April’s showers

The blossoms of Spring

will now fade and burn in the molten heat

leaving behind the shadows of words.

 

Even as the seasons turn,

how cool the sea breeze that wafts in now

how comforting the bonds made in April.

 

 

 

Thank you all for the warmth and inspiration at DR!

Roll up your kurta sleeves

to fight

with the grime

on the underside

of the old iron kadai

coated with hardened

black, oily clumps

of generations of

patriarchy.

Watering the roots

When I learnt about drip irrigation in school,
I had no idea what it looked like,
no pictures or illustrations
in the chapter on agriculture,
only the line-drawing of a man with a dhoti
carrying hay on his head,
his mustache large and black, his torso unclothed.
 
Years later, I take the kids to a visit an organic farm
run by the local school,
and ask the students to stand in line and behave well,
to absorb all they see - like a sponge, water.
They do. Between whispers and giggles.
Then they help make a drip-irrigation pipe
with their adept and nimble fingers,
unlike my knotty and arthritic ones.
The water drips from the pipe
slowly, slowly,
drop by drop, straight to the roots
through some magic network of tubes and valves.
 
But how strange that I am reminded
of the grief, happiness, wonder, care,
and all else welling up in me
to irrigate drop by drop by drop,
the kernel of who I am,
and how much I love,
how on grey days,
or on bright ones,
the faucet mustn’t stop
dripping.

Conversations with an Insomniac (haibun)

If we are born, we must die. That’s the only certainty in life. But that’s what we struggle with the most. Seeing my grandparents’ funerals when I was still learning to adult, I was distraught but refused to cry. Crying was for the weak in the 1980s and 90s, at least in my family. We held our heads high and accepted that all beginnings have ends.
 
But secretly, I had wanted to collapse into my bed and cover myself with a blanket because I didn’t want to accept that soft, warm and loving grandparents disappear. They should be around forever to diffuse love into a difficult-to-understand world.
 
Much later, when my father’s end came, I was devastated but held up for the day because I was the primary caregiver and I had seen it coming. A quiet strength had seeped in but that didn’t help in the days after. I was nearly fifty, and couldn’t be bothered about what my family or society expected of showing grief. I cried and held my daughter who was learning to adult, and was now of the same opinion that grandparents should never die.  
 
between seasons
humid heat seeping
into an autumn dusk
 

stained glass (tanka)

in this ancient room,

kaleidoscopic colours

stream in through stained glass

how easy to forget strife

how easy the way to peace

 

mustard fields (haiga)

 

Noday

While the house is yet to stir
and the hazy orange sun is up
beyond the metal transmission tower
that looks like a mangled alien,
I wear my teacher-clothes,
wolf down some muesli and banana,
the weak coffee cold, feels colder in my mouth,
and I wish this Sunday were a Monday,
a day when I can still write, read and breathe.
 
But it is just Sunday, wishing doesn’t change it.
It’s a day of slow but definite sounds
made in a foreign language,
thoughts made in a local, native tongue
and emotions frozen, waiting to be thawed
like the fish in the freezer with its mouth open –
to be grilled for today’s lunch.
A poet, now dead, once told me
that the language you dream in
is your mother tongue, your first language.
 
Now, what would I know of dreaming, dreamers and dreams?
 

Voting Day

As the young sun
is gathering together
its passion,
families travel
in lorries, trucks, cars, bikes,
dressed in good clothes,
hair combed back, pins in place,
cards in hand –
aadhar, EPIC, booth slips,
No Phones, No phones!
 
 
Yet, some others travel
to an idea of home
where they will be able to stand someday
in a queue, outside a room,
where their voices will matter,
will be heard and perhaps even echo.
 

boatman's song (haiga)

 

beachside walk (haiga)

 

tanka

drumbeats echoing

into the cavernous night

force my heart’s rhythm ~

will the Gods now assemble

to carry you one last time

laterite (haiga)

 

Decluttering (Gembun)

The therapist looks me in the eye and says, “Abuse.”

reds and oranges

in the shredded sky

practising a longer exhale

 

evening glow - haiga

 

Calligraphy in cursive

the swoop and curve
of a butterfly’s path
spring breeze
 
The sheep-haired brush with the well-worn bamboo handle hasn’t been used for a year and a half now. I remember the time when 42 of us did shodo in an auditorium with expensive carpeting. There was a thick wad of newspaper on the floor, wall to wall and then, a bright blue tarpaulin on top of it. Any spill, and there were many, would be safely captured before the black sumi ink got anywhere. Our Japanese sensei had instructed us to wear clothes that were okay to stain – I didn’t have any. I hadn’t thought of carrying clothes of that description to Japan. I came back happily, with a large splotch on my white tee, a keepsake that reminded me to keep practicing calligraphy even when the days were hard, when the words were few and when the thoughts were too dark, too many. But now when work days are lighter, the words are in abundance and the thoughts not too heavy, my inkstone rests.
 
autumn light
the jagged edges of shadows
on the gravel path

Promise of a New Year

breaking dawn
ring-necked parrots
unzip the sky
 
Another year begins with hopes, wishes, prayers and promises.
 
liquid gold
sunlight slides sideways
on black granite
 
The kitchen buzzes with the scent of freshly ground coriander and coconut.

 
Laughter and conversation, meld in a crescendo.
 
clink of cutlery
everyone reaches 
for the pappadam tin
 
Mother brings a tray laden with katoris of payasam.
 
long siesta . . .
woken up by a loud
election song

Samsara (haibun)

evening stroll
cotton clouds
race past me
 
 
A baby is born. Starts turning over, crawling, sitting, babbling, walking, talking. Soon, she goes to school, makes friends, runs in the playground, shares her lunch, reads Chekov and Tagore. Writes poetry and paints, plays basketball, does yoga, pranayama. At her graduation from college, she thanks her professors and family.
 
job-search . . .
a woodpecker tap-taps
on the mango tree
 
Soon she is another city, another circle, another life and you listen to the voice that sounds busy but is still making time for your aches, pains and everyday niggles. She pays the rent and finds a shoulder, another half that may help to carry along her hopes, and together they make some more dreams. Afterwards, there is music, dancing, a heavily woven saree and the jingle of gold bangles and silver anklets.
 
 
intertwined monograms
a betel-vine wraps around
the old neem

New Year Preparations

I polish the nilavilakku
with brick powder and ash
to reduce the patina
on the bronze.
 
I wonder if the lamp remembers
the years gone by,
generations standing in front of it
with palms pressed and heads bowed,
inhaling the scent of gingelly oil
on ordinary days
and ghee on festivals,
of hands placing yellow and white jamanthi
around its base,
twirling the string of fragrant jasmine buds
around its stem.
 
This year we will make do
with oil and a 5-ply cotton wick,
but remember the light as a dazzling glow,
stronger and burning longer
in this time of unusual darkness.
 

cherita

a gentle sea breeze

washes over the garden

stirring the old neem

 

as if the stars are visiting

flowers now speckle

the little puppy’s grave

Aham asmi/ I am (haibun)

The wires must be tightened and slowly but surely, the plant will grow into what you want it to, is what I have heard. Sensei is aghast, no, angry! Where did you hear that? In a magazine. In Japanese? No, in English. He proceeds to admonish me.

“We  grow and harmonise with nature. That is the philosophy of Bonsai. We do not expect the tree to reach a final shape or destination. We accept the living tree, just like we would, a spouse or child. Completely. And meet our own self in the tree’s existence and appreciate the being in all its asymmetry.”

playing Jenga
a hole in the high tower
of expectations

“Meet the plant every single day, as you are. And you will be met by the plant, in the condition it is in the present moment.” 

I ponder this statement by sensei. He invites me to hold the 40-year-old Baobab tree. I place my palms around its tiny trunk and close my eyes. I feel the energy flowing into my hands.

Autumn sun
a dream takes root
in the shallow tray