Udd jayegi ek din chiraiya chhodhkar babul ka ghar,
Basane ek naya aashiyana sabhi ke aankho ko bhar,

Vidai ka hota hai ye kaisi bela,
Kyu hamesha jana padta chhod us kali ko hi akela,

Beegh jati hai mata-pita ki palkein vidai ke pal,
Jab aata us baag me chahchahane wali chidiya ki judai ke pal,

Bahut si yaadein  chhoti aankho me sajaye hue,
Ro rhi hai maa pari ko gale lagaye hue,

Papa ki pyari gudiya aaj sazkar sasural chali,
Tham ke hath humsafar ka ek nye dwar chali,

Jahan  pali badi wo pyari gudiya chali hai aaj us ghar ko chhod,
Karke suna ek aangan ko pita ki aankhon ko bhar,

Na jaane kyu beti ko janam se hi paraya btaya ,
Aakhir kisne ye  riwaz banaya ,

Nikalkar apne **** se ek pita apni jaan ,
Bahut bada dil hai ek pita ka jo kar dete hain kanyadaan ,

Waqt ka kaisa hai ye dastoor 
Na jaane kyu ek beti ko jaana hota hai dur ,

Chali hai aaj papa ki gudiya ,
Chhodhkar apne aangan ki nindiya, 

Yaadon ki jhadi dil mein basakar chali hai maa ki jaan ,
Chhod ke sabkuch apna Banane ek nayi pehchaan,

Babul ki laadli kab ** gayi badi,
Aayi hai dil ko chhune wali ghadi,

Jis  ghar me pali,us ghar ko alwida kaise kahegi,
Maa baba behan bhai bin wo gudiya kaise rahegi,

Vidhata ne ye kaisa niyam hai banaya,
Chhod ghar babul ka,ek naye ghar ko basaya,

Dekh tyad ek bitiya ki us khuda ki bhi *** aankhen bhar,
Udd jayegi ek din chirraiya chhodkar babul ka ghar,
Babul ka ghar.........

Composed by
Sonia Paruthi & Shrivastva MK

“Oh you’re Irish?” he said.
“Did you learn the language much?” he said.
Honestly, what can I tell him? I was raised in the North - a ****** wasteland for such a naïve question.
Vague memories of fumbled classes where our secret history was ditched just to get straight into the basics (Cad é mar atá tú?)
No – seriously - I was not tied to it – it was anonymous to me at that age.
Forgotten like some distant echo of once visiting Coole House as a child.
Sure, we knew it was “important”, “our national language”, “heritage” etc. and we were warned it was quickly slipping into the drain of Western hegemony.
But it was baffling, unsexy and only the blunt-faced humorless IRA thugs amongst us were in any way keen.
Then it was gone, just like the faded memories of “The Children of Lir” from my primary school.

Looking back I wonder, what was the point?
A half-full measure paying lip service to our identity.
Teachers and headmasters terrified of the grand colonial reveal that the lessons might have hinted at (were they trying to stop us being Provos-in-waiting?).
And all of this against the awful shame of a common tongue that had no foe yet was slowly vanquishing from our shores.
It could have all been so different.
Rather than rushing to get something in our empty skulls, they could have given us a sense of joy, pride & belief in our own culture.
Calling on Yeats, Behan, Heaney and others to drown us in the language of our ancestors.
Telling the stories of old that only the academics & hippies were keeping from us then.
You know, it might kept us all on the same beautifully illuminated page.
We might have been comfortable in our skins and open to others,
not looking deep into our worthlessness and lashing out at them.
Language is being and language is connecting, I’ve learnt.
But that’s not something I got from my secondary school.

June-July 2018

Jis phul ne koi galati hi nahi ki, Use kis baat ki saza diya ja rha hai,
Es duniya me aane se pahle hi kyu use maar diya ja rha hai,

Ai Khuda kyu aise janwar ko tune banaya,
Ek chhoti kali ko pet me hi maar khud ko insaan btaya,

Na maaro us phul ko jisme us bhagwan ka hai waas,
Ek din aisa aayega jab ** jayega puri shristi ka naas

Arey nasamjh insaan sirf bete ki hi aas lagaoge,
To phir maa, behan aur dulhan kahan se paoge,

Mata-Pita ki galati ki saza us chhoti kali ko diya jata hai,
Ek chhote se andhere ghar me hi use maar diya jata hai,

Wo kali bhi baar baar unlogo se karti pukar,
Hey Maa-Baba mujhe pet me hi mat maar,

Ye duniya ek baar mujhe bhi dikha de,
Apne amrit ki ek ghunt mujhe bhi pila de,


Nanhi si jaan tou hai bekasoor,
Maar kar hi aakhir kyu milta hai pathar dilon ko suroor,

Wo bhi dekhna chahti hai duniya,
Janam lene se pehle hi Jaan gawani padti hai oo gudiya,

Apne hi hathon ukhed dete hai apne hi aangan ka phool,
Kaisa hai ye bereham logon ka usool,

Kismat wale hote hai wo insaan,
Jinki kokh mein dete hain betiyan bhagwaan,

Beti hai ishwar ka hai en anmol uphaar,
Jeene ka us nanhi jaan ko bhi hai adhikaar,

Sharam aati hai logo ki is ghatiya soch par,
Taras aata hai unpar
Jo apne hi ansh ka dete hain maar
Devi ka karte hain jo tiraskaar,

Banao ek naya usool
Beti ko karo qubool

Jeevan ka hai ye adhaar
Banta hai inhi se sansaar,

Likh us phul ka dard hamari aankhen bhar aai,
Teri banai duniya me O mera khuda ye teri kaisi khudai..
Ye teri kaisi khudai...


Collaboration by Manish Shrivastava and Sonia Paruthi

Yaha Maa beti behan patni parivaar ki Shaan h...
Ha ye Mera ni hamara hindustan h..
Yaha Har muskilo ka Hal nhii...
Par Har javaab Geeta, Bibal, aur kuraan h...
Yaha beta aur beti dono parivaar ki Shaan h..
Ha ye Mera nhii hamara hindustan h..
Jahan Har muskilo mein apno ka saath h..
Bacho k sir par Maa baap ka haath h..
Yaha beta Maa ki aur beti Papa ki jaan h..
Ha ye Mera nii hamara hindustan h..
Jahan alag alag bhashao ka Mel h hockey yaha ka priy khel h
.
Jhagde bahot h par usse jyada pyaar h...
Daat padne se jo bachae vo yaaro ka yaar h....
Yahan alag alag desho ki mithas aur sanskaar h...
Yahan alag alag desho ka rang punjab kashmir aur rajasthan h...
Ha hme garv h is desh par qki ye Mera nhii hamara hindustan h....

My books are piled in the Hallway,
The Girlfriend wants me out,
She can keep all the household cargo
the insecurities and doubt.

I don't care much for chrome Toasters
Just give me my Damon Runyon,
Brendan Behan, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway,
Jack Kerouac and Jack London.

Albert Camus, Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh
Mayakovsky and Roger McGough,
the Steamer, bread -maker, Asparagus- spearer
Are all yours, I'm ******* off.

Just give me a dozen or so boxes,
Not those ***** looks,
Your welcome to the giant fridge-freezer,
All I want, are my books

Yes, the catalyst.
I turned out to be a caricature of behan,
a small starter, echo
to a happy ever after,
a new beginning,
in the middle of a statuesque
comedy panic that waits on the
drive in saturday,
falls and follows and added on
potential to the carnage that
heartbreak hotel,
high five,
backpatting, handshakes in
quicksand they slow dance your thoughts
then swallow your resistance to a cupid mind numb
florescent kiss
eh another kiss to remember.
hindsight blind to madness, get into insight,
to real the reel for reel nonstop blindness.

The Day Lady Died**

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton  
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun  
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets  
in Ghana are doing these days
                                                        I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)  
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life  
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine  
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do  
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or  
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and  
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue  
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and  
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
**


I am a drinker with writing problems.

Last night as I slept
I dreamt I met with Behan
I shook him by the hand and we passed the time of day
When questioned on his views
On the crux of life's philosophies
He had but these few clear and simple words to say

I am going, I am going
Any which way the wind may be blowing
I am going, I am going
Where streams of whiskey are flowing

I have cursed, bled and sworn
Jumped bail and landed up in jail
Life has often tried to stretch me
But the rope always was slack
And now that I've a pile
I'll go down to the Chelsea
I'll walk in on my feet
But I'll leave there on my back

Because I am going, I am going
Any which way the wind may be blowing
I am going, I am going
Where streams of whiskey are flowing

Oh the words that he spoke
Seemed the wisest of philosophies
There's nothing ever gained
By a wet thing called a tear
When the world is too dark
And I need the light inside of me
I'll walk into a bar
And drink fifteen pints of beer

I am going, I am going
Any which way the wind may be blowing
I am going, I am going
Where streams of whiskey are flowing

I am going, I am going
Any which way the wind may be blowing
I am going, I am going
Where streams of whiskey are flowing
Where streams of whiskey are flowing
Where streams of whiskey are flowing

I'll miss you and your absence will haunt me.....
You will be not there but your memories will surround me........
Your hugs will disappear but your words will comfort me........
The way you tell BEHAN will always remain with me.......
All these boomerangs will then provide goosebumps to me......
Our pictures, songs,talks and each shared laughs will always be around me......
Doesn't matter how far...you go...you will remain inseparable part of me........
Words cannot express my love for you....... After you your written notes in my copy express you with me..........

You fondly stroked my enormous tumor with whorishly-loving care
after I fell into a ditch 'cause I didn't know the ***** ditch was there
You took my wallet to buy for me a really expensive Christmas gift
'cause free of the ditch, you believed that I needed an emotional lift
But I know that I will not ever be cured of this upper leg limb limp,
as long as you turn tricks for your ***-whipping, queer ****** ****

IHS ban me
  lost my poetic licence
     wilde as joyce and shaw

               <>


ps. IHS = Irish Haiku Society.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsfilmtv/the-irish-writers-banned-in-their-own-land-455179.html

Shaw and Beckett were part of a long list of Irish writers who were especially targeted; it included James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, Liam O’Flaherty, Sean Ó Faoláin, Frank O’Connor, Francis Stuart, Austin Clarke, George Moore, Kate O’Brien, Maura Laverty, Walter Macken, Edna O’Brien, Brendan Behan, Benedict Kiely, Brian Moore, and John McGahern, Ryan O'Leary has just been added to the list.

                                          <>

They were ‘the best banned in the land’, as Brendan Behan joked after he joined the list in 1958 following the prohibition on Borstal Boy. But behind the jokes and ridicule, writers felt persecution, were denied a place in their country’s cultural life, and were in many cases denied a living here also.

I'm gonna drink more whiskey than Brendan Behan
And I'm gonna send my belongings all to Tripoli
And I'm gonna ride home to California
With a banjo on my knee

I'm never gonna turn off the television
I'm just gonna let it run all night
I'm gonna plant root vegetables out in the backyard
And come summer I am going to treat you right

So put on your Chairman Mao coat
And let me clear my throat
Let's turn this whole town upside-down
And shake it 'til the coins come falling out of its pocket
Yeah put on your Che Guevara pin
Call the troops on in
We're gonna sail through the night sky like a pair of bottle rockets

I got a great big secret written down somewhere
I got a rosary to protect us both from harm
I got a storage locker full of cow figurines
And a laundry list of grievances longer than my arm
And I am never going back to Cincinnati
All those bridges have burned down to the ground
I got the jet pack strapped to my back
And I'm waiting for you to come around

Yeah, put on your Chairman Mao coat
And let me clear my throat
Let's turn this whole place upside-down, yes
And shake it 'til the coins come falling out of its pockets
Yeah put on your Che Guevara pin
Call the troops on in
We're gonna sail through the night sky like a pair of bottle rockets

Red Pine at Fo Guang Shan
And in Washington State
Catteleya in the morning
North and South for Cate

They call it sleep paralysis
Don't think they understand
We in Siena Cathedral
Me Playin' in a Rockin' Band

Wife and 5 children
Cabin broken down
Everybody knows
I am the newsboy of this town

I find Carl Hiaasen funny
Brendan Behan too
Just wanna do
The very best that I can do

   Satellite Beach, see me threw.

Behan knew it and so should you
when it's time for a drink
make it for two

The cells never forget
is not graffiti after the
last inmate but a quote
from G. Bernard Shaw
pertaining to Famine.

Oscar Wilde said the
two greatest tragedies
in life were not getting
what you want and
getting what you want.

Behan took the larger
desert. An Englishman
thought it bad manners.
"Which would take" ?
The smaller. "You got it"

Said Brendan Behan

I've never seen a situation so miserable that a police officer couldn't make it worse.

                            - Brendan Behan

Said Brendan Behan.