Holiday in the Gulf
The intimate ones
With the night shift worn face
Of Uwaisi hospital nurse Clara
The queen of spades
In the attire of
Althaf Hotel boy Kassim
The king of clubs
With the face of my dad
Waiting for the postman
At the verandah of
The half finished house
The king of hearts
With the face of Abu
Staring at my young sister
When he comes to collect
The cut throat interest
Of the never ending debt
Hiding face down
For a full hand sweep
The trump diamond jack
Cornered in the hand
The waste twos and threes

Remember
The jobless gang home
The canal side cards play
Unaware to the opponent
With a scratch mark
Or a creased edge
Hinting the card in hand
The foul-trick playpal...
Breaking the trap
Jumping a fence
When the police ambush
Making me hide
In the abandoned ghost well
The saviour friend Ravunni

Keeping in mind friend
On the next home visit
A job visa for you

Here tonight when I am
Losing games one by one
Behind the opponent stands who
Invisible to prompt his cards
To make me win round by round
By honours and by fulls

On the phone at odd hours
Who is that from away home
What's the news so urgent

In the abandoned ghost well...

You said
Nobody drinks
Or smokes
In your family

I knew for long
You would be born
Before fourteen births
I had learnt by rot
The lullaby songs
For you

What sort of madness
Is this?
A childless aunt
Of mine
Had asked then
Which still resonates in my ears

That lullaby is still there
On my lips

True
Having carried that
Lullaby for so long
My lips
Are calloused

No
No one from your family
Drinks
Or smokes

Hoping you’d come
I became the one
Who drank
And smoke
On behalf of all of them.


Translator - Shyma P

If you had wanted
You could have been born as my daughter
What is not possible for goddesses on this earth!

Had that happened
Moons would have had to dodge you
Lest you asked for them.

Even otherwise
Who would have liked to
Be caught and made a toy

That green parrot toy
You asked for
Is in here still
Chirping.

My heart aches.


Translator - Shyma P

2

I remember
You telling
That you saw my poem
Somewhere
Wandering
Asking spring its name

Everything happened in a trice
Yesterday,
An Ilenjhi  sprout in front of me,
All of a sudden.

Didn’t get time
To sigh
Much less
To think.

My poem
Named spring
Ilenjhi

Ilenjhi Ilenjhi..
Weeping, laughing
Confounded with joy
I saw the poem
Give it
Hundreds and hundreds of kisses.

With all that
Watering
It must certainly
Have choked

A drop
Must surely
Have got to its head

Have to give it
One more glass of water
And some gentle taps on the head

Let me go.



Translator - Shyma P

Yesterday
I fell asleep
Thinking of you.

Mind had cautioned  
That re-remembering
Your bespectacled face
Wouldn’t be easy.

Had felt
Pity too
For its exertions
And exhaustion.

Today when I got up
Couldn’t see you

Where are you now?
What are you doing?

Will we ever
Wake up together
On a grass mat
One morning
Some life?

How many mynas
Would be there
In the courtyard then?


One of them
Is looking for something
In the courtyard now
See?

Let me help it
Find the way to
The next life.


Translator - Shyma P

Where are the lines when the time has aligned?
And is there a way to accountably die?
I seek but a grave for this body to lie
Yet cannot submit to the ground, it is dry

A desert of trouble is all I can find
Desperate, I wander and tangle the vines
Here in the moment our steps are entwined
But who was the first to arrive, you or I?

Take up your pen and the hand that you hide
Use all the ink that is harbored inside
Bleed like a wound, it will keep you alive
Why do you fear what you simply deny?

Bury the questions, one sand at a time
Under the doubt that displaces your mind
Come be unraveled, prepared and refined
Then help me uncover meridian *lines

A hail of nuts
In the ripples of thunders of cannons.