Passion…unbridled

If I betrayed a friend it would weigh

Heavily on my conscience every day

Even if my friendship it did not cost

My peace of mind would be lost

I would not betray a friend therefore..

Yet I betray myself repeatedly when I ignore

My intuition; my gut feeling, my inner voice

And go against it to make a choice

That relies only on external influence

Disregarding cautionary advice from my sixth sense

Whether the outcome is favorable or not

I am left with an uncomfortable thought

Of having betrayed the values that I hold dear

In my own eyes dishonest I appear

*

If I listened to my intuition, I would be

True to my self and my identity…

Do I have rose-tinted glasses on when I see

How things are in my parent country

The land I had left years ago for opportunities more

Has it acquired an aura it did not have before

Such that everything is bathed in a positive light

People exude happiness, the future looks bright

The problems that seemed gigantic previously

Do not appear as enormous any longer to me

Is it real or is it my distorted perception

Is my patriotic fervor causing deception

Or am I comparing my motherland to my adopted land

Whose strengths and weaknesses now I better understand

My outlook on where I live now is no longer rosy

The rosy hue has shifted to my parent country..

*

What is better and where is a question for which it is difficult to find

A unanimous answer, different aspects come to mind

The place that you don’t live in constantly

Is the one that with rose colored glasses you see

I tried to pretend my light was still shining bright

Long after it had faded away leading me out of sight

And out of mind of the audience that had catapulted me

To the precarious high of being a celebrity

My larger-than-life status was built on the adulation

Of people who had liked my art, my presentation

As they raised me higher I forgot it was not my talent alone

That had made me reach the exalted throne…

*

I started with some talent, and quite a bit

Of ambition, luck, determination and grit

When I received recognition I was prompted to improve

As time went on, all barriers to success were removed

Somewhere along the way it appeared that my name

Synonymous with the success of a project became

Unabashedly, at least this I can say

I brought success and wealth to many in my heyday

*

The meteoric ascent to stardom changed me

That I was special, I started believing honestly

To improve my craft, no further effort I would make

Indiscriminately new assignments I would take

Confident in my ability to make them shine

The audience loved me, I was their God in a shrine

*

No star shines forever, it had to happen

The intensity of applause from my audience did lessen

Over time, because I had gone stale and there was talent new

Success cannot ride forever on a name, it’s true

I knew my light was diminishing but my ego

Could not bear to see my decline slow

By trying to hold on to my stardom tenaciously

I tarnished my reputation irrevocably…

*

The descent was swifter than my ascent

And now I lie forgotten, to repent

The arrogance that led to my downfall

Nostalgically, the days of my stardom I recall

The world will change

Even if you don’t want it to

Even if you grasp at old straws

Protest out loud, try to rearrange

Things that are new

In ways that are old

A changed world will challenge your ways

Mock you, deride you

Force you into acceptance

Eventually, while you are left

Bewildered, disoriented

And with a longing intense

For things as they used to be

The old world order as it stood

The traditional way of doing business

The old positions of hierarchy

The new order will upend

Your position in the world

Your privilege will not be upheld

And people will no longer bend

At your discretion as they used to

They might be the ones who are

Rewriting rules for a new world

That are not conducive for you

*

The world will change, change it will

Whether you change with it or stand still

The voices of those previously silenced

Will continue to increase in their cadence

You don’t have to protest, you should not resent

To create a more just world is the intent

If I had time to take a detour

Find an open meadow, breathe in air pure…

*

If I could have a commute unhurried

If I had the ability to not be worried

About household chores incomplete

If responsibilities at home I did not have to meet

If I could finish work early by a stroke of luck

I would make a conscious effort not to get stuck

In driving along the familiar route that day

Discover a new place along the way-

An open space, an art gallery, a sculpture enigmatic

An ice-cream store, a quaint bookshop, a mural dramatic..

To infuse into the monotony of daily life a small dose

Of novelty, let some happiness osmose

Into my soul, trapped in the quagmire

Of busy work that suppresses all desire

To seek out something different or new-

To break that tedium is what I long to do..

*

Time is usually not on my side

But once in a blue moon, I decide

To snatch from my busy life hours few

I try to drive on a route new

And stop when I see something I fancy

This exercise brings indefinable pleasure to me..

Sometimes, despite conscious effort, your ego gets tied

To proving that your viewpoint is the one that’s right

And even in the face of facts that otherwise state

To prove yourself right, all your efforts you concentrate

Hoping against hope to get results in your favor

Losing would make this a futile endeavor

But your ego gets smashed when you fall flat

Your opinion was wrong and that is the fact…

*

Sometimes the world seems stacked against you

And you intensely, desperately want to

Redeem yourself, and control regain

Being proved right would erase the pain

Of the failures you face, at least temporarily

In your ego a boost you would see

But life keeps hurling difficulties at you

You end up being wrong this time too

*

Then one day out of the blue

Stars start aligning, and you

Suddenly get more than one thing right

Without putting up much of a fight

Your belief in yourself is restored

You feel more confident than you did before

*

No one is right all the time, nor is one

Wrong on every count under the sun

The moral of the story is to have patience

In your own abilities, have some confidence

I need the power of storytelling that is great

The kind of story that can resonate

Within the deepest recesses of my mind

A story so profound that it can find

Each dark spot, each void, each hole

Within my being, nourish my soul

A story that gives my emotions unexpressed

A voice and meaning, let the suppressed

Frustration, sadness, anger emerge

Let me in the depths of the story submerge

At the end of the story let me be transformed

Let my belief in the healing power of stories be affirmed..

Like many ambitious women I had actively sought

Women as mentors, with the thought

That a woman in a position of authority

Would understand what it takes to be

Successful in a world that mostly belongs to men

But I did not realize my expectations often

Many times I found myself discouraged by

Women who themselves had climbed high

I found more men willing to mentor me

A fact that has stood out sorely for me

When I climbed a bit higher, I seemed to

Unfortunately replicate what I had gone through

Of other women I was hypercritical, unfairly so

Until I began to understand what I now know

*

Fiercely competitive the world appears

To women who break glass ceilings and barriers

In the heat of competition they seem to forget

That they have opportunities to set

Precedents for women who are trying to be

In their shoes,

By supporting their peers, they have nothing to lose

*

Why do we have this urge inexplicable

To tear each other apart, why are we unable

To support each other when we know

The light within us can make other women glow

We are troubled by patriarchal archaic norms

In order to bring about lasting reform

We must unite, support and empathize

With other women, let them also rise

When women empower each other and teach

Their daughters too, the consequences have far reach

*

Incredible things happen, someone astute said

When women don’t tear apart but support each other instead

As a woman physician, how should I look?

Where, if I may ask, is the reference playbook?

*

Between looking professional and looking nice

I seem to always walk on thin ice

Hair pulled back or worn down loose

Which one do I decide to choose

Projecting authority or looking young and groomed

By wearing my hair down am I doomed

To come across as inexperienced

Questioned severely on my competence

Or just show up with hair pulled back every day

Appear older, forego my vanity anyway?

Surely some makeup I should apply

Again to look more mature I must try

Can I paint my nails, and if so

For what kind of shades should I go?

I should wear flats or sensible heels

To look serious and even-keeled

*

So many rules that reek of misogyny

But a consummate professional I want to be

Viewed by patients as competent

Projecting gravitas, looking confident

Are important at work, therefore I forego

Looking nice, I only want my work to show..

We all have been sold this myth somehow

That taking a vacation would allow

Us to refresh, rejuvenate and return

With renewed vigor, eager to burn

Recharged energy at the workplace

Challenges we would be raring to face

*

This is as far from the truth as can be

After coming back from vacation, at least for me

I return physically but my mind does not

Accompany me back, it is lost in thoughts

Of paradise that I have left behind

When I return to my desk I find

That I dislike my job more than ever

If only I could have come back never

To my boring workplace, I would be

A much happier version of me..

The contrast between work and vacation

Widens immeasurably in my estimation

I want to get away from work once more

With greater urgency than I did before

*

It takes a few days for the intoxication

Brought about by my amazing vacation

To get out of my system, until then I drag my feet

To complete small tasks at work seems a major feat

Post-vacation instead of being an energizer bunny

I trudge through work like an overfed zombie…

Snobbery in society is quite prevalent

To discuss one kind of snobbery is my intent

Not to offend any feelings because I suspect I could be

A snob of the same kind, you see

I am talking about book lovers who can quite elitist be

About their taste in books, easy reads are not their cups of tea

They delve in highbrow literature, writing so complex

That one has to spend hours and brain power to process

What is written- if a book is straightforward to comprehend

It is not worth reading, they would never recommend

Racy thrillers and paperbacks that millions read

More sophisticated intellectual books they need

To display to the world their degree of erudition

They seek out large volumes and rare editions

And dominate any conversation (or steer it towards)

Books that they wax eloquent about in superlative words

*

As a bibliophile who seriously reads

At times when a boost my ego needs

Of being a book snob I have been guilty

Showing anyone who would care to see

How many “literary” books I have read

But before the arrogance can lodge in my head

I usually meet someone better read than me

And that stops in its tracks my snobbery

While authenticity is seemingly a topic hot

True authenticity is increasingly hard to spot

*

While hashtags scream “be yourself” everywhere

All the content that with the world people share

Is carefully constructed to display positivity

Airbrushed and filtered, arranged skillfully

To give everything a hopeful twist

A complex narrative narrowed down to a gist

That is overly simplistic, promising the one hack

That can make up for everything you lack

*

No matter how authentic you want to be

You still want that the world should see

The most palatable aspects of you

Real life is always messy, it’s true

To be truly authentic you would need to reveal

How in your worst moments you feel

*

As I write these lines, I have this thought

Perhaps authenticity is hard because we’re not

Meant to share everything with the world as we do

Our true selves are meant to be revealed to people few…

*

On an authenticity scale of one to ten

I rate myself quite highly but then

The worst of me under wraps I still

keep

My true authenticity is still buried deep

*

In parting, when ChatGPT tries to replace what I do

I shall need my authenticity to carry me through

(This artwork is authentic- the proportions are all off!)