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.