India slides by

India slides by

India slides by our sleeping train
In shadow show
Silhouetted sacred trees
Limbs lopped and pollarded
Black black to the horizon
Where hills swim misty grey
And crimson glorious, a deep edging band
Dawn promising the day
Though silver sliver on her back
The moon is still afloat
All night from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur
Jaipur, through the Thar
The rust and red the yellow dust
Of ancient Rajasthan
Delhi express, misnamed
Her mournful siren calling
Meanders through the miles

17th February 2012, Delhi express Jaisalmer to Delhi, for Gill with love and 'Courage'

Such love

Such love

We slipped in through a crack in time
To stay a while with you
Your namaste
Our Western hugs
Bright smiles our common tongue
Masala language mixed and matched
Such love to bridge the gap
From heart to heart we understood
Message loud and clear
How blessed we were to travel back
Where time and culture split and cracked
And stay a while with you

February 2nd 2012, on flight from Chennai to Delhi

Yesterday we went to hell

Yesterday we went to hell

Yesterday we went to hell
My friend and I
First circle, not in a handcart
But jarred over rutted roads
To Vellore then on a shopping spree
Arriving, of course, in the overhead
Beat of the heat of the sun
Merciless, in search of saris cooking pots and sweets
Thank god for our local guides
Holding our hands in the dust and the shuffle
Battle through traffic, squalor and noise
Blaring and glaring
Random road-works, stenches stinks
Too long in the high and headache
Bright-white sun-light
Feet in the filth, wrangling for fruit
Best price
Drip drop time stopped
Sweating in streams
Hot as hell’s first circle
We went to yesterday

31st January 2012 RUHSA campus India