THE OCTAVE RETURNS

Saptak, the octave’s seven 

notes, reconfigure my mornings. 

After a night's quiescence, 

my voice rasps like sandpaper 

grazing brick. The notes, like 

hungry birds, want out.  

The harmonium, a treasure 

chest, turns the sandpaper
into a sky free of clouds. 

My voice climbs the saptak's 

seven steps, riding on 

the reeds of the harmonium my 

mother lovingly secured for

me by saving two months

of her salary. The birds sing 

as they take flight. My mother

enters the kitchen to make

tea. Water sings in the kettle.

Her voice joins mine. In her 

youth, she had wanted to pursue 

music. Couldn't. My daily riyaaz 

returned her dream, if only 

on a different morning, drifting 

across her offspring’s sky.

The season of poetry

It is almost over now the season. Quick!
Write me a poem I can store in a glass jar
something that will catch the light on the shelf
that the jar sits with two succulents hanging for dear life
yet not willing to let go. I do not know what makes a succulent’s
life tick but not so with a poem. I will water it with my eyes
and let its words touch my lips, every single day.
I will savour its flavours whether the day is dull or bright.
Write me a poem for the keeping, won’t you, dear poet?
The season is almost over now. Quick! 

Nonet

That  window without curtains invites the eye. At night

the glass reveals round table, open book, plate

pink tulips in a vase that match 

the tablecloth. The halo of light

from the lamp shows nothing

more. No one there.

A still life

Not ideas

Things

threshold

In principle 

there is a point 

where one thing 

becomes another. 

This day turns into the next

as does this month

and every other measure

of season and state. 

Fruit ripens

fruit rots.

I cut a mango open 

too early

and put the halves back together

in supplication

in guilt. 

Not for me 

to locate the boundary

between the still here

and the now gone. 

I may pass unknowing

through many a threshold

but I will know 

when I have arrived

on the other side.

Minus One Feels Like Minus Seventeen

It may only be words minus courtesy;

Feels like a bludgeoning assault.

Only quoting someone else;

Feels like megaphoned hate speech.

It might’ve been a while since I hit

Such a wall, since no one tripped me;

That’s how hard I fell. There are winds

That blow without answers, my friend,

That make a cudgel of a stick. It’s hard

To tell if what we need is more walls

To hold up the courage to bend. It

May only be the end of the world;

Feels like everyone’s got it under 

Control. It may only be a missile 

Hurled; feels like they’ve cleaned up

The debris, filled up the hole, packed

Cotton into wounds, stacked sandbags 

Against the sea. Must be the wind

That makes it feel like a collective 

Destiny.

17. Oats

If you've been hospitalized, you know

The deprivation of the senses:

The lack of colour,

The starched white sheets

The only texture, 

The sanitised smells,

But, worst of all,

Taste.

Flavour stands abolished! 

The antithesis to Colonel Sanders,

Abandon all herbs and spices

Ye who enter here!

The system is too delicate,

The limited palate 

A visceral reminder

Of failure. 

Failure of the body.

Failure of the mind.

Failure of care. 

Failure of dignity.

Failure of everything.

Failure of failure.

What's the point? 

What's the point?

In the morning, the nurse brought me

A katori of masala oats 

The dietician had bestowed 

Her benediction

My taste buds experienced 

Grace. 

Today, at breakfast,

They gave me masala oats. 

It made me happy.  

16. Banana Leaf

Ragged margins curl

Enveloping a rice grain

A Vishu sadya. 

15. Desperation

Desperation creeps up on me

Like an electric guitar strumming

In the background of my mind,

Those crisp, symphonic tones

A wind in metal rushes

Announcing the arrival

Of a new Messiah

Holding hands with Moses

As David plays the chord.  

14. My Inner Eye

If you see me writing ghazals, you will know my inner eye. 

My radeef is dipped in flop sweat. Watch it flow, my inner eye. 

The sandstorm in my mind does not leave traces in the morning. 

The grains are white as salt. Nothing grows, my inner eye. 

It should be "grow" not "grows", my inner critic winces. 

Formal rules are shackles; let them go, my inner eye. 

Abandon hope, all who pass through these unholy sher. 

At night, only glow worms glow, my inner eye. 

I hear the tapping of your keyboard, a cricket in the night. 

Where are all the real ones? I don't know, my inner eye.

I lay words like Scrabble tiles upon the lines inside my mind. 

A pause, some hesitation, and then, just so, my inner eye!

Seven sher are enough to make the wind stop in its tracks. 

Sameer, is this all you have to show my inner eye?

13. Rush Job

This poem is a rush job:

Conceived in haste,

In execution,

Hastier still. 

It barely meets the definition

Of poetry. 

What is that anyway?

A moment set to paper?

I have no paper. 

Only digits

That make my screen glow

As if it bleeds in colours

Subtracted from the divine 

C, M and Y. 

The glow illuminates my discomfort.

Reluctantly,

I post. 

12. Rhyme

Taking recourse to rhyme is my

Sweet surrender. White flag waving 

Proudly, for I have no enemies

And music needs no barricades. 

And yet, a sneaky part of me 

Is obstinate,

Recalcitrant, 

Unwilling to toe the line

And instead it breaks the metre 

And refuses to indulge 

In rhyme. 

11. Time Travel

I didn't write this in time

travel with me to parts unknown

pleasures are sometimes best delayed

responses may need time to sprout

wings are meant to fly

away game starting in three, two, one

to the future

tense minds yearn for the first person…

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
 

Break

 

After relentless

frontline service,

sometimes 

a mother may decide

to put her aching feet

up and enjoy 

the hammock—

the one that always

lay nearby.

But of course,

there was no time.

Reading an anthology of poetry

Reading an anthology of poetry
I flipped through the pages
deciphering words and images
culled out from memories
over many lifetimes
from stored sensations
carefully captured thoughts
fast evaporating dreams
and I was-just-passing-by ideas
that stayed to make
meaning as metaphors.
I found my eyes straining as
my head and heart gently squabbled
over which way I should be led
when a page fell open
on flowers and ferns
found on a mountain walk.  
And suddenly, even as
the printed words faded
the poems came alive
to my touch and how
they made pristine sense!
Not all poems are written.
Some are pressed. 

Haiga

 

Sea or Sky?

 Isn't the colour 

of the sea 

just a matter 

of the sky

in that moment?

Blue on the days

when the skies 

are clear;

meanacingly dark

when clouds 

hang low;

and sometimes 

a playful palette

of a whimsical artist

mirroring the drama 

of colours above.

DAAK NAAM

Tutun, her grandparents call a little girl.

A tiny bird when it rolls off their tongue, 

but tobacco in another language. For her 

mother, she's Pompa, a sacred lake, 

a mythical water body that makes waiting 

worthwhile. Like the amniotic pool Pompa 

swam in before emerging onshore to meet 

her. The sweet, intoxicating pain of wait 

takes flight with her arrival. 

Her big brother is Joy to the grandparents. 

A hulk of double-meaning moniker. If its 

English import weren't enough, in his 

mother tongue, it meant victory. In the 

labour room, he and his mother had 

deflected death in a close shave. 

His mother calls him Babu, 

a respectable, educated man. 

In Joy, victory and aspiration conspire with joy. 

Daak naam, a name to call someone by. 

Nestling codes, defying meaning. 

Bahinabai

Speaking to me from pages that fell open this morning
the poet said, “Words and meanings belong to the invisible realm.”
Invisible realm – did you say, I asked and as she spoke
the blank page filled up with words – hers, of course.

PS: Bahinabai (1628-1700) was a Varkari saint-poet who considered Sant Tukaram as her guru. The line in quotations is translated by Jerry Pinto and is from the anthology Wild Women, edited by Arundhathi Subramaniam. 

Mirror

In no mirror

mind appears. Or

unsought, is there?

Skin as cover

eyes flicker forth

reflect on naught

I.  A mystery

mined, diamond ore

Mirage the core

(Novem - form invented by R. Skelton: tercets, three words per line of one and two syllables, two syllable word moving in each line from last to middle to first. Each tercet should also contain one consonant four times.)

 

  

 

Leaf, Road, Heart

It's April, full of bud and leaf 

Sky too wide and blue for grief

Yet somewhere clouds the rain forebode 

The day is long, but joy is brief

Basho walked the lonely road

turned whatever life bestowed

into haiku. That was his art

Writing, so the ordinary glowed

The child's already made a start

He finds the gold in every part

of every day. My prayer for him --

He never have a heavy heart

(Interlocking Rubaiyat: aaba, bbcb, and so on, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by R. Frost being a lovely example.)

Reeds

 

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

 

Lines from Marvel to my Muse

“Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.”
I told my Muse, quoting lines from Marvel
and she said, “Oh yes, we have enough world
we do, but that time’s running out – it’s true!”
“So, what shall we then present as today’s poem?”
I asked and she said, “What does it matter?
You’ll soon enough be dead!”
No “Coy Mistress” this and how clearly she
isn’t about to even blow me a kiss!
She sees me watching her lips and walks 
gaze turned away, coolly swaying her hips.
She knows so well I’m dangling at her feet
and holding my breath – for every sign wrangling.
Oh, she sees me swinging between heart and head
holding out for everything that’s said and unsaid.
Such, dear reader, is the poet’s predicament
that even her Muse doesn’t pretend to hear her vent!
If today, these lines do not a poem make
blame it on the Muse for this poet’s sake!

 

Why is life like this?

It's April, full of bud and leaf 

Sky too wide and blue for grief

Yet somewhere clouds the rain forebode 

The day is long, but joy is brief

Stubborn

 

Don't distract me with the moon.

What business do I have

with the unknown silvery suspension?

Glorious, perhaps, but I'm not sure

it knows me as well as you do.

And why should it bother?

with a far loftier task

to shine over the world?

Let the moon be.

I'll look at you and you at me.

Your gentle gaze is all I need.

You are that moon, my moon,

and every other light

there might ever be.

TRANSCEND THAT FENCE

Mornings have lost their notes of innocence.

The daze of days quiver with a dissonance. 

What was once known like a neighbour's kind face

is now memory's vapour, smoke escaping an incense.

War's a sport, laughter staged, justice a rank joke.

Celebrations phone-y, meaning unhinged mid-sentence. 

Listless evenings grow limbs and crawl vermin like

Music is only falsetto, squalling without grave sense.

Try loving still, Bhaswati, you don't get two lives.

Stop obsessing over yesterdays, transcend that fence. 

The Conspiracy of Colours

I heard someone say

they are terrible at yellows.

I boasted to myself, I do okay.

 

Barefoot in flaxen fields, gold,

honey, dandelion, mustard, buttery.

Then there is lemony lime called 

chartreuse. I am sure you've seen

a yellow that’s nearly green.

 

Emerald, forest, jade and pine

juniper, moss, sea foam, and brine.

Just as you revel in how green you feel

green quietly turns to teal.

 

That’s the beginning of the blues.

Azure, cerulean, electric, turquoise,

hold on to the sky, the steel, the poise.

 

Before long, strung on the colour wheel,

you tell yourself: this is life, deal. Deal.

Trapped by yellows and wracked by blues

Get off, walk away. But first find your shoes.

 

I want to write you poetry (couplets)

I want to write you poetry,
but earnestness is hard for me.

Instead, I ask you if you've eaten,

show you other things I've written,

cheer you on from the back row

and hold your hand after the show.

We laugh at silly inside jokes,

mimic hoots and baas and croaks,

wave cheekily across the tracks

with dance still in our legs and backs.

I laugh because you always bring

too many sweaters. And here's the thing—

I want to show you what I write,

so even if these aren't quite

the lovely words of poets past

I think I'll show you this at last,

for I want to write you poetry

though earnestness is hard for me.

friday

In the thick air of summer 

I sit among friends

who have known me 

in every season.

Looking up 

there are no stars

but the moon is in sight. 

 

Gorkhabasti, 79 Tilla, Vip Road, Secretariat, Agartala-799010

There's a restaurant called 'Food Delight'

That goes easy on the masala

It has four seater tables on the right

It's in Gorkhabasti at Agartala

All momos come with soup

Both steamed and fried

On the left, the tables seat two

Both sit on the same side

The tables face the counter

And give a view of the kitchen inside

The prices could've been way amount-er

And guests would take it in their stride

Your mouth waters as you wait

The food takes a few moons

No 'friend', no 'date' you're with a bench mate

Students ready for your 'lehsuns'

You won't get to stare into her eyes

But you can share a bowl 

The meal is about literal 'spice'

And a shared desire to nourish the soul

So bring a gang and sit on the right 

For the left, come alone with an appetite

And if at all you have someone to bring

Only get those who make you look forward to things

 

Seeing through you

to see you
to look deeply
into you and find
the mountains of resistance
you hold to being seen
to climb them and find
across those mountains
seas containing creatures
fierce and fiercely shy
to meet and befriend them
so they stop stopping you
to rise through those waters
up to meet you on your shore
where with a trillion trees in you
you stand, to hug those trees
and wonder at the fleeting rainbows
thrown on your skin and smile
by the sun and rain flirting
all out in the open and
to see you again
and again and again
and find you’re not a filter
for the magic of this universe but
you’re the whole universe – unfiltered. 

mustard fields (haiga)

 

Haiga

 

A WEIGHT LIFTS

The weight of winter's wait. 

December arrives coughing. 

A bronchial shadow shrouds 

its celebratory air. How long 

before this flinty fog lifts, 

before that visage, delicate

and keen, is seen, wearing

the smile of spring? The pool

of waiting lengthens even as 

daylight does, speck by glinting 

speck. The face surfaces, like 

dandelions always do, in spite of. 

Like April's moody sunshine, 

it plays hide and seek for a while 

but ultimately sustains. With 

summer’s breezy magnanimity.

Falling Asleep While Reading

Woke up marvelled but a little displeased

3 pages engulfed 6 hours of a dream

Now that tyrant lies harmlessly but creased

After directing the flow of my unconscious stream

The rustle of pages, a lover's snore in my bed

Books are like people except they're all well read. 

The Paradox of Happiness

I wanted that man with the blue eyes

and the smooth voice that caressed 

without seeming to mean to, a trick 

worth learning I assure you

if you want to get in someone's pants

a sticky endeavor at the best of times

Happiness is but usually it isn't, getting what you want

Dinner came in courses, and wine

did its part. Those were the days

Dancing, his hand on my waist, mine

free to wander along shoulder and neck

Music is to romance as metaphor is 

to poets, gives us the shivers. By now

Resistance is futile. He gives in

to the pull and push, the go fast to go slow

Happiness is, and sometimes it isn't, getting what you want

What remains of that fleeting embrace

in memory or tangible reward?

Not even a name. A faint trace perhaps

of a feeling that something was missed

under the sheets in the dark. We kissed

as if going off to war, on a train, in the rain.

Happiness is, but try again when it isn't, getting what you want

(This form is called a Bop: 3 stanzas of 6, 8, 6 lines with a refrain, first states a problem, second expands on it, third offers a resolution. developed by poet Afaa Michael Weaver)

IYKYK

 Dear citizen, just a short note: As enfranchised, you have the vote But sadly, may not cast it. You may Appeal and the court repeal but There was a deadline and tragically You’re past it. Your candidate of choice Looked like a winner but without your Polled voice her constituency is Somewhat thinner, and we say this with Genuine sorrow that your Turn may not come today Or even tomorrow but here’s Genuine footage of a bride cutting short Her honeymoon - pictured with Wedding finery still on, along with The groom - to cast her vote and Lend her support to the politician Supreme. Ignore please the fact that She has clearly done this too soon - Miraculously, indeed, before it’s Due date - or that she seems to have Two inked nails on the index finger. Do not allow such doubts to linger, Dear unvoting citizen on the rolls. This election you may not decide The outcome for your State, but Rest assured we’ll manage the polls. (You too, Dear Reader). Best wishes, Your Beloved Leader.

Take that, AI!

Try failing with no eloquence

But with the stutter of awkwardness--

Like ants scurrying between limp morsels

Like a dizzy bee buzzing in bizarre circles

Like renters trying to pack up and rush

At the lee end of a dried up lease---

Take that, AI. Try (being) these!

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?
 

THE RECALCITRANT CHAMPA

Supposing I became a champa flower,

just for fun, and grew on a branch high up that tree, 

and shook in the wind with laughter and danced upon 

the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?

~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Champa Flower

A potted money plant, its leaves hugging a moss-

stick like fledglings reluctant to duck out of a mother's 

wings. Next to it, buds of cape jasmine on a plant 

with ambitions of turning into a tree and hosting busy

 

mynahs and chipmunks, quintessential arboreal seekers. 

A few pots down the line, a curry leaf plant stirs the air 

with smoky memories of mustard crackling in a pot 

about to sizzle with the zing of tangy lentils. 

At the far end stands the champa, a frangipani tree. 

Crowded with lush, fat leaves, but refusing to flower. 

In Tagore's poem, a little boy imagines himself as 

a flower hiding in the foliage to tease his mother. 

This frangipani at the far corner of the balcony won't 

hide or let hide. This diva of a verdant assembly 

commands attention without a single flower stashing 

heady fragrance in its pinwheel frame. 

This cheeky Champa wants to be seen just the way she is. 

commute

Going to work 

on the morning train

the women read

and braid their hair

and pray 

keeping count 

on their fingers.

They eat 

a belated breakfast

and watch videos

and send messages

to other women

on other trains. 

We are all going

in the same direction.

 

Beware of poems

beware of poems
that wake you at 3.33 am
and have you bending
forward and through
your knees to rise up
on the other side
to kiss your middle back
beware these poems
can be as twisted
and unreadable
as thoughts that
keep you awake
many nights and
make you miss
the actual yoga class
so helpful to observe
the jumbled scratchy mind
and bare branches of trees
always always
butting into poetry 
leaving you wondering
who plants poems
and who writes trees 

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.