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...

तितली उड़ी

upon seeing the new butterflies, my Dadi reacted by singing an old poem she learned in school. How she remembers it 70 years later, I really wonder!

तितली उड़ी
उड़ के चली
बस में चढी
ड्राईवर ने कहा
"आजा मेरे पास"
तितली बोली
"मैं चली आकाश"

:D

pretty फूलs as a present

Mascaporne Moon

While a pepper and mascaporne moon
hides behind monsoon plumes
like a teasing lover
behind a chardonnay veil,
we stand on the chapel steps
watching its game play out
between billowing clouds and windward winds
on an incandescent gamboge stage.

A few cars slow down in acknowledgment
of the Virgin's blessings
but around our island,
the sea crashes on.

We surmise that
it must be high tide
and so therefore, we ought to walk down
the old hill's side in order to breathe it in more fully.

The moment hasn't escaped us

and neither has the lady
whose prayer of thanks is interrupted
by her loud, ambulance-sounding phone.
She fumbles with it,
says Amen
and hurriedly drives away.

In the meanwhile we realise
that it's time to meet the ocean.
Someone finally stops the symphony
to say "let's go"

reluctantly
we walk away
leaving behind our prayers
burning bright in orange green and purple coloured candle glows

the big 2 5

Al atardecer

साँझ होते ही यह नगरी एक नीली छाया में लिपट जाती है और ओढ़नी के तारे टिमटिमाते हुए जुगनू जैसे झाँकियों से झलकते हुए दिखाई देते हैं

Everything is transformed

Afternoon. July 24

They said it was going to flood that day,
and flood pretty badly too.

Apart from the few half-hearted showers,
it didn't rain much
although we each overflowed and broke through our floodgates
one by one.

We stared far into our separate distances
expecting that if the rain didn't drown our sorrow,
that at least fairweather would dry our tears
but no sooner did the sun creep out every once in a while,
than it was indulgently engulfed by encroaching clouds.

forlorn laundry fluttered flippantly in the window grills of his neighbours' apartment block
as the whizzing fan ripped though our grief.

I didn't know what to say.
If he had said anything,
I wouldn't have known how to comfort him.

We lost many things that day
and to have tried to explain any of them
would have been meaningless.

We would never have found the words
to speak of such silence.

We would ask now of Death

Of late I have contemplated my mortality many times, but I didn't realise what it would take from me to have to come face to face with it. These last few days have not been easy and more than once I said to the void in my heart that "it's just not fair. What has happened is not fair."

Then I found the words I had been looking for: the answer I need right now. This is how I will choose to face death, and in facing the inevitable, face life:


From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”

And he said:

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink form the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

The Passing of a Beloved Soul

Kanika, we will remember you for the love and joy and laughter you brought us all

जैसे करनी वैसे भरनी

butterflies are free

tres cosas sin que no puedo vivir yo

collecting poems