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.