With the right music in your head, anything is possible!

Un Gris Día

Necesito los abrazos del sol
en este gris tierra:
un gesto de buen voluntad del universo
que recordaría a mi
el valor de paciencia

Twil-i-ght

I'll tie a twine to thee
and tie a twin to thine
into these two we'll wind the times
and twirl away the tides

The weird and wonderful night time world around London Wall when there's nothing and no one but ghosts, goblins and tall glass buildings

Bouncing Light

The sun reflecting onto the pavement from a reflection off a building the day autumn blew up a pile of leaves

अंदाज़ अपना अपना

I thought this line from the film was really funny until today: I'm having real trouble with my moong dal

Saving daylight and other things:

Autumn Arrived

सोते सोते मैंने सोचा

City In The Sea -II

(*) click on the image to see a larger version

Waking and Sleeping

I wake up to the sound
of children laughing,
joking,
playing,
hula-hooping,
chasing,
counting,
and sing-song chanting.

When I sleep however,
ambulances and police sirens
are always screaming
far into the dark night,
panicking,
stopping,
saving,
frightening,
warding,
always shouting,
always lurking.

The sun robs the soundscape
of its innocence
and in its place,
all kinds of emergencies emerge.

दिवाली

अमृता प्रीतम ने पूछा

Four Seasons at St-Martins-in-the-fields

I lived through a year in an hour
in a church in a square
where there used to be fields
and there used to be a figure
of a son of a god on a cross,
but where,
now,
there is a circle of light
that welcomes the sun at the altar,
and candles in the windows
that tremor
at the mention of Vivaldi.

Barbican inspired brutalism

Faces on the Underground

On the Underground no one speaks.

No one talks to their neighbour
or looks over the shoulder of the nice lawyer lady
in an attempt to read her paper.
There are no women sitting by windows,
chatting, cutting vegetables
or discussing Salman's moves
in the latest Bollywood blockbuster.
There are no men playing cards perched on briefcases,
as they furiously debate the fate of the stock market.

There are no ladoos distributed
for the birth of a daughter's son
or the 90 percent score of a cousin's exam result;
nor any marzipan strawberries to celebrate Christmas.

Instead,
there are people on the Underground
trying hard to read the London Lite
while plugged in to their selfish melodies,
white earphone wires disappearing into black coats
or black bags or black pockets in black pants.

There are faces that you meet-
brown faces on the Underground:
eyes looking for recognition,
wondering if you're a tourist
or a commuter,
trying to figure out which part of the subcontinent you come from
and if you might
just
happen
to speak the same language.
There are glances on the Underground:
looks that say they've seen you,
and they know how you feel,
as you try your hardest to navigate a new city
from the inside out,
within this bubble you need for yourself
and with nothing
and no one without.

Looking for a Poem

Today was National Poetry Day -
not that I knew this of course,
when a couple of hours ago
I was searching for a poem:

a poem, a verse,
something to look at
to say that we've met
under a street lamp
over cola
or coffee,
maybe in May;

looking for a prophecy
that would emerge
from the flipping pages
of a book by a man
from far away
and long ago,
who once sat
upon a dark island
and said to himself,
"I've travelled the ocean;
now where do I go,"

looking for a note
that you may have left me
in my travelling fray:
something to say that you missed me
in your awkward day,

but there isn't
and wasn't
a rambling rhyme,
just a moment and silence,
a bittersweet sourness

and the difference in time.

Mi Diccionario

Mi diccionario tiene todo el mundo
en sus hojas:
un universo del amor,
del odio,
del desgracia,
que se disolvió en siglos de impaciencia
cuando perdimos el camino de ser
en un desierto de estar.

Entretanto los vientos de acentos
forman montañas
de differentes significados,
el contiene un mar de actos
rodeado por vallas de palabras
que suscriben nombres
pero no describen cosas.

Colinas y valles
suben y bajan alrededor lagos de comas,
paretheses doblando como arcos iris.
Entre el cielo y la tierra
se encuentra suspendido el aire
de todo lo que se suena
y todo que se llama
La Lengua

Pennies

You can have hundreds of rupees jingling inside you pockets
and the English would never have a clue.

For every pound they return to you a penny
bright, shiny, coppery new.
"A penny for the your thoughts,"
you tell them,
but they never have any to spew.
So you collect the precious pennies,
fill them in jars and pouches and socks
hoping to get change for a quid or two,
but them fellows never take those pennies back
and they're just as useless to me
as to you:

sitting on the other side of this ocean
separated by spices and rani pink hues

If someone had told me how warm and fuzzy fresh laundry feels out of a dryer,
I would've tried my hand at it sooner
than when I did
just today

.

On why I see so many déjà vus

Sometimes I make up worst-case-scenarios
of unlikely situations:
unlikely moments that can,
nevertheless, seem quite grave
while I imagine how I'd respond in them
mustering up the courage to be brave.

I've seen fires and medical emergencies,
traffic, wars and tsunamis
sweeping over my beloved Bombay in waves;
I've been through trauma wards
and psychological examinations,
kidnappings
and LSD raves.

The truth is that life isn't as exciting,
as petrifying
or even as grey
as the bleak drought I've painted in my head
and the reason why I've lived it by proxy
is so that when the time comes to face it,
I'll know what to do then
or at least have a witty thing to say.

Lovely

We who suffer from disappointment
prepetrate it upon the rest of the world.

It feels like a cheap china vase
that comes wrapped in a a tacky box:
the thoughtful gift of an overbearing relative.
A vase,
a dust collector that no one wants
but one that gets passed on nevertheless
to the aunt's cousin's in-laws
at the next obscure wedding in a small mofussil suburb
of a large sprawling metropolis.
A metropolis
or a city
spread over damp hills and lakes,
squalid drains and super highways of human etiquette
social compliance,
and other ways to show you care.

But you don't.

And it doesn't matter,
'coz we'll pass the vase from table to gifting table
pretending it doesn't exist
and hope it ends up in the hands of someone
that thinks it's pretty enough to put up on the mantle shelf,
dust it every day,
arrange a few plastic flowers in it
and call it lovely.

Twenty Five Thirty

"All this drawing and painting will end,"
she remarked
when I showed her a new birthday card I'd made.
"By the time you are thirty,
these golden silver papers
and drawings and watercolourings
won't interest you anymore,"
she declared
with the knowingness of someone
well beyond the hedge that thirty seems to draw around people's minds.

"Really?"
said I
(horrified at the thought that silver things would no longer hold the promise of youth anymore)
"How old do you think I am now, eh?"
I asked her blankly,
half expecting another solemn statement,
a rebuke
or a slight.

"Well you're only twenty one,"
she replied,
to which I exclaimed
"Ha! I'm twenty five
and I haven't given up this drawing-painting,
middle of the night fiddling just yet!"

She smiled submissively,
un-believingly,
as if twenty-five-year-olds
can't possibly be doodling and collecting
and collaging everything so rampantly
without thinking about thirty
and the trifles
that wouldn't matter by then.

But I smiled triumphantly
as if I'd never give up my magpie collecting and making and colouring sketch pens.

Procession

So there I was:
stuck in a traffic jam between the sea
and a heli-port
pondering over the books I'd bought in four different languages,
when I was caught unawares
between mortality
and impermanence.
Trapped on the one side
by a procession carrying death
towards ashes
and another carrying a god
towards a watery burial,
my thoughts were
going in opposite directions
when the signal turned to green.

Above the honking cars,
the vociferous chanting,
fervent singing
and dramatic drumming
all melted into one great hum,
as life celebrated death
celebrating life
while the poor souls caught between the two
hadn't yet come to terms
with all this street-side living,
and fighting,
and cussing,
and traffic-jamming
that never ended in anything but death
no matter how far they went
or tried to run away
any which way the road bent.

Midnight Ramble

Settling into another session of midnight sitcoms,
a bee sneaks into the cloud bombinating above my head
and I suddenly wish I were asleep,
dreaming up a blockbuster or two,
a racy thriller
or even a period drama
set in Venice.
It’s very rarely a romantic film that I dream through -
and come to think of it,
when it is,
I usually arrive too late to catch the beginning,
managing - somehow -
to stumble into deep sleep towards the end.
They're pretty fantastic films, I think,
the ones I see with my eyes closed
and if I could replicate the dramatic camera angles,
sharp shot editing
and deep Wagner-esque soundtrack
when I'm awake,
I'd definitely make a nominee list or a few.

Which makes me wonder
that without the popcorn,
the silly girls in New York,
with their hat and scrunchie discussions
really aren't worth the scratchy eyeballs.

So good night and I'll see you on the other side of the credit call

Zzz...