I Love Me

I take myself out on a date
And say, "Im looking fine"
I choose a most romantic place,
For me to wine and dine.
And when I compliment myself,
I oh so nearly blush,
As I confess, that I love me
And Im my biggest crush!

Charity

We are good Catholics.

Every summer we come down to reality from the plastic world in which we live. Yes, we come home, to India. On our first trip home, we felt guilty….was it that we had realized our cowardice in having run away from life as we saw, nothing had changed. There were as many beggar children malnourished and dying on the streets. At the other end of the spectrum, the rich had only found newer means to evade taxes and further their prospects in life. The divide was glaring and ugly.

One of the holiday rituals is giving to the poor, needy and deserving some of our wealth which should be rightfully theirs but which ironically, we ‘earn’ for doing a 9-5 job in air conditioned offices. We call it charity. It isn’t very different from pardon-certificates, if you consider the manner in which it is done – crisp new bank notes are sealed in virgin white envelopes and handed over to the organization head who will promise prayers and blessings for the family. We walk away with our conscience absolved and convince ourselves that we have indeed ‘done our part’. Next year, of course, the tradition continues.

Yes, charity is supposed to be a humbling experience.

"...."

This is beautiful and so true. Does anyone know who wrote this?
....
.....
.......


Don't walk behind me I may not lead

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow

Just walk beside me, and be my friend.

My Pets

(1 dog. 1 cat. 1 rat)


First….
The dog chased the cat

And….
The cat chased the rat


THEN

They all chased ME
Around my flat!


.....and this (i hope!) should end all the pet poems for a while :)

I Never Need To Cut My Nails

I never need to cut my nails
They are quite neatly bitten
By my dog, who turns a nervous wreck
Each time he sees a kitten!

Pet Peeve

My pet can scratch
My pet can stretch
He barks all day
But hates to fetch
He always finds
A bone to pick
Or anything to
Sniff or lick
He’ll laze all day
Sleep like a log
No wonder that
All men are dogs!

A Clerihew

The Mystery of the Boil

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Developed a mysterious boil
But how it evolved and came about
Even Sherlock Holmes never found out!

"Special" Kiss

We knew that something was amiss
When bro' refused her "special" kiss
And asked instead for G I Joe
For having got a brilliant score
So mum was glum for half the day
Then sprightly she sprang up to say,
"Money can buy that and this,
There's nothing like a mother's kiss"
Beofore her son could even speak
She grabbed his shoulders, kissed his cheek
And with a most triumphant air
Sat back proudly on her chair
Till brother smirked and in a flash
Said....thanks, now could I have some cash!"

She

The lonely train chugs into Victoria Terminus railway station, the wailing siren, almost a signal, forewarning of what is to come. The Mumbai air hangs heavy, thick with soot like a demon god clutching in its hold, everyday lives and reducing life to ‘existence’. She picks up the folds of her cotton sari and with a silent prayer on her lips, sets her left foot down. A tide of commuters embarks the same train, the 6.00pm evening train to Jabalpur, where she had gone for her mothers funeral. In the death of her mother she had lost a part of herself. In the haste, the shoving and pushing through the mob, she realizes that she has left one chappal behind. In order to live from one day to the next, one must give a part of oneself; losing and living through the loss is the way of life. The weave of life is near thread bare but the human spirit does not give up easily. And the soul wills survival.

The stench of stale urine fills her nostrils; she scrunches her nose, grimacing, while waiting for her husband to receive her. She plays with the string of withered jasmine in her wispy hair, yearning for a fresh garland to adorn herself. After an hour long wait in futility, she decides to make her way to the bus stand, past the lustful stares of auto rickshaw drivers who with glazed eyes and betel stained teeth, motion her to enter into their vehicles. She ignores them and they shout out filthy dialogues from cheap pornographic films.

A deathly cold settles into the pit of her stomach as she waits at the 155 bus stop, unwelcome thoughts, realities that were buried deep inside her now clash through every nerve to slowly seep into her consciousness. The journey home is the longest ever she has had to make. She returns to find her husband lying, like a slovenly dog in the midst of shards of glass, broken bottles of cheap liquor. Her children hold on to each other in a dark corner of the chawl. Their faces are unforgiving and in their eyes, she sees death. Her daughter’s wormy legs are slashed; there is no longer the innocent fear in her eyes. She is physically betrayed, emotionally broken. Here, there is a crime that goes beyond denunciation.

The Alcoholic

Estranged
By self-consciousness
Wasting dignity
With every drop
Of the drink
Losing face
Losing love
Life is a stumble
Degraded
By the reeking
Stench of piss

The Last Leaf

As the leaves take on the autumnal hues,
Ushering in the fall, the end of year,
The red and gold it seeks my inner eye,
Until my soul fills with a quaint nostalgia.
My heart gives of a part, with the winds of change,
Now I surrender all to winter's blues.

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

Water Water Everywhere, Not a Single Drop to Spare

From Tuesday night, ever since the rains lashed out on the city, Mumbai - the city that never sleeps- has been thrown into a state of chaos and pandemonium. North Mumbai suburbs have been submerged in water bringing all activity to a standstill. School children, the working class, elders, preganant women trudged through waist deep water, throughout the night, drenched in the rains that with unrelenting force beat down on the city.
In places like Kalina, Santacruz, Vikroli, people waded through neck deep water, water infested with cockroaches, human faeces, dead cattle. Thousands of lives were wiped away. Mumbaikars have lost all they owned and the slum dwellers have been hit hardest. Colleges and schools, educators, principals came forward at this time and offered all possible help. Several good samaritans offered their homes as shelters for the night as thousands, yet, stood stranded in the middle of the city as all public transport came to a halt. The reporters of several News Channels, NDTV, Aaj Tak must be commended for their bravery and commitment toward the masses at this critical time and for keeping every Mumbaikar abreast of the situation and the magnitude of the disaster. Still, there are several questions that remain unanswered. The predictions of the meteoroligical department leaves much to be desired.
The responsibility of the Bombay Muncipal Corporation towards checking on the encroachment of forest, marsh areas for concretization.Unscrupulous building activity, bribery, cheap constructions... it has been going on for years unchecked. The city drainage system is a 100 years old! This is the wake up call that Mumbai was waiting for. At what cost? And isthere a solid reconstruction plan in order? Who do we hold responsible at this time? It is the first time in a 100 years that Mumbai has witnessed a natural calamity like this due to the monsoons.

The Teacher

The foreigners have come from a land where all people are beautiful. They have blue eyes so deep, like the ocean and golden hair, so soft you cannot help but want to stroke it. Our teacher is one of them, but now, she has lived away from her home for so many years, that she says she is "Indian". She tells us about great thinkers who spoke out for "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity". Then, she begins to talk about the struggle, our "fight" for freedom. She tells us that we should not need to fight for it because it is a human right. She supports the moderates.

Big words, our teacher speaks out from our textbooks. We do not understand most of them, but her expressions tell a story of their own. “What is that?”, asks a young boy, “What is freedom?”. Our teacher does not answer him, but instead looks away with a lost look in her eyes, as if cherishing her own thoughts as a hint of a smile comes over her pretty face. Then she tells us that the imperialists will take the loot, convert all of us to Christianity by force and like lambs we will comply, because we must remember our place in society. She begins to cry as she shakes her head and tells us “Our battle is far from over”.
Maya offers her a handkerchief, but she shuns it. “Do you know that because you have bought their foreign cloth, your father is out of work? You should be ashamed of yourself.” She tells us to be proud of our countrymen, of our heritage and of what is rightfully ours. She tells us that the days ahead will be full of misery and despair and that through it all, we must be strong for each other and carry hope within our hearts because without hope, there is nothing.

Ravi’s father pulled him out of school to work in the fields. “It is useless nonsense” he muttered, when Ravi asked him what freedom was”. “Is that what you are learning in this English medium school of yours? In that case, you might as well make yourself useful and learn a trade that will get you on in the world. There is a new factory coming up a few kilometers away and they will certainly be able to exploit your nimble hands over there and earn us a few rupees. And keep your smart mouth shut and don’t ask silly questions like this to your bosses, else you’ll be turned out like all the rest of them fools”
Lucky fell terribly ill, there was no money to go to a doctor or to buy medicines for his illness and so he stayed at home, everyday growing weaker and more lifeless. Some of the boys would escape from the pressures of home and on the pretext of going to school, jump into the lake or make mischief with the other lads, sometimes stealing sweets from the grocery store, to satisfy their cravings.

And this is how, one by one, so many children left the school that by the end of the year, we were just four of us left on those dusty benches.
My teacher asked me to promise her that I would become a teacher when I grew up. She was going away, to live in another colony where her husband had been posted. She gave me her old diary, which had a few unused pages left in it and she told me to practice my maths in that. “I want to become just like you”, I told her one day. And she told me to study well and make her proud. I promised her that I would.

A Knock Off The Old Block

He invented something famous
He invented the door -knocker
We thought, “A silly a thing to make”
“The dude was off his rocker.”
But mum and dad, they disagree
Think he was really wise
And do you know, my grandma said
He won the NO-BELL prize?

An Excerpt...

(....from "SILENCE! THE COURT IS IN SESSION" - by Vijay Tendulkar)

Our feet tread on upon unknown
And dangerous pathways evermore.
Wave after blinded wave is shattered
Stormily upon the shore,
Light glows alive again. Again
It mingles with the dark of night
Our earthen hands burn out, and then
Again in flames they are alight.
Everything is fully known,
And everything is clear to see.
And the wound that is born to bleed
Bleeds on forever, faithfully.
There is a battle sometimes, where
Defeat is destined as the end.
Some experiences are meant
To taste, then just to waste and spend.

The Pay-Back Pimple

You ranted raged and cursed and cussed
Conveniently squeezed out my puss
Well, your sick life is far from simple
I'm the dreaded pay-back pimple

I stuck by you, right on your face
But boyfriends teased, left you disgraced
And so you gave me one hard smack
I went away, but now I’m BACK!

And now I’ve grown a bigger head
Don’t mess with me, or you’ll be dead
Don’t poke or prod and pretty please
Make-up will not make me decease!

So let me grow and safely sit
Let all admire the mega-zit
And when I leave, don’t be too well
For I’ll return to make life hell!

The Poetry of Lives

I tell her, “Amma, poetry is magic”
The voice of OUR souls.
Recite a few verses of the Bhagwadgita
And listen to your heart
It is our chat under the banyan tree
When nightfall silences the village
It is the baby’s full-throttled cry
Out of a mothers’ womb
It is the first rain that falls to the cracked earth
Breaking the long spell of summer
It is the river that sings of
Wars and heroes, glory and tradition
I say to Amma, life may take your heart
But it can never steal your soul
Speak your mind, my mother
That will be your poem.