Love it or hate it?

Katrika
Venkaya
Baingan
Begun
Peethabhala
Waangum
Vange
Ringna
Vashuthana
Melongen
Guniea Squash
Garden egg
Aubergine
Eggplant

Brinjal
Do you love it or love to hate it?

sun

Stepping out from the 

shadow of a building 

I am met by a burst of sun

and suddenly all things

are possible.

There is more day than I thought

and more joy to fill it with.

Birds and flowers and small children 

laughing in the street. 

If in this life there are things

that have passed me by 

there are still more 

that lie waiting to receive me.

I can be sure of this 

from where I am standing

here in a patch of sun

at the precipice of

certain goodness.

15. Since When

“Since when do you make other people’s plight

“A matter of concern? For you, the sun

“Is dimmer in the day when on its run

“Across the sky, it slips into your sight.

“And darker still the moon that shines so bright

“For those who suffer, yet choose not to shun

“Their neighbours—burdened, every single one—

“And choose instead to celebrate the night.”

And what, pray tell, might I have done to earn

Such scorn from you? But even as I posed

The question, an epiphany of shame:

My ruminating mind had learnt to spurn

The outstretched hands of friendship. I had closed

My heart to love. For this, I am to blame.  

Planting roses

Between all that is holy 

- Blake, Bach, aurora borealis - 

and that which is full of holes 

- old socks, flat earth theories -

is my garden where wholly

occupied in digging holes 

for roses I become whole

transplanting

There are new trees 

in the covered beds by the river. 

They arrived overnight

from some green outskirt 

where they have been readied

for months or even years.

I know this to be a delicate procedure.

What is moved may not take root. 

But it is nice to think of 

something growing out of sight.

A blessing, fully formed

ready to enter your life

at any moment. 

My childhood home

Take the first right after the circle
it’s the fifth house on the right
standing wholly within the cool shade
thrown by a huge mango tree
the gate is painted cream and black
metal with a wooden frame, the three
red-oxide steps to the main door are lined
by two red-oxide thinnais
on which, if you look carefully
eyes half-closed - you may see
all the people who have sat
stood, chatted, laughed, wept
posed for photos, argued, waited
dreamt – eyes wide open or looking
up into the sky and the mango tree
both holding the whole house
and all its characters – inside their breath.

Visible mending

 

Hole and whole

One so easily 

becomes the other

strangers

In the dim light of the kitchen

two women are laughing.

They have only known each other

a few weeks.

But it would be easy to mistake them

at this distance 

for sisters, or old friends. 

Familiarity works in strange ways. 

I could tell you, for instance, 

that today I addressed a woman 

in her language 

and watched her face soften 

as though she suddenly saw in me

something of herself. 

Love at the Centre

Showing the finger

so many today

celebrated hope and

the possibility of love

being at the centre

not hate and division

Let love win

When all the hullaballoo abates
there will still be hunger – so let
there be food and jobs to get food
and pathways to education for all
to get jobs. Let there be policies to
keep land and spaces safe so all can
grow food, feel safe, walk, take autos
and buses and shared cabs, let there be
music and dance, theatre and singing
clapping together – for that is food too
for the spirit of oneness – shared laughter
separate from separation and judgement
let there be choice available to all in whom
to marry, how to live and love, how to make
the harsh world a better place by simply being
their fullest selves. When all the hullaballoo abates
there will still be hatred, waiting to point your
heart’s gaze at someone or something you so
disagree with – and in that moment
let there be softness in how you turn that gaze
to a wellspring of love – from inside out.

THE INSIDE-OUT DOOR

There’s a door that doesn't really close. It only opens. 

Out and in. Outside, a field pans out to a neighbourhood 

of gabby gossips, winter-orange and summer sherbet-berry 

camaraderie and the indispensable pestering of hawking 

vendors. Yellow-footed green pigeons, ruby-beaked parrots 

and feisty crows lay claim on tall trees, a determined sun 

and torrential downpours sustain the green as the park 

does generations of football and cricket players.

Girlfriends from average families gather on the street

to outgrow their shadows by playing hopscotch. Treats 

and secrets are shared. Sitting on nylon cots, their 

mothers and aunts measure the length of their knitted 

yarns and the salt and acid of their tears. Inside the door 

is a world too. Of a tiny banana grove, a patchwork

of an edible garden of Malabar spinach and bottle gourd,

papaya and guava, a grandmother's cartography of

transplanting wholesale memories of a green home. Inside

is where conversations with the sun and the green birds

happen, where fears are released to the southern wind,

where the promise and disquiet of the outside is

negotiated over fervid postmeridian orange peeling.

Ink

Spilled milk: pointless to shed tears over

Spilled beans: could be worth a drop or two

depending on what's been uncovered

Spilled guts: de rigueur to cry on cue

When blood is spilled, yes, weep and sigh

But what I spilled is ink, this morning

come from India, a cobalt blue

on the white shirt, the stain forming

before I could move, remove or do

anything. Ink, precious, useful, versatile

The Dead Sea Scrolls - ink made  from soot

Da Vinci's notebooks, the scores of Bach

ink of oak gall and iron. Roots, fruits

nuts and leaves and rust and earth

The octopus invented ink three

hundred thirty million years ago

to deceive and hide. The same reasons 

we use ink, to obscure, or camou- 

flage, dissimulate, disguise, suppress

This is why I don't eat octopus

 

inertia

The day moves like slow water.

I fall into sleep then surface 

and fall asleep again. 

My dreams are rich.

I wake anxious. 

When it comes time to take stock

how will I measure the value of my days?

The path back to presentness

is just out of sight.

I knew it once 

until I lost it

somewhere in the thick time of sleep.

A woman's day

 am breathing fevered air into my mask, waiting for my time with the doctor. I see them both, ushered out of the consultation room. An elderly man and a woman. I notice her saree, there is something calm and deliberate about her. He sits in the row in front and I notice three crinkles at the base of his bald skull as he lowers himself into the chair. Crinkles straighten out once he is seated. Her saree is dull fuschia with tiny prints with a zari border. It hangs on her gracefully while her indigo blouse radiates a quiet aesthetic. She is enquiring at the pharmacy while he sits. He walks ahead while she is still finishing up her transaction. After she is done her eye scans the exit and finds him already out. She finishes and calmly walks out carrying all the papers and files. She must've cooked lunch and put them in casseroles so that they could go home and eat hot lunch. 

support system

Last train home

two middle-aged men totter

on the platform.

A hand between the shoulder blades

one temple against another

swaying slowly homeward. 

Voting 2024: Don’t forget to remember

It’s a free country – still.

(And it is your vote that will determine the continuity of that freedom)

If you have a vote, you have the right to choose whom to vote for.

(Don’t take any bullying or bulldozing on this)

Voting is not like betting on a winning horse.

(After the race, the horse can graze and chill but your chosen leader has to serve you)

Our Constitution separates religion from governance and everyone has equal rights.

(Yes! Believe it or not! And because it has not been practiced doesn’t make it less true)

Vote for someone who will work for everyone in the country.

(Your gods can take care of themselves. It is people who need to be served)

Vote with compassion towards your fellow humans

(Just because they’re not hunting you down today, doesn’t mean they won’t tomorrow)

Know that your vote affects us all. So make a safe choice.

(Because we’re all in this together)   

Vote.

(Because it is a free country – still, and your vote will determine the future of that freedom)

Walking down memory lane

Walking down memory lane they call it
coolly overlooking the road repair projects
going on for years now, some stalled forever
with debris lying helter-skelter leaving the lane
nothing like what it was and leaving the memories
no hope of becoming what they once were.

Bread

Why have I never written words in praise

of bread? Out of wheat and yeast and water

I made a loaf this morning, as always

amazed by how good it tastes with butter

When writing a line ending with 'death'

the obvious word to rhyme with it, the one

that leaps first to mind, its opposite 'breath'

In between, somehow find the connection

while paying attention to meter and

sound. Death in a poem is no surprise

It's on my mind. In the kneading the thought

takes a shape like the dough in my hands

It takes time for the long slow rise

onto the page, breath into bread into sonnet.

MEALTIMES AT MOTHER'S HOUSE

It starts with bottle gourd peels julienned pin-thin, 

fried with nigella seeds. For even the discarded 

to find a place of value on your plate is to relive your 

mother’s affection. Once she'd similarly picked up 

your broken feather of a self and nursed it with care. 

Next comes mung lentils with bottle gourd, a cooling 

summertime therapy for the tongue. A piece of fried carp 

brings some bite as the rice mixes with the lentils; 

conversations flow between the mother and daughter;

mild, tempered, crisp. The meal ends with a runny raw mango 

relish. Sweet. Tart. Refreshing like Mother’s plucky spirit. 

Mealtimes at Mother's house hold the delicate, the spicy, 

the complexly-flavoured in a textured, luscious balance.

Like Mother herself. 

waiting for the train with my friends

Alone I would remember this 

station for its filth. 

The group of men in the corner

The pungency of neglect. 

Instead, we are laughing.

Each picking up 

where the last has left off                                     

so that joy is a thing we build together

an endless chain of nothings 

that leaves no room, no air

to ask whether 

we have been permitted 

such fullness. 

My god, I had forgotten I could be like this. 

Unencumbered by the shape of life around me.

Bearing forward only the singular trueness

of my person

like a stream or a wave

a thing at once peaceful and resolute. 

When we return to our separate lives

I fear I will grow heavy again.

With the memory of some past smallness

or the weight of a new one to come. 

But in this moment 

I can see nothing 

except you

and through your eyes 

my very brightest self. 

Last Day of Man

I can hear her

clapping her hands
with finality, saying
enough is enough!
No more humans
just plants now on
and soon, the earth
will grow green again.

Amma's rasam

Amma’s rasam
clear as a forest pool
fringed with green
is proof that
all poems
don’t need words

HOMECOMING

Homecoming
Breathing dreams
Gulmohar red skies
An aging mother's face
Segno

goodbyes

Watching young people

wave goodbye 

at the end of a night out

I think of the ties that hold them 

together in this moment. 

Proximity and daily life

and the smallness of difference.  

And the longer ties 

the less radiant ties  

they must build

for this beautiful, easy friendship

to last. 

They are not thinking

of these things.

They are standing tall

in the certainty of youth

faces shining

arms aloft 

in a greeting

that could just as easily 

be hello. 

Elections

 Is there any electioneering?

asks a cousin

we are trying to cool off 

this sticky hot sumner

with some beer 

and inevitably

talk of impending 

voting day sits with us

nodding, smirking 

making faces, disdaining

our puny analysis,

it knows better

holds everything to ransom

our hopes, fears and discomforts

it knows how the day will unfold

who will come to the polling booth

dressed for a picnic to vote, 

who won't bother to haul themselves to a booth

frustrations of those who may not find their names on the list 

who will press NOTA 

brand new voters like my child

who knows what fascism means

we continue to chat animatedly 

as if this smirking creature didn't exist.

No end in sight

What cleans, must itself be cleaned

the water filter, the washing machine

the dishwasher. I had no clue

but for YouTube where someone

shows you how each task should be done

I cleaned the filter on the vacuum, 

the year's ennui sucked up from the floor

and stratified. Cleaning is such a bore

No one likes to do it, which is the issue

the machines address. But until a cleaner 

For the cleaner, in infinite regress, is conceived

it's all down to me, and then I have a shower

which must then be cleaned. It's never over

14. I Blinked

I blinked and all dissolved before my eyes.

What life was this I could have sworn was mine?

So alien its shape, and yet so fine

A dream no sleep of mine could so devise.

I dreamed of “Healers” … “waxen doll” … “the guise” …

The words I heard were fading, line by line.

Was this some vision sent from beings divine?

Am I where someone’s dream goes when it dies?

“I thought that it might jolt you in this way,”

The Fish revealed from deep within my gut,

“A memory extracted from a time

“That you could never know. From what you say,

“It sounds as if it brought you solace.” But

What happened after that? What was the crime?

13. Death

Death alone remains beyond the reach of even the Healer’s sacred art.

The Healer eases birth and by the deathbed, plays a similar part:

To ease the passing, dull pain, record the dying words is all

The Healer does. Halting death is impossible; reversing it, beyond the pall.

I learnt this the night my father died. My mother’s stony eyes

Frightened me. On the bed, a waxen doll had taken the guise

Of Father. Hands that looked like his, feet and ears and nose.

His fingers, his wrinkles, his wrists, his collarbones, his shoulders, his toes,

But eyes and mouth, to us who loved him, weren’t the same.

Some stranger seemed to have passed away. That night, no Healers came.

Who heals the Healer when there’s no one left? While to grieve

And to mourn, there was the town, in here: just two. “Bereave

“Me not,” My mother mumbled, I remember, just before my father’s end.

We watched, unmoving. His fading eyes hidden, his chin began to bend

And sag. He had no words to write and seal and burn

When next we saw the moon that ferried him away guiltlessly return

Without him. And though I saw then, in my mother’s eye, loom

The shape of things to come, I didn’t recognize therein my doom.

City politics

 City bulbuls campaign together,

Tease in a chorus –

‘Tota myna ki kahani

purani, purani ho gayi…”

The mynas turn their beaks away

and continue planning for fresh worms.

The parakeets simply fly

to their Raintree home.

These jabberwockeys ar best ignored!

An eagle couple watches

from the tallest tree-top.

Nobody disturbs real-estate hegemony!

The towering cement wall

viciously radiates cruel heat

after sundown,

Like a sorry politician spitting

the last of his venom

on losing a seat.

The crows still gather

on the terrace rusted railings

for their daily dusk meeting.

They don’t have much to say

Nod respectfully and fly away.

At least, democracy is alive here!

List poem

 Chakka

Manga

Thenga

Pavakka

Podalanga

Murangakka

Vellarikka

and some

Mallipoo

because I can't find konnapoo

for this Vishu

time

I think about time when I'm in the shower 

water on skin, drops and streams, flowing

over me and down the drain. As metaphor

does it help? Is that really how time goes?

Sometimes I seem to be caught in its riptide

adrift. At other times I contain it

within my heart, beating, solidified

or is time buth inside and outside, knit

into and through me, a knot too tight

Maybe I will never get it right

Until I end. Will it end with me? I won't mind

Because I won't have a mind to mind with

haiga

 

Bhangra

 
Dhol.
Feet melt.
Head nods to a magic beat.
Flesh becomes air.
Sarson fields sway with my hips.
A phulkari moment explodes
on my lips.
I whistle colour –
Magenta, pink, red, green.
Time calls. Time crumbles.
I’m a marigold lasso
with a galaxy caught in my swirl.
Do you hear my palms
clapping away Fate?
One foot churns the air.
My twirl – white makkhan!
My sweep – thick malai!
Taste the rhythm of joy on my tongue!
Nerves charged with electric gold.
Shoulders shrug the world away.
Atlas is tempted.
The only way to carry the world
is to make it dance with you.
My plait tosses the flowers of yesterday.
Tomorrow’s fragrance longs
to hang by a shining ribbon.
The intensity bends the mind,
till it ceases to exist.
I hear a thousand cymbals of joy.
The ache of happiness
moves to bhangra beats…
And you?
How can you just sit there?

- Harvinder
 
 

12. The Healers

The Healers are gifted among the Pious. Their power

To mend is unparalleled. The Scriptures say, “The Flower

“Of the Holy blooms in each Healer’s gentle touch.”

Few lived this truth like my parents, for such

Devout healers were rare even in the capital city,

Let alone in our hamlet. For my parents’ pity

Drew them away from the Priestly Temples of Learning

To where few saw proof of the Holy. Earning

What little the poor folk they saved could spare,

My parents survived, thrived and rejoiced. They didn’t care

About hardship or want, for their mission was just

And Holy. They knew that all true Healers must

Extract every bane, ease every birth, erase every blight,

Restore the Five Faculties: movement, speech, hope, hearing, sight.

Few lived by the True Mission, for their ilk

These days heal rarely, for worship or to milk

The dying and the desperate for everything they’re worth.

My parents believed that their sacred duty, from birth,

Was to bring the Healer’s Holy Benediction to all.

I give thanks they weren’t witness to my fall.

11. Dreams

Dreams are strange and elusive things, but not for everyone, I’ve found.

Some are born with them, some seem to find them lying around.

Some, like bats, find them when they listen to what they hear.

Others never find them. I might be one of them, I fear.

Without a dream, I floundered; I needed other, wiser people to steer

The ship of my life as it floated on its uncertain career

Down the raging, rapid river of cruel chance, kismet, causality and confusion.

I was raised by Healers (themselves born with dreams) with this illusion:

I longed to be a Healer with every fibre of my heart.

I knew (I was told) what I wanted from the very start.

My faith in the Holy would never waver, never falter, never fail.

They were wrong. For whoever reads this, this is my sorry tale.

अब की बार जीते प्यार/Ab ki baar jeete pyaar

अब की बार जीते प्यार

अब की बार जीते प्यार

जनरल इलेक्शन का टाइम है यहाँ

देखे इंडिया को पूरा जहाँ (२)

नफरत बैर 

पुराने घाव

फैलाए कुरेदे

वह हारे यह चुनाव (२)

अब की बार जीते प्यार

अब की बार जीते प्यार.

Ab ki baar jeete pyaar,

Ab ki baar jeete pyaar.

General election ka time hai yahaan,

Dekhe India ko poora jahaan (2).

Nafrat, bair,

Puraane ghaav,

Phailaaye kurede,

Woh haare yeh chunaav (2).

Ab ki baar jeete pyaar,

Ab ki baar jeete pyaar

Note: Putting out an intention that love should win the election that begins today in India - not hate. You can hear the song here.

Looking in the wrong places

As long as I can remember, I've searched

for beauty. On my way to school I picked

coloured stones. Later I looked in churches

temples, galleries, places you get tricked

into thinking you know the secret, now

you can make it. I gained that arrogance

of form, taught by those who thought they knew how

Parampara of steps but not of dance

Somewhere between the hand and the handmade

between the bow and the long drawn note

between the page and the written word

Sometimes you find it, blurred, undeserved

beauty that saves you from drowning - a boat

beauty that cuts to the bone - a blade

Love in the face of hate

Know that the result maybe anything

the centre of your being will still love

love in the face of mass haters – jeering

roaming the streets, flashing sharpened tools

all in the name of gods who are, we’re told

the highest, purest, best – who you should also be

venerating because – didn’t your hear them?

their gods are the highest, purest, best – you have

no hope of finding heaven, neither on earth nor in the

murky afterlife if you step on their faith while they

step, stamp, stomp your life out for keeping yours.

Do I know this, is it possible, asks my doubting mind

can I love in the face of hate, the earth itself grown hotter

with hate, hate, hate in every action breaking its back

is it possible, how, how can it be done – loving on and on

when your breath catches, when you have been punched

squat on your diaphragm – your eyes popping, just seeing

your loved ones, now hating, hating, hating every “other”

yes, says a chorus of cells from the centre of my body

for lifetimes we have simply loved ourselves into being

know that the result maybe anything

the centre of your being will still love.

evening train

No, he is not aware

that his body has sloped

into the shoulder of his co-passenger.

This man fallen 

into an exhausted sleep

on the evening train.

He is far away now

somewhere gentler. 

He leaves behind only 

this careless body 

face empty 

palms facing up

as though in surrender

or prayer. 

A bit of breeze

 Singer is drawing out an aaa

that seems never ending

flowing westwards towards

the Arabian sea

there is a breeze that

wants to carry that bit of aa

am just

a listener wanting a bit of breeze

Voice Cycle

The rough lilt of her voice

leans against a brick wall.

Beneath her feet,

songs sprout from stones.

Grass blades lick the shore

for the salt of her voice.

The deep baritone

of stubborn desires

freezes on sheets of ice.

Walk carefully. Falls hurt.

Raindrops on the palm of her hand

become crystal balls,

holding the pattern

of her lines of fate.

They take to wings.

The sky turns a somersault.

New songs rain down.

- Harvinder

APRIL AND AUGUST

It's April, when rain loses all

self control and the garden swells

with new leaves on the apple tree,

overzealous magnolias, fresh grass

and birds singing the breath of

heaven. Looking out the window,

I think of August in another planet

from another lifetime. August, when

the rains usurped not winter but

a deathly, sweltering summer, when

the garden swelled with leaves on

the guava tree, jasmine's scent

robbed sleep and catapulted you

heavenwards before a platoon of

mosquitoes brought you right back

down. How the seasons swapped

places with me. Wet cedar mulch

is petrichor's musky twin.

I no longer count my tears.

Dance

What is an emotion after all,

except a movement of the mind,

a wandering or a racing or a fall

from or into, or being blown by the wind 

Into sadness, or gladness, or madness

If I have been moved

or moved someone

it has been by moving.

uicheon

Come evening

and the city unravels with a sigh.

The streets quiet

and the pavements fill with 

families and cyclists

and people walking slowly

with nowhere to be but here.

At the restaurant on the corner

a group of men drink together

their laughter carries over the trees

and down to the water.

This is a good time

a time for everyone. 

No need now

for the stiff uniform of day.

Come, sit in the open night 

watch the city lights in the river

the smell of water in the air.

LAST-MINUTE PLANS

Buy more of the 20-pack zinc teas for those globally notorious colds.

Pick up the easy-dissolve tablets to remedy upset stomachs.

Get an e-sim to help your phone be a local in your old home.

Wrap in morose brown paper the murder mystery you bought to celebrate your niece's 

entry into teen age.

Remember your brother's fondness for mint chocolates. Be happy you don't 

crave them.

Be kind to your knees that will remain bent for a full day.

Use the bent-knee flight time to fertilize your daydreams.

Sleep while you can. Jet lag will soon be up to its tricks.

Imagine Mother's face, the trill in her voice when you reach home.

Strategize ways to compress 365 days into two weeks.

lock (and its key)

Turned in, key withdrawn
the lock braced, holds on tightly.
Breathing through its lock-hold 
a yogi holding the mind in the body.