and now, me

For how long will you remember me?
Gone as I am already from the pages
Of your newspapers
And headlines on your television

You will remember me of course,
In fleeting glimpses
When another like me is molested,
Another girl child is drowned,
A mother’s foetus ripped because
She will birth her own kind,
a bride's cries stifled,
or set afire


You will remember
When my tormentors are brought to book,
When they are hanged
Or sentenced to life

When governments swear by their children
And their mothers
To never let this happen
Only to play witness again
And again
And again.

And then again,
You will eulogise me
When you light candles in my memory
Year after year


Alas!
You will also forget
In the mundaneness of your life
In the everyday struggles you must meet
In order to survive

You will forget
When you see beauty around you
Happiness, joy and innocence
And you will then
Foolishly believe
That life is still beautiful.
And that there is still hope.

You will forget
Because it is scary to remember.


How many more of us will it take
For you to not just remember
But never forget?



numerous verses on the internet on Nirbhaya. but for how long will we remember?

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.

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.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.