untitled 47

dwelling in the dilapidated hush
of a temple-town,
gods and tukkaram pujari
share a table at krishna cafe,
sipping the first, filter coffee at 7 a.m.;
await masala dosa scheduled for 9 a.m.;
pujari, a driver,
bows at the steering wheel before keying the engine of
maruti 400;
wife waits, on empty cylinders,
for pujari in the evening.
whiles away empty hours counting ---
waves on the green arabian sea;
footprints of shells;
sholas on horse-faced forests;
tea leaves, coffee beans on hill slopes;
trains crawling past the empty railway station;
untimely chimes of a sneezing grand-mother clock
strung from the sky.
 

untitled 46

at loutolim, in pascal's village sky-bar
on evenings,
sit on wooden benches
with rum, paul and pascal;
an infrequent customer,
neatly combed,
freshly shaved,
devoid of discontent,
in hawaiian slippers,
bermudas,
T-shirt,
cashless,
shares rummy space.
women fizz from soda bottles,
chuckles stir rums;
last rounds are refills.
souls at placid pace.

written on the death of mario miranda on Dec. 11, 2011 (Sunday).
at loutolim, goa..

untitled 45

mother thought he was in college
when he was quarter-way to school;
his son joined him after years in class 1.
jobbed as a temple cook;
cut deals with temple priest to tend family;
a world celebrity ---
15 sq. km. of verur village
--- on avial, dal vada, boli.
chewing rolls of black tobacco shut him up;
sometimes spotted alone
on a rock in verur river.
indiscretions were scarce for the brahmin
distanced from brahman.
the 12th man. 

untitled 44

teaching malayalam to 5-year olds,
left palms of hours for Hari saar to tend
the unwalled padam;
for every peepal, banyan, tamarind, jackfruit,
bananas,
there were three cocounut palms;
carved deep moats at their feet,
filled them with well water.
browned coconut leaves made
the roof of his mud house.
when he took the morning dip in the
temple pond,
mothers yoked their kids to chalk and slates.
between class 1 and home,
spent 40 years.   

untitled 43

towards midnight the last truck churred away.
squatting on black charpoys,
dressed to wall the january cold,
the sky bent low dripping icy stars,
beside two unroped camels.
the couple at the dabba
served army rum, rotis,
dal, aloo mutter, cut onions,
in a somewhere without a clock tower;
tossed around facts and fictions
browned in the sands of kutch and rajasthan. 

untitled 42

five sisters were born over five monsoons
at Penn
--- the stone latticed home on verur river.
epic-minded parents named them ---
ahalya,
sita,
tara,
mandodari,
draupadi.
father, a wall painter, killed self with a brush;
mother deodourised moods salting myths.
leaping into the future, the five left Penn;
selected partners;
children;
rolled the floors of malls, tourist marts;
turned corporate billboards spewing branded
views;
anchoring civil society in unkempt ways,
locked,
river breeze,    
star shine,
burst of raindrops,
public whispers
insects, birds
shunning designer homes
for unkempt spaces.  

untitled 41

for 29 years,
the nurse curious of caste, creed of patients,
works 12 hours a day at the dental clinic.
at 9, madhavi is at the door for
cleaning the home.
after a morning tea, dines in the night;
fasts holy days, saving a little for kids in a
solapur village.
the sweeper is prompt with the bins;
frequently pleads for a pain-killer;
ramesh delivers four newspapers at 7 a.m. to
decorate the living room;
shankar, the milkman, knocks at 4.30 a.m.;
the government servant (titled sir) fills forms in triplicate,
marks them secret,
before sexing a woman on the floor, under a mat;
assured a double bed on clearing the file.  

untitled 40

they say
(in Kasi living is hearsay):
a bearded soul,
striding out of Ganga mayya,
shooed a noisy dog;
the dog versed;
exchanging souls, were drowned.  

untitled 39

jayant of Kasi, a Kabirpanthi, delivers
mailorder english books to my friend.
kabir ganges Jayant;
nissim flushes my friend.
heads down, stare at each other.

untitled 38

a zero wobbles down link road,
turns a stringy line.
Kali stands at the far end watching
Shiva manages the daily change ---
for autodriver Sitaram.
in Lanka, love nor brick Hanuman saw.
Sitarama wondered about Vibhishan,
Mandodari,
Ravan, the extraordinary Shivite; the name
grandmas conjured to hush adults to sleep
on village nights;
Tulis's Hanuman was Sita's talisman;
none protested on Sita stumbling over
Ram's obiter dicta;
Bhai Bharat gave up Ayodhya;
unlike in Mahabharata - a crime thriller to own
Hastinapura.
yet, Tulsidas is a living charm.
up at 5, to cawing crows,
Sitaram chants the Ramayana.
driving for 12 hours, did twiddle the meter;
Ram and doctored metre do not mix, gave up.
ferries men and women to bars and joints
across the city's illumined darkness.
in a smelly shack on the creek
life hangs by bribes.
after drunken blabber it is loud prayers
for wife Sita.
at Belia village,
nine brothers, nine sisters,
three more born dead,
crowd courts for land in father's name --- Gopal
Singh.
age shakes gopal and his charpoy
as wife withers in another.
bending low Sitaram finger-prints
auto,
link road,
forehead fatelines,
for good business, safe day.
making the last run,
sitaram drops my friend.
refuses the fare.

untitled 36

retired winter mornings.
a bat skips in and out of the room.
sparrows in extended snooze.
wind stutters from a false start.
deep in a sofa, my friend,
sips a coffee.
stirs the quiet.

untitled 35

rains over many days
turned tamarind, mango,
peepal, banyans jittery.
the old man on the kerb
-- chintamani
-- wiped their trunks with
fresh newspapers.
the rains stopped,
residents chopped the tree
tops.
flying fox,
egrets,
cormorants,
fled with their nests.
the sun shines on nothing. 

untitled 34

bewildered by beatitude,
the young nun is sure leading
children to school in the mornings;
kisses them bye to maid servants
in the evenings;
parents too busy living,
too busy dying,
rely on the nun
irregular with prayers.  

untitled 33

a pink bauhinia,
two calling orioles,
took my friend
on a morning walk over trees
and walled parks,
over hills and mangroves.  

untitled 32

sand particles sickle the air in
Kutch and Rajasthan.
silver anklets, bracelets,
enlarged nose, ear-rings on bright toned
women;
forest moustaches tarnish faces,
a turbaned art add inches to men.
spare with words;
unsparing with wood-fired, dal-batis
after days had left.
camels stride in ancient style,
a quiet in their eyes.
forts wrap crags suggesting
wild angers.  

untitled 31

when a gandhi cap trundled
down Verur village road,
head tilted over a stick, in thought,
15-year old grandma
was first up in welcome.
grandpa, crouched behind the window,
being a panchayat official.
when a langoti sadhu came along
on advance notice,
grandpa, painted in ashes,
offered rice and dal;
grandma, in period, was
banished to a distant courtyard,
sewing contempts to her heart.
at 80, grandma --a Taththagata --
rested in the portico nudging a grass
and mud village road
over paan and cut tobacco.
she now resides in a tin trunk,
a black and white fade out.  

untitled 30

awaiting Yama on the banks of Verur river
Gandhi's soul grew a coat of flesh.
mocked on earth and heavens,
gandhi shivered to a cold, dawn wind.
after a hard night out,
Yama stumbled on the stone steps
locating Gandhi.
freshened with coffee at a street joint,
Yama said:
"we know and do not know each other."
gandhi bared toothless gums.
Yama continued:
"You pray to gods;
question them;
insist on solutions;
gods dislike activists."
Gandhi replied:
at kurukshetra god averred to
lovingly owning every soul
ahead of advising Arjuna to kill  --
particularly confusing."
a woman's laugh usurped the stream's gurgle.
fondly feeling a rosary of skeletons
slung round her neck,
she passed by, joyously.
strum of a violin, a few thumps on a
drum. 

"Kali is birth.
Kali is death.
shuns gold.
craves skulls.
with Shiva loiters
favoured spots
in burning ghats.
blushing,
tongue out,
owning up human,
inhuman grime."
Yama replied:
"some say life is maya.
for others god is maya.
saints think maya is
a woman;
a disdain;
a sin.
she and Shiva employ me;
a resident at fiery ghats."
for Yama it is no matter.
OM =  MC2.
unknown=known.
Gandhi, the lawyer, caught
the illogic.
said the old man:
"crave for compassion,
not contradictions."
sheared from gravity,
a protesting earth,
drowned in space.   

untitled 29

under a pipal,

ankle deep in Verur river,

grandma stood,

eyes shut,

head down.

........

dusk.

parrots, egrets, herons, cormorants

heading for rest.

six years ago,

a train stopped

at the 20 ft. long railway station,

without a station master,

a name,

a ticket counter;

carried away men, women, children,

with their tales in tin trunks;

leaving an ancestor,

knowing nothing of anything,

anything of nothing;

seven banyans for company.

stretched out on the grassy platform,

the ancestor, unwound by a past, waits.

...........

on Link Road,

a new generation engages the mornings,

readying for fresh blood 

to takeover.  

untitled 28

For Chintamani junior, Vengurla was

a throw of stones in mango orchards,

feasting mangos;

fasting mother,

lighting a diya at dusk to the broom

in the prayer room;

broom is Goddess Laxmi

bought on an auspicious day,

okayed by the house priest;

Laxmi is luck, love and legal tender.

shunned in heavens as maya,

banished to earth,

sweeping homes of deaths,

ghosts crowding night breaths,

preserving births.

in our mango republic,

King Alphonso, exiled to Gulf,

has left behind ruins of packing cases

for locals to mull.

Our mango republic,

birthed in forests,

home to sages serving poetic guesses,

leaf wrapped,

to themselves;

could be hearsay as evidence is

adulterated.

what is,

is dreams are taxed;

corporate jinns steal poor of soul and skin;

residing in skyscrapers,

scorn groundscrapers; 

gods epically mortgaged themselves to asuras;

sages protested;

asuras were obliterated.

in our mango republic,

Gitaic vision wears dark glasses;

absolution lies in nebulous assurance

of rebirths;

raindrops hanging on to green

threads of grass lessens daily hurts.

the King is no more.

untitled 27

on aashad ekadashi
crowds shuffle in lines,
under rains,
at the Vithala temple.
Vithala, Rakkumai, Tuka stand still;
have been for ages non-commital.
Lord, Lady, Saint, unsighted by devotees,
Chintamani, the old man on the kerb ---
bowed head,
bare feet,
folded palms,
shut eyes ----
stands aside,
tang of Rama, Krishna, Hari on tongue;
refracts to a tiled home in Vengurla;
rain drops, slipping down tiles,
tipping over the edges,
sews the earth in straight lines;
the embroidery remains well after
the rains.

untitled 26

his is the alley.
no bark, no bite, no bile.
rains do not wet him;
afraid of cats.
walks chiyu to the school bus
stand,
awaits her in the evening.
in an order of affection
didi follows chiyu.
married early.
didi expected a pinch of dislike
to go with parts of love
as scissors and stitches on fresh
cloth at the tailor's.
didi became an attender at the clinic
to appease her man;
she is there, he has gone.
a coat of light brown and white,
a white namam on the forehead
suggests Rik was a brahmin in
a previous birth;
or be born a brahmin, next birth.
men with instant judgements,
undo earnings of  working women;
a mother and two kids were ticked off
after her man, rode into a truck, drunk.
before the alley became home
Rik  was different.

was

untitled 25

he died early morning.
speeding cars, disowning traffic signals,
braked,
as the dead man rode to the
crematorium
on the shoulders of friends.  

untitled 24

Warrier set up the first pathology lab
in verur village;
for unfamiliar clients an excitement.
the damp, dark clinic,
veiled by trees and shrubs,
tasted of kashayams and arishtams.
on the wooden table lay
a stethoscope,
a thermometer,
some ayurveda books
in malayalam for warrier to
double-check on intution.
a faint bulb blinked from the tiled roof
mornings and evenings;
afternoons, warrier rested.
grandpa was the lab's first client.
early morning,
he packed slabs of stool
in banana leaves;
wrapped a kerosene bottle of urine
in an old newspaper;
placed them on warrier's table.
presuming a breakfast
of puttu and kadalai with coffee
warrier opened the contents.
warrier,
waiting patients,
the clinic,
the lab,
deserted verur,
failing to catch the humour.
a malayalam paper reported
the event.
today the clinic is verur's best.
on its wall hangs a framed copy
of the report.    

untitled 23

chiyu prefers her ally to school.
the alley, with a well at one end,
is all for her resident.
many cats, a dog, pigeons, hens,
house sparrows,
broken stones,
a bhendi, a coconut, two laburnums
comprise Chiyu's graffiti.
grandma hovers around for a
quick cuddle.
climbs into the school bus,
takes the corner seat;
school ...  college .... a lady .....
engaging a society dissolving
women in doubt.   

untitled 22

stepping down frisky clouds,
cloaked in beard and bareness,
Vyasa and Valmiki were on time
at Trends --- a bookstore ---
detailing Bhoomi ---
a poetic wandering, jointly authored.
unable to place them, unsure of sales,
the owner of Trends was polite --
offered them tea and brun pav,
promised to scan a free copy.
impatient over the storyline,
rushed in time for rhyme,
short of an audience,
they walked the Marine Drive into
a monsoon;
posted Bhoomi on their website.
wrote when thought of humans,
unowned by gods,
trembled them;
paused when the tremours passed.
Mao sat with Gandhi;
Einstein with Hermann Hesse;
debated solutions with gods out of station.
in the stands,
public and critics,
yearned for rains in May;
moons in July;
craved for bunglows in the sea;
Ferraris in the balconies;
blue skies for courtyards.
TV crews screamed the disjunct.
Chandra's black holes lunched on
disappointments;
Hawking's absurd particles salted
grace of the priest;
daring the poison brewers,
sipping poison,
Siva became Nilkant of the forests,
mountains, rivers, burning ghats paved
with skulls;
a bird,
while Socrates collapsed.
Siva and Socrates designed a rainbow
nailed to the skies for humans to joyride.
usurpers of the law secured boys in Godrej vaults,
girls in deep wells,
for generations to live unwell.
men and women,
animals and trees,
turned potter's wheels,
spinning fresh earth,
to a contrapuntal hum,
to Malkauns's thrum ---
for the perfect pot
designed with fatelines. 
some gave up, tired;
the wheel came off, for others;
a few dropped it, broke it;
a thin crowd persisted with
imperfect pots,
for Shiva to store the poison,
be free; 
returning a kindness.

untitled 21

kaka, the milkman, left
without informing;
chacha, the baker, went
without a bye;
payal,watered gardens,
swept clean housing societies,
has gone;
dearest grandma lighted a diya,
stepped aside with none beside;
walking the Maidan, my friend,
turned to his school,
enquired of class teacher Dubey.
"gone," said a careless tone;
went to College for Fr. Turmes.
the principal stared like the dead,
said Fr. Turmes was dead.
lovable fixtures over years,
parts of a long ago.  

untitled 20

perhaps,
earth is a gifted woman,
the most.
raindrops,
whiff of wetness,
mangy clouds racing ahead of
winds in a chor-police chase,
she offers.
aged legs reluctant,
inside a garden chair
under a shedding gul mohur,
chintamani smokes
warming a chilled soul.

untitled 19

in may the city empties,
not my friend.
they have gaons with curls and
corners
safe-keeping shards of a growing up.
may my friend can bear.
long suns, short moons.
no ifs and mays in may.
alphonsos fly Gulf Air;
at the Press Club has a couple of beers.
ferreting futures from unclear foreheads,
trailing palms with magnifying glasses,
brews a short, cooling may storm.
footballs, without goalposts, take the park air;
bereft of stumps, cricket balls course gullies.
may reminds of the double-spread of a maidan
with hooghly, at the edges, tuning rabindra sangeet;
growing without women,
adrift on howrah bridge looking for exits, entries.
may is morning strolls with madhubala, smita patil on
marine drive.
in may my friend lost Tathiya in the middle of a
beedi puff, half a glass of rum;
a shady porch was his premise;
belonged to pensive streaks of creeks,
greens in distant suburbs;
a police constable tending gardens;
a lathi in a corner confirmed his profession;
chuckled over imagined chases of pickpockets
never having strained into a run;
pondered over crosswords in marathi eveningers.
Oliver became Oliver Iyer in May;
the sacred, white thread explaining the makeover;
the priest, costing $ 1,000, fried shlokas in a sacrificial fire;
a samskrit scholar gave the english version.
it went for a while as Oliver Iyer
took breaks for a smoke, a nip and a kiss with an
american girl friend.
fingers twirling the thread,
oliver iyer googled a query:
"what's in it for me?"
"brahminised brahman, a non-fiction,"
said the fiction maker.
may is like that.
ice-creamed passion.
blogging poems unvisited.
delicious hours.
delicious desires.    

untitled 18

tired of backpacking Lord Ganesha
across lands and rivers,
Lord Mouse pleaded for a breather;
a ride on Lord Ganesha's broad back
as a favour;
Lord Ganesha obliged.
a crow flew low,
forked Lord Mouse with sharp beaks,
leaving Lord Ganesha waddling
on arthritic legs;
Lord Ganesha is learning to drive;
application for a car loan has been
rejected as the applicant is asset-less. 

untitled 17

Pickled in edgy times
pratap shinde buried a long-sick
crow in the mangroves abutting a line
of shacks.
a senior citizen,
mans a housing society on nights
with a lathi;
rushes to the gates as tipsy executives
file in and out spouting american slang
at any slack;
sees no purchase in being still.
was a weaver in a textile mill
till mills became malls,
denied dues by millowners with
swiss accounts.
his wife packed up like textile trade unions.
two sons run autos in magic vengurla
where the sea throws folk-taled fish.
sparrows have taken over the roof his shack;
cats stroll in and out of a doorless home
containing a bareness.
nights do not sleep shinde.
stretched on a string cot
dozes the day to the churn of an
unprivate city. 

untittled 16

laburnum in flower,
mangos, jackfruit, coconut,
peepal, banyan, tamarind,
assembled in and around the
open-air kitchen,
ahead of Vishu at Verur village.
eyes shut tight,
led by grandma,
my friend walked to the kitchen,
opened eyes on long-time friends.
saw his face withut a mirror.
grandma handed a rupee coin
for unaudited spend.
lunch came with grandma's aromatic
cheer.
in the city, Vishu is a date
on the calendar.
no grandma to bother.
waking up to the milkman's ring, 
switching on the mobile,
scanning emails,
living with little flavour.  

Untitled 15

summer holidays.
Atharva wakes to a screaming
table clock at 5;
after a cup of Complan to grow tall,
is at the swimming pool at 6;
at 8 is in the park to be a Tendulkar;
home at 11 for lunch;
cycles to an artist centre to be a Raza,
read dated  English classics to impress
friends of parents in air-conditioned drawing rooms.
for two hours till 7 goes round and round a
skating rink with hands hugging computers;
a bath at 8 for an hour in the puja room for prayers;
by 9 put to bed by a maid
when competitive parents return from work
or do not, caught at meetings to please
the boss.
Atharva is 20.
dislikes everything except the maid.
unlike Siddartha,
wandering the Way
after glimpsing the world.
    

untitled 14

on a sunday morning,
Vitthala,
Rakkumai,
Tuka,
were into kanta pohe
from Bendres
under a banyan tree.
sipping tea from plastic cups,
thanked Omkar the priest
running debt at Bendres
when devotees with prasad
were rare.
in then times,
devotees were walkers;
some came with human ire,
others with heavenly fears;
imprisoned by Fate,
not scripters,
gods faltered.
the ambience was elder to the wooden
temple on lease to
Vithala,
Rakkumai,
Tuka,
in black stone.
garish billboards of Hindi films,
filmstars stared them down.
pilgrims after prayers
relaxed at theatres.
now under blue plastic sheets,
the lease over,
Vithala,
Rakkumai,
Tuka,
will be in white marble,
an alteration unexpected.
CCTVs will secure the temple,
devotees will email gods,
donate by credit-debit cards,
i-pod mantras.
wiping tears of
Vithala,
Rakkumai,
Tuka strummed a Rama-Krishna-Hari
on the tampoora with broken strings.
protested Rakkumai: 
Tuka, when will you sing of me?
 

untitled 13

parked on an electric wire,
a white-breasted kingfisher
broadcasts the air;
a black drongo cheeps from a
blooming copper pod;
morning walkers are plugged to
i-pods;
some, eyes shut,
synchronising their breath,
settle undeer a tree
priding new-born leaves.

untitled 12

stretched in a creaky easy chair
showered with yellow droppings
of copper pods,
chintamani scans the lane
on summer noons.
at his feet rests an age-lost donkey,
his mother's pride.
knocked down,
she bought him from a stone
contractor;
christened him deva.
aza, the labrador,
chintamani's dear,
lay across the chair.
a lame acquisition when
aza was pushed out of a merc.
Below many-angled noon shades,
they play cards (without aces)
brought by pappu, the parakeet,
rescued from a soothsayer.
play carrom without  a queen
till the moon preens.

untitled 11

at the shiva temple near the
railway station,
samkara stamps a left foot on
a tarred road;
trim,
walks the summer sun,
a grin clothing him thin.
places boulders, left-overs from
road repairs,
in a straight line,
unhurting traffic.
shredding newspapers,
folds the line into an
irregular circle.
shares a lineage with narayanathu
pranthan (mad narayanan)
of long ago;
spent a life rolling stones uphill,
freeing them downhill;
laughing.
rejected help of a generous Kali
at the cremation grounds,
their home.
Kali persisted, prandan gave in.
"shorten or lengthen my life," demanded my man.
"that's not in my power," replied Kali.
"then why the offer," asked my man.
samkara is.
needs nothing, is nothing.
a reticent passion string them.
undone by common desires,
littering trails with advaitic charms.
the city has many rejects.  

Untitled 10

with palms stuffed in frock pockets
spelling a hindi film tune,
she trails friends trudging to school
spotting squirrels jetting from
rain to silk cotton trees
is late to school.
holding an injured magpie
at the foot of a tamarind,
feeds it water, rotis from
her lunch pack,
misses school again.

untitled 9

familiar with ordinariness in
undistinguished times,
aged simplema takes baby steps
to the church
she has adorned
from times ago.
thought has laid pathways in
a thick top of hair.
a laugh,
a touch of friends
shrinks the webwork on her face.
dropping two grand-daughters
at the school she read,
simplema rests with the bible
entire afternoons.
opening,
shutting the book,
she wanders the jamun
curtaining the window of
her corner room,
from an wooden armchair.
in the evening
brings them home,
feeds them,
shares cartoon network,
hands them  to her daughter
toiling at a superstore.
retires to bed under the cross
waiting to be crossed.   

untitled 8

on the asphalt road
a donkey takes to driving;
at sewri, flamingos are boating;
in juhu, birds are training to
be pilots;
chopped tress warm open-sky
slums;
astroturfs smother grass;
flowers in a blossom loss.
a few own the earth meant
for all.
orbital dislocation could wheel
the earth into wild space,
with a spinning headche.
they were before us.
may not be after us. 

untitled 7

from far
a basket of unoiled hair
bobs from a mobile, steel
bin in the mornings.
lakshmi digs the bin for plastic
waste;
breaking off,
sleeps on her plastic sack
with stray dogs beside a twig fire;
till, mother comes from the morning
search for waste.
butterflying from child to a girl,
wary of the sniff and snore of
tarred roads,
lakshmi earns a vada pav with tea
for wiping clean the tea shop
under the rain tree.
her airy plea for a pair of plastic
bangles is pending.
evenings,
rests behind the bin
filling up fast.
her mother started that way
continues to this day. 

untitled 6.

on a deserted walk-way
she keeled on him.
a lorry thudded by.
an office crowd,
set down by a local train,
trudged by.
a moment undissolved in
a streets' outcry.

untitled 5

at high school
proposed to padmini.
they never met again.
walking across the maidan
he fell for sona.
she smiled,
hopped into a tram.
couldn't hold himself from
aarabhi at the university.
a communist, she said:
"i love mao."
bumped into debi at the workplace.
walking marine drive,
talked of devotion to work.
delinked herself.

untitled --- 4.

rooted under a badam,
chintamani picks tales from
dry, rum coloured leaves in february
for retail with simplema.
an old woman was born in
a village to an aged pair.
she grew young,
her parents died.
the village mislaid sadaphule.
doing a head stand atop
the badam,
an awed brahma got lost
in a trance.
after a ganges dip, smeared in ash,
shiva shivered at the burning ghat.
vishnu blew on a mute flute
having no clues
to the aberration
in the all-male affair of creation.
reluctant to leave without a trace,
denying yama a face,
set aside by gods for
mocking their unequal laws,
sadaphule flowers.

untitled----- 3

a white spray on a
loose pouch of wrinkled skin
is in mornings at the park
where he first kicked a ball
to start on the beautiful game.
young legs swirl the ball
to cries of 'pass';
a yell  - goal  - dies as the
ball goes wide.
the blessed play.
sufficient reason for him to
desire another day.
  

untitled --- 2

morning sun and moonbeams
stare over the hedge.
warblers, sunbirds call.
crows caw.
koels are half-way to
valentine's day.

untitled --- 1

simplema and chintamani are
the first citizens of the road
when trees shaded cycles,
friends walked.
on an afternoon
when raindrops, the size of moondrops,
fell,
they held palms,
folded the moment in an umbrella,
now lost.
for many, morning years
simplema is the first to church,
unpinched of whys, wherefores,
whispering prayers.
chintamani follows.

untitled

untitled

at dusk,
the banyan sports a crown
of egrets, cormorants;
at dawn,
looses the crown.


.......

at the wooden vithala temple,
an upset rakkumai,
wiping eyes of panduranga,
says:
there is no panduranga
without tuka and bhima.


bhimsen joshi died on jan.25, 2011. 

untitled

chintamani plays snakes and ladders
with street kids.
bitten by snakes,
failing at ladders,
they blame it on poor throws
of the dice,
as he slaps mosquitoes to death
wondering over their rebirths.

untitled

screechy parakeets crowd the
feeding boards.
the houseowner traps them,
gifts them at parties.
turn, loud, caged poets;
yet, fresh arrivals stalk the board.


......

stranded in a temple deep in
the rising waters of verur river,
the priest sat on the presiding god
holding his head,
till waters fell.


........

the house sparrow died in a nest
inside a bookshelf.
chiyu buried her under the parijat,
placed a parijat flower,
little palms clinged together.
the bird woke chiyu in the morning,
lugged her school bag,
water bottle,
to the tiled playschool under middle aged
jamuns, mangos and other trees;
waited on the mango tree
for chiyu to finish school; deposited her home,
prepared a hot dal-rice.
in the nest, left a note with two wings:
fly away.

untitled

saying sorry to living,
aiding the alone soul with a
lighted diya,
a walking stick,
a pot of water,
the priest, on the tenth day,
rasped sanskrit shlokas
to skin the darkness from
the last rites,
last loneliness.

untitled

mornings, widow walks the labrador;
widower walks lady labrador;
the dog loves the lady;
the widower loves the widow.



...........


ranga, the barber, grew with grandfather.
verur village had one barber,
one tailor,
one ironsmith,
many brahmins flaunting unkind writs.
on monthly visits, shaved grandfather
entirely;
left with two annas, a white mundu,
locked the wooden tool-box inherited
from a tonsured tradition.
grandmother flavoured the floor with
cow dung after ranga departed;
that night, her man looked trim,
did not leave for another woman.
shaving on amavasya,
ranga spotted a snapped thread line
on grandfather's pate;
passed the news to grandmother.
ranga's grandson started on my friend
the day he was baptised a sacred thread
brahmin.
my friend migrated to a city
to hunched up barbers
at street corners
doing ancestral favours. 

Untitled

when asked of editors he
reported to,
recalls singh, suresh, bhaiyaji, nair, gangaram.
ever around with tea,
cigarettes, snacks, touch of liquor;
none wrote of them.
on night shifts,
michael, peter, cardozo, albert
made newspapers from lead,
puffing Honeydew;
after the edition, sat down to
a couple of desi;
nodded on chairs waiting for
morning trains to their sandra
in bandra.
lost, in newspaper files
defiled by blogs and emails.