on the Chowpatty beach, celebrating the youth, not just their own, but of their earth too. Life I see in everything for I am in love with India, in rains. - owais -- This was first published in the book, 'Love?'.