sky blue tarpaulin

avva’d gasped, scared for an instant but then

quickly realized appa’d done it intentionally

and burst out laughing scolding him

probably shouting obscenities

she was about to grab the concrete block

when he’d lowered it just out of reach

he’d been pulling them up to her on the third floor

where i remember her standing by the rickety pulley

she laughed and grabbed the block, passing it along
to yellava akka who stood smiling next in line

and it must’ve found its way into the bare wall

that like so many others we saw, grow taller in time

her skin was dark and luminescent
her raven hair always tied back neat
she had a pair of silver toe rings and
in her small ears, three earrings each

the end of her sari was tucked in at the waist
and she was wearing a cloth around the head

he was standing outside the door-less ground-floor room

with rolled up bundles that were our beds

beside stacked white sacks and over heaps of sand

and cement, clothes dried on a line hung up between

the walls that had pictures of gods and actors and all our belongings

hanging from nails. our home until it was complete

and sometimes we’d join in too, jumping onto

the rope and letting our weight do the pulling

and sometimes between buildings we’d sleep

on the pavement beneath sky blue tarpaulins

translating shiv kumar batalvi: loki pujaṅ rabb

 
longing

people worship god

and i, your longing
it’s a hajj to a hundred meccas

oh your longing!

people say i’ve become the sun

people say that i shine illustrious

what fire it is that it’s burnt me with

oh your longing!

behind me is my shadow

and before me lies my darkness

my arm it mustn’t let go

oh your longing!

no soil of the body in it

nor garbage of the mind

i sifted it on a winnow

oh your longing!

whenever times of sorrow arrived

bringing pain and loneliness in tow

i called for it to come sit by my side

oh your longing!

it gets me to dye words sometimes

and sometimes it makes me weave songs

a thousand manners it’s taught me

oh your longing!

when pain fell at my feet

and swore by my perseverance

the world turned up to see

oh your longing!

through my passion i gained some standing

the populace came to congratulate me

and embracing me freely wept

oh your longing!

i am a fool with no sign of sagacity

this the world told me

on a throne it’s put me today

oh your longing!

it’s a hajj to a hundred meccas

oh your longing!

a rendition by surinder kaur

choice of words

pangs of separation is perhaps how birhada or birha best translates

but that hardly captures the inevitable futility of the heartache

so i personally prefer the word longing at the moment
for the dark sleepless nights and endless days of torment 

longing’s less ambiguous in its outcome, as against separation

and yet more open-ended, more distressingly indefinite in duration 

it has a certain ring to it, an air of damned fatality

that is heartrendingly beautiful

and exquisitely tragic

before bus-stops became public places

buses are for people with places to go

bus-stops for those who don’t yet

to sit back a while and rest

linger over a cigarette

and wonder what’s next

the fallen

the second lines don’t come as easily anymore

the beautiful symmetry that i reveled in is gone

the effortless flow of thoughts and rhyme has begun to fade

as an immense sense of loneliness pervades

my being

i’m surrounded by people whose names

i don’t know. bustling multitudes that claim

the space around me as theirs. millions who walk and sleep

and go to work as i watch from the sidelines and keep

silent because i’m on the outside now

i've fallen through the gaps. conversations make no sense
because the very premises of our disparate existence are discordant
and since i'm the minority it leaves me burdened by a rationality i can't defend
their condescendingly smug lives are an indecipherable farce and all i'm left with
is this disjointed sense of debilitating incoherence

i've slipped through the cracks. i'm a wandering mendicant 

depending on the kind words of strangers to keep me going

that they give away in charity like old moth-eaten blankets when it starts snowing

and i sometimes wonder if i was like them once with my life sorted out and therefore vain

enough to say a kind word or two that could’ve kept some misfit from going insane
maybe just a nod of the head, or a simple smile feigned out of pity
or out of misplaced sympathy for a misfit like me

a life less ordinary

we were lying naked in bed
with the lights out having a smoke after

the moonlight reflecting from the lake outside
threw dancing shadows on the rafters

her body was cool from the sweat evaporating
as she ran a lazy finger down my spine

you could tell how she loved our bodies
both her own and mine

i’m gonna leave you she softly said letting
the words hang quietly in the dark until they got caught

up in the rising smoke and twisting and turning
went and draped themselves on the walls

emotions are fickle and neither
you nor i will always feel the same

these state of affairs we’re trying to maintain
will soon enough go stale

as we strive to retain
the equanimity our passions will soon be
reduced to a ritual mundane

like a clerk dressed up going to office everyday
stepping carefully over the same
begriming puddle. we were meant to be nomads 

why then seek to prolong these moments of quiescence

that’ll only bring out the worst in us
the jealousy the insecurities the numbing complacence

staying put is just not an option or life will drag
you by the hair and drown you in obscurity

some of these days you will thank me for leaving
for making your life a little less ordinary

then the embers at our fingertips went off
and we lay awake side by side silent in bed

life rippled in the shadows as i breathed in the smell of her hair
but she had already left

neutral buoyancy

i lie in bed with a book next to me scratching a crease on it’s spine

i fill my lungs with air and try in vain to rise

i hold my breath but then give up, it just won't do:

an unsuccessful fin pivot

i’m lonely not because you’ve abandoned me, you did that long ago

it’s because i am finally letting go

abandoning the idea of you

by which i've been beset 

at long last

she runs, slippers in one hand, the sari hitched up to her knees

stops at the door, and laughing, on the doormat wipes her feet

bunches of coconuts glisten and the serrated leaves all drip and nod

the trunks are all half wet, longitudinally, from the bottom to the top

with cracks of lightning in the ponderous grey clouds the rains have finally arrived

and though she’d been waiting with bated breath still took her by surprise

like pigeons on trees

with water from one of the large
buckets that the little girl brought

she washes utensils scrubbing them
in the open in the vacant plot

that has her ramshackle one room house
with the weighed down asbestos sheets

where they’re allowed to stay as a safeguard
against encroachment maybe

they’ve planted a few bananas and
fronds from five coconut trees dry

on the ground where amongst overgrown weeds
plastic bags, some burnt some not, lie 

the grass is crisscrossed by three
paths that run from the wall to the road

they run in muddy little rivulets pale
brown soon as it begins to pour

the kids play beside large logs
for firewood ducking and dodging they run

amongst the clothes drying on ropes
between the coconut trees hung

they’ve drawn a paandi next to the kolam 
that she draws each morning on the ground

it’s like any other village home, but in the heart
of the city. transplanted, with highrises all around

just another sunday morning

the road was glistening black reflecting cars and streetlights and people yesterday

but this morning it is somber ash the colour of a house crow’s neck pale grey

a squirrel stops to sniff from time to time as it climbs on by

up the silver oak it’s leaves still upturned silver bellies to the sky

and beneath parallel wires stretched out between poles where pigeons rest

crisscrossed by unruly black cables tied in random messy knots to parapets

on the jig-saw puzzle that their zig-zag shadows create on the ground

a man’s washing his car doors open mats out with a steady scraping sound

a dog walks to the center of the road stretches yawns and lazily flops down

at the spiky edge of the star-burst shadow of a coconut tree’s crown

a hit-and-run victim except for the missing chalk marks and no blood around the head

a vagabond tramp who thinks the world’s home and all reasonably comfortable surfaces bed

there’s the distant rolling rumble of a plane again though it’s too far to see

and the persistent hammering at the construction site hidden from view by the trees

pale blue smoke hangs motionless against white clouds on the distant horizon beyond

beyond the bare skeleton of a massive highrise with an immense yellow crane perched on top

a little girl with ribbons in her hair weighed down by shopping bags steps out of a car

and it gives a little honk for the dog to move as it goes down the road to park

past the woman who stands at the gate very still face down sunning her hair

past the guard who sits beside his broken sunglasses in his broken plastic chair

nonchalantly watching the world go by with his swollen foot up against a pole

pulling out a bidi from his shirt pocket as the dog comes to sit by his side of the road

a boy cycles past the row of cars and the  blue piaggio carrier van parked right at the end

he pedals fast and shakes his head from side to side feverishly ringing the bell

a breeze picks up listlessly shaking the leaves as behind fluffy white clouds the sun again goes

the car cleaner’s left a patch of black tar where he washed it down with his garden hose

hearts stretched across continents

a shiny casio watch illuminator stainless steel

the hour hand at ten the minute hand at eighteen

water resistant fifty m and instead of the date

the digital display says london four: forty eight

i guess it’s best

if you were here i’d ask you

what would you like for breakfast?

will cheese omlettes do?

we’d lie back and talk in bed

for ages, curled up amongst the sheets

waking each other up in turn

then curling back to sleep

i’d get you a big mug

of steaming hot coffee

cradle your head and let you take little sips

with your eyes still shut and be

totally mesmerized by your soft lips

i’d lean in close and smell your hair

kiss you

and whisper again in your ear

say silly things on this lazy morning

            let’s go away somewhere

                        like the mountains blue

for which we’ve been yearning

or say

with my hand on your ribcage

i’ll never stop lusting after you

or caressing your fingers

i know what i feel for you

is true

i’d say

such

stupid things

no

 it’d never do

so much for fate, right?

the kids are all decked up

at the function to commemorate

another successful year running

more altered fates

he stares back through unkempt

dusty hair, eyes charming

with a look of reckless

vulnerability disarming

hidden with a

contemptuous smile

same as the other kids

in other pictures in the files

amongst the many dated

record-shots taken in the streets

there’s one that’s from

a happy riverside picnic

beside the smiling kids

standing by the jetty ramp

in orange life-jackets, is a banner

that says de-addiction camp

he’s here now, talking

on his cell phone

absent-mindedly taking

a cup that someone’s thrown

to the dustbin. smart in his

faded denims and check shirt brown

he works as a computer technician

at an upmarket print studio in town

we walk past the pictures put up

that the kids here now have drawn

it’s true for all of us, he says

any way, i too, could’ve gone

we have no time

we speak a lot

telling each other

what we want

give me your hand

         here, take mine

                kiss my neck

                   hold me tight

we have no time

to leisurely discover

the other’s pleasure

for all we have

is this one night 

the madman

i don’t want money for my poems

i want money for food

it’s your poems i’m talking about

not sex, you fool

sex can be had for sex

but poems can’t be given for free

they must be sold for money

exchanged for a fee

you speak with conviction sir

and are certainly hard to refute

but if i started charging for my poems

won’t i be called a prostitute?

no i’m afraid once again

you’re confusing your passions

while in one case you must be honest

in the other, to be promiscuous, is the fashion

so pimp your poems, auction them off

as you can, peddle them to as many

parade them naked on a stage

and sell them for money

but be careful when sleeping around

for anything but serial monogamy

will bring upon you nothing

but scandalous infamy

and i'll let you in on a secret

stick to non-penetrative sex

for the non-negative will only

create bonds unnecessarily intense

so this way you can stay aloof

write poetry and be free to roam

right then, coming back to the point

how much do you want for your poems?

monologue overheard at a café

so you think i’m overweight and have denial issues

try for a moment putting your perfect self in my bloody shoes

my life is turning out to be a disaster

collapsing in on itself, turning into a wreck ever faster

and there are days i wake up with this realization chill

that my best days are over and from here it’s all downhill

i have no clue where i’m going and you know what’s scary

this realization that my life is never going to be anything

other than just plain ordinary

i am so not the person i thought i’d be

i don’t do any of the things i thought i’d do when free

all the things i always wanted to do as a kid

things that were important once but then just slid

away through my fingers while i looked away

i betrayed them i did and now they have no place

in my sorry life

morbid

i studied something i wasn’t happy with

but based my job on it anyway and now can’t get rid

of this veritable hell hole in which i’m bloody stuck

where it’s all about appearances and no one really gives a fuck

about what makes one happy and why we’re here

it’s all about living up to expectations and building careers

all about money and work and money and work and money

i feel chained down, shackled and yoked and gagged

i don’t understand how i’ve managed to so beautifully drag 

myself into this blind cavernous dungeon dark

or maybe this is where i was fated to end up right from the start

they killed my dreams and i allowed them to do it

by letting them call them ridiculous or fanciful or far-fetched

i was expected to comply and comply i meekly did

i don’t even think i have the courage to defy, if i ever so wanted

they managed to instill in me the fear of the unknown

the seeds were sown early, an inadvertent inheritance that’s grown

and the insecurities one ought to mock have been deeply ingrained

my will has been shattered and my very soul drained

i just can’t let go now, can’t step out of this maze craftily designed

even my hopes are fettered, beaten into submission, docile and resigned

i go weeks sometimes in a dazed stupor and then i’m fine

until i wake up suddenly in the middle of the night crying

lemme inform you, first-hand, if you ever had any doubts

like hunger and poetry, depression too comes in debilitating bouts

but these are problems i don’t even really want anymore to solve

just stumble home in the evenings and thank god for alcohol

one needs to give vent from time to time, it’s true

so there now, my life lies bare before you

and i told you all this only because you insisted

please don’t judge me, i know it’s at best insipid

and at times downright sordid

my sorry life

morbid

....................................................................
onehelloworld

 

translating shiv kumar batalvi: tū jo suraj chori keeta

a plea

the sun that you stole

was mine

the house you left a black hole

was mine

this sunshine that laughs in your home is mine

without it, a dark abyss is all that's left of my life

it is replete with my sorrow’s scented smell

this sunshine was mine yesterday, as it is today as well

i, ray-less, am it’s father still

in it’s limbs, it is my fire that’s instilled

with the fragrance of my sun it is rife

the sun that was stolen in broad daylight

but you are not to blame for this theft

of the sun, every era has been left bereft

in ever age woefully weeping and crying

some afternoon or other of the sun has died

i beseech you, light-less, ray-less

i, a father impious, standing at your doorstep

come, by my hand i’ll place a sun at your head

come, today, for my sunshine, i’ll fall at your feet

forgive me, i am a body stained, ashamed

before the light of the suns, take not my name

if a ray were to ever ask something, quiet you must stay

or call me a black sun and turn away

this is a sunshine’s father’s plea

from today on, my sunshine’s dead for me

and along with the sun, from today, it’s yours

whose house it laughs in, is the father, of course

the sun that you stole

was yours from the start

my house from birth

was eternally dark

translating shiv kumar batalvi: rog baṅ ke reh gaya

gazal 

it’s become a disease

the love of your city

and i saw the savior himself

suffering from it

my strapping youth

was eaten up by it’s streets

why should i not, friend,

revere your city

in your city the people

they value not true love

and every marketplace here

comes alive after dark

not another step towards

my destination could i gain

some thorn of your city

pierced me with such pain

where i wasn't fortunate enough

at my death even to get a shroud

what demented lunatic would

trust your city now

they auctioned off even

my corpse at my death

yet i could not, friend

repay your city's debt


the gazal, sung by jagjit singh