Hyderabad 7

Indian beggars will
Beat the best of psychologists.
They beg
Wearing a burqah.

o~o~o

Gosh, you kill
With aristocratic courtesy
And take leave.
Floating in the haze of the drink
Forgot to ask you:
Is your orchard in harvest
And where is the fruit?

o~o~o
There is an age of ogling
Walking down the street.
o~o~o

Religion –
A psychological treatment.

Hyderabad 6

Your languid steps
Displaying mehendi
Must break hearts
When you cross.
And make you restless too?
~s~s~s
You are gorgeous,
More gorgeous is your saree,
And the way you drape
so much more gorgeous, oh!
This is how you strike
So deep inside.

Hyderabad 5

Oh fleeting glances
Of countless beauties!
So much kaajal
For your dusky complexion?
o0o0o0
But thanks, for showing
Up. In the drabness
Of doing a job
You add colour.
o0o0o
If someone were to ask
Me, what is Hindu culture,
Pat would I say:
The ever fresh, lovely
Bindi worn by the girls.
o0o0
Depth of your kumkum
Goes into the guts.
Stunning and am stunned.
o0o0
How is it that I didn’t
Notice your long pleat of hair
Till now?
Make it a silken noose round
My neck, honestly.
Let me be fated with
That lovely death.

Hyderabad 4

Oh eyes!
Stop pacing up and down
From eyes to cleavage and back.
Can’t get over the female
in women, me. No use
Berating the eyes.
<><><><>
How much of
Your seasonal blossom
Can I take in
my two small eyes?
Meanings are so clever,
Change with context.
Don’t they, lady Jane?

Hyderabad 3

In all this I simply forgot
That it is Bakr-Id today.
It struck me while
Eating paan at the street corner.
Got in time to the Idgah
After bathing in the Pandit’s house.
Passed by Nehru Park –
No doves, no roses.
.........
Tears rolled down
As I asked for the blessings
- tears for my little ones
Far away from here
On a festival day.
- tears from one
Who smirked atparents wailing for him.

Hyderabad 2

Remembering you
Is a poem
Composed on
The keyboard of my
Sensibilities
Imprinted on
The screen of my mind.

Impressions-Hyderabad 1

FMC club, quiet, soft
Dim, tipsy
You
Your mute company
Drinking
Four hours
Looks, talk, seeing
As strangers.
Still you entered
And ensconced
In my mind.
Is it proper
That you spray
thus
Your presence
In somebody else’s Mind?

12. Hybrid

The hybrid sunflowers
turn their back on
the sun,
their existence protected,
under cover.
You have mortgaged
your values,
slogging to pay up
the interest,
you opportunist cowards
with hybrid minds.
Your antics will
mobilize the fireflies
the sun won’t smile,
never.

Poem 11

Translations of Evocations within

If the woman is the mother for time infinite
Then we are all Oedipus
At least in the matter of our eyes.
ê ê ê

If these kind of implicit norms get uprooted
From this ancient civilization
It is likely that Bharat might actually vanish
One day.
ê ê ê

Even with this realization
These eyes don’t stop copulating.
How do I deal with their voracity?
ê ê ê

I am presenting
Translations of evocations
Sans outbursts of dalit disgust.
ê ê ê

My mirror yesterday whispered tauntingly
That it’s the same in your mirrors as well.
Your mirror, it seems, said –
‘Not an issue, friend. It’s the same with
Everyone. Of course, the quality could be
A little different. But how does it matter?
All eyes are sex-starved for sure.’
ê ê ê

‘I am Bobby. Would you be
friends with me?’
Why friends, I could date you and take you to…
(Hope the censors would allow)
Infinite powers they have to
Titillate–
This one talks huskily
That one gives a come-hither look
Someone sways across
Another one dresses to kill and so on and on.
We need a censor board in every town.
ê ê ê

What’s all this man?
ê ê ê

You have also surrendered your being
To women who were looking the other way.
And too you have received silent gifts of raw wounds
Sometimes.
And you too go on bearing life like a coolie
Covering the wounds in bandages of memoryLike me.

Two adjacent poems

10.Two adjacent poems

Am on to writing autobiography, cause I
Feel like dying.
I don’t believe the palmist
Who said my lifeline was strong.
Why do I feel, someone like me should not live in this world?
Feeling this way doesn’t help. At least
Let me splash the words.
I can’t splash money: I am not moneyed.
So can’t hope to be in heaven as well.
I want rebirth, though I don’t believe in it.
So that I can write another autobiography.
I don’t like to call sorrow as sorrow,
But I can’t also dress up without it.
So it’s better to call it sorrow and then go to a movie.
Then I feel so sleepy that I happily forget all that
Happened yesterday. The next day I keep smelling
The fragrant forgetfulness.
*****
No, no. But this also doesn’t jell well.
Perhaps roam like the romantic poets admiring
Trees, woods, birds and rivers. Or paint like
Picasso. Dance, sing, sculpt, meditate.
Pretend madness, though can’t go insane
And at least pass some days.
There will be quite a bit of impact. Then
Cover it with words. To sum up, everyone
Ought to write autobiography before dying.
It’s so simple: cover that with words, which you
Locked in your mind. At least your children
Will publish it. For that at least you must father male progeny.
If not adopt everything. Like we import
Ideas, images and metaphors?
So write autobiography, because it is one’s own
Like me.

Poem 9 part II

I moved on and came up to Mahatma Gandhi chowk.
I went into a School building, and saw
Beneath its dome, Lord Ganesha dressed as
Sant Tukaram, lost completely in singing
Of the lord. Didn’t want to disturb him
So left quietly. Sauntered here and there
And came to a lane, where another Mandal
Had put up a Ganesha wearing the sacred thread
Of the Brahmin.

Nearby I saw bags full of gulal;
The same one that we are smeared with
After hoisting the flag. I remembered
My Aryasamajist professor friend
Who distributed prasad with gulal on his forehead
And who refused to garland the statue of Dr Ambedkar.
That time I had surveyed minutely all around to see
If I can spot the national mainstream.

Many such memories tumbled out of
The cupboard. Then I decided
That I would return to my respective
Flock with my one-stringed instrument.
That’s the time when Mullah was calling
Out the flock to Namaaz of Ishan

Came home and took off
The cloak of secularism. Took my mat
Along and started for the Mosque.
I had pretended to be praying on
Three or four earlier occasions. Wanted
To do the same this time as well. But
Half-way to the Mosque, realized
I had no clothes on. Oh, goodness gracious!
I am still at the place where I had been standing.
By this time the Namaaz would be over and
It would be time for chattering and teasing.
If some untoward incidents were to happen on
The Ganesh immersion day? What could I do
Now or then?
As I casually looked up at the sky
I saw Total Revolution
Pouring down heavily
From the peaks of Hastinapur
From the Minars and
From the Ashoka pillars –
Like the Ganga of Bhagirath.
If it flows this way,
I could wash clean my Secular clothes
Hung inside.
Till then, what’s the harm
In slumbering like Kumbhakarna
Resting my head against the boa.

Poem 9 part 1

Innumerable detachments march towards me.
Of dreamers who have caught composite culture by collar
wringing the neck of Unity:
hoarse, confused, angry mobs
playing their fantasy monotones
with Himalayan sincerity
drenched in sanctity of all four Abodes of God
claiming sole ownership of the cream
of Hindustan.

This surge of the Indian ocean
Leaves me baffled, bewildered and dazed.
A bout of communist cough and a swaddle of
Nationalist sweat. I wiped it with a Progressive
Kerchief and straightening my Secular clothes
I started to walk behind them, head hung low.
A couple of the marchers fell behind, perhaps
tired from the hire. Their faces turned questioning
seeing me walk there.
I put on a smile on my Non-violent face and said,
‘I have no tune to sing.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am a nobody in this great democracy.’
‘We will talk later.’ Saying thus they vanished.
I had entered the cultural capital with a rich heritage.

Traversing the lanes and bylanes
We came to a crossroads that dazzled
From the arc lights around the temple of
Basaveshwara.
In the center was enthroned in full splendour
The Lord with his Trunk.
I looked him in the eye and asked:
‘bet, you recognized me? I used to come
to sing hymns to you in school, when Das
teacher sang in his sweet voice.’
I could see he didn’t want to show
his familiarity to me. It’s ok, I said,
after all God is God, isn’t it?
By that time somebody thrust a pedha
in my hand. That put out slowly my desolation.