Month: October 2021

It was the year 2007, when
A new Inspector of Police
Visited our street and asked around,
Who steals the municipal water taps?
The street responded as it always does:
Must be the ghosts on the tamarind tree.
The Inspector blinked as others had before.
His Constables also smiled for a bit
But quickly looked down again, perhaps,
To investigate the splatter pattern
Of litres and litres of spilled water.

This was the seventh tap to be stolen,
And the seventh time the pipe had peed
Into the street, like morning kids,
Long after the women had left
With heads and armpits and hips full
Of large pots and larger gossip.
The Police of past had failed to nab
The ghosts who took the taps away,
But the new Inspector declared aloud
That he will catch the petty thief.

The next day a new tap was fixed.
And on the tamarind tree was tied
Two closed-circuit TV cameras,
The cross-eyes of Blindfolded Justice:
One looking up the street,
One looking down the street,
With a long optic nerve descending
And entering a grilled window where
The Inspector had taken permission
To leave a powered magnetic brain
That he called a CPU
But the street heard as Seipeyu,
The daughter deity of Mother Goddess
Who watched over the street’s safety.

A few weeks passed with no event
And the Inspector sat up proudly tall
Each time he passed by in his Jeep
Until the day he held in his hand
A severed optic nerve lying down
With no tap on the pipe
And no cameras on the tree
And lots of water on the street.
He took the CPU away.

Next day, the women filled their pots,
And laughed aloud at the Inspector’s
“Extra oversmart idea”
That had so many gaping blindspots.
That was when he came in his Jeep
And sent a lady constable
To cuff one of the laughing maids
And take her back to the Police Station.
The women around raised alarm
And within two blinks came armed men
With sharp blades and sharper eyes
And a deficiency of self-restraint.

The Inspector had predicted this
And pointed his baton up and straight
When two constables came running out
With large printed gray-scale photos
Of the woman cutting and stealing.
The people knew from the photo angle
The camera had been in the grilled window
Where the Inspector had left the CPU.
The Inspector then brought it out,
Placed it on his Jeep’s bonnet,
Removed the outer metal cover
To reveal a glimpse of divinity
Where the large exhaust holes had been.
The people saw Seipeyu’s third eye:
A webcam looking straight at them
Burning down their aggression.
The Inspector asked his constable
To step back into the Jeep
With the cuffs but without the maid,
And himself stood tall and told them all
He’s exorcised the tamarind tree.

And truly it has been fourteen years
Since a tap has been spirited away.

Sometimes I dream of you.
And in those dreams
You come not
As you are now,
But as you were
All those years ago.

No.
That is a lie –
You come
As the one
I used to dream of
Back then.
As the person
I chose to see in you,
Instead of the one
Who was really there
Standing with me.

I haven’t stepped-up
In all these years,
Have I?

It circles alone across cyan skies
On spring noons, wings outstretched,
Looking for someone, anyone willing,
To give a big warm feathery hug.

We stare at each other every day,
But when I don’t open my own arms,
It pretends it was just practising
Posing like Shah Rukh Khan.

I opened my arms wide today.
Closed my eyes too, welcoming.
But it sat on its perch, head crooked,
Letting me know how it daily feels.

God! I need a hug today.

For every monkey visiting our street,
We have ten boys with little stones
Ready to apply parabolas
And projectiles
And point-body dynamics.
But pen-fights in Physics class
Get them a P for “Probation”
Because you look for performance
Only on paper but not in practice?

They know how different motors work:
Enough to fix your bike and car.
Enough to fix your water pump.
Enough to fix your kitchen grinder.
Enough to fix your ceiling fan.
But not enough to fix your idea
Of how much they can move the world?

They know how much goes into concrete:
How much sand and gravel and cement
Goes with how much water and time
For paving a road, for raising a pillar,
For spanning a beam, for laying a roof.
Yet you come to me and put them down
And cite my premier engineering degree
As some confirmation of mastery
Though I’ve never even held a plumb?

And you’re going to head the state’s
Department of Higher Education?

1.

Come as you are, she says.
All friends here. Come over.

Friends, my ass.
They eye my fraying shorts
That had once been my jeans,
And raise their noses to my hoodie
That has always been my hoodie.
Batman and Joker laugh together
At the baggy darkness under my eyes.
The werewolf and hobbit howl
At my bathroom-slippered hairy feet.
You’ve fallen pretty far, hunh?
Their smiles suggest.

What are you dressed as, one asks,
Offering my drink of choice.
The Creative, I say, the Creative.
And I take the water, thank you.
Who’s that, another asks. DC?
I marvel at his entrenchment.
No. Independent, I say.
They all say Aah.

Friends, my ass.

2.

When I tell them
Characters visit me
They nod like they know
I’m shitting them, but
They’re too high
Society to roll eyes.
They sit pissing smoke
Out of mouths, stinking
Of upward mobility,
And judge me.
So I tell them the lie
I tell my loony doc:
“Medication helps.”

That gets a cough.

3.

She snatches the book
And tells me to have fun.
I say I was, but she shrugs
And comes close, too close
To breathe a kiss on my neck.
Can your book do that?
She giggles and eyes me
And takes my hand over
To the middle of the room
Where others are dancing
Close to their partners
But away from the others.
I take her lead and move
My awkward legs stiff,
My awkward hands stiffer,
But she giggles and kisses
And I giggle and kiss back
And she jumps in celebration
And others clap and whistle
And I realise it was all a dare.

She joins her friends at the bar.
I join mine at the bookshelf.

Today’s belly doesn’t care
If yesterday’s got a meal or not.
Got to gulp one down. Again.

Today’s body doesn’t care
If yesterday’s got sleep or not.
Got to lie one down. Again.

No matter my state.
No matter my mood.
No matter the outcome:
Bad or good.

Today’s paper doesn’t care
If yesterday’s got a poem or not.
Got to pen one down. Again.

I look at the lighthouse and realise
It’s a whirling Sufi with a mining helmet
Reminding Almighty’s lost vessels
His light may not always shine on them
But will always guide them safely home.

I look at the moon and realise
It’s a Kamayogic infographic
Reminding dieting stargazers
How much to fill their dinner plates
To attract tides of wedding mates.

I look at the sand and realise
It’s Time on a Zen retreat,
Pausing from its on-the-go job,
Away from all the ups and downs
Of its hourglass office life.

I look at my glasses and realise
I see better some days without them.

They came wishing to lose some kilos
Of the low confidence on their waists,
Paying dollars to a swanky ashram
To do something called a water fast.

Water fast? What is that? I asked.
You eat nothing, you drink nothing.
Except some water now and then.
And maybe salt for electrolytes.
Himalayan pink salt, mind you:
It’s got Potassium ions too.

Must be very effective, I thought,
Since outside the ashram walls
Sat the professional water-fasters,
Skinny and confidently shirtless
With little drinking bowls in hand,
The water gone, but the coins left
From when someone mistook them
For wish-fulfilling fountains.

The meanings we find in spaces,
Between lines of poetry,
And strokes of paintings,
And moments of awareness,
Are merely leaps of chemical faith
That neurons make in spaces
Between axons and dendrites,
Across a polarized chasm.

Or so Science tells me.

They draw comic books on anger reds
And write songs on depression blues,
But no one really talks about
The Mood Magenta that permeates
When reds and blues come together.

So what if someone hangs themselves?
So many have died. What is one more?
Why am I so mad and sad?
Why am I so serious at all?

This is just how things always are.
This is just another here and now.
This is just the stuff that makes up life.
This is just another passing poem.