going pains

Yes we have memories
But we also have scurvy.
At partings I’m nervy
Worried what binds
And what is it that frees

there and back again

had bewitching love
and bewitched i stayed
drunk, daring not to ask
whither untrained heart
but patient or restless
here i am
clutching at what
of the day remains
we travel far
and further till
we know
that ha the world is round after all
for even those that move sideways



i'll make sure that on the spoon
the lemon stays
when you see me at our meeting place

sperits

Let me remember
How it is
To hug ma frens
My lovers and my knights my dames
My dusky husky sweetie pies
My heroes in the skies
My people my element
My primer and the cutting edge
The burning sensation
The thirst insatiable
The deep breath
The life force
Maa aamar maa
The more I chant
The more I want
Elo elo elo
Elo vee ee


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41s4IMyamQ&ob=av2e

seabitch

The sea is warm at sundown
And cool by the day
If you swallow seawater
You have hell to pay



It was to be the small bang before the bigger bang. It ended in a near mortal whimper for me. I am like that I’ve seen. A pussy when sick and here I think that my resistance is pretty high. Well here we was on the beach and all oiled up (twenty buck massage by a mobile masseuse; he was no good, especially since he wanted the entire custom of the group, five in all and so while the others grew restless waiting for me to finish after I’d gone first, he made haste with me and to no relief) and we jumped right in without much ado. I speak for me because I realized I should have weighed the pros and cons of so recklessly hitting the sea. It is salty water and in Digha, a dull brown tepid ditchwater. Jumped in I did and soon was gulping the shite by the mouthfuls. Was half full of that bile by the time we was out I’d say. On the second day I was slightly glitchy in the morning and had a sour stale burp but more of that in the post mortem report. Dinner was murgir jhol and thick bullet rice. I wolfed down great quantities of it and then some more after I got served more than I wanted. Upbringing and the ancient sense of duty not to mention immediate reproach in the cartel made me cram some. But there is no sense of foreboding where folly is riding the crest of a wave. Thereafter liquid diet in hotel room till well past. Good boy said good night and went off to sleep in non aircon. Fucked woe be to. First crap: 5 am. Shit #2: 6:20. #3: 7ish. In my current line of business I’m getting to know about AP/GP and frankly, a man gets to thinking what it all means and he gets to watching hisself and finding a meaning. My loose tummy situation was just insane. And how can I ever forget advice from the coterie — strongly advise lunch, have lunch, you’ll be hungry, ’tis a long way, a light lunch never did no harm. Lunch, Parijat hotel, flower of heaven garden. Strongly recommend shukto, have shukto, roughage. What! Had shukto, made from milk, tssk tssk, have charchari, roughage. Charchari then. I was with a plan too at mention of lunch and had dal and aloo bhaja by my own genius. A sachet of eno had preceded lunch. The clouds had gathered but nothing was rumbling yet. Kolaghat in safar sans suhana. Dry and prostrate, sprawled on the back seats, ready if it was time. Ah, someone mentioned tea, petrol pump. What are friends for! Just before Kolaghat, when the cronies had alighted for a quick bite, between puffs, Pintu, the guy at the wheels, confided that he thought the charchari funny. Them wasn’t good vegetables he said. I coughed up some yellow phlegm and spat, you boys finished, let’s go on now. Petrol pump, God bless Pintu. He rushes first thing to the loo. I opt for a drag to begin with and he has the start on me. He is out before long. A little relief is all I get although I had expected more from the nearly three hours of discipline showed by the tummy. On the second morning my stomach was already a tight drum stretched across my chest by the time we went down to the beach. There was football happening and an old tug got pulled inside being for a sudden second, but verve was in me by then a little rat’s tail sticking out under the cupboard for a brief second after the light came on. I was relying on smoke and went along in the water, it was bloody crowded and all everyone was shouting was beer; one was even shrieking holi hai holi hai, aste bachar abar hobe. I looked in the water. It appeared to me as shimmering. I looked closely, let the sun fill my palms below the surface and brought it up slowly. Fine specks of sand caught the sun and danced in it but that was all a fleeting glimpse; very soon the water was the same brown liquid. The water was dirty all right.


And grapes sour.

ju after ajus

She did not look
Because the boys did
All the looking for her
For when she passed
Under their feet
the earth shook
and in their veins
the flames burst
and they were all
fainthearted on mars


in my acquiescence
is implicit
the reason why
we do what we do
because even when you propose
im the one thinking for you


I am not you
And you are not me
What page
We are not even
On the same tree

The uni after to hell and back long. And what weather to be doing this in. For to do with football my best skies to visit the place under. The sun strained the colour of sugarcane juice under pale grey clouds. But no rain. That is important, JU like most places on earth is much better with a chance of rain than in rain itself. Although I prefer people to stick to the time it is not a perfect world and when I feel like indulging my friends in their innocence of the moving hand I look at dogs. I will look at dogs if any are around, at any rate, from now on, if I can remember that I should be doing it. It happened in a stream of consciousness sort of way when I picked up share-teen of yore yonder outside the library. It was a lazy time and poor old dogsbody was feeling lazy. I was sitting across from him on the other side of the road, past bachchan family. Share-teen was sniffing the air and casting desultory glances around, although all the while he kept his ears pricked. I observed another, this one much younger and on all fours approaching from the field side. A bitch, brown. This was seen by one of a similar coat that was idling near the statue. Male. He went forward to meet her. Share-teen was craning his neck. But what’s this? A car, stealing up behind haseena. She becomes aware of the vehicle and road romeo at same time. In a clever manoeuvre she stops and turns with the car, but in an anticlockwise direction. The boy had anticipated she would cross the car in front, or wait for it to pass before she came across. But suddenly she wasn’t there. He had an absolutely bewildered look on his face. But share-teen still wore a look of apprehension. The bitch did eventually go off 3 no. gate side with brownback in tow. Share-teen looked on like Snoopy all hurt for some time and then settled down again, to sniffing the air and looking around.

red rag

she wanted to cry
after she'd been
to hell and back
did she ask herself
if such is the stench
of suffering
why they live
why do they die
or did a flower
of the sun
find herself
engulfed at sunset
by the darkest night



in autumn like the leaves fall
in winter like the snow
from green and blue the tear
drops and in the river of kings
the red flows
in the vale of kashmir

Bobodom

Now is a time bandhs don’t matter. Hell they’ve never mattered.


Why do they shout
Why are they hurling stones
How they have not a moment’s rest
Lo how well they impose this calm

I’ve been always enamoured of the bandh. But so has the rest of mankind in some way or the other. I praise it here because of our observance in surfeit of this social unifier, the universal invitation to leisure. Although it has been generally recognized that the strike is a harmful instrument of political maneuvering, in no way does the resorting to it at the drop of a hat suggest stupidity of the citizenry. After all with great discretion comes the power to let go. And the difference to the trees and the birds; the air is different, it is a phenomenon I’m sure has as much a basis in science as in romance. But yes even if the crow takes a shit on you (you missed the fine print even though you were looking at the trees) it is worth it.



What do you want
The details
Or my delight in it
Because as you might
be knowing
I’m in love