borderless

Take me back to a time
Before borders separated men.
Before flags proclaiming nationhood
Fluttered against a borderless sky.

Take me back to those moments
When love was free to exchange
And humans held on to the ability to wonder
And smile at differences between them.

Take me back to the world
That once was one.
Where it didn’t matter how rice was cooked
Or meat was had
Or jewels worn
When all that mattered
Was the gratitude of being alive.

Take me back to the terrain
Where the earth still smelled like herself
When the sky and seas were still azure
And didn’t need the illusion of perfection,
For they were already so.

Take me back in time
Where women knew their might
Without having to proclaim so
Where children grew alongside the wild
Without knowing fear or despair.

Turn back time
Will you please,
For I do not understand
Why we must draw lines between us
When all we have is just one earth
For all of us to share.

lessons from a broken plank

she sits upon a broken plank,
cracked from the weight of people
and the sun, the winds and the rain.
beneath it flows a turgid sewer,
greyed with the dirty linen
of the city.

upon her lap lies an infant
and behind her an older dame
who picks nits from the lady’s hair
whilst running a commentary
on the lives of their neighbours,
tv soaps and their men.

i wind down the windows of
my air conditioned car to watch
this curious sight
of huddled thatches. homes.
and the lives they hold within.
but my conditioned nostrils
suffocate.
my oesophagus retches
at the smells.

between the glass and me
lies this unknown world
and i shudder at their misery.
then i look.
i look and see
that infant smile.
and the lady plant upon its cheek,
a wet kiss.

this must be happiness, i think.

and all this time,
i looked for it
in my wallet.

for Malala

shoot me again, if you must
but listen first.

Let me shake your memory a little,
Lost as it is from truth.

it was i that birthed you
watched you slip,
bloody from my womb
and said a thousand prayers
for sparing me a child
in whose warmth i could forget
the emptiness of my heart.

it was my breast that you suckled from,
drinking from my life to keep yourself alive.
yes.
the same breast that now feeds your lust
and calms your depraved mind

it was i who taught you
first to walk. To talk. To think. And to love.
And sheltered you from the wrath
of your father and his tempers

i that you ran to when you were scared
it is still me that you come to
to spill your genes
so that i may birth one like you again

shoot me if you must
but listen to my last wish.
kill me until
i disappear in entirety
until i cease to exist

what a befitting way it would be
to end yourself.
All of you.

bottled. hope.

young little men,
whose moustaches struggle
to display maturity
of responsibility
whilst all the time belying
the frailty of hope
hidden in their eyes.

these children play with death
everyday.
every other night.
by throwing caution to the winds
and fear to their weekly pay.


and when payday arrives,
they hand over crumpled notes
to their weary mothers
and save some to drown their sorrows

just like their fathers did
a score or two years ago.


disparity is stark. it's everywhere. young boys of 18 or so need to work to keep hearths burning.they toil, play with dangerous stuff in factories and give up their own dreams. before long, they are lost.

lies

i know how it is to fly,
in complete abandon,
anchored by your love,
and believing so.

i push boundaries
defy convention,
to prove myself
over and over again
for no one but me
or was it for you?
that i did what i did
aim, achieve, reinvent and
chase elusive success
as you watched,
quiet. proud.
and almost made me believe
that it was love i saw
in your eyes.

i would have gladly clipped my wings,
and chained my heart
if only i had known
that you wanted me to trade my freedom
for your infidelity.

published in kritya

very humbling to be published in kritya, an online journal of poetry :)


http://kritya.in/0803/En/poetry_at_our_time.html

life moves on - II

The parade begins once again
Frantic phone calls,
Teary voices,
That cry for one’s own loss
And the struggles that the morrow holds

Formalities of dotted lines
Where one consents to leave behind
A sizeable chunk of notes,
Lest one gets lost in the surreal world
Of death and her angels.

The embalmed remains arrive,
Carried with callous care,
By masked care givers
For whom death begets life.

Others watch,
For a moment forgetting
Their own anxieties
Wondering if they too will cry.

The parade leaves for a brief stop,
Home.
Where bangles are broken
And vermillion wiped away
For the last time.

Rituals come.
People visit.
Rituals get done.
People cry.
And still the finality of it all
Refuses to sink in
Until an old memory is uncovered
From the depths of an old locked cupboard

Tears pour
Stop.
Pour again.
Stop.

And life moves on.

hourglass

Hour glass
Where sand pours
as fast as age carries you.
Or as slow.
Racing. Rushing. Pushing.
Or simply waiting for some.

At eighty eight, all I do
Is wait.
willing sand to flow
hoping that soon, there will be no more.

At thirty eight, my grandson
Holds it askance,
Trying his might
To slow the flow.
Ah! But time eludes him,
Slips faster
than he can hold on to it.

I wish I could slip him mine
And take his.

hurt

drip
drip
drip
blotches of red
on white canvas
mars the picture perfect world
that i have drawn within
my mind.

Hurt.
Stark, deep,
when it invades the idealism
i hold so dear
the lofty principles that i sadly cling to
believing that the world will one day see
beyond me
beyond what makes me.

it is now that i see
reality.
money is perhaps everything.
and because it means nought to me
i will have to live through it –
a blotch of red
permanently etched
on my stark white canvas.




there are people sizing you up wherever you go. your shoes, your clothes, your bag, your social standing. you mean nothing if you don't belong. you cease to become a luxury of acquaintance. you become a necessity that one must live with, when one wants to. society and its ways!

untitled

Love me like the way i love you,
With an intensity that suffocates
the rational,
Drives away fear,
Disrupts everyday mundaneness
Blurs the boundaries between heart and soul
Until
Until all that is left is pure passion
Passion that i will pour into your pages
Until your blankness fills,
Page after page
Note after note
Until i can write no more.
Love me like the way i love you


there can be nothing more cruel than when writing escapes me and i desperately want to write. a million words and thoughts run through my head but evade the hands when a blank white page stares at me.

hero. villain. anything but human.

man. sometimes woman. many a time, a child. searching, discovering, learning, unlearning all the time. about who i am.

and here you are, making a mockery of all that makes me. displaying my hidden organs that bear no resemblance to the turmoil that i undergo within. teasing my urges, decreed by the very nature that makes me, me. the very nature that unearths the villain in you. so that you may make a hero of yourself, by making me a sacrifice.

i cry. you call me woman.
i rage. you call me a man.
i stammer, stumble, pick my broken remains. you call me transgender.

and people read, watch, discuss me.

because it is easier to vilify me. than unveil your own hypocrisy.




pinky pramanik. what matters who she is? when all we care is what she brings?

...and you

A handwritten letter,
A new year card,
The voice of an old friend,
A childhood party dress,
The smell of home made cookies,
The colour of an unadulterated blue sky
A baby’s babble,
The hugs of happy, happy children,
The warmth of their quilts,
The smell of grandma’s talcum powder
The feel of my pillow
The dogears of my favourite book
The appeal of a blank white page,
And you.
You, dishevelled, sweaty,
tired or fresh from the shower,
Just some of the things that
Tug my heart.
And all the things that i live for.

life goes on

The lights have been snuffed out of the cities
And the villages,
From the hearths,
From hope.
And yet, life goes on,
For us who remain behind air-conditioned interiors,
Rarely knowing what darkness is,
And rarely bothering to find out.

Life goes on for lakshmi,
Who must spend the darkest of the nights,
Fanning her alcoholic husband whose only escape
From the unbearable heat, is inebriation.

Life walks on crutches for ramu,
Who must use the light of the last candle
His father could buy with his meagre earnings,
To finish the exam that he started last year.
He may not be able to, for his eyes will give in,
Before he does.
And still, it will go on.

It crawls for renu,
Who spends the night tossing and turning
In her nightmares of pus-infested wounds,
That turn real by dawn.

It limps for Daniel
Who must seek employment that
Requires only the might of his muscle,
And not his intelligence, for that today
Depends on a resource he can no longer afford.

And in the corner of the city,
A lady awakes to curse the darkness,
And swears to have a bigger generator installed,
So she might sleep her drug induced coma
In peace.

And that is how life goes on
Even when the light is snuffed out
Of the towns, the cities and the villages
And the thousands of people who find a way
To move on.

shoulders

every word waiting to be spoken turns into verse.
every thought that runs amok, reined in.
confined within the width of white columns.
almost as if to fill the emptiness.
with the chatter of emotions
that i want to lay bare.
leaving me wondering
why i must write at all.

of alms and beggars

She must have seen better times. The glint in her speaks of them and yet, she stands, knocking glass doors of transitory vehicles that have stopped impatiently. I wind down the window and feel the gush of the afternoon sun invade the luxury of conditioned air within. I sigh, place a few coins on her calloused palms. She smiles. And reaches her hand above my head. Gently. And plants a blessing.

With it, she enlightens me. I know now, who the beggar is.

getting published :) finally :) :)

yes! it's happening.
by writers workshop, kolkata.
later this year.
fingers, eyes, toes...crossed :)

sculpt

Cut.
Shape.
Chip.
Chisel. Chisel. Chisel.
Grind.
Polish. Polish. Polish.
Until there emerges art.
Poetry.
Sculpted by a dreamer’s heart.
Finished by a lover’s hands.

If only we brought such passion to life...


watching art / sculpture brings alive so many thoughts

smile

A white toothed grin bursts from hollowed cheeks. There’s radiance in those eyes. And one thinks this is happiness. Until one looks beyond. Bones beneath it all. Bones that scream for attention from within skin. The tattered clothes tell a tale. Of previous avatars. Handed down in charity. Fulfilling satiated souls, but barely filling those hungry. The smile walks on, carrying the light frame with it. Lighting one’s heart. Igniting guilt. Long after the encounter, what remains is the smile. One born from greater endurance than mere existence. one that gently nudges the thought of benevolence into the shame of living in disparity.



was at Ramana Gounder Medical Trust today, doing my usual round of story-telling. saw this for real. have never seen a smile like this before. how shallow our benevolence seems.

speaking of trade

gold
traded for virginity
two cots to hold all the lust for procreation
an almirah to lock up bruises of the mind
pots and ladles on
which all hope was first stirred
and later strained
until all that remained was the memory
of a better time.
bundles of notes to feed greed
a car to announce to the world
what a benevolent family i come from
that’s all it took
for me to wed

when all i wanted was love instead

and now i seek the eternal knot
that hangs down from the ceiling fan
ah! yes, the ceiling fan once carried my tears
outside the window - the gift my father traded
for a pint of his blood

come now,
don’t fear that i will be dead
death came upon me earlier this year
with those three knots in yellow.
remember?




k's grandmom narrated the incident of her house help's daughter's wedding. all that they gave. and...what happens? a few days later, the same thought was echoed by aamir khan in satyamev jayate.

The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : Lines spoken on a summer's evening

The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : Lines spoken on a summer's evening

cobwebs

Cobwebs, I clean them out
Every Sunday, diligently.
Erasing their traces from my home.
But they reappear, fastidiously,
Building themselves for their masters,
Over and over.
Again and again.
And there we are, humans that speak
Of losing our spirits,
At the smallest ruffle against us.


written during the same time as Bare and contrasts.

Contrasts

staccato notes
play, echoing
the sporadic bursts of pain.
the black notes sear,
the white cause a tear,
black, white, black, white...
rise and fall in orchestrated will.

at least there is music when you play.
there’s only silence when i cry.


written on the same day as Bare - listening to L play the piano on a rather sad day. and the notes must have found their way...

Bare

the cold has a way
of piercing souls of the poor,
in a way it doesn’t touch others.
it bites into bones, creates crevices deep within skin.
its sinister voice penetrates the cracks between their walls,
stifling the embers of warmth even before they are lit.

but life must go on for the poor.
and it does.
through the day, they tend to cabbage fields,
pick choicest teas and strawberries,
or work at homes made of teakwood floors
victorian chairs and antique doors.

and when the warmth of the sun
surrenders to the night,
they huddle over feeble fires
on which they brew watery soups
with lentils afloat
like shredded hope.
hope, as threadbare
as the clothes they wear.


and when night comes upon them,
and the cold gets fiercer,
more ominous than it seems in the day.
they reach for each other,
like they do every night, for
lust is the only emotion
that keeps them from succumbing.


written in February 2012

dreams lie

dreams lie
within the folds of grey
because they rarely
can be lived in black and white
dreams lie
asleep within lost irises
forgotten by waking eyes
betwixt and between banality

if only dreams could be sieved
from greed
that masquerades in shades
that stalk the limelight
if only dreams could be left alone
they would wake.
possibly
in penury
but what a puritan world it would be

of veins and waiting

Gnarled veins traverse wrinkled skin. Drawing convoluted paths as they pass. Reminders of roads travelled. They bulge with meaning. And the tiredness of carrying life. And under their weight, tremble unsure hands. Hands that were once sure of life itself. Now wait for it to pass.



published in kritya, october 2012 (poetry in our time)

greed

They speak of orchids.
Fuss over them.
i feel them.
the long stalk and suddenly, the softness of the flowers.
Just like any other.
Then, they speak of silk cushions.
I sit upon them.
and feel no different
from the softness of
the cotton quilt in my home.
They then glide my palms over souvenirs.
Bought from faraway lands.
I learn with every touch.
And then i know
what greed is.
I thank my god.
I have no eyes.



published in Kritya, October 2012 (poetry in our time)

reading E.E. Cummings to a blind student of literature. and suddenly wondered, would we want as much if we couldn't see?

awakening

Humming kettles. Furiously bubbling caffeine. Creaking cots whence escape hushed reminders of the night.Gushing faucets. Kitchens that erupt, sizzle, fume, fuss. Urgent voices. Cacophonies of the world outside. Beckoning gods. Beseeching wealth. Amidst it all, the silence of the breaking sky. Awakening of a different kind.


originally written for an online submission. sometime in 2009. one of my first prose poems.

dreams are dead in the land of food

Disillusionment is easy
when dreams are dead
when beliefs are questioned before
they are formed
self-esteem, trampled upon
even before it has a chance to rise.

They play dead, these youth
From desperate backgrounds.

They have burdens to bear,
These young souls,
The burdens of becoming
And those of making family dreams
Turn real.
They come, afraid of what the city walls
Will offer them,
Of what they will learn from a foreign language,
When they haven’t learnt from their own.

Before long, the sparkle in their eye is gone,
Their dreams, buried over the heap
Of crumbled egos.

Who cares about dreams anyway,
Do dreams put food on the table?



have been at a training session for final year students. it's so easy to discard them as good-for-nothings. and it took great effort to look beyond them. and then we saw, a faint flicker of hope. and then we saw it extinguished by wisdom-givers. so-called wisdom givers. it's not the young that will kill the hope of this land. it's us who have already killed.

Middled, muddled

Hanging in between the haves and have-nots
Is precarious.
For I know not where I belong.
Always reaching for the elusive dream,
Of becoming,
Turning away from the sweat and toil of the wretched,
Because I want to distance myself from it,
Spending my childhood within
Firmly drawn lines of modesty
And boundaries that shield me
From knowing what lies beyond.

Come adulthood and I first taste my freedom,
By gladly bringing down those walls,
With the thirst to prove that I too can belong,
Feel at ease with wine and caviar,
Branded clothes and leather tote bags that
I dared not even window-shop
In those early years.

Now, my thick leather wallet heaves
under the guilt of plastic cards,
spent on once forbidden whims
And fancies of others, whom i must please,
In order to please myself.

At somewhere near middle age,
When the headiness of wanting to be is all gone,
It suddenly dawns on me, that
All those lessons in frugality
And modesty, among other things,
Were lessons for life, not living.
I pick them up in haste,
Allow them to surround me once again.
I draw those boundaries
Around me and my children.

And then i sit, wondering,
Will history repeat itself?



been reading a lot about the slow degradation of middle class values - the one that the average indian always prided himself in. now, it is steadily eroding. is consumerism the culprit? is it sudden surges of income? is it the loss of time in our lives - all those moments we spent with families, growing up, are now lost. this came after a very heart rending story i heard about a bpo employee from an average family. by the time she realised how far she had come from her roots, she was gone. too far.

Time Warp

sometimes, the past is all you can cling on to,
especially when you have lost everything to it.
everything that you could touch, feel, hear and see.
now, you have nothing, save the memories,
some bric-a-brac to refresh them and
a few deposits of cash, put away in bank lockers,
to aid survival.

you must necessarily go back to that time,
for today is warped in a world that means little to you,
you cannot understand it,
neither can they, the generation of today.
your lessons of frugal means, spartan living and ideals
seem as out of place as you are.
and then, there are your customs,
of rituals and their many gods,
your beliefs of womanhood as it should be and
numerous other household laws.
but no one listens and your wisdom lies
discarded, like wasted food, tied together in
black garbage bags.

no one understands how slowly time moves for you,
because it moves too fast for them.
but live you must, until it’s time.
and to survive,
all you can do is hold on to the past.

there's hope in you

You are at the bottom of the charts
In most exams that the world sets for you,
Infant mortality, education, and what not.
You run like the rusted wheels
Of an ancient locomotive, pushing yourself through
The mired mazes of stench,
Civilisations heaped, haphazard,
On the edge of your track.
On your roads, you carry bullock carts,
Alongside Silver Phantom cars,
And never once cringe
At the disparity of it all.

And yet, despite it all,
There’s a charm about you,
In your vivid colours,
The heady aromas that fill your homes,
Your castles, kings, queens and silks,
The torrid showers of your monsoons,
Your raging rivers,
The burst of colours in your forests and fields,
In your poetry and art
In the multitude of your tongues.
In the way you walk to the brink, and back,
With a resilience that’s hard to define

It’s easy to fall in love with you, India,
Despite all the delusions that may surround you.

what would you do, Kafka?

Bare the soul.
Put it on display.
Have them come,
Parade, look, observe, critique,
Smile and leave.
And then, we mourn.
Weep as commerce whores purity,
Watch. Mute.
As every thought is bought
And sold.
Bought and sold.
Until nothing remains
Save
The eagerness of who
The biggest bidder will be.

Kafka, what would you say,
If you were alive today?



knowing you will be published is great at first. euphoric. and then there are questions...

of heirs and heirlooms

It’s a different home he comes to
Every night.
Sometimes it’s his father,
In a drunken stupor,
The money from his meagre earnings
Lying empty in a bottle.
At others, it’s his mother,
On the matted charpoy,
With her clandestine lover
From the street beyond,
Her day’s earnings, spent
On cheap perfume and
Jasmine flowers.

But it’s always the same,
In one way.
He comes back to an empty home.
Empty at the coffers,
Devoid of love,
And on many days, empty of food.

And he, the forgotten heir to
Broken heirlooms
Picks up the fragments,
Discards them
And moves on.

He survives.
Gives himself away,
Little by little,
Month after month,
To anonymous recipients,
Empty wombs
That yearn for heirs.
And in them, he sees
Belonging.


A few days ago, I was told that many poor students who want to escape their poverty and abysmal conditions sell their eggs and sperms every month. we talk of a glorious future but cannot nourish our present.

Falling in love at 2

It’s two in the morning
There’s just me and there’s you.
Nothing between us,
Even noise has taken a vow
Of silence,
Even if for just a while.

It is the time when
There’s just us
And little else for company
When the world seems so faraway
And dreams so near
And so impossibly true.

Before i place a book mark on those dreams,
And my stark white pages
Turn into pixelated emotions,
Before words surrender to noise once more,
Allow me to revel in you,
Solitude, my friend.




love 2am in the morning. my favourite time to work. sometimes it's so silent, one can hear the earth whisper.

monoliths 2

What ran through your mind, ye anonymous sculptor,
When you chiselled poetry from stone?
When you breathed life into the eyes,
And the lust for life into the myriad nubile forms?
Did you dream before you built them,
Or did they come to you as you carved?
Did you look back to admire your work,
Or were you too bruised to think of it at all?
What were you like and where was your family
Whilst you worked through night and day?
Why didn’t you leave a little of your history behind,
For us to peer into,
Like you did those of your king?

You didn’t think of course,
that when you were done,
Dead and gone,
You would still remain immortal
Despite your anonymity.


it's hard not to be inspired after seeing the work of the anonymous at Mahabalipuram

monoliths

There they stand,the stone carvings,
Monoliths.
Moved by elephantine visions,
And chiselled by bare hands,
And a tool or two,
To etch the glory of a king and his gods.

The bare hands must have won a woman
In turn,
Possibly even a bag of gold,
A house and enough patronage
To fill coffers of the next few generations.

And the elephants -
The elephants may have got
Their sugar cane
And hay.
They would have been egged on
Until they forgot their own histories.
Until every memory of that legacy
lay etched in their own skin.

red.light.

The red light blinks to life.
Stopping traffic that is waiting to get home
For a few seconds, may be a minute or more,
Tired minds take their feet off accelerators,
Ponder on the myriad chores done.
And the many more
That remain unfinished.
Beggars clamour.
Vendors beg.
Window cleaners begin
Their tasks.
Earnestly.
Until it’s time for green again.

Somewhere else in the city,
The red light comes alive,
Bringing morality to a stop.
Cleavages clamour.
Cat calls beckon.
Men close doors on their homes.
Work begins.
Earnestly.
Until it’s time for day again.


have always been intrigued by the origin of the word 'red light area.' found that sometime in the 1890s, working girls used to shade their candles/lamps red, to advertise their trade. written sometime in jan 2012.

pledge

he feels the earth beneath his feet,
picks up the broken lumps
and sieves it through his hands,
she smells of freshly turned soil
vestiges of fallen leaves.
she brings alive the stories
of countless miniature beings
that have made their homes in her.

He holds her close to his face,
And she talks to him,
Like a long-lost friend.

She tells him of the days
when he played on her as a small child,
Helping his mother pull out weeds,
With his clumsy, little hands.
She shows him the new pair of shorts
that her rich crop bought his father,
She weeps as she reminds him of
a large corner of her being sacrificed,
To the pawn broker,
who later became the keeper
Of his mother’s gold, and their home.
She shows him her barren womb
year after year
And how more of her disappeared.

And then, she is silent.
For the time has come
When he must leave her.
Forever.
There is no reproach in her.
Just sadness. And silence.
For despite all that she gave him,
he has pledged her all,
for a computer education
For his son.

He holds her once more,
Close to his heart.
And breaks down,
weeping like a child.
She smells of him,
his father and his grandfather,
And yet, he has no choice,
But to surrender an unforgettable past
To an unknown future.

Unmask

the drama of love
peels away
layer by layer
unmasking the charade of chastity.

the taste of infidelity is delicious.
sin always is.

but the after taste lingers
longer, longer than the ecstasy.
it lingers, bitter
in the eyes.

the drama of betrayal
peels away,
layer by layer
unmasking the charade of love.





published in kritya, october 2012 (poetry in our time):
http://kritya.in/0803/En/poetry_at_our_time8.html


am amazed at the number of poems that appear in some online publications on lust, extra-marital relationships and so on. this is my take on it.

homes from the homeless

For the first few months, selvi will carry bricks,
Heaped upon rusted iron bowls,
That are placed on her tender head,
Whilst her lame son plays in the sand,
Building castles of his own.

Muthu will cement the dreams of eager young couples,
Who have pledged their salaries, on this hope of concrete.
When evening comes, the dreamers will visit, smiling
At their home, being built brick by brick.
When evening comes, selvi will carry her lame child back,
To their rickety shack.
The dwelling, hastily built for them
And seventy five other beings.

In some time, floor tiles will appear, mirroring the dreams
Of the dreamers. The tiles will be polished until they shine,
Like the sweat that glistens on the survivors.
In a year or two, the grand dream will appear, put together
Hand by hand, sweat by sweat, human by human.
And people will visit the freshly painted homes,
Pat the dreamers on their backs and raise a toast
To the good life.

selvi and muthu will then pick up the remains of their shack,
And move on to the next dream that they will build.
And their little lame son will begin building castles
In the sand.
That will crumble again.



written in july 2007. truth, as i saw my home being built by the homeless

time waits

Rickety. this sight, that passes the eye,
Of a village that seems to hang precariously
To a perilous past.
And treads, slowly on the wheels of time.

For time does stop here,
to listen more often,
To watch more closely,
A life that the rest of the world has forgotten.

Time watches the neatly whitewashed huts,
Homes, yes.
But huts that huddle together,
And share common walls,
Even share conversations of the nights,
And then empty themselves into open sewer pipes,
wash their dirty linen
In the light of day.

Time watches people lower their heads
to enter their homes,
their ceilings barely above their heads,
Possibly to keep dreams from flying too high.
And heavy brass locks that far outweigh
The weight of their meagre treasures.

And then, there are the evening smells
That time inhales.
Slowly.
For often, these smells last longer than the food,
And they, the people must quench their bellies
With just those smells.

Time waits in this village,
For nothing in special.
Because it is only here that time herself sits,
Laid back,
not hurrying herself against
The city clocks.

What is, what isn’t

Shubha is careless, everyone knows
You can see it in the way she even handles her phone,
Dropping things callously, misplacing keys and books,
never remembering if she added enough salt to her food.
Yesterday she cut her thumb, said she’d sliced some bread,
The other day it was a bruise that ran across her head.

But in the office, she’s full of life; there’s a sparkle in her eyes,
And many friends bring to her their stories of doubt and lies.
She listens to them patiently, and comforts their angst and cries
Tells them that they must keep their hope and never let it die.
Shubha is everyone’s best friend but no one knows about her,
They’ve only seen a glimpse or two of her husband of ten years
He wears a dimple on his chin and a scar under his ear.
There’s nothing much to think about them, nothing much to hear.

When Shubha doesn’t turn up one day, no one wonders why
It’s evening when they get the news and then they start to cry
They visit her in hospital, to see her bruised black,
Burnt stubbs of cigarettes are patterned in her hand,
And whiplash marks and nail bites scrawled on her back.
Her eye has been beaten blue, and she is comatose,
No one knows what happened until they see the reports.

This is the story of Shubha’s life, almost everyday,
It’s not her carelessness after all, it’s a sadist at play.
The dimpled man that Shubha wed is not nice after all,
You can tell by the broken bottles strewn in their dining hall.
Now in hindsight they all see who Shubha was,
Dropping things of nervousness, not because she didn’t care at all
The twinkle in her eye, they saw was masked in wretched tears
They all wish they could have seen behind that grace, her sad wall of fears.

fame 1

If i ever knock on your doors, dear fame,
Make sure you see me through the peephole,
Don’t open your doors.
Speak to me from your window instead.
Of how transient i am
And that it will be someone else tomorrow.

Be sure to egg me on my way,
For if i stop too long,
I may never wake.

But before i leave,
Gift me your sister,
So that i may always carry her upon my shoulders,
And stay rooted to the ground.
Give me humility, dear fame,
If i ever walk your way.
Hide behind the limelight, if you must.
So that i won’t stay.


written in early march 2012.before the hindu decided to bring me to the light, kicking and screaming.

fame 2

Click.
it’s over.
Forever frozen in memory.
But lost to the moment
That is now.
And those that will follow.
As transient as fame,
Whose limelight will soon
Darken
And pave way for the next celebrity.

In time,
Both will fade
Into oblivion.
Like our earthen spirits
Turn to ashes and dust.

Photographs. Fame. Life.
Now there. Now, gone.

wordless

How can one
Transform twenty six

Into
A language
That describes
The emotions of lovers
Lying entwined, spent?

The haunting emptiness of
Cracked river beds that once
Teemed with life but now
Cry for attention, silently?

A word that describes
Swollen bellies of children
That cannot differentiate
The hunger in their stomachs
From the anger in their hearts or
The sadness in their souls?

The beauty of an untouched sky
That sits atop snow-capped mountains,
Beckoning, teasing one’s heart
To soar?

Into the gut-piercing cries
Of a woman in rape,
Pinned down by rabid beings,
Of the emptiness in her faith,
And the despair in her hope?

Into a language that describes the
Laughter in a new-born’s eyes?

Into
The calm that emanates
From the heart
When lost in the world
Of one’s god?

Woefully inadequate,
These twenty-six
Within which we must
Bare the many emotions of life.

shadows

Again. And then again.
Abuse
Hurls itself against the courage within
Her. Breaking her spirit
Little.
By little.
Until the only strand
Of hope that remains
Is to survive it all.
Just survive.

Today, she breaks free,
Flees.
In fright.
Fright that will always follow her
even when she is far away.
and safe.

And then, she will cry.
The salt of her tears,
will spill on every pore
That he hurt.
Erasing the wounds,
But
Singing them with a memory.
Fierce. Dark. Frightening.

And then she will face the nightmares.
That will rudely awaken her.
Wet with sweat.
And tears. Again.
Making her remember the days.
Relive the nights.

The wounds will still be raw
When she picks up her threads.
broken, but still reminiscent of a once whole.

And she will learn to move on.
step by step.

And he,
He will take his next victim,
Who will follow the same path.
He will remain anonymous.
Slippery, like a shadow.
But there. everywhere.
Until we all rise as one,
To give him, what he gave our sisters.

But then again, it’s always easy to write.
Easier still to speak.


it is easy to speak of courage when we are not faced with fear. then, even the bravest of us, fails. is scared to walk out, shout, scream. perhaps that's why it's easy for the abusers to continue what they do.
this is for a dear friend.

five and a half measures

Five and a half measures

Glory unfurls,
fold after fold,
heavy with
golden threads that glint
between the shimmer of silk.
They are the first to kiss the bride,
Touch her, and awaken the woman within.
They sing an ancient ode to beauty,
These five and a half measures of
Beautiful tradition.

At other times, it’s just simple threads,
Woven together, starched or soft,
They become second skin,
That define the resilience of the spirit within.
The spirit that bends over a child with equal ease,
As it bends over cotton fields,
Roughs it out through crowded streets,
All the time, defining the woman within.

But wait,
Look beyond the folds, if you will,
And you will see that hint of skin,
Revealing a glint of defiance within
A shade of rebellion of
all that she can be,
when she chooses to be.

Five and a half measures,
sacred sensuality,
all rolled in one
beautiful ream
to define the woman
that is me.

colourless. brown.

To us, she was always brown grandma,
Shorn of hair, clothed from head to toe,
In a shade of colourless brown that was meant to merge
Her presence and submerge her being,
Within the background of the bustling household.

Brown grandma wore no jewels,
Save a garland of dried seeds
that would seep into her being,
the ideals of renouncement from
all the deliciousness the world had to offer.

She was meant to be –
Never seen, never heard,
But her presence hovered around the house
Like the stale, forgotten smell of the doors,
The ceilings and the floors.

We never thought of her as young,
To us, she had always remained this way –
Brown, shaven and devoid of any beauty
That surrounded our mothers and aunts -
brilliant shades of red and yellow
that anointed their heads and faces,
the delicate fragrances of jasmines and pink flowers,
that wove themselves in their hair,
the taste of betel leaves that
dyed their tongues red, already ripe
with gossip of their neighbourhood.
And the sound of their matrimony
That left tinkles on the ground as they walked, bare feet.

We never thought anything at all of brown grandma,
Until one day, we saw her lying dead.
It was then that they said,
That she died young.
Barely forty-two.

When we began to see the dreams
she must have had,
It was too late.
Too young.
Too late.


after a story i heard on the possible genesis of a traditional brahmin widow - it traces back to a few centuries, when a young child widow - the daughter of the king's priest - became the king's obsession. when he asked to see her that night, the priest escorted her in a covered palanquin. when she stepped out, the king was shocked at seeing a form devoid of beauty - hair shorn, giant rudraksha beads on her neck and a dull brown garb.

brought memories of a brown grandma (a distant relative).

delicious brown

Chocolate, your lips,
Almonds in those eyes,
A dash of cinnamon,
A hint of spice
Coffee and cream,
In your delicious skin,
Who needs an aphrodisiac
When you have it all within?

troughs and crests

Waves
Crash down
One by one
Breaking castles
I build with the sand.
I cry, yet I can't stop
This is life, I understand
For every dream that crashes down
I will build one stronger with my hand


7.12.2006

when roads are made from homes and dreams

Muthusamy came home
Early one morning,
Drunk from the previous day’s earnings,
On local arrack,
That still reeked a good twelve hours later.
His bleary eyes were suddenly
atear,
With fear –
Where was his home that was here
Yesterday?

Where was the deep blue tarpaulin sheet
That held the rain and sun above him, Kathayi and
The children?
Where were the hastily erected walls
Made of discarded bits of asbestos,
Synthetic sheets and bricks?
Where was that make shift door
That shut out their poverty to the rest of the world?
There was nothing.
Surely he had come to the wrong street,
Muthusamy.

He rushed to wash his inebriation away
From a tap that was left standing,
Surprisingly left standing amongst the debris.
When he was sober once more,
He looked again – there!
There was his door – was it the door?
Yes, broken now, and close to it,
The shredded blue tarpaulin sheet,
The
Fragmented asbestos.
And then he saw it, the might of power
The large bull dozer
Standing mighty,
Among the debris.

What happened, he cried,
Shaking himself of the many
Delusional dreams he had had,
When inconsolably drunk.
Where was Kathayi? Where were the children?
Had they been bulldozed too?

A fellow drunkard came by
And said their homes were gone.
Their homes would now be replaced
By broader roads for the city folk.

The bulldozer man was one of them
And yet, he had brought their hopes down,
Saying they were ugly reminders that
Put the city in bad light.
‘What about us?’ muthusamy screamed,
‘there’s nothing about us...’

There they go, muthusamy, kathayi,
Their many children and fellow humans
On trucks that will deposit them
On the fringes of urban civilisation.
There they go,
The invisible city dwellers,
To a new place they will call home,
Until the city needs a new road, building
Or high rise once more.



muthusamy, kathayi and other names speak for the numerous unseen, unheard faces of society. they are everywhere. but this is what happens to them, everyday.

the fates and the future

She looks beautiful,
Far too beautiful to be anyone else
But a lover’s flame.
And yet, she is unaware of the effect
She has on the hapless victim seated before her,
A victim of the fates who will decide how his
Tomorrow will be, without even having lived today.
She callously picks a card, throws it near him.
And he gingerly awaits the pronouncement of his
Morrow.
‘ah! There’s lust. you'll have plenty of it'
why, I can even see it
In your eyes now.you must find a way to appease
that greed.’
‘and there’s difficulty with money, unless of course
You pay obeisance to the sun,
naked in the early hours of the morn.
But be warned: you must be invisible to all,
Else cruel fate will befall.
And after that, here’s what you must do:
feed a priest, clothe a woman, pour milk over the snake pit
and come back to me, faithfully.
Every Tuesday morning. ‘

Terrified, he leaves,
But not before slipping a hundred rupees –
More than half his day’s earnings – on her.
He prepares to walk naked before dawn,
Bathe in the pond, and feed the priest.
But for the money, he must pledge
His wife’s wedding chain – all of the
twenty-four grams of gold.

He comes back every Tuesday, to listen
To the forecast.
And before the year is done,
So is he.
Now all his meagre wealth is dispersed
Among priests, wedded women, children and snakes.
And of course a parrot. A parrot so beautiful.
So beautiful and yet, caged within a wooden box,
Trained to determine others’ fates,
While succumbing to her own.



kili josyam - at dakshina chitra sometime in 2009. the thought came back again, fiercely just a few months ago.

between black and white

Inside me,
Is a woman. Screaming
To be let free.
But i am chained. Chained
By the demands of a society,
That slots the human species into
Black and white,
un-defining the grey
That defines me.

I struggle every day
Because I know that I no longer belong
To the sect that lifts its lungis in ease
To relieve itself on pavement walls.
Or slips a beedi in the mouth,
Teases women on the streets
Or declares itself the heir of tomorrow.

And the tears – the tears
Come so easily, flowing
At the rage and hate that surrounds
My family.

I feel woman. In every pore.
But no one agrees,
Let alone see.
It’s all in my mind, I am told,
‘Look at your skin – the hair on your chest
And your muscular shin.’
So, the exorcist arrives,
Says i have the spirit of my old
Widowed grandmother inside.
He says i must be chained and whipped.

I am.
But i still feel woman inside.

And then one night, i can bear it no longer,
I run away.
Run until i meet my own kind.
They take me and in one quick sweep,
My manhood is gone.
I am left to die.
Before i am reborn again.
Woman inside. almost woman, outside.
i am free. free. free.
only for the moment.

for when i rise from unconsciousness,
I am given padded clothes,
My nose is pierced, my chest cleaned.
And then, i am paraded along with the rest.
Begging people on the roads,
Screaming curses on those who turn their faces away.
But now, people are scared.
For the curse of our kind is potent enough.
we laugh. we believe we have the last laugh...

until..
They laugh in taunting whispers.
Behind our backs.
They call us ‘it.’ Not ‘she’. Not’ he’.
Not even ‘they’.
That is how we stand. No name,
No sect. Just ‘it’.
or at other times, vulgar names -
eunuch, hijra, transgenders....
nothing befits the trauma of my mind,
or the sufferings of my privateness.


so, here i am, the grey shade of humanity.
Still searching for a place between
The black and white,
Yin and yang,
right and wrong.
Man and woman.

there's fame. and there's fulfillment.

The giant waves leave nothing
Nothing to chance.
Lives, boats, even memories are gone.
And as the people gather around
The many graves of loss,
They just stare. For even their tears
Lie lost, buried amongst remnants in the sand.

The rescuers arrive,
Their earnest pride, masked under thin gauze strips
To prevent the stench of death
From entering their memories.
At first, they are shocked,
Looking at the half naked limbs, severed
By the might of the waves,
Orphaned like garbage heaps.
By the end of the day,
Tragedies turn to statistics
In the notebooks of the rescuers.

And then they come, men in suits,
In luxury cars and lapel pins that announce
The might of their being.
They sanction lakhs, draw blueprints,
Smile in benevolent grace,
At photographers flashing the headlines
Of the morrow.
They disappear, as quickly as they arrive,
Just like those giant waves.

The donations will now be watched over
By self appointed altruists
Whose altruism is directed at few
But themselves.

The real ones who stay to help
Will have to fight hurdles every where,
For trust in the times of strife
Is as abandoned as hope.

But these martyrs will stay,
Rebuild lives until one day,
They become nameless graves
Themselves.

But what will stand is the generous gifts
Of those men in cars and badges on their lapels.
Articles in papers, interviews on TV.
Always preserved in files and families.

The real martyrs and the rescuers
Will become mere memory,
Lost in the sweat and toil
Of the rebuilt land.