Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Skin-Whitening Cream and Soaps
All you white-skinned
men and women
Showing off
on the television’s tinsel domain
Makes me wonder
if a black man or woman
Has a place
in this land of dark God Neelkantan.
I shake my
head and in I groan in pain
God! What
have I done to deserve this bane?
You created
this land of dark people and Gods
And dipped
them in tubs of skin-whitening suds.
Now all I
see are dark faces white-washed
Hair as if
streaked with rays of golden sunlight
Creams that
promise white skin in a week
With which you
can marry a stud, not a geek.
Girl on
television you may be a big star
But beneath
the discolored skin you are hiding a scar
The way God
created you is on hold
With
skin-whitening creams you have been sold.
Yes, they
say the cream sells more than aerated drinks
Thirst is
nothing so far as you don’t look like Michael Spinks
Armed with
cream and umbrella you must march
Down the
ramp to celebrate the Ides of March.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
DANCE GENTLY TO THE RAIN’S MAD RHYTHM
When you feel let down by the
world’s trechery
When the air is thick with arrant
buffoonery
When fools go where mortals refrain
When atomic wars threaten to draw
the final curtain.
Dance gently to the rain’s mad rhythm,
my friend
Go gently into the rain, don’t
hesitate.
Raiiiin oooo raiiiiinnn oooooo! (2)
When anger is on every face and
begets new anger
And nobody’s stuffy ears are willing
to listen
To an old man playing a guitar and
tambourine
Tossed around on silver seas and
wastelands.
Dance gently to the rain’s mad rhythm,
my friend
Go gently into the rain, don’t
hesitate.
Raiiiin oooo raiiiiinnn oooooo! (2)
We are here to make the night last
long
Don’t fill our nights with the ghost
of hunger
Protest we must if our rights are
trampled on
Guns we must face and be prepared
for confinement.
Dance gently to the rain’s mad rhythm,
my friend
Go gently into the rain, don’t
hesitate.
Raiiiin oooo raiiiiinnn oooooo! (2)
This rain will pass and another
monsoon too
Try not to shield from its fury, it’s
liquid onslaught
Then we will dance on fallow fields
and limpid lakes
What remains of its legacy in its
wake.
Dance gently to the rain’s mad rhythm,
my friend
Go gently into the rain, don’t
hesitate.
Raiiiin oooo raiiiiinnn oooooo! (2)
(c) 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Doodles at the Sahar Airport
Distraught mothers waving sons
goodbye
Harassed men pushing carts loaded
with many bags
Sweet-looking, brusque, beautiful
hostesses
New mothers holding wonder-eyed babies
The computer professional, knapsack
on shoulder
Executives striding confidently,
nervously
The confused tourist carrying
backpack too large
Painted women whose stilettos make
them imposing
Confusion of passports, boarding
cards, endless queues
Gun-holding security men in starched
uniforms
The strong smell of disinfectant,
sanitized food
The airport is where voyages are
embarked and disembarked
Not in steamy hot man-o-wars of yore,
but
In air-controlled seclusion, and sequestered
egos
Where every man and woman is an
explorer
Compressing months of travelling
into a few hours
And merging people into one palimpsest
of cultures.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
The Code Coolie
You pretend
you are a code warrior, fighting
Battles with
the lines of code you are writing;
You carry a
back pack to work in the software park,
Dream
of being Bill Gates and steering a sports car into the park.
ASP, Java,
Oracle, SAP are your fine forte,
Logic,
workflows and syntax your areas of comfort;
Your
happiness centres on a chicken tandoori,
And a movie
in the mall in East side of Andheri.
You will
marry a fast-talking high-strung woman,
Happiness
will be a short honeymoon to Konkan;
Then fights
will start in blessed conjugal-dom
Cries of
“Need my space; I need my freedom.”
The U. S.
A.’s a happy energetic place for everyone,
But there are
immigration officers and mad men with guns;
Then you
will have children, one or even two,
And your
joys will re-appear over a year or two.
But what of
your parents who made you walk upright?
You left
them, backpack over shoulder, into the night;
They cry
hard tears, “Where’s our child, tell us truly?”
“Have we
worked all our lives to beget a Code Coolie?”
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Wisdom of Crowds
(Wrote this today in the train, standing, a request for an ample-enough sitting space refused by the consensus of co-passengers, on the way to work!)
In urban sprawls and in the countryside,
There prevails wisdom mala fide,
People wrongly call it crowd’s wisdom,
But I call it another name – officialdom.
Crowded committees, panels, boards, conclaves,
They are now people by crooks and thieves,
They waste their time and of the nation,
With their reports, trite, they have no notion.
They don’t know when around their waist they grow fat,
Their bellies protrude, oh! Look at that!
They run the nation, the economy, you know,
It’s they on whom fate power bestow.
I know them, I am one, but I don’t belong,
I’d rather write, compose and sing a song,
Of black deeds of men in starched white,
And their lumpen cohorts who decide what’s right.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Oh! Jerusalem , Jerusalem ,
Holiest of holy cities
Cursed by the Nazarene:
Nameless, faceless,
Besieged, bombed,
Occupied by militias, armies,
It's unbelievable that once
The messiah of peace walked your streets.
Now you are rubble,
Bomb-hit houses
Lying in a mangled haze
Your hospices filled with the dying
Now you show signs of prosperity
But death still waits at your doorsteps.
The Cedars are bereft,
Alleys are filled with twisted steel,
Your people are not given -
A chance to survive, make peace.
Inside you there are enemy streets
Where children fear to walk
Afraid of hidden gunmen.
Will you rise from this debris?
Bring peace to your proud monuments,
And foliate your naked Cedars
With the leaves of verdant summer
In their shades women wouldn’t wail,
Of disappearances, shootings, and ransoms,
Of men who misunderstand the love of God!
To a Reluctant Writer
You can pick meaning off words,
You can paint pictures;
You can laugh at them,
Who laugh at you;
You can mourn
The follies of the unwise.
To write is power,
Of words, thoughts,
Limitless and boundless,
As the sky above and earth below;
You will never be alone
When words churn in your mind.
You can be heartbroken,
And cry and cry;
But a poem would wipe tears,
Puts a smile on your face,
Erase the pain
Of loneliness and love.
So won’t you write?
A letter, a poem, an essay;
We would gladly plunge in its depths,
Smile at its humour,
Relish what pains it took you,
And forgive friendly trespasses.
Anthonybhai's Song
Anthonybhai’s Song
(In Mack English)[1]
Kya, re? Know something, men?
Dis big, big; new, new instrumen’
Mobile phone and internet, wot?
Such confusion really I neva thought.
This pre-paid-post-paid I don’t unnerstan’, please tell,
Anthony’s simply want to know, what the hell,
You are not to be seen only, these days,
And you don’t call, even on Sundays.
I feel you’re going far, far away,
Some fuckin’ Katlik boy’s come your way?
I will break his legs, just you watch,
I won’t let you be an easy catch.
I know pucca you are flirting girl,
It shows in de way your lips curl,
You have no patience only with me,
But for him, that bugger, you’ll bend and curtsey.
“Wot’s my fault?” I aks Fadder Fonseca, he say:
“Son, forget her, forgive and pray
Treasures and eternal life in heaven above
Are your rewards than this worldly grave.”
I say, no, Irene’s my senorita, Fadder,
I don’t want to be treated, no way, like a ladder
Another man to step and take my girl away,
To the holy alter; and then “I do” say.
[1] A pidgin dialect spoken by Goans, East Indians, Ango-Indians, and other communities mainly found on the West Coast of India.
Apocalyptic Rain
I
The day father dies
The rain murmurs on glass
Through night and day,
Like apocalypse is today, now
It courses down the eaves at 3.30 a.m.
At 4.30 a.m. it’s still trickling
Thinly
Wetly
Damply
Hungrily
Silently.
We pause to look at the sky
And murmur, “It’ll never end.”
“The rain will take us as did father.”
We are wondering whether
The food will last
The oil will burn till midnight
Till we sleep the wearied sleep
Of wanderers of those days
When electricity slept in rich homes
Not brick hovels.
And in the morning
We wake up in a daze
To hear the rain still pounding
Pitting the stones
Drilling holes into roads
Fearing the worst
The swirling deaths
Washed out homes
That came calling on July 26
The day the skies wept.
II
Once there was a boy
Who, when a rainy symphony played,
With open book on knees,
And parents’ warm cares
Read “Paradise Lost,”
And dreamed of poetic fame
Lost in a haze of innocence
Unprepared
Docile
Ingenuous
Rebellious
Handsome
Ugly
Sensual
Unrefined
Uncouth.
“Will he ever survive this world?”
“Look at him, he is so silent.”
“Why is he so different?”
“How has he become thus?”
They ask.
III
The dream of trophy girls is now
The tattered cloth of a mendicant,
Stained and threadbare,
Threatening to rend
At the most delicate touch
As rain comes down
On hills and grey factory roofs
Marble monuments, their treasures plundered
And plastic coated glass
Reek of human enslavement
Nomenclature-ed
Numbered
Synergised
Compartmentalised
Ergonomised
Promoted
Demoted
Transferred
Filed
Forgotten.
The rain stopped
11.30 a.m.
Just as the pounding in the brain
Ceased.
Made tea
Drank cupful of heat
Satiated
Laid down to rest
Slept the tired sleep of the lazy
Woke worn out to rain pounding again
Rivulets on glass
Head aching from countless
Confusing dreams.
IV
One similar night of noir dreams
Death snatched father
It rained great floods that week
The rain came so thick
That the river changed course
Marooning the house
Father built
Our abode
Of parsimonious money
Made from the pain of my hunger
The house of our deprivation.
As the flotsam receded
Leaving the ground slushy
In the 1.30 p.m. rain
He was interred
At the family graveyard
After the priests
Chanted
Prayed
Sang
Mumbled to each other
Dropped mud on his coffin.
He must have heard
The thudding
Rain
On palm trees
The wind sighing in leaves
The susurration
Of tiny rivulets
Into his new abode,
Felt the wasting
Of a body
Dissipated
Drowned in grief
That no longer mattered
When the 11.30 p.m. lull had come.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
The Old Church
The old church –
Thief of the best Sundays of my childhood –
Is dilapidated.
The courtyard is unkempt;
The parsonage is surrounded by weeds;
The Belfry and Vestry need maintenance;
The Alter, I don’t know;
The garden has a few shrunken shrubs;
And, some shriveled betelnut trees;
The trees under which we ate potluck lunch are gone;
So is the Sexton’s wooden cottage.
Yet, there it stands erect;
Having seen Governors, freedom struggles,
Teargas shells, riots,
Deaths, births, weddings, confirmations, and christenings,
Passing by below its arches.
Yes, now when the bells of St. Mary the Virgin toll
A sad funereal message,
I feel like a child again,
Lost in innocence.
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