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.

Mack English

Mack English is spoken

Though at times it’s broken

In Bombay and in Girgaon,

In Goa and in the Konkan.

Grammar we know none,

Speaking Mack is fun.

We talk like dis only

For we are like dis only.

Father forgive, don't hate;

Mass and confession can wait,

It's feni and fish we crave

Before the call of the grave.

Johnny play the bongo,

Michael sing the Fado[1],

Together we will dance,

And Rosy and Reena we will romance.

---

[1] Fado, a Portuguese song

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, 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 wallow in its depths,
Smile at its humor,
Relish what pains it took you,
And forgive friendly trespasses.

(c) November 2006

To my son

You will realize this wisdom, son

When you are my age, and experience,

Gained from being in dire situations,

Yet, being out of it. Son, you do the same,

There is joy in detachment,

Forsaking instant pleasures, pains,

For things deeper and more enduring.

This world isn’t black and white

But shades of grey, punctured with black

Because I gave you freedom

Don’t assume strange men are as generous.

Don’t be a slave to the work

Of smart slave-drivers in confined spaces,

Instead explore the works of men,

Who have experienced the truths,

And distilled in their words, wisdoms,

Which may grate your ears now.

Like me, don’t be prey to sudden,

Rushes of anger that comes over cables,

And with emails and posts demolish,

Without thinking of consequences -

I have done that and am living to regret.

Choose friends wisely, son, wisely choose enemies,

Don’t drink bottled and sealed lifestyles

Its sugar, water and carbon dioxide

Will dither you, disorient you, and sap you.

And don’t eat fast food with loose change,

They will suck you into their assembly line.

Lastly do not try to see with darkened eyes,

And hear with deaf ears, keep them open.

Those digital beats and rhythm can corrupt,

And make sinning and dizzy highs seem so tempting.

The age of innocence, son, is gone by, in another age,

Every man unto himself is a mercenary awaiting chance.

If you follow this advise, son,

When you are mature and wise as me

You will say, one day, “Thank you Papa,

For at least speaking your words of advice,

To my children, too, I will pass on these words.”

Loneliness

I pause midway in the in the whirl,
Of deadlines, things undone,
And averaged the sadness and joys -
There remains only loneliness,
Of which I see no cure,
No bitter palliatives, no anodyne.

We remain in life’s journey,
Like loners sitting depressed,
On solitary park benches, or,
Staring at people from balconies,
Loneliness gnawing at our minds,
As hungry ants at a grain of food.

Often in life’s vicious lanes,
In lonesome moments,
It’s our failures we ponder,
Not the joys and victories; both,
We have given and earned;
Not others’ courage, but faults.

When in each passing lonely moment,
I count the millions of seconds,
I was alive to witness this world, and,
Mimetic thoughts that pass into eternity,
My loneliness vanishes, I shout,
“I live; I am alive this lonely moment.”
(c) John, August 2006
Tags: Loneliness, poetry

Time Stands Still over Govandi Station

A kite flutters,

On a high tension wire —

Against a stark blue sky.

A beggar and old mother huddle

On Govandi Railway Station —

The dirtiest station in the universe.

He shows her a plastic watch,

Smiles, “See I have time,”

She, old, gnarled, wrinkled,

Looks through beady eyes,

“I have no need for time.”

Jagged slum roofs puncture the sky,

Open drains stink.

Half clad children toss rubber ball —

In frenzied passion and sloth.

Mother and son —

Hungry, disowned, dispossessed —

They eat and sleep in Govandi station

A plastic bag of muddy clothes beside them,

He extends a begging hand,

A black plastic watch on his wrist,

“God will perform miracles,

If you give poor man rice and roti.”

The kite flutters;

Time stands still over Govandi Station.

Sonnet for Mother - Her Last Journey

Decked in varied floral blooms,

Swaddled in gold filigreed shrouds,

Smeared with perfumes,

She travelled into the clouds.

An existence of love she had lived

Years of more giving than taking

A life of suppressed sobs and tears unshed

Of turnings and missed crossings.

She lies in rigor mortis beside father,

In an earthen grave dug specially for her,

On previous visits she knew this sepulcher,

And with her man, one day, she would rest there.

There is a time when we connect

And then we must all self-destruct.

Bombay

In your bosom we wake up with fear,
In your sky there’s only unending tears,
You always roar, but within,
Hangs silence like a shroud of death.

You are rocked, periodically, by bombs,
Yet, we go about our business,
As if nothing happened, all’s well,
Are we too dazed to protest?

In your hungry, convoluted entrails,
Lie pauper and millionaire,
Separated only by the whimsy,
Of your very partial caress.

On your skyline of sooty chimneys,
Decaying concrete, bristling antennas,
Are the sad stories of fortunes,
Made and lost, just as lost loves.

City of gold, they say, which never sleeps,
Will you stay awake, tonight,
Wipe away our cascading tears,
And give our tired bodies some sleep?

Communally hated!

This is me, a martyr:

Bleeding inside, lacerated,

With a thousand wounds inflicted

By all of you, strangers, whom I hate.

You who deprive me of my livelihood,

You who entice and raped our women,

You who bring your skills and toil;

Where I was comfortable with existence.

You should die for your sins

There’s no forgiving your greed;

You who snatch our jobs, our money,

And money order it to your kin, must die!

I am good, you are bad

You have no right to exist;

A world without you is my dream

You manipulator of my destiny.

You live on my soil, drink my water,

And don’t respect my culture.

I will kill you for bringing your alien rituals

And polluting my environment.

You are different men and women whose rages

Have been compromised into smiles;

When you laugh, you do not

Laugh with us, but at us! So, Die!

For your transgressions, you must flee,

For the harm you have been doing

We must teach you a lesson

And kick you out of our homeland, our state.