here and there

calcutta on air on g.
a dream lived
and now delayed
for that seems
like a time to come
the time already spent

we would walk
straight from dp
to maddox square
after the rides
only to go back
for more and then
to ballygunge cultural

what is to say
all this has happened
and i havent closed my eyes
unforgettable the number
of people on the roads then
and like ice in a glass
mixed in the drink
cowboys and gypsies youd think
on streets the soul craves
in sunshine in rain


II
travelling with men of
straw, of steel
of the wild
along an open brick road
i stumble, i fall
far away in the distance
i can see
walls of an emerald sheen
and remembered what
i have set out for
only while
the sun is in the sky
and i
a cutthroat dorothy
camel in the desert

trip the ghostlight fantastic

so much i wont speak about
because i cant, a criminal past
stays hidden away inside
faint to myself but shining
a dead blurry light
deep in the fog
of an winter sea
on a skiff
a little out waiting
as it always has
i was born with memories
and in my life have relived
the cycle of darkness
followed by light
but that has all gone awry
what shall i tell
how i came to this shore
have i lost my boat
was i flushed from land
convict or master
i do not know
i shall not speak therefore
i will wait till im found


everytime, everytime i set out to put down things i remember from my earliest childhood i can never bring myself to it. i do not remember the whole of it, and here the question also arises where is the cut off point for the notional juvescence that is now left behind. that departure doesnt bear reflection, as do no other departures. for i think it is in acts of leaving, itself seen as a trope for leaving behind, that i have put on age. this argument can be developed only there would be so many details that i would never be able to present for second-party scrutiny. not that it needs examination. but a little digging never yielded anything but either treasure or trash. now if i was superman or a startrekker then kryptons, vulcans and altogether suchlike cosmic noodles would be my entanglement with my past. here my past is not fully it. im living with it. i protect it. sometimes i also feel revisionist. the now is one threshold ive always jumped off but am always never prepared for it. maybe if my present could be devoted to ordering my past, then, somewhere down the diary i would have closure. till that time peter pan remains a ghost lurking inside my head, hook, his freudian (or is it jungian) reading a phantom menace i have to live it. the only comfort in all this is that it makes sense only to me. not my past, not entirely, but that i was a child once.

so hyd/quickly and happy birthday/it all ends

and he said
do not give me
information
instead give me
anticipation
give me experience
share with me
that many times
you fall in love
and are always
heartbroken

what if your ong never barked

party and its discontents
the truth in the innards of things
needs laxative
and then a calmative
and sometimes you are
so sapped of strength
in the middle of it
when at day's end
youd promised to live it up
and it isnt over yet
you promise yourself
the strains of the guitar
enter your head
your evil grin
so truly flashed
has promised you heaven
youre honest
an honest thief


they came to speak
they came to praise me
under the village tree
it's a small world
a small circle
soon they will
know the culprit
because a thief
knows hiding
not charity


today is a tiger's birthday. jisko kahte hain roomie. abhi roomie ki socho. zindagi jungle hain to my sher is my roomie. share khan is stockbroking portal. or is it brokerage. now with a choice there is a price to pay because it's worth something. corn and cheese. no more, no more will i say

murder weapon has changed my eyes

have i shown you the fist
have you heard me screaming
songs on the street
have you thought what is this
ask me i will tell you
you can see my broken teeth

lines

but you want
a smaller space
a box an oyster a cage
not immortality but an age
no great lenghts but rest
no direction but ways
neither was
the beginning yours
nor the end
you wanted time
but not the wait
all things are endless
answers and questions

soberness and desperation
poles of my existence
helen and cleopatra
beckon from either end
and me in doldrums
there is no halfway
and attraction is
always dangerous
i seep in the drunkenness
that pervades creation
close my eyes
wish it was over soon


the idea as received and accepted was that there will be a lot of scribbling, but id never thought that it could also mean painting estella nude. estella who, you might ask. estella the heartbreaker id say. but thats too vague. because even if you knew who exactly it would be automatic to pretend you didnt. frankly although id thought of her much it was only in thoughts secret even to myself. and then i saw how she could just come in, doff her clothes and demand to be painted naked. of course what im saying seems to follow a script. it does. but who is acting it out. and, does the ocean know when it's raining on it. youd say to rein in estella cast don juan opposite her. look at the irony of the situation, two supremely suffering human beings brought together to make each other suffer. that is emabarrassing. no wonder we claim never to have met her estella.

eclipses of capricious fate/lottery ticket sunrise

yes! the terraces of cal
ive taken the name
ive shouted love from there
who dare tell me
it's all the same
this that these and them
so much ive loved
in so many forms
girl one city one home
and im not wearing no clothes
these arent my thoughts
my bare bones


alone is one
unity too
im conjoined
conned and joined
to what i dunno
that i feel so snatched
so severed so headless
so without torso
feather or fur
i love her
and here i am
now you see me
now you dont
a ghost
whod die for a furlough
wasnt it that
the nose held
its head high
and suffered
stinks untold
im living
mouth wide open
breathing eating and cold
rushing through
and pushing midway
i have red light
a green an yellow
where are the rest
of the colours
butterflies in the meadow



week no #yyyy, hyd 81

it is time i always feel. like a time bomb i tick. see timer has its periods its pauses its hyphens. descriptions that i deny because i refuse to look around the bend. walking from a bus stop short of my office i wonder why i didnt protest that i had to walk so much for a full ticket paid. or that i had to keep standing when the seat was mine, or that i was better off begging what if i am working. it is not my life, i know. my demands are simpler, my dreams, a swim naked and drowning. so easily afforded.

here's johnny

is it for love
that i wear these
so many disguises
and set out on
my expedition of faces
is it out of love
im driven to that
distant oasis
and pained to savagery
by the abandonment
of the emptiness
where im lost without light
not in trusting darkness
and my eyes
oh my eyes
they rob, suffer
so many graces
always at a few paces
in front of me races love
i behind in time
and always stumbling
like a blind man
my arms in front
with only feeling
for an answer


a love song from far

breathing has a parallel
when the moon is one
in the sky
it is one thing to be in love
quite another to be
lonely and high
one alien body
another body alien
friend of the soul
sleeps eyes open
so do the flowers
and the friend of ghost
first the saints gave up
their lives for love
then so many
sinners were lost
across the desert is mecca
across the desert
where the night has lowered
her bejewelled hair
is the mist of morning
for the thirsty skin
my thirst is quenched at daybreak


cranky gy[sy

this weather
this air
its birds their nests
couldn't keep me here a year
starting a leary
i will go to lear
dosed or desolate
kneeling by the bed in prayer
baby bayb take me away from here

this is the disneyland
castle and whatever
pirates, ghosts and alice
hang here
maybe are tiffin but
not my toast
the stepson came
and knew his father
his mother's breast
too he could tell
but slipping into
another region
he did not know her navel
though none knew better
how he felt the blade


hyderabad was won through police action. that was our first home office being charitable in its description of a fief snatched from a nabob. the rajah of hyd was all about leaving the union when he was as joined with it as joined can be. so hyd remained in india. although arriving here i have certainly hoped that i do not remain in hyd. why though don't ask. not me not to the city. we both don't know. so like children at their first meeting who were forced into that company by adults hyd and i do not know where to begin. we would become friends eventually but one never knows when its time to go home. so then the question is do i want to be friends. that is a question id rather the other person answered. in thomas hardy and the natives story id read how the egdon heath was actually a character. in a manner of speaking, the desperation with hyd is that it is characters. round, squat, squiggly letters that i do not read, steamboat tongue i do not understand. the fault is all mine that im more in love with the idea of being in love than in love itself.

mistake deliberate

the moment comes untried
a moment for to better
a line have prepared
but how is one
delivered of the burden
to fight the burden to escape
first looks are stolen
last glimpses exchanged
oh for one whole
line to have said
maybe a kiss
maybe a hug

im all ounces
do you hear
do you mind
if i swear
for you cut
like a knife
like love
on a hot evening
and i don't know
the roots of suicide
the tree of life
justice denied

on the platform, wait
from the station i left
koo jhik jhik
the bird of paradise
is decoupled in hell
into two halves
each miles apart
yearning burning
and lost

now im become jajabor, traveller without baggage

get on to the road
only when you can
cross it whole
don't hesitate
once on it don't dither
lonely by its side
wait if you need to
till you know
you wouldn't stop
in the middle stuck
till the moment
presents itself
for it is also
lonely in the middle
without help
let's complete a motion
without pause
for a rambling story
whistle at crossings
a song non-stop


don't want to be
aimless on the streets
and going nowhere
i want to have peace
when i have peace
want to have peace
when i don't


i was shot
today afternoon
in the chest
and i reflect
how i am not dead
but always dying
that for me
it is never
over yet
but continuing
but not
a death liberating
this is only
a kind of sinking
in a bog
more horrible
than the end
this stench
that won't
let me breathe

cocktail

for ages burying it
buried and rising
from the ground
like from the blood
of some mythological demon
sprang armies of dust
waving scimitars
nothing will end my fears
no angels appear
only a mirage
the sky snaps
at the horizon
and is a gaping hole
mocking my soul
with wonder that
i have my head
buried in the ground
my mind should have
really been a sparkler
burning down to the handle
in bright red
blue gold silver
orange flakes
over in a minute
and no further
joyous lights
in my fingers
waving dancing
wilder and wilder
till it burned down
and she lit another
i come from the ground
i of the sky
the air the water
i am mixed in this weather
i of the elements
i rise every morning



i wasnt drinking yet, that puja, nor smoking nor smoking. and yet there i was at the epicentre. but i had seen her that night and i remember. she, they, went off clubbing and pat brought down the door, they brought down the house, we thought pat was dying and tried calling a doctor. but all we got was an elder sister. and i had eyes only for you. my early love is by now an admission of guilt, what she hadnt known then and now only suspects. if i am forced i will recall her black linen trousers and her pinkish, sequined strappy number. oh i havent seen you in those clothes it has been such a long time, but i never think how much longer i have. i have already died and im not even suicidal. from my youngest years that has been the case. i have fought tears and have never been able to leave the fight

captainofmyskip#%^&*$%$&^

a part
now dismembered
now cast away
now swimming
against the tide
then it was
a late sun
late evening
late nights
the day was whole
and my eyes
took their time
days that began
in the morning
and waited
for me to come
to her that i
could shake
what moisture
was hidden
in the grass
where i was a mole
i surpassed
in what i was
good at
burrowing and
bringing up loam
but cut from my earth
with every high sun
i am impatient that
there will be
nothing to quench
my thirst not
an ocean not
rivers of lust
i should learn
the prayer song
of the crow
that sat on a jar

mourning further heavens

paradigm shift
drat that whore
never knocked
on my door
i went from
the sofa to
the bed to
the floor moving
one place
to the other
but the mother
won't budge
or i am there
and she is
one step ahead
shape shifter
new places enter
my dreams i
dream of new places
she in between
i hugging her sides
i dive right in and
am hung out to dry
what alters in my eyes
is the rate
of their blinking



topics for
moving stories
i could narrate one
from the side of a field
and another in the motions of
a somersault into a progressive age going backwards
plus in the crossing of a bridge joined and sundered
in the late afternoon it thundered she cried they split open the skies
there is one on the terrace soaking up rain and laying the blame
on the city oh how it gets flooded but dont you know there is enough droughts
how at the foothills bright green thorn shrubs sprout
there is one about getting stung by these blessed nettles
retrieving a ball and having picked up the fallen
all that gets swollen burgeons
true of clothes also woes
before it was stone then rock then dust then down the river gone
but the hungry worship the flow wash by the banks grow
then back to stone
what phenomena this love
what bludgeoning memory
the earth has promised me stillness of stones
returning all with the one face and repeating after louder
yet no more no less equal
but silent throughout

probhato kale kali kali

lights
lit in electricity
luminous in oil
this darkness invented
to celebrate lights
this darkness mixed
in our eyes
and to look deeper inside
lights
every once in a while
we are happy
we have seen lights
oh how lovely is this life
that it isnt blinding
all the time
lights
seeing or not
believing or not
hearing psalms and prayers
or not
in the darkness hiding
in the dark hide
the leper soul
the stump, the gash
and there await
lights


this life is certainly the waiting game. but look at me. sententious already and ive just found one gray hair really. at the barber's. that too deep inside in my scalp. i shaved it close and then in the mirror saw this one rogue strand. worrisome, but expected. but this life is the waiting game. and i mean life in general here; not my life. otherwise why would i say it. as i was saying, there cannot be a greater virtue than patience. for wanting and receiving, for giving and taking no greater art than patience. because that is all we are supposed to do. wait it out, wait for it. even when we are powerful we are not omnipotent; we are rarely blessed in our desperation. in all these cases, stripped of the elements of strength, broken by that which we are out to make, we deceive, ourselves, friends, lovers, police, government and god, for those who flatter to deceive. the easier option faced with lies is the long wait, the long march, the longing, peaceful longing, patience.

aliens and predators

ive gone from
orgasm to organism
a cog in the wheel
as the autonomous being
but this is a wild land
they wink
oh the cold wind in the evening
so inviting to quench
the thirst of parched
weather beaten mornings
so harsh on the skin
to live is to drink
in this parched rocky land
but yes the evening chill
there is peace
look or don't
or look and still do not
or wait
open your eyes slowly
breathe


advice. that inescapable outgrowth of experience, the irrepressible appurtenance of human existence (i would have said existence, but outside of bagheera ive known of no animals giving or receiving advice). but even if it were so that there was that little bit of friendly guidance, a small word of caution exchanged among animals, i would not think less of them for that. we all need to be advised; only the following it part is fuzzy and therefore its cool if we never did use it. there is an ideal world for you: coexisiting with the word to the wise the triggers of obstinacy. i havent had any truck with advice for as long as i can remember. but i havent been out like this either in the same timeframe. so no i didnt seek advice to come to hyderabad. but then i needed it. some said, just breathe, others thought i should just chill. not advice of the kind that puts you on your guard making it one kind of advice that is amenable. not the kind to make you wary but the type to make you put your guard down. i like that. just let go. good advice. "listen to me... let go". thanks, i will.

ghetto expell

My niggas wake up to this sad
sad thing
beat your heads and scream
cos the stone’s gone from the ring
punk ass playa is taking off
ditch the shit that’s smooth
he’s rolling in the rough
and all the punk mofos
that be talking tough
they will know the pain
when ive had enough
so leave them goods be on the rack
cos its all mine when im coming back

the homies and the babes can cry
growing in their cribs
all mine for the party time
ghetto flowers in the bloom of sun
our time begins when time’s had its run
but chuck my rags
junk my toys if you may
badass niggas
taking his game from here
theres shit washed down with the wine
some fellas are goners but they will be fine

so Jesus H. Christ this is the end
the nigga that held the pen has to fend for himself
then who puts new shit on the page
when ninja fighters at it again earning his bread
soft motherfuckers will catch their balls in rome
they clutch at straws but you know a nigga
when hes far from home
yes imma saying bye to these birds and bees
Ive gone down here and on my knees
So yes all the ladies line up to kiss these cheeks
Im waiting on your lips to be tipped
And my brothers come round with your arms of steel
I hate to go, want to love, can’t be shy to feel

vapour light

I
Say please
Don’t just yet say
Oh I’ll be gone
In a few days
So please let me
Please lets

Oh wait
Now ive forgotten what
I wanted to say
But don’t stop you
Continue and I’ll
Take only a few moments

But the clock
The clock
Ghost past death
How your hands
Hang at your sides
Weighed down and
Lifeless going away

II
This savage fiend
In one bound
Was across
The bush and
Battered my skull into
a chalky paste in red
before I knew it and
thank god I knew
the feeling one
has in love
having thus fallen
that the thrill the rush
the charging horses
all come home
in the loss of head
for beauty that
was never mine
and from which
there is no escape

III
I haven’t touched
Haven’t seen
Haven’t felt
For it will need
Flung over the horizon
first the bag
then the shoes
and lastly yourself
where the sea
meets the sky
is a wall
unto heaven
what I told them
back home I have
told myself
though it means
little to me
what wind
what vessel

IV
winding down
fall
an autumn day

barking dogs
in parking lots
knee-high breeches
must have got me
wrong to trickle down
that is to say
inundated and fading away

this afternoon
love can make
tomorrow we can
make love again

long shot

No I will speak
It is time
Not late but nigh
There is to be
No patience with
temporary delays
no bother if
there isn’t or is
an audience even
the subject matter can
be changed at will
till it is safe to declare
it is my mouth moving
and I can hear myself

while on the other side
they said
things went on
as usual
with the typical
menace of rodents
and children misguided
but not enough to
demand a piper anyway


the time has come to talk about disgrace. I can sense it. imagine a dog (its on the cover) dragging one limp hindleg behind itself. Short, tough brown coat, dead and dull. Tiny body, quivering frame. Whiny bark and wheezing breath (it is the one given up in the end; for its own good?).
Since I feel very strongly on the subject of dogs, all animals, and so dogs, I am here assuming that the only disgrace that took lives in disgrace was the one dogs are born into, or stumble into. Not caused mind, but suffered.
Although there is poignant description of their last moments and empathy in the philosophy of a dog lover which character #1 finally embraces, it makes me uncomfortable that poor dog lives and deaths form such an important trope for the writer in a story about erring individuals.
For its human actors lugging their cargoes of guilt to unknown destinations, the book closes with all, without an exception, not only staring into a void but also innocent of the road taken. So many stories that could have happy endings, only if. Point is, the human players get a shot at comeback, which is denied the dog (the last dog).
As for the tale, there is just the suggestion in it that what is needed of life is the talent of sureness but that it cannot be relied on is an undeniable premise that drives the plot.
Even then, what of the dog born with a game leg? Its handicap is disgrace, as is the situation of being weak against rude aggressors (to talk in euphemisms).
The writer has dipped into a giant carton of miseries and picked out costumes for his several characters. The intellectual misery of the professor, the romantic despair of the inamorata, the matrimonial hole in the second wife’s life, the sexual, almost existential, misery of the daughter and the historical guilt of being a white African which all of a sudden becomes an important bit in the drama. Suffering, where not a result of foibles which should be regretted, is painted as an outcome of causes more profound than ourselves.
But the story, (hopefully) for the dog if not for anyone else, was not intended as apologia for Nitzschean underlings. It is quite easy to see that but for the coming and going of pets all the main characters would continue with their lives with reasonable levels of freedom. Only that that freedom would need constantly to be salvaged from the very personal sense of compromise involved in give and take, even more so now that they are in disgrace.
Ultimately, it is only a state of mind that changes, comes down to earth, about how the power that one has is not so much a power to wield as the power to absorb the suffering there is, for suffering there is, like it or not, deserved or undeserved. Disgrace is then a human story pretty much and everything it should be: compassionate, caring, sympathetic, giving and all it ends up encompassing: a horror, a regret, a lesson, a punishment.
But the worldview proffered in the book is certainly deeper than a casual attempt at formulating a critique of disgrace into a defence of dogs.
But the poor dog, I am convinced, did not have to die. Would the story be less powerful that way? Did the writer debate with himself whether to keep the pup alive or to escort him to his deserts? In my opinion the protagonist’s disgrace wouldn’t have lessened had he kept him alive. There is no atonement, only suffering; that much is made clear by the narrator of david lourie’s life. Why must then the dog die? It is, I presume, to suggest that disgrace or no disgrace work is work. There is no help for disgrace, maybe just the taking it on the chin.

corporeal, hell yes

If im not superman
Im fearless
If not the cyclone
Im the agile stem
In the face of terror
And defeat
I meet my fate with
an expectant face
and for all that
Im a tourist
I buy a necklace
A hat, a scarf
And you think
I am in love
But I am


Now that we know or are sure we don’t care whats eating gilbert grape I wondered seeing certain film whether there is casuistry and stoic tonic for pornstars. So, what makes the pornstar swallow? I was wondering if there isn’t charitable counsel and moral support amongst pornographic actors. For the content of films, and the social context in which we must view them, is strongly suggestive of an element of dark pathos and but for the irrepressible spirit it would be hard to believe that pornography is only partially as dehumanizing as it looks. But insofar as sex is control I can claim that all control is dirty. Or imagine the cheek of one 60+ man, with two dawdling khaki-clads having the temerity to tell us off ju premises. Their ju? But mine too. At least the field, I thought I could always safely think. But no. Much as it troubles my conscience that perhaps I was part of the recklessness that invoked this retribution, I am no less traumatized by this sudden loss of paradise. For paradise is of course not what or where I think it is, obviously; it is for all time to come a patch of earth one calls own and the way to the future, is, has been, the complete democratization of that territory that finally we may own without owning, enjoy without endowing. Still, even if the cause being served was a just one, there was a distinct us and them feel to the entire unceremonious eviction episode made more galling by 4-no. gate’s guardian’s sneer about us having wrapped up rather prematurely for the evening. hmmph.

+3 — you gentlemen from jadavpur?
Gang — none o’ us from ju.
+3 — then you shall have to pack up this moment, and leave.
Gang — why (an enfeebled plea)
+3 — because y’all aren’t from jadavpur and this field is for jadavpur students.
Gang — fields for playing. No?

+3 have moved on and because this certain group had a solitary university flagbearer they survived dismissal but were moping in some kind of limbo as we conducted our weary, our system beaten, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free outside the uni premises with the decorum of fatalists, cynics and philosophers upon children’s future. It’s an to each his own world.

tasselskirtsabacustrapezereddawn

I
Let me think
Have ever our
Eyes met and
Some ethereal
Music came on
The tv or any
Machine that
Was playing
so oblivious
of us yet
so swayed by
the moment

II
Of course between
The lines you have
Drawn your line
And now count to
Make four out of
Twice two though
I wonder why
Clutching the sheet
You tear through
the corridor is it
the careless me
or the careless you

III
maybe if
you spoke
to me as
you were
falling free
through
the dome
that’s when
you could
be calm
enough to
see that we
are in air
long enough and
moreover
you have dived
with me
I haven’t
dived alone

IV
This desperation does not
Sit well with the spirit
Of upbringing wherein
The peasant whets the scythe
With revolution in air

that where it disappears

I
Slow poison
Is that what i
Am injecting
Into the system
For a death delayed
That I can record
With the slow
Internal combustion
How gently
the fire spreads with
what savage relish
it licks through my veins
how mine is
sublimation at the end
every sinew every tendon
aflame
a deliberate pact
with an infernal pain
a cry of anguish
pity, shame
a mad cry of lust
passion, rage
the poison takes effect
im caught in my game


II
Have me wonder
Why should this
Arm twist to churn
Tongue twisters as
Confessions of
A post-romantic nature
Fictions of a surreal kind
To bring to thought
Provender and hope
To the world at large
Since suddenly
Tongue tied there
Is a vacuum
In the stomach
When the time comes
To offer to them that
Would appreciate
Something to clasp, grip hard
The wood is hollow
only conducts sound
makes it louder
not in each tap ample
the strength of the fibre
and every sound
lives in fear
of crumpling, collapsing
in the silence of despair

When all it
Would take are
The same words
I practice pulling
out of a hat

mens sana in corpore sano or hollow noise in grandiose echoes

Its rabid rabid rabid
The habit and the sermon
The garb and the grabbing
the mirror and the greenlight
the window too the sly glances
and the sidewards eyes
skimming the top on earthly ties
and hacking at the roots night
and day to free up space
tinder and beams to
warm, light, provide
volumes, bales, reams and
shelter musty clothes in rusty trunks
preserve words, clues, histories
viable mysteries marinated in credulity
the house the body the attic of the mind
living one life and dying in the same
ignores that eventuality and claims
the clothes, the style, the opinion
are all personal, signature, souvenir
and unredeemed by the union of souls
the individual plays the universal role

sturm und drang

Cannot be
Has not been
Will not be
Sustained
Wait a second
Tie a knot and
stretch forth on
a wild goose chase
an excellent cook
of chicken that
come home to roost
says pinudas rancour hides
what love divides
it is a deeper pain
cast in a well of shame
and sinning once
all over again
grinding the pestle
into a paste of guilt
on the mortar of blame
lord protect the flock
from dubious vales
and lead them into one
that has in its heart
a clear blue lake

visible universe

I
Nobody here
Is my chronicler
To record what
I say or do
So let me speak
When I think is fit
And I will
Tell you myself
That ive taken
Surrogate delight
In the consumer’s
Early ticklishness
At owning

Ive seen
Innuendoes, conceit
blunt fare for
Suspicion of deceit
And holy men and women
Sitting around glasses
Saturated with piety

In a momentary retreat
Ive espied from the balcony
In a lower window
A dead evening resisting surrender
unwilling to yield although
bent forward was the head
for she sat her back to me
A tutor, the guardian?
With a stick

Ive been surprised by
Stealing behind on
Silent tiptoes the girl
Playing hide and seek
With toddler tiny
in pursuit wobbly knees
have been turned to putty
by the teasing so tantalising
almost within reach but
there giving you the slip

Ive lived no longer
Than a day and at night
Remember to myself



II
Whenever I want something
I went to the kali temple
Whenever I want something
Went early morning with a cousin
Whenever I want something
Stop he said. What’s that
Whenever I want something
A sacrifice. A jet black kid
Dragged to the altar and body
Flung away from it the severed head
Whenever I want something
And to Abraham he said
Give him up, give up your blood
Your flesh. When I ask
ask not why do my bidding
Whenever I want something
The unbending will is not mine

spyglass is on the other eye

I
Collar up
Buttons undone
Hair unkempt
Bed unmade eyes red
Out on the road desperate
a worry to the world
an expert unto self

II
Do I have time
I own that thing
Like my bitch
I take her out on Sundays
To race her for a few dimes
Me and my friends like
Our ice-cream cola for
The afternoon
In the evening we move
On to serious things
The canny dog she is
She waits to take me home
and knows her way
When I’ve had
Too much to drink

III
Everything that is dying
And possessed of death
Must it pass through me
And I passing from darkness
To darkness like a shadow
in the labyrinth of time

IV
If all the universe was pain
Could I suffer it
I cussed
Opened my eyes
And saw it was morning

seek/order

First I thought
It was this
Then it was that
But just only me
So market-trained
Second nature
Finding in haggling
An able accomplishment
To complement hoarding
And if there is blind
Exchange in everything
our greatest find
Can be so misleading
For love is blind
Mostly worried thus
Is my state of mind
Over the problem of
So little eye and
From what darkness to
pick the gift of freedom


In the kingdom
Of butterflies
There are no
Villains but
Dragonflies
No rebels but
Fireflies
Little politics
fewer gadflies
and they swat
as they go
through them
who knows
what the insects sing
for nothing helps
the tired plodding
in the marshy districts
all sound is a buzzing
in the damp air and
pests in the eyes
mouth and ears


it’s about time
I introduced
Numbers
In my ideas
Like so many
Cogs, bolts and links
That in a box
For a Christmas gift
One could put
Together the toy
In a trice and forget
About it or with
The passage of time
Finding its debris
In some lost attic
Know at once
What parts are missing
If in the offing
Is an intention
To restore it
To a semblance
Of response
to turning keys

nosegay

When im falling
Let a word send
Me hurtling
Skywards let a
Word be mine
To breathe life into
Me when im
Drowning and
Similar magic be
In masses of words
Each as potent as
The last but far
Easier would be
To have so many
Slaves just to make
So much fuss over i
Though of little help
For my sinking
In the chaos
The force of words
In voices full
Chattering, barking
And growling
With the unmistakable
Laughing wastes
The substance of words
When from my
Mouth they are heard
Oh where did i
Empty myself


My countless deaths replayed
I grow old nonetheless
Though none too bad for it
I think
Considering the many times
A mortal sigh
Has escaped this soul
But I shut the lid tight
Inside a jack in the box


See you asked
For a gift
And I made you
This world
And gave you
The whip in
A golden box
Now in all this
Sound of cracking
I wonder what
Odd would your
Rejection achieve
Your refusal of
Your gift maybe
it will send
the structure crashing

it is as you say

Are you
A boy scout
Are you
A setter with
A strong sense of smell
Are you self-loathing
When the search
refuses to abandon
your name
aren’t you
the innocence
of curiosity when
curiosity in its innocence
asks difficult questions


in congress the sages sit
in congress the couples sleep
before the answer
comes the inquest
before juvescence comes
unrest over barabbas’s weeping fit
troubling all both them
who do and those that don’t
know anything about it


write then about
sunrise of
exploding dawns
in gentle skies
at night also
let it pour over
ruinous daybreaks
and desultory twilights
go to the lighthouse
when the sun is
sinking and take
a long look at darkness
across an emptiness
lit by a searchlight

gain purchase

A pimp
Whose
Sexuality
You see
Makes all
The whores
Want to
Deal with him
Felt that wasn’t
Such a terrible
Thing the only
Time he thought of it
For what he lacked
In intent he made
Up in motive that
although realised
in secret recesses
is none too dark for it
just a shabby business
of pleasing your monkey
and he was good at it




mad frenzies
of self love in
the sickness of the sea
pumps the poison
from the stomach
and then back on
the watch for
more of it
now isn’t that
the pirate with
one eye and eye
for one thing
what daring
what absolute
bravery if only
it wasn’t such
a shallow sea



problems continue to haunt the common hawker and it is not only the quality of his wares he is worried about. It’s the customers these days sunny. That is older colleagues and they have an organisation as well as a mouthpiece so that is that. but the third person view, the one that offers a nuanced and objective answer cannot be realised by being in the market for things. It is a bird’s eye view and this one has to hover over the marketplace and study every littlest transaction thoroughly and methodically. Taking detailed mental notes, observing the minutiae of commerce and all the while piecing them together in its mind. Then after the market’s shut it has to write it all down. Or it can swoop down once in a while, scrounge for whatever food and be off and away. Owing no report to none but of course it is safe to assume that birds have their share of birdy problems. In time it becomes evident even to the hawkers that the person best suited to analyse their situation is probably the one least interested in occupying its mind with research in trade and barter. But naturally this does not go down well. Efforts are being renewed. May the cure of deteriorating markets and market relations be at hand. And as long as no one takes a stand on wastage and prodigality the birds inshallah shall have the fruits of their labour. Three cheers for business and pleasure.


sex education tips
et the death toll
in my emphatic moods
they are advertised
on the same board
and in the light
of a candle
held against the wall
i dream of bodies

prattle immemorial

So a manifesto
Drawing up
The rights of man
And the host’s
Liabilities but who
Is serving whom

Payment for
Food and shelter
Brought food
And shelter and
a good night’s sleep
and then off we go
again from
the morning on
but who
is serving whom

let’s talk about it
let’s do
the needful
like these days
they do things
making our flowers
bloom through
the fruits of science
and we also think
and feel so why shy
away from an exercise
to commit in clear prose
the rules of thumb and
formulas for the soul

thus even if science
is confused
you know me
when the final
experiment has gone
wrong from the fire
we’ll save
the small booklet
on the art of love
and what have you



I won’t sleep
Tonight unless
Ive kissed
Every harbour
In your body
Where my heart
Beats and I
Think I live in
My body my
Body is a ghost
On a starship
On land I’m
A boat at
Full steam and
In the engine room
You are shoveling
Coals by the spadefuls



all over the place it seems there are people willing to die for and ready to kill for a cause. earlier i would have thought it is a dangerous kind of dualism to want to live and murder for the same thing. earlier though i would have been interested in the details. but the question has always been how does one bring it all together most of all me. it transpires it is a manual i am looking at. a ready reckoner. a compendium of aphorisms and adages furnished and borrowed like to be or not to be that is the question, a bird in hands better than two in the bush etc. the idea then is to have a guide to living. but here there is a problem in that a guide to living to be such a good book has to go down to the last minute of the subject matter and have impeccable advice for the occasion. in the event it does not seem like a book that can ever live up to its potential to become a model document because my experience of a future date cannot be sampled at a prior time. so im on the fence on the life's philosophy thing. on both sides is the grass green. there is immense potential all around from where im looking down on things. everything can be been and there is more waiting. only care must be taken to see that we have not congealed in some flowerbed to wind up being obsessed with the nettles to the tune of the grass is greener yonder, what if etc.

electric/static

The incredibly sexy lisa ray lives
And my childhood lingers in
The folds of her skin
In thrall of the flame that would
in my eyes wave so gently
Now she has walked through fire
I am burning still


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GspDcFjtJbQ


It has been noted by a group of historians from my college texts that certain allied pilots operating on the far-eastern front who had the misfortune of bailing out over rural bengal at the peak of the quit India movement were lynched by the local populace. From the wreckage of british world war II planes scattered over the golden country, waiting to be dug up, a battered black box has been salvaged which was found to have logged this last conversation:

Hamish: Say Arthur let’s eject here. Map shows land as ours. We are well west.
Arthur: I rather fancy a shot at making it back to base, hamster, in that case. I doubt we could be more than 50 miles off if you are correct. In the meantime, keep trying the radio please.
H: This is good open land to cut loose when there’s still time. Further ahead might be unsuitable terrain. Who knows we may even land on a tribe of bloodthirsty fakirs hiding in the forest, waiting to nab the first Englishman in need of rescuing. If you ask me (as he well expected to be, being co-pilot) we should bail right here right now.
A: The hindoo gentry is essentially peace loving. I mean haven’t you heard of Gandhi. Really you should have gone through the green book. I have it all down to the t. should we crash her, which, hamlet, is a preposterous idea, we just bail where we can and short of a malfunctioning bag land wherever on his majesty’s territories it pleases us and catch an ox cart back to base.
H: Ah if only we could carry some of those lo///li////co/s////bacwi//////////he///h/////he//////

Although anglosaxon perspicacity bordering on prescience was the sharp end of the rapier that kept the subject peoples in obedience, the ability to rule the native fate and therefore guide it through a subordinate destiny had been well worn down by the middle of the twentieth century, what with the solid buffeting the white vision received on wall street and then from the nazis. In the event his smug self-assuredness was just another symptom of an unraveling colonial world order; a gradual narrowing of the sphere of what the west could say for certain that it knew about the orient.
The finger was off the pulse; the grand days of pageantry were dissolving in the light of a setting sun. He couldn’t have been sanguine about the native’s peaceable ways simply because he could not know everything infallibly and it was only of late that he had discovered that numbing sensation. Yet he was told he knew everything he needed to because an appearance of white infallibility was in itself of vital importance. And he believed he did. A belief that is self-serving. It is not exhausted by itself in that sense rarely prevails over it when it has not been given a good jolt by a rude awakening. The most abiding lesson here is not the race theory of brains but the tenuous grip of control on free will at all times.

more can be said

It’s all very good that
The audience has
filled their seats
now lets get
the fire exits
I don’t know what
To call my piece
I do a little bit of acting
With some amount
Of story telling
But there is always
Somebody yelling
At the end of it
And some that want to
Leave early

Dreams
Luxuriant curly
Of the fineness
Of golden fleece
As I had once in
Ancient greece
And now a
Shepherd in
A purple mist
In the arbour on
My hands and
Knees in divine
Languor praising
The freedom of
son and sheep


Of course thinking is something vital. But how can one not have a doubt about it. I think therefore I am redux says the thinker is feeling tired and even that is nothing new. If the Hegelian triad of thesis, antitheses and synthesis is true, and we now have enough to safely assume it not to be so, then thought is but a petitioner in one of our dozens of sarkari daftars, getting a form, getting it attested and submitting it only to be handed a fresh form. Marx couldn’t have been more pertinent with his opinion that philosophy has done with interpreting the world; that at any rate the greater imperative is to ultimately change it. However, all the while everyone who was in search of an answer was aiming at a state of affairs that would negate the need for change — so yes it seems that we are looking for peace collectively. An equilibrium that is an idyll but which cannot be compared to a pause.
Thought is good if it be the eyes that can see the bend in the road. As an inclination to change gears it is certainly a drive that prefers an empty wide road shooting off into the horizon, gently rising in the distance. I think that if we could see that bend far ahead we would see that it is really a great circle the road we’re on. Then I think it would seem clever to pull up by some preferred spot, get out, stretch our muscles and, if one is too ambitious, even string up a hammock and guide the passerby.




boeing moll jankovich

I’ll name my plane
Something crazy
Maybe adam of
Applegate or
The chengis of
Gourmet maybe
After some bird
If not some mighty
Beast of the veld
Its essence captured
In a word or epithet
I’ll roam the skies freely
I will give up my name

have you eggs

Don’t be too careful
How your hand moves
Where the border is
Come we’ll erase
Everything

Im here you are
Here too unseen
There too unseen
Ive felt this with cake
I feel it with kinks
Very soon you’ll ask
How I feel and I’ll say
Im passing out

A song to make
You stay would
Have to be
Rewritten everyday
But you know
Im not a jiver
Only in my ear
your saliva


i have prepared a little speech on the nature of music and its place in our lives. but i am not prepared to deliver it. oh how it makes my effort squeal to see my studious disinclination. are the pigs dying. did i enjoy my dinner. can there be a connection. these and severe more questions are now tormenting wajud. architect manque of the bara imambara.

inter-tropical convergence

meet my friends
on the wasted heath
and an excursion to
the world beneath
yielded skulls and bones
and corroded crowns which
we took turns in wearing

the brothers stopped
in the parks and in
the lakes we threw
our lines a fishing
there i sat and
some of us moved by
that forever wishing

let nothing stop
god let nothing stop
but also let nothing pass
i shall come and all
shall come and tomorra
would be today
i would have made my choice



all these pals and peeps
from overseas is
so much air traffic
winds that blow in
and give the townsfolk
nights can't dream of sleep
and much to drink

where have you seen a hole

aarghh this strength
sapping mercury
heading north

ah lemon
cut down
gay splashes
as in the ads

oh to drink
soak up
submerged
to the shins
through pores
enlivened earth
and living souls
would check
to the lees in
the appropriate box

but the lemon
squeezed to
its last drop is
inevitably caustic
and what can anyone
do about it



and I’ll look from
the darkness at
the stone blotting out
the sun you
will see a wall hiding
the door keeping out
the light



come I’ll show you
my cave and yours
would be to
roll the boulder
across its mouth
after I am inside
of course it shall be
the weight you have
carried on your chest


she pushes her pupils out
and her eyebrows rise
in mock surprise she
shakes her head
at all that naiveté
and the feckless poseurs
that dot this world myself
not the least of them but a son


Give me a fever
And il be one
Of them madmen
Shouting
A burning of the brain
Along the tender lines
That feed it
And id have felt
What a man possessed means
Bask in its busy glory
And find contentment
in disturbed states and
the filament shaking



the past
march past
march hare
rushing past
rushmore
engraved past
graveness
entombed past
pastime what
does time care
how it passes
how it passed
so parcels and
in them
ingredients
for a repast
and a taste left
on the tongue
everything that
is eating me

tie and dye

First I see the birds
Soon butterflies
Then a drizzle on me
And I feel to begin
would be the best thing
The neurotic humours
Lurk beneath seat covers
And far from home
wasted emerge
Into blinding light

On the front seats
Nothing ruins
the bright weather
on roads past
giggling heather
under the sun of
oceans, forests and
open fields
in the windshield
and the rearview mirror
the distance passing into one
and I enter through the other

ask bond about
the curse of the back seats
my beasts threaten to
continue talking if
I pretend im not listening



My power over you
is blackmail
I mean baby
Where is your love
If you don’t sweeten it
what else can you expect
but the dark love of
coffee beans
lashing at the senses
and me holding
you to ransom
that when you bring me
the cup you will sweeten it




The lone wolf as the lion
The lion in winter died
snow white mane and beard
under straight lips once more
and shut forever tight
claws that have cut unshod
lines into the plain earth
lines will fill with water
and drown the dwarves
lost in them
when the ocean comes in
the colour of blood
to sweep the channel clean
and all the fleeing ants shall perish
still the lion with bold strokes
beating the waves to the shore
the lion has hunted in the dark
no colour scares him

knives

should it take a knife
To show us apart
Don’t confuse my intentions
Into love for you and
Love for me
But if it gives rest
To aching jaws
Let it tear the skin
till we both know
how kisses work
with a little help
from antiseptic
that with you time is
forgetting and healing

and it will wax lyrical
the blade in contact
with the skin at the edge
of a sharp feeling
your love is
the poetry of the future as
the future of poetry


so the knife to
produce from the hollow
Resin for the bow



I’ll let your conquering
Anytime you want
And I’ll keep
Coming back for more

If it takes a knife
To cut out
The intercoursing throb
Let yours be the hand

But I should be the one
That speaks to it keeps it
And makes it speak as I want
Let mine be the words
That survive the rapture

in the animal kingdom

Baba ramdev’s unceremonious eviction from his fast compels the responsible citizen to once again watch national news at primetime and spend a noxious Sunday evening lamenting another travesty of democracy in the India of his dreams. But the burden of responsibility that has been thrust upon the public-minded individual will not be tolerated a second more what with him being saddled with onerous chores pursuant to joining the selfsame government whose grave execrations on the ramlila maidan reopens old wounds and reignites once more the original fire.
But nuff said. What left me nonplussed in telegrabs of a teargas smoggy campaign tent was the person of a doggie among the listless supporters, like all of them fleeing the scene under duress, albeit with more alacrity than the most casual of baba’s supporters would care to show. So I put this question to the indignant masses. Would canines make better satyagrahis? Also more significantly, are the dogs of the world at last uniting. Are they massing to come to our aid like the phantom hordes from return of the king. Was the one i saw the mongrel herald.
But coming back to my question, will our leaders prefer dealing with dawgs given that there is no chance the four-legged things would ever resort to hunger strikes. That ain't there style at all or am i mistaken. The generic politicians themselves have one that falls somewhere between that of a sabretoothed tiger in a lifeguard's jacket and a shark in vestry white. What is important is that the battle will be a tooth for tooth one and therefore easy to follow. Unlike now when one side says we aren't opening our mouths and the other replies talk to the hand. Of course it spoils sunday's entertainment if one party thinks they are in a silent film and the other believes they are the celebrity bigg boss.
the idea behind democracy that makes it more fun than the other social experiments is that it is a seriously engaging format. baatein banao mat aur bigarne ki to bhul hi jao, batein karo.


Government requires a kind of decisiveness which I would never be able to bring to the job. I revel in a she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not ambiguity.


bubba roach

what use is it
surviving a nuke
when you have one
foot in the grave
and your murder
leaves behind
a nice smell
that effectively
smothers the rebuke
spouses exchange
over a messy affair


dilli, wallah

in delhi
a bomb could blow
and take me
away from you
in delhi
a bomb could
take you
away from me
in delhi though
we shall not hide
in delhi we’ll walk
head over heels
and tired toes taut
every night
in the dark
an inner light
and the places in
your body

one way or the other

As if it wasn’t enough
That I should have left
No more than a scratch
And been happy that
After all I had nothing
To do with the marks that
give away your age
Or for that matter
With your ageing
The convenient scheme
To leave you with
no more of me than
I can carry away
and take no more from you
than I was leaving behind

since I am not sure ive looked
under your skin the idea was
to pretend there wasn’t any
pressing need for a parting gift

for when it ends there is
only a victim and a villain
on the run so incriminating
will be any gifts from me
to you or from you to me

I turn to my diary
To at least put down in words
What the time with you
Has meant to me
But have mercy on me
What love is this
That you won’t beg
That I change my mind
And even in thoughts
Not talk of leaving

What was all that
being romantic
any time of day
of your choosing
suddenly pulling down
a canopy of clouds
and wooing me to
join you outside
or at night like magic
clearing the streets
whipping the breeze and
flirting with me for my sleep

however
theres nothing you’ve taken
that I haven’t wanted to give
yet there comes a day
when I will have to
empty my pockets
on the table and ask you
to do the same and any
buttons of mine I find in
the loose change I shall
have to keep for myself
and some coins maybe
for the tickets

gone are the days shirtless
I could roam the streets
And know that in those moments
even youve loved me truly
Although I know
it was all promiscuity
because I have seen your
ruins of romances past
and know that all youve done
is taken a chance with me
and couldn’t care if I returned
your love or never made to go

if I kicked you or
called you a whore
as many might
have done before

you struggle with your unending life
and only worry what if one day
there are no more lovers left

you will be found many
many times more


this is a premature farewell note to calcutta. the city of my father. but not my forefathers. she is therefore not a mother of any sort but for the two of us a lover. she was young enough when my father first arrived here and the mua remains quite impudent today as i think about my depth of feeling for it. it isn't easy as i discovered. because i cannot help but think that there will be a time when i will be gone but the city will still be here. still someones darling. but i think it is time i was on my way away from this city. a life lived for the love of one whose love i can be never sure i have is a future that doesn't appeal to me. really to claim that she is mine only mine is foolish no, but what other love do i know; to say that her love has set me free will be less controversial. but it is true. how presumptuous would it be for me to say calcutta is my mehbooba. like so many before let me just also agree that im smitten. and i will have to leave. because for myself it can never be said for certain that this is where i was to come ashore, that my destiny is here. all i know is that i will have the city to my left as i swim to the sea.

a day earlier

Forever a hot day
And if not a cool day
Either a chilly day
Or a dank day
To make you want a crisp day
but always some creature in season
Making what it will of the long day

There are your days
And then there are days
Also the big days and days
you couldn’t care
there are so many it’s tough to tell
what morning makes what day

I can remember running
Round and around
Morning past day and some more
After school the lessons could wait
Everyday till I was told
childhood’s over now go home
and I obeyed

In the cover of darkness
I’ve come back to recover
Small treasures hidden
in nooks kept for me
by myself though some
secret places are long forgotten

such are the lost days
and now i befriend the night
different from the day
but not separate
and sometimes tired but
not slept we look for the day



and i thought to myself. jose saramago who. must be another latin american mystic fool. filling reams on mindbending drugs. good no doubt. but on mindbending drugs. however if there is such a thing as on my word, then let me say that ive been made to eat them and for all that they are worth nonetheless i say hail joselito (hopefully that translates little jose :+p). but small memories took me right back. its done like a childrens book. childrens crayon drawings on the cover and gaps between lines like in the books from our childhood. big font. and a wise old man talking about the good old days.

my brown-eyed girl im sorry for the la dee dah and other revolutionary ideas

What dominic
Strauss-kahn
I can what
Rajnikant I can
Im superman
Peter parker
I’m bruce wayne
Im still only
Trying in vain
The power
That will burn
Through your clothes
And get into your pants
Is not mine but yours
And only now I understand
Lets see how long
This lasts
I’m also a dog
A pup in your hands
I only have one
But love is how
You call my name
Im everywhere and
where you’re not
im there but I
shouldn’t have gone at all
it’s my faults
makes me a superhero
look at that gumption
for a mistake I’ve made
and proud because
I’ve heard what you
Had to say and
Il remake out of rubble
A house of faith
Where my seed will
Grow into rose bushes
I will remain
Forever in the petals
Which are yours
Forever yours but
So is the thorn
My careful hands
My hands to make
My heart burst

also


Let’s talk now
About something else
Let’s keep doing it
Changing the topic
Wherever the talk may turn
It will come back
to where it started
Till we realize best
would’ve been silence

I’m a pony in this city
A limping foundling
That pays no heed
To the flow of traffic
The mothers panic
And the girls shriek
It will be up to men
To do something
They discuss education
Rehabilitation and
relief and a useful
future in the service of kids
no wonder some of us
are afraid of pity and
little believe in charity
seeing the price one has
to pay for it
maybe some are grateful
I’m only a horse
and not the wind

they offer me a roof
I escape from the chimney


Hunterman jim corbett was of the opinion that it was more likely for an abandoned waif to come to harm among men than in the jungle. Well he didn’t completely say that but his emphatic avowal of the way of the jungle as a just and humane business automatically juxtaposes that picture with that of our disemboweled lebensraum to leave us with no doubt as to which world is in more need of the benefit of the doubt.
Now the only difference between wild and order is, freedom, where the opposite ends are not abundance and total lack but rather the extreme varieties, unencumbered and disciplined. But really with men it’s been there done that when it comes to freedom of the uninhibited kind. That was the state of nature for you. The state of nature is the country englishmen and much of their european cousins inhabited before the arrival of one hobbes. That was some time in the 1600s. Hobbes demonstrated that it was a capital decision to have seceded from that state and live in splendid isolation; it had already come to pass, he was only telling them about it so that they could behave themselves and follow the script. But anyway that state only entirely predisposes one to shopkeeping. Later our man darwin would come along and say that ours is also after all the animal story and truly there had always been much chaos at hand to dismiss him out of hand.
The social contract was the enshrinement of the common cause with subclauses dealing with mutual differences. But trust humans to be pedantic. Animals quite do the same thing and get by admirably without caucuses and corporations. That is what corbett means when he speaks of the unspoken law of the jungle. I would imagine we would have done a lot better for all that talking.


For unless you are a child at heart thou shalt not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Better still a babe in the woods. Even paris hilton wouldn’t mind that.


please see-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8Ect3Xn7w&feature=related

would einstein get bose dk

are you serious dk bose. Before someone files a public interest suit notice the truly democratic intelligence failure. One that all can live with. It comes with a sense of humour. This has cocked a snook at the censors.
But Ive always wondered whether some kind of censorship wasn’t such a bad thing. Truth be told even the most depraved art would not have the heart to kill. So the debate over the studious elision of the danger conveyed by art becomes moot.
But there is notional danger and clear and present danger. As apart as they are in any physical space they beg the same defences at all times for mental peace. The threat in the abstract meets a wall in censorship.
It can’t be denied that art does inspire all kinds of emotions that can become difficult to deal with in aggregate. If censorship is rather an acknowledgement of the fact that people have things to hide and an instrument which enforces that need then I agree that we do have a lot to conceal.
For example if any sizeable number of people in a population have a problem with screwing in public then the authorities might conclude that the same set would very much mind merry exhibitionism on tv. Well that is an argument.
Now if there was only one art and only one way of expressing it then as a concession to what is ultimately such a useful thing the powers-that-be could have allowed its pursuit despite prudish inconveniences. Like you see there is an urgent need for energy and that’s why the japs signed onto nuclear power. We know the dangers, they knew all the while. But that is a necessary evil. Hence allowed.
The fact that art is not subjects it to censorship. Because it is always seen as serving a higher end. But the higher end cannot appear to be an impulse contrary to quotidian orderliness. Here i think that art qua art has nothing to do with controversy and I’m sure that if it came to us in its own words it would say so much.
The problem lies elsewhere. The artist is a man, the censor is a man, both are god’s children and that’s about all either knows; if the one is in denial the other becomes the defender of the faith because how can two people have the same point of view. In such situations to say a second thing is to invite a riposte. But that is what art has set out to do. There is truth in art but it certainly is not the whole truth. Art is an opinion. It needs a critic for clarity and a censor it needs for celebrity. Censors don't deserve a second thought. So imagine our glee when run dkb pulls a fast one on the scissormeisters. No bloodshed, mission accomplished. It has announced the era of the smart rebel in bollywood. no?
All the same to the toil of the artist long suppressed and the artwork that received its burial at the censor’s table bhaag bhaag dk bose dk bose dk bose bhaag bhaag dk bose dk bhaag

where the city meets the sky

Hear now then
That you come to me
Drenched to the bone
I’ve longed for you
On days like this

When your firework is thunder
And you are rowdy like
Banging windows and breaking glass
When I’ve given up hope and fallen asleep
It makes me shed the rancour I’ve slept with
To see you so joyously so prodigally raining
In the dark morning and I see that all this while
I've been planning an escape needlessly

In shades of melancholy you are pouring
After the hot days of nil moisture
And I realize it’s your infinite grace
That I’m neither forever wet nor
Constantly thirsty and here I have
Spat on you as if you were
A burnt worn tire in the desert
And made up my mind to leave you

You love me in infinite ways
And make it interesting
Disappearing behind the dunes
You return with a storm
Just as I’m about finished
Packing my last things



That city is yours
This city is mine
Mine is small and within me
Within this girth of yours
I find you in small measures
But when the surge of greatness
Is what I ask to feel
You visit mine with all that’s yours
In visions of dams bursting and
The waters sweeping in

The big Calcutta and
The little Calcutta
are the same city



Most blameless are you of the times
I have gone out and there has
Been no sign of you
or your liveried footmen
who’d hold up an umbrella for me
in evident sympathy while promising
they couldn’t have any news for me
Those have been the many ages
Here is one before me
And I don’t know if at all
mine has been the longer wait
as i wonder how fast you've had to run
When you so sweep me off my feet



i've never been very particularly fond of rain. but now i'l fain admit that it is all i wait for. the waiting for seems important in this case because i think constant rains will upset the apple cart. but what is one to do in this heat. it is almost a cliche so much so i hate it myself when any conversation of late turns to the topic of our horrible weather. because suddenly one day it will rain like heavens only knows and then what the fuck are you talking about. for me more than consciously waiting for the rainy day i sincerely hope that the rainy day stays once it's here. earlier i'd like the overcast sky; right now i don't mind the actual raining. in one hundred years it rains for a little over four years. although i vaguely remember macondo otherwise described as a stifling hot place i think that all that rain is a little extreme. i personally would have hated it. in the book i write it's never going to rain that long. in fact it's going to rain often but never constantly. in between when the hero is a child there has to be enough space between showers for the fields to dry and football to happen. later when there is a lot of sighing and burning followed by melancholy and ennui of love it should rain whenever it gets too tedious. it will rain at the right time so as to take full advantage of what the empyrean can offer in terms of light and ambience and be rain of a refreshing kind. i'l not be too particular about the volume of it but by evening or next morning whichever is earlier the field should be ready to play. then again if the lovers should have bunked work let the river come in and the flood be a real nuisance outside while inside uninterrupted love goes to work. in that case my rains will have to accommodate both things. that is a lot of expectation from rain, even in the imagination; but the traffic is not all one direction if you ask me. to earnest rain i provide love and football and although it can choose only one it doesn't seem a very giant leap in my mind to be able to want both at the same time so i'd wish it would do exactly that.

buggered

I have exceeded all limits
So I’m told and i
Believe I’ve done that
The constant throbbing in my head
Started last night and my
Day dotted with a myriad things
was all the same terrible excruciating
it’s not always been like this
though now I wonder
however else could it have been
the sun blotted out
the moon late in coming
what stars there were
didn’t distract or anything
I kept my head low slept
Bathed many times prayed
And from the effort of seeing
Lay resigned and hardly moving
Maybe it is fatigue
the burden of living
On the two islands of thinking
And feeling with a gulf in between



I opened my eyes
Opening eyes
I was seized with horror
With horror seized
A yawning abyss facing me
My fears confirmed

I turned away
Turned to the skies
There too I found a hole
A pit for me everywhere
It’s my choice when I fall but
Whenever was falling not an option

To take a step further
Is to tumble down
But I decide whether
To take that step at all

I will be looking up
When the ego lands
with a thud

boka beaucoup

Twas such a good time
I was one
of the three blind mice
the others being
my lackey and she
now there is
a pair of eyes for the three of us
and woe be to it
whenever she is seeing
the flunkeys asking
too many questions
to say nothing of me
or when I’m using the device


What use is mine
Saying anything to you
Either you are not loud enough
Or I think you are too loud
So we communicate by signs
And for that are anything but primitive
You should hear some of that poetry
See some of those paintings
When it seems someone is listening
We even begin speaking for everybody
So yes we also have politics
There is nothing we can’t do
What use is mine
Saying anything to you


I’m the lord of small causes
Of the stable boy, of the horses
That have bolted
I’m the lord who inhabits
The floors above
I feed the cats and wag the dogs
Partial to appeal suited to my moods
Of what beasts want
I give them more in small doses
My resources are limited
And my justice cold
To the world at large
I mean nothing at all
They know not my worship
I know not their woes


We’ll know what we’ve done
Yet we’ll never say it’s too late
Having wasted it all
We’ll say there’s yet a battle left
And in hope was the war won
In hope we lost our all
But then too remained redemption
That champion quality to negate
Criminal excess or loss due to inaction

motion over a wick

In winter
It will warm you
In summer
It will charm you
Come see for yourself
My crystal marmalade
I’ve carried gifts too


I’ll be your
Boy lover
You can
Be my child wife
When you’ve had
Enough of your
Mother’s work
Or if the teacher
Scolds you
And if you’re done
With the boys
Pulling your hair
And the girls bore you
You can come
play with me
I’ll be roaming
the dusty roads waiting
a vagabond on dusty feet
or dangling my legs
on the branch
leaning into the lake
you can tiptoe behind
and push me in





These are signs
I know one day
I’ll skid across the kerb
Over to the other lane
Where the traffic is
Chiefly trucks
Separated by some
Daily variable time
Now where will i
Save myself in the
Time I have
In the last wait
Will be a realization of eternity
you ask me do I know this
what chances I’d hazard
How long that wait was
When it ended
Much more I can’t say

Why spit fire
When it is available
To dash your head
At alabaster feet
And die for nothing
If not the occasional
Flashes through the slits

In the breeze that
Brings the tide in
And fans the flames
I’m scattered I’m kindling
This is a heat
Winter wouldn’t bear
What chance in summer have i

But once blinded i
Keep blinded me
What eyes oh lord says pinudas
Will turn from you to you seek
What sight can diminish
The light in the darkness that you reveal
Behind the veil of velvet
Your love is the brilliance of galaxies




I know what I’ll do
I’ll jot down my thoughts
And you can see
If I was right
Our lives are no different
I’ve lived mine like I did
You a part of the conspiracy
While mostly quiet
is what I’ve been
i have been thinking
but the sound of my name cheers me
and therein lies my complicity
I’ve driven a crusader’s sword into understanding
But inside the blade has twisted and can’t be freed
And although it bleeds
I won’t leave it bleeding because
It is my grip that I cannot ease
And they are shouting
Some in terrible pain some in
A premature victory
although the subterfuge might work
how long can I pretend
that it is what I say it is

wings/fin

If the guard’s murdered
In his cottage
Well they will
also search the roof
where they won’t find
what they seek
but they will obtain proof
they will see where
I’ve crossed the line
from the windows and the terrace
I’ve reached for that same thing
I’ve wanted to escape unauthorized
to the road less traveled
I have a motive hiding behind
a body of lies

From the roofs the leaps that life takes
Are momentary on the ground
But what is carcass to vultures
Swooped down like a mountain wind
before closing eyes to die

The spent debris from my spaceships
Scattered all over my city
And my grave is in the skies
My end unseen




Profundity sounds too much like a scientific term. The propensity of objects to replicate within any physical boundaries the inner working of the universe at a rate that changes in constant proportion to the lubrication in any given system that the object is a part of at the given moment and is inversely proportional to the square of the measure of friction in the mechanism with the grand deviation seemingly obeying the gini coefficient markers of 0 and 1 where 0 is deep profundity and 1 abundant profundity.

doubt/redoubt

The soul of romance
Eventually droops
It is finally pooped
With all the exertion
From keeping up

It would always aspire
For higher things
To fly away to the realm of wings
And an effortlessness of feeling

But say human beings
And you don’t know the half of it
Robbed of reason, calm and peace
Until love is found when
It moves us mainly in the panting


Look they are
Desperate for love
All over the roads
So desperate
Through the windows
It shows and
In the public gardens
By the water bodies it overflows
And seeps through the hearts
Of all and sundry
My city has a hungry soul
And is also a flesh eater




Your love
In silence
Is violins
When you come
And sit
next to me

when you
touch my hand
in the sea it is
a symphony of waves
and the sight of
dolphins diving

your love is under
all the streetlights
in this city
in the morning
it is the sun
through the trees

deep in the passages of time
the substance of youth
beguiling passion past
the ravages of time
Your name echoes
through the valleys

jiyo mardangi

Something like
Weapons grade
Explosive intent
Renegade imagine
the terrific relief
It can provide by
living and
letting live


The many times
I’ve abandoned ship
I’m seized by
A secret grief
As I flap to the
Shore gaily
I could have returned
To reclaim my things
And then I’m told
I was the captain
Of the damn brig


The searing tip
Of the hot blade
Will use water
To whet the steel
One thirst will drive
The rails into the soil
The other
after a day of toil
Or staying still
will dry the throat
when in the evening
the birds come home
and the nests fill

events

Walking down the street
In ordinary shoes
In an ordinary suit
He’s only superman
One among us
After a busy day saving lives
And pulling creation back
From the edge of anarchy
He steps into a pub
And what does he find
A lot of pie-eyed supermen
Staring back at him
Our superhero ran out
And wondered if he should
Reappear in his trademark undies


Bang my head against the door
Let some of the matter inside
Some on the outside fall
Like the hatori hanza splitting the ball
See to it that half in your court
half in mine it drops
when the talk is past
the mincing of words
prays pinudas lord
grant my head that
unless written on it be your name
onto the floor let that crown roll
and bang my head
against your chest
against the temper of your tender breast


Some knew by rote
Some got their goat
Taken at the gates
Not in the epic
It’s not about
those who missed
the chance to vote
and decide their fate
on a day
lazier than Sunday
for surely it
is civilization to
have a say
amongst your brood
and count for one
even if not for much else
and to be able to do it
without so much as
moving a muscle
in only a slight
interruption in rest
surely that is why
the greatest man is humble
why man is great


Kathy were I to marry you
I’d carry you off
i’d tarry not a second
for the high words
the solemn pledges
and the promises for
what is to come
I’d carry you off
To the summit
Of the highest mountain
And there
in the blinding snow
and the numbing cold
I’d share with you
the world below
and the world to come

dekho dekho dekho dekho dekho

By the time he was well on his way his looks had become a major problem. He hadn’t been a particularly bonny child or a strapping lad and came upon youth with nothing that could be described as his style. But then an attitude emerged and as slow as that was it brought with itself a dressing sense that stuck to the straight and the narrow but was nonetheless adequate for that. The minimalism then became his style. He wasn’t slow to detect the incipient strokes of a personality and was automatically amenable to the idea of devoting time and effort to complete a portrait that was still only very faint to him. But in so conceptualising his mission he was inevitably transfixed by the notion of the visible as the beautiful thing and in light of the selfsame understanding became preoccupied with mephistophelean questions like what a portrait is and how a portrait looks instead of the platonic ones of what a portrait is and what a portrait should be. And now he serves his curiosity and suits his artistry by spending longer and longer in front of the mirror. Passing any reflecting surface he never misses the chance to take another look at himself, justifying what is by now indisputably a raging vanity complex with an ugly duckling-like chastity. In fact, a major chunk of the personality-building exercise consists in constantly monitoring and reviewing the status of his face and by extension appearance, which are ultimately separate things. The distinction allows him to treat the one thing with affected carelessness while being ceaselessly conscious of the other, an arrangement that upholds the lobe-structure theory of mind, giving him not so much a personality as many personas.

june no. 69

Oh it’s days away
When we’ll meet and meet
That’s easily said
But it won’t do
I need a date
A number to knock
On your door
Each time you come
Again and again

from adam

It is all
Dark to me
But I can make out
Some shapes of things
Some objects that
I will hit against
And hurt myself
Shall I wait till my eyes
Turn to sight
Or will someone come
To take my hand
Who can see herself
Says pinudas my lord
To the injured some balm send
Like an angel with a bird’s name
Hear the beggars plead
And the needy beg
Come like on the sixth
Day of light to adam you came



Further reference —
As you are
As you are
As an old enemy



We’ve been hitting
Such highs or
If you please
Plumbing such depths
It is maddening when
We are united with
Our true selves
Hare hunters and
Eaters of raw flesh
Aboriginal, savage
The dust of the bare
landscape
getting into our eyes
at sunset at the foot
of uluru
tujhe mirchi lagi to
main kya karoon
also try —
tururu tururu tururu turu
kahaan se karoon main
pyar shuru


special
tumi mowa naki
naki tumi local

know who you are

You are the pearl
Of the orient
The light of asia
The myth of creation
Older than amnesia

You are no mean feat
You are the church of wisdom
All things are of you born
And dying to enter
from you emerge

you are the horn of plenty
you are the contentment of
more in utopia
the spirit of wilderness you have
the loyalty of the beasts

you are liberty leading the people
the giant leap for mankind
you are everywhere but far says pinudas
you are napoleon fighting my war
from the lectern and the pulpit hear
you are you are

skipping stones

Now I realize that it is mostly longing. A neverland of sorts, is orissa. Except that here it is as much a land to escape into as a place that will never be mine. Insofar as to comprehend is to see things as a factor of opposites I identify in orissa all that is not the case with cal, which is the queen of hearts. But for orissa these are charms that I am talking about. So yes between the city and my roots it is a complement rather than a duality that works to confound me in a happy perplexity.
The wiles of Calcutta are well known. Orissa as I am still discovering is a different proposition altogether. Here there is an unmistakable pride that mixes with every slightest bit of amazement at humanity and all that is wrought thereof. For of course all that men do is complex and wonderful in design; in orissa I heard of god as the cosmic purveyor, the merest tossing of whose locks revealed him as endless. In the scorched landscape the rain is warm in my eyes. In orissa I go blind, and carried away if I might add with some modesty. Because the credit for that does not belong to me. But all the same devotional music. Would you believe it, from the capital of Bengal and from its capital also and of all folks the devout to sweep me off my feet.
And then I went to the beach for more of that. Puri beach, the tide coming in, the lifeguards going out, the tourists on the waterline and me, loincloth out of control, plundering the waves. Spontaneity is an attribute of the tortoise even if speed is not.
The sea breeze hits the spire and makes the flag blow with a dazzling fierceness. It is as if the lord’s chariot would now turn left into the avenue, his big courtyard, and come charging on. We enter the temple.
Here we jostle with the gods, the gods with garlands in their hands, gods with palms folded, gods with the trademark sticks at the entrances, but really wherever them gods please, touching the gods filing past to hold out a dime for the gods. We got into a scuffle with a god who was facilitating the rituals of another god and a drunk god who was he claimed, backing down instantly, temple police. But the gods altogether were smiling on us and for as little as five rupees a friendly god accepted our offering on behalf of the lord of them all.
King of puri provided lunch, against payment and much in excess but gratefully shared.
Like India, orissa too lives in its villages and the passengers would halt in one such, where it all began, at least where one half of it all began. The hamlet which provided the two sons of my great grandfather on the distaff side with brides for each of them both of whom belonged to the same family. Indeed were blood sisters. Danapara then, the name of the gram. The harvesting is over, winnowings on. The standfan whirrs at full speed and the grain dropped into the windstream is separated form the chaff. The grain is easily dehusked in fact and in small quantities is a good munchy, timepass.
Also shrooms. Oriya for mushrooms – sattu; oriya for shrooms – no balls to ask. Actually far too decent to do so. Presented more than two kilos for dinners sake in goodwill. Ah! How lovely it is here, the flower of youth speaks up. The wilted flower of youth says whats the use. It means nothing. But in that moment sounded profound. We were fooled in the villages. The feeling is mutual.
The klaxon that had been sounding got louder. The noise coming from the stadium. Bleed blue. Neelachal. And then you go ahead and win the World Cup. Inexhaustible is also the faith which is self-depleting.

root #2

Oh hell
These revolving doors
One is never sure
Whether one’s entered
or gained the road
but you see the kid
has passed inside
unmindful of me
as easily as
kids do these things
(and that is as it should be)
I am the one doing
The minding
Of the luggage also
And the lugging
Although it happens sometimes
With my feet, bags and a trip
I stumble and
With my nose on the glass
I gawp after the kid
It is a funny thing




of time that waits
flying time scuppers
that retreat for rest
to be up and gone
so many doors are closed
that were open before
tiredness is all
that remains in the end
and between
shelter and escape
a revolving door



the culprit
doesn't know it
but when
he is nearing home
he sings
songs of devotion

vitruvian woman hmmph

Angst in pants

If in layers be
The soul of depth
Then in what tangle
Are you wound
That like a kite
You soar unbound
Yet what is that spindle
That pulls you so
And from your freedom
Holds you back

Grandmama’s boy/ nani yaad hai

Oh kindly soul
Awake you’ve rowed
So long
Now sleep
I will take you ashore

For ma —

My mum
And me
On a bus

My mum
The loveliest
Creature on earth

I pick at
Earthworms
And she
Gently reminds me
They’re not
To be carried home

holi in my soul

On the back of the crest
Creeps the fall
To the sound of crashing waves
In the play of eternity

The furious cavalry charge
Rising every moment
To a rapturous peak
Is suddenly
Brought to its knees
With the fort so close
The shore beneath its feet

And the broken waves return
To the slumber of the deep
Where in the womb of mermaids
They are nursed to sleep



There is the small of the back
And then there is the big about it
Keeping my eyes on the one
I can explore
the ramifications of the other thing


by the riverside
in cool glades
if the goats of spring
will find their feed
the goatherd then
god bless him
must be allowed to
help himself to
what he needs

im a regular carnivore
with a bird’s metabolism
im the wisest of beasts
with the metaphysics of
a tadpole

(that's) some lust in the time of destruction

That which
Will get
Over soon
That which is
Forever but
Not ours to keep
That that
Should have to be
Decorated and nourished
But what hunger is that
What aesthetics
Will worry over
every detail and
not a wink sleep


a cloud born free
in the widest sky
will gather water
only to rain out
and that is
the end of it
in the fitness of things
what is then
saving for
the rainy day I think


tremors shake
waves crash
people die


True globalization hasn’t stopped at the disasters. That we’ve heard. And have even seen manmade ones cause destruction of fantastic proportions across the lands. But the contrast between what nature wreaks and what man hath wrought lies at the moment 150 miles off tokyo. Tsunami, colossal, terrible swept away much that had been carefully put together. However, despite the scale of the crisis, as such it was going to be confined to japan. But the radioactive leak fears are proving to be something else. Apart from the panicked reaction it has triggered off among opponents of nuclear power who have been galvanized into greater agitation on the basis of the cold evidence in japan, it also made me look up to the sky to see if it was going to rain because I got texted a warning about there being a chance of radioactive ash or something in the rainwater so please use a umbrella. There.

nights of long knives

Your ghost
Had his hair
Parted to the right
It is one of the most
Recognisable sights
In the crematorium
When the woods
Crackle and burn
It calls the insects
To the flames
One blindly follows
the other while grimly
you stood
beside though your teeth
you couldn’t hide
you were
only a shadow
in that leaping light



just before the sun
sinks
I think oh what a night
It’s going to be
But before I know it
It’s another morning
The gilded hours
have passed unnoticed
between dozing off
and fighting off sleep


and here I think I’ll be given
to guard the king’s treasury





I’ll woo you
With my spaceman
Promise you that
Hand in hand with you
I shall see my thousandth sun
Then how will you turn me down
When I tell you
I am not of this ground
Even as I kneel
To see whether the sandal fits
You will squeeze into it I know
Though it should bite and pinch
And come away one foot bare
And the other bleeding
With me leading you
Across the moon because
You have the breath of stars
In your bosom
You want to live
In the skies

Things fall
They break
Things from
The devil
Their orders take
One thing
While asleep
One thing
When awake
I will
Go down with things
Things shall
Take my place



Bang
Patter
Silence

Shock
Fear
Silence

Fear
Shock
Silence

Patter
Bang
Silence

mind it

This one is crazy. utsav sharma actually did what the nation hailed as the thing to do in rdb and was promptly presented as the maniac on medication with a penchant for violent catharsis and a history of assault and battery that was described as having more to do with his mental state than with his motive. In brief, utsav is the 29-year-old who hacked at ramesh talwar with a cleaver because he was fed up with the “absolute laxity” of the criminal investigation in the aarushi talwar murder case. No, he has nothing to do with aarushi. And he has been fed up before. February last year he posed as a journalist to attack sps rathore, the former Punjab police officer accused of molesting ruchika girhotra, driving the poor girl to suicide. That attack was carried out with a penknife. Rathore incidentally got away lightly for his role in the death of the girl whom, when she was 14-years-old, he had molested in front an eyewitness.
Protective parents might have pleaded with the authorities to let the boy be declared mentally unstable and kept under observation and constant monitoring, total responsibility for which they would surely have promised. Indeed, the brazen acts can only be the work of a lunatic. I too feel horribly depressed by the ‘miscarriage of justice’ in this country, my blood boils too when I find our leaders and captains as being no more than venal, corrupt idiots whose claim to respect is not what it should be. I too feel frustrated that we give them that respect regardless. But I sure am not going a killing anyone.
But here’s a thought: maybe, since no one’s died by his hand yet, he didn’t want to actually kill anyone. Just scare them, embarrass them. Terrorize them that they are as vulnerable and exposed as the victims they did to death. There is a reason I say this. Utsav won a gold medal when he graduated in fine arts from the banaras hindu university (I know people who’ve studied there) and has just passed out of the nid last month (I know people who’ve been to nid). Speaking for myself, for all my sensibility, I don’t think mustering a gold medal is any piece of cake. And this is art and shit involved here. Among one of the mental processes of an artist is to find an expression that would echo. A very creative and personal signature but one that would nonetheless have to resonate with a meaning which communicates itself through the imagination.
Now to build a case on the evidence available, it would be too simplistic to term the subject a mental case and pass our verdict. It is one thing to be on the side of civil society and justice, due process and the course of law but to go tut tut and shut away as delinquent someone who wears his indignation on his sleeve because that is not the prescribed way to protest is dangerous.
Make no mistakes, utsav has committed a crime. He should be arrested, tried and sentenced according to the laws of the land. But to brand his activism as an act of madness and keep him under supervision, that is cynical. And it is cynicism of a grave kind because it cuts at the very sap of feeling that makes human beings civilized. For it is uncivilized and vulgar how even after committing great misdeeds our criminals can live among us (to be sure we cannot ostracize or outcast our felons, the shot at re-assimilation is their greatest hope but that is a different matter — can’t be politically correct all the time man) to popular acclaim.
So this man here too deserves his right to be taken seriously. It is a serious thing he is trying to say.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/I-only-wanted-to-hurt-Talwar-not-kill-him-says-Utsav-Sharma/articleshow/7364668.cms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruchika_Girhotra_Case