Ambling along Edmund Lanes

I sauntered along the silent sanitized lanes of Edmonds

canopied by the sparkling blue sky, its edges broken

by shrouding green conifers and maples.

Dainty cottages hung on either side, their neat lawns

adorned with frozen dense flowers, crotons and hedges.

The cool wind wound its way through them all

and made the trees howl at times.

Except for the crowing and chirping, the occasional

burst of the lawn mower or the hedge trimmer,

a lady darting out to collect post or walk her dog

some bunnies hopping about the lawns,

there was a haunting absence of humans

hypnotized by the TV or phone indoors.

Such a silent green manicured scene should soothe

the tumultuous grinding mind and yes

for seconds, my mind did slip into a ‘no mind’.

The dissonant contrast of my bustling tropical vapour-draped city

crossed my mind and so did the gibberish sense

of the intoxicated homeless of Seattle

living in an alternate universe

and the jarring death and destruction

in selective pockets of the world.

Clutching

Transience

 

As I waded briskly in morning’s serenity -

the tarred road on my right looking gritty

on my left, hedged plants sloping mild

towards the parched river bed grown all wild -

I spied a lively robin on a furrowed soil crest

its twitter rising from its quivering breast

as it twitched its reddish-brown tail in zest

calling to its mate perhaps to roost and nest.

 

I tried to stifle and smother my sneeze

lest terrified, it would flee or freeze.

I snuffed my sneeze in the nick of time.

It continued its merry cacophonous rime.

Soon I passed by it and from my sight gone

but the chatter in my head twittered on:

 

A fragile blithe blob of flesh and blood

a teeny lease of life in its body floods

snuffed finally by a vicious predator

or an invisible viral terminator

or old age wrestling it to death.

 

Lucky robin!

No unbridled thoughts in your head running rife

no strangulating coiling memory maze to fife

just a few instinctual ones of your nest,

your chicks, your haunts of food and rest.

No draining emotions and moping fettering feelings

a fleeting life lived purely by nature’s coded instincts.

… crisscrossing …

… my feet dragged my heat-drugged body

crunching on the molten gravel late evening.

As the desert heat hummed and singed

my face and arms glistened with sweat

my wet shirt clung to my slimy body

while my mind raced to my AC cool room.

A lean cat crisscrossed my path

steady, focused footsteps, ignoring me

crisscrossing its beaten trail

to seek water or shade perhaps.

Its feline mouth – a half open grin

breathing out its internal heat.

A flash of helpless pity 

crisscrossed our minds ...

Selfies

Taking a selfie is not everybody’s cup of tea.

They are the domain of today’s teens.

So those in their thirties, forties and fifties

don’t take those monstrous selfies, I plead.

When you do so, you render yourself weird to the core

magnifying malignantly a part of your visage and chest.

How far you hold the phone and the angle matters.

A wrong hold in an odd angle and you are floored.

Shoot close and straight - you get nostrils blaring with gust,

hairs sticking out like antennae of wasps or roaches.

A little lower makes a mugshot of a thick necked thug,

a bulging shoulder that stretches out in haste

while the other appears a mid-sized appendage.

A little higher and you get a big headed moron,

your forehead a parched land stretching infinitely.

Your face looks as grave as an owl’s and if you smile

it falls flat like a jarring musical note prolonged.

And no, never try those contortions of face

you will end up a three dimensional eerie ET

thrusting its damned head into everyone’s sight.

So leave those selfies to the teens and those in the twenties

who have perfectly perfected the art of taking selfies

pouting their lips and standing at gravity defying angles

creasing their eyebrows like a rugged mountain range

hallowing their cheeks or tangling their arms with ease

creating those impossible naturally contrived smiles

and myriad emotions not deciphered in dictionaries.

Madras Buses – Yesteryears Travel Reverie

From bed to bus stand, I hum through a flurry of chores like a drone.

I gobble up food like a pelican, get garbed, grab the bag with lunch packed,

a hurried bye to dad and mum, walking and running through the maze

of palm trees to catch 29D at 6.30 from Madhavaram Milk Colony.

I hop into the dark and light green omni-dragon reluctantly,

hoping to reach in time to catch the popular and all-important 29C.

If late, we sprint to latch ourselves like leeches on to the moving bus.

Stretched on a time-rack between stops for ‘tickets’ ‘tickets’ ‘tickets’,

we wait in hope to hear the shrill double whistle or the ‘raiee’ ‘raiee’.

At Perambur, at last, we are belched out and stream into 29C.

The insatiable toad swells head to torso with students at every stop

not an inch to maneuver, we are jammed hams salted and heat-dried.

Male students hang on chivalrously making space for groovy girls

hormones on fire, many a match made on those buses perhaps.

Every student of Loyola, WCC and Stella in town make their presence felt.

The dragon scrambles on, crawls at times, makes a dash or stops abruptly

crushing us like a tightening vice as we lurch forward like projectiles.

The driver steers as though on high seas, his hands and legs in a trance like dance.   

Money, bus passes and tokens are passed by dwarfed hands and constrained necks.

The struggle to reach the door starts well before we reach Sterling Road.

Like telepathic worms we wriggle our way through layers of human flesh.

My shirt button entangles in a girl’s hair (preordained?!) as I tried to slide past.

We spend a good minute untangling with embarrassed contrite smiles.

If you don’t make it to the proximity of the doors in time, the crowd,

which gets down to let you out, will box you in, moksha denied.

Then you are neither in nor out, stuck at an inclined angle

like Hercules supporting the roof of the bus from collapse

and in resigned karmaic silence, you wait for the next stop.

Getting down at Sterling Road we venture into the final lap – catching 49D or 41D.

A journey short and honey sweet, a gush of relief as we spy the college gate.

Were those Ulyssian journeys worth it? – For millions of us who couldn’t afford

a bike, a car or private transport, those city buses were our lifeblood,

our lifeline to a college education and a future in those early 90s.

Nature Speaking

I am neutral as neutral as can be

Only my inner dynamics govern me –

pressure, heat, magnetic fields and alike

I take no sides but afflict everyone alike.

I see not riches or rags, your affiliations

your race, caste or your creed

your goodness or your wickedness

whether unborn, child or disabled.

I am beyond all these

true to my inner dynamics.

It is you who bestow me human qualities,

give me a convenient voice, a connived emotion,

a twisted thought, just as you do to your Gods.

You paint me as it suits your whim and fancy

benevolent and caring or revengeful and angry.

You feel your prayers, chants and litanies

can influence me and your pain ease. 

You drown in your whirlpool of illusions.

I subside to my original familiar self

when my inner forces attain a balance.

Can you be just like me

true to your human nature?

Can you think rationally, critically, creatively?

Can you encompass all in compassion?

Can you stop thinking that you are apart from me?

Can you realise that you are part of me?

Can you stop wallowing in your delusions?

Can you stop disturbing my inner dynamics?

For when you alter my inner nature even by a fraction

you and I know not the ugly consequence.

I am completely unbiased

true to my inner nature.

It is you who picture me

as human or a demi-god

like this fool writing these lines

giving me a human voice.

Imagination

Let the charm of imagination fill your mind

Churn and swirl fantasies of every kind:

White crows, lion-faced men, dancing daisies

Walking jackfruits and good old gypsies

Every fancy and every dream

Build in the air castles of cream.

For the greatest gift of nature to man

Is the mind tripping bouncing along.

Are They Human?

Are they human?

Those that snuffed tender life,

Turned smiles of innocence

To contortions of pain and terror

Relentlessly assaulting her petite body?

Are they human?

Those drenched with venomous lust

With warped and twisted beliefs

Hate dripping hearts of steel

Apathy soaked soulless souls?

Are they human?

Those who pick on a child

To settle scores with adults

Sanctifying their vile acts

In the premises of the gods?

Are they human?

Those subhuman creatures

Packs of marauding predators

Cowards, picking easy helpless prey

Deprived and depraved of humanity?

An Evening Stroll

Against the pale-washed evening sky

I amble down the narrow lonely way

dawdling, breathing in pure delight

mesmerised

verdant green grown wild on either side,

dragon flies darting to and fro

as though in control of the skies,

birds chirping different fluty tunes

calling their mates to roost and rest,

a robin couple engrossed in making love.

Ahead the looming mountains beckon me

inviting me to probe their mysteries:

their countless twists and turns

vales, cliffs, boulders and plants.

A lone tree standing out right on top

teases me to give it company.

I feel an instant urge to hug the mountains,

they in turn seem to lunge forward

in an inclusive embrace

I feel an expansion within me

A thrilling tingling sensation

Runs as estuaries filling

Every cell, pore and vein.

A Tender Tryst

It cocked its head an impossible angle

and cooed in response to my questions

with its petite glistening winking eyes.

What may I ask are you doing

in the hot baking morning sun?

Have you fallen from your nest

between the AC and the wall?

Are you sick or are you injured?

Or are you exploring the morn?

I wish I could decode your cooing.

The hoot from my colleague’s car

 jarred the mellow chitchat.

Unwillingly I left her, unattended,

Harkening to the call of my job.

Returning late in the afternoon

I searched in haste for my little pigeon

only to find its wafer-thin body,

its life sapped by the sizzling sun.

Brewing Sounds

The ooze wells and swells

the womby head, gleams
with revolving images
swirls into narrow scripts 
suspended in eternal motion 
refusing to drip and splash 
running ants on white. 

A drop breaks loose
splatters shapes and sense.

Downpour

Streaking raindrops batter my bare body

With utter urgency, soaking every inch of me

Silently I stand in some kind of trance

My being dissolving in the cosmic dance.

Mystic Land

India, the ancient mystic mother of the east

has birthed and sustained myriad mysteries:

Every possible human thought stream

sages who deciphered the nature of reality –

Charvaka, Advaita, Buddha and sutras,

Ayurveda, Siddha and Kama sutra,

sensuality and spirituality side by side,

imagination stretching puranas that delight,

a hundred different flapping tongues ,

frolicking intricate ragas and graceful blending mudras

gut-rocking folk music and dances,

grains galore, spices special and strange fruits,

exquisite cuisines and a melange of cultural traditions,

rain forests, shrill shrubs, towering pines and fertile land

snow mountains, curling rivers, vast plains and arid land,

assimilating cultures and beliefs of other lands

influencing every other cultures’ thought-strands.

Diversity and plurality – the essence of our motherland

celebrate and preserve we must with genuine patriotism,  

unshackle we must parochial thoughts and nationalism

fetters of inequality, injustice and superstitions.

An Invocation to Darkness

Hello Darkness, my ancient friend

spread your coal coat end to end

permeate every corner, nook and cranny

destroy every sparkle of light and faculty

annihilate every form and every shape

erase every boundary and every scape

Let your torch of darkness burn and churn

Black in all its varied formless turns.

Only then will

fair cream company businesses lapse

wayward degenerate critical faculties innate

to differentiate and discriminate collapse

every comparison of good-bad, failure-success fade

maiming in the name of race, colour and caste halt

claiming some land as our bounty stop

quoting dead scriptures and tradition

with moribund swollen pride cease

debilitate imposing militant morals with zeal

or imploring god’s name with conceited glee

in whose names wars have been fought

pogroms propagated, heads hacked or lives lynched.

Hence Darkness, my constant old friend

shine black bright with all your might

So we can

lose our discriminative chatter

drop all our pretensions and truly be

so we can truly stand stark naked

so every sound is a newly born’s first cry

every touch is as fresh as dew drops

every smell intoxicating every nerve and cell

every presence a seamless extension.

so we can be

alive

throbbing.

So fuck off filthy light

stop those demented deeds done

in your name to sully its

and let Darkness reign supreme.

ESSE

Life is always around hazy corners 
or in withering labyrinths of the past
never ever in the fleeting bubble of ‘now’.

For ‘now’ threatens ‘me’ to the fringes –
my automated thoughts, my gluey addictions, 
my smoggy emotions and my blinkered views.

Twisted Humanity

A spade scoop of mud, a twisted swollen hand

reveals – of man or woman who knows

another scoop and another tender hand

appears – a child’s perhaps?

Patches of white where putrid flesh crumbs

had stripped off into the erasing earth.

Spades hesitating a moment to reveal more

outstretched hands of soul-bodies buried

reaching out for that last whiff of life

shortened with a slash, a cortex shatter

or bloody bursts puncturing vital body parts

by smithereens of screeching metal death darts.

Innocent victims of beliefs

in warped ideas of twisted minds.

The nauseating stink of inhumanity lingers on.

My Childhood Mountain

Every time I pass by it on the train

my childhood mountain remains unchanged.

I had conquered nimble footed those hills

prancing along merry paths made by rills.

Now weak-kneed, I can barely descend

though its sight makes my soul ascend.

Its holds in its womb a fecund valley

countless creatures, lush green paddy

pepper scrambling up towering trees

jackfruit and fruit trees growing with ease.

With equal greedy ease it’s plundered

Yet all is gracefully, generously rendered.

My childhood mountain gently mocks

my aging haggard body laid waste

by greedy tastes and corporate haste.

Every time up and down my hill I climb

it slows my pace, makes me sublime

and glues me to solid ground.

Rogue Web

A faint blip in the cosmic web,

marked its birth and its ebb.

Weaving a fine elementary first mesh

it began in the web of life its life rush

to explore, play and trap prey thoughts.

Bigger it grew, intricate and thicker

dual threads of good, bad, it and other.

Then as it spewed, threads of dark desire grew,

widening its move, reach, play and slew

weaving ceaselessly self-obsessed sheaths.

With a swift coup the web went rogue

snaring its source in a universe vague

crafting a web of illusions as in dreams

entwined in a maze of thought-seams

brittle strands of a secure sand castle.