Thursday, February 22, 2007

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.

Friday, February 02, 2007

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.