Month: August 2021

I

Sitting atop the water tank
Sitting atop our 3-storied lives,
I flick a finger on my tongue
And half-raise my hand, politely
Seeking permission to speak
With the passing morning wind.

I had been trying for an hour
To get my 6E indigo kite
Takeoff from our potted runway.
Crossing the wind the wrong way,
My hopes wheeled down each time
And crashed head-first with a clap,
Reminding me that spines break
And bodies tear aloud, though
The strings remain attached.
I am left with just the spool
To wind my bonds in silence,
To throw it all away again in
A corner of a memory bhaad.

The wind is too busy, I guess,
Sweeping the smoke of burned out lives.

–

Us

Sitting atop the water tank
Sitting atop our 3-storied lives,
I get a glimpse of ashen green
In a corner of a cremation field,
Just beyond the head
Of that old phallic temple.

I see in the afternoon haze
How many Hindu souls, vaporised
Before their time and consent,
Glide around with complaint forms,
Extending a queue I read on the news
As Air Quality Index.

Elsewhere, they showed the finger to
Every buried “privileged” Abrahamic,
Who “invaded” more land in passing on
Than inherited by the “underprivileged”,
Who are stuck with court claims,
Extending a queue I read on the news
As Aggrieved Quarantined Individuals.

They are partitioning sorrow again
To roll the saffron carpet for Acche Din.

–

Universe

Sitting atop the water tank
Sitting atop our 3-storied lives,
I point my finger at the stars,
Counting out my frustrations
Against their twinkling mischiefs.

Their guiltless, white indifference
Sprinkles the night in its milky way
And bothers not to respond to me.
I’m too insignificant, infinitesimal.
If smoke signals of an entire nation
Burning in 1.35 billion buried flames
In a forgotten corner of space and time
Are light years away from reaching them,
What chance do my words have
Of flagging some personal grievances?

And say I reach them and tell them
How it hurts to burn so on the inside
Every moment before my pyre is lit,
Am I even being sensitive to them?
Hasn’t my enlightened education
Taught me manners not to parade
My misery before someone whose
Very existence and meaning of life
Fissions and fusions around that misery?
Would I tell a seasoned politician how
Vexed I am with a fly in my daal ?

I just need to get over myself,
Climb down from this moral height,
Put my finger on my own lips,
And find lit in my lit up heart.
Word by desi word.

Don’t we call it the uni-verse because
It’s all just one infinite line of poetry?

Standing on the parapet, I see
The whole street, washed and clean.
In front of every doorway, every grille,
A red saree is hunched over a red circle
Doodling chita designs in rice paste:
Lotuses and jasmines,
Peacocks and elephants,
Coconuts and kumbhas,
Cowries and clouds,
And those left-right-left lotus feet
Walking from the doodled circle,
Up the steps to the doorway.
You see, we believe Goddess Lakshmi
Directs fame and fortune to walk in,
Left-right-left along these feet
Every Thursday of the Margasira month.

There’s a doorway conspicuously empty,
Where yesterday a white saree had lain
And where everyone had agreed aloud
That the names of Rama and Hari were True.
Where her red circle should have shined,
There now is a trapezoid of tessellations:
Illumination through the latticework
Of the skylight in the front room,
Where a bulb has been left on
For twelve nights of mourning.
You see, we believe the dead linger.
They take some time to move on.
The light is our way of saying we know
That they are here and they can stay
In our hearts for as long as they like.
We take some time to move on too.

No feet emerge from the latticed light.

When I discovered Writing
I knew my destiny had chosen me
To be the fattest book on shelves.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t care
When my identity was becoming
The fattest boy in the playground.

When I lost myself in Fantasy
I realised it was more adventurous
To be a fellowship of shorter volumes
Boxed together in epic covers.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t care
When my mind was splitting up
Into six high-volume voices
Boxed together in a thin skin.

When I met Marquez and Borges
I guessed one can also try
To be a magical garden without
Too many leaves between covers.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t care
When my laziness told me
A hundred pages were long enough
To tell a three-hundred-page story.

When I got giddy on social networks
I was convinced I was twice-born
To be dramatic, daily wall scribbles
That people caught a glimpse of
On their way to Zombieland.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t care
When my life had twists and cliffhangers
Every day, a nausea building in me,
Till I was just sick of myself.

When I sit in silence now
I understand that life is nothing
But moments arising on their own,
To be awake to and be aware of.
Maybe that’s why I don’t care
When my daemons compose poetry
In daydreaming unawareness,
But never beyond a single page.

Now, my writing is shrinking
Faster than my ambitions are.
Maybe that’s why I should care.

Some poems kindle
Just inside of a dream
Or just outside of wakefulness
When language dances freely.
Whirling, whirling, whirling
A Sufi’s semazen.
Turning, turning, turning
A koan in zazen.
Time sits down to witness.
And I catch a glimpse of it:
Dancing in the bonfire light,
The face of Time in a moment.

Cold to my touch this morning.
I gently touch, but no response.
I frown and touch again. Tap.
Tap again, but no response.
I push the plug that channels life
Secure and on, but no response.
Press, hold, release.
Press, hold, release.
Press, hold, release.
Again and again, but no response.
Press, hold, release.
Conversations unfinished.
Press, hold, release.
Lessons yet unlearned.
Press, hold, release.
Stories still unsaid.
Press, hold, release.
Not now. Not now.
Press, hold, release.
Come on. Come on.
Press, hold, release.
No response.
One who brought me reading.
One who taught me solitude.
One who held my first book.
Teacher. Friend. 2012 – 2021.
Minakhi’s Kindle Paperwhite.

They sat around her plastic throne
For Grandma gave to those who came
Freely from her tiffin boxes
As much as from her braided brain:
One strand domestic tips and hacks,
One strand news of government schemes,
And one strand tales from books and palms
That touched them all, ignoring caste.

Her feet didn’t flinch from shadows of
Washerwomen drinking her tea
Turn by turn in the same flask
Tightly cupped in their starchy hands
That she herself drank out of last,
Preferring her tea not so hot.

They loved her potato wisdom, for
Though she mashed her words like all,
She massaged them in mustard oil
Of proverbs and chopped idioms
Into palatable patties that
They could not help but nod to.

But some days someone burned their tongue
Upon a hidden chilli tale
From her kitchen garden lore
Grown overnight in fertile soil
Of hurt pride ploughed open with
Misspoken words from a cool tongue.

But nonetheless they came again
To Grandma’s grand diwan-e-khaas
Every winter morning that she
Chose to shine around her warmth
Freely to all who chose to come
And praise her for her charity.

You’re not the first to ask
Why I stole from someone worthier
Their tax-payer-subsidised
Crème de la crème education
In Civil Engineering,
If all I wanted to do was
Slouch like a pampered prince
Plucking verses out of vapours.

“You could have built bridges,
Given people a warm, secure space
To come to at the end of a day.
You could have helped honest workers
Accelerate along roads of progress.
Instead…,” they shake their heads.

Well, you’re right, you know.
I really didn’t pay much
Attention to my classes, though
Some of the important stuff
Found its way into me
And has stayed stuck. Let’s see:

We surveyed landscapes,
Above and underground,
Mapping eases and obstacles,
Tracing terrains of troubles
That stood in our paths.
And with these measured visions
We found the optimal way forward,
Sometimes boring straight through,
With least effort and collateral damage,
All on paper, before a blow was struck.

We designed form and structure
To survive stresses, inside and out,
To buckle not under bending moments
Twice worse than the worst we dream.
We pre-tested against crises.
When they did strike, all were ready.
They knew what to do. They didn’t panic.

We built with many materials,
From disparate sources,
Of disparate natures,
In disparate proportions
Brought together to found a strength
That isn’t found individually:
A strength that matures with curing.

We championed flow:
Channelling friction out of motion,
Harnessing falls into power,
Sluicing dammed potential,
Treating sludgy viscosities,
Breaking through blockages,
To get everything unstuck.

We trafficked off trajectories,
Preventing collisions and crashes
Of those who come full throttle from
Separate paths to the same crossing.
We told them when to slow down,
When to pause or move on,
And when to let another pass.

But above all, we were there
For those temporarily distressed,
To help them mend and fill cracks.
And for those fractured beyond repair,
We cleaned the rubble weighting them
And built them a new existence.

Yes, you’re right.
Poetry doesn’t do any of this.

I often write as I,
The first person singular,
‘Cause I sound better on paper.
I come across sorta sorted.
Sorta smart, sorta flawed.
Half believable, two-thirds not.
I’m the same for everyone
Looking at my display image,
But I’m a new I in every reader.

I’m not that I, though.
I’m not this I either.
I’m not writing this.
I’m a new I now.
I arise every moment.
Every I here is a new I.
And an old I too.
I’m not any of us.
(I guess that’s the plural).
I’m the first person I know.
Singular in this moment.
Plural in the past.
Cogito ergo sumif(1:26, “I”).
I think, therefore, I’m none.

Fruitless, I tried to win
Against the billowing wind
Crashing through my windows.

“Fruitless,” the wind said to me,
With a smirk so cold and mean,
“To seek now your life’s meaning.”