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

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

.........

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

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


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


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

untitled

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


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


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

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

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

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