Waking Up To The Sound Of Rain

 Waking up to the sound of rain 

On a rare dawn 

Brought disappointment of 

Missing out on the sunrise 

Which I crave to see a lot 

The breeze brought 

The fragrance of guava flowers

The teak leaves on neighbour's plot 

Flaunted happily with the breeze 

This is not monsoon yet 

Pre-monsoon showers 

Teasing about endless rains 

That could lash in the coming weeks

And the heavy winds from the sea 

I am lost in the thought of waterproofing 

As long summer showers have dampened 

Some of the walls in my home 

The sound of a small bird intrigued me 

It is trying to engage with its partner 

Sitting in a faraway tree 

It seems rain evaporated into the thin air

As sunshine is making its way back to the greens

Rain woke me earlier than usual. The prompt #FromOneLine generated a poetic seed. I wrote the thoughts evoked by it in this poem. Images from JD Nightbot and Relaxing Sounds Of Nature

3-D Printed Homes

As the demand for social housing 

Shoots up in many countries

The waiting list of council homes

Increasing with each year 

The number of homeless people in 

The streets increasing significantly 

Even in the developed countries 

There is a need for faster construction 

Of homes that need to withstand 

The climate change effects 

Large 3-D printing machines can 

Build a floor of houses within days 

All sorts of complex structures are 

Built with 3-D printing technology 

3-D printed homes made with concrete,

Hempcrete, and other materials show 

Good thermal and insulation properties Make homes cooler inside in hot areas 

Cost savings are possible with no plastering, With lesser manual work 

Multiple homes can be constructed faster 

It can solve social housing issues 

If governments adopt this technology 

It is ideal for constructing small houses 

3-D printed homes could be a cheaper solution for social housing demands. Hempcrete based 3-D printing can be sustainable solution for none availability of sand. Basic structures printing only need human supervision and providing the material. It eliminates labour costs significantly. Avoiding plastering can also provide cost savings.  ASME and The Guardian

Being Speechless

I went through 

Two weeks of horror 

Of being speechless

As my psychiatrist 

Misdiagnosed my 

sleep deprivation for 

a week as psychotic 

The drugs he prescribed 

Made me speech impaired 

It affected other organs too

I struggled to talk to anyone 

I feared if I could ever speak again

Even as the psychiatrist gave

Assurance of regaining voice 

As my friend enquired about 

The nature of the medicines 

And that it didn't improve 

The psychiatrist told me to stop using 

The medication in three days 

Slowly, I could talk again 

I was stuttering and 

Words were not clear

I had to tell repeatedly 

Loudly for others 

To understand what I meant 

An auto driver mistook me 

For a drunkard, and refused

To give me a ride to the market 

I had to convince him that 

It's the side effect of psychiatric drug 

I had to tell the same to everyone 

I interacted with in shops and in public 

Though it improved significantly

It wasn't the same and I needed recovery 

Thankfully my cousin took me to meet 

A new psychiatrist, who changed 

My medications to less potent ones 

And I was able to talk fluently again 

This poem is based on my real-life experience. I realized the importance of being able to speak to convey things to the people around me. Psychiatric/psychotic drugs can affect the functioning of different abilities and even organs of humans. The wrong diagnosis by the psychiatrist led to me being unable to speak properly for a couple of weeks. But those two weeks was the most challenging period of my life. Those drugs affected my sexual organ too. The psychiatrist told me about the side-effects of the drugs after my friend asked about them. There are side effects for even medicines given in mild dosages. My aim is to come out of the medication. The number of medicines and dosages has been reduced over the last three years. But still, a long way to go. I am under treatment for depression. The image was taken by Noah Buscher .

Black Beauty

Black Beauty written 

With the image of a horse 

Reminded me of the book 

I learned in my school 

While I was in the salon 

I have been there before 

The new hairdresser

Looked familiar 

I initiated a conversation 

And I remembered 

A salon bearing the same name 

Near where I used to live earlier 

My father used to take me there 

For haircuts as a school kid 

Where I had my last haircut

In my twenties 

He told me that it's the same brand 

I asked about the other man 

He was soft-spoken and friendly 

But he lost his voice somehow 

I remember him showing me the 

Facilities in the salon after upgrading 

And inquiring about life 

Whenever I visited the salon 

That man was the uncle

Images from the past came to my mind 

There's always a special bond 

With the hairdressers 

The stories they tell while cutting hair

They remember individual hairstyle 

They're the local vocal classifieds 

I used to look for Black Beauty 

But their board was gone 

A few years ago

I found it again

A piece from my past 

It was nostalgic to find an old salon relocated. For years I thought that they shut the salon. It is more intriguing that I have been to their new salon multiple times. At that time the hairdresser was a migrant from another state and spoke Hindi. I didn't notice their brand name. This time I saw the name and the picture of black beauty. It brought back everything from memory. The hairdresser was also glad to know that I was an old customer at the old place.  The images were taken by Erik-Jan Leusink and Agustin Fernandez . Thanks to Unsplash. 

Bio-Logs: An alternative to Firewood

Charcoal and firewood fire up 

The barbeques in the backyards 

More trees are cut for making a fire 

In Argentina, pomace, the leftover

extracts from apple, pear, and other fruits 

Spread on the grounds with sunshine 

For days to let the moisture dry 

Then it's laid in a brick-like thickness 

Again to dry to lose all moisture 

The dried thick slabs are cut into logs 

They provide similar thermal properties 

As charcoal and firewood does 

It infuses fruity flavor into the meat 

The pomace from olives is turned 

Into long bio-pellets as well in Greece 

Coconut husks and shells are pulverized 

And converted into short briquettes 

In Sierra Leone as an initiative to 

Replace firewood as it offers more heat 

These bio-logs can save thousands of trees, 

It can change the way people cook, grill, 

and barbecue in many countries 

Bio-logs could light up the fireplace 

In the winter in the old buildings 

And allow trees to capture more Co2

To fight the climate change in a small way 

I came across multiple alternatives for firewood and charcoal. I saw some videos from Business Insider telling stories of individuals making products that can transform the way people cook, grill, barbeque, or even heat. A lot of people might be already using these pellets, briquettes, and bio-logs made from fruit and farm waste from factories and in general. I am experimenting with poetry based on solutions available for solving issues affecting nature and climate. Images are taken from Business Insider.