Motto

They've misread my words for years now my dear,
And exchanged my face for a mask.
So I juggle through my roles and lie through my ears
And stage others' stories till dark.

Butterfly Dreams

The cerulean sky has oozed in her eyes
With sunshine of winter unfurled.

And even as I bask in the shimmers of her gaze
I'm caught in the tangles of glowing copper locks
That ensnare my dream-dappled heart.

My truant eyes curl on stripes of her coat
And glide towards buttons full of mesmerized hope
And latch onto that necklace with despairing claws
As a drowner would cling to his straws.

Here among days full of academic bore
Such be the visions that'll shine through my nights
Even as I shiver to my bones.

And even as I lapse into familiar fuss,
With veins being stilled as if stoned,
These summer wonders will streak through my dark
With blossoms that'll sprout through the rocks.

Braced for the whiplash of shame through my days
I save through these words the petals that'll rain
And change our pebbles into cotton-flower clouds
That float beyond deadline and deals to a home
Where bluebirds and butterflies roam.

For Salman Rushdie: An Elegy from Kolkata

[This poem has a specific context. Rushdie was not allowed to enter my city for inexplicable religious and political reasons. Something that goes against our history and heritage. This is my response to that. I hope the poem stands on its own. But knowing Rushdie's novels, even the titles, certainly helps.]

Saleem will not dream in my city tonight.

Throttled and gagged, the angel that swings

And lovingly looks on from alabaster dome,

Ribbons her face with tar-dyed tapes

And sobs with the Ganges all night.

We had throbbed along expanding bridges through the land

And dipped the whole world in our cups.

Renoir and Bunuel had supped with our Ray

And Teresa was made our own.

And even as Rabindranath turned the world home,

We lounged in our cafes full of Da Vinci and Donne

With Gorky and Lorca in tow.

This was the soil on which we had grown

And flowed free with rivers to the seas.

But now our windows are slammed tight shut,

With streets full of hooded little men.

Scared of the sky full of galaxy of stars

They turn their eyes to petty little holes

And shake their fists full of rage.

Puzzled we now wonder and rattle our chains

And wait for a sigh from Florence to entrance

And lead us to a light through our shame.

Troubles

Angles of bones from deep within pits
Question this air full of burnt rubber smoke
And chart the new numbers of corpses unclaimed
That spittle my districts in red.

Quietly I walk, but look back with fear
And wonder whose turn is this day to be shot.

Hamlets that rang with melodies of birds
Or fields that had ripened with golden-green songs
Are pale now with mouths full of ash.

The veritable dance of democratic farce
Is cymballed with howlings of orphans in vain
In a land that has lost all its shame.

Oft have I thought of marching on streets
With candles or banners unfurled.
But fearful of causes too distant from mine,
Have left all my anguish unsaid.

So how should I find a new roof that'll house
All of our voices in sync?

Rattled still I type among gunshots at noon
And puzzle over souffles and mousse.

Girl Clad in Red

There's something to be said, for a girl clad in red.

Suddenly my world full of pedestrian mire
My restless old soul full of uncertain ware
And hardened old pigments on palettes rather stale ---
All of them all - stand blemishless and free
And float through a world of violins and flute
For an orchard of symphony unheard.

And even though I lack a name, place or mail,
Still we are in for a long spell of thrill
As sure I'll have that same little chat
Daily as I wait for a busride at ten
With memories of moments that loop through my gaze
And kindle my dreams all aflame.

So even as I jostle with sweat, mud and grime
Her eyes look and smile and make my heart chime.

Final Testimony

Creaking panes now gather moss.

Outside, the shell now is torn to its ribs,

Opened to the battery of sunlight and hail.

Within, the plaster is loosened and falls,

Leaving my walls with melanomic skin,

Blotched with the cavities of mortars and bricks

Which shiver to its core, in the traffic rush of four,

Coughing as a consumptive could.

Groping my way through the cobwebs of halls,

I’m startled by voices of faces on walls

That long back had marched by my side.

But streets we had rumbled with such heady feet,

Now parcel our dreams to far other states,

Even beyond immigration desks.

Left with the sideshow of clowns among graves

We live out our days among logsheets of crime

In a land that is jammed in its wheels.

Should I have learnt that things would be thus?

Should I, after all the unlearnt lessons,

After so many blunders

Of so many proportions,

After all the aeons of promises forgot,

After so many, and so much more –

Should I have learnt longer back

To purge myself of hopeless hope

And drink the gall of hate and loss?

Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya

Glanirva Bhavathi Bharatha,

Abhyuthanam something something

Tadatmanam etc etc…

Questions whirl in vacant air

And leap and twirl and whisper by:

Was this the end for which we fought?

Ours was not a paltry lot.

Back in that midnighted tryst full of hope

We all did have far grander dreams.

I plod through the fields of ancestral bones,

And even as I wander among rubble smelling blood

I search for a light that shelters us all

From all those blasts that have bombed through my dreams

And charred into ashes with insatiate flame

Seeds of a time that unawakened lie.

Our hopes have bled for long –

What more from withered veins?

The courage of impossible hope,

The vision of life through undying dreams –

Still would I pray for these.

Suffer us not to stagnate and rot,

Even in these climes, these desert times

Amid the rocks and bones and dying grass.

I wish to believe to the last.

Riddle me the Shape

Startled by insistent footfalls on stairs,
I've shuffled in the unforeseen chambers of night
And jostled with the shadows unkempt.

Fretful and torn, with eyes never shut
I even have swayed to the entrancing calls
Of songs that'll float as whispers in winds
In nights without slightest of lights.

Wonder if these now'll merge to a face
That'll riddle me the shape of the other half of self
And conjoin my words to the running-mill of veins
Where pace has been paltry of late.

Grappling with strings within irresolute hands,
I've fumbled for long with our abdicated songs.

Wreathed by the foam spread on waves lapping weeds
I drown among dreams full of tulips in bloom.