untitled 12

stretched in a creaky easy chair
showered with yellow droppings
of copper pods,
chintamani scans the lane
on summer noons.
at his feet rests an age-lost donkey,
his mother's pride.
knocked down,
she bought him from a stone
contractor;
christened him deva.
aza, the labrador,
chintamani's dear,
lay across the chair.
a lame acquisition when
aza was pushed out of a merc.
Below many-angled noon shades,
they play cards (without aces)
brought by pappu, the parakeet,
rescued from a soothsayer.
play carrom without  a queen
till the moon preens.

untitled 11

at the shiva temple near the
railway station,
samkara stamps a left foot on
a tarred road;
trim,
walks the summer sun,
a grin clothing him thin.
places boulders, left-overs from
road repairs,
in a straight line,
unhurting traffic.
shredding newspapers,
folds the line into an
irregular circle.
shares a lineage with narayanathu
pranthan (mad narayanan)
of long ago;
spent a life rolling stones uphill,
freeing them downhill;
laughing.
rejected help of a generous Kali
at the cremation grounds,
their home.
Kali persisted, prandan gave in.
"shorten or lengthen my life," demanded my man.
"that's not in my power," replied Kali.
"then why the offer," asked my man.
samkara is.
needs nothing, is nothing.
a reticent passion string them.
undone by common desires,
littering trails with advaitic charms.
the city has many rejects.  

Untitled 10

with palms stuffed in frock pockets
spelling a hindi film tune,
she trails friends trudging to school
spotting squirrels jetting from
rain to silk cotton trees
is late to school.
holding an injured magpie
at the foot of a tamarind,
feeds it water, rotis from
her lunch pack,
misses school again.

untitled 9

familiar with ordinariness in
undistinguished times,
aged simplema takes baby steps
to the church
she has adorned
from times ago.
thought has laid pathways in
a thick top of hair.
a laugh,
a touch of friends
shrinks the webwork on her face.
dropping two grand-daughters
at the school she read,
simplema rests with the bible
entire afternoons.
opening,
shutting the book,
she wanders the jamun
curtaining the window of
her corner room,
from an wooden armchair.
in the evening
brings them home,
feeds them,
shares cartoon network,
hands them  to her daughter
toiling at a superstore.
retires to bed under the cross
waiting to be crossed.   

untitled 8

on the asphalt road
a donkey takes to driving;
at sewri, flamingos are boating;
in juhu, birds are training to
be pilots;
chopped tress warm open-sky
slums;
astroturfs smother grass;
flowers in a blossom loss.
a few own the earth meant
for all.
orbital dislocation could wheel
the earth into wild space,
with a spinning headche.
they were before us.
may not be after us. 

untitled 7

from far
a basket of unoiled hair
bobs from a mobile, steel
bin in the mornings.
lakshmi digs the bin for plastic
waste;
breaking off,
sleeps on her plastic sack
with stray dogs beside a twig fire;
till, mother comes from the morning
search for waste.
butterflying from child to a girl,
wary of the sniff and snore of
tarred roads,
lakshmi earns a vada pav with tea
for wiping clean the tea shop
under the rain tree.
her airy plea for a pair of plastic
bangles is pending.
evenings,
rests behind the bin
filling up fast.
her mother started that way
continues to this day. 

untitled 6.

on a deserted walk-way
she keeled on him.
a lorry thudded by.
an office crowd,
set down by a local train,
trudged by.
a moment undissolved in
a streets' outcry.