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

Jai Hind

Jai Hind

Today, Republic Day, a flutter of flags is hoist
And pinned on every shirt
Jai Hind for the orange, the white and green
Anthem and sharing of sweets
Jai Hind for the bony backs of cows
Who placidly graze
For goats in groups, ill-disciplined
Snacking on funeral flowers
Yesterday’s garlands of roses, marigolds
Yellow magenta and green
For the cheeping of chicks on stick-thin legs
The wood smoke sweet in the air
For bright green rice in the paddy fields
Mirroring the sky
For clouds on the ground and drowned
The coconut palms, reflection and blessed shade
For spread, red in rows, the chillies darkening
For women who weed and suffer the sun
Bent over bushes in fields

With all of her squalor, injustice and pain
And Tragedy’s frequent calls
Still India shines like a jewel in the sun
Beloved and beautiful land
She sings like a song that squeezes the heart
And smiles with the brightest gleam

Jai Hind for the orange the white the green
For Gandhi’s midnight dream

26th January 2012, RUHSA S India

All praise the horizontal

All praise the horizontal
After India’s high-sun heat
What bliss the spinning fan is
And the weight from off the feet
When you’ve battled with a bicycle
In crush and crowded streets
And you’ve waved and shouted ‘Vanicum!’
To everyone you meet
When old friends have hugged and kissed you
Then insisted that you eat
So your head is full of flashing smiles
And the welcome (like their coffee) is extra-special sweet
And you’ve managed to communicate in Tamil
Quite a feat
How welcome is the solitude
The shadows on the wall
The chorus of the roosting crows
As night begins to fall
The rattle and the roaring, the frequency of trains
And a time to sift the images fermenting in my brain

16th January 2012, RUHSA campus S India

Somehow the spectacle

At slow sun-setting peach and pearl o’clock
Shadow-puppet crows are grouping
All together, rise
And flap and flap, make tree-top tour
Then settle caw and mock
Raucous racket
Evening ritual all the corvine crew
Extended family, it’s expected
Flock
Imperceptible the hour, the signal
Who saw or spoke of dusk?
Somehow the spectacle
At slow sun-setting peach and pearl o’clock

15th January 2012 RUHSA campus K V Kuppam, S India

Love as it springs


Love as it springs is fierce and free
Gushing like snowmelt torrents
Simple as sunrise, clear as stars
The swell of a symphony
But what when the flow begins to slow
Moss making dams in the gutters
Muddied the water, blocked the streams
Where is the clarity?
Would you whistle for courage
Keep the faith
Tend to what love requires?
But long all your life for the fierce and free
The rush and the gush
The snowmelt in crystal torrents

2nd January 2012, Brighton