Laadli

Snatched away her childhood,
Unaware of future's doom,
A four year old girl child
Given to an aged groom.

Hope left behind, she's lost a home
Is marriage a kind of game?
A man, a stranger to call her own
She does not know his name.

Here upon the mandap,
She makes a pretty bride,
Unknowing of the years ahead
That will burn her inside.

At thirteen she is a widow, watching
In horror, her husbands pyre.
For love's sake or for life itself,
Shes laid upon the 'sacred' fire.

My Dear, If Once...

My dear, if once I could but hold your hand...
And lead you gently, by the rhythmic sea
And 'neath the solitary moon, like love birds, we
Shall walk upon these grains of golden sand
The moon smiles down upon us, ever beaming
Your tender heart beats in perfect accord
Those waves, they break the silence like a gallants sword
Then they caress the shore, like love-beams streaming
I sing to you a ballad, just for old times sake
Of lovers on a summers starry night
So innocent are words as beautiful as this
They drift into my mind, as it awakes
Amidst the sands of time, two lovers reunite
Our souls are sealed as one with but a single kiss.

THE RAILWAY STATION

Here are a few poems written by Arun Kolatkar, that I have particularly enjoyed because they depict a very real picture of what a railway station in any small town of India is like...

1 the indicator:

a wooden saint
in need of paint

the indicator
has turned inward
ten times over

swallowed the names
of all the railway
stations it knows

removed its hands
from its face
and put them away
in its pockets

if it knows when
the next train's due
it gives no clue

the clockface adds
its numerals

the total is zero.


2. the station dog

the spirit of the place
lives inside the mangy body
of the station dog

doing penance for the last
three hundred years under
the tree of arrivals and departures

the dof opens his right eye
just long enough to look at and see
whether you're a man or a demigod

or the eight armed railway timetable come
to stroke him on the head
with a healing hand

and to take him to heaven
the dog decides
the day is not yet.


the tea stall

the young novice at the tea stall
has taken a vow of silence

when you ask him a question
he exorcises you

by sprinkling dishwater in your face
and continues with his ablutions in the sink

and certain ceremonies connected
with the washing of cups and saucers