A Song 197

Tuka full of Vittala.

Ram fills up Kabira.

Tad unfair?

Yehuda Amichai

Last morning walk on Link Road of 2017. Hugged a Mumbai chill sitting on a green, wooden bench under a banyan. A Sunday quiet. Newspaper vendor was selling news to an absent audience. Read and mused over Yehuda Amichai, the Israeli poet. Am aware of Moses. Trying to be familiar with Yehuda Amichai in poem, The place where we are right.

From the place where
we are right
Flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are
right
Is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be
heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

Wondered whether me will even spot a whisper, beloved country. Am into Amichai. For a Sunday, there was no work at the metro. Machinery and workers lay exhausted, asleep, at work spots. Everything looks same. At the Vazira temple, Rama prayed, me did not. At Jayaraj Nagar, the Saphale women of vegetables, were absent. Yes, the morning had an absence. Came home, fed sparrows, sank into me sofa, read Yehuda again. Was not sure whether me walked the morning; unsure what me was doing. Scribbled a notebook: 

2018,
looks, reads,
1820, 8120, 0182;
got to check me eyes.
Peeling potatos
will remain the same. 

A Song 196

At Marine Drive
on Arabian Sea,
Tuka, Kabira pray for
sun at Melbourne;
Tuka is Barmy Army,
Kabira is Aussie Winnies.
Tending sea gulls
at Chowpatty,
relaxing with seas gulls
at Melbourne,
turn commentators, ask:
Kuthe hai Laxman? 

A Song 195

At Marine Drive
on Arabian Sea,
Tuka, Kabira
skip prayers,
for Ashes cheers.  

Ghalib

Today is the 220 birthday of poet Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan, born in Agra. Google is celebrating.  Stumbled on a mobile video of NaseeBabu, licking a mango slice, chatting Mirza Ghalib's love for mangos and the poet. Till the age of 5, Naseebabu spoke Urdu;lost it at school which did not allow for Hindi and Urdu. The moment came when Gulzar chose Naseebabu for the 12 part TV serial (one hour part) on Ghalib. Have seen it even as the classical Urdu bounced. The 11 minute video, dwells on Naseebabu being enticed forever by Ghalib. And at over 70, me has no tongue or root. Sure, have dwelt on it, but the guilt is not going off. Did not even try like Naseebabu. Being born in Kottarakara village did not give me roots as never studied Malayalam, never spoke it, never wrote it, never lived there for even two moths together. At home in Calcutta, spoke Brahminised Tamil of Kerala - a mix of Tamil and Malayalam- but never went near the languages. We spoke in Tamil, as mother did not know English and father did not approve; but he pushed me into English at school and today me has only English. Have read Marathi and Hindi poets and writers in English which is not quite the same; Perumal Murugan me reads in English, losing the Tamil flavour. Come to think of it, after watching Naseebabu video, me knows India in translation. In Mumbai, familiar with broken Marathi, a bit, which is in no way appetising. Can one be an Indian without an Indian tongue and roots. Suspect, Jawaharlal Nehru knew India mostly in English. Maybe, me am wrong. But this DNA defect, at least, lames me. Take Ghalib, today, read him a bit in English.  Or for that matter, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor; a Mughal dynasty which has given us its own music, architecture, gardens, poetry and enriched me country. In the morning, for the first time, read the famous and moving, Malayalam lullaby by Irrayin Thambi ...  Omana thingal kidao ... on google with English meanings. Rama lullabied her children and two grandchildren with Omana .. Thats how me fell for it. Sorry, is India me country? Do me belongs? Perhaps, it is mot juste that me became an English journalist, typing press notes, clerically. Today, me understands: English made me a clerk. Me have to own up, is a clerk. And Naseenbabu hero. An insufficient living.  

A Song 194

Shawled in psalms
nuns croon Silent Night;
Lady, Old Man
bow in benediction,
brushing hurting mosquitos,
at the Cradle of Compassion,
under Karuna banyan
in bells and candles;
winds tickle bells,
stars lights candles,
moonlight the manger,
Cadbury Gems drop in nests,
Cadbury Silks on street kids.
Cross is far away,
Merry,
Lady, Old Man,
pray, 
to mobile tunes
of church bells
on Karuna Way.    

A Song 193

Christmas holidays.
Two sets of kids,
in greens and yellows,
bats and balls,
prayed to Ganoba
for wins in finals of 
Gully Cup International,
a 7 over per side game.
Priests wished them luck.
Ganoba said PLAY. 

A Song 192

'Waaatch maan,
lift bandh hai,'
bugles Lady from
her 7th floor apartment.
'Haanji,' responds Waaatch man
with a leap
from his stool at the gate,
to the lift.

Morning: Cars honk,
bikes roar,
with rushing middle class crows,
for society gates to open.
'Haanji,' responds Waaatch man,
hurtling open the gates.

Evening: Cars, bikes hoot,
middle class into mobiles
streaming Virushka,
for entry into society.

'Haanji,' responds Waaatch man,
hurrying open gates.

'Mera ladki kidhar hai,'
asks a querulous Lady,
rushing to Yoga classes.
'Haaanji,' responds Waaatch man,
in a dither.

'Uncle, mera cycle kidhar hai,'
asks a 14 year old girl.
'Haaanji,' responds Waaatch man
in a stumble.

At the gates,
Old Man asks:
'Waaatch Man, aapka naam?'
'Haaanji,' responds Waaatch man
sans Aadhaar. 

Songs of a Coward

At one of the literary events, Perumal Murugan said in Tamil: Times ago, I thought I could write anything. Today, there is a fear. Me believes Perumal Murugan, One Part Woman and Pyre. Possibly, when he wrote them Perumal Murugan was a writer who did not have to look behind. He just had to stare at the paper, write down stories, perhaps midnight; Perumal said he wrote between 12 and three midnight. Perumal Murugan announced his death as a writer and the fright morphs into a clutch of political poems: Songs of a Coward: Poems of exile. His English translator Aniruddhan Vasudevan notes: He wrote these poems during that period of exile when he was struggling to find his bearings, trying to make sense of all that was happening in his life and how it might affect his existence as a person and writer. 210 poems, political poems, are perhaps something unsual. Fear walks the book. Perumal is an honest customer, owning up a fear, a nauseating way of living. The poem, Surrender, runs: I/bring a flower/You/bring a sword .. Not only a fight/Even peace is not possible/Only surrender/Total surrender. Shivers a Touch - Me- Not: ....They waited/When the first leaf unfolded/ one of them touched it/with his threatening voice/It shuddered and shrank/ After that, the touch of their voice was enough/Not a single leaf unfurled. In A Baby Crow, the poet is upset ...Any friendly smile lasts/only as long as the traffic lights do. Are there smiles in Tamil Nadu? Son Ganesh asks: Why is he disliked so much and he has turned over reading One Part Woman. Rama has all his Tamil writings ordered from Kalachuvadu. Sitting and talking at literary festivals, Perumal may have intoned his own lines: ...It is not easy/getting used to being/an exhibition piece. Maybe in nights of 2015 and 2016, Perumal might have pondered over hanging up and the hint is there in The Song of a Coward .....A coward/never turns into a murderer/But/he does think about suicide/and does it too. Is the poet shuddering, seeing Bhakts and feeling the Modi Fear barbering India since 2014, in A Full-Body Shave: The king has decreed/ that humans shall be skinned alive.....And the artists stand/dripping blood/from searing wounds/and pretending that/they are just getting/ a full-body shave. In yet another piece Perumal confesses: I dont wish to live any longer. Bhakt India has snuffed joy in living; joy there is in killing or shutting up. It had never been so. Surprisingly Perumal does not invoke Marx and the Left and the Red Flag. The Left never has stood for freedom. The term Bhakt is nowhere. He seems to suggest an excuse to live in Nature: My gaze falls anew/on nature/Nature is the last refuge/for one who has lost everything/has nothing/is dead.... Yes/Time/asks me to make/my poetic subject/pure nature/that knows/no human scent. Will Perumal of One Part Woman ever be? He is a dryland farmer, school teacher and a poet. Will the poet tap the computer key board or is it going to be Delete? In an interview a journalist asked him about the day's politics. No remarks, Virumbavillai, said Perumal in Tamil. He is not going to back out. He is going to fight with words. If Perumal backs out, its over. One billion Cowards there will be. When is your next book Sir?   

Sunday walk

December in Borivili is not hot nor is it cold. A Sunday morning walk is a wade into December darkness with a wooden walking stick knocking. Metro Y pillars in a single row like devotees at temples with hands up in prayers waiting for the trains to run over them. A thin dash of a moon taking me to Hindi poet Muktibodh and his lines: Chand ka moonh tedha.... when me nearly collided with Cookie the brown spaniel and his lady; 'Good morning, so early, Uncle?' they said with Cookie pawing me all over. The morning innings had started with a six and me liked me luck. 'Decembers are pleasant for dogs,' they said; perhaps they could have included humans including me in a a kurta and three quarters. Went our ways wishing a Good Day.... into Devaki Nagar and onto dear old LIC Colony and silent trees on both sides of a turn and twist road...traffic, human and inhuman, absent, being Sunday. Old silk cotton tree and me locked in a hug as it has been quite some time we shook heads. Me does not do anymore a quick walk... halt, look around, take a few steps, repeat the move ... talk to self a lot, do not know what to call it .... not a Thay meditation walk as there is no such Buddha matter involved... Park at the banyan beside Karuna Hospital and lean on banyan aerial roots .... the sky crowded by flying fox moving in to roost upside down from rain trees... they glide the skies, sometimes chased by crows, the politician nosing everyone's affairs like Indian politicians, promising everything, delivering nothing....on Link Road on a coconut palm two black kites seem to be nesting and crows refusing them quiet...do not know how M.Krishnan likes them. Was not aware the morning walk was over as me hit back home, armchair, filter coffee and Ashes at WACA. That Starc ball seems to have hit a crack as it swerved and knocked back the off stump of Vince. Shane Warne thinks it is the ball of this century. Wasim Akram twittered in delight. That was a hard ball. Six innings, Cook and Root, have not done much. Hard luck. When the house sparrows came -- five of them -- for a feed backed by a crow or grey neck. Crows, crows and more of them on Monday when TV channels will yell out Gujarat elections results.... And as is common practice Pusarla Venkat Sindhu loses at Dubai Superseries. She has picked up a bad habit. Will crows and politicians be as stylish...

A Song 191

Breaking steps,
a palmist,
with a jhola
of stars and planets,
paused in front of
Lady and Old Man
under Karuna banyan
on Karuna Road.
'You smell of luck and
unluck,
birth and death,'
chuckled Lady.
'No, Lady,' came back palmist,
pouring out stars and planets
at banyan feet;
am into foretelling rebirths.
Old Man stretched out a scribbled
palm,
not squaring with stars and planets.
Palmist,
scratching head,
packed a palmful of Karuna
in his jhola,
whiled away.
'Is he a palmist or psalmist?'
wondered Lady.    

Gandhi, Nehru and JRD

JRD, Jawaharlal and Gandhi stepped into Yezdani for brun-pav, maska and chai. JRD was staying at Bombay House, Gandhi at Mani Bhuvan and Nehru at Jinnah House. They had not met for a while. In stilled surprise, the Parsi gentleman-owner stood up at the counter, wished a soft Good morning. They returned the wish. He wiped a table and bench clean as the three slid on to the bench and waited for orders. JRD, with a smile wider than his face: Three plates of brun maska and chai, please. No hurry, Sir. The Parsi owner couldn't get over the early morning gift as the RBI Towers and Bombay House and Horniman Circle park awaited gentlemen and ladies. An aged Muslim, fresh from the kitchen, served the oven warm order on florally designed plastic plates as the trio stood up in grace. JRD tipped the aged Muslim before the trio took delicious bites. 'You have it every day?' asked Gandhi and JRD nodded and added with boiled eggs. 'You should take eggs to be strongly old,' remarked Nehru to Gandhi and the Old Man grinned peace. The chewing quiet was broken by Gandhi: 'Last week had breakfast and lunch with Dr. Manmohan Singh at his home. His home reminded me of Sabarmati Ashram. For breakfast, the decent Sardar aired a low key Gurbani as wife Gursharan Kaur came up with aloo parathas and tea. Made by my wife, said Sardar; he peeled the potatos and is better at it than in Economics, added Kaur.' Nehru butted: 'You would have discussed Guru Nanak.' Gandhi nodded assent, made that way. 'Sardar knows Guru Granth by heart,' Gandhi said appreciatively. 'Like you know Gita,' needled Nehru as JRD lighted a Wills Gold Flake. Nehru a Camel. And then Gandhi and Singh dwelt on Indian economy. 'Sardar talked of GDP, GVA, demonetisation ... could not make any sense and the Sardar is too much into it when dal-kichidi came via Kaur and I forgot all about growth,' Gandhi explained. A fine, laughing lunch, it was. Sardar went over times when mother made parathas for him. They were made in clay fire and vessels. Dal-kichdi tasted of Ba. Being a busy man, Sardar had to leave for Gujarat to campaign and we broke up. As I stepped out, Sardar asked whether Sonia and  Rahul had given me and Jawahar tickets for Gujarat. No, me said. We are khota sikkas, dont know. Sardar hugged and presented me with a signed copy of  Political Violence in Ancient India by his daughter, Upinder Singh. They ordered a second round of brun pavs with Coke. Nehru said he had read the book and it is history and not myths you spread of ancient India, Bapu. JRD coughed as piece of pav got throat stuck; you read every book, Jawahar. Yes, like you make and count every rupee printed by RBI, came back Nehru. Did you meet Ratan, Nehru inquired. He has no time shutting down Nano, returned JRD and added wryly: We three are the same. Unwanted scrap of Underwood typewriters. Breathing in a pinch of snuff, (a new habit of Gandhi), Gandhi wiped his nose with a towel. The Parsi owner refused to bill as they stood up for a walk to Jehangir Art Gallery to gaze at Hussain paintings. Gandhi is for the Mother Teresa paintings of Hussain, Nehru his horses and JRD the Madhuri Dixit pics. A crowd was rampaging the show, a stone hit Gandhi and a brick missed Nehru. JRD rushed them to Bombay House, closed the doors even as Gandhi insisted on facing the crowds. 'It is not 1946 or 1947; it is 2017 of a Mohammed being killed,' warned JRD.  

A Song 190

Christmas month on Karuna
Road...
Old Man, Lady,
in arm chairs,
holding palms,
count soul scrawls,
sipping Coke and curry,
sharing jams and cherries,
served by nuns
swathed in psalms merry.

A Song 189

Stars on Karuna Road.
Birds, beasts take seats
under the banyan.
Bats, on rain trees, a night off.
Lady touches candles,
Old Man spreads eats,
as an ageless bat knifes a
birthday cake,
on a branch,
to chirps and cheers. 

Passer domesticus

Have peeked and brooded over some wild life writings of M. Krishnan and EHA (E.H. Aitken). They do not seem to have dwelt on Passer domesticus (house sparrow), or missed out ..... maybe stand corrected. Maybe there were too many house sparrows in their times or rather too common unlike today where its status is uncommon, if not sweeping towards extinction. Salim Ali, for sure, has not avoided them. In the Book of Indian Birds, with colour pix, there is a write up. 'Undoubtedly our most familiar bird,... Inseparable from human habitations,' Salim Ali writes. Sir, me wishes you and house sparrows best of luck. In September, at green, Kurampala in Kerala me did not sight a single fellow. At least in Borivili (W) me still spots small gangs of them (five or six) at me housing society and on Link Road. Holy Hours at home in the morning, me watches them pecking at Marie buiscuits. Five sparrows me has seen together at the window sill. Chirp, peck, quarrel ... male wears a short brown bow, in the female absent...perhaps, the dark and light brown brown stripes on their backs separate one male from another.... and one female from her friend.. If Marie is replaced with Monaco or any other brand they prefer to skip breakfast. Marie is favoured and Rama always keeps sufficient stocks. Sometimes me am denied Marie to go with filter coffee. These days, having stopped buying and reading newspapers, spend entire morning with coffee and sparrows. Today, me saw one snapping spinach leaves and beaking shredded coconut ..... the window sill is entirely taken over by them during Holy Hours. In summer months, Rama unthirsts them with plastic vases of  water. For me Passer domesticus is top shelf.  Beginning at Lake Temple Road in Calcutta to Dombivili and now Borivili, they have been around me, not by any design, perhaps luck. In Dombivili, they nested in me blue pant put out to dry... for a month, none went near the pant. In recent times, they hop down the window sill to feast on a plate of  Marie kept on the floor. After quite a few failures, am being able to click them with me iphone... joy moments for me.Will be ecstatic the morning, one lands on me bald head... me could then feel the strength of its beak... any takers for passer domesticus?

A Song 188

Waiting in a shaky armchair...
Alphabets did not drop in
Sparrows did not ring door bells
Mobiles sans caller tunes....
Anna Akhmatova,
Arun Kolatkar,
Tuka,
Kabira
walked by in verse
in ancient rhymes
at the beginning of time
a salt and sugar brine... 

Shyama

Bye, Shyama. The Saphale flower vendor walked off three days ago, but me knew it today morning. She was the first Saphale vendor on Yogi Nagar Road. Rama her client, a favoured one. Mornings they chatted. She sat on the road with her flowers - mostly zendu and jaswanti, dhruva grass - her first sitting that many in Yogi Nagar recall was in 1992. 26 years, every day in the morning from Saphale and back to catch the 4 p.m. train from Borivili. In recent times, she diversified into spinach, mooli, methi, drumsticks; a touch moody and who would not be having to squat dusty Yogi Nagar Road; sometimes a broken tooth smile; by 10 she would wind up to take up odd jobs as cleaning shops, dropping children to school. Her husband died drinking leaving Shyama, two daughters and a son. Two months ago she told me of getting her first daughter married to a boy working at Prabhodhan Thackeray Hall in Borivili. Am not sure today of the marriage. She brushed aside inquiries from her regular clients of a waning health. Some of her clients helped with cash when she lost her husband; some stuck to the habit. With her came three more flower ladies and they passed the news. She could not be beyond 50. And three days ago a short tale got over.


......


And to get over,  saw on youtube, The Black Cat, a 20 minutes colour film, directed by Bhargav Saikia, based on a Ruskin Bond story. Twice. A Walls Cornetto of a film. Hurrah. Tom Alter as Bond, Shernaz Patel as Miss Bellows the witch, a black cat, a tasty broom (felt like owning it as Tom Alter owns it). Perhaps, thats the way a Bond story is born and ends; the Bond creative act; the old tasty home, a stubborn black cat, seems like Bond's Landour home ....  Alter tap-tapping an yellow typewriter, pulling out the paper, making a ball, stuffing into the waste basket like journalists did when they were typewriters and printing ink. Alter and Bond were good friends and he is like you and me; ha ha ha. Smiled. Did not get up from me the arm chair for a while. Alter's bow away piece .... and is he today with a black cat and a black witch? Bhargav Saikia do more of this. You are sure to have me as an audience. 

Mumbai crowds

Jai Ho. Me and Rama have adda sessions through the day with the longest at lunch. Over rotis, rice, sambhar, sabji, we chew an adda; and an adda anywhere has never lost a topic; there will be something; today, Rama said, ' I may go anywhere; for three days it is fun; then I think of Mumbai and home; I cannot live without Mumbai and me 500 sq.ft of one hall-bedroom-kitchen; my cot and iphone; darshan of Shreya and Chiyu. Porum,' chowing a drumstick dripping in sambhar. Me nodded. Rama is a Mumbaikar sans Marathi and Hindi having clocked some 40 years with a near 20 in Alleppey. Me am a Mumbaikar without Marathi, having timed 48 years with 20 years in Calcutta. An undiluted Citi-zen. In Calcutta, stared and mingled in crowds hanging off buses and sticking out of tarred roads; in Mumbai for 48 years have meditated on train crowds, being a part of squashed humans in Kalyan-VT and Borivili-Churchgate fasts. Loud crowds with uneven beat of drums make me flags, me anthem, me imaginations; mobile towers stand in for trees; packed, high rises float in skies; have walked and walked and walked Marine Drive with more crowds than waves in the Sea; as a journalist trodded Azad Maidan, Cross Maidan and Oval Maidan; Azad had cricket in whites, Cross had circuses and dust; Oval still has the University clock tower chimes dumbed by car horns; and crowds all over, more than the grass on the Maidans. In Calcutta at the Maidan and Lakes, me heard the thud of footballs in crowds. Today at Borivili there are crowds; have always lived in crowds. On Link Road morning walks beat a tattoo to lorry roars, Metro drillers, whirrs of autos, honks of cars, guffaws and loud arguments of olds spending breath on their bravery with files in government offices. Me miss the beat music on Sunday mornings. 'Maine file par aisa noting kiya ki boss dar gaye; aaj kal aisa nahin hota hai,' they tongue the crowds. Today, me is a crowd. Need iphones and TV (sports with commentary), to read a book; at lunch and after lunch need TV or iphone hums. Rama switches on a Mohanlal and Mammotty and their loudness cradle me into a deep snooze. Nights, band music and loudspeakers from marriage pandals, yodel me. 'I need a TV, some noise for sleep,' says Rama and me of Mumbaikar crowd agrees. When friends talk of bunglows atop Himalayas me shudder; me am afraid of being alone in bunglows; can only sleep in noise. Crowds are different. In college, English literature professors moaned of Lamb being a Londoner. A  lover of London. Me loves Mumbai. Calcutta crowds are full of themselves, wrapped in Tagore, Vivekananda and Ray. Me never enjoyed them nor Calcutta. Mumbaikar is double toned, heroes are crowded, fast locals mouthing vada pavs; Tuka and Panduranga are pandal music. Yet, they are loud; crowds have a loud music about them; and in Mumbai, crowds dont bother each other. Buddhist Thay talks of meditative walks; me am into talkative walks, me hearing, someone yapping; or all talking. Science elbows art on Link Road but not life; Ruskin Bond in Dehra knows all about trees and silences; Arun Kolatkar imagined railway time tables and Kala Ghoda poems at Wayside Inn. Sitting inside a Mumbai crowd. Crowd sourced. Crowd owned. Crowd lost. Crowd leaves me alone even as it owns. Me am a Mumbai crowd song in a three-quarters and a kurta. Tuneless, yes. Yet, a Mumbai song. Jai Ho. 

Newton

For long wanted to see Newton. One day, Ganesh whatsapped: Newton is on amazon. Having nothing to do all the time, always, switched to Newton on Sunday. Rama unsure, your art films cant match Mohanlals. We sat through 141 minutes of class and Rama said yes. In recent times, Hindi and Marathi sets have come up with screen near-classics. Newton is in that list. Director Amit V. Masurkar, with aces like Rajkkumar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi, Anjali Patil, Raghuvir Yadav and Sanjay Misra, has come up with a Grand Slam. A sparse, spare tale delivered in silences of Rao is more a take on Indian democracy appropriated and now owned by the rich over 70 years. Are poor adivasis harassed by Maoists and police any different from middle class me and you in Mumbai; our vote is a tamasha and like Adivasis do not expect a change. Elections are a Game of the Rich played by their sidekicks. As a polling officer Newton tries to wheedle denied of hope Adivasis to vote; some do; others dont; and then Newton blinks into a fix, a farce. A Newton will be happening in Gujarat shortly. Rao, Nawazuddin, Bajpai are artists not superstars. Have seen Rao in Shahid, Trapped and Aligarh. As Newton, Rao has a blink (noted by son Ganesh) and still face; government awards him for being on time at the office and also at the polling booth for 76 adults holding valid proofs from 11 to 3. Rao has little lines, more of silences and thats hard to do. The film makes me ask: where are we heading to. Zimbabwe? And is there any law governing us. Yes thinks Sanjay Misra: Newton law of gravity will hold equally for a chaiwala and Ambani when they jump off a cliff. Dialogues are crisp and packed like Lays. Newton pains. Adivasis having no clues on politicians but sure nothing will change. Newton's gravity will not alter in a democracy and dictatorship. Consolation. Do not know why an Oscar nomination? Can the Oscar jury grasp Newton? And is Oscar the last word on films? Is there a last word on any form of art. What you like others may not. Today grasped Newton Law of Politics. Money is Power. 

A Song 187

Peeling, 

chewing,

green peas, Basho.

........

A runny, old leaf of a nun,
sunned in an armchair,
below the Karuna banyan;
beside,
rested Lady, Old Man
ancienter than nun,
in arm chairs
offered by fresh leaf nuns;
psalms at a Mass
on Karuna Road,
of one-way human traffic,
two-way vehicular traffic.



.......

A train halted nowhere...
a November morning
bedded in clouds...
lanes of wrinkles
in white dhoti, kurta, turban
whiled in a charpoy
set in a sarson field ...
skins of roads,
in a green sari,
placed a plate of
rotis, sabji and tea.....
sat beside the old man...
father, husband, brother?
shared the food
with birds ..
a feeble sun bounced off
their toothy grins...
dazzled the train,
into a wheeling away...


.....

Chiyu sat down Aji;
diddering Aji hugged Chiyu;
Mornings at school,
a butterfly
lands on the window
beside Chiyu's desk,
when the maths class is on.
Whispering mutters,
riddles and diddles.
A morning
butterfly painted Chiyu
in her colours;
teacher noted it;
what's 2 plus 2 she asked Chiyu;
butterfly nodded 5;
Chiyu, blinded, offered 6.
Ordered out of class,
went for a fly;
the bell rang.
As Aji fed dal-roti to Chiyu,
the butterfly fluttered in,
and Aji lunched both.
Went for a swim
in the skies.
Time for the butterfly to bye.
Passed on her colours and wings
to Chiyu, school imprisoned,
leaving Aji in cries. 

.....

A Song 186

'Long time, no see,'
cackled a walking stick.
'Fell off my armchair,
relishing a newspaper;
chair and me in bed
for a year,'
waffled a loose
blue blouse over a yellow jeans,
smiling, smelling of
news and newspapers.
In a limp,
brushing a mop of white,
she paused at a newstand
for newspapers,
to pack and preserve
old cares, fresh desires. 

A Song 185

Faintly brushed by
pottery, poetry:
black hole mysteries.

A Song 184

A pale beam from a snuffy Merc
scrawled Oberoi Towers,
moved up,
breaching a weekday morning
on Marine Drive.
Tuka, Kabira rubbed eyes
as walkers,
joggers,
yogers,
thumped by
in GOD T-shirts
bumping into each other,
some tripping into Arabian
Sea;
a traffic jam
with no traffic lights.
Cooked in Merc light,
Rakkumai served
usal, farsan, God vada pav;
Eating God,
downed digestive packs
of Hajmola.


After dwelling long whiles on Eating God, A Book of Bhakti Poetry, by Arundhathi Subramaniam.

A Song 183

A jamun
outside a chapel,
sturdy,
dropping leaves in
November,
counting them.
A prayer to God,
lands up with the jamun;
abhangs
to jamun,
wind up with God.
A dried, brown leaf
negotiates a patient, descent.
Booted, laughing children
crunch crowds of leaves;
a nun pockets a leaf,
crossing self;
a sweeper does the rest. 

A Song 182

Two parrots
upside down
from an electric wire
romancing.

A love over

A love over. A romance runs out. Affair stirred in the 50s at Lake Temple Road with The Statesman. Rare days Amrita Bazar Patrika. As a six to 10 year old, scanned the Sports pages of The Statesman; never went below the headlines; Pataudi, Abbas Ali Baig, Sobers, Kanhai ... stylists.... read their names and also Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Balram, Chuni, Jarnail, Rehmatullah....a five minute job; and then at Sevak Vaidya Street, dwelt on The Statesman, the Monday last page, M.Krishnan column.....In the 70s, The Statesman dropped in favour of The Times of India, K.N. Prabhu, Joe, Leyland.....In Chenna it was The Hindu, never much appreciated it.... orthodoxy ..... never slipping or making mistakes. Grim. And as an old, The Indian Express. Over. Told newspaperman Patil to stop dropping newspapers... why, he asked, had no answer .... upset the entire day...Today, sipped coffee staring the window, no newspaper. Yes, me am living and laughing. From 6 to 71, a long time for an affection to end. Being a journalist all living, there is a tang of disappointment .... as if me am debunking me profession. Could be, dont know ....Friends, me wont do that. They said me do not change. Switched to iphone, a fresh instrument presented by son Ganesh and the social sites on wildlife, Thay, wire.in, scroll.in are a good read. Social sites deal with humans and animals and forests and cinemas and sports .....read a fine essay on P.V.Sindhu by Shirish Nadkarni... after a long, long, long time an honest piece of sports writing. And there is humour. Me has changed. 

A Song 181

On Marine Drive mornings,
Kabir,
Tuka,
joggers,
walkers,
yogers
walk into each other,
mocking each other.
Birthed by Ram,
mutter Ram
for uplift from a traffic jam,
made by them and Ram.
Arching over them,
BSE Towers flags:
Insider trading,
a stock market scam.
   

A Song 179

Evenings,
sun crawls down backs
of high rises;
sips a chilled coke.
on the way,
moon, in an escalator,
on duty.
Mornings,
moon slides down
mobile towers,
at ease with steamy, chais;
Sun, fresh, takes an ontime
flight,
describing 24 hours in
Eternity.


    

A Song 178

Old Man
palmed a still butterfly,
breezing on the window sill,
a morning;
buried the flyer
under a mango tree,
with prayers;
returning favours.    

Remembering Kurdi

Sans roots
zero memories
absent stories...

Gangubhai Kurdikar walks a mud track in Kurdi, perhaps to her Shiva temple; with daughter Kishori Amonkar sings a bhajan with a Kurdi crowd; some identify a few names in the crowd. Kurdi town in South Goa is no more. Her home is no more. Gangubhai Kurdikar is no more. Kishori Amonkar is no more. Salaulim Dam, some three decades ago, displaced more than five hundred families; they protested; they were resettled; in summers when waters dip, the unsettled flock to Kurdi to nest in memories. As one generation births another, there may be no memories. A gentleman settled in Mumbai talks of Kurdi to which his daughter is no relation; she was born after the dam, cannot imagine Kurdi. Director Saumyananda Sahi rolls the cameras over Kurdi under and above dam waters; Muslims, Christians and Hindus have little to quarrel about as all of theirs is below vast stretches of water, brought in by rains. men and women stand on shores trying to pin down  their homes; yes, that was my house; here was mine; a ration shop, a chukki, abandoned along with gods; cruelty of a marred love is mentioned and the camera hurries. A Films Division of India film; Sahi shoots facts; does not much trade in opinions; curated by Tatasky. The one hour film left me a bit frozen; at least some 500 families got settled; at Tehri and Narmada, humans have been plucked from their homes, dumped on contractors and agents. Yes, the Salaulim Dam has helped some get water; we agree, says a displaced resident; but ....  Perhaps, Development or Vikas with broken tails and tales of cruelty, may be necessary; is there no humane alternative. How long can we live without stories? Bhils in Madhya Pradesh still seem to have stories. A drought; villagers go to the soothsayer for relief; he is drunk and driven; they paint their homes with trees; thats what they know; rains come. Hum Chitr Banate Hain is a short animation film by Prof. Nina Sabnani with Sher Singh Bhil, an artist. Painting stories on walls is a wall art; it needs villages, homes, stories; when Smart Cities come, India will turn dry. A country is known by stories. India has lots. Will it be so 50 years away?  

A Song 177

'Hi, what are you doing?',
asked the house sparrow,
pecking Marie
at the window sill.
'Watching you,' he said.
House sparrow:
 'Old Man and Lady are missing,
leaving us guessing,'
He: 'Are you sure?'
Sparrow: 'Many times over.'
Karuna banyan, temple peepal,
mangos, copper pods,
flying fox
flew the news around.
Deva, the donkey, rolled brays
on Karuna Road.
Marched to the police station
with protests of compassion.
Police offered chairs, tea,
asked for photos, Aadhaars....
Missing need a sure guessing.
With nothing working,
waited at Karuna banyan,
when came a bicycle
with Lady and Old Man
on its back.
A Magic Cycle,
had its own mind,
out of time,
had wheeled
Lady and Old Man
over minefields of cars, roads,
metros, mobiles;
a vacation.
Ordained by Magic Cycle, 
Lady and Old Man
turned parts and portions
of Karuna banyan;
A spectacle not for opticians;
A waking not of Zen;
A compassion,
not for TV stations;
out of  internet equivocations; 
sparrows
light diyas in devotion.



A note to the reader if any:

A poor, incomplete affair. Anyone can add or delete parts of the poem. Make a new poem. Take a byline for the effort.  

Amma & Appa

Rama and me liked Amma & Appa on Tatasky. Perhaps many middle class families discuss marriage, caste, community, religion the Amma and Appa way and the film shoots the moments. Tone of the debates is low, we could be with Amma when she says she cannot change, not with a thud but a mumble. Amma and Appa live without make ups. Their son, brought up in Cuddalore, marries a German girl; the German family comes home to Cuddalore, tries to grasp a Cuddalore living, where Amma loved none till she got married to Appa to love, tries to appreciate and fly out home, Germany. Amma & Appa are disappointed, they do not show it as they go about tending their garden; buffalos on the road, temple chariots... reminds me of Perumal Murugan. We have these discussions at home and know what it means... when me daughter Dakhi decided to marry Rajesh Patil, there was talk; but me mother came off best accepting the wedding entirely. There is some substance to Amma saying she wished for a Cuddalore daughter-in-law for her son from Cuddalore ... but not Tamil Nadu, not India but.... Germany, she takes off her steel specs, wipes her eyes. What does one say of this woman, slot her ....Yes, parents in India do find it hard to bless weddings of their daughters and sons, outside caste, community, nation. Amma and Appa are honest enough. There are no filmy turns and twists, the boy flies out to Germany with his German lady and her parents; no wails, disappointments stated ordinarily; Amma & Appa together at Cuddalore. No needless music ... something of a non-mantra  documentary done well by directors, Franziska Schoenberger and Jayalakshmi Subramanian. Wish there were English sub titles. Thanks for spotting a troublesome itch .....

Of decencies

In the 60s, NCC was a must in schools and colleges with influentials managing exemptions. NCC parades at the Maidan in December and January mornings bested lectures in economics at the St. Xavier's College. Fogs washing the greens and the Maidan was then green, please believe me; dew bulbs on thin strands of wet grass; and none really paraded, at least me did not; never saw sense marching...Left, Right ...Dayen mud...how does it help. After two hours of needless unpleasantness, squatted in front of the Bihari bhaiya under a tree, boiling adrak ka chai; 'Siya Ram ji...', he softly intoned... sometimes trail off with a Siya... and me would nod a 'Siya Ram ji'.....and then the sipping of the tea from hadi (mud cups) with an occasional beedi free from the gentleman .... they are gentlemen despite the Bengali contempt for them ....me took my time and lay down on the grass for a laugh..... It was so till 2014 when a greeting switched to a hollering, command: Jay Shri Ram with Sita left out. Ram is an Army order today not soft-toned by Sita, last heard when me marched on the Maidan with Armymen commanding the morning quiet. And it was in the Eden Gardens me admired Nawab or the Noob net practicing... the thuck of the bat meeting the ball ......no needless shouts.... Noob served the game quietly... rather silently; till date no Indian cricketer has the Rolls Royce of Noob, and then came Ganguly celebrating half naked ....and today Kohli tearing the pitch, the players, the umpires.... showing off his distorted face .... the Modi of Indian cricket ....A decline in decencies. Akin to the drop in quality of city air breathed. A good friend wonders: Have you ever seen a car stop to let a child or old cross the road in Borivili 2017? There is an inordinate pride in being a Bhakt,  Modi is trending....Touching of feet or better falling at feet ....Maybe one day .... waiting for India women and men 2017 to bow to namastes in old, soft dhotis and kurtas, jeans, sarees ... pure cottons.  

A Song 176

Betwixt evening and night,
stars and skies,
at Saro Lake County
in Kumarakom,
sun at the showers,
moon in deos,
Old Man hummocked
in the styles of
Vembanadu kayal. 

A Song 175

Vembanadu kayal,
flows with
Old man on the bank.

A Song 174

Caped in certainties,
government orders of adversity, 
they machine sawed
badam,
rain tree,
mast tree,
umbar,
mango
with little ado.
Nothing spared
as if,
seeding, leafing and
fruiting
unfair. 

Whoa Goa.....

Thursday morning sunned by Justice Gautam Patel poetic ruling: '..... Goa mostly liberal, kind and gentle.' Smita Nair from Panjim posts a detailed report, FP anchor in The Indian Express. She writes: 'The Bombay High Court's Panjim bench today quashed the Centre's notification to move western zone of National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Pune ---which handles all cases from Goa -- to the NGT's principal bench in New Delhi.' Modi Bhakt and Goa CM, Manohar Parrikar pushed the idea to bloc the poor from fighting green cases; it could get tougher giving time to Manohar Parrikar to sell away Goa to hoteliers and corporates; tourism earns forex and kickbacks. That the NGT in Pune has so many cases from Goa, Justice Patel said, is because the people of Goa, "perceive that there is something of value here to protect." By tripping protesting Goans, Manohar Parrikar is being unfair, but when were Bhakts fair. Is it not time Panaji had a bench of the NGT? If me could settle out of Mumbai, it will be Goa with Paul Noronha as neighbour. BJP will try its best to ruin Goa, make it less gentle and charming, but dear Goans wont fall.  Paul does complain tourists 'finishing' Goa over Old Monks at Press Club, long ago. Goa is a failed case of the tourism model. You cant use Goans as bunnies for tourists to depocket dollars and euros. Goans like their fenny and rum, their women, funs and laughs .... and thats better than yogic poses and meditative confusions and hates. They felled me from the first day at The Times of India, Bombay, with the sports desk manned not womaned by Goans. Frank, Leyland, John, Joe .... they had played the sports and reported them with civility and facility. Sports desks in Bombay newspapers were manned by Goans. And there were the beautiful Goan women at offices.... me preferred them to their stuffy bosses. And there was sports in Bombay....athletics, billiards, snooker, football, hockey, basketball, badminton, table tennis apart from cricket .... loaning Bombay a sports fairness, a sporting spirit, a shaking of hands after a match won or lost.... that went with the death of sports in Bombay and the city went and is still in a decline of many dislikes. Bombay lost it and Mumbai has not gained a bit. There were Goans at the press making pages like Alberto and Claudie at nights, a bit tipsy and smoky, and yet fun. Me has shared them drinks and smoke. Today, there are less Goans in Mumbai and perhaps lesser in Goa as the younger generations fly to Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada.... Thats what Paul tells me leaving silent bunglows in retirement homes for cheap corporates to buy and sell. Yes, India is not for them... India is no place for funsters ....India is religious hatred and killings and more of it as years go by, a miserable shut down ..... Mumbai is India in that measure. Yes, Justice Patel, me agrees with you, Goa is a beautiful slice of earth with beautifulest humans as the FIFA U17 ad says... If today me am a human being it is because of Goans and Paulies.  

Men Without Women

Men Without Women, Stories by Haruki Murakami could pass as Women without Men or Murakami without Marathons. He writes of a loneliness; maybe tries to make sense of it. Translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel and Ted Gossen, all the stories speak of men losing women. Kafuku, an actor, has a wife he loved and who went with other men. She died. He invites one of her friends to chat.....then a lucid Murakami:  '.....He seemed to be trying to discern what, if anything, might lie behind the invitation. But he could read no intent in the older man's expression. All he saw was the kind of stillness you might expect from someone who had recently lost his wife of many years. Like the surface of a pond after ripples had spread and gone.' And then the demon leaves Kafuku. Murakami then sups a bit of Kafka in Samsa in Love: He woke to discover that he had undergone a metamorphosis and become Gregor Samsa. Like the telling. He meets a hunchback girl. And wants to meet her again. Like Murakami taping one marathon to start another. Marathons are lonely,painful and the stories are marathons run by Murakami. He may have had golds at the end of runs but not the  imaginations in Men Without Women. His men and women are losers. Wonder whether they ever loved. They are left alone to plod. From running to walking or just standing, staring. In a manner Death is a loneliness, though Murakami does not invent revenge or violence. Me bought the book at T2 International Airport on way to Kurampala where did not open a page. There were birds and trees and silences to watch. The book felt an excess. Back in Mumbai and read as me felt damp. Men Without Women is worth a read.    

Jaane Bhi......

Let Go could be an equivalent of Jaane Bhi do Yaroo of Kundan Shah. Life is a Fixing. Laugh. To live the Fix. Fixing or as the Mumbaikar says, 'setting ho gaya' is norm. Jabs at journalists, real estate corporates, bureaucracy, death with Om Puri dragging a dead municipal commissioner, gods confused -- one can be with them with laughs alone.  No use getting uppy; Let Go. And if Kundan Shah did not make any more films, as critics say, it is because he had nothing more to laugh about. Nukkad and Wagle ki Duniya were smiles. Kundan Shah and his audience had sadly done with laughs in Jaane Bhi... Today, one can watch the film again, laugh and appreciate the eternality of a peach of a film. Thanks Kundan Shah. To the point, Nasee Babu in The Indian Express writes: ...Thank you Kundan; no flight of angels; may an army of clowns sing thee to thy rest. Gods, above and below, may not much enjoy his company. No God has ever laughed. Religious tomes are at best depressing, if not suicidal. Gods are not fun. They have no clowns as assists. Have seen Janne Bhi a couple of times and still guffaw the funeral scene. Every one takes a dead body seriously. Not Kundan or Om Puri. And for me that's about the best piece of art, laugh art ..... Yes Kundan taught us to guffaw. Sure will be guffawing wherever he is, alone if he finds no company. Wonder how you made it Sir. Bye Sir. 

A tic

A peepal and a banyan like bouncers at far corners of a padam wider than Arabian Sea at Shankhumukham beach with skies bearing crowds of Brahminy kites and crows. Or imaginations of todmorrow times. You could call them brothers or sisters or brother and sister. Shuddhan, in a white mundu and a khadi jibba, musing to self, sloped in an wooden, arm chair with legs resting on extended arms under a tamarind. Sun spotted as sunrays glimpse Shuddhan through tiny leaves of the tamarind. 100 years ago... present, past and future flowed as one at Vembanadu kayal. Yes, father had passed on tidbits chewing vettila-pakku from the same wooden arm chair. Grandfather and grandmother were of some age when they strayed into Kuyil Padam one day or night, unsure. Uncertainty opens imaginative spaces. He could muse anything and it could stay. Another moment, another musing. There was no rhythm to his musing; it was wayward, tuneless and he liked it that way.  Whims altered the musing and telling to none. Appuppan and Ammumma liked Kuyil Padam as the sun, stars, skies, streams, birds never left them; never let them down. Evening sun would nest on the peepal, snooze to buzz of roosting birds; morning moon had his bed on the banyan with flying bats for company; streams made their way like shlokic poetry in heads of Appuppan and Ammumma; for a god, as god has always been a must at Kuyil Padam, two lighted oil wicks, one each for banyan and peepal. Shuddhan's wife Kamini came in with dosas and teas to find him in the familiar muse. That's something she is uneasy with. Story-tic of Shuddhan. He did all the work, helped her, loved her and when time lost its clock, fell into his arm chair for the tic take over. His friends lbusy on TV, drinks, smokes or gossip. But for Shuddhan, it is this tic, oru chori, a pleasurable tic. He has tic and tic has Shuddhan. They did not want anything else except a murukkan to chew. Appuppan and Ammumma, some 100 years ago, ah! when there was no time..., were taller and girthier than the peepal and banyan. They did not eat to become that. They were that. Brown earth, a broad stream, birds followed them or they tracked them, as they tilled the land, grew crops and vegetables and fell in love with them. They conversed with birds and animals. They, perhaps, loved them more than their lone daughter. They did not build a hut. They slept on the earth; sunned, rained, chilled....it was like that. Their daughter, Sundari, brought a man to birth Shuddhan. And something changed. They were shorter than the peepal and banyan; the stream had shrunk to a channel; and some tiled homes came alive offering enough cosy corners for house sparrows to home. To be precise, they had a wavy home. Their tiled home waved to winds; took many shapes; it had no fixed build. The man was called Prandan. Set up a shop to buy and sell Words. And a Kallu shop housing fresh toddy. Words and drinks sold briskly like the Sensex; shelves of cash; words became isms, isms became quarrels, quarrels spiked blood .. a story of Creation. Sun and moon and stars rested on the peepal and banyan. Earth looked a sky; sky became earth. Gods were in the diyas. One morning or was it noon, Prandan could not bear his madness ... the urge to unwind ... walked away tied to a white dhoti and a Khadi kurta. Followed wife a month later, a different way. Shuddhan, slapped a vettila on his mundu, applied a dash of chunnambu, popped a few grains of supari into his mouth and got to chewing his tic. Shuddhan walks  the Kuyil Padam, chirps with house sparrows who first flew in when Prandan walked away. A morning, the peepal, the banyan and house sparrows left without a Bye. Is my tic true? he asks none. Creation a tic? Creation uncared, abandoned? In came with the wind many winds and Shuddhan thought it was his Ammumma and Appuppa.

Tic, Tic, Tic / gives Shuddhan a kick/ to rove Kuyil Padam/ like a free kick; maybe someday/ the tic will turn a story wick/ a flick/ keep the world pleasant/ not slick. 

Oct. 2

Facebook Alert: Oct. 2, Gandhi's birthday. Please wish him the BEST.

A dance in the air.
Tuka, Kabira, Gandhi on
staffs
tap-danced morning quiet
on Marine Drive.
Happy Birthday, Bapu, they said.
A wisty Bapu nodded.
All in a dance.
'Can you gentlemen do me a favour?'
Gandhi jazzed.
Tuka, Kabira waltzed Old Man:
'Anything for you.'
'Can you put in a word to Rama?' asked
Old Man.
They dropped into the Sea
in laughs..
Sea returned them.
For aeons,
Tuka and Kabira were friends of Ram.
Mobiled.
'Will you bhakts leave me alone?
Its a public holiday,'
snapped a sleepy Siya Ramji ki.
'Sorry, a third bhakt of yours wants a favour,'
said Kabira.
'Sir, Please can you delete me? pleaded Gandhi.
Siya Ramji ki tinged and tanged.
Nuisance is Gandhi.
'Have been trying to get my name scratched.
It has not worked.
I can try.
You, me and Ravana are cursed from birth.
In memory pads ever.
Get Tuka and Kabira
to be silent from Rama, Krishna, Hari,'
pleaded Siya Ramji ki.
Gandhi hung up.
Chewing vada pav and kante pohe
to Ram Dhun of Tuka and Kabira,
Siya Ramji ki placed a few words on
a paper plate on Marine Drive.
'Should not have taken the job.
BP, diabetes, thyroid, bypass....
Yet the power over files ....
more pending than cleared ...
aam janata with folded palms
filing past ....
awarding penalty points....'
Siya Ramji ki said.
'Quit,' said Gandhi.
'Did you?' returned Siya Ramji ki.
Sea bobbed, traipsed ........
A dance in the wind. 

A Song 173

10-old Kutta
cycles homes
with a washed, fed cow
on the back seat,
assuring fresh milk
for appumas and appupas;
unloads football news from
Bhoomi and Manorama
to stares and nods.
Vijayan,
Messi,
Xavi,
Barca,
make his rosary.
At wide padams,
dribbles a part-football
past scampering coconuts,
standing tapiocas,
whistling bananas;
a drumstick,
Kutta smiles wide as padams,
lapping all,
eyes shimmer as the deep
well at the corner of
a tiled home.
A dear
at school, shops and streets.
When parents call from Gulf,
pleads for spiked boots,
Messi jerseys,
a regular football.
At Dubai airport,
parents pick up Kutta demands,
board the first flight home,
having lost their jobs.
7 is Kutta jersey number;
Football is Cool,
says the jersey,
once worn by the coach. 

In Lalettan Land

7.30 a.m. Kurampala in Lalettan Land built by Parashurama a 10 year old Kutta on a one wheel bicycle parts with copies of Malayala Manorama and The New Indian Express, adding a Chetta. Rama dives into Manorama writing of Lalettan Land. She beats Malayalam while me is silent knowing not Malayalam. Rama sprouts Malayalam bumping into women in kasav sarees at temples. Watching birds and flowers and chatting them is enough for me and when they fly off take to the grandpa chair, Kurup has kindly vacated to read the book: a comma in a sentence by R. Gopalakrishnan and the migration of an Iyengar family from Vilakkudi village in Thanjavur district to Calcutta and on to the West. R. Gopalakrishnan now lives in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai. TamBrahm migration has been less chronicled as there is less drama and a near absence of violence and hurt. The community seeps into foreign locales unlike Rohingyas, tortured and driven. Yes, they were disliked in Tamil Nadu (and some say nothing has changed), moved on to be liked. Similar walk aways are happening in Lalettan Land where the young yearn for West Asia and today with M.Tech degrees take flights out to Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Europe, leaving their olds in green padams and veedus. Me friend Narayana Karunakara Kurup lives amid brothers and sisters past their 70s and 80s; their children are breathing in foreign climes with a marked reluctance for farming and naadu. Yes not a dislike but a disinterest in Lalettan Land. Kurup does not see them coming back .... and then what? Like in Goa, as Paul says old men and women wheeze in spidered bunglows while children sun and moon in Australia. Will there be a younger generation in Lalettan Land? Today, Lalettan Land offers subsidised grains across three colour ration cards, vegetables come from padams, leaving men and women with cash and drinks, freely accessed. Wages are high; Rs.800 per day for preparing the soil at padams with work done for an hour; government jobs are no strain as taking bandhs, rains, festivals, a government employee works for about an hour a week. Every government act has to be bribed say seniors; for the world Lalettan Land is God's Own Country; for those in Lalettan Land its Devil's Own Country. Sure, it is the same in India but me thought social indices in Lalettan Land were on a high. Every veedu has a car and two bikes; rarely, does anyone walk in Lalettan Land; like the absent house sparrows in Kurampala; small talk is about traffic jams in small and big towns; veedu vekkayanam is an ambition; in Kurampala village, a cent of land costs Rs.3 lakh; for one cent of land near the town road it is Rs. 5 lakh; and 100 cents make one acre; most homes look like dhows or ships, floating on rials and dirhams flowing in waves from Gulf. Pride entering a private hospital with underpaid nurses; government hospitals are shunned. Lalettan Land is clean; smoke a cigarette on the road and invite an on the spot police fine of Rs.500; me couldnt get a fag for days. No begging. Beggars absent at temple gates. Has Lalettan Land abolished poverty? If so, that's something. Lalettan is a neck ahead of Mamootty; if they stand against each other in an election, Lalettan could just about make it. Yet, in Lalettan Land women are second to men; kept that way by Indian men in pride. Not many will agree. Thanks be to EMS, starting it all. Lalettan Land is far ahead of India. Thanks again Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad. 

A trip

At Shankhumukham beach, some five to six Brahminy kites were swinging the air and waves with a few crows after them ...Sighted racquet tailed drongos, drongos, golden orioles, sat bhais (babblers), green barbet, bharadwajs, pond herons, warblers, magpie robins, tree pies, squirrels with dark brown coats, three dogs barkless, biteless, two noisy kid goats, butterflies... flowers, trees, fields .. silences ..... at the home of Kadammankote Narayana Karunakara Kurup. At 5 Kurup made coffee and me sipped watching the silence ... the soft thud of dew making it from one banana leaf to that below .... crowds of bananas and tapioca in the fields; was not sure whether me was taking coffee or silence; maybe coffeed silence. Jet Airways morning flight from Mumbai to Thiruananthapuram was on time and a three hour car run into the quiet of Kurampala; it just drapes one, blesses one. Days spent tracking with a walking stick birds and bird calls, trying to identify trees and grass or just lips shut.. Kumarakom, billetted at Saro Lake County on the edges of Vembanadu Kayal with African payal (water hyacinth?) bobbing as the kayal revved up waves to winds; mornings still; a three hour boat ride past a white church, famed for a Mohanlal shoot in Sphadikam, with cormorants, Brahminy kites, white breasted sea eagles for company; a country boat ride on a channel off the kayal in Kumarakom bird sanctuary; this is not the season for birds, the gentleman at the counter remarked and there were cormorants around. Off season we were told; some ten steps from Saro Lake County and me could descend the kayal; fishermen on motorised boats; dosas and idlis fine for breakfast. Back at Borivili, Rama counted the number of temples we darshanned: 11. Mostly Shiva temples with Chenganoor a dear with its stone koothambalam built by Perunthatchan and wide grounds; every devotee has a legend making many legends to a temple; some sort of Vedic poetry with every poet adding a word or a line; no space for fact and fiction; there is faction and factions; prayer was not a rite or ritual. Me relished it, tasty as the valla saddhi at Aranmula Parthasarathi temple; with the boaters and their songs invited by women with vilakku and lunch. Me had heard of it; not experienced it. As Rama, Kurup, Sugatha and me drove past highways about 10 ft. wide (holding two cars), high rise apartments stood above unkempt coconut trees and tiled homes; tiled homes were not; the air and everything around had many dashes of cement and paints. Thiruananthapuram looks a Mumbai. Perhaps Mayooram Fruits Stall at Pandalam is the lone concession to a past of naranga vellam (lime juice); ginger, green chillies, powdered sugar and salt, soda tanging the soul. And my good friend Bala Murali, 35 year old, M.Tch, working at the rationing office off Kottarakara; with parents holding transferable jobs, Bala Murali is grandma child with grandma tales in wide pockets of his jeans. He does not want to quit Kerala to live a high paid job. 'Ithu mathi (This is enough),' he says, like some Marquez character. Books, poetic soul and wife Reshmi for company. Began with a trip to Ganesha temple at Kottarakara with its Three Lamp Corner and lillied temple pond and two peepals. Asked the Elephant God about me roots, born there. Roots is an obsession; when trees give way to cities, roots go. Air India flight to Mumbai was late, as usual. Midnight it landed at T2 Andheri International Airport. Felt small in its cemented hugeness. Quest for roots remains... or maybe roots for a Mumbaikar like me is Mumbai. For 40 years it has left me alone; 10 days in God's Own Country, everyone knew me details. God is like that. 

A Song 172

Bewda....
fell off the bed
morning;
grandma clocks at rest;
rushed tea;
on the run bows
to snoozy Vittala;
forgets mobile;
train hoots absent at
the station;
rests on the edge of a
wooden bench taken
over by a drunk;
collapsed on the drunk
stirring a howl....
Bewda...

A Song 171

Coffee-seed toned,
Colgate smile,
a flower hooked to neatly,
braided dark hair,
nose, ear rings,
Rani, a Tamil, could walk
into a Rajni film,
strides the morning dark
on Link Road,
a bulging, patched jute sack
on her back,
nibbling trash with an iron hook
for cash.
By 10 a.m.
Rani and friends two,
squat on Yogi Nagar Road,
with sacks full,
sipping a cup of tea, full;
spilling Tamil loud.   

Two-Nation Theory

Having tired of books me stared a blank wall for quite some minutes. Gave up, picked up Saadat Hasan Manto, Selected Stories (Modern Classics) and randomly read Two-nation Theory. A love between a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl. Mukhtar wants the girl Sharda to become a Muslim; the girl demands the boy turn a Hindu. 'She went into the other room and shut the door. Mukhtar, his Islam tucked in his chest, left the house.' None could have put the Two-Nation Theory better. Today, India 2017, a Muslim boy may never meet a Hindu girl, a Hindu girl may never love a Muslim boy. And by 2020 or some such year, when Hindu Rashtra comes into being, there wont be a Muslim boy or girl and no love. Am 70, wish me pops off before that timeline. That's me lone desire, now. Hasan Manto could be the best measure of India over 70 years. Manto may not be in India 2017. Has India moved or still. Still may fit. Even five years ago, Indian homes had shut doors, open windows; in 2017, Indian homes have shut doors and windows. Yes, that much has happened since 2014. Only Khalid Mohamed mentioned the birthday of painter Maqbool Fida Husain, born in Pandharpur. Tuka's Vitttala. India largely stayed silent. In Bombay House, long years ago, stood before a Hussain painting of Mother Teresa and was late for an appointment. That was the first time me saw a Husain painting. And now appreciate him. Recall him in me room unfrighted. Far away, a Nobel Peace Prize in Myanmar is mowing down Rohingyas; me country also does not want them.They are perhaps the poorest. We were not like what we have become.  

A Song 170

of mms and inches,
mumbaikar is unsure.
of rain waters sure.  
zany raindrops
half-toned,
half-torn mumbaikar,
an august day.
mobiles shut, denied selfies.
craned necks for delayed locals;
trudged absent roads
on vada pav smiles;
advised to stay at watery homes,
after flooding leaky offices,
exited to high tides on Marine Drive.
mumbaikar, in lower caps,
is a no views citizen
of
Maximum City,
Smart City,
Finance Capital;
reduced to anonymity,
is a low key votary
of a fourth seat in locals.

A Song 169

Modak times.
Tuka, Kabira
lined up at the lab
for blood
and BP tests;
a nurse syringed blood
from forearms;
reports would be late
as staff were on Ganesh offs.
In air conditioned labs with sofas
played chor, police
to pass time.
No coins to toss as the last fiver
went to kachrawali Krishna;
pulled out debit cards
when they are not tossed at IPLs.
Tuka won the toss,
opted chor,
Kabir police.
Game got real.
Kabir's unlicensed loom,
Tuka's tamboora
hauled by roving municipal vans.
Normal, said reports.
Traipsed to Ganesh pandals
for Modak bites;
Ganesh with Modak belly,
offered Modak sites.
Humans in
Modak times.  

Lipstick Under My Burkha

Jeans ka hak. Jeene ka hak. That could or should be the freedom cry for every Indian woman: girls, sisters, mothers, wives, grandmothers. And men: boys, brothers, fathers, grandfathers, should at least put a ear to. The slogan is easy and crisp. Lipstick Under My Burkha, directed by Alankrita Shrivatsava, scores with this one liner. Caps the film. Four women, used by their men, want to live their lipstick dreams, a lipstick Rehana Abidi ( Plabita Borthakar), steals from a mall, to go with her jeans under a burkha. Situated in Bhopal, they have their dreams, city dreams...and today cities in India offer inches more space to women than their villages... they could well argue cities and villages are same with men never leaving them alone. Beti ghar ke andar raho. Dont we do to our women what Konkana Sen Sharma and Ratna Pathak Shah face? Me thinks we do it on a daily basis (including me). If a woman wants to work she needs an okay; if she wants to smoke, it is unwomanly; men can, women cannot. Perhaps, Ratna Pathak Shah, wife of Nasee Babu comes away brilliantly. Wonder whether Nasee Babu has seen the film. And did he like it. Yes, Jeans ka hak. Jeene ka hak. No needless morals and dialogues. Lots of quiet. Well told. Rama,watching the film on amazon said it was a  tough film to see in a theatre. Sex scenes, particularly, she said. Could be, me added in times when every political leader and Hindutva want women in kitchens cooking for many, many kids; blessed if boys, cursed if girls. Intrigues me, how they shoot such scenes. The many variants of Rosy, put down by routine, protests felled by their men who sexed never kissed; Konkana is a tad forlorn, asked of kisses. Saw the two hour film twice with Rama. Worth it. Isnt it time for husbands to review their fix with wives? Boys with girls. Just sit across a table and talk. Me is no different and have said many Sorries; but thats not enough as it should not have taken in the first place. Now am planning to buy a Lipstick, US made, for Rama. Never bought her one.      

A Song 168

Narayanathu Prandhan
is fact-fiction.
Has no shadow.
At cremation grounds,
fiery and weepy,
one may spot Prandhan
or Pagal,
resting under a banyan
head to a stone.
Cooks rice over burning pyres,
if rice there is.
A night when deaths were not burnt,
a goddess sidled to Pagal,
woke him from thought,
promising favours.
'Ask, and you will get it,' she sweet talked.
Maybe, she loved him.
Asked Pagal:
Can you shift my
elephantiasis
from right to left leg?
'No,' said she.
Can you shift my death?
'No', said she.
A miffed Prandhan
lay down on bare earth.
Goddess nudged:
'Quit praying,' she suggested.
Tired of beggars, prayers,
Prandhan had quit,
long ago,
goddess did not know.  


(From Narayanathu Prandhan in Aithyhyamala, a collection of stories in Malayalam)    

A Song 167

Raindrops
scribble
skies.


.......

Picked up a wood,
walking stick
from Giri Stores, Matunga,
to stick up
old man.  

A Song 166

A Kabira for every scholar.
None denies Kaibra.
Thanks be.


.....

 3.30 a.m.
Borivili local
honks good mornings
to snoozy Mumbaikars;
hop, step and jump
for window seats;
in sleep, step out at Churchgate.
A day is over.


.....

Kabira
lolling at Marine Drive,
at the far end,
dipping into the Arabian Sea.
Mumbaikar is Maya,
intones Tuka;
what is Ram, asks Kabira.

A Song 165

70, a regret.
No sisters.
No rakhis.

A Song 164

Raksha Bandhan.
Tuka, Kabira
staple Marine Drive
with rakhis,
Ram Krishna Haris,
zaniness.

A Song 163

In 40 years
from low rise to
high rise;
windows shut out
scurrilous winds,
rains;
on-ing TV for non breaking news,
air conditioner for 24 degree zens,
sit at breakfast table,
chewing lives in low rise:
'of being poor,
lucky,
and at peace.' 

A Song 162

Pushed by kids
Rama invested in a
original long book
to ball pen a cookery almanac,
for future reference.
Setting on fire TamBram
foody desires.
Tuesday her Holy day,
uploading Ganesh and gods
in her kitchen,
an OM,
for an auspicious start.
Recipes for sambhars, avials, olans,
thorans, vadas, payasams
ladled by mother at Sreevatsam.
When 10
Rama fate cooked.
At 62, cooking and Rama are.
When 10,
it was smoking wood fires,
grinding stones,
kitchen appliances.
At 62, Rama dwells in
mixies, ovens, Madam's spices.
Tacked to every dish,
notes on life,
living.

A Song 161

Said Tuka: Gods are a paunch of promises.
Said Kabira: Faith is a stumble on Mumbai roads.
Earth tripped.
Crumbling tumble of words.
On Sunday, Bhaktiville.
On Monday, Yezdani bun-muska.
On Tuesday, butterflies.
On Wednesday, parked on stumps
of beheaded trees.
On Thursday, Learning from
the Almond Leaf;
On Friday, rocking at Kala Ghoda.
On Saturday, mourning Eunice de Souza.
On Sunday, Bhaktiville.

Morchas

In the 70s and 80s, Bombay fielded a morcha a day. Starting from near Azad Maidan,  morchas walked Dadabhai Naoroji Road, Flora Fountain and Kala Ghoda before being stopped by the police. Most, if not all, were in the evenings, halting traffic, public murmuring... the chanawala and chaiwala into some brisk money making... a morcha for any and every cause... have seen Ahilya Rangnekar and Mrinal Gore boarding BEST buses after morchas.... is there one politician, right or left, today taking a BEST bus or a Kalyan local? They are always in SUVs. IAS Lords and Ladies at Sachivalay and then Mantralay were never upset.... none came to meet the morcha leaders .... and today there are no morchas in Mumbai. Nor are there protests in Calcutta, men and women flagging Chowringhee .... maybe something has changed; maybe protests do not matter; perhaps, there are no causes; or  morchas do not help.... have no clues. Who birthed the idea of a morcha and when was the first morcha? A morcha dictionary needs to be worked on. Maybe, the first morchaists were the Bhakti poets between the 6th and 8 th centuries. Janabhai, Mahadeviyakka, Tuka, Kabira .... for me were the originals. Most if not all of them have no bio data, all were lower castes, bonfired norms .... their worlds had no rules....they had no flags... no theories..... just Compassion .....were the most decent Indians. Am proud of them. (A confession: Read bhakti poets in English as cannot read Indian languages, an English bhakt). Janabhai a low caste, worked as a maid at the home of Namdev, illiterate, composed abhangs; Cast off all shame, a  Janabhai abhang, translated by Vilas Sarang:

Cast off all shame,
and sell yourself
in the market place,
then alone
can you hope
to reach the Lord.
Cymbals in hand,
a veena upon my shoulder
I go about;
who dares to stop me?
The pallav of my sari
falls away (a scandal);
yet will I enter
the crowded marketplace
without a thought.
Jani says, My Lord,
I have become a slut
to reach Your home.

If this is not a morcha, a protest, what is? Something beyond Communism. Janabhai's God is a human, a loving human, without castes, creeds, books, rules .... poetry alone. Bhakti poets are that. For a human to be a human, an ordinary human, creed is a blank. Janabhai protests to live and this is way different from Hindutva and shooting down of Govind Pansare. In Kabir, The Weaver's Song, Vinay Dharwadker tries to create a biography of Kabir from unsureties. In Essential Kabir, a fine special bilingual edition with the Hindi alphabet Ka, embossed on the cover, translator Arvind Krishna Mehrotra writes: Very little is known about Kabir outside what can be culled from his poems or from hagiographies and legends. Yet bhakti poets live in Hindu homes. Tuka abhangs can be heard in Mumbai. On Ashad Ekadasi, me friend Govind, a dabbawalla, is a regular at Pandharpur. Bhakti poets and poetesses were simple, honest customers. They took on a violent, Brahminic society; lost could not win. Today, there is no Shiva of Mahadeviyakka to sip the Hindutva poison. We need a Kabira, a Tuka, a Janabhai. They are original, Indian Marxists, not the European variety. They define protest, Indian style. They make the morcha. 

Trapped

Watching film Trapped, Rama and me held on to our sofas; firmly pocketed house keys; Rama wanted to quit our seventh floor apartment; me sat afraid. Trapped, a 100 minute film by Vikramaditya Motwane with young Rajkummar Rao batting the entire film, not out. Rao, Nawazuddin, Irrfaan and Bajpayee are the best in Indian films today. They are not artists. They buy into characters. Remain there. Dialogues rare; Rao carries the film easily. We would have done what he does. Read something about the film in Facebook and Ganesh referred to amazon. Me has stopped going to theatres as me is not for standing up to National Anthems. At home, no anthems. In an empty high rise, Rao shuts himself in an empty apartment with keys outside. The high rise has no livers. It could happen to anyone in the many storied societies uglying Mumbai skies. They hide skies and clouds; trip birds. Mumbaikars are loners in apartments. Lack the familiarity of tiled homes with gardens. In Kerala, they had homes with names. Rama's tiled home (now absent) in Alleppey was called Sreevatsam. In Borivili, our apartment has no name. Little background music and Motwane has done a frighteningly good job. Rao is Rao. Tensed out we moved on to a second film for some fun: this afternoon for films, declared Rama; the 1981 film Chashme Buddoor by Sai Paranjpye. Sai, Aparna Sen and Konkana Sen Sharma are lady directors worth a watch. We laughed with Lallan Miya (Saeed Jaffrey), owning a cigarette kiosk in some delightfully green New Delhi; Charminar Gold, me one time smoke for its rawness. In today's New Delhi, a Lallan Miya will be lynched. They are all there in the halka-phulka comedy: Farooq Shaikh, Rakesh Bedi, Ravi Baswani (Jaane bhi do yaron fame) and Deepti Naval, one of the best in the Indian film industry. Rama and me have enjoyed it many times. Not intellectual stuff. Just a munchable sukha bhel. We opted for Chashme to feel untrapped, free. Sai serves lovely tandoori rotis with dal and aloo to viewers. Will 2017 India ever make dotty films like Chashme. In 2017 we make and view Trapped. Will India 2017 tolerate Jaane bhi do yaron? Do we have the sense of fun to make Amol Palekar, Utpal Dutt starrer Golmal. Bet is no. India 2017 has lost India 1970, 1980. And there is no returning back. Nor is there any going forward. Trapped. The clock struck 4. We sofa snoozed. 

Bom-Bom Bhole Nath

Shravan Somwar. Monday morning. Rama placed an order for bel leaves, handed a tenner, as me stepped out for a stroll. By around 12 noon she will pray to her Bom-Bom Bhole Nath or Shiva and place the leaves on the Shivaling with utmost reverence. Shiva is sure to accept it as his wife Parvati is never so considerate. She is Kali, a tough feminist. Father in Calcutta rarely defaulted on a two hour Shiva puja. For me dear Lord Shiva living with a feminist is tough going but then Shiva the Destroyer has to abide by karmic laws. Fate. Shiva is me favourite as he loves a drink, smokes, roams burning ghats, is the original Loner or Beatle. Walking Yogi Nagar Road, met Niranjan dressing his stall under the rain tree with fresh vegetables. Spotted a bamboo basket of bel leaves, handed over Rs.10 for a handful. He refused the cash. 'Nahin,' Bom-Bom Bhole Nath ko chadana hai na,' he asked. Said a 'Han'. Replied: 'Tho paisa nahin chayiye.' He touched base after 15 days with Bhole Nath of Benares. He broke from a busy mango season and nothing better than Kasi Viswanath, Ganga mayya, dal roti made by sisters at a Benares home. As he could not turn a kavad or kanvar this shravan, he decided to sell free bel leaves for Shiva devotees like Rama. Yes, it is the Bom-Bom moth as men and sometimes women, fill metal or water pots with Ganges water, tie one each to the two ends of a bamboo pole or kawad and walk; some take breaks, some do not; me has seen them in Madhya Pradesh, moving around with friend Dinesh Kothari. Bare bodied with a dhoti tied over the knees, bare legs and head, Bom-Bom Bhole Nath in every breath. Neither a walk nor a run. Head down. Gentle Shiva, Hinduism in an innocent peace mode. Walk kms. to a Shiva temple, offer the water to the Lord. Did Lord Shiva earn kindness from fellow gods; some say, he got it from Ravana but that gentleman is more a gad than god. Chatting of Benares, an auto stopped near and stepped out Madhav hailing a smiling, 'Bom Bom Bhole Nath'. That's Hinduism, a laugh not a war. A bhakt in quiet bhakti. From a two month Kasi holiday, he is back in Mumbai, driving an auto. 'Thak gaya tha, gaali-galouch, auto walla chor hai,' sunke thak gaya tha, he said. Me knows Madhav over 12 years and will stop his auto anywhere to inquire, 'Kaise hain ji.' Bathed in Ganga Mayya (not Ganges for him), said Hai to Kasi Vishwanath and dal rotis, for two months. There is a Shiva temple in his area; a priest built a roof to protect the God and make some cash on the side. A storm blew away the roof. Lord Shiva is parked in the open. That's the style of Other India. A lady walked up, inquired: 'Auto, Malad Inox.' Bom-Bom Bhole Nath, drove away. At home read Speaking of Siva translated by A.K. Ramanujan.

Saintess Mahadeviakka say:

I love the Handsome One:
he has no death
decay nor form
no place or side
no end nor birthmarks.
I love him O mother. Listen.  

Siva peace-sense. 

Jawahar

Cloud hatted skies bent low to touch foreheads with the green and brown earth at Jawahar, some 122 km from Borivili, in Buddhist tradition. Quiet. Rains rumbled as Rama, Ganesh and me took it on bare heads. Rain drops natya-ed on streams and ponds suited in greens. Goats formed the lone crowd and they did not bustle. Sometimes the drops became large question marks as they drummed us standing outside The Leaf, an eatery of Antariksh Bharadwaj. As we stood with talking drips, Bharadwaj came up with canned Carlsberg beers. Me opened the can, tippled the beer with rains, walked the road sipping. Sages in deep thought. It was Gattari Amavasya but we were not in the gutters; we were deep in washed shunyas with an irregular MSRTC bus breathing hard. Stood in front of a crocodile bark tree watching braided rains make their way down like some Mumbai locals; there were no stations to halt; they flowed to the foot of the tree. We had decided on a rain wash and the clouds obliged as we made our way on a brown, earth track to an empty, forlorn Jaya Vilas Palace: neither kings or queens or commoners or loiterers or tourists. Thanks be. We with a boarded Jaya Vilas Palace, swallows and a valley below. Time had decided to take a break at the Palace. At least, the owners can bring down the boards and put some heart and soul to the Palace; understand they live in Goregaon. Mangos, cashew, and many trees me do not know stood on the palace grounds seeking company. A chalk board warned of stray dogs. They had quit. Orhan Pamuk in his book Snow writes: Measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That's why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another.' Rains in Jawahar did that to us and Sambhu, the grey and black Great Dane. He circled us, demanded pats and then a dog loving; Ganesh put out a water bottle; and Shambhu with ancestors from the banks of Benares and mountain tops of Himalayas got scared; backed down. Ahead of lunch of rotis, dals and aloo bhaji served by Bharadwaj, we slipped down the way to a muddy patch with men and women in raincoats transplating rice. Stalk bundles lay alone. Vinayak, a young kid, held an umbrella for me to mobile click. School is not a demanding option. He helps his parents in farm work and transplanting tandul is a serious, living art untaught in schools. Want to go back to Jawahar, say next week.   

A Song 160

Bread, butter, jam of
a priest,
pouting a roll of tambakoo,
jostles turtles in the temple
pond;
spends hours with them
as they string their way from
rain jacketed hills
across the mangroves.
Some crawl their way to seas,
some in creeks,
some in the temple pond
safe in company
of the priest. 

Keki is hurting

Something is amiss in the nation when its poet is in pain. Our poet and essayist Keki Daruwalla. Of a Heart of Darkness he writes today in The Indian Express (July 20, 2017). Perhaps, poet Jawaharlal Nehru, if he was around would have read the essay; perhaps, called Keki Daruwalla and talked to him. Said a Sorry. These times have no graces. Absent decencies. Daruwalla writes: 'We have been having a mournful feast of words recently. ...But all this is so broad brush......Junaid Khan, a handsome fifteen-year-old boy going for his Eid shopping was killed because he wore a skull cap, looked like a Muslim and horrors, was a Muslim.... Nothing subverts like lynch law.' Me bet is none will bother. Me may come across a bhelpuri wala packing bhel in a newspaper cone bearing Keki essay; after bhel munching, will crush the paper cone, litter the road. Since Babri Masjid, India is a kabaristan for Muslims; since 2014, Dalits and poor share the underground. Economic growth statistics will not reflect the mishaps; nor me bother. Bharat Mata ki Jai is a must, a Bharat Mata disowning Muslims, Dalits and poor. In her collection of poems, Learn from the Almond Leaf, Eunice de Souza says: '..Mrs.V beats her husband. The churchman says: Into every life, a little rain must fall.' Rain drops are not descending, poetess. A Hindu woman falls in love with a Muslim man; marries him; becomes a Muslim; has a child; her relatives slaughter her husband; a news item, a lead item for the night sub in The Indian Express. Over. She will cry; her tears will dry; life will be a fry. Are we being fair to ourselves? We check our Aadhaar cards before starting a friendship. For business papers and business channels and business journalists (me was one for 37 years), news is a drop or a rise in GDP; Chinese investments with Chinese keen on dollars to make and nothing else; RBI governors and Finance Ministers make sense. Long time ago anchors on a business channel raised a toast to the Sensex crossing some important number. It was a public show. Eunice is a poet not a journalist, not surely a business journalist. Business journalists may like her line: ' A compound full of silver cars. The sky with not a single silver star.' Dislike her lines: Finally, the Lord said: Move that damned highrise. Let there be light. 

A Song 159

At the Press Club,
journalists asked
Tuka and Kabira
smelling of Vicks
toning July rains:
Are
the kick of Ram
and kick of Rum,
same?
'Ho! Of course,' said
Tuka and Kabira.
  

A Song 158

A spectacled drumstick,
the Virar Lady,
a regular at Vazira Ganesh.
Virar to Borivili is 43 km by rail,
making it every day plus Sunday.
She prays more at the temple tank
and turtles;
sometimes, turtles pray back
to chuckles of Ganesh.
Some nights nods on the temple bench.
She wants to stay old;
pleasure is in aging
beside her stick;  
old is best of times,
she murmurs to nobody.
in locals
running over creeks of rains,
older than she,
Lady sits and smiles,
looking out of the window.  
Plus 60, a retired nurse,
is a caretaker of a couple plus 80
in Borivili.

Liu Xiaobo Bye. Liu Xia Love.

The Indian Express, Monday, July 17, 2017 on Page 11 has a box item on Liu Xiaobo, 1955-2017, with pix of him with wife Liu Xia and the empty chair at the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2010. 'I have no enemies, no hatred,' says Liu and the sentence has been buzzing me since his death. To me he is alive; alive from an obscurity of not being familiar with him. Me did not pray but Liu is in me. He insisted on the birth-right of a butterfly. Chinese Communists denied it and will always be in denial as Communism is dictatorship. Nowhere (me has read a bit of Marx) has Karl Marx argued in favour of unfreedoms clamped on Russia by Lenin and Stalin and by Mao in China. Great Leap Forward killed over 10 millions; Cultural Revolution was a massacre; Tibet continues to be a holocaust; they want to wipe away Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism; yet, every corporate of every nation, including India, wants to do business with China as it has the biggest market in the world. Cash shuts protests. China is most feared and Liu stood up against China not with a prayer or a god but with a conviction that freedoms are a given. In India we discuss the date when we will be more economically powerful than China. None questions Chinese data. And none talks of Chinese having no freedoms even as we in India are living in 2017 with edited freedoms or freedoms with hair cuts or freedoms of the zoos. (Me lives in fear of Modi regime and am not Liu). Till date no corporate chieftain in India has protested Modi. China had a Liu and has many others stacked in torture. Long ago Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi woke us to battle the British. But British as rulers were soft despite Jallianwala. British gentlemen and gentlewomen were in awe of Gandhi and his wife Ba. Gandhi could pray to Rama and protest the British. These concessions were denied Liu. Liu was treated cruelly. He lived in no hope. He stuck on, yet. Tsering Wangmo Dhompa in A Home in Tibet writes of the Chinese trying hard to diminish Tibet, Tibetans and Tibet Buddhism. A hurting tale. Tsering writes: 'At seventy-six, Ashang is my oldest relative in Tibet. .....Prison was a good teacher, he says. Can the world accomodate a wise and foolish monk who has lived half of his life in prayers? .... He has no time for hope.....In my solitary existence in San Francisco I think of his question and ask myself if I am free.....Ashang understands impermanence as a key to freedom and to a life light of fear and want. I have yet to learn to be free in a free country.' Prayers are easy. Not Freedoms. Fact is dictatorship, Chinese or North Korean version, can be made, done. Freedoms are born into. Fragile. Can prayers and gods help? Gandhi thought so. He was allowed to think so. Act so. Chinese government denied Lu friends and loves. At least English allowed Gandhi to satyagraha for freedoms. Liu tried a Gandhi in China, failed. Will Liu one day stir up a Gorbachev in China? When will this misery called Chinese Communism end? Yes, Liu, freedom to Love alone is. Bye Liu. And Lady Liu Xia, hope you are alive. Love Liu Xia.

Of wars

How long will India and Pakistan play this hate match. Since 1947, we have been at each other, sometimes as India and Pakistan, sometimes as Hindu and Muslim. In me school times, ACC (Auxiliary Cadet Corps) was a must. In college times, NCC (National Cadet Corps) was a must. In ACC, we lefted-righted the kerchief of a school ground. Sardar Sarwan Singh, who had a special dislike for me, bellowed: Bharat Mata ki Jai. We bellowed, swinging arms, righting and lefting shoed legs with chests out (me earned hard raps as the chest never could breathe out). At NCC in college, an army man made life hard; mornings marched the Maidan; the lone command me liked was 'Vishram'; one could rest a second. Came the standing before a field gun; diving on to it full tilt; firing; always missing the target; me was good at the target of  the friend beside me; changing bullets from a hot container. And the lecture bajee on killing. You kill before you are killed. Me never understood any of it. Waited for the damn show to end, for a quiet Charminar and tea in earth cups from a Bihari who was always there under the banyan. He lived with the cheap demeaning hatred of Bengalis for Biharis. Calcutta has more Biharis; Mumbai more from UP; both are termed bhaiyas like all from the south are madrasis. And in October 1962, me became a patriot as China roamped into India. Me wanted to go to to war. Left-right at a furious pace in the Maidan. At the Madian stood in a line for army recruitment; more for the job than for love of the country. Was rejected for poor eyesight. An army man took away my specs and me could see nothing. 'Kuch kaam ka nahin hai, Sir' he said and that was it. As a journalist, read of Indo-Pak wars at the business desk of Times of India and other papers. Patriotism steamed away. And today at 71, me think of the futility of the hates and guns. Does it make any sense? Have the wars any winners? There were no winners in Mahabharata. Ended miserably for Krishna and Pandavas, the victors. Rama won the Lanka war and despatched Sita to the forest. Perhaps, the bhakti poets of the 6 th century in the south, Tuka, Kabira make more sense. Me reads Kabira and Tuka again and again. But they are not icons like Rama and Krishna. Today, it is fashionable for India to abuse Pakistan and vice versa. Ye, a must for living in both nations. Soldiers are brave, all soldiers. Do they not blink and titter at the first gun shot? Are they not nervous ahead of a battle? And should they not, being humans? Which soldier in India and Pakistan wants to die? Of course, they are patriots. Patriots are first civilians, unwilling to die, like me. Armed forces is a job, a very high risk job for all Indians and Pakistanis. Emotions come second. Me would not like me son to join the forces. Never. Will 21st century go hating each other? Will there not be a India-Pakistan cricket match at Eden? And if they can play in England why not in India and Pakistan. Pakistani hockey players dribble on Indian grounds; but Pakistani cricketers cannot in IPL. Queer indeed. Perhaps, the lone beneficiary is the corporate making arms. And they will decide. Today, Tatas, Ambanis, Mahindras are into weapons business. US weaponers are liberal with Pakistan. Trump dislikes Muslims yet supplies arms to Pakistan. For them hatred and wars bulge balance sheets. Governments on both sides may often be reluctant but not corporates. Hatred pays. An old habit, a stylish, loud way of living, since gods were imagined or born. Sir, Sir, Sir. Till date has not heard Madam, Madam, Madam. It wont go, will never go. There will be exceptions: Gandhi or Liu Xiaobo.    

A day in our life

What do you do at home, a neighbour asked. Rama and me celebrate failure. Enjoying failure is a satisfying art, a FB post said. Me liked it; am not sure about Rama. But failure is interesting as we slip from one day to another. We get up in the morning, brush our teeth, light the diya to the many, many god and goddesses littering Rama's kitchen plus agarbattis; Rama makes filter coffee with the fragrance descending from the seventh floor to the ground floor inviting sparrows, crows and myenas; sitting in our sofas we sip coffee, watching sparrows breaking their fast over Marie biscuits; today morning it is sheets of rain drops with the sky cleaning up its stock of soiled bedsheets. Rama has her sofa, me mine; never exchange. Warm and smelling of coffee, we walk up to Vazira Ganesh temple with our many desires; a week ago, we prayed for a mobile lost, previous evening, after a chat under the peepal tree; we found the mobile at the foot of the peepal. Comes the breakfast chat. Dosa, idlis or dry, overnight chappatis? Rama mood is the critical input. In the money, it is plates of vegetable upma plus chutney (as today) or chappatis rejected by stray dogs. But me takes it chewing in me sofa. Having retired, no fresh, Churchgate vada pavs. At long last, mobiles are pulled out, newspapers set aside. On her new mobile, Rama is into Malayalam songs, Pulimurugans of Mohanlal and of late...actor Dileep derobing, a 2017 take on Draupadi in Mahabharata; and Vinoo on Asianet News. By about 11, the lunch menu is scheduled for a discussion; or as is popular, a meeting; Rama scraps chappatis; me opt for avial and pappadams; Rama screams: no pappadams with triglycerides high; me into Zen silence; before she decides, she goes over the years, her mother (me mother-in-law) prepared sambhar, avial and pappadams for lunch at the college; the housemaid delivered it hot and Rama licked it all up. Tongues fall out. Many Sreevatsam stories get unreeled and today is the latest instalment. Rama was a tiny tot when her father, Hari Gopalakrishnan, thought of owning a cow; fresh milk in the morning for his kids; wife agreed. Gentleman Gopalakrishnan stepped out a Sunday morning and was back at noon with a brown-white cow. The cow mooed, the family responded. It was tied to a pole in the garden; free to chew up the entire garden. In the night, it rained being July. Hari Gopalakrishnan worried over the cow catching fever; he got up from his cot, took the cow to the kitchen and shut the door. Entire night cow mooed and mother-in-law could not sleep. In the morning, she pleaded for relief. Hari Gopalakrishnan escorted the cow from the kitchen to the market. None appreciated his love for a cow. Dont know about the cow. Our first Cow Bhakt, non violent, quiet and humourous. Sold it. It was a happening told to Rama by her mother, me mother-in-law. We laughed, had not laughed over a failure for long. Trapped in a good mood, Rama make avial, sambhar, rice and pappadoms. After lunch, snooze. Evenings for TV sport channels as Rama goes for her adda. Day is over. Failures are worth it. Laughing failures.