Cafe Samovar, Kala Ghoda

I

My first sip of beer was bitter,

Then magically turned to sweet

Conversation flowed like amber liquid

In the verandah you offered as sanctuary

To sundry souls, peaceniks, and poets.

Celebrities would hang around here:

Pearl in an elegant kimono –

Amitabh, Jaya, Amol, Vidya

And almost famous theatre actors.

I don’t know how thirty years flew

It seems like yesterday

That I asked a young lady to tea

And my hands trembled as I poured

I don’t know if she noticed;

We were a shy generation.

There were paper lanterns

Dangling from the ceiling

Kites multi-coloured, ribbed with bamboo

Muted music, reviving,

As if the Jazz musicians recovered from torpor.

Those were the days of rock-n-roll;

Elvis was king, Beatles were in their cocoons

And the city had fewer cars.

II

At the next table

The child-man’s hand trembles,

As he pours tea;

Clutching the kettle with clumsy stained hands,

His nicotine-addict lips smile,

As the girl giggles, and then laughs;

This is a nonchalant generation.

Except for that

And Pearl is no more, her kimono is in grave,

Things haven’t changed much

At Café Samovar, Kala Ghoda;

There are paper lanterns dangling,

And thoda-thoda[1] famous people around,

Waiting for their next big break.

Nothing has changed while I was away,

Guess nothing ever will.

---

[1] Little, little.

The Song of the Janadesh Marchers

The Song of the Janadesh Marchers^[1]

For our lands we walk this Marathon,

While you run your Marathons for fun,

We live in a country without water,

You flush it daily down the gutter.

We saw it on the elder’s television,

The run of people wearing clothes of fashion,

A splash of colour with stars and celebrities;

While our tatters tried to hide our realities.

We are poor, but on our honour we pride,

We wore dirty clothes; our shame we him;

But our heads were high, as we marched,

For our lands, which were from us wrenched.

Your branded shoes can buy us month’s ration,

Send children to school and buy some potion.

Yet, you say your needs are unsatisfied -

What about ours? Aren’t our needs justified?

When storms, floods, droughts devastate,

You sit in comfort and pontificate:

Oh! So much foreign direct investment,

The economy’s growth is great achievement.

We have only one thing to beseech, pray,

Leave our fallow lands alone for us, we say:

While you run Marathons on Lutyen’s properties,

Leave us our huts to shelter us from calamities.

---

[1] The Janadesh marchers walked 400 kilometers to Delhi to demand land rights when Delhi was holding a half Marathon. This poem is written for them, as the picture they made, marching in the hot sun, contrasted with that of the Marathoners on television.

Plastic

He sits in a sea of plastic,

On his head a cloth cap of elastic;

Squatting and sorting, oh boy,

Milk pouches, grocery bags, and toys.

Boy, don’t your life thus waste,

Nobody told you of poverty’s bitter aftertaste?

Beside him in a wide arc sprouts,

A sea of plasticized, grimy huts,

Waterproofed, engineered to last

This monsoon, and its windy blast.

Boy, don’t your life thus waste,

Nobody told you of poverty’s bitter aftertaste?

The vinyl signs are of polyethylene,

His plastic dreams are woven in benzene.

He thinks: is there no escaping this hell,

Of recycled mess and waste, please tell?

Boy, don’t your life thus waste,

Nobody told you of poverty’s bitter aftertaste?

He scrounges in gutters running foul-

Water, laden with plastics, chockfull;

Maybe, in his plastic-dulled soul,

He still yearns to be in play school.

Boy, don’t your life thus waste,

Nobody told you of poverty’s bitter aftertaste?

To Shakti Bhat

I didn’t know

Our last words,

As you were leaving Little Theatre

Said in the midst of a seminar

With pushy seminarians around us

Would be our last words.

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt,

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt.

May your gentle soul find solace and peace

Away from the cares of this depraved place.

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt,

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt.

May your soul never hunger for freedom

In the portals of your celestial kingdom.

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt,

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt.

May your name shine on those heavenly scrolls

Among the great writers for whom the bell tolls.

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt,

Goodbye Shakti Bhatt.

Chembur

I

These crooked weathered streets

On which time hangs like a drape

Upon padlocked doors;

It’s here I grew my first sprout

Of facial hair;

Styled Elvis hairdos, high collars.

Childhood vanished in a flash,

In these lanes smelling of senility;

Innocence fled; tears were shed;

Look close

You can see memories linger

In the dark crevices;

Cricket matches, dropped catches,

Embarrass me still.

II

These mean streets I walk again,

Many a bend and a turn,

I have seen

In life’s incessant churning

In the froth of unrepentant fate.

Those dreamy bungalows

In which I wanted to laze in

Wearing slippers and boxer shorts

Now naked, bare, and torn apart

For upcoming shopping malls

And haute couture plazas.

III

Where once there were shrubs

Laden with the scent of bela flowers

There’s now the smell of fluorocarbons.

The littered streets are

Dug up to lay jelly-filled cables,

They don’t know they once were,

The majestic streets, on which,

The Kapoors strode like kings,

Worshipped, adored,

Their studios,

A favourite hangout

Of those starry-eyed adolescent days.

IV

A boy I knew in dirty knickers

Is now a mafia don;

The world is afraid;

I am not

Really I am not:

I have seen his unwashed underwears.

V

The girls were beautiful,

They still are,

Their walk is indeed fluent

As a smoothly flowing river,

And tongues holding lethal fires,

They can kill with treacherous looks,

Oh! How I miss them, those sylphs,

Who inhabited my wet adolescent dreams!

VI

Chembur,

You bejewelled suburb of the east,

You nestle amidst sewers and marshes,

And fumes as black as hell,

Yet in your stained yellow bosom,

Where the sun rises and sets in a haze,

Smelling of death and decay,

Was born the unfulfilled dreams,

Of this, your unfortunate son.

Fires of the Faithless

Tonight hordes burned the timber mills

Charred the festering slums upon hills

Burnt books, flags and holy sacraments

Psalms, chronicles and sacred testaments.

Burn, burn, raging fires of the faithless tonight,

Turn off the lights; torch this glittering city of lights.

We cowered weeping in our tin houses

Our infant children, sisters and spouses

Before they raped, desecrated, burnt and rent

Us in the consuming fire of their discontent.

Burn, burn, raging fires of the faithless tonight,

Turn off the lights; torch this glittering city of lights.

Hey, I ask, sword-bearing men of hatred

Are not your holy books anymore sacred?

Do you realize your women and children;

Are future preys of these faithless men?

Burn, burn, raging fires of the faithless tonight,

Turn off the lights; torch this glittering city of lights.

On Watching Republic Day on Television

To fallen, silent and nameless soldiers,
A symbolic helmet and inverted gun,
An eternal flame wavers and sputters,
A votive green wreath in the morning sun.

Goose stepping soldiers, smartly dressed,
Guns pointing, dipping, saluting -
Their commanding officers, epauletted -
Wars, invasions, treaties, are their thing.

Missiles, land mines and shrapnel,
Tanks that can cut through steel,
Bridge rivers and through land tunnel,
Destroy, maim, decapitate and kill.

Presidents, ministers, diplomats, leaders,
When you declare your invasions and wars,
Please do not let your conscience dither,
The battles you fight are the burdens of ours.