I Want My Freedom

I know this world isn’t a friendly place
any more

I know I am not here ‘cos I don’t belong any longer

I know this ain’t my own complaint, no, it’s not true

I know you all feel the same; all are of my view.

I want my freedom, I want a free world

I want to be there for the entire human race

I want the sun and wind to touch my face

I want the wide world to be a better place.

I want my music, I don’t want this noise

And this cacophony isn’t one of my joys

This petty fake piracy offends my freedom

I want my software free from officialdom

I want my freedom, I want a free world
I want to be there for the entire human race

I want the sun and wind to touch my face

I want the wide world to be a better place.

I want these killings to stop in our country

I want the world to stop this banditry

I want the bloodshed to end in your land

I want you to be free, please understand.

I want my freedom, I want a free world

I want to be there for the entire human race

I want the sun and wind to touch my face

I want the wide world to be a better place.

Poem - Sandra from Bandra

She boards the 9.30 Bandra local

With fellow passengers she is quite vocal

Don’t you have eyes, can’t you see?

I am wearing my brand new saree?

Oh, Sandra from Bandra, my maiden fair

Won’t you meet me tonight at the Bandra Fair?

To have a some bread and some sor patel

At the Bandstand, oh dearest Sandra, please tell.

She is late to work; “Oh these fisherwomen

They think they own the railway, yeah, men

“Just watch, I will teach them some manners

Let me get my foot in; fit in some corners."

Oh, Sandra from Bandra, my maiden fair

Won’t you meet me tonight at the Bandra Fair?

To have a some bread and some sor patel

At the Bandstand, oh dearest Sandra, please tell.

That Katlik boy in office, Frank Furtado

Serenades her every day with a Fado

He is good-for-nothing, I tell her, he can’t jive

He can’t talk, he can’t sing, even to save his life.

Oh, Sandra from Bandra, my maiden fair

Won’t you meet me tonight at the Bandra Fair?

To have a some bread and some sor patel

At the Bandstand, oh dearest Sandra, please tell.

Can’t see you, I have to attend mass

Novenas, confessions, I have no time to pass

Not you, not Frank, no one except Prince Charles

Or, could be, Prince Williams, Prince Harry of Wales.

Oh, Sandra from Bandra, my maiden fair

Won’t you meet me tonight at the Bandra Fair?

To have a some bread and some sor patel

At the Bandstand, oh dearest Sandra, please tell.

(Originally written to be performed at the Bandra Festival, but, sadly, time and inclination didn’t permit.)

Poem: To The Loose Cannon (Dedicated to Manoj Rane)

Friend, my only regret is

Our coffee, which I will miss

Chatter and shared muffins

What’s this talk about coffins?

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane

On the shores of a city where there’s no pain.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane.

I might’ve forgotten your birthdays

Or, failed to connect more on Facebook

A book in which for every friend you gain

You lose one and then make friends, again.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane

On the shores of a city where there’s no pain.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane.

Now that you are gone, I am back to the grind

But things about you still linger in the mind

You were so concerned, afraid of death

Oh! You should have held on to friendship and faith.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane

On the shores of a city where there’s no pain.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane.

I still think of you being so close as ever

A call away, not knowing you left for ever

Or your smile, your pique, or your laughter

Or, on lazy evenings, our shared idle chatter.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane

On the shores of a city where there’s no pain.

Till we meet again, Manoj Rane.

--------------

To my friend Manoj Rane, may his soul rest in peace.

The 8.30 a.m. Train Girl

Like ghosts passing by day and night

Each day we come into each other’s sight

In the train stations of our life

No sindoor; you aren’t anyone’s wife.

Talcum on your face, kohl-lined eyes

Bindi on forehead, a walk that defies

The world and its ways; all your needs:

A man, a bedroom, a kitchen, some threads.

In the search for this ersatz world

You don’t know why the world is cold

For your sweetness that never fails

You must suffer the men who cavil.

My advice: Beware of their devious ways

They rape with eyes, whistle their life away

They blackmail, lie, promise to say the vow

And then go looking for their wild oats to sow.

They would touch you in the crowd

Pinch where it hurts, make gestures crude

Or, stalk you, blank call you, write obscenities

In toilets, trains, anywhere they can print lies.

Through storms and floods your train must pass

Your phone’s no comfort, no, even in first class

No machine can help against nature’s fury

Even when tears make your sight turn blurry.

This 8.30 a.m. train’s a vile place to be

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, you’ll see

And when you are smarter, your world more settled

Remember this day, and the verse a fan composed.

The Cuckoo's Call

The cuckoo’s sweet serenade
Echoes everywhere this summer day
Perfidious, polygamous, promiscuous
They call you this not without reason
Despite your sweet soliloquy
You are a treacherous bird
Deceiving crows, ugly scavengers
Laying eggs in their naïve nests.

But I love your cadences
Echoing over the hills
Rising symphonic in the sky
In harmonious melodies
In summer’s stifling heat
When sweat pours and
The mind seeks respite.

Cuckoo, you sweet siren
The elusive Sylph
Ephemeral wanderer of the forests
If you deceive the crow and fly away
Would your children caw like the crow?
Or, sing the perfidious song of summer
In the valley of our habitation?

Barrel of the AK-47

This chunk of metal
This cold barrel
Can spit death
Sear flesh
Rend blood vessels
Splinter bones
Mutilate organs
Enter and exit bodies
Transform men
Into lifeless corpses.

Agreed
It can do all these
Plus avenge hurts
Spread hatred, fear,
Disrupt life
Make widows
Create orphans
Take entire nations hostage.

But can it bring justice?
I don’t know
Justice is a slow process
Full of hurled abuses
Debate and rhetoric
And hearing choked voices
Telling of people’s grief.

Those teenage armies
Destiny’s children
Slinging AK-47s
Posturing
As if they were John Rambo’s;
Do they know
Poor cannon fodder
That there’s an AK-47
Waiting around the corner
Nursed by another’s fingers
To end their dreams
Take them a step closer
To The End?

WELCOME TO KALA GHODA

You can get your portrait drawn here
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

This is where the writers hang out
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Where there's art and there is music
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Where the food is tasty and tea is hot
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Where the samovar is always simmering
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Where David Sassoon stands in the foyer
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Where there’s Elphinston College and Watson Hotel
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Where the rich, poor, old, and young mingle
Welcome to Kala Ghoda

Welcome to Kala Ghoda
Welcome to Kala Ghoda
Welcome to Kala Ghoda
Where the tradition is old but the spirit is still young.

Welcome to Kala Ghoda
Welcome to Kala Ghoda
Welcome to Kala Ghoda
Where the tradition is old but the spirit is still young.

Jahanpanah Bahadur Shah Zafar - The Last Mughal

Jahanpanah [1] Bahadur Shah Zafar,

Saw dust over the Bridge of Boats, afar,

Standing on the ramparts of the Red Fort,

With wives, courtiers, ministers and consort.

His heart filled with hope and despair,

A feeling not unknown to a shayar [2],

Will his Hindustan after all be free,

From the White Man’s sword and decree?

To feed them where will he bring money?

Thomas Metcalfe [3] refuses to give him any,

His powers are naught and so is his court,

Quick, fight or befriend as they cross moat.

No, he’s not a soldier or a commander,

He’s a poet, writing verses of great candour,

Though martial blood runs in his veins,

For Timur’s cruelty he has much disdain.

He squandered wealth and kingdom lost,

To wine, poetry, and blank verse riposte,

Too many nights of poems and pretence,

Had left a debt he couldn’t recompense.

Away to his chamber that night he went,

After a message to mutinous armies sent,

You are welcome if you come in peace,

Do not desecrate or our culture disgrace.

But the mutinous army being common men,

Looted, pillaged and set on fire, and then,

Said, “Jahanpanah Where’s all your wealth,

For us to liberate, and live in comfort and health?”

To this Jahanpanah uttered threatening words,

“I will go to Mecca; condemn you to their swords,

I am too old and tired for the war you create,

To spoil my peace and my people alienate.”

“Go ahead; call me coward, that you can,

But I am no traitor like Asanullah Khan[4],

Or, my wife Zinat Mahal[5], or, Mohammed Baqar[6],

They will rot in their graves, those gaddar[7].”

“I’ve only done what a poet would’ve done,

Protected my art, people, wives, and son,

They’re greedy men those who covet and fight,

I am only a bard; my poetry is my birthright.”

---

[1] Ruler of the world

[2] Poet

[3] British Governor of Delhi

[4] Bahadur Shah Zafar’s prime minister

[5] Bahadur Shah Zafar’s wife who plotted to surrender to the British

[6] Editor of Delhi Aqbar and chronicler of the Sepoy Mutiny

[7] Traitor

The Slum-dweller

Curled inside a concrete pipe

Under the bridge

They had lived

Their hearts thudding against ribs,

As each trained clattered

And faded into distance.

Where they slept once

There’s now shredded concrete:

Naked bricks and rubble,

Chewed by mighty machines

Of the city fathers

Who said, “Of outsiders we must be free,

To build roads and Metros.”

The children, they cried

And cried to sleep

Till their throats were hoarse

And tongues dry, parched

Their hunger insatiate

From food foraged in garbage.

They were awaiting a peaceful tomorrow,

When today’s hubbub didn’t end

And the dream of a future

Faded before their eyes
The place they sqatted and shat
Became the swimming pool of a tower
The open place they went to fuck, a car park.

Together they journeyed

To a piece of sodden land

By the nullah in which floated scum and plastic

To a new life

A new beginning,

A new place to defecate
A new place to procreate.

Poet in Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

Yes, it’s lonely in the ICU

These machines will cease

Once I stop exhaling,

So I should go on, exist,

At least, to keep their mechanics going.

No blip, blip of my heart

Will be heard ever again,

No words, no rhyme, no crude comment,

No fights, no threats,

On my forum, or on my blog

If I cease this struggle

To keep these machines alive.

These contraptions, they embrace me,

Their tentacles, tubes,

Pin me down

Enclose me,

Twine a tightly choking grip

As if they are scared of losing me.

If I were I to break out

And reach for pen and paper

To make a small note

Scribble a short Haiku

Perhaps, a Villanelle

No, a short Sonnet

About the summer’s passing

Outside the blinded ICU windows;

And if I do that

I will recover from afflictions

They would be bereft and orphaned.

I must exist, yes, I should,

For these machines they would die otherwise.

If I Die....

If I die, will you mourn;

When I finally fall, will you scorn?

Will this world be a lonely space;

When I am in my final resting place?

Will my glorious words remain;

A forgotten song’s sweet refrain?

Or, will they be callously consigned;

To the earthen mound heaped?

I have written what I have written;

Thinking my words not misshapen;

But if this world doesn’t accept;

It’s their loss, promise un-kept.

Fame and glory weren’t mine;

Too long have I lived in others’ shine

Extremely humble to strike out,

Badger, cajole, grovel, or shout.

When the scent of lilies fade;

Will a tear down your cheek slide?

In the sunset of my life;

Will my goodness be remembered, my wife?

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.

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