What could be more annoying
than a big dark spot on your shirt
early Monday morning?

The clear blue sky
The crimson rising sun
The broken road
Ayodhya posters on the walls

and this spot staring right in the eye
like logic in this time of fools.

Samartha Vashishtha

2003

Onto
         my brown-green
                             earth

spinning thunder
                         explosions

Jayasurya

A sleepy sun
shakes off the slumber
and rises
over the latent town.
An army of fallen snowflakes
resurrects
and blows the beams
to smithereens.

Who says
only God is
omnipresent ?

The Escort

A chir grips
its only cone
in a numb hand;
and I beneath wait
for it to fall.
On the cone perches
a ray.
Will it fall too ?

Mitthuchalisa

On a leaf rests
a drop
and from within peeps
the sun.

“So what!” says Mithhu,
“If Hanuman did,
so can I !”

The Crossroads

Then suddenly

I

The blind kings of our history
wait on their mighty thrones

kim akurvat Sanjaya?*

Invaders with red faces
come and call us names
plagiarizing from our ancestors
oiling and twisting their beards.

The rivers of our death
turn round a corner
and become untouchable.

I sit in my room scratching
an age-old itch
on the little finger of my foot.

* The Gita where Dhritarashtra, the blind king asks his companion Sanjaya about the happenings at the battlefield of Kurukshetra

II

Reality –
a songless morbid tale.

The boisterous weekend bazaar
springs to life with a roar.

Early evening -
the sky
like a broken cable in storm
hanging from the edge of the world.

Four horses, legs tied,
unable to complete the ascent -
the middle of their season of heat.

The sweet-meat vendor filling
curve after curve after curve
with sugar.

Proud of the new watch on his wrist
the little boy standing by his side
will tell the time when asked
correct to the last turn of the second.

Everything so close to perfection
yet so far away
till she turns to my side and says
I don't want to see again

Now this is me -
panting from the farewell speech -
a folded notebook in my hand,
as usual

And this is you -
your emerald-green salwar-kameez
can I ever forget?

This shy girl pinned in the corner
posing / like the camera would gobble her neat.

Everything in place.

Now what is left to recall
is who took the picture.

I came home. My tiny bit of sky
waiting like a tangent on my life
to get hold.

The rain beating down outside
like a smiling idol in drought
naughtier and stronger than I’d supposed.

I kept my bag, drank my tea
and feeling for flaws in my bakery biscuit’s curve
tried to forget.

Now – it prodded again.
Now or never.
More now than the now
before this lowly biscuit of yours
swallows world.

I fear now.
Grandfather died
in an urgency to tell me
it is bad omen to keep whistling at home.

Then early next morning
cautious of my looks, walking stiff,

All day I kept on looking for a Devil's creeper to keep it safe.

July: crawling under my skin
among seething woods, tethered cows, dogs in heat.

Vanishing.

I saw them sane at the edges of hysteria –
shouting; picking their slain sons
from the feet of the tyrant.

From directions that one never knows
marching unto the horizons
massive armies pass their worrying eyes.

A third of history belongs to them.
All of rumour.
A dusty feather in the crown of a mighty throne.

A shiny day, a husband leaves.
Sons that go come back dressed as monks.
A woman longs for her five hours of sleep.

In the dead of the night, my mother sobs.
Drooping, she keeps on telling me tales.
A woman melting in my arms glues my limbs.

Now I have stopped and looked for you when there is no time. When you don't have the strength to hold or press my hand. Looked for your poems written or unwritten because the father of one of us was ill; or because there were too many of them wanting food and medicine and gloves all at once. Looked for cousins I have never met tinkering with their mobiles. Everybody is here tonight - with you still, everything is on the move.