cars in dew.
a butterfly still on a lance of grass
waiting for a delayed sun.
kids joyously shuttle footballs.
a lighted, red cross impaled in mist.
its a city winter.  

strays are statistical improbabilities in 

ramanujan's intution.

never crow-clever, no pretensions.

stretched out, curled up, in drowsy thought

on link road.

on cold midnights howl.

chase speeding cars.

wiggle as the aged couple loaded with

milk packets, biscuits, aluminium bowls

set up breakfast on pavements.

pronouns do not embellish them 

--- one blind in the left eye, 

a second in the right eye;

--- a left ear up,

a right ear down;

--- a fellow lame in one leg;

--- some tail-less;

--- most brown with whites at odd locations;

--- two all black.

sometimes group at gossip bar over rums

and whiskies chatting cricket and gods;

the lady foots the bill, staggers out on fours;

they follow on twos;

never visit a saloon for a trim;

avoid vets for the lady claims,"they are fit."

pets in collars, on long leashes, stroll by.

complaints pile up.

an hour before the dog van, 

Link Road is clean with cars, pets, the lady. 

ambling on a sunday city morning,
circled by goats trundling ahead of their goatherd,
he paused.
walking back home passed the
goatherd aflame in cash.
single on morning walks,
coated in waves of auto fumes,
prayers parting lips,
is good morning friend.
--- a few lady rag pickers nosing bins,
an old leper in an orange headgear tagged to
a blind sister, squatting outside churchwalls,
tired milkmen on cycles relaxing with mobiles,
newspaper vendors not calling news,
couple of deranged women,
stray dogs asleep inside a shiva temple
----  daily, unshifting landmarks.
importantly, madhavi,
watching kids, without schools, noising,
takes off to her village with her three kids,
a remembrance of smiles.
while madhavi mops home,
he cleans, chops vegetables,
never knicking fingers.
slinging a stifled soul from her shoulder, madhavi walked to the devi temple,
60km from her village,
the promised third trip.
is sure of devi keeping the deal.
on diwali day sat in her shack
twirling a damaged 50-rupee note
passed on by one of her middle-class employers.
her village river has two banks, madhavi none.
the bell in her soul has no gong.
it happens to roadsiders.
fate lines cannot be braided.
he cannot be them.
in aging times hopes to walk till knees bend.
smiles
--- at squirrels scampering overhead wires
bridging treetops;
last of the snails after rains, snailing.

scary lightning,
drooping clouds on parijat blooms;
spray footpaths at dawn.


...........  


relishing a rare breakfast,
the bullock lurched, dropped on the tarred road,
shoved down by owner and three hands.
they tied his legs for shoeing.
a lone tear crawled;
iron nails pierced the flesh, jesus-style.
in an hour, the bullock stood up;
yoked to a cart loaded with twisted rods;
a  whip, the animal heaved, collapsed,
leaving owner cursing shoeing costs.




............

something of newspaper prose about the lady
as she swishes her tail and trunk.
today, she is still, in her style.

cormorants, egrets, flying fox crown
the coconut.
a spread of newspapers,
laid out by sachin, at its base.
no newsreader; a scanner of film releases
on friday.
he goes to bed with films.
her village pond, trees and birds unspool
when shantha, the flower vendor, sleeps.
saket, the tea fellow, meets up corporates midnight.
over a tea break, they meet, uncertain of the day.
one show a month at inorbit is sachin's desire.
a trip home forever, consumes shantha.
my tea stall will become a 5-star hotel, claims saket.
six years over. 

dawn sleep.
afternoo seistas.
earthy fiestas.



.......

on the way to the temple.
an elephant, chained to a banyan
on a patch of grass and earth.
the lady, unstill as ever, over a primeval hurt.
unkempt, alone, scraping her sides with
a banyan twig held in her trunk,
sways to an inherited beat.
on the pavement, under a blue plastic sheet,
a couple, many days and nights old,
sip tea from the same plastic cup.
cars in tinted glasses swim by.
raindrops brush the bare air.
he pauses, some distance from faith.


.........


raindrops roll off mango, jackfruit, jamun trees
to a patch of tarred road.
five feet from the road, he stood.
a cattle egret stepped around daintily.
a line of poetry,
disappeared after two mornings.

a rainy morning.
an empty church
soft weaving silence.



........

swathed in tinted glass,
a citified soul relaxes
with a mobile on a drive.  

in 40 years
never managed a window seat
facing the wind in a local.
at office missed a window desk.
brushed up wordage on night shifts,
signed off editions,
scoops, bylines never his.
retired.
is at the Press Club corner, on a day grained with rain drops.
orders four rums -- one each for Joe, John and Jim --
for memories gone.
after the last dark hour,
the last friend,
the last rum from Mohammad,
stretches on the floor,
to the distant hum of the Sea and the Drive.
the Club is his, he of the Club.
an yellowed newsitem.

16 years on.
the lady has been regular with steady state Shiva;
sometimes an old gentleman.
started, stiff and straight;
a walking stick,
a waist belt holding the back;
an uncertain stammer of feet;
fumbles to Shiva, waits for her old man.
a stuttering torso down the gravel path,
a beard seeking directions from the wind,
eyes scanning the skies, coat pockets bulging with
yesterdays.
they shared benches at school, college, canteens;
drifted.
share a cement bench under a rain tree,
biting into vada pav, sipping tea.
fluttering prayer flags.

suggesting stillness,
a palm-sized snail ekes out
of a cleft in a gulmohar.
wet in the july rains
withdraws from nosy
greynecks, warblers, sparrows. 

in the karanji tree sits a
tiny, headless, light brown Buddha;
for a tinkle of time, the head,
at the foot of the tree,
regains pristine primacy.
Buddha sits complete till his head
rolls the Way.
Buddha is incomplete.

less trees.
fewer animals.
diminished compassions.


..........

a striped snout at a hole in
the trunk of the African tulip.
a squirrel examines the morning,
turns back from the vehicle rush.


.......


red seeds of the coral wood tree
clot the tarred road.
they won't root.
one pockets them.


..........


on the cement water tank,
around 50 greyheads spitting caws
pockmark the morning.



...........


a sombre, evening sun
slips behind shelves of clouds,
office hours over.

a heronry on the tamarind
shuts out the skies
robed in July clouds.
rains in between.

dropping work
madhavi made field trips to
sick father in between normal
and critical.
sweeping floors on a sunday noon
her mobile spelt the end.
she was late for the last act.
brothers and sisters were luckier.
absences cost jobs.
dear father made death dearer.
undyed, unwilling father dear was
asleep when his dear left.


..........



an orphan, santhosh whiles hours and hours
of time on a dead stretch of concrete.
climbs the jamun and mango;
flies kites;
is adept at cycling;
humours the elders at cards with drinks and smokes;
shapes cricket bats from mango crates;
strong at lagori, marbles;
is everyone's bell-boy.
crawling up a coconut curving out of the housing society,
glimpses homes with TVs, internets.
some have spotted him on moonless nights
climbing skies.
helping a builder nail exit notices on shanty doors,
santhosh is a swagger, a street elder.



.........

a desinned, coffee-toned priest
girdled in a chalk line of sacred thread,
waits before a locked house of god.
magpie robins on a mango tree
make company.
a cook's tricks to prayers cost
him the job.
denied of a roll of paan,
a dot of supari,
a fingertip of tobacco,
is upset.



..........


at Kasi,
Siva and Kali,
wading the Ganga,
light diyas in time;
residents of the burning ghats,
smear ashes of time.
framed,
the tale, at chintan's watch repair shop,
with cured clocks on walls,
chiming differently.


........


a municipal official in an auto
with cycle outriders,
checks out market road
cleaned of vendors.
he cuts corners;
they go back to theirs.
smiles smear market road. 

alphonsos tip stalks.
still heads, a daring pink.
await the fall.

..........

in the garden of the primary school,
a peepal and banyan waltzz,
holding 3-year olds in their arms.
a summer breeze stolls by.


...........

loud humans.
mash, marinate, munch silence.
scar earth.


..........


signs in the summer morning
on koyal raga,
the koyal, from the mast tree,
requests an audience.



..........


the Drive and the Sea,
city-bred, city styled,
unstitch a loneliness.


...........

at the cracked, 19th century  sanatorium
a banyan is housed with
stoned sadhus.


.........

under a laburnum tree
wiping one's face on leaves.
an office rush stares.

.........

lightning.
sharp edged.
sky all monsoon.     

a may morning sun zooms in
on a meditative sow,
her squealing brood,
beside a sealed, plastic bin.
a sparrow on a coral wood tree
emailed the moment.

...........

10 years ago when the bank branch opened,
shiela was the first official,
alice her first client.
shiela has greyed;
alice is cottony.
spend daily whispering moments.


...........


meditation hall.
fenced gardens.
flowers shine the sun.


...........


kudremukh forests.
cold walks.
still streams.


..........


the banyan on station road,
is older than its roots.
hard to prove, though.

........

cormorants in arrow-head, wavy
formations.
fly out in the mornings.
fly in, in the evenings.


...........

untitled

thangamma philip was born in the kayals
necking the Arabian Sea.
at 6, a maid in the city.
at 50, fell on the street, buying onions.
unloosing her fun,
absence of horizon,
her friends,
dropped her at the cemetry.
her family, the priest were out of the city.
woke up at 5,
made coffee for the lord and lady of the house;
slept,
after massaging them to sleep.
in fits, the lady banged her on the door or wall.
crying was denied her.
stood outside during prayers.
one cup of tea at 10.
a plate of curd rice at 3;
leftovers at 10,
kept her slim.
in between they married her.
was occasionally dragged from sex to
massage an arthritic leg keeping awake
the lady.     

untitled

april 14
air and roads are copper pod
yellow; fragrant.
air and roads are languid, laburnum
yellow;
pagoda trees shawled in buddhist grace;
charoil blinks pink;
a vishukai neettam from the earth.

untitled

6 p.m.
met in a loft on the Drive,
scanning the Sea.
Hussein smoked circles in the
air-conditioned air;
a Mother Teresa painting of Hussain
on the wall.
from the loft, across the Drive, the Sea,
the Hill was on fire
charring decencies.
nameplates were clues to hatreds.
Hussein shiftted to a Hotel
assuring anonymity.
"will this pass," said Hussein sipping a gin.
stripped of sacred thread,
stains of brahminical breath lingered on
the banks of an iced vodka
when Chintamani said:
"will have its weathers.
will not pass."
having lost excuses they strolled into poetry
on a fourth round .....
the sky has no sea,
the sea has no sky,
the earth neither ....... desires of life and death will
blur, now and again, mostly .......
dawn was not.

.........

20 years on.
they have not met.
no subtlety left. 

untitled

on soft spreads of summer evenings
Chintamani splits chilled beer with
the Sea on the Drive;
detail anonymous biographies,
roasted and salted with cut onions
and groundnut;
in zest of beery breath, takes the Sea,
shunning a long ago land,
a long ago people, a long ago........


pond herons waltz on circular, green,
Indian lotus leaves in a pond;
leaves dip and rise at every step unrolling
water drops;
the birds stamd still collecting water at
their feet;
fly off; no featherprints..........


on stone seats in the garden young and old
in meditative squats, eyes shut.  

untitled

on soft spreads of summer evenings
Chintamani splits chilled beer with
the Sea on the Drive;
detail anonymous biographies,
roasted and salted with cut onions
and groundnut;
in zest of beery breath, takes the Sea,
shunning a long ago land,
a long ago people, a long ago........


pond herons waltz on circular, green,
Indian lotus leaves in a pond;
leaves dip and rise at every step unrolling
water drops;
the birds stamd still collecting water at
their feet;
fly off; no featherprints..........


on stone seats in the garden young and old
in meditative squats, eyes shut.    

untitled

she takes the slums to her apartment
put up by a trespassing builder.
husband avoids the short cut.
their children --- packed, priced, vaccinated --
prefer the hovels.
they were born in the chawl.
hugs and quarrels were common for the similarly poor;
sharing onions, salt, oil, loose cash were a given;
their lingo, ankleted with abuse, couched in sharp spit,
were never thought so;
girls and boys played lagori together;
danced the first rains;
brought home Ganesha together;
dropped the Lord in the creek together;
stifled privacies together.  

untitled 58

a sturdy, bare pipal is in prayer;
an yellow cluster on the laburnum
obliges a desire;
a thorny silk cotton tree,
stubbed bright red,
sticks the air;
shaking all over, a coppersmith,
clanks the air;
chintamani opens the morning
headlined with cuckoo calls;
jumps a heart, finding a roped macque with
his owner on a beedi;
tricked into a noose for the owner's living;
a guilt, destroying the morning , bursts on Rama;
the downing of Vali to save Sita pricks the Lord.
Says He:
thought and action are not Shiva's bow and arrow --
straight and simple;
maybe, the bow should have been forever in Janaka's
safe custody;
coconuts are not eaten whole;
bananas are skinned.
combing her hair, Sita remarked :
Did I not plead to shun power?

untitled 57

two grand-daughters update an age-dried
couple on school tales.
like a bus speeding on a bumpy road
ajoba shakes when they hopscotch from
earth to moon and back;
roller skate on gulab jamuns hand-crafted by aji.
aji is no more.
ajoba seeks moksha on the market road;
40 years ago, missed it among the family-owned
chikku and mango orchards --
now the market road.
his feet stammer, pause; nods standing.
niranjan, the vegetable seller from benares,
helps ajoba to a plastic chair;
after business hours walks ajoba home, marred by
an upturned god and a self-willed tv on the wall.
grand-daughters are searching stars in american labs.
niranjan is all.
,

untitled 56

no gandhi cap.
atmaram patil, the dabbawalla,
came and went with the dabba.
grandma died at some old age in
a village.
for 10 days, no cap;
no Rama, Krishna, Hari, at the
Hanuman temple;
on day 11, a washed Gandhi cap was back,
the beard shaved, the loss consumed.
atma is an accepted intruder at CCTV-housing
societies;
unafraid of Dominos, never fakes a rush;
is prompt with food garnished with homecare;
sprinkles tambakku-stained smiles; shuns talk;
no trespasser at air-conditioned offices on the Hill
where computers and plainspeople make faces;
its a five-minute drive by boeing or airbus
to Hyde park or Central park for Hill residents.
atma, squeezed in a harassed local,
camps at a chawl beyond the municipal park.
they have Tom Cruise; atma has Tukka;
walks to Pandharpur every aashad;
pratibha, his wife, is a housemaid;
white pyjama,
white kurta,
a red or black tilak,
a tired sigh of Deva, Panduranga,
a half-inch hard pair of chappals beaten
soft by the village cobbler;
no drinks;
no sex (with two grown up daughters, sleeps alone);
a ball of tobacco tucked into the gums, the lone indulgence,
says atma, holding his ear-lobes.
daughters at a school help mother;
women cannot be dabbawallas;
spectacled, are at a discount.
the case rests with Panduranga abandoned on
the Way by Meera and Tukka,
seeking compassion. 

untitled 55

long walks on cemented expressways;
traffic lights for vegetation;
mosquitoes as wildlife;
fresh zebra crossings suggest spring;
chats misplacing old time addas,
my friend rests, folding thoughts;
sipping coffee spots a coloured map on
the morning newspaper;
memories, miracles, myths, grandma tales
dot a flight path;
grandfather trudged two miles to a temple
from Verur village for a few kaasu to keep
grandma, 12 children -- 11 boys, one girl --
on kanji, curd rice.
grandma, a bone, told Karna tales feeding
palmfuls of curd and rice;
skills eluded them at school;
mortgaged home, lost it.
a son boarded a coal train to an east-bound city;
worked the typewriter non-stop till he stopped.
His son fled to a west-bound city filling registers
in a shipping company,
hibernating in an apartment without a nameplate.
outsourced to Vermont, a new generation earns dollars
thanking an old man's prayers.        

untitled 54

copper leaves drift readying
the badam for spring;
below, chintamani siestas savouring
the pile up. 

untitled 53

winking at a broken mirror the Lord
combs a steel-tipped beard;
the Lady desires a shaved chin;
in a fit, the Lord
--- part atman,
--- part boson,
--- part bureaucrat,
--- part politician
--- camping in thermals on Himalayan ice,
still,
fashions a benarasi thandai,
chews time,
turns tipsy,
breaks a jig,
to an offkey ouch,
leaving the annoyed Lady filing
for divorce;
the Law declines the suit, prefers arbitration;
stay split, stranding creation.

untitled 52

lakshmi was born in a government hospital,
for free;
her mother said so.
the lane and its garbage pile were hers;
a carrom-board with more than 4 pockets;
a chess-board sans king and queen pieces;
a cricket bat without an arm;
some flat stones for hop scotch;
a few upset stray dogs;
remains of Lakshmi, long missing.

untitled 52

suresh joined the office as attender;
after 35 years retired as attender;
licking a limited, Udipi lunch thali,
his boss diced snakes and ladders;
suresh left for Kudal;
boss for somewhere.
unkind citizens of a kind city.

untitled 51

an old man stood a wooden crate
at the street corner;
covered it with a white cloth;
arranged three boiled eggs, salt, pepper;
customers did not oblige;
he became his customer.

untitled 50

every morning a queue faces Ganga  ---
an unwashed cow, chewing plastic waste ---
for her holy piddle at 50 paise per plastic cup.
turns restless as Ganga gets irregular with the
auspicious secretions;
sometimes, Gangaram, her owner,
tickles her for a sumptuous leak;
the light brown-white skinned lady
with a gongless bell round her neck
(presented by a devotee), cannot help;
squirms and giggles;
Gangaram adds three more cows, on a bank loan,
to enhance supply;
the crowd prefers Ganga leaving
Gangaram loan-stuck.

   

untitled 49

after the night-beat under
falling temperatures,
Prem owns the first sun, washing cars;
soothes the air with villageways;
blushes,
seeing my friend inked in 70 years of cityways. 

untitled 48

trudging to the construction site with
children neatly packed in dust and nudity,
the lady wrapped the morning
in a hum.
digging, filling, relaying earth
part-fills a hunger,
my friend feels awaiting a delayed lunch.

untitled 48

in the temple town,
god, behind a latticed window,
can be guessed at in the darkness
of oil lamps,
glimpsed in parts.
tukkaram pujari prays against normal
disappointments,
sure of a sympathetic hearing.
spent 25 years in Surat
--- shivered through a plague,
a mass slaughter.