There was a time
When I used to be proud
Of being an Indian
However, that feels like light years ago
Since then, so many things have changed
That I wonder sometimes
If this is indeed the same country
Where I was conceived
Imagine surviving a plane crash
Only to have your face charred in such a way
That it resembles a piece of barbequed meat
And thus even your own mother fails to recognise you
That is the India of today
A democracy only in name
Where the gap between the rich and the poor
Is even wider than the river Nile
The way in which the so-called upper castes
Treat the so-called lower castes
Is even worse
Than the way in which the Nazis used to treat the Jews
Nearly a century ago
Not to mention, to insult a cow
Is considered nothing short of ******
However, harassing a woman
Especially a woman from one of the underprivileged sections of society
Is treated, in the manner in which a simple traffic violation is dealt with
That is, all you have to do; is pay a fine
And you are free to go about doing whatever you were doing
Including harassing more women
Then we come to the small matter of mental health
If you are undergoing therapy or counselling
Or if you are meeting a psychiatrist
As you pass people on the way
You might hear a lot of whispers and murmurs
Making it sound as though you were dying
Or worse, on the verge of insanity
Therefore, whenever you air your views publicly
The chances of people taking you seriously
Are even less than that of Netherlands winning this year's Men's Cricket World Cup!!
It may have been seventy-six years
Since we gained independence
However, the reality is
We are as much independent
As Salman Khan knows how to drive a car
Without killing people in the process
As I mentioned earlier, I used to be a patriot
However, when I think of India now
I feel a remarkably similar kind of shame
That I used to experience during my Engineering days
Whenever I failed in a subject
After all, when your country's international image
Takes precedence over the living conditions of your people
Then it is only a matter of time
Before you are headed down the path of the Nazis
Yes, I am an Indian
And difficult as it sounds to believe, I used to love my country
However, my love for its people
Exceeds that by thousands of miles

Funny
They can tell
When my
liver's working too hard
But they can't tell
When I'm on
Drugs

Funny
They accuse
me
of mischief
and mayhem
but they don't know I'm high
till I tell them

trauma drifts down through the branches of my family tree
like summer pollen

I had went to visit some friends
some acquaintances
these people i used to know
I was a ghost in my hometown,
where no one used my given name.
they brought me in through a screen door and
sat me down in the kitchen.
their voices were like underwater sounds
they told me to be still while he said hello.
I looked down a flight of basement stairs
where bathed in a blue light like Chopin’s  no. 19 in E minor
sat a tiger burning bright.
up the stairs it bounded forth in muted strides
to the floor it pinned me under protest
in cemetery stillness it said hello.
the kitchen was an autoclave
I never asked for help.

my hometown calls to me in my sleep
like an indian death wail on a buffalo robe
so my eyes sink back into the firmament.
bathing in the predawn light
my bones are an old horse I ride,
I score one for the body then I get onto a plane
then I score one for the body and I get onto a plane
then i score one for the body as it lays dying without complaint.
kneeling before the Holy Cross by the roadside
I take note of really just how much room there is on the bed beside me
strange bedfellows are I and the space I’ve been given.
there is a queen sized outer darkness within my twin sized
gestures of self control.
the dusk is day now and the moon is the sun
and my hometown calls to me like Jericho’s Trumpet
sounding from inside the Pale.

in my hometown I am a pilgrim
I saunter towards the seaboard
where the docks hold greek columns that soar into the air
like the elephant’s legs in Salvador Dali’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony”.
nostalgia burns my throat like acids and bases
and the columns lead up to nowhere and this place isn’t
how i remember it beyond the Pale.
limping with thin soles
dragging a dull hypothalamus like a dead mule chained to my ankle
we would sit and watch our forefathers stare at the static on the TV
from their arm chairs in the dark.
we would offer them coffee and ask how their day was and they
would tell us that sometimes they feel like a lone alley cat.
It’s like my buddy's roommate when I would go to visit; always alone inside his room.
sometimes I would see him around town and say hello and notice his face and
see that he was still alone inside his room.

well, I have skin in the game and I have a reputation
and i’m attached to my non-attachment.
sometimes a subtle brand of disgust creeps in to replace my avarice
and sometimes I starve to death holding a long handled spoon
seated at Caligula’s table.
sometimes i can’t tell their maidenhood from their madness
so i hoard one for the body.
sometimes i remember the way bees will talk to each other by dancing
and how old men will tell you they’re afraid to die.
Sometimes I hand a *** a 20 and weep as I watch him fold it
into an origami crane.

while I was in town I looked up my former landlord
I held a fondness for the times when they didn’t use my given name.
I wanted to see my old room and I had kept a raven back then and
he assured me it was still around.
the room was now and attic and was much bigger than I had held it
in my memory, vast almost.
I ask the dust as it was thick upon the floor boards and something
felt abandoned in the air.
the roof was in disrepair and one whole side was nearly completely gone.
tranquil ribbons of cirrus clouds stood in the sky through the roof like
a child’s drawing.
“Is it like you remember?”, he asked.
“Way over in the corner there was a couch my brother would sometimes sit in” I replied.
I asked after my raven and he pointed to the part of the roof that still was.
from the shadows came a bird song like an irish low whistle from above the Pale.
“That doesn’t sound like him”, I said (more to myself than to my host),
“that’s an owl or something.”

Coconut, coconut, coconut,
Crack!
Stained white on the inside,
Brown on the out.

Hit it on its head,
Slash it apart.
Nourish it with spices,
Of a Southern past.

Fuzzy to touch,
Lined in coir.
The remaining path
In defining who we are.

Droplets of the Ganges,
Drowned in the Thames.
A conflicted soul,
In search of a cleanse.

Coconut, coconut, coconut,
Crack!
That one's spoiled!
So send him back.