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