twenty years to a lost childhood

I was twelve
And had not seen
My being, bloodied.
Yet.
I was but a child,
Who had learnt from five,
To thread garlands
Out of reeds, and squeeze
Nectar from the hives of honey bees

And you came, uniformed
A hat on your head and
Venom in your eyes,
And i became your sacrifice
Your sacrifice for the many days
And nights that you spent away
From your town girls and your wife

What did you see in me?
When you took me away,
Did i not remind you of a child
That you might have sired,
When you were far away?

Do you know that when you
Were done with me,
I saw blood for the very first time?
That it came gushing, as if to cleanse
The sullied pores of your crime?

Do you know that your monstrosity
Comes upon me, every night,
And that i have not slept since then
That i have woken wet with sweat
Watching my bloodied, tears with fright?

At the end of it all,
You moved on
To bigger catches and better fame
And i became a statistic,
Of a well rehabilitated
Tribal dame.

And i, spent every day,
Mourning the death of
My lost childhood.

Still mourning the death
For everything my life stood.

Twenty years later,
Justice they say, has come
But my blood is all dried,
My tears spent now.
Your justice cannot bring back
That twelve year old child,
Who had not seen first blood
Until you arrived.




this poem and 'Tribals and Bestials' are both written in the moment, 20 years after the mass rape at Vachati, TN

tribals. bestial.

We were here before you,
Arrived; intruded our world
In the name of civilisation.
We were here among the trees,
The birds and the bees
We were one with them,
For centuries
Before you came, invaded our ways
And taught us grace
Of your animal ways.

We were here before you
And yet, you deem it fit
To teach us things –
Of big bangs, toothpaste,
And other material things.
Ah! Your ignorance!
Worthy of a good laugh,
For no matter how many trees
You rape to write your histories,
You will never know the secrets
Our Mother has taught us through
Her stories.

How to plunder the forests,
And gain satisfaction through
Printed notes of greed,
These,
We will never need.

But once you knew,
How beastly you turned,
Such bestial rage we have never seen,
We have never seen.

But the lush treasures of our green
And the virgin trust of our girls and teens
Turned on the beasts in you,
And we were left watching.
We were left crying.

When you brought us your savage ways,
We wish that we had learnt it well,
Of how to turn on the beasts within us,
And give you hell.

Alas! That is a lesson our Mother
Did not teach.
Neither did the trees,
Nor the birds and the bees.
And now, we are left watching
You murder our innocence
And rape it well.
Tears well
Bbut mute our pain,
How we wish we learnt those lessons
From you again.




Published in Muse India, Jan-Feb 2012

Of temple walls and those within

Trusting hearts,
Know not the vile
Nature of a rancid heart
And a rabid mind,
They come when called,
Surrender unknowing,
To lust, disguised in
elderly love.

They give in, because
We never talk about the word,
Although it’s there for all to see,
On temple walls and art, of course
But taboo it is, to speak of it,
Or encourage talk
In our walls, within.

They can see it on live tv,
Or see it on
Their monitors, for free,
But to talk of it to mothers
And fathers,
Is unspeakable;
such hypocrisy!

So, these innocent lives
Never know
What demented people
Have in store,
A candy or two,
A secret between the two,
Is all it takes
For innocence
To lose its trust .

If only we can open our minds,
As wide as we do our mouths and ears,
If only we can begin the talk
Of sex and privacy
Maybe then our children will be
more prepared than we
Care to see.


written after a conversation i had with my about-to-turn-teen daughter

no roses without thorns

dark words, these
that come tumbling upon the white
they feel like blood on innocent skin
so dark, some emotions that i write

some say these expressions will scar my soul,
others speak of a mind, disturbed
at the choice of words,
to others, these words are mere fiction,
that i intend to shock through verse

it’s hard to turn the eye away
when rape and murder of children
stares you in the face, everyday.
It’s hard to blind the heart
To a child begging on the streets,
And having passers-by move on, hurried
and instead throw their pennies, in turn
for God’s mercies.

the rose-tinted view of the world
is not without its thorns, my friend
so, let other minds look at the roses,
while mine will remind you of the thorns instead.


written after the poetry recital on 25 september 2011. someone told me that i wrote very dark poems.

Release

when the time comes,
why is it always so hard to leave?
what is it that binds me, holds me back?
is it you,
the love you have for me,
or my love for you that wants me
never to leave?

is it my care
that i dread to abandon,
or the scare
of who will lay out your tea and toast,
or help you find your way around the kitchen,
knot your tie
or pick your clothes?

is it the smell of the well-worn sheets,
that held our love,
that i hate to leave,
or the emptiness that will become
of our togetherness?

i fear for many things,
of what will become of you,
for did i not pledge my heart
until death
that will now do us part?

as the monitors stuck on me
tick my every second away,
i cannot bring myself to leave,
even if it means
that i can no longer be
alive; full of life.

as the moments pass
inevitably to that time,
when i will cross over
to another world,
i realise
that in time,
i too will become
that faded void
of what once was us.

now i know,
what holds me back;
my heart is with you
and yours in mine.
so, release me, my love,
for us was meant to be
only until now.
from now on,
it will be just you
but fear not,
for i leave behind
my heart within you.
And you will be safe
With yours within me.


do we know just when we are about to die? i believe we do, for i have seen it in my loved ones' eyes and in their touch. sometimes, they are ready to go. sometimes, it is us that holds them back.

written in June 2008, days after my father passed away

wabi-sabi

Dishevelled,
My every strand in disarray,
Eyes, bleary from the drunkenness
Of the night.
The garb well-worn, with a tear
At the seam.
i glance at her
and she at me.
this face has seen
Countless nights
meandering in dreams
And as many days,
Wandering in thought.

and then i see
My crows-feet. Suddenly
Alive, etched into permanent marks
Around the eyes
That have seen,
loved, lived and died
Over and over again.
There are wisps of grey,
Settled irrefutably amidst the dark
Canvas of my hair,
Each, a toast to a lesson learnt.

Laugh lines gently kiss
The corners of my lips,
Some remind me of life
In its lighter vein,
Some, of tragedies that I have
Borne witness to. In vain.

I am no more a tender frame,
The burdens of everyday
Have settled upon me.
Generously.

She is not the I
That that will emerge
A few hours later, in
Coiffed hair and suit to match
The colour of her lips.
And rings that embrace
manicured nails,
Shoes that will announce their
Arrival with a gentle click on their soles.
She is the I that the world knows.

But when disrobed of external identity,
I discard the she that is not me.
I love this,
The wabi-sabi,
Perfection of imperfection
Than the world does not want to see.
The real she -
This is me.



written after an argument i had with a beautician friend! early february 2011

look up, just once

Remember the time
When we could count them,
Connect the twinkles
In the sky,
Sitting pretty
Against the cloudless
Backdrop of the night?

We search now
And then,
Among the hazy smears
That we have scorched
Into the skies.
The murky canvas that proclaims
Our progress
Has but blinded us all.

A few years hence,
They will all be gone,
Most of them, unnoticed
For we would have been
Too wrapped in our world,
And warped in our worries
To look up at them.
To look up to them.


So we’ll paint constellations
On our indoor ceilings,
Lest we forget they existed at all.

But before they disappear
From our eyes,
Just look up once, every night,
Because once they are gone,
How will we teach our
Future to
Reach for the stars
At all?



September 2011 - after i tried in vain to show the kids some constellations up in the sky and was shocked at finding just some hazy speckles