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A painted bowl
a chronicle of life
a micro-earth
its rim, the horizon
its curved insides
the playground
of animals, humans, insects
one turning into another
men growing fangs
and lizard tails
salamanders who love
like you and I
lines, crisscross, zigzag
spirit paths for shamanic flights…
A painted bowl
– a macro-sky
a deep desire
a pit-stomach cry
of earth convulsed
into life,
like this body
fired by breath?
(This poem is inspired by the painted bowled of the Mimbres Indians, who lived in southwest New Mexico until the 12th century.)
He comes on stage, folds his hands in greeting, sits down. The light shining on him is too bright, too harsh. It won’t allow his magic to take root, grow, flow. They have to be dimmed. There, that’s right. Just enough so we can discern his form in still motion, and the expressions that arise and ebb on his mercurial face.
Silence hovers over the crowd like a krishna-hued monsoon cloud, heavy with anticipation. It’s rumbling with thunder now, unable to contain its own fullness. As his voice, and his hands, move from the earth to the sky, the cloud bursts into warm flashes of rain, drenching us with the furious beauty, the momentous suddenness, of his music.
Somewhere deep within, a snake uncoils and frees itself, rising all the way to the crown chakra.
Somewhere in the universe, a sun implodes.
Somewhere in the ocean, a pearl forms.
Somewhere in our collective consciousness, love begins. Once again.
The fine hair
on the reeds
the delicate drops
of dew
on the bamboo leaf
the flurry of feathers
on birds’ underbellies
the clouds engaged
in erotic embrace
your eyes
my eyes
all catch
this first light
this first warm kiss
between
earth and sky…
Any day now
I expect
the great mother goddess
to rise in revolt
in this ancient land
that she has nurtured
with her breath and milk and love
whose rivers carry her blood-benediction
whose very earth is her body
in her we all exist…
Any day now
I expect
the great mother goddess
to shrug off her benevolence
and turn against her children
a terrible beauty
astride a rampaging tiger
or perhaps
the old crone
who dances death
any time now…
For, hasn’t she taken offence
at far less provocation
than presented by
scarred wombs
from which
have been ripped out
her own emanations
stopped from being born
because they are
what she is — female?
Any time now
I expect
the great mother goddess
of this ancient land
to fill the breasts
of us ordinary women
with her divine rage
her unstoppable courage
and then we, her daughters
will rise
ululating and angry
adorned in red
millions of mother goddesses
carrying our emanations
in ironclad wombs…
Then perhaps
this massacre of innocents
will stop?
It’s that time of the year again. When we brush the cobwebs off tricolours and our patriotic spirit. “The national anthem is my favourite song. And I get so upset when people don’t stand when it is played,” a starlet gushes. So, does she stand bolt upright and listen to the national anthem every time she wishes to relax? That’s what the rest of us do, you know, listen to our favourite songs when we want to relax.
How do we celebrate the anniversary of our independence as a nation? With tricolour sweets, sarees, bindis, and any other surface that might lend itself to being coloured into saffron, white and green. What does the tricolour mean, what do these colours mean? Who cares? Have fun, yaar. Say cheers with a tricolour mocktail.
If its not the tricolour, its got to be a thin person (child preferably, oh cho chweet!) dressed in a white dhoti, round spectacles and brandishing a long stick. The Mahatma, you see. We have to remember him, at least what he looked like. No problem that we hardly remember what he stood for. He got us independence, right? With Gandhigiri, right? Say cheers to Munnabhai. There’s no Gandhi like Munnabhai! Hey, was that really a ‘m’ocktail?
This year, the din is particularly loud. It’s been 60 glorious years, you see. And look where we are. The biggest democracy, the fastest growing economy, the loudest cheerer of our cricket team, the most wondrous example of secularism…… Everybody say cheers!
Hey, don’t get me wrong. I am no party pooper. I love to toast everything worth toasting. But I do have a problem. And that is with allowing synthetic, garish, filmy displays of patriotism take over an occasion that must lead to some serious soul-searching. At a time when so many people identify themselves with their caste, religion, region and language identities, where do we place the idea of India? What is the direction we would like to move ahead in — a materialistic soul-killing environment destroying focus on commerce and economy, or some sort of a middle ground that is sensitive, compassionate, just?
I know, I know. It’s old fashioned to talk about social justice and such things. But that is the powerful, radical idea on which this nation was built. Isn’t it time to relook at it 60 years on?
I’ll say cheers to that.
A solitary tear
clings to the edge
of my left eye
for the longest while…
until I coax it
onto my finger
and hold it up to light…
Have you ever
seen sorrow
luminous and bright
and pain transformed
to unbearable delight?
If you look long enough
into this magic tree
that’s taken root outside my window
here’s what you will see –
a lattice of leaves
transform mid-morning
into starry sky….
Street sounds,
motorcar horns
become
the musical clip-clop
of a horse…
cruel smoke and smog
filter through
as shape-shifting stardust…
and tears charmed
right out of my eyes
to become
drops of dew, drops of rain
on the leaves’ undersides…
Astronomers, scientists
and all other rationalists
have ruined
celestial love!
By calling it ‘occultation’
and observing it
with telescopes
and other instruments
that measure distances
between the two lovers
– Moon and Venus
they were, last night
drawing close
in slow seduction
until she lay
beneath him, above him
tongues and limbs intertwined
united in love…
Watch, if you will
but with love
and respect
for a sacred amour
Be a voyeur, if you will
But please,
not a data-notching scientist!
Last night, at the traffic signal, a boy came up to the car. As they often do. With a bunch of jasmine strings. “Take it, for your hair,” he giggled. His eyes, though, were weary.
Yes, I will. Two strings of jasmine. One for you, one for me. One will adorn my hair. Cool my head, too. The other will be my gift to you. For jasmine-scented dreams. For a touch of me with you.
The boy is waiting patiently. The light turns green. We pay him in a flurry. Five rupees. For two sets sets of jasmine dreams.
Who says the price of living has gone up?
Words meant, left unsaid
Fester in the silences
Between our breaths…
Words thought
Words birthed
in our being
Left unsaid
Slowly suffocate…
Oh, for the liberation of writing
the act of freeing
words
from my bosom
into the vast outside
where they’ll live
or die
without me…
