Why is that looking into the-
Wide and open city so upsetting?
I saw the bird,
She was looking amongst the buildings,
A space that was hers
Or maybe the space-
Her ancestors have told her,
The folklores and many songs-
Written on the very space.
She crossed mountains,
Seas and barren lands
To see the city lights and
The many dreams she had.
She is not homesick,
She doesn’t even have a memory
Of her home-land
It is a long lost dream
Which cannot be recollected.
She’s homeless.
Was she looking for a mirage
In between the tall buildings -
‘They’ said where dreams prosper?
It’s a furnace,
The colours of fire she could see,
The shadow painted colours-
Orange, red and grey and
Still it required meaning?

I’m looking for it too!
I am scared of forgetting,
Old age and Alzheimers
I’m a dreamer, a homeless hippie
But there is a root, a deep root
A scent, a strong scent and
A soul that is sometimes homesick.
I’m a coward, a bold faced, masked dancer
But there is no rhythm, no audience
It’s just silence, dull grey stillness!
These buildings scare me, where is it?
Where is my chariot?
I cannot follow the crowd
They have a home, a meaningful home
They like the cement, the black air
And bundles of printed paper.
They stamped me mad. Am i?
Maybe I am.
Hey bird, I’m not responsible-
For your destiny, look, look
Look at my hands, there is no blood
Look, look carefully, there is no stain
But I belong to the race, I belong to
The same age, the same world
That changed your fate!
I've no redemption from my sins!
I've no redemption from my sins!

He was the ‘revealer of light’
Oracles he read, forecasted future,
Time moved, rustic life stood still
"Look back and see, there is change."
There’s no trial left
The deity acquired the ****** body.
Predictions are vague, he cried in pain
And he danced to his unshakable faith.
The God revealed!
The divine and man in a union of its own,
Patrons wept and asked for blessings.
Serpent’s crown over God’s head-
Shone in the dark light, his golden breast
And pointed teeth, sharp as arrows-
Pierced the patrons, they collapsed in devotion.
The dead hero arose with Godliness
He is God, his blood is divine.
There is change, there is change!
The drums arose and it stroke bold,
Patrons cried in religious zeal
The God plunged himself into the bonfire
He reincarnated.
Born again to die again! Born again to die again!
There is no change! There is no change!

Will the Baul ever quit his search
Singing all through the-
Deserted land, ektara a trail of his
Existence walked him with no promises.
Will He ever listen to their bald cries?
To His realm they say beyond the blues,
Life awaits out of the tableau of massacres.
The world of assumptions tampered
By a philosopher’s fairy tale decides
Birth, death, rebirth, curse and richness?
The blind light is biting his body, heart & soul
He still needs it, his poppy tears.
The system needs it to tear him open,
His body, heart and soul in vain.
Music of the Baul has no destination
Still the voyage is essential.
Ektara has to walk with him, all through
The barren lands, villages and futility.
There’s no end to his search!

I sit and stink,
After cups of tea, conversations and melancholy
The sweat is salty, an armpit attached to sentences-
Ondaatje and the cat, Abramovic and tears,
The hollow room and my single window that ached
The smell and the grey torn shirt never got *****.

I sit and stink,
Desperate to walk, talk and get out of newspapers
Scratch rich names out of the walls and retreat
To untie the curly locks and let them breathe.
A phone thrown at one corner and emails unread
The world- a closed book with no pages.

I sit and stink,
Jeans pulled down to a wet floor
European closet and the yellow sparky lights,
Imagination erupted, there was no room to escape.
I pencilled graphs, penned letters and painted snakes
Self-portrait, Van gogh and a black and white me.

I sit and stink,
A friend, the jack and the brick house
Dosa with ghee served for the jarred tilapias,
They are all memories. Unremembered-
Like running races and the temple music system.
I wrote them down neatly, in a rectangle, they leaked.

I sit and stink,
An unfamiliar face in a place with no power
Glenfarclas, smoke and Ra Ra Rasputin
She danced. He watched. Her collarbones broke.
He dug his nail, dirt at its corner, an unshaven facade
It was grave, full of pain, his face and his eyes.

I sit and stink,
A ****** body inside the same grey shirt
Scratching names next to the European closet
With the old song from the temple music system.
The unfamiliar face evoked all human senses
The body is yet to take a wash.

Images ran wild, they boiled the water,
Like a train running off the track
They trickled down, metaphors poured out
The world, million voices, reverberated
Buzz-buzz-buzz, inside my head.
I was alone in that room
With panic attacks, lust and voices-
That slipped in through my half-window.
I broke the mirror, the brutal paparazzo
Who printed pictures of my many facades
I looked at him and grinned,
Clink-clink-clink they smiled once-
Dancing with wine glasses and alcoholics.
I walked, walked fast and twirled-
Like a tornado inside my cube
People spoke outside-life tales, notebooks,
Their late night phone calls and fine men.
The world didn’t bother to open the door,
Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock the clock yawned.
I sat on the floor and opened my pen,
It vomited blue letters on the yellow paper-
The customary dilemmas, past and blunders
But something was new, a story.
I looked for The English Patient, the nurse
And his burnt skin I misplaced
They did not appear, I lost hope.
Gur-Gur-Gur, I snorted like a mad cat
Misdirected to an old jute sack.
I climbed up to my bed, hid under the rotten-
Blanket and closed my eyes, the images ran,
Ran away from me, climbed the hardwood staircase
And fell down, I broke my knee.
I opened the books- USSR, Pasha, Buddhism,
Laughed loud like an unbalanced bloke,
Tore them apart into pieces and pieces,
Hush-Hush-Hush, my yellow monkey warned
And I played with him “hush-hush-hush”.
I sat next to my half-window
The pseudo city, dozy walls and the distressed-
Street light. Out of track.
Images flashed again- chewing gums, pink house,
The anonymous Christmas gift, malnutrition
And the hibiscus my mother planted,
“Incey Wincey Spider- Incey Wincey Spider”
I sang all day looping around a pole.
I sneaked down to the floor and dreamt
Eyes wide open, a black and white old film.
There was no exile, no god and his sins
No wafers and secret lessons upstairs.
Only the sea, popomatic, DD evenings
Cassettes and a rocking bamboo chair
Aw uck- aw uck- aw- uck , the seagulls squawked,
I slept.

I’m not a higher caste-class-Hindu-male,
I cannot be a mute spectator
with a censored mouth and
I don’t want to be a part of a
******* history
that plucked eyes, chopped limbs
and slashed throats.
I want to tell my tomorrows that
I believed in tolerance, patience
And human rights.
Now that makes me a rebel,
An anti-national, a threat!
That’s reason one- I’m disqualified.
Tell me the meaning of life, justice
and freedom my brother
We were the promises of Independence,
The revolution that taught the world-
Ahimsa.
I don’t like vegetables, orange-vegetables
my land exported
and we got back bananas from
the celebrated republics.
The meatless days left me hungry
I decided to fast, I got jailed
And I know someday these man-eaters
Would hang me.
I don’t speak Hindi, I have no money
I dared to educate and I’m a girl
Now that makes me disqualified.
I need a moral certificate, approval
and a stamp
Just because I have men friends,
I wore lipstick and jeans and I danced.
I’ve to pay a fine, apologize
and spill tears
Because I proclaimed myself a feminist,
A thinker, a dreamer.
Dear society, let me add some more,
I bunked all my moral education classes,
I’m an atheist and a post-modern
Daughter.
I’ve friends- **** hetero and bisexuals
And I eat beef, lamb and pork.
I’ve a tan skin, a flat nose, tiny *******
and a beer belly
I laugh loud, cry and yell at times
And I know there are people out there
Who wants to throw stones, cut my-
body parts and exhibit my remains in a museum,
They need to execute this handicapped
Because she asked too many questions.
Don’t offer me your chocolate-justice
to be denied the next appropriate minute
‘Right’ can never be a synonym to ‘legal’.
So that makes a wrong-carriage
or abortion.
I know I’m disqualified
Now it’s time for the execution,
Hang this heretic!

I and you won’t be
Two unfamiliar women of our land.
I’ll not leave you to the radio
To swallow up our history,
We’ll have phone calls and photographs
Transported between seasons and changes
And barracks of old classics
Drilled in between our conversations.

You don’t leave the land, abstract-
Smell or your braced triangular family
But I, your daughter, a nomad
Demands change, unbuckled knees,
Thunder and lightning than a
Frozen damp lake.
I don’t know if this absurd let you down
Being a floating female disc
Without a silver hanging off her neck.

Your cotton sarees and senseless arguments,
Modest gestures and peripheral smiles
Walked miles with me.
My uncivilized ways and half assembled days
Somehow compromised your 7pm calls.
You didn’t declare an ownership
Or terrified me with protection
But your roots branches and leaves
Held me with an irresponsible luck.

You did want to walk with me,
Comprehend your traditions and family tree
But you grew obsessed over my books,
My anglicized friendships and father’s ways.
I don’t want us to wrap up stories
Let us be ‘us’, flesh and blood
Without English comprehensions,
Fork and Spoon-
The world is desperate to squeeze in between
‘us’.

I want to sit next to you every eve
Even when I’m miles apart
Sip your ginger tea and gossip with Leela
And I know you have more of
Mukundan, MT and Padmarajan
Jolted in between your memories
Wanting to be told, to be felt.

Retreating monsoons, half naked veranda
‘Shifting houses’ and ice cream spoons you lost
Bridged the gaps of a dysthymic brain.
Your diary and worn-out scribbles
Lifted an awkward silence, I ignored.
And I know there are plenty of
Conversations
Separated by a trigger.

Your four loud aunts and their-
Disproportionate-pinches,
The main house and its innumerable doors
And the single toilet your grandad possessed
Will always be ‘our stories’ with mango pickle
And little almonds
I recollect as your curfew years.

You need not worry, I will not-
Sit with bubbles in my mouth.
I can pinch your cousins and
Exchange few golden bangles.
I can walk the temple lanes with your-
Mother, silken skirts and jingling anklets.
And I know the family recipes,
The exact nicknames and garlanded gossips.
There will be days, get-togethers and
Photographs
Added into your prized collection.

A subconscious music flooded my psychology
When chlorine water, light-lit-days,
And flirtatious silly men
Swung in fine tune next to me.
There was always a detached-attachment
That translated a traditional ghost
Who announced a corner for itself
Somewhere exact I cannot pin point.

Let us not freeze the prologue
We can walk door by door
Between generations and blue window panes
In a coordinated tune guided by-
Voices of our ancestors.
The genes inside me needs a
Second hand journey
With-out an altered you and me.