Sunday, March 31, 2013

on being absolutely neandarthal...

'okay...
I am then absolutely neanderthal
cranium as large as the modern
shape...
large legs and muscular nape
and by huge gigantic body mass
could any damn homo erectus
I can easily surpass...

but then where's the evolution thing?
If I was born out of Joachim's
Neander valley wide spread
Somewhere in Germany fossilised dead...
then where would I accomodate?
Books not bound by carbon dates?
Where could curious eyes
a neanderthal me possibly hide?

Evolution?
Answer me if you may
in which caves you instincts delayed?
where from compassion dropped?
how could you plant soft
understanding and precised skill?
how could you make me feel
the vapoury idea of the supreme one?
And a golden beauteous orb like sun?'

resurrection courtesy Plockhorst...

Looked at his creamy layer
of upper limbs bare
and a stick in one hand
his feet on cloudy shapes
in white he was draped...

raising a hand
was he assuring someone?
but whom ?
In the room
there was none
only a sun
above just his head
glowed unnaturally bright
and the light
from the scene fell on me...

Plockhorst must have seen the same kind of glow
surely he did and got more...
He must have got the touch of his hand
and heard the steps of his feet
quite near to his heart...
he must have felt the same shower
but more of that...
more of rays of the unnatural light
coming through the cracks of the wooden unpolished door...
a piercing blowing blinding one...

Plockhorst must have been rightly inspired
so his paintbrush moved so smooth
and so I am given the chance to brood
at least for some time so benevolent and gracious...
and the room suddenly looked so spacious-
as if a whole country side had arrived...
and flocks of sheep and shepherds came alive
with chirping of birds and cooing things
O I died on the ever spreading green...
O I just died to be born again...
Plockhorst brought a resurrection same...

[on a painting done by Bernhard Plockhorst(1825-1907) on the Resurrection of Jesus]

resurrection courtsey Plockhorst...

Looked at his creamy layer
of upper limbs bare
and a stick in one hand
his feet on cloudy shapes
in white he draped...

raising a hand
was he assuring someone?
but whom ?
In the room
there was none
only a sun
above just his head
glowed unnaturally bright
and the light
from the scene fell on me...

Plockhorst must have seen the same kind of glow
surely he did and got more...
He must have got the touch of his hand
and heard the steps of his feet
quite near to his heart...
he must have felt the same shower
but more of that...
more of rays of the unnatural light
coming through the cracks of the wooden unpolished door...
a piercing blowing blinding one...

Plockhorst must have been rightly inspired
so his paintbrush moved so smooth
and so I am given the chance to brood
at least for some time so benevolent and gracious...
and the room suddenly looked so spacious-
as if a whole country side had arrived...
and flocks of sheep and shepherds came alive
with chirping of birds and cooing things
O I died on the ever spreading green...
O I just died to be born again...
Plockhorst brought a resurrection same...

[on a painting done by Bernhard Plockhorst(1825-1907) on the Resurrection of Jesus]

Saturday, March 30, 2013

underwater... the last ditch...

'I am sorry'
Claire
muttered...
she tried to speak without air
breathing out...
but under water
her red skirt with knot tied behind her back
moved like a curtain...
and she sank...
further into the abyss
so turquoise blue
and Ethan
who knew he was looking into the eyes
of the woman who lied
to him to get the chunk of dough
took a short and swift dive
to her...
'I am sorry'
these words of Claire
Moved through the waves
and Ethan still braved
his asphyxiation
paddling his thigh muscles
to cause the rapid motion...

He knew
time was passing cruelly fast
and only for few moments
his lungs could survive the blast
but...
he had memories true
Some faces are forever pasted without glue
on mind's deepest secured shelf...
Ethan into the abyss delved...
and thought he got
Claire in his arms wrought
a weightless soft red flowing thing...
He looked up through the bluish water green
and saw the afternoon gleam
through the watery stream...
his lungs and heart throbbed with might
He pulled the red flower upward
one arm clutching hold of Claire
whom he could not just leave there buried...

end of march feeling...encore!

I got a feeling
I have sweet things to recall
similar things happening
on a dissimilar day...
another time of one's life...

The year was nineteen hundred and ninety four...
after the exam had end of march sure
that year too!

The movie hall had a flick
so popular then...
we bought tickets
to the show after a long wait in the queue...
the day was dark...cloudy...
a mild drizzle happened then
I can faintly remember...
the circle of trees
had blossoms full
and we had waited for long...

the screen had been wider than our dreams
And our favourite protagonist
on a rock by a turbulent sea
sang his heart out...
he was on wait...
just like youngish us
for his love to arrive ...

the scene had the taste of rain too
the wind lashed hard on the face
of our hero on screen...
his hair was getting drenched every moment
and the song he sent
through the wet moist air
must have reached his love's ears...
and...
breaking open the vigil
running down the alleys and water puddles...
almost like a mare...
with a flowing hair...
she came...

Outside the movie hall
that day at the end of march
nineteen ninety four
heaven's door
also might have opened
wind moist ran hard...
the trees in the circle
perhaps danced like mad
and those blossoms also might have caught the whiff...
they flew just off the branches...
to be spread like a welcome theme
everywhere ...
on the roads...roofs of shops...on benches
they filled the surrounding
with tender joy and belonging...

today is such a day I guess...
For I can see the movie in still slides...
and the circle of trees...
the benches covered white by blossoms
and the turbulent sea...
and a song from heart...

Friday, March 29, 2013

the talkers...a narrator's perspective...

He thought it was time to write about the talkers. Afterall only he could do justice to their story. He was always part of it. The story of the talkers grew in him over the years as he witnessed every moment of it.

How many years ago it got started he can't recollect nowadays...
but it had been a blissful evening after a short spell of shower.Surely it had been an evening cool and indolent.

The man was at home when a message came to his cellphone.
He,the narrator ,can't even recollect the content of the message proper though he was shown the content by the man...but that message from her prompted the man to revert and to that reply he got another rejoinder...
things started that way.

Next few days there was silence from both sides. She did not call or sms. He was busy with his works...his station post manning alphabets.
He had been always alphabetically inclined. His books and poems surrounded him from his childhood. She must have someway been leading a similar life...not fully similar but to a great extent alphabetical in her own ways.

That year when the rains ended and autumn had set in with a festive spirit in the air,they had graduated-from smsing to talking.
Talking over phone for long insipid hours had become a way of life for them. They talked. In their talks they explored the unknown deserts...unseen valleys...unheard music...distant eclipse...near and imminent issues-political,social,economic,historic even prehistoric . They talked about life-its necessary burdens and stresses and pulls;its insults and injuries;its superciliousness,morbidity,pathos and also ecstasies.
They talked about issues back home-the fodder scam,the murders and rapes,the heavy dew damaging crops,the potholed roads,the movies in which there were excellent fight scenes of swords.They talked day in and day out.
Several times during the day and even sometimes at nights when the moon slept tranquil white like a baby in the arms of cloud, they talked exchanging thoughts and emotions. They talked about also fears and suspicions and doubts.
They always had issues to raise. Being good talkers both found enough resources at hand to extend and elongate their talks.
Sometimes they would unburden their souls. They would feel lighter after talks quite satisfied offloading bags of their personal worries and cares.
Talks made them tensed sometimes;
Sometimes talks rejuvenated them.
They found their talks essential to their being so much so that people around them suspected them to be in love.
If talks of heart bring closeness to people,they were close to each other.
They were definitely attached to each other by their inexhaustible treasure trove of talks.
They exchanged their minds sometimes in their talks.
Their talks took them to different and varied things,almost as varied as life itself.
In their talks they replicated life-an online virtual world of their own.
They owed each other that.
They never grew tired of talks.
Interestingly the wide range of daily experiences only enriched and embellished their talks.
Being human beings susceptible to certain tendencies towards wrong judgements and fears,they also had violent talks sometimes-full of aggression,hurt,disappointments,accusations, and again they talked over them to get over them.
They distanced themselves from each other because of wrong perceptions about usage of words and phraseology. They were so alphabetical!
They dissected words and syntax. They constructed sentences out of whims without care.
Still they talked.
Aggressions dissipitated to remorse sometimes. Sometimes they would just cry.
Sobbing replies came disjointed.
In cellular connected system they erected a world-a virtual talk based one.
Conversational.
They were always conversational.
People around them thought them to be in love-a conversational and unconventional one this time.

They talked about so many things.
In their talks three seperate novels they created.
And they talked about those novels then.
New characters surfaced.
They braced the storms and the gales.
In their talks they wrote poems, depicted a moonlit lucid evening,painted a Monalisa not even smiling.
They talked.
So much conversational they were!

Several years after when they were on deathbeds,they were placed side by side.
To everyone's dismay they still talked. There was no sound emanating. Only their lips moved perhaps. But unwittingly that worked fine for them!
After all those years they had no need to talk noisily. In silence they could even talk!
They could read each other's mind.
That way they died.
The talkers.

she... the outpourer...

this moist cloudy western attire
like a long skirt the sky which wears
must have the scent strong
of rain soaked earth and her hair long...

she...
finding her was a discovery
amidst the din and chaos

carried panama printed dreams
all the way from Laos...

once whispered a song of desire
against the clouds so dark so fair...

on open palms caught drops from heaven
sparkling rounded beads seven...

broke out into a dance impromptu
pressing lips on glassy foggy dew...

standing on the footboard of a moving tram
hummed meghmallar to cause clouds melt down...

like a winged creature with colored flight
caught rays of broken rainbow light...

with a martini glass liquid glow
depth of an ocean brought to the show...

scraps of paper white thrown in wind
a maidan filled with billet doux unseen...

from a billboard flapping red saree
with cloud's blue monday fever married...

on glistening drenched dark asphalt
movement of bare feet by nailpolish recalled...

on yellow orange halogen lit walls
painted a big graffiti of misty smoky waterfall...

on a bridge suspended by rope like girders
with cherry sweetness prosaic existence murdered...

rang the door bell at the dead of night
planted creamy soft core choco-delite...

horizontal skyline turned vertical
with swinging treetops caused a wall street fall...

sent office goers scuttling home
all over Esplanade built a rainy dome...

this moist cloudy day of the night
brings her all in a transcontinental flight...
the thunderclaps...the lightning shadows
spray scent of her all over meadows
and hills and valleys and cities below
sing songs of her and her whims sure...

but he carried the cross all the way...

'I adjure you,by the living god,to tell us,are you the anointed one,the son of God?'

Pilate asked,
'Have you basked
in the glory of light?'
To which he got to answer...
The man was ready to be pierced by lance
He just smiled and sought forgivenness for all;

Pilate's wife
who dreamt the other night
the descent of riot
pleaded in folded hands
'You got nothing to do with this righteous man...'
She told him
tears in eyes
but Pontius Pilate brought charges
upon the man...
'you subverted the nation
you deserve damnation...'

and the man cursed that way
carried the wooden cross poles all the way...
He carried the cross all the way...

Thursday, March 28, 2013

rumblings of the past...

'At this place
there had been a big mango tree...
and there...
where the telephone tower now stands
so abrupt proud
like a monster...
was a temple...no doubt...
not those you visit
in the city
full of italian slabs of marble...
not that kind...
no pomp and gaiety...
but a simple one
made of burnt bricks
thin and red...'
He said,
my father
who had become a child
after coming to his homeland...
his blood line...
old ancestry
where had written down a lineage
covered by dust and cobweb...

I looked at him
my father
turning a child strange
curious..nostalgic...restless...
shoving off leaves of past to trace
where his father...my unseen granddad
at the end of the day sat
pulling a puff from his hookah
smoke through water
making sounds...
and a pond by banana grove bound
had coolest water with shades
dark and deep and like plates
flat round green lotus leaves floated there nonetheless...

'At this place
my mother paddy straws laid
with a ladder she would here seperate
husks from grains...full of dust
she would sing a song of dusk...'
My father continued
in his dreamy vein
walking he was...surely down his memory lane...

and I could perceive how little things sparkled
at the corner of his eyes where past with present met...
and he became a child, didn't he?
In his eyes saw childish glee
as he touched the ground with his palm
collecting small red pebbles some...

'we used to play with these like marbles
aiming and throwing them at sticks
and tell
who amongst us would be a good shot...
in which palm tree someone would tie a pot
to collect sap so sweet like honey
in which hole in the woods there lived a bunny...'

My father kept on murmuring soft
when the moon light on his face dropped
a stream of conscious unconscious rumble
a child like him with words fumbled...
and I listened to his narrative echoing across
and noted how the heads of coconut trees tossed
gently as if in full approval of happenstance
of gigabytes of memory engaged in a dance..

'At this place...'
My father was in a neverending flow
time clocked backwards gradually slow...

an operative...

so...
you courted death
just like your fate
which you once embraced
knowing they will never claim you
your this body of lies
which severing strongest ties
on the dust of a desert lied...

an operative...
you were and had been
and they lured you to the scene
by showing you stars on the wall...
some unnamed unclaimed stars...

at the farm
they trained you hard
how to run on broken shards
of glass on the floor
how to picklock the most secure door
how to be the calmest
how to be under water for records to plummet...
how to use local resources...
how to break codes...Morse's...
how to devise an escape plan...
how to noiselessly on tin shed land...
how to deploy your barest things...
how to strategise what could the greater results bring?

if plan a fails there should be a plan b
they asked you to go beyond what mortal eyes see...

and see...
a body of lies...
your deglorified demise
in an unknown land creates no hussle
back home files some might be missing
and two leaders could have a mild tussle
of words over a glass of whitest champagne...
but...
an operative
you were simply
and had been...
lured by that lonely nameless star
on the wall you moved this far...

nameless you die...
non claimed asset
you truths belie...

your colored state...sinks me...

your white copper bordered saree
had faint spots pink...
played with colors
You last weeklong I think...

your earlobes had a little reddened touch
played with colors
You the whole evening such...

when spring thus comes
with so much of colors
your saree copper bordered
catches hues everywhere...

find green dots there
on your lips
and your shoulder has
violet deep...
find yellow on arms
magenta on throat
in your sea of colors
sinks my country boat...

every spring thus
your ocean so full of colors
sinks me rudderless...
i just sink sans escape...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

love debutant...

How can I ever forget you?
those papers
upon which you arrived once
like a dream
putting me into an experiment
the cold numbness...
a play between life and death...

in one paragraph
asking me questions
so harmless...
then in another
opening my eyes
'where does the mythical regenerative spirit lie?'
'how much do you love your mom?'
'which plaque did declare the birth of a child
inscribed on a marble tomb?'
'how far can you go to sacrifice your self?'
'How much attached are you to Sunaina... the sylph?'

How can I forget you?
those pages first few
printed letters of love
and laughter and sobs...
Aroma of a greyness
where once the motorcycle stopped...

and you...
a tree
entering full grown into me...
with all the creative possibilities...

Opal court...
tree lined University campus...
waiting for Sue
clutching the railing of a balcony...
A night dress pink and graded white...
a walk on the clouds...

O Gandharaj...
love debutant...
come once again to me...
come again with your insane smell
a madness rapturing all walls
A Niagra !
A straight headlong Fall!


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

a song and an evening of spring...

through the bamboo thicket
like a silver disc bisected
the moon was shining soft
and the smoky mist held aloft
a curtain drenched with a song
a rustic meera version two thousand thirteen
swept the blackish green
with her devotion...

a small gathering...drooping eyes...
people from the village turban on their heads tied
nodded in appreciative mood
and there I stood
a little distance away...
my body leaning against a tree...
restive pensive satiated me!

the woman sang of love
krishna going away far
be-longing that even the twinkling stars
high above the sky could also feel
a sweeping sense of a seperation
dripping like watery molecules fill
the air...the space...
the tired sleepy balmy faces...

the silver ray...
cut into several shreds of paper thin
slices fell on the ground...
on the woman's face partially silver grains found
tears and got easily mixed with the flow...
an intermittent buzzing of insects wild and unknown
added natural music to the show...

and I felt the softest palm
resting gently on my head...
slipping lethargic from there down
on my breast placed...
a saffron dress...
with a whiff of flowers
seeped into my being...

the show had ended my eyes opening
I saw
but the curtain remained
and the paper thin slices of silver
on the ground
and the tune reverberated the rural air...
kept me there bound...

rosary beads...

leaving them stranded
a heavy snowfall shape
whiteness on their coats and hats
reddened tips of nose and flushed cheeks
he started walking towards the exit...
but the rosary beads
he fumbled the chain out
of his pocket
trembling hands
his thumb rolling over
the beads one two three
triple trinity
and overcome by grief
his face took a grimacing look
he did not look back
knowing he had nothing to do
other than praying
for them the bravest and the just
legal provisions have been obeyed must...
he started walking
his heart being burned by silent parsimony
of his poor state...
he counted rosary beads...

the snow must have been heavy
the distant treelines looked like an opening shot of a movie...
and the musical accompaniment
must have been there...
a tune alien to eastern ears...

he walked away...
slowly with tears in his eyes
but the rosary beads
round wooden seeds
they surely sent him some comfort
and with choked throat
he just walked away...

the last shot
concentrated only on the beads
hanging tossing in the cold wind
focus was on the round balls
and whiteness at the backdrop
the heaviest snowfall...
proved to be a perfect setting
for the last shot of the last scene...

the rosary beads
hanging and tossing in the cold breeze...

Monday, March 25, 2013

memories of glass...

some glasses are like memories
spread wide a greenish fragile tinge
boyhood on reflection a nostalgic feel
'let's run up to that gate of steel
where the lemon tree stands...'
uttered once a friend of mine...
her eyes having a twinkle shine;

'what about plucking those green mangoes unripe
from that small tree where the old man sits and pipes
a tune every afternoon?'

I probably had suggested her then
and after a quarrel of choices in vain
we decided to do both...
first we ran to the tree -lemon smell
leaves on us like rain fell
as we shook the bough with our might...
then we took the street to the mango tree
from the distance we could see
the old man resting there
his legs spread bare
but he was piping the tune
so wonderous...a song heartful...

some glasses are just like that
fragile sheet of memories lying flat...
across the present tense a boyhood feel
and also of someone's girlhood sure...


Reiki trance...

Sitting on the floor
Opening the door
Of his heart
The man felt the breeze
On the cliff
The rustling leaves
The cooing cuckoos
Eyes unopened
He chose
The reiki trance...

Felt sure the pulse
Of the valley down
People waking up
Fields unsown
And the flowers yawning too...
The herds of cattle taken to the fields
The stream flowing beneath the flourmill...
Wheels moving making screeching noise...
He took the reiki poise...
Eyes shut but opened mind
The valley submerged in music of a kind
Came to him like a sense ethereal...

Sitting on the stony floor
Cold a pleasure on his nerves
He envisioned the path how curved and swerved...
From little huts to the highway wide
He thought he had taken the ride
To farther away...
From the settlement to the non distinct
From the real to the abstract it seemed...
From the sensual perceptions to the nonsensual ones
He felt he saw the whitest swan
Floating gently on a vast blue lake
Reiki trance him to a beatified state did take...

Football morning...

'what about a bit of football dad?'
My kid asked me early morning
And I jumped out of bed
To a dew laden green we sped
And barefeet
On soft moist grass
We kicked
The ball...
Soon we were joined
By people big and small...
A granddad...
A runaway lad...
A mommy...
A middleaged man with a spreading tummy...
Neighbours we are...

We played a match five a side
Sweated laughed shouted...
The ball rolled on the grass
Gathering dew
Ashine!

A morning so good
A morning football game
Post match lemonades and lime...
And bananas and egg yolks...
Calories burnt and added

'what about football every morn dad?'
My kid asked me while coming home...
The sun on our faces gracefully shone
Sweatdrops like little beads of diamond...
Me kid and the neighbours gelled and struck bonds...

Sunday, March 24, 2013

The street side painter...

This tabachi lotto store
That pigeon pooped alley
And sacrosanct three storied facade
Biege and sobered with visions of paintings married
Reminded her so much of the man
Old wrinkled faced...shaking hands
But once he stood before the canvas
He became so young
Brushes thin bristled and long
Made him to capture dreams
A tree by the river...
A girl sitting on a stone it seemed
So real as if he had been
To places sure by his foot
Treading across hearts of the multitude...

Sometimes he would work with charcoal
Blunt headed and black and grainy
He kept on enjoying his flight
And the noise of pennies
That used to fall
Made on him no impression at all...
Cars passed...
People walked briskly...
Some grave faced...
Some with friends high fived and laughed...
But he was by and large ignorant
Of passing screens of population on the move...

This tabachi store
And the alley with pigeon poop
If you would by chance stop
And have a chance look
You would find him there
The street side painter
A little piccolo
A tiny space
In his colored smudged dress
A cheroot on his mouth
On Monteroliveto towards south
He would be found...
The street painter no doubt...
Catching everyday life
Rushing gliding whizzing cycling by...

Once he wrote a story of a tree
Another day he with a big blue sea
Eloped to another time and space altogether
Yesterday he drew on lightest blue a white feather
Afloat like a free happy sprite
His face had all the light
Of crimson delight...

Today she thought nearing the spot
Where pigeons usually leave white dots
That she would see him with another world
Yes!
He was there with a canvas...
And inching towards the plate
She was amazed
To see a girl like her
Standing and staring fair
Smiling and in her white floral gown
She looked at the canvas and just frowned...
'when and how did you find me?'
She asked the old man with shaking hands...
The man shook his head and smiled
'don't know...your picture just happened to me...
Like the way flowers happen
And clouds before sailing to Byzantium stop sudden
Before me to plant dreams
Just like that...
You maid happened to me...'

Saying this the old man
With shaking hands
Brought out a canvas clean and clear
And stood before it
And took his flight again...
This time to the ancient Greece
He was  probably thinking then so much of Adonis...

Friday, March 22, 2013

To Albert Goring...a tribute...

O how stupidly you pursued your course
Of life often going overboard
Helping those who needed help the most...

I remember
How you foolishly joined those women
Forced to scrub streets with spades and meagre tools
O you fool!
How come you joined 'em the lower class?
How come you throw away your nickel and brass?
Your family name...
A Goring were you, right?
How could you join the anti oppression overnight?

I remember...
You deliberately sending trucks
To get 'labourers' in thick mud and slush stuck...
You forged documents only to set free
Thousands of people belonging to a different nationality...
Your truck loads always stopped
Somewhere hidden in forest
Covered by hills...
You set the men and women free...
The labourers without hope
You sent them home by the mountain slope...

O what a man you were!
Fighting silently standing where
Many people wouldn't even dare
To move a single milimetre
There the flag of freedom you unfluttered!

O what a man you have been!
A rare Albert Goring...

Now after many years
Standing there by your grave with happy tears
I kiss your tombstone with love
O you were the purest whitest dove!

And your life?
I know millions out there
Would call it
'bon viveur'...
I am just one of them...
A miniscule grain...
A tiny one...
But inspired enough
To take on all the smooth with the rough...
The snowfall...blood stains on frozen ice...
The horrific deeds... The propagandist's lies...

O what a man you were...
O what a life you had...
Bon viveur...

way to heaven... and being the child...

the moment i hear your flute
early morning
every day
i feel like getting stripped
of my all...
a sheer emptiness engulfs me
and i surely take the road to heaven
the road so pure and vacant
white blossoms lined
and i feel robbed of my everything...
my present...past...
even dreams of futurity
money... cars...
online shops selling brands
cards and poker games...
i think i lose my sense...
emptied...
void enveloping me...
i feel so naked...
like a child
just born...
looking at the world
a blurry dreamy vision...
still under his omniscient father's magical charms
smiling in wonder of lucid joy
and feeling quite at ease with his arrival...
O boy!
and fascinated the same
surprise and blessedness
working conjoined...

every morn
your flute
way to heaven brings
and i turn a child
naked pure curious and struck
with wonder and happy pleasure
i lie...
with legs playing with hands
self absorbed
and still having dreams of womb...

Thursday, March 21, 2013

the saviour and the saved...

Your shrunken face
and so shabby dress
your fingers bitten hard by cold
full of marks of blood on cheeks
unshaven beard witness to holocaust
could have made a wrong impression
you could have been killed by bullets hot
piercing through the air burning holes
your dusty boots worn out soles...

but
wasn't there the piano still?
a pure wooden instrument covered by a white cloth?
The officer's eyes were however grim
His eyes with an idea toyed
and he asked you to play
through the broken battered window visions of dead bodies stray
came unhindered like distinct pains...
and you uncovered the piano
and touched the blackish stains
on reeds...
the copper plate announcing the make
of the piano an italian stake...

all those played on your mind
and you for a moment closed your eyes...going blind...
and tried to put your mind on the reeds...
and the music in you bred...
slowly surely an outpouring ripple...
your fingers supple...

and the rest...
is history they say
you kept the officer stuck to his chair the whole day...
his eyes from grimness went on to be
fascinated... blueprint of a kind sea...
he just kept listening all his mind
his face glowed with unseen shine...

at the end
of the play...
the victim and the oppressor stayed
face to face...
no enmity had its trace
in the soldier officer's hat and strapped coat
harshness left his military throat...

he stood up and asked him
how much hungry he had been...
and how much thirst he had braved...
the poor man was thus saved...

the piano did the thing for him
his fingers woken up from a dream
started tearing the bread soon...

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

nocturne in c sharp minor...

like a chopin
amidst grey mist sad
your redness spread
a contrast
full of life
a blooming thing...

its march
and the sky is still wintry
the air is still cold and dry
and your petals unfold
moist soft dream like
as if beads of hope and beauty
weave stories on you
though the mist and the uncanny fog
makes one confused-is it winter
or spring?
why dew drops fall?
why this slight shiver?
why nocturne in  c sharp minor?


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

returning the water fairy...

If I have once found her
The fairy of water
From the deepest of the depth
Like a prolific percept
When the apocalyse befell
I left her the water fairy
In the deep
Buried under the sea
For the scourge and the curse above
Was too hard for her
to bear
I could see...

O I left her in the deep
And swam upward to face
The fire on the water and gasoline fume
And all the lampoons
Falling all over the place...

That way in the water
I laid the water fairy to rest
and sleep forever ignorant
of the unrest and the terrible contamination...

I just returned her to her safest home
where she could breathe easy
even left alone...

Today is a day for a tour to the hills...

Today is a day
For a tour to the hills
Methinks...
A long tiring and a perspiring trek
Walking up the hillock,boulders, rock
And a momentary stop by the blue blue lake
Reflecting the raman rays of the sky...
Prism like defraction of the light...

Today is the day
Methinks ,of nothing to be said
Only for a walk up the hill
Long,tiring and perspiring...
And a song to hum all the way...
Of the sunshine kind
In which mortals often ambrosia find...
A song to sing aloud perhaps
Reverberating across the wide green lap
Of a valley in which the poetic sage once discovered
A reaper girl simply clad
In her skirt and a cloth tied
Over her head and deep dimple smiled
And a scythe in her hand by which
She gathered crops golden rich...

Today is such a day to fly
To unknown lands with alien feel
Where flowers never seen
Wake up after a good night's sleep
Yawning at the monumental presence
Of hilltops still camouflaged by mist dense
As if they were guardians of the soul...
Today is a day for nothing to be said or told
But to feel everything on the skin
Today is a day to lose way in the unheard and unseen...

Monday, March 18, 2013

I wait for the morn...

You can say I wait
For the morn every night
A morn like this...sparrows on wires
Swinging and twittering in delight
And the crystal clear sky
Blue and white...
And a cool sweeping feel
Crows and pigeons having a meeting
Over pieces of bread crumbs and puffed rice...
The rays of light creating shadowy boards on the street
On which woken up and hurrying feet roll the dice...
You can say I dream of the morn
Every night in my sleep
This kind of a dazzling morn
When leaves and trees and hoods of minivans
Parked outside of my residence shine
With colors green, yellow and brown...
And the toddlers break out in shrill cries
Asking their moms
To take them out for a walk
Or play in the park...
When the light as luxurious as gold
Cover the buildings...balconies...lamp posts...shops...faces of people...cars and buses...bikes and cycles...with freshness bold;

I wait the whole long day for a morn like this
When songs from radio with the air mix...
And the whistle from the factory calls
Workers and their supervisors
To hurry to their stations...
When the bazar just opens
And fruits and vegetables and green mangoes and watermelons
Arrive in trucks from distant places
With dew drops all over them
Like blessings of Lord's omnipotence...
A fruitfulness and the fertility cult become so conspicuous...
When water of the river Beas
Usually remains the sweetest and the purest thing...
Every night and day, for the morning I dream...

Sunday, March 17, 2013

A perfect cloudy breezy noon...

The cloudy breezy noon
Leaves and twigs broomed
From one field or street to another
There flew happily the white feather...
Same sights and vision occured
Earlier to me and you then concurred
It was all because of love...
May be your that conjecture
Pasted somewhere like a picture
Hold true or it may not be the truth
but abject falsehood...
The cloudy breezy noon
Trees swinging
Scraps of papers and plastic broomed
From one street to another alley
Timeless grace, tempting folly
Your fingers sketching numbers
On the back of my dried timber
Hidden variable theory expressed...
The damsel walked my window in a white dress
Black clouds making her prominent
A perspective of pure poetry held that image...
A little love sprinkled with sad tune
Ah! A perfect cloudy breezy noon...

A conversation between the water of the lake and the traveler breeze...

Gee!
Water of the lake sparkling silvery
Was having a sweet morning talk with the breeze...
'where have you been?'
The water asked the breeze...
A bit sad...confined by earth...
But she had all the curiosity;

'well...coming from the west
Where little children in their sunday best
Had attended a mass
At a chapel...
Their mothers by their side
Wearing white...
And flowery hats...
And gentlemen in black ties
And white shirts cuffed and buttoned
Joined a chorus for the Lord...
And interestingly just beside the chapel
There stood a tree- orange leafy maple
And on green grass saw a lot of leaves
How painted an orange red skirt creased
And full of enbalmed silence
And a little distance away across the fence
Saw two white horses on run...
Their muscular frame glorified by the sun...
I saw them on run...tireless speed
Hoofs ploughing through the grass and weeds...
And the pathway that led
From the chapel to the homestead
Of the town's sheriff plump and red
Saw a singer on a bench
Playing on his jumbo guitar
A morning serenade...
His song had the flavour
Of youthful joy I tasted never...
The joys of being properly aligned
A marriage of body and the mind...
He sang of journeys made by men
To faraway places without chains...
To hills and plateaus and valleys of spring
To heavenly pleasures sought by those too much keen...
I stopped there for a while
And played my fingers on the singer's hair and mind...
Gave him more tunes joyful
To work on from the morn till noon...
Then I went where cornfield lay
Spread like a wide yellowish cloth
I played with the nuts and maize
I made butterflies find blossoming daisies
Honeycups and crimson pollen grains afloat
I gave the taste of life deep in the throat
Of a little bird perched high up a tree
I made her sing an eulogy for me...'

Hearing all these the water of the lake
Thought she got more than she could take
She was filled with joy, hope and dreams
The water of the lake was no longer kept confined, it seemed...

Friday, March 15, 2013

Perhaps it is very wide...so I am ignorant...

Don't know much of geography
Or climatic conditions...clouds' ways...
So don't know the reasons exact
How can an afternoon be so calm like a morn?
Kind of blessed...soft...yielding...
Cool rain smelling breeze on pages of my Henry Fielding...
And a stillness as well...
Absolute still ...no change in the color of the sky...
Till morn the birds might have noticed this...on flight...
Through the window moments back
Tried to grasp the known track
Of setting sun's songs...
Found nothing as such...
A stagnation strange...
The eastern streaks of toast french
Which gathered in the morn
Are still there...as they were...
And the cow grazing the field...
Is still on the field posted right there...
Found her sitting now only...
In the morn when the man left her
Tied to the post...she was grazing but supported by legs
Standing young...girlish...awake...
Only now she seemed sleepy...
Otherwise the field is just the same...
Same green with yellow unknown blossoms of wild...
And the colors properly filled in and filed...
No photoshop or morphing done...
No mortal had done anything to the picture for his or her whims...or fun...

Don't know much about painting though
Or photographic lens how zoom in acres of grass clean and pure...
But the God's gift of the finest simple living thing
Camera obscura...
That did bring...
A blessed stagnation...
Despite movement
There seemed an equilibrium...
A balance...
Like a picture postcard dense
Packed with colors not seen frequent...
But once seen which usually remain...
The whole long day...
Even if morning wanes to the afternoon
And the afternoon going forward still
To embrace a glowing evening...
A serene movement perhaps...
Steady and slow
So balanced that one never knows
If the day has actually passed...
If the planet has actually rotated...
If the universe is actually moving...
Perhaps it is very vast...
Perhaps it is unimaginably wide...
Perhaps it is unfathomably deep...
He knows...
I know He got the exact sense...
I know only that little thing...

Don't know much of geography...
Or painting...
Or anything really...
But He knows
And luckily I got fullest faith on Him...

Thursday, March 14, 2013

The morning drive through...

She and I
For our hearts and eyes
Conjectured for a drive
Through the cool spring on sprout
A morning wind in our hair no doubt
Kind of a drive on the blue dark asphalt
The trees standing without fault
New green leaves and birds merrily on chirp
Tea from small earthen pots slurped
Straight down the throat
A drive through the road
Straight to the ghat...
People jogging...
Wrestlers slogging...
And the perennial flow
Of the river having the golden glow...
Little kids in white tees
And white tracks stuck to their bodies...
Bowling and fielding...
Catching the red cherry ball in air
The nets hung like curtains fair...

The pious ringing the bell
At the grand gate of a marble temple...
Saffron dots on their forehead like marks
Of their morning's prayer already done visibly stark...

A school of horses and the mares
Grazing and thinking and grazing
Tied to posts in a green green lair...
A traffic policeman getting instructions over phone...
The Raj Bhavan having colonial facade shone...
A newspaper van scuttling fast as if it would reach
Within a few minutes the farthest of the east...

She and I
For our hearts and eyes
Had a drive through this morn...


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

My grandpa and me...one afternoon...

'your mind is like the stone
Placed at the outer side of the wheel on spin...
And so you are full of unrest and non dreams...'
Saying this my grand father closed his eyes
Sitting erect on his afternoon cot where lied
The last few rays of the sun sleeping full of bliss
On his white long beard there played the afternoon breeze...

I sat at his feet looking at his face...
So calm...cool...soft...without any stir...
He looked like an image of a saint from alien land far...
His forehead...his cheeks...and thin lips...
Had a glow of sweet charm...some divine chips-
as if they had fallen all over his composed self...
As if my granddad to some impossible depth delved...

Outside the world must have been clumsy...
The television screen must have Gordon Ramsay...
Those kids of the neighbourhood in sweated shirts
Must have been shouting playing fighting and falling apart...
And those beauties with handbags and sarees with flowery signs
Must have come and sat on the benches for their afternoon chat...
The cars must have honked loud and straight
Out of anger a friend must have slapped another losing faith...
A cab driver somewhere must have picked up a quarrel...
Hurly burly must have broken out a hell of a trouble...
But inside my grandpa's simple room
Only peace and tranquil sense bloomed
And I also closed my eyes sleepy as if to rest
I thought from the outer fringe of the spinning disc
I had started a journey to reach its centre so still...
And the outside world with all its shouts and cries
Don't know where temporarily did fly...
Peace and calm made a fruitful descent
Then... thought I got His saffron scent...

Summer of '99

We had also summers of our own
Riding the bus to the town
From our idyllic green
We had boxes of tin
And our very own guitarman
A microphone rusty stand
And songs in our lips...
We had summer of '99!

We boarded the first vacant bus
From the gate of our campus
Morning had been soft and temperate
We got comfortably sunk on window seats...
And watched the city waking up
Andrew nodded his head and winked just...
'its okay dude...we are going to win Casablanca...we must...'
He had such a positive vibe to spread
The street by the park was not till red...
Another one of us...had notes on papers...
Copies of our midsummer night's labour...
And when we had taken the stage...
Monitors placed like old sleepy sages...
The first strumming long pressed...
Jeans dusty had all the unrest...
And souls we were to burst...
We were surely having the hallucinogenic curse...
But we broke forth strong and wild...
We painted visions weak and mild...
And grew graded by the pedals tuned...
We shook legs for damsels with hairs colored and pruned...
O! We had such a summer of '99!
White columned Scottish gates...
We had overrun performance dates...
Took cabs and metro rides to the fringe
Of the city where yellow mixed with pink smooth cream...
We had also Adamic decadence...
We found rhymes in the most banal existence...
We had summer of '99!
We lost through pocket holes golden dimes...
And recovered haply to chase a note through Mirza Ghalib street...
At Reynold's we shopped copper and silver strings...
We had our own summer of '99!
O! We had summer with plectrums on fingers fine...

Sunday, March 10, 2013

who am I to show those visions?

Who am i to show you those
little flakes of morning's gold
falling and covering up a strawladen hut
who am i to show you that?

an old locomotive arriving from the west
people descending with bags and huge suitcase
and a cartman greasing his cart's wheel
his face blackened and smile on his face still...
a crow perched on a tin roof
witnessing bedlam arriving throwing dust by horse's hoofs...
a little boy running through
the cloud of white smoke
the locomotive into the derelict station blew...
a range of distant overlooking hills
the gradual change of a village's trance like feel...
the transcendence of civilisation
from serene stillness to a busy motion...
but who am i to put them into you?
these visions on my heart grew...
over the years...the passage of history...
a peepul tree with leafy mystery...
summers,winters,springs and autumns...
an anthology of laughter and tears...
human struggles with arrows and spears...
and also of nature's pristine best
a settlement by His providence blessed...
but who am I to show these?

Saturday, March 9, 2013

amico di anima...

Hey amico di anima!
I might drift
and you might take the tide so swift...
and we might live seperate
but we can't afford hate...
we can't simply...
For when we are so attached by strings...
we might fly to distant lands
you to the known chambers of hearts forlorn
me to a port where fishermen's song
transmute the evenings into silvery white...
Hey! amico di anima!
we can never lose the sight...
of birds flying back home...
of sun dipping her redness strong
into waters of ganges or volga...
Hey! we are not accursed...
We got no anathema...
Are we not souls tied by strings?
forever stretching...elongating?
You might choose in your way
carpe diem theme
carpe florem...
I might on a white page
work out a neopolitan theorem...
But where's the hate? where's the lack?
strings are mutually made to slack...
by us...
our choice of words...
and silence befitting the journey afterwards...
still...
Hey! amico di anima...
Where's the anathema?

Friday, March 8, 2013

you take me again...

you take me again to the breeze
on the cliff
and the green seen from above
like a carpet...
you take me again to the smell of incense wicks
and strips of white flags full of peace...
and the sombre gongs of bells
reverberating wide and far
sweeping the hills and the plains... you take me again to the beginning of an end
to that road which stops so sudden
to reveal the untraversed life beyond the sight...

you take me again to board a flight
slow taxing down the tarmac
and propellers rolling fast
taking in the air and the system of exhaust
blowing hot at the rear to give me the thrust...
and...I take off...

folding up my legs
severing the last touch,
to the soft generic earth...
I take off...

Thursday, March 7, 2013

'what do you really know of me?'

What do you really know of me?
Amadore once told me...
and set into rhyme in a murmur soft
he told me about what life to him brought...

"In search of life
I have wandered to hills and valleys
to pubs and cities... to aunt Sally's...
in search of life I have done so many things
dived into the coldest lake
to suffer hypothermic freeze...
Wrapping myself up in sheepskin tight
In a moist cave I spent a whole night...
what do you really know of me?
I have made rope from intestine
and slept on dead grass
in a burnt wood of pine...
Camikazi knot having tied to a boulder of a cliff
I jumped into the fearsome deep...
and fell the breezy weightless me
I fell straight to the blue green sea...
Survived several deadly crash
on my back got whippings of lash...
three diagonal marks of pride
A survivor of a hurricane ride...
Rolling over a downy slope
hitting shrubs and bushes of thorns
pains I coped...

And then met a youngish maid
in a whispery tone who to me said
'Settle down kid...settle down...
You've raised a storm and people do frown...
At your reckless flamboyant life
you got panache but lack a wife...'

So I thought stopping for a while
Why not change the adventurous file
of my life so much under fire
why not settle with a flat tyre?

After a few years a baby was born
with blue eyes he like a starlet shone...
in our cottage on a hill
beside the stream where fish danced till
the evening set in like a curtain of haze
i stopped climbing and jumping...
grew only maize...
and toiled hard from morn to night
and we owned a golden sight...
Soon the boy grew strong
and the bout of adventure came back and I longed...

Oneday giving them the land and my purse...
I set out early called by stars...
And days and months and years slipped away and slid
I journeyed again to the unpredictable bid
of Nature calling me to come out in the open...
Where strong dreams are with music woven...
What really do you know of me?
I have leapt into the blue green sea...
Straight from a cliff a Camikazi knot
That's my story to put it short..."

Saying this old Amadore
Took a bottle of Chardonnay and poured
a big shot down his throat...

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

sms to you ...when you are so morbid...

Writing a sms...
to assure you...
O Yes!
There's a lot between us
and then there's nothing as such... dear...

why you so shaken and feared?
don't you know we all are of His?
The Man who taking on his arms us gave the first kiss?
and made us to smile ,weep and cry...
and failed us so often so that we could try
harder n better with all might;
He who gave us the First Golden Arrow of Light,
Gave us the pains and sufferings too
as rare gifts so that we could burn and glow...
He gave us all to grow metal true
burnt ,hammered and thrown into blacksmith's hearth
He showed us how molten gold erupt from volcanic earth...

so...dear...
have faith on life and Him
And be filled with liquid dreams...

twilight sun...

the twilight sun...
without tease or the feel of burn
smooth dying and so benign
bestowing little men and women with candid fatelines...
simple...lucid and thing so round
as if to lift the waves of water beyond the bounds
of embankment so solid like rock
the sun going to sleep...
a perfect egg yolk...
carrying the secrets of birth perhaps...
and the scent of time elapsed...

our lost neighbourhood...

our neighbourhood had its own flavour
like soft kisses of an ancient lover...

the mornings woke up with simple sounds-
Little miss Lily singing her song
her fingers on the harmonium
and the sweeper in blue uniform
brooming the street-
The two working an uncanny rhythmic feat...
the rustle of dry leaves being swept
and the shrill song of Lily almost wept...
Then was the gardener's fast scythe
cutting through the air's chill that would soon die,
And there was an inimitable Mrs.Bose...
in her dressing gown and peeping hose
buying from her window white fresh rose
from the flowergirl too early arrived
catching ferry to town at the first tide...

Mr.Lahiri would be seen walking home
followed by stray dogs some
to whom he would gently give away
broken bits of biscuits on a silver tray...

Dhoot Singh,our only milkman
would knock the doors and place cans...
his healthy body glistening in sweat
his belly hanging a bit overweight...

Little boys cycle borne...
would shout and laugh aloud
riding fast round and round
down the lane and the mound
of grass and dried up weeds
to be blown oneday again to the fields...

The night watchman would plod weary
humming a story of a moon fairy...
oblivious of the sunrise...and the increased level
of noise...shouts...songs...cries...domestic decibel...

Our neighbourhood woke up thus
last two decades that passed...
each morn that embraced night
each night that broke to a flight
of jobs,studies,cradlesleep and birth
of death coming as the most frequent visitor...

Sunday, March 3, 2013

the atonement...for you and me...

you sent me bouquets
and warm smiles...
and hugs and kisses...
in forms physical and metaphysical...
in shapes cool as a glass jar
of clean pure water...
scorched me dying of thirst knowing you well;
in alphabets so vegetable ones...
and like fruits on trays
glistening like the sky of noonday...
in pathways and alleys
in shirts mauve colored ones -Allen Solly's...
in hymns and harmonies...
in pandemonium...cacophonies...

but why?

you needed an atonement I guess...
a balm to calm your senses...
you needed that...
an atonement...flat!

I needed that too...
urgent and straight...
but i don't need to send you anything for that...
instead...i found a word...
Evolution!
That's my choice.
Period.

Friday, March 1, 2013

the piano teacher mine...

Last few minutes
before I took up the pen
i think i was with her
my piano teacher...

i think because i am not sure
she had left the job many years ago...
but still on an evening such
i am sometimes reminded of her touch
on the reeds white and black,
and her heels on pedal making mild taps...
and she telling me stories
of princesses and wonderous fairies...

sometimes she would allude the tune
with a vision of a changing sand dune...
then another time she would not talk
her music set a vintage 1869 on rocks...

then there were times for her fingers to evoke
a scene from Alice in wonderland like a stroke
of paintbrush creating a scene...
she by her music strange things did bring...

once she taught me how waves of ocean could lap up
on the shores of our living room by music soft...
and then she showed me once a corn field
only by music how swayed and filled...

'Music' she told me once in a whispery tone
'should be felt and heard all alone...'

God knows what happened afterwards
I found music in every thing that appeared...
a tram making tring tring through the mist,
a cycle bell having pure music unleashed,
a ferryman calling his mate in rhythmic tone,
a clock ticking in a silent hall alone...
a boy mugging a multiplication table
of nineteen, with a musical feel...

i caught then on,music everywhere,
from piazza dante to college square...
i felt music forever like a downpour
on my head...heart... and I got lured...
to music and of course to her
my only one piano teacher...

The State Funeral

At least they have given her The State Funeral With tongue cut,  She could not have spoken for  The rare award,  The police have done the th...