Sunday, August 20, 2023

Wedding Reception

6 pm onwards
the wedding card states
I wait and wait and wait
amidst blaring heart hurting beats
the groom and bride wait 
for the half full hall filled 
with cake cream coloured chairs
tied behind with wood brown bows
to seat trickling guests
bright red, green saris draping
women, waiting to get a glance
of the couple eager to step 
into social acceptance





Tuesday, April 5, 2022

April 6: There is nothing better that war has achieved

 









There are you, arguing with me unconditionally.

Is it your way of hiding underneath an armored cloak?

Nothing else but a sinister scam to prove

that you are right in the eyes of the storm,

war of common sense put to ransom,  which

has crucified compassion on the stake of ruthless vanity,

ever ready to think to terminate instead of preserving life. Has this

achieved anything but mindless ravage

that could have been avoided for a cause

we, humankind could live, love for.

Could it not be better if all lived, none destroyed, certainly

not for vain reasoning that spells doom for all?

Better it would be if truce stepped in like angels, flying to

achieve stability amidst debilitating insanity.

Without tolerance, we are no longer alive within. The war,

it is a dying opportunity to plow mental fields of rehabilitating harvest.


* This poem is based on a prompt from Day 6 of  https://www.napowrimo.net/day-six-9/

which is "a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’d like you to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line. Perhaps you could write a poem in which the first words of each line, read together, reproduce a treasured line of poetry?"

 

 The words that I have taken are from "There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it" by social reformer, Havelock Ellis.

 

 

Sunday, April 3, 2022

April 4: I floated around in a ritualistic riotous.



 





At this age, this time of the day

I turn towards Nature beside me to stay.

When family humans float around on conceptual islands

it is the crow, the squirrel that save me from emotional drylands.

 

Just the other day, a young crow cawed bitterly on my windowpane

I wondered ‘cos I had already left food on the steel plane.

Peeping out to see a scurry of squirrels munching hurriedly on grains

leaving the poor crow agitated finding hardly any refreshment remains.

 

The striped squirrels, in no mood, to relinquish their share

unmindful of others, downing edibles like hungry hare.

With no support from the anthropoid kind

the crow picked up a squirrel with its tail in its behind.

 

A jaw-dropping scene it surely was

like the killer whale striking flesh in Jaws.

Moving back to my daily quietus

I floated around in a ritualistic riotous.

 

 

 

 

Saturday, April 2, 2022

April 2: Deathly Expectations

  


When I lie unmoving, senses deadened,

fingers no longer kinetic enough to push gently away
your tousled hair, will you remember to acknowledge my hindering absence?
 
When the doctor checks my pulse for life,
when they move me from rocking chair to cot to bamboo bed,
will your insides crunch, will you miss my nagging presence?
 
When the I of me has evaporated, when the leaves in trees
come to a standstill, when birds cease their flight midway,
will you pause to dullen your agitated ruminations for a while?
 
When my burdensome bones and famished flesh are laid to rest
transforming from solidified specimen to weightless whiff of ash,
will you press the urn to your chest, mourning my demise?
 
When life goes on, as usual, my death a mere date on the calendar,
when you rock your child to sleep, when his tantrums sap your energy,
will you look back in time with regret, rage, or ripened resentment?
 
When every month on Amaavaasya day, when the cawing crow
outside your window waits for offering on banana leaf
will you feel my invisible vibes blessing you?
 
When I am a mere upload in your mobile, a motionless picture
on the blank wall behind your chair, will you finally wipe the dust off
a bond that entered to stay with the umbilical cord that fateful day?

April 3: The Resting Clock









There is but a mere blank space,

a nail bending out like an old withered woman
on a wall decorated with peeling paint,
remnants of cobwebs that had made the place
behind the clock, their home.
I have nowhere to look to know the time of the hour.
My mobile, happily charging on the table across the bed
like an infant feeding on mother’s milk.
My back hurts from a sudden overdose of exercise
resumed after blameless months of exhaustion.
I sit, my eyes darting across the room,
searching desperately for avenues to gauge time
something, our ancestors did quite easily
looking up at the sun or, judging the shadows of the trees.
Minutes of the hours planned by a casual stare at the clock
out of service, away from the constant cluttering sounds
of the house it made home
whose inmates run their lives
staring at it as if it was a prisoner being interrogated  
every minute of day and night.
Today, it lies free in the company of other clocks
in a resting home of repair, while its ungrateful human family
lies handicapped during its absence.

Friday, April 1, 2022

April 1: Abundantly Flows the Ganga

A trip to the land of Lord Vishwanath where Ganga flowed abundantly drove me compulsively to the ghats, my mother and me holding each other's hands as we stepped carefully into the ever flowing lap of maternal warmth.

Dipping our heads in ritual obeisance,
hearing the melodious gurgle of water above us, I believed naively I was on the last leg of survival until the moistened moss of head could take no more and I rushed up gasping for air.

For my mother, a sharing of rituals of the mystics, a custom she underwent in the land of her ancestors, a legacy she handed down to the next generation accompanied with flowers and a clay lamp carrying the offering of two women lost in the ravages of testing time. 

pic courtesy: shail raghuvanshi

Thursday, March 31, 2022

NaPoWriMo2022 Early Prompt “Forever might be short”



Forever might be short.

What I desire, is today which slips from my hands

every other day. Tomorrow is a million light-years away!


In my palms to forge, to carve mere clay

for now, to mold into a sculpture of my dreams

to manifest into reality like potent Kratos.


The here and the now is my throne of execution.

The day after, not my mug of cappuccino.

Forever might be short.


Prompt motivated from https://www.napowrimo.net/one-day-to-go-and-an-early-bird-prompt-3/

celebrating the April Month of Poetry 2022





Tuesday, November 16, 2021

COLOURFUL DELIGHT


The balloons – pink, yellow, blue and green
like the colour of the innocent drowning desires lurking within her,
of baby pink frilled dresses,
of yellow delicious pedas she would love to munch,
of sky coloured woollen blankets to keep her warm,
of green leafy veggies, she would love to eat!
Each balloon, a wish that flies high.
Every balloon sold, a yearning edging closer to fulfilment.
The big cars she passes by have no time for her
and her pale balloons. They know not what they mean to her.
While the world rushes her by, the little girl waits
for the pink, yellow, blue and green balloons to take wings
and carry her away to yonder lands filled with colourful delight!

*pedas are milk-based fudge treats


Monday, August 30, 2021

Miss D'Costa's Reprimand

Round, gold-metal framed, perched on the shelf in the tiny living room
this was our clock,
not the round, square or fancy plastic or wooden ones we hang on our slickly painted walls of our homes today.
The small clock suited our house, not too big to drown our vibes into time or, too small to disappear into oblivion as we tend to search for our phones or wristwatches 
busy as we are with the chatter in our brains or tongues, whatever the case may be.
A third-grade assignment demanded a clock drawn to understand time. Always ready to sit down to sketch or paint if only to avoid studying,
 draw I did this clock in my notebook
only to be reprimanded by Miss D'costa for lying that the clock drawn was by me and none else.
What memories a clock from life's time machine could bring back to me!
Nostalgia! Miss D'Costa's indirect compliment!

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Mother's Bangles

There they lay, untouched for God-only- knows how long, strung sentimentally in my school red ribbon of yesteryears bringing to my mind innumerable images of childhood -
mother combing my hair every day before I left for school, weaving the bright red ribbon in the hair she so carefully tended to, 
packing my lunch that all envied,
the Iyengar Bakery bread that we walked together to buy twice a week near Austin Town, the ice cream from a  Brigade Road parlour after we purchased my books for the new academic year every year, 
the little girl's kitchen tools from the man with his pushcart on our street in Victoria Layout.
Just how many memories can a string of colourful bangles store?
 I remember Mother being very possessive, wanting the bangles back every time I wore them to match my outfit in my teens. Today, these colourful spheres reach out to me like they always did when Mother was there. A size smaller now, for me, I moist my wrist with soap to wrap the colourful misty memories around, somewhat like my heart that struggles to keep the loving memories from breaking the vault of stored sentiments of a distant past.