Knowledge III

I’m sure Bush knew
when he invaded Baghdad
abuses and insults he’d get
more than a few

What he had not known
was that he’d end with the stamp
of Muntazar al-Zaidi’s
size 9 shoe.


14 march 1-2 PM 2009

2 Poems in the 2nd National Poetry Fest, Guntur, Anthology

Knowledge

One day
offended
I did not speak to you Dad
I knew, you, I pained
But what I did not know
then, was
that you’d revenge yourself
in absence,
never to be spoken to
again.


22 February 2009
9: 15 PM


If I could write this in fire


If I could write this in fire
so hot
For it to be etched on the very sinews of your heart
such that ’twould be frozen there for ever
That it could scorch your eyes
so no one else, evermore, would you read
have eyes for no other; the ones that read me last
That it could char your whole skin
so none would look at you
and I, only I, remained with your touch
fragrant with the odour of your sweat
gleaming in your infernal glow;
rekindling each day in my own sanctuary
those smouldering coals of lost memories
reading, re-reading,
such words-
inflammable.

Then, only then, would I say
Yes, indeed, I can write.


“If I could write this in fire”- is the name of an anthology of Caribbean literature.

Poem written sometime around late 2008- early 2009.

Poems published in A Posy of Poesy, an anthology issued by JKC College, Guntur as part of their Second National Poetry fest.

An article on the same:

In the hindu

Some other poems in the anthology:

Tikulicious

Nabina

Untitled

UNTITLED

First published in "The Stephanian" 2008

It is a tale
that began the night
the temperature was to dip to zero,
when under the shade of the stars
many, we talked for hours two
when under tall deodars
I first spoke out
and patiently You heard,
and acquiesced

when winds from the Caucasus
cocooned us around
barren freezing streets
uttered barely a sound

still, music there was in the air
that we only heard
a few late chrysanthemums
we alone saw
the smell of the Night-princess[1]
came only to us
as watery winter vapours in
the air we two licked
and together felt the warmth
of our own little bliss.





When each night
in my room, at my desk
I sat to write,
looking at You
in the bed
not pearly white
but with a dusky beauty
all Your own,
I conceived conceits
really stolen from You
that you unawares
lent out to me
making me pregnant, when
You had refused to be.





Your each affectation,
Your gurgling laugh,
inarticulate sounds,
the orange kurta you had on,
your sleepy face in the mornings
in Your urgent causes-the delight
You took, in equating
men, cats and mice.





Days when you would
not talk to me
You atheist, I religious
You Feminist, this F-word
I never endorsed.





Moments
when at me, You confidently smiled
as I shyly dared look
into your deep eyes
as we shared our stories
of Your childhood delights,
of ducks and Disney’s
of my Dad’s demise
of the new play in town,
of Your growing renown.





There were also the nights
When You dragged me to bed,
Away from my dear inkpot and the rest
and You were creative
and You explored
new vistas of art, knowledge
Love and more.





But tonight was the night
when I looked up from my text
found the bed empty
and called out Your name
and called it out again and again
You were not in the house
not the terrace, the lawns
as I reached the kitchen
it looked all forlorn
as if you hadn’t been there
for some time;

but you were there with me
when I last rhymed
and you had always been
there with me, in my
writings- as my kin
my very soul, my sight,
from You my rantings
had so much imbibed.





But where were You now
as I looked up and called?
our house not as it had been
since the first day You had moved in,
You were as clean as I was dirty,
You’d even got ME to wash,
pushed me in the shower,
kept a naughty watch.





But where were you now
O my creative muse?
as I go back in time my thoughts confuse,

What had indeed happened on that night?
when it had been cold enough
to fear frost-bite
when I had spoken out, and so had You,
what were Your words?
I cannot now hear,
I see your lips moving
minus any sound,
do you turn back then,
and go back inside?
as I stood in the snow
waiting for it or for you
to abide.

I now think the poem should end here, though it has been pubslished in the Stephanian with the following stanzas that now seem redundant in a tautological manner.



But then,
how is it,
that You were there
all the time
always there when I wrote,
having kept Your work aside,
You had sat with me
or in front of me lain
I could see your toe-ring
On your dangling leg
Your breast’s rising and falling.





It just can’t be true
-what they all say
that these walls are not my house
I haven’t been there,
for years now,
that you were indeed
never there,
but for my mind…

I AM NOT MAD
They all speak false,

I just know
realities,
(that they don’t),
of a fairer kind.





5:46 AM 2 Feb 2008
[1] I have used a translation of my own for a jasmine like flower called “raat ki rani” in Hindustani that exudes an overwhelming and very pleasant fragrance at night. I found the Hindi name expressive and poetic enough not to ignore.

Poems in Museindia

Three poems were published in the Mar-Apr 2009 Issue of Museindia, the literary ejournal:


View from Jama Masjid’s Minar

Like ants
they seem as I look down from the top
mostly white, some grey, some black, red e’en
creeping from one end to the other
of that large flat courtyard
itself Red
crawling to their ablutions - their wuzu
and then heading on to the side of the setting sun.

For whom this sijdah?
To a hawk-eyed viewer
who sees them
as ants, himself perched
forever at the top?

The Sole Slipper

I am the riot
that took place here
on the twentieth day of this summer

I am its victim
as I lie here,
stranded on the now desolate road alone
divided from
my better half

I was worn first
once
then entered repeatedly
and then left here, in a hurry
smeared with colour
in the middle

I am its witness
A soled slap on society’s face.

(5th September 2008)


Gujarat and Kashmir

I

If only it was
that the sky was not Saffron
and the ground not Red
and the house, the workshop, the bakery
were not ablaze
in flames that threatened
with more hate than heat

and had they allowed us
the little green haven,
Land,
that we too had nourished,
having wrested it,
from common foes,
with equal gusto

If only the eye was Red
merely of smoke
and my sister dead
of stabs in her back
only.

Or if, atleast
they had heeded
my folded hands, Brown
my head,
bowed in supplication, round,
in entreating
what humanity
a mob may have,
and not chopped it off…
to be soaked
in the fountainhead
of Red
that sprung
from my
diminished
corpse,
that did not
immediately fall
as had my head
(not yet knowing
manhood, nor
the sense in it all,
the candles of my
seventh wishes
not yet been thrown away),

Then,
when Abbu would come
in three days’ time
we all would welcome him
and
I would run up to him
And jump into his arms
as he’d come,
just as I had asked,
with a plane
exactly like the one
that made,
on Republic Day,
Tricolours
in the sky.

II

This
is what they called
“paradise on earth,”
and it was ours
we used to believe,
until,
the day
we first heard
the noise
and went to the square
to behold
that the world
had gone mad
that it was
Black,
and Red
made of shapes alien,
and smells.

Smells.
The smells
that smelt
like melting fat
in a pan,
greasy meat frying,
but
if only these too
could be smelt
similarly
with an appetite
that was not to be killed
for ages to come,
smells, that were not
so gross
so revolting
to make us reek of them
bath after
bath, week after
week.

They claimed
Kashmir.
They said it was theirs.
It was
their
right divine.
And so
they were making,
and said,
in future
would make,
more
such noises
and would create
more
such smells
everywhere.
Soon it was all over,
over the radio,
the Aakashvani
and the DD.

Now,

we have live telecasts
of
Kargil and
Kokarnag.
But
that smell has not worn out,
even though today
I live in Delhi.

But so has not,
the one that comes
from the
soil,
sandal,
snow,
saffron, and the
sun that
shines on the
stones of
Shankaracharya temple, and on
Srinagar and river
Sindhu.
Some things that
spell the
summary
of my Kashmir.

(24th September 2007