Poems

1. CREATION
Walking bag boss. Creation’s God.
Dominating breathing. Suppressing casual airs.
Dictating terms. Vomiting anger.
Giddy head. Ugly world.

Social necessities. Even biological.
Filling cells’ needs. Curing hysteria
Cooling tempers soothing nerves.
Concentration of importance.

And the bird flies away to unknown lands.

Constitution of sacrifice, anger, frustration.
Dislodging of parts, component failure.


2. STATELINESS
Long, broad faces, serious eyes, confident chins,
Soft strides, straight shoulders emblem of quite power.
Caste mark, religious mark, shades of identity, roots,
Singing of ancestors removed from the brows of life.
Frames of existence- this is me and that is you
I will not come out, you should not come out.

Movement is a sign of decay.
Immobility, alabaster like.
Fixed cultures and expressions
Blocking time and growth.

3. YELLOW
The colour of Deccan
Mixing in rivers and tanks
Ripening faces, legs
Copyrighted by modernity.

Slim and bold beauties
Curing colds and pains
Age old wisdom of the hut
Sacrificing itself on stones.

Yellow faces, mango saris
Amber glitterings
Golden pictures
Bought and imprisoned.

Time in jail, history arrested.
Microscopic deconstructions.
Past suspect, present question
And future fashioned.

4. SUMMER
Brash heat mercilessly talking
Sending cruel waves of shock
Cemented roads echoing them
Black pools of volcanoed tar.

Brushing the feet like hot halwa
The God of light blessing atoms.
The plants drunk with hot air
Bowed their heads in submission.

Eternity waiting at their door.
Pale and drowsy, little lives
Tested by hierarchical powers
Of light white in colour.

The man went inside the hall
At the door the messiah stood
Chilled by the centralized airs
And said ‘you can’t come inside’.

5.TAJ MAHAL

Symbol of money, seat of power
Misunderstood as commitment.
Standing for ages commanding.
A seat of cold luxury.

How much money, jewels
Car, TV, bureau, grinder,
Mixie, cooker, cot and mattress
If possible plot or flat.

Love marriage actually
Perfect match in horoscope
Gold complexioned girl
Has finished her masters. Of course.

Right caste, right family
Love judged in coins
Enhanced emotions with cash
Polishing, adding to the luster.

Food, the base, root, bottom,
Inspiring love, petrolling the speed.
The rocket creating fire
Boosting it to the Heavens.

6. MASSAGE
Depths bursting with acid
Walls of conditions
Crashing like electricity
One needs a break.

Economical questions,
Unsteady futures,
Slipping calculations
Investing in tomorrow.

Fear needs fantasy
To heal the pits
Filling it with flowers
Decoration of protection.

Immortal songs of illusions
Around the trees, groups, alone
Shining, bright bottles of creams
Dancing, swaying to heartful rhythms.

Escaping eating realities
To the world of silken smoothness
Flying away in navels and thighs.
Stories of parallel dreams

Impossible in a tight desert.
Touching, igniting, blowing,
Oiling the rusty engines,
Fancy stores of glittering visions.

7.BAGS
Neck tight, legs tied, back bent
Blue and whites in autos
Clinging, one legged, herons in zoo
Laughing, sweating and fighting
Moving towards future jobs
In breakneck speed.
Western heroes in uniforms
Modern builders of an ancient land.

This is worse than child labour.
Let us try to stop this
Heads turned. Sh! Sh! What Nonsense.
Let them get used to it

Various voices joined the attack.
Wearing shoes necessary abroad
How will they manage it later?
Ties essential for poise and grace.

Knowledge, necessary bag of magic
Containing riches.

8. STORY
Sh! Stop talking, all of you. Now, who’ll tell a story?
Not the usual one, but a different one.
Eyes looking here and there, lacking confidence and themes
One hand shot up lonely amidst the blackened heads.

‘I can tell a tale from our Puranas. An interesting one.
Once upon a time
Brahma had four heads. Siva got angry
And removed one from him’.

‘Ha! Ha!’ Boss began laughing. Cued faces began too.
Why – bewilderment of confusion. Why the laughter?
‘Oh! Our God has only one face but your Gods have many!
Isn’t it so funny?’ The laughter of underworld.

Heads have become faces with contempt and giggles.
Oh! You thought you were smart to know a story we didn’t know.
Pain erupts from the stomach moved to the throat biting it.
Blood comes from the eyes, angry with many headed Gods.

9. THE PHOTOGRAPH
Untamed animals in saris, pouncing the camera straight.
Rounded eyes, projected chin, thrusting neck, speaking speed.
Crushing a child’s heart, down like the sky coming down.
Words touched in sulphur, actions following brandishing.

Expressions run away hiding, blankness envelops clouding.
The transparency, innocence, fears, reign like devil himself.
They see only the devil –Arrogance, Indifference, Callous.
Partial visions. Of immense stupidity and force.

Wishful dreams of dominations. Fighting against authority.
Practicing lionesses, in the forest of deers.
Ideal victims of Lion egos. Smallness, a pad for release
Punching and punching. The steam dies. Pauses energy.

The crushed stone is crushed. No hope of becoming Mountains
Melting in time and steam. Stopping in fixed angles forever.

10. CONCEPTS
Long line of waiting. Tensioned anxiety.
Will one get a seat? The fear of losing in the air.
And then the moving. One by one heads entered.
Entrance tests are important, especially for LKG ians.

At the age of two and a half one has to complete
A B C D with the right tone, otherwise breaking heights.
Finally one comes through with grin in the soul
As the teacher said something like very good.

And then the lady next in line has to take it away,
And say why this child is dark and not like you?
Racism in this land of darkness given by gods?
Imagination? Fear of night?

Angel is fair, devil is dark. Light is knowledge darkness ignorance.
White is peace. Black is horror. Day is fair, night is ugly.

Ancient consciousness of caves. Creating bright heavens
And hells of darkness .A world of our own creation of fear.

11.BIRTH PLACE
Hills framing the fields
Red and white lotuses
On the glass ponds
Tall weeds guarding them.

The town slept in the morning
Without even a bedsheet.
Cold winds chilling the laburnam
Yellow heaven on the road.

Up and down terrains
Angles and corners
Red richness of lushy earth
Ideal to play cooking.

Motherly language loving, soothing
Comforting one’s lonely heart
Lost in a neutral city
Speaking a neutral language.

12. BOXES
Knock. Knock. A pencil box opens.
Step inside a card board box.
Where is the window? Oh on top.
Where is the bathroom? This corner.
Want to wash your hand and feet?
Come, come, don’t feel shy.
Here, this side – that side are the vessels.
No, no – don’t turn around.
Come, come and sit on the bed.
Oh! Bother the clothes. Just push them.
Don’t raise your head, that’s the clothesline.
Ventilation? Oh come on, we have the fan.
See, this is heart of the city.
Going and coming are easy.
Twenty-four hour movement, busy,
Convenient, you see. That’s all.
Market around the corner.
No, no. You don’t have to walk.
A lovely cold storage right opposite.
Fresh air? Oh! The beach is close by.
Mostly we are out, you see, evenings we go to the beach.
Tsunami. Oh, come on! One day we all have to go.

13. ITS SO HOT
Its so hot, its so hot,
Inside the giant dubba in style
Truly ancient white mustached
Rickety shrunk and wrinkled
Inverted commas of people.
Pasted to each other. Sandwiched
Jam or sauce melting over
Baked fresh hot cakes.
Drops of salty juice flavoring
Everywhere the arms, faces, legs.
Water drained of humanity
To collect itself into vapour.
Smell! Oh! Horror of chemicals!
What do you in do this hot land?
Mullitudinal presences and buses
Never go hand in hand.
Why don’t you walk?
If you are irritated?
Oh! Come on! Don’t ask
Such primitive questions.

14. THE PANDAVAS
They were five, of course. Highly skilled, full of lifeblood.
Muscles like pressure cooker, arms like coffee pots.
Every morning sharp at nine would begin this practice
To become a master, one needs it, you see.
Sharp is the word, not a minute later or earlier.
Five mountains moved to the usual bus stop.
The great green engines kept coming without… hm!
Ah! Finally! There they are! The half sari beauties.
The preparation began in order. The drum stopped for inning
Oh no, not this bus, looking else where, not here.
Then the machine moved like thunder and lightning together
And the standing volcanoes still looked else where.
The noise almost moved away and then the eruption.
Great movement of legs and hands. Puffed up chests, red shot eyes.
Girls giggled. Hands on mouth. Will they reach? Or not?
Some one even made a bet, in spite of repeated performances.
The boys ran and ran, chased the moving dynamite
Could have won an Olympic Gold. Courage on their warrior faces.
Ah! At last! One foot inside. One eye at the girls
Yeah! Wow! Great! That’s it, fantastic. Eyes speak faster.
Medals of appreciation.
Age old story of cocks and hens.

15.DUST GOD
Packaged lies, methodical untruths,
Practiced cheating full of smiles,
Personified cunningness. Concrete reality.
And here we have the famous maid.
She serves humanity with incessant zeal
Regularly absenting two days a week.
Underpaid and under worked
In a land where even the master is paid so.
Husband drunkard, son useless,
What can a woman do in a father’s land?
She washes and sweeps the dusty corners
A heritage of Dust presence.
Thank God its a temperate pot
Collecting Dust as offerings
Blessings every object every atom
Blessings the maids with jobs.

16. INSTITUTIONS
Migraine blasting head nerves, towel around forehead
Pain pounding sheet of skull like an ulakkai on the ural.
The woman crying with glycerin, close up shot enlarging
Her torturing mother-in-law digging dowry pasts.

Memories exploding in the viewer’s brains
Stories living nourished with stories electronic.
One sided, single angled, age of crying past.
Forgiveness nonsense. Only revenge.

How to instill pain today?
How dare she say that to me?
What was the meaning of her look?
Gyring of thoughts throbbing the veins
Revolving like Copernicus’ spheres
Round and round like a swirl
Goes patted anger without an end.
What else to do?
This neighbour bad.
That neighbour horrible .
Nothing to do but sit and watch.
Watchings of horror emotions.
A hell of writhings.
There is a pleasure in pain.
Pain relived on others.

17. DURGA DANCE
Tum tum drums bleating to the tune,
Thal thal anklets tearing the air,
Tears in soul, anger choking voice,
Pulsating air drunk, puffing up and down.

‘Dance Durga ,dance. Dance till anger cools.
Why do you need men at – your feet?
Futile warfare and useless fighting.
Screams in the oven, clashing of vessels
Thunder and lightning and nuclear warfare.
See around a father’s chain.
Chains are lovely, long and pretty.
When you wear them, makes you a sweetie.
One sovereign, oh no! Two sovereigns.
Necklaces and diamonds.
Symbols of power and beauty.
Ah! That’s victory for you and me.
But how long the same myth?
Owning things. Owning people.
Tenantship no one likes.
What do you own – a home?
A car? A/C? What? What?
A son? Husband? What? What?
One who owns is secure.
Ownership economy of death’.

‘Oh don’t bother to disturb me.
I like dancing, singing and killing.
I feel superior hiding my suppression.
Name it what do you want.
Tum Tum Thaka thime ho! ho!’.

18. BRIGHTNESS
TV cameras,
Angel smile.
Heavenly figure,
Lovely face.

The maximum paid actress you see.
No one can act like her.
Lucky girl.

Unsaid,
Unexpressed,
Dies the desire.

Boxed in the doubleness.

Accepted in images.
Images Only.

19. ARJUNANS
Forty four degree.
Oven hot.
Bodies are hot Pav bhajjis.
Smoke in the air.
Sweat rolled down.
Down pour in cinema dance.
Body vapour vomiting itself.

And suddenly something.
Some irritating touch
A sheepish smile
Vacant eyes
Dripping face.
Body fully aware
Inside pant shirt
Buttocking the woman.

An age old hunger
Devouring in hot buses
In a suppressed humidity.

Morality in the running.

20. THE WARRIOR
Tension.
Anytime anything can go wrong
The driver drives. The helper?
Where shall he sit?
Share auto business is tough.
Five rupees per head.
Some times fills.
Sometimes not.
He should not sit
Next to the driver.
He should have the guts
To slide from front to back
While the engine runs
Jumping from hill to hill
Horse to horse
Across rivers.
This is nothing.
The boy in a flash
Pushed thrust his body out
Eased him self
Threw it in air
And pushed it back into the auto.

21. Moon
The file did not move. Refused.
Lying inert it needed some push.
One – sixth gravity, things moved slowly
Lazy airs, patient breathings.

Stress is harmful.
BP, sugar, even cholesterol.
Sloth wins the race at last.
Wisdom of sleep rules here.

You want birth certificate?
Officer on leave today.
You want it immediately?
It would cost five hundred.

The petrol helps ignition start.
Papers move here and there
Running here, running there.

Work over.

Not moon, but sun.

22. DROPS OF GANGES
A cycle, a man, a wall.
Eyes on the sky
And the land drank in thirst.

Two shadows walking.
Thunder heard.
Road sprinkled with manna
Feeding the air
With rich life.

Creating conditions
Of forests with worms.

Dry land, savouring
The juices
Enjoys the nourishment.

Enjoying the flavour?
Or cursing silently?

23. Jet dreams
Innocent, self – centered, child of dream,
Everything seems to be in your hands,
Shaping things, events, your specialty,
In turn tuned and changed by destiny.
Fate classified and bracketed.
Palmistry, horoscope, sun, moon signs
Thumbing , whatever it is,
Unknown, it weaves plastic webs.

Plastic is immortal, it kills,
But, never dies.

Airplanes of imaginations
Caught in clouds of previous births.

Running away, facing it
Whatever is, is within the net.

Expansion and contraction
Only within marginalized heat.

24. GATES

The winds on the face
Favouring ones from North East.
The sky becoming gray
Hearts golden and pink.
Heavy downpour of marks
In Entrance, State, and Central
Thick showers promising riches
Waters rippling, gurgling, laughing.
Rainless lands also around
Devastated by harsh winds.
Dry, desert like emptiness,
Salty drops, sometimes ropes.
In the materialist march
Seasons are important.
Guiding the ships
On land and water
Towards Heavens.

25. SUTTEE
Pulsating life in watery black pools
Locking sterility inside the houses.
Sacrificing neatness and hygiene
Fire of bacterial flames in brown
Voluntary burning of smells
Skidding of bikes on chocolate cakes.

Sultry waves of creamy dirt
Trampled, torn, trodden and bloody.
The street is bathed, with waters of leftover,
The tar refusing to be washed
Pushes the drops to the open wounds
Holes full of virus fire
Burns the body of the path.

Kins and friends in neighbouring houses
Look on at the burning pyre of smell
Getting the blessings of mosquitoes
And the Gods of after deaths.
Half burned bodies are breathing smoke
Of slime and mud
A dance of life
Unseen creatures splashing across.

Sounds of drums, pipes and cymbals
Bikes, scooters, and cycles
Sending the sacrificial goat
Saying good – bye, good – bye.
Streets sacrificed
To help the living live better.
Beautiful houses beastly roads.

26. OCTOPUS
Green rootings spreading fanning
Soothing the oven rays with softness
Self confident and dictating.
But a blessing opening avenues
Great arms it sprouted
Pink mouthed clusters of gems
Pasting itself on its body.
The wings developed character
They flew here and there
Put on airs in the air.
Thin arms pink bangled
Green dupattas flowery designed
Hugging the tree with tentacles
Sucking, sharing life’s juices
One on the other, speaking its language
The blossomed hands competed with body.

Born out of brown and green
Pink is the colour of today.

27. SPEED
Dynamites of movement
Rocketing of energy
No looking here and there
Focused concentration.

Saris and churidars
Slippers and mettis
Handbags and bangles
Crossing a bridge at every step.
Eight thirty is the deadline
Not a minute more.

Insult about mothers
Invoking the roots
Otherwise hung the soul.
Jets ran.
A row of men sat and watched.

‘Fantastic figures’.

28. DOUBLE
Lotuses on water, green leaves bathing in sun,
Weeds towering above, the pond took rest.
Ambience of laziness, to the onlooker
Actually tensions of devil inside.

Who is greater, the lotus or leaf?
Pink is proud of itself,
While green calls itself the mother.
The weed stands watching the drama.

Show is important, parade presents
The worth of the intellect.
Closing is useless, covering of lamp
Killing the light.

Two representations, one here, one there,
Which is true? Pink or green?

29. PEARLS
Heritage of shells, hiding stories of domination
Got up in the morning, to see the world topsy-turvy
Forgetting to brush the teeth, began screaming
At the airs, mountains, rivers, bridges and roads.

The Gods too got up disturbed by the noise
Wondering what the noise was all about
Has the lightening misfired or thunder bland
The rains suffocating or the breeze burning?

What could be wrong no one could tell
The clouds ran out and peeped to see
What it was that made so much of noise
And saw the pearls with brush in hand.

The paste had come down in a white pulp
And the group were walking up and down
In fury and anger of slipping down from
The heights of arrogance and ordering.

The news reached the underworld in a flash
As the satellites carried it as an urgent message
Fellow humanity heard the news of anger
There were celebrations under the water.

Will they join us as fellow warriors now
Wondered the mightiest of them.
Pearls are pearls whatever you might say
Bright and shining and attractive as ever.

The worlds bowed in shame.
Why?
They did not know.

30. MATURITY
So proud of learning and thinking
Standing straight and confident
Choosing and analyzing
Before jumping into actions.
Cool, detached, almost indifferent
Away from things, almost away.
Keeping away from common humanity
In pigeoned tower of imagination.
Reality lived in full swing
Flattering, lying, cheating,
Gossiping, biting backs, fronts
Cajoling, pleasing, falling at feet.
Towers remained lonely
Away from human height.
Eyes meeting at different levels
Of notations and compositions.

31.GAMES
‘Can you reach this height? Or this level?’
Hands on the compound wall, fingers clutching
Championed childhood energies looking down.
Established powers of stability.

Climbers are smart and tough
Tigers leaping across with force and speed.
Born leaders, gifted with clarity of thought.
Mocking the different movements of life.

Ambition is fast, accurate, and right
Questioning wrongs, setting things right
Paving the way for followers
Breaking skies, clouds, and heavens.

Fear looks on, afraid to fly, to snatch
Hiding behind saris, and peeping from behind.

‘Will some one push me to the top?’
It’s voice floats invisible.
A time will come.

Fear proves instinct – of survival.

32. LEADER
This boy can’t control the class
We should report to the teacher
Clans spoke loudly in a whisper.
The siege planned.
Cards to be played well.
He supported, favoured wrongly.
Stories of imagination.
Some tales are powerful
Acquiring new meanings
As days go by gaining slants
Destroying establishments.
Leadership, a matter of destiny
Slides or strengthens itself
Shaped by familiar forces
In front of our eyes.
The new leader initiated,
A child of luck, wondering
How long will it last.

33. DUTY
This one should go, that’s my only aim now
I should give her to some one trustworthy
Trusting her is like trusting live fire.
Any time she can destroy her future and mine.

What is the use of medical science?
Why are these girls born?
Can’t there be a method to bring
Only gentle men to the world?

Fires are used only to cook and kill
One can do without them.
Fresh fruits are more nourishing than
Oiled and fried foods heavy with fat.

These golden lights are expensive,
Silken zaris are costly.

Poverty prefers clean kitchens.

34. LUCKY
‘How nice to be married so early, everyone said.
How lucky to settle down so early, every one said.
A man for your self, to dream with
To sing with, to go out on a bike.
You can get new saris, new jewels,
New everything, even a new stove’.

I believed in everything, including the stove.
Articles bought in anger, in frustration.
But I liked the attention
The importance of being married.
Having got some, I wanted more.
Stoves didn’t burst, I told they did.
Easily believed stories.
I got more and more.
For education ,
For missed childhood.

A view of modernity.

35. SURVIVAL
‘How can you do such a thing?’
Voices raised unanimously.
To counter the will of iron
At its own den, as usual.
‘How do you know that I did it?
I never said such a thing’.
Sly strength answered.
Lies are amoral, but serve the purpose.
Justified injustice, perfected untruths
Polished into brightness, and light
Posed as permanent facts.
Colouring minds, painting shades.
What’s the speciality of the land
It encourages such paintings?
A mixture of opposite shades
Mingling of variety and difference.
Right is wrong and wrong is right.

36. PRESTIGE
Who said work is God?
Only some unimaginative idealist.
Getting inside the hole
In the center of the road
Has nothing to do with the heaven.

I am an atheist
Live to eat, eat only.
Drops are my God if you insist on one.
Anesthizing, protecting,
Camouflaging, giving new meanings.
Water is God that I worship
Every morning, every afternoon
Blessing me with His choicest blessings.
I go to Heaven, float in the air
Sit with fellow Gods.
Water God gives and takes respect
Treats me as if I am his equal.
Our souls are pure and sweet
And transparent, black in colour,
Smelling the seas and hills.

37. HEAVEN
The Gods had a meeting
With an agenda:
A child was crying on earth.
What shall we do to stop the crying?
The child went on crying.
Its voice choked, face bloated.
It had seen a shadow
Looming on the wall
Reminding of the Predator.
The Gods realized that
The child wanted its mother
Only the mother.
They came down
And gave the child bears
Making the child more scared.
How can the Gods give the impossible?
Where was she?

Work had kidnapped the mother.
Who had the courage to beat Him?
The Gods went back in frustration.
The child grew up into a mother.

The kidnapping continued.

38. RELATIONSHIPS
The thick forest blocked air and light
Green poured over every bit of life
Fresh is the word that would come to the mind.
Girls and boys, nature friendly,
Running like children, like birds or animals,
Ran the show, the lords of the scene.
Utter confusion dominating
Missiles of stones flying
Noisy explosions disturbing the silence of seas.
Order became a necessity,
This is your sister, this is your cousin,
This is your brother, this is your cousin.
Borders and ends creations of nature
Frameworks of limitations
Giving a beauty to the pictures.
Walls design and decorate
And protect the garden –
From ourselves.



39. CLASSROOM
Sitting on the bench along with seven others
From morning to evening five days a week
Has made me an expert sitter for a painter
A model, an alabaster, a statue of silence.

I am jealous of my neighbour’s son
All the time playing out, enjoying the sun
Acquiring a shining black tan and health
Clean nerves, smart head, and alertness.

He can climb a tree with ease, run like a deer
Can fight like a man, knows the land upside down
He knows the area, its contours, shapes well
A son of the soil, nature’s kin, born to the sand.

I play with machines, dream with magnetic chips
Live with electronic slaves , obeying my orders.
Imprisoned by knowledge, fixed by status dotcoms.
Following a planned route, I walk dazed.

Caught by the demon, unable to breathe
I pause for breath, a dose of medicine
Searching for it in clinics and centers.

40. BACKBONE
Bent in double, ribs creaking
The flower stood, petals in depression
Leaves in confusion, fragrance in hiding
Shock of reality, lost son in the crowd.

Flowers have no places in giant houses of the Lords
As the air kills them with poison and gas
This one escaped death as its destiny was longer.
The lucky ones go earlier leaving the terrain.

Can any one face monsters of me and mine?
I am the important thing in the world
The earth exists for me and only for me.
You and you live for my welfare, my success.

Centers of greed for love, for attention
The immortal soul caught in the mud of sterility.
Mine, mine the heart screams, asking for more
But not like Dicken’s Oliver demanding food.

This is not fundamental need, but fantasized one
Not enough, not enough, the brain screams
Screaming and screaming it has lost its voice.
The chaos chased the flowers away.

41. CLARITY
Meeting life at its den needs a peculiar strength
The cunningness of a cat or a fox is necessary in forests
Combinations of you and I are the magic of the soil.
Protecting one self from the other one wet by the self.

Chameleons live quite naturally thinking they are lions
How lucky that they can’t see themselves in the light of the sky
Seeing is always a problem as it shows too much
One doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge.

Limited spheres are better, safe and comfortable
The way is clear, the route familiar, end near.
Repetitions of livings and repetitions of attitudes
Knowledge of the known never lost in new.
Doubt is a sign of stupidity, a sign of ignorance.
To be clear one needs to live in sameness.
Differences in thinking, in angles, lead to failure.
I am right and you are wrong are the tunes.
Linking chains of right and wisdom
Clear tables to tables of gnanam
Is only a conception.

42. Attack
The flying machine, sucking the drops from the air,
With transparent wings shooting blood and lives,
Escaping in a hurry to attack the next red container,
Closely searching for lives in the thick forest of night.
Eyes enlarging visions, magnifying things
Ears hearing every movement, every sound
Flying without noise, quite intruder
Of the peaceful resting of the soul.
Advanced technology of identification
Radar skills of sensing where the food is.
Sophisticated machinery imitating men,
Copy cats of humanity, specialized in sucking life
Non-destroyable, elements of the corners
Hiding like soldiers in a mountain,
Inside shelves and cupboards.
The attack begins in the early night
Siege well planned, groups bombarding,
Circling round the cities before
The actual dropping of injections.


43. CONVERSATION
Walking down the road with friends
Talking incessantly, analyzing, comparing
Airing views, expressing selves
With the freedom of innocence.

Some days the friends were missing
And the road wondered why there was
No noise of the rolling stream and bells
Crossing it at the particular time.

At such times when the eyes were bored
They looked up and saw the tree
In full splendor, dancing to the music
Of the road, the movement of humanity.

The ears heard the things the tree said
About school going children, their problems.
It seems it understood the fear in their hearts
Whether they would fail or pass in exams.

Golden green leaves of kindness
Shining brightness of softness
In the human race of success
Where knowledge is the hero.

44. THE SPRING
Round broad hole of water, simmering in heat
Showing heads of swimmers, popping out corns
Land of freedom where women cleansed themselves
In the open ways of nature, as a part of itself.

Bodies in the water, baseless, without grip
Managing the force with ease and expertise
A marvel to the unpracticed eyes
Restrained in modern culture of modesty.

Splashing across like fishes the women moved
In the water, glistening in the sunlight
Jewels studded on the surface of silver
With black hair hanging like ropes loose.

What have we gained, what have we lost?
Questions of seasons, questions of ages.

Decisions of the airs
Catching the lives of species.

45. AADI
The months of discounts, seller designed,
Yellow’s frontier, temples’ paradise.
The mother Goddess’s benign ruling
Thanked with the food of the Tamils.

Sales dominate the state’s shops
Buying allowed at lower prices
Great claims are done, promises made,
Along with complaints of cheating.

Empowering the news papers
Ordering the magazines
Assaulting eyes and ears
Walks around the Queen.

Newly marrieds in their parents home
Waiting for her Majesty to retire
And get back to the calendar
And to its virginity as earlier.

New wine in old bottle.

46. FREE
Cannot buy without gifts free
Bribes to attract, to create
Needs of imagination -
An extra spoon or a cup.

Legalized corruption,
Accepted wrong,
Soothing the ego of poverty
In the land of hunger.

Free is beautiful
Bewitching and charming
Calling the soul towards
Destruction of confidence.

Affording is difficult
Concession necessary
Not possible otherwise
Is the mind of the buyer.

Greed God wanting more
Satisfied in sacrifices of pride.

47. SEAS
Waves high and noisy jumping up and down
Splashing mightier on the people around
Deafening thunder distracting hurting
Heads in a hurry to go home splashing.

One head with a loud mouth babbling
Blank face with laughter and noise
Making other faces look around,
Lost to the world, to life in general.

Rope on neck, fuses on ears,
Caught in technology
Rode the alien on earth.
Faces watched, stared
Absorbing the God of shock
Moved away from past.

48. CATS
Black and white bundles of softness
Nestling near lonely children
Giving the comfort of a mother
A substitution, in fact.
Understanding clean and quite,
Almost telepathic if you say so,
Cool lords of the warm kitchen
Of the fire wood and the ashes.
Appear sophisticated and poised
Like the tender newborn child.
In anger a true tigress no doubt
The bursting mine of the land.
Models of grace and etiquette
Walking with soft padded heals
Looking the cold ice of the fridge
Beyond the bewitched audience.
Arrogance studied and rehearsed
Sensitivity of quality and grooming.
Starved eyes asking for attention.
Pencils of towers moving.

49. LIGHT AND SOUND
Figure in a taxi, clouded and shrouded
Seriousness of death on his face
Nervousness eating his insides
Chemicals created in the bowels.

Light and sound inside his coat
To be flashed at the thumps up time.
Ticking of the heart and the ball
Weighing like kilos of lead.

There won’t be pain, they said.
Direct access to heaven, they said.
Cemented futures, they said.
Stepping down he reached the gates.

Lightening struck at scheduled time
A duplication of nature herself.

The boy flew in the wind
His tender face registering shock
At the pieces of him thrown around.
The Abimanyu of today’s war.

50.DEMANDS
‘Do you know why you never get things?
Because you never ask for them’,
Declared the young friend of mine.

‘Satisfaction is the enemy of growth.
‘Enough’ is the language of the fool.
More, more is the function of right.
Ask and thy shall be given’.

But the ‘ask’ does not mean that!

‘It can be interpreted that way too.
Want is the natural colour of man
‘Take’ is his attitude, his living style.
One can’t move away from the tune.’

What about giving back, I asked.
To nature, earth, the surroundings?
Only taking and not giving
Will scrape the plate and leave it bare.
Who will fill it again with food?
Gluttony is a sin and evil
I said with equal force of words.

51.BEAUTY
Black is beauty, white is ugly
Said the dark girl with a boldness.
Cleopatra, herself was black
She argued with her friends.
Skin that has stood the test of time
Colour that has fought against the sun
The beginnings of time we have seen
An ancient people of the earth.
Born before the stone, the sand
With a will of iron to survive
Speaking a language of the past
Alive and kicking even now.

Pride oozing in her voice she spoke with passion.
And when she went home she washed her face
With the latest soap that has come to the market
Promising a bewitching fairness in just a week.

52. MOTHER TONGUE
‘The language of the mother, the land of birth
Life blood of our existence, our nourishment
Living in our breath and heart and brain
Young , even at this age , like a fresh bride.

She needs protection from invaders and pirates
Inter-continental marriages are bad for our culture
Let us retain her pure and clean, unmolested
As we are her soldiers, her brothers,
The men of the family, in charge of affairs’.

So spoke the man of knowledge, in the morning.
To the flattered and mesmerized crowd.

Evening he came home to discuss business matters
With his alien educated son, in that alien’s language.

Linguistic talents, the gift of the people
Cannot not kill the mother and her command.
By expanding possibilities and opportunities
They establish her position in the world,
Heart of hearts, he knew it of course.

53. CARPET
The machine flew directly down
Sweeping over sea and land.
Sapphire and emerald dropped
From the heavens yesterday.
Mat of greenness, spread across
Called by the waves to wake up
Early morning, sleeping under
Cloudy sheets of vapour.
Cocoanut trees, trees of food
To a people careful by nature,
Nourishing with milky dews
Keeping their health in an order.
Lovely Gulmohars, flaming the city
In the months of July and June.
Sleeping trees, sleeping in the night
Umbrellas of branches, artist’s dream.
Straight Badams, regal and right
With aristocrat leaves, arranged
In a ladder of power and strength
Blessing the children with her nuts.

The trees are great, the land is good.
But under ground demons destroyed
The native river and imported channel,
Jealous of their growing importance.

54.GIANTS
Huge blocks of dull heads, blocking light and air
Protruding slabs of faces, hiding nature’s face
From humanity, questioning the autonomy of the breeze
Stopping her at her doorstep, asking her to leave.

Extended arms of men, crystallized in iron and steel
Snobs of knowledge, showing of money and beauty
Advertising their strength to the world of buyers
Covering gardens and dominating the wind.

Parks are bordered with these soldiers of protection
Paid servants, looking outside and not inside.
Not caring and loving but working for riches
In the modern world of selling by the figures.

Looking up, the sky line is raped right in the center.
Cash God cursing the eyes wanting to feel the peace.
Racing for the golden coins the people forget to see
The invaders occupying their regions with armies.

The enemy has planted his commanders everywhere
Especially in the important places of the city
Commanding attention and spreading the word
His language and culture making the invasion complete.

Iron sheets of ignorance to be removed and thrown away
The soil to be clean of the domination once for all
Our land, our language undestroyed by any foreign force
Living forever, with our identity intact, sky clear and blue.

The stars have to be seen, not hidden by these bricks,
The clouds have to be enjoyed, not threatened by monsters,
The rare breeze in this hot land has to be felt by us
And not robbed by these Martians of selfishness.

Such a day will come when we wake up from our languor
To appreciate the beauty that nature has given us.
This blessed land of leveled sands and stretches of shores
The envy of enemies, the hope of the common man.

55.THE ANGEL
The ugly life of blind competition marketing itself
Going around with airs of importance, airs of success
Carrying the label of self proclamation everywhere
Like a hill going around with a glittering name board.

And the angel came around crowning herself with flowers
Made from the white long flowers of the Panneer tree
Artistically woven into a round wreath of tiara bright
Laughing and smiling with total involvement.

Running here and there like a friendly flash of lightening
Lighting up the place and my heart with ecstasies
That cannot be told as words fail to express my happiness
Of seeing the happy child living, simply living.

Close to nature, close to life, dancing and turning,
Jumping up and down like lovely waters splashing across.
Celebrating moods, living for the moment,
Innocent expressions of exquisite feelings.

Messenger from God himself to make this life pleasant
Carrying stories of forgiveness and stubbornness
Contradictions of human nature at its infancy
Only to be grown into trees of fixities afterwards.

56.WET LAND
The land drank the water like someone thirsty for days
The trees slanted themselves away from the wind
In shyness they stood like brides for marriage
Blushing in light green, fresh, ready for the D Day.

The groom came slightly later, some dowry problem
Perhaps stopped him from coming on time.
He came, of course, with his pomp and show
Of the hot airs and a troop of mosquitoes.

The girl’s family wondered why he came at all
As he behaved in a manner suiting a stubborn child,
Demanding attention, and with dirty looks.
Heating every one with frustration and anger.

He was shining as usual in his style of burning
The face, the skin on the arms and hands
Making the girls hate him as he blackened
Everything around him with impartiality.

The mother shower wetting the land with manna
Protecting the ground and its juices from the rays
Of the heartless, cruel father, strict with children
Expecting them to obey his orders immediately.

How long can the mother protect the children?
Rays of father broke through the layer and took the water.
Disheartened people saw the speed with which it vapoured
Away from the sight of the people hungry for cool airs.

57.VIOLET BEAUTIES
The sleeping girls woke up, woke up by the heavens
In the form of those rare needles of showers
Injecting the earth with medicines of goodness
Shooting them with speed, to give life to the plants.

With a slight confusion, they got up, wondering
What has happened, right on top, just above them.
They stretched themselves, in green leaves
And yawned wide with their petals, in pale violet.

All of them the same, in height and weight
Slim as ever, small cute beauties of nature.
Swaying in air, blessing the scene
With a soft and gentle wave of hands.
The arena brightened itself suddenly
Alert and smart, looking younger again
Wearing the style of youthful confidence
Regaining its past glory and greatness.

The lilies reminded us of the regal past,
With their straight and bold appearance.
Time will go around and come back
Once again, they told me in confidence.

We will also get some showers of blessing
Lighting up our present and future lives
Refreshing ourselves with fresh colours
Energizing us with new goals to reach.

58.KANNADASAN
The teacher of Tamil to us, in the passionate age of the youth,
Giving us a language of our dreams, our hopes and paradise,
Guiding us to understand, the thing called life in this birth,
Showing us the way to think, to differentiate, to philosophize.

The Ceylon radio, the book of us, taking daily class for us,
Opening new ways, new roads, to the world outside us.
Sounds came rolling sweetly down, in the voice of Abdul Hamid
Unforgettable days of sweetness, full of joy and happiness.

Conceptual beauties, packed in songs, melodiously tuned,
The poet’s inspiration, the listener’s pleasure,
Airing pleasant melodies abroad, smooth and neat,
Exquisite delights, cheering one’s heart.

Actors swayed, lipped the songs sung by others,
It looked as if they themselves had sung,
The meaning so right, and suitable to time
Gifted genius, blessed talents, nourishing stories.

The cameras showed the lips as close up shots
Mouthing the words of the great man’s words
Lucky ones to express the words immortal
Words of wisdom, words of passion, soaked in life.

Blessed by the Lord Krishna, verse came at his order
Running up to him in perfect love and respect,
Doing the work like a servant, ready at any time,
At any place, quickly, easily, at his command.

We learnt his verses by heart, without much effort,
While finding regular lessons quite difficult of course.
We took refuge in the music, common for every one.
Music in the air, surroundings, fields echoing daily.

When you walk alone in the fields on a cool day,
The mild sun shining on you and on the green paddy,
Nothing like a Kannadasan song coming on air
Lifting you from the mundane life that you lead.

59. PETROL
Food fundamental, uncompromising necessity
Of the organisms, nourishing creatures,
Lifting depressed beings from their fallen depths
Giving them life breath, energy, speed and purpose.

Healing fallen pain, soothing with icy coolness
Gentle winter of mild shower, of this desert land
An honest praise, doing the work of the blessings
Of the great Gods themselves, in good mood.

Sometimes feeding the greedy making them speed up
Drive faster, with a greater sense of purpose,
Fuelling their engines of ambitions towards tops
Of cliffs, only to throw them down later.

The cunning get their work done faster, quicker
Using the weapon straight to the face, with smiles Of flattery, every muscle adding fire to the fuel
Survival of the fittest, survival of intelligence.

Honesty with dishonesty, a curious combination
Of success, oiling relationships, making engines
Of flexibility, products of adjustment, polishing steel
With lies of practicality, lies of dependence.

Veiled in ignorance, hidden in justification
Forgotten in selfishness, thrives the goodly weed
Misused most of the times and used well at times
Setting things right and making things grow.

Right and wrong, eternal questions of imagination,
Itself questioned by practicality, the actual
Living of the body, with its needs, demands,
Competing with the spirit in all its glory.

Can machines run without petrol?
One wonders in the life of competition.

60. D.H. LAWRENCE
Women are possessive you said, and said so strongly,
In your immortal epic on human love and affection
Interpreting the depth of binding emotions of bonds
What is the base of all this bindings, we want to know.

Could it be fear of losing, fear of failure and pain?
Polygamy recorded in the brain, so strongly that too
A fact of centuries, repeated and kept alive in arts
Looming fear of losing to the man or the son.

A man in the wild, wild sea, catching the only
Piece of wood available, catches it with some more
Strength of muscle with will and power of self,
Repeated by the weaker power of the woman.

Victims of biological prisons of creation
Jailed for reasons of continuity of the species
Caught in rules, because of biological gifts
Paying for the rare phenomenon of Godliness.

Started as the worship of power of the creator,
She lost her power due to the intellect of mankind
Logic destroyed her position as the boss
The fight for regaining the position continues.
Pushed to the corner, ignored for millenniums
Anger in her soul, bursts her energy in slots
Ununderstood selfish rounds of existence
Caught in the narrow field of cultivation.

Conceptual freedoms offered to her on silver platter
Clashing with harsh realities of actualities
Bringing more lightening of violence
In passions, thoughts and imaginations.

The fantasy world has caught her mind
Arresting her primordial passions
Channelising her energies, her dreams
Stories where the woman herself is the evil.

The visions of the scared mankind.

61. SLANTS
Why corruption, why breaking of rules?
Why the need to cheat, why laziness?
Screams the media, every day in the air
It reaches the hearts of the man in street.

Why have rules, only to break it?
Isn’t it because of two rules always?
One rule for you and one rule for me
You can’t do this, but I can do this.

Partial rules have taught a doubleness.
Justice can’t have blocks of previews,
Based on instincts producing
Many kinds of justices, product of the land.

Trained in multiplicity, variety, partialities
Can a nation, new in outlook, unlearn in a day?
We think it is right, proving it with principles
Finding fault with leaves while roots are wrong.

Original rules based on fear of equality
Coloured by the superficialities of life.
Life assessed by the skin depth of knowledge.
Looked through the microscope of similarities.

Taking in some and pushing some out.
Based on what rule? What concept?
What is the ideology behind these creations
In which a people are caught for no fault of theirs?

We inherit proudly the good and bad of cultures,
And wait with hope for the gradual and
Not a violent unlearning of the present.
Meanwhile, mother land, bless us, heal us
And protect us from our own selves, this time.

62. KALKI
The lucid prose of Sivagamiyin sabatham
Creating immortal characters of the Pallavas,
Naganandhi, the artistic villain, and Kannan
The charioteer along with his innocent wife.

Kalki took us to the world of imperial Pallavas
Renamed as Tamil Nadu in the history books,
Putting in front of us imperial majesties
Handsome in heart and body, superiors.

The people drank the prose in thirst,
Thirsty for an identity, not to be lost in a newness.
He reeled of the greatness of the land
And their kings, the Cholas and the Pallavas.

And the hero of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi his name
Kalki paid the great soul tribute in Alaiosai,
Gently recording the country’s mourning of the loss.
We cried along, as we read on, visualizing,
Understanding the sacrifice of the elder.

Putting values in front of us, giving us a character,
The writer shaped the Tamil mind, chiseling it with his pen.
Locked up women in the houses waited for the stories
Appearing only once, in the entire long week.

They opened doors and windows of the closed houses
Letting in fresh airs and breezes from abroad.
Dream lands, of course, that can’t be dismissed,
Precursors to reality, they walk before the present.

We are a great people, Kalki told us and we believed
It sincerely with all the faith in the great master.
Appar and his Devaram came alive and started dancing.

The power of the healing verses felt once again.

We felt the tone of the distinguished language,
Its rhythms and melodies touching our souls.
When post - modernity talks of dehistoricizing
The next era wonders if its out of jealousy.

63. THE TENTH PLANET
Icy, rocky, bigger than Pluto
That’s how it was described
The newest planet noticed
And confirmed by the astronomers.
Bigger than Pluto himself
One and a half size bigger
And as cold or colder
Than the Himalayas, themselves.
Planets increase in number.
We feel smaller and smaller,
Pushed to the corner of existence,
An unimportant species ,
Bent upon destroying ourselves.

What would be the name ?
Names are our contributions
To nature, our faith in classifications,
And putting things down on papers.
Finders will be the namers too.
Let them keep some name.
Why bother, it will be after all
Greek in letters and sound to us.

64. ELEPHANT’S BIRTHDAY
I was born last year, and my mother is still crying.
I wonder why she is crying and asked her in my language.
She said that I was so unlucky that I had no cousins
To play with , to fight with, to learn the values of team work.
There are only three more aunties and an old man
Along with us, apart from my father and mother.
In the morning food came to us in style richer
And manner royal than an Asian king himself.
We didn’t have to do any work as in some lands
It seems people like us pull heavy weights
And work like donkeys in strange worlds
Here we are the lords, walking around in regal mien.
I play, jump, and roll on the ground, and run
Am happy and can’t understand why my mother is upset.
I think she is just a worrier, happy to cry always.
Yester day was my birth day and you should have been here
To see the fun and pleasure that we had with children
They came with flowers, chocolates and even balloons
And ribbons on my head, and danced along with me.
Today morning I told my mother how lucky I was
To be born in a place full of love and attention.
And then she told me that there is something
More important than even love, or food,
And that cannot be bought with money.
Food should not be eaten from plates but straight
From nature with the dew on the leaves, fresh shoots
Of bamboos, rare varieties of herbs smelling nice,
Not available in this white land, of winter ices.
My motherland is not cold like this, with snowflakes.
It is always warm and temperate, ideal for moving
We are worshipped there as Gods, bringers of blessings
We are tied of course, but are used to it.
A funny definition of freedom, I thought.

65. RAIN
Scared of Chennai, you ran away to foreign lands
The fear was put inside you by the devils of pits
Laughing at your sincerity and demoralizing
And demoralizing your spirit and confidence.

We too don’t like the muddy roads splashing
Red dyes on us by the industrial monarchs
Spoiling our dignity, independence, identity
Reducing us to worms of the earth.

The level land protects the water on the streets
The tar road closes the route down
The telephone pits save water for future use
The sewage adds its flavour and colour to it.

Who will want to wade through such drops?
We hate the rains and you have responded
To our inner irritation with your interference
By running away from this land of dryness.

But now we want you, atleast to wet our soil
To give birth to source of waters under ground
To renew the juices of the desert earth
To refresh our lives with some bathing atleast.

We can buy the drinking water in lovely cans
Some buy even bathing water in great lorries
Money decides our horrible quenching thirst
Evaporating natural kindness in demand.

For when some one asks for water we think
Twice before giving the mineral water
Bought with hard, hard earned money
The center of existence, deciding our character.

When will you come back rain, and comfort us?
We don’t hate you any more, but long for the
Splashes of red earth and slushy mud on us
Once again to symbolize life in its purity.

66. KALINGA
Where are the ten stupas described by the Chinese traveler?
They are in modern Orissa, archaeologists tell us now.
Excavations under earth, pushing up sand and history
Records of the history of the nation going back to the Buddha.

Did Kalinga war really take place, or was it just a rebellion?
Questions of the learned minds can be now answered in detail.
Further theories will come out now, establishing imperialism
In the past, though it is only a dream, a dream of the populace.

Super power, super power, we hear it everywhere in arts
Platforms, asking for domination, supremacy and rule
Movements towards establishments of violence
And rights of killing in the blood of mankind.

Architectural members of the Ashoka stupa, burnt bricks,
Cross – bars, railing pillars, laterite blocks and pottery
Remains of the period, constructed in the time of the king
The sign of an ancient civilization, prosperous, powerful.

A new capital discovered, on the banks of river Daya
A few miles away from Bhubaneswar, the seat of Buddhism.
The war was fought there they say, marking the launch
Of Ahimsa, the product of our land, the land of peace.

Love of people, love of creatures, love of the universe
Was the tenet of this concept new, centralized in giving?
Certain ideas pushed back come back again to the front
Some times dug up, some times retold, to be fixed in history.

67. The soothing tunes
The languageless tune caught my soul
Wringing it with some pain unexplained
Some forgotten feelings, shelved in memory
Bringing it alive to the present in a close up.
Pain is healed only when it is revived.
Viswanathan Ramamurthy’s immortal
Tunes of the divine senses, killing us
With their beauty of honeyed rhythms,
Vital tones of inspirations.
We sang and sang, practicing the ups and downs
Rehearsing the hummings and the endings.
Sheer poetry of the songs added to the tunes
Jewels studded with precious stones.
Weddings borrowed the songs for demarking
One for bringing the bride, one for blessing
The couple after marriage, one to welcome
The bride to her new home with good wishes.
The songs became part of the southern villages
Part and parcel of the common man’s life
Away from the purer forms of music
The reigning beauties of classical tunes.
Lightened versions of the serious tunes
Easy for the untrained one to understand
The songs reached the people as the milk of mother
Nourishing and helping them grow.
A people starved for music, caught in a transition
After loosing their native forms of song and dance
Took refuge in these songs in the temples and weddings
Making them the property of the public.

Villupattu gone, kaniyan gone, kummiyadi forgotten
Kollattam unremembered, the old died,
Giving birth to a new.

68. Drama
With the glorious aim of collecting money
For a new wing in our school
We wanted to put up a drama, a comedy
To entertain our juniors.
The story written, the characters set
Actresses ready, we launched our
Immortal play in the range of Shakespeare
Paying attention to every detail.
Our jokes aimed at some people
Imitating their walk, their talk
The drama took shape in the definition
Of the great Aristotle – imitation of life.
The latest film song was included, of course
Can one get a drama ready without
The popular film song of the day?
The song was ready, the steps planned,
Entrances this side, exits that side,
Everything ready, except the entrance fee.
Shall we keep it at one rupee?
Shall we keep it at two rupees?
Fiery fights began and ended in the same manner.
The great day came and with tension
In the stomach, skipping breakfast
Skipping lunch, with focused eyes
We were acting, dancing, and singing.

Now when I think I realize
How bad the whole thing
Must have been to the elders.
Doesn’t matter. It is the pleasure of youth.
To think, to plan and do as they
Want to do when the cause is right.
What matters is the purpose.

69.Transition
The child went to the pool for a bath
For a long time it wanted to do so
The women bathing in the streams
In the lakes looked attractive to its eyes.
Getting permission after pestering
It went to the pool with a huge mug
The other children laughed
At the mug, wondering why.
The child went inside the pool
Stood there scooping water
As it is done in the bath rooms
That is logical too.
In the first scoop of water
There came a big spider
Wanting to know what
This little one was up to.
The child saw the creature
And without realizing
What it was doing
It ran back to the mother
Hiding behind her sari.

Streams and pools no more part
Of our culture, used to the
Bathrooms and showers.
Bathing in a river
A scene from history.
Moving away from nature
Concentrating inside houses
Expands civilization
Towards contractions.
Suppression is decency.

Concrete conceptions.

70.Government office
One to two is lunch break its waste going
No one will be in the seat, they said.
But I was in a hurry and went inside.
ondered what they must have eaten.through all of us waiting
The air was lonely, emptiness ruled
The big, air conditioned office.
Years of dust on plastic flowers.
I saw a security officer emerging.
Great, I thought, some body is here
‘Sir, I am in a hurry. Can I get a form?’
I pleaded in the best of my tones.
‘Sorry madam’, said he, in really polite tone
‘I am only a private watchman, please wait’.
I waited with forced patience
To help that hour to get over fast
But that was the slowest hour
That was born in the century.
At last two came, I mean the time.

Promptly three men came
Like darts and sat in their
Seats of honour, started working.

Four more seats were still empty
I waited for one of them
As it was my luck.

The four came, ambling rather,
Looking through all of us waiting,
Their saris bright with zaris
Ears with diamonds
Telling us their job is permanent,
Faces with laughter at two fifteen
After eating for more than one hour.

I wondered what they must have eaten.

71. Fight
‘How dare you talk to me like that
You girl you shut up’, the little one screamed
Anger ran like the river Saraswathi
Underneath the innocent faces.
Can such fresh flowers get so mad?
A war broke out and the armies declared red.
Some even had precious drops of tears
Rolling down along with their eyetex
Patches of blackened lanes of the city
Lurking just around the corner of the fairest
Of the tall beauties of glass and iron.
Who will win? Who will lose?
Wars of roses continued for weeks.
Rehearsal for monopoly later
Practicing the game of winning
Pushing everyone down.
Who said children are innocent of evil?
Extended childhood stretching to twenties
Men and women in uniforms
Living the lives of the babies
Feeding on chocolates and flakes
Nourishment needed for memorizing facts.
How long will this act go on?

72.Thank you so much

Life is a war the idiom of the brave
Creating images of the battle in brains
Fight is the language of the attitude.
Center of the world is you the special
You stand first everyone else second
You the best, the very good
Declare war that’s the style to win
A fool keeps quiet, the winner speaks.
A nation building itself needs these thoughts
Art is part of identity fabrication
A name, a character, a personality
Moving towards supremacy
Fight becomes the metaphor of the land.
It’s better to fight than beg
The new philosophy of the age.
Karma now means to move ahead.
Prayer is to assist the soldier
Worshipping the weapons – ayuda pooja
That is the past while the present
Worships the machines of success –
The car, the bike, the computer
And their relatives of iron and steel.

73.The mother
She had her face down on the pillow
A scene from any cinema or novel
Tears did not come out as usual
They went direct to the underground softness
Absorbed quickly like the dried land of the tropic
The child lying next did not realize
What was going on for some time.
Slowly the kid realized something was wrong
It saw the mother’s face pressed quite strongly
And called out aloud – amma, what are you doing?
When there was no answer the volume increased
“ammma, get up,” the child had seen too many movies.
Worry was written in its voice.
It started shaking up the body of the mother.
The tender fingers revived the spirit of the
Older woman torn by the harshness of life.
Her head looked up and the child saw the fresh
Tears dropping a sight so unusual it started crying.
Two lives linked by blood sharing a problem
Unknown to the younger one felt deeply
As understanding doesn’t need matter at all.
A day would come later when the roles
Would be reversed when the mother will
Cry for the child sharing its sorrow
Why should we say sorrow
Let it be a moment of happiness.
Let intense moments be full of joy.
Let human relations continue for ever.
The thoughts rushed out in great speed
Lest the mind fall back on its pattern of
Fashionable misery enjoying its flavour.

74.Need for power
The child had a long face
Her friend refused to listen to her.
I am right. I am sure I am right.
I have the right reasons.
It is like this you know
These are the facts.
Her heart raged in anger
Her opponent also had equal points
How is it possible?
This is what everybody says
So I should be right.
How can any new view be different?
Its great when I am right and others wrong
It makes me feel like a queen
When others win the argument
I feel insecure and weak
Staying on top is important to me
Why can’t my friend understand this simple fact?
It did not occur to the child
The other person may also feel the same.

75. Death
No body expected it would happen, in that way
The boy simply disappeared from the page of life
Left no trace as he slipped from the cliff
Invoking the gods probably for help, no one knows.

Handsome and lucky he got everything quite easily
Pain was not his portfolio even in death, they said.
Thoughtless words and thoughts I thought about them
Coming to conclusions in a divine human manner.

A short life is only a blessing the puranas will say
As the spirit is released from the bondage of the body.
Which mother can think in such philosophic terms?
The spirit and the body talk only suits the scholars.

To the mother the spirit is a son or daughter
A part of her being, hated and loved with intensity.
The image of her son falling down replayed
Like a scratched record in her mind till she died.

Memory is god’s gifted curse to humanity
Useful only to build sophisticated civilizations
Not to console a grieving mother from herself
Remembering the child in arms even after everything.

76. Help
The woman was walking with her sari high above
How can any one walk like that, my values asked me
We live in a world of modesty where legs are
Allowed to be seen only in images of the screen.
I looked at the immodest woman at close attention
She had two girls on both her sides talking in earnest
And she was looking at them both now and then
And seemed to be agreeing to something they said.
In the busy morning it was quite nice to see someone
Talking and walking in perfect ease enjoying themselves
A sight so rare in that busy street where people
Did not walk but ran across hitting others on the way.
These three people were in a world of their own
Discussing some unknown important thing definitely
And the girls in uniforms, I suddenly realized
Are clearing some doubt from their teacher.
They must like their teacher so much to talk
In that familiar manner with some liberty
And teacher must be a great woman to give
That kind of freedom to her beloved wards.
And then finally I noticed something else
That changed my narrow perspective totally.

The teacher was blind.

77.The procession

The drum was beating mercilessly
The dancer was ready to dance
The right amount of fragrance
Gave the scene a local flavour.
Even the flowers had death on them.
The man looked from above
Watching from the great heights of afterlife
Wondering why they are celebrating
The leave taking so vehemently.


78. The hero
He looked exactly like a piece of imitation
Reminded the viewer of the original
Reminded of the shortcomings
Created a caricature of the real.

The crowd enjoyed the tactics secretly pitying.
He did what the hero did on screen
Even the walk was an artificial effort
Tried many times but without the soul.

The children laughed seeing the sense of
Frustration behind the put on manliness.
The elders were a little more kind
Understanding and accepting failure.

Machines have taken away the heroism
To the currents in the air to float.
Dreams in packages chasing people
Even to their homes sitting on trolleys.

Lovely houses with lovely people
With staircases huge as the house itself.
Healing fantasies encouraging the present
Be happy with what you have.

The presence of getting back to the waves
Of oceans of frustrations toppling confidence.

Patting done hour after hour
Helping the sleep to continue
Or the mind may wake up and start
Demanding and might learn to work.

It is safe to tell them its alright
As long as you are happy with yourself
And not make them think
And get up with a knowledge of surety.


79. Anger

It burnt like the gas stove steadily in spite of the cold out side
Wanting to devour things and people alive wanting to see suffering.
Uncontrollable, powerful heat wave of the terrain, making nosebleed
Twitching in the soul speeding the desire for destruction.

Drumbeats of nerves beating continuously towards a purpose
Stopping the brain from thinking straight in a flow of logic.
Dominating the centers of veins pulsating in every atom of life
Vibrating in full circle sphering around the living being.

No, no don’t get angry. Especially don’t show it.
You know what happened to so and so the other day?
Never express your feelings straight.
Don’t ask any questions in a gathering.

People will brand you as a rebel.
This land quells rebels. It chases away any one who dares to differ.

If you have things to say write an anonymous letter.
No one will know who has written it.
You can take out your anger in that way.
Otherwise you can control your anger and put on a smile.

Let god punish your enemies in the next birth.
Or at least in this birth sometime later in life.
Curse them, curse their families.
Let their entire posterity suffer.
Let them pay for it inch by inch.

A society ruled by hidden angers
Destroying each other.

80. Dreams

Floating in the air, legs not on ground, speeding by
Unstopped by space or time, blocks of stone
The body went on enjoying the moment of living
No concrete to set in water but to be sweated out.

The next phase detested by dreamers on principle
The tough realities of planning and replanning
Things go wrong as a rule following the logic
Of life in uniformity not bothered about the divisions.

It’s easy to ride in jets in mind than in body.
Learning to drive is the toughest of games
Looking forward and back simultaneously
Quite difficult for a novice on roads.

Stopped usually at the first step, thrown away
From the heart as the impossible fit only for waves
Of imagination the brain visualizes longed for pictures
To satisfy the needs of reality in substitution.

Dreams also need the rain in moderate terms
To nourish them in friendly veins without devouring
In the heat of jealous vapour pulling the focus down
To ordinary level, the level of the commoner.

Hey, what’s wrong with the common man, tell me?
Nothing exactly, but he thinks only the mad dream.
Oh! Come on. Its just his dreams have failed him
A philosophy born out of failure and frustration.


81. Ants
The example of organization and order every one said
I thought the same too and watched their procession
Now and then in my house without disturbing their movement
As they progressed from one end of the verandah to the other.

Beautiful formations in neat light brown colour in a thin line
One following the other with no extra shakes of the body
No fat stored, perfect examples of a person in diet and exercise
A thing to achieve in the modern rush for perfection in cities.

I liked their silence, not disturbing their neighbourhood
Like the quiet rhythm of time slowly dancing around
Without noise and without drawing any attention to itself
Commanding total respect amidst us in spite of being quiet.

The power of ants was so complete and I stood watching
Their life being lived in an educated and gentle manner.
Would my children grow up like this learning to be quiet,
Efficient, managing time well, working in team, I thought.

Loud efficiency irritates me, showing off the insecurity
Every minute, exposing the lack of confidence to others.

Every one should know you are working well with plan
Or in this land no one will know you are working, you see
Or some one else will take the credit for your work too
With a kind of smooth ease that will surprise and shock you.

The shock may make you dumb and people will think
You are indeed dumb and stupid not capable of working.
I know all this, still I wanted my kids to grow up cultivating
The quiet qualities of the soft and gentle ants in working.

Working for the pleasure of working to reach the targets
And not to impress upon any one to get their favour.

We are the next generation, different from the previous one.

Yesterday I saw the ants in procession near the bed of my
Sleeping child with the innocent trust on the face and the lips.
One by one I started killing them and destroyed their battalion.

82. Pain

Stabbing and shooting across the nerves and veins
It killed you every moment step by step with precise
And planned steps neatly set in time quite ahead
As its mechanics never failed to touch you.
Somebody said physical pain is easier to tackle
Whereas mental pain cannot be tackled.
That man wouldn’t have known it.
When your foot is broken into two pieces
And the doctor says it cannot be fixed easily
And quotes an amount that goes right above
Your salaried head and you know you are doomed.
You calculate your life and the number of years
In front of you waiting to grab your body in pain
A sigh, many sighs come out of your soul
Reaching the god if there is one listening to sighs.
The foot in suffering becomes very demanding
Dominating, dictating terms to the rest of your organs.
It affects your face, changing tenor and quality
It reaches your eyes and pushes the smile out
And comes to your mind, teaches it cynicism.
The monster then eats you alive, feeding the rest
To the fires of jealousy of seeing others in happiness.
A part of you feels guilty for the loved ones
Going through the same experience, living your pain
Out of obligation and duty, sometimes out of
Thinking about what the society will say and so on.
You try praying. Only curse comes out of your mind.
You try meditation. End up becoming more depressed.
Pain is real. Those who go through it need blessing.

God, bless us, heal us, give us the courage to face this enemy.

83.Cover up
The crow was not prepared to sing that day
It thought it could manage without practice
No one would have prepared
Everyone will come in same style.
The meet began
Others began.
Showed expertise.
The crow didn’t bother.
I can manage.
Its turn came
It began.
c..c..cawww.
Horrible.
The voice did not come out.
It began smiling
I am not a singer
Again it started
Ca..c.c.c.cw.
Horribly out of practice
It now smiled broadly
Even arched eyebrows
I have cold, it said

The audience did not appreciate lies.

84. Meeting

The van on the road entered from the right
A scooter blocked its way
The van driver looking tired in dirty clothes
Could not argue he was right
As the scooter wallah had an air of authority and knowledge.

We saw the scooter lying and cheating with articulation.
The van loosing confidence put in front of a smart guy
Moved away to give place to the lie.

The lie with a smile of success moved along in true grace.
Winning is what matters
Not how you win.
Survival of the lyingest
In a mood of confidence.

Lies combined with grace and decorum
Are soothing ways to the goals.
Reached in the burning anger of the defeated.

How long will this formula work?

85. LORD MURUGA


God of children, equal in stubbornness and self-will.
A face that never grows old, the envy of women
Sometimes bejeweled, sometimes in saffron,
Bewitching beauty and called so as Muruga.

Valli’s husband, Deivanai’s too, symbol of polygamy
Irritating monogamous concepts, with an eternal smile
Lightening up our hearts and the dark temples.
The light of our lives, the southern people of old times.

Come, come, the children sang, asking him to come fast
To come and bless them with good grades and a bright future
On the fastest vehicle on the earth, the flying peacock.
Beautiful God on the beautiful bird, the delight of an artist.

He prefers to live only on hills, away from the madding crowd
Living in seclusion, breathing pure air, drinking pure water
Looking down on this world not with contempt, but kindness
Spreading the aura of calm and peace on the air and clouds.

Go to him when you are tired of this life
And he will destroy your problems with his Vel.


86.FREEDOM

Hard earned freedom, come after a long time
Should be valued, the speaker said.
What hard work? Thought the listener.

Freedom from what, from an invasion?
From an attack of technology?

As a people when have we been together?
We know that and still talk about nation as arrested
By a foreign power against our will.

Some fought, some courted, situation deciding
Survival more important.
Softness and gentleness and sacrifice was the only
Way to bring the various kingdoms together.

Fighting would never have worked
For as a group, why, never were a single group
Divided in blood, some blue, some white.

We didn’t have the strength to stand up and fight
Secretly hiding our differences in elite language
Of poetry and idealisms of high thinking.

A freedom got with historical circumstances
And blood shed out of cowardice
People wonder what is so great about the tri colour.

The independence day is a holiday
To watch our favourite programmes
To sit at home and relax with children.

When the national anthem is sung
We take it cool and don’t get alert
As it doesn’t signify anything to
A new nation created for convenience.

When will the real freedom ever come
When we are freed from our knack
For getting things without working for it,
Grossly misunderstood as smartness.


87.NOTHING


To be reunited in work one has to alienate oneself
From oneself to achieve invisible interior of poetic freedom
Said Derrida, passing his supposed to be neutral
Judgement on the world of the writers.

Driven to the corner by extreme individualism
The western mind is moving towards detachment
The only way to face this world of confusions
Keeping ourselves away from ourselves.

Centering around the self the successful man
Built his empires and riches that led him towards
The bomb and nuclear creations, result of reason
A phenomenon that had made him immensely proud.

Science is the mother of advancement
Looking down on the rest of the ordinary mortals
I know and you don’t know kind of confidence
Throwing huge pieces of airs around.

Bomb taught us to keep away from our own motives.


88. ECO SYSTEM

Food is the link between all of us
Source of all metabolic energy of organisms
Trees are the autotrophs, the most independent of the lot.

The dependent man has dominated the scene
Burning the producers of energy
To build empires, cities, to leave his stamp.

With his weapons he has laid a dent in the airs
Making our mother vulnerable to enemies
Of war smoke, tear gas, and killing chemicals.

Children sacrificing the mother for their progress
Taking her for granted, ignoring her pleas
With consciously practiced arrogance.

White revolution injecting the buffaloes
With harmones everyday to make them more milky.
Mankind drinking white blood to grow taller and stronger.

A parasite species destined to rule.


89. PUCNTUALITY


What do you mean by coming at nine?
It only means ten.
If you go at exactly nine people will think
You are unimportant, insignificant.
Let them wait for you
Atleast for an hour deciding your importance.

Achievers are important people
Never coming on time
To project the matter,
But pushing the importance of the person
To the fore front.
Which is important – work or you?

Work can be done later too.

Establishing one’s greatness
Cannot be done later.

This is the time, the situation.
Why waste the opportunity
Thinks the man of the world.

Right of course in the worldly world,
Where personalities are the main
And the concepts are conclusion.


90.SHOWS

We are a people loving shows, loving showmen.
Living in a world of imaginary perfection
Some people call it fantasy, that’s only a comment
And can be ignored as ignorant of a character.

We need models, examples that are visualized in screens
We like to become fair and tall as the Aryans
Our secret dreams exposed in dreams of machines
Visions of males with many women.

A land competing with the world in goals
Success, victory, all packed in movies
Achieved by heroes of beauty and strength,
Denied in reality for ages,
Actually achieved by the audience in mind,
Not yet realizing its possibilities in life.

Transferring the visions to reality
Mixing reality and dreams
Making them one and the same.

Good or bad? Bad says the intellectual.
Good says the common man.

Gods must have been created in the same way
Mixing vision with matter in practical life.

Dreams and religions go together
Stamping certain qualities
Collecting crowds, encouraging hero worship
Channelising energies into ways of imagination.

Ideologies powerful, fantasies strong.

Technology mourning for the lost world of heroes
Creating reel after reel, satisfying hungers.

Each time the retelling of the past is created
The masses go mad rejoicing in the constructed
Realities of the silver screen seeing their own successes
And achievements as great heroes of the present.

Playing heroes realizing the potential, with flags led the crowd
Leading them towards their destiny of future
Decided by the ones not caught in the dream cycle.


91.POVERTY

Poverty, ignorance, hunger, disease, the problems
Of this ancient land in the modern days of science
Unable to tackle its problems with all its technology
And foreign acquired knowledge of its intellectuals.

Revolutions come and go, green and white
Certain factors never change, cannot change
Change likes to take a slow walk and not run in speed
And collapse in a hurried urgency of matters.

Poverty will escape only if we start feeling ashamed
Of taking from others instead of claiming it our right.
Karma yoga is not resigning to our destiny
But working without any return, forgotten by us.

Aditi dharma has created a people of demand
Asking for jobs, for concessions, for free gifts
Creating a land of discounts, destroying abilities
And killing opportunities in the world of competition.

Economists may not agree, of course, to this simple
Interpretation of our own character of ourselves.




92. HAND PULLED RICKSHAWS


An inhuman form of transport, out-moded in style
Not practiced in any other part of the world
To be banned and driven out of the place
Decided the government and stopped the tradition.

The man was out of the job making his family starve
For sometime he had done, done only this
Not trained in anything else to bring food home.

Why did the government take such a decision?
Is it to relieve the man from his drudgery?

Oh no, don’t be silly, it is to change the image
Of the people to the outsider as pictures
Of suave, and sophisticated patterns.

These are difficult questions to be answered.
What is right and what is wrong?


93. Bond

Come on child, get up and take your oil bath
Its four in the morning, the time of Gods.
Wear your new dress your Dad has got you
Yesterday night after you cried and slept.

The skirt is blue in colour, the blouse in white.
And both have flowers in yellow and red
Like the flowers of the Poovarasam poo.
Like the kolam in the front, you will look bright.

I am making some vadais for you
And some idlis with chutney too.
You can have as much as possible
No one will limit it to day, the day of light.

Narahashuran was destroyed once upon a time
On the same day by the Lord of protection
He will destroy our sorrows too
The day will come when our tears will dry.

The God has eyes that are sleeping
Let us wake Him with the crackers
Once He opens his eyes pain will escape
To a foreign land never to return.

Let us wait my child for a while
With patience and courage
By next deepavalli your father
Will get a job to celebrate the Lord’s achievements.

Now take your bath and wear the simple dress
These poor people could afford,
Equivalent to expensive clothes of the rich,
Born to enjoy good dresses and food.

My child, don’t lose heart looking at the rich.
We are richer by our bond of family
I love you and your father, and he loves us too
This is the greatest gift of life and we have the same.

The time will come my dear, changing the tides
Turning fortune on us, the simple and hardworking.
Get up and run to your bath, rejoicing the present
And the blessings will follow you on your path.


94. TEMPLE BHAJANS

The children sat in order on the floor of the temple
With gadam, uduku, and with clapping hands
Singing loud, some screaming in the top gear
Eyes constantly looking at the prasadam.

Many had come without breakfast or lunch
Children of families where food was only in the night
Empty stomachs gave them the spirit of hunger
Making their voices go dry and thirsty.

The priest was going slow in his preparations
Showing the lamps to the Goddess in creeping motion
Three times rounding the multiple lamps on the face
The deity showed bright and shining in the light.

She looked at the straining children, felt the hunger
Pitying their condition, understanding their needs
The Goddess quietly watches their blind belief
In Her and blesses them with future jobs.

The songs continue in full flash
Immersing the neighbourhood in harmony.




95.CYCLING
The boys roamed around the local terrain
On their cycles pedaling with all their might
Visiting temples, friends, relatives
On the government announced holidays.

No televisions to switch to, songs in the air
Minds tuned to dreams of books
A generation of the by gone era.

Discussing politics, teachers, girls
Passing judgments without reservations
The confidence of youth once lost never got back.

Framed by the latest songs
Caught in their beauty and rhythm
Lost to reality in the innocence of ideals.

Gone, gone, the days of purity
To commercialism and goals.

Money is the God now
Dominating, dictating and deciding
The lives of humanity, monitoring
The expectations of dreams.

Lives ruled by hunger.


96.LABURNUM

The white heat radiating mercilessly on the hair black road
Reflecting the petrol drops in various colours of the spectrum
Along with the previous days rain water, a rare sight
In the desert land, where rains decide the fate of the farmers
Taking them to heaven or hell, driving them from life.

The only blessing in the early month of May, yellow beauties
Standing on both sides of the roads, welcoming tired pedestrians
Gently waving their heads in the mildest breeze possible
Hiding greenness, sending them away, on holiday for a month.

Refreshing the man tired after the sun has taken his energy
The water out from his body, and evaporated into the air.
The flowers gave him fresh energy, to walk with more strength
Carried him along to his destination in peace.

He reached home and still in his mind the yellow pictures
Stood very fresh making him forget the hot ambience outside.


97.HEAVENLY SHOWERS

The Gods had come down to listen, sitting right in front.
Their lokas were empty, bare, breathing solitude.
Celestial beings melting in blissful aesthetic tunes
Taking the listener to a spiritual world of highness –
M.S.Subbulakshmi was singing.

Her face lost to the heavens, her soul melting in kindness
Her fingers counting the worlds, universe in her hands
Commanding the attention of even the severest
To her divine renderings, searching the soul.

Which kirtana is better than the other, I can say?
Which bhajan, song, or tune? Language fails,
As it does in trying to put in words the immortal
Glory that lit the lamps of musical knowledge
In thousands of homes in morning and evening.

Her voice brought the music to the centre
Telling the world about the ancient land
Civilized and cultured beyond dreams
Though caught in nets now and then.


98.SUMMER DELICACY

One of the three fruits, designed by the region
Commanding the roads only in the heat
Yellow blankets with ups and downs
Telling their presence a mile away.

Small hills packed, arranged, if touched
Toppling down making the seller scream.

Smart beauties of various types seducing buyers
With smooth golden skins and rounded bodies.

Vitamins live in them happily, living in comfort
Changing their residence when transported.
South mixes them with puttu, an acquired delicacy
A rare delight to esteemed guests.

Made eternal in designs of borders, dresses
Recorded in colours of wedding silks
For a long time in history, to be replaced
By the colour revolution of machines.

The southern fruit, born to the sturdy tree
Whose tender leaves, lovely shade of brown
Standing for the sun tanned skin
Of the man and woman of the south.

A true symbol of its heritage, plucked
By the villager and bought by the city man.



99.COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

Wounded by totalitarianism the western psyche
Started hating anything collective in emotion as
Group responsibilities resulted in mounting passions
Relieving one from individual responsibility.

Popper’s analysis is the child of pain
Irritated by the concepts of self centredness
Nationalism appeals to our tribal senses
To passions and prejudices, he says.

Man has to think global, and not region
States, nations have to merge in oneness
The enemy is not each other, but pollution
We have to think, feel, in collection.

Wisdom out of experience, invaluable in that
Each one learning separately not necessary
West and east can learn together from each other
Knowledge to be practiced not for learning by route.

Objective use of knowledge,
The unreachable ideal of intelligence.




100. THIRD WORLD

The teacher has decided the progress of the student
And made a report based on certain factors of intelligence.

Can any one question the decision of the system?

You are first, you are second and you are third.
That is it. It is final. No questions. Nothing can change.
Developing , developed and so on and so on.

Gold is the base, cleanliness second, health the third.
Many more such steps in deciding greatness.
Hard earned money now speaks volumes.

The loser now stands in shame, branded as low,
Slave of circumstances, caught in destiny
Unable to move because of the human chain.

Oh, for that boxes of shining metals!
Lost, to ships built with care
Deciding the sweat of today’s worth.
Who designed this economy?
What logic?

The logic of selfishness.

My money useless.
I can’t see hills and valleys.

I am rich.
My country is poor.

Let destruction fall on concepts like this.


Branding cultures of modernity, unable to understand
The complexities of civilizations and cultures
Weighing is not possible when the components
Are not understood well and clear.

Policies beyond the scope of the common man.
Fatally used by ideologies.


101.WATERS

Boxed in concrete, arrested on the way to the sea
For the welfare of a certain people, for their needs
For certain plants, supplying life manna for some
The blessings of clouds, created for certainties.

The drops either come in excess or refuse to come
Making the people water stingy, a survival instinct.
Water heading the list in importance in demands
Tropical dreams of time immemorial.

Brother fighting against brother for water
Ancient differences not forgotten soon
New flavours added to the conflicts
Fresh situations deepening the wounds.

Modern technology has chased the waters
Permanently away, building underground shelves
Of tubes taking the waters straight to blue depths
Refusing to quench the thirst of the land.

What will the farmer do, caught between
Such forces of nations and forces of time?



102. RAIN

After months of violent heat torturing the people
Suddenly the clouds grew kind becoming dark
Looking like a pregnant girl full of life
Auspicious , fertile, happy and expectant of future.

The drops down one by one, wetting in slow motion
And killing the people with its kindness
Everyone prayed don’t come again
Hating it and longing for the common sun.


103. WEDDING

Relations stood here and there whispering, commenting.
Nagaswaram played a classical tune, to the few listeners.
Silk sarees fluttered along with jewels in bright colours.
Smiles genuine, forced, found on cheerful faces.
Bride came, walking confidant, smart, and calm.
Groom looked equally comfortable, sure of everything.

A voice sitting at back began mumbling a monologue:

‘In our days, it wasn’t so bad and shameless, you know.
When I got married I didn’t even see my husband
Till he tied the thali around my neck and kept a pottu.
Now you see, these girls moving around as if they are
Married every other day, so casual they are, truly’.

To this loud comment someone answered in a milder tone:

‘Yes, that’s quite true. But girls of your days did not have
To go to school at the age of two carrying kilos of books
And compete with boys in everything including games,
Study the materials meant for men, work in aggression
Till late evening just like their husbands or brothers.
The modern girl has inherited the knowledge society
An heir of times, forced to turn around and face changes’.

I moved away thinking about both the views
Seeing the truth in the things that were said.


104. BHOOMI POOJA

The piece of land looked neat, freshened hurriedly
The few trees that stood in the corner were tensed
Wondering if they would be cut away to clear the way
The mason waiting with happiness, a new job comes.

The couple sat with serious expressions of devoutness
The children around did not make any noises
The family also in equal silence of prayer in hearts
Efforts must be blessed, future should go on well.

A house is necessary to live and to be happy
Without the irritating presence of the house owner
How long can one live in a rented palace
One needs one’s own hut, even if it is small.

Chennai , the business centre for rented houses
A modern business with no ancient backing
The child of times, new practicalities of necessity
Owning concept well in their psyche, used by banks in turn.

Banking sector thriving on interests once considered bad
Investing in these little human dreams, against nature.



105. CLONED CATS

Three cloned African wildcats delivered
Eight clone kittens in brown fur, black stripes
Perked ears, green blue eyes looking innocent
The children of biological scholars.

They lay there in the lab with their parents
Not knowing their scientific background
Blinking to the light not able to shade it
New to the world, old to imagination.

Their innocence a gift of God
Though He did not create them
Directly, but through the intellect of man.
The only sane way to look at the matter.

Is this era the next phase in science
After the atom bombs of the previous one?
What will be the consequences mind wonders,
Not knowing how to locate the creation.

Artifacts in evolution artificially created.



106. SHORTCUT

Four wheeled box in iron moved fast like a speedy horse
Red shirt man jumped down competing with technology
Dashed against the opposite running demon with wings
Flew above the passers by , reached heaven straight.

His family waited for him till dinner and began fearing
As he never wasted time in reaching home everyday
That he would not wait even for the bus to stop
At the right place, but jump down in the previous bend.

He never spent a moment in his life without a purpose
Full of commitment had he in material affairs
To the jealousy of neighbors and relatives living around them
In that colony of economical, careful people.

Everyone knew this except the God of death
Who whisked the boy away like a clever old
Father -in- law booking a good groom for his daughter
To make sure his daughter was secure in future.

The sole earning member gone the family blamed
Every one except the boy who could not have
Made any such mistakes of carelessness.



107. THE INTELLUCTUAL

Enjoying rights as never before in the memory of humanity
The man of intelligence with advanced weapons of attack
Destroyed systems one by one hacking them with spirit
Finding fault with every established concepts of Right.

Some ideologies had to go but they were left alone
As touching them would remove their stabilities
And centuries of confidence in their birth and genes
Attacking ideas only if they are disfavourable.

Revolving around a world of self centeredness scholarship
Moves like any other piece of existence just like any other.
Why do we expect reason not to have any prejudices?
It is simply another organ developed to strengthen basics.

Intelligence is biological and blown by winds of moods
Decided by interests of own self building empires,
Civilizations that selfless concepts grow into religions,
Become concretes of right judging the rest as wrong.

Human considerations never rising above basic needs.

A curse, a blessing inherited.




108. BATHROOM

The river escaped from being seen to nowhere
The pond had a few houses on top with live humans
And not plants and fishes with wind playing
Water God angry with the city man for his greed.

Houses are the mark of money, security
Protection against the waterless future
Brick jungles of existence for special species
Moving within darkness of safety.

The taps opened, water bought in lorries
Poured as if they jumped from heaven
Full white like running angels together
Cleansing the body and the room.

Mother Earth barren underneath
Dry as dry possible after deep surgeries
Of holes sucking her blood daily
For drinking and cleaning as parasites.

Gone are the days when one went to a stream
To bathe, hear the bhajans of birds, look at the sun.

Science has arrived in western vehicles mocking us.


109. Thirst

They came wanting to take vengeance
The effort did not succeed as the waters stopped midway
Shocked by the callous heat dominating the arena
Dictating notes heartlessly to an overtired student.

Exhaustion twirling him away like a speeded top
The skin began drying with dehydration
The smell of sweat chased the clouds to the neighbour.

The next day they tried once again
Now with the additional force of the winds
The monsoon of the northeast
Together they attacked the land
With age old weapons of time
Devastating the land of modernity
Where the waters don’t go to the land
But protected by blocks of stupidity in concrete.

The thirsty mother waiting for a long drink
For months together cursed in disappointment.

The words did not penetrate the deafness of style.

110. Hot meal

The meal became hot, too hot
How to bring down the spices’ strength?

The woman in the kitchen broke her fingers almost.
Add some tomato, add some tamarind
Add something. The guest has come.

Tension broke out in volumes. Vessels started falling.
Hands began thinking on their own.

And made mistakes.

Is this a topic for a poem?

People sing of immortal love
They sing of their motherlands.

Will anyone sing of cooking?

Food has to take a secondary place
It has to go to the background
Receding into the recesses of existence.

Anyway the tension in the kitchen
Cannot not be tackled with inexperience.

It needs tears of knowledge.

111. Intensity

Explosions took place in the brain
Quakes broke out and shattered the body
Fresh lava came out as white liquid drops
The continents moved across as the heart heaved
Pain tore the cells apart creating space for air to move
When will this birth come to an end?

Are there other births too?
This pain is because of the previous birth’s sins
Thank god I haven’t committed many sins now.
It’s only the past that’s haunting me and others
Suffering is because of forgotten lives
Chasing us throughout our steps to heaven.

Ah! How nice to think so!

Beliefs are healers helping us to live.
Groundless, faithless will find earth a place of volcanoes.

Established methods guide the soul
To face it with better confidence.

112. Four walls

Children removed the cushions from the sofa and built castles
One thought of a brilliant plan of making a pool on the bed
He took a bucket of water and poured it on top of the mattress.

The water disappeared quickly in a flash faster than the ground
Another bucket was brought and then one more very soon.

The pool never materialized as the water started running away
And fell on the smooth floor like a water fall in a theme park.

Wow! If the pond is not possible atleast a waterfall can happen.
The children thought the idea was great and put all their energies
Into making a natural waterfall falling with a natural grace.
Buckets and buckets of water came to do the job immediately.

The youngest was smart as it started bathing in the waterfall
Made by innocent hands not capable of thinking of consequences.

The beautiful scene appeared disastrous to grownup eyes
And earned all of them good spanking and screaming.

Knowledge society locking up children to make them
Dollar earning millionaires to take care of it later.

113. Friendship

I will never talk to you, you are not my friend
Screamed the little one to the friend on the sunny day.

The sun started smiling at the innocent looking anger
And the clouds did not like sun’s reaction at all.

What is so comic about the children’s fight?

I am not laughing said the serious sun to the cloud.

On the earth the children moved around with hot faces
Borrowing the heat from the heavens.
The cool air only added moodiness to their faces.

Two days went by and the sun started praying.

The clouds wondered when they will become normal.

The play ground, no, no, the space in front of the flats
Was empty without the fluttering of the children.

The old couple who hated the noisy kids
Missed the familiar irritation disturbing their sleep.

One child fell down the stairs the third day
Immediately the other ran to help with worry
Written on its feet, jumping down two at a time.
Sun cried with tears of joy and the cloud got confused.

114. Strength of mind

The main road is my home, so smooth and neat
My children play around living close to nature
Unlike the rich ones full of fuss and weakness.

The lady for whom I work boils all the water
For hours on her neat gas stove wasting fuel.

Worms are in the water she tells me.

I don’t say anything aloud but inside I get irritated.
They have all the money to waste away I thought.
My children also get fever and I take them to the priest
He sprinkles water on the sick child and drives the fever.
I don’t boil water to stop the fever.

These rich kids are always inside the house
The sun doesn’t touch them
The fresh air runs away from them
That cooling machine is always working.
Oh! I can’t imagine how anyone can live like that.

I am active and work hard and am healthy
Not like my mistress not able to lift buckets
At this age I work for so many hours a day.
These classy women are only like paper bags
They have no strength but have only style.


115. The tree

I am here for I don’t know how many years
My feet are caught in the concrete of pride
My roots have gone in search of water
To the next continent in vain and smell heat
I benefit when the clouds fight with each other.

The man sleeping under protection of my hands
Is my only insurance against my next birth.
He comes in the early morning from some where
Collects special papers from the various tins around
And brings the bundles to me and takes a short nap.
Freshened with sleep and nothing else
He leaves in the evening once again.
His complexion an artificial black
His face tired as my leaves during the summer.
We are linked by some previous birth.

I am glad I have a chance to repay some earlier debt.


116. Dignity

She was marked by time. Maths dominated her face,
Squares and triangles along with lines played freely
And gave a concentrated air of experience in package
She was a total of five or six kilos of seasoned cells.

The bus did not complain about her weight at all
She occupied only a small part of the long seat
That was equally old in appearance and style
And adjusted her tricky spectacles with one hand.

The other hand had a walking stick polished with use
I looked at her sideways at this monument of living
But she did not look at me and was looking straight
At the nothing in front of her or the seat just before.

After some time she shifted as the place had come
For her to get down and she began getting up
I stretched my hand offering help refused royally
She managed to move and get down with dignity.

I saw her walking away truly regal in her mien.

117. Bus ride

The girl looked confident and intelligent
Not the type who would get scared easily
And very attractive the man of world thought
Sitting next to her in the bus going a long way.

He had his plans and took some sleep earlier.

The bus rattled on into thick rain leaking
Inside the seats wetting the dresses of some
The unlucky ones punished by twisting fate.
The rain was welcome in this land of dryness
Though not inside the buses on a cold night.

The alert girl sat upright caught between
The forces of nature in two ways.

One side the water was edging her dress
And on the other side the man was edging too.

The man not used to a girl at close quarters
Got nervous and became a truly male animal.

The war of silence began between them
After some time the girl quietly got up
And went up to the driver and said
Its wet there in my seat and can I stand here.

The man sat in his place cringing in shame secret.

118. Phone call

The girl child came home to the door and opened the main door
The great house opened showing its ugly emptiness within
Walls threatened looming on all sides with no human consideration
Machines were in the corner and automatically the child went to them.

The noise came aloud and blaring driving away the loneliness
Of the lovely posh furniture bought in the most prestigious
Show room in the heart of the city, the pride of the family
That stood out like a sick thumb in the long ugly hall not parlour.

The child opened the next machine that had cooled everything
There were some apples, cakes, and a packet of bread and butter
Oh! The same thing again and again to eat, she settled down
On the bed in her bed room closing her eyes to everything.

Her mother was at home and opened the door to her first knock
A superb cup of coffee was ready for her with something to eat
Schools are bombed by a mysterious bomb suddenly in a second
Women should not work outside a law is passed by the government.

She opened her eyes and met her face in the dressing table mirror.

119. Mattress

I sat at the thari for five days and made the mattress
It was a sure beauty in bright colours, pink and green
I had got the dye with great care making it so hot
That my hands are burning even now after a week.

The lady wanted two lotuses in the centre
It was for her daughter’s marriage, a gift from
The mother, as a part of her parent’s dowry.

I started this work from the time I became a woman
When my mother refused permission to let me out
It began as a pass time and then grew into a profession.

Women came in search of me for I took pains
To make my mats objects of beauty and pleasure.

My work is great, it makes me a creator.

Each time the bride comes back to thank me for the mat
For its rare design, colour combination and neatness
I have a sense of achievement equal to a famous man
Though living in a forgotten village in the end of world.

I have fixed a TV in my extension of the house
Where I have fixed my materials for working.

My niece laughs at my unmarried interest
In romances even in the age of sixty.

120. Bride and groom

They walked along the road in pair with a group of people
She did not look up at all, walking atleast for a kilometer
Even he avoided the eyes of the onlookers watching them
The fresh garlands had lost their freshness and fragrance.

Her silk sari had crumbled beyond imagination of the rich
An air of trust existed even then between the innocent couple
Though they said both saw each other only that wedding day.

I saw them again after more than twenty odd years or so
I saw him working in intense concentration in his small shop
And she was quietly assisting him in a smooth manner.

No body heard them talking who worked like a pair of scissors.

I heard they had two sweet children quite grownup now
Both studying well and working like their quiet parents.

God bless the hardworking couple with peace, prosperity
A good thought came to my heart and a right one too.

121. Technology

Just how many millenniums would have taken a well to be born?
It must have been in the minds of many intellectuals, of course.

Can we say intellectuals? Would they have had any education?
Education makes intellectuals or intellectuals make education?

Any way the well was born and got decorated in various forms.
The women loved them, their darlings, saving them miles of walk.

The village Amman took her bath in the well before she took
A round around the place to pay an annual visit to her children.

The women put a Tulasi plant near the well and worshipped.
Religions born from geography, history and necessity.

The well thus became the center of attention, a revolution.
Times keep moving, center becomes the margin.

Now the Amman takes her bath from the water from pipes
Another progressive concept, easily assimilated by gods and people.

Again time walked fast, so fast that we could not keep up with her speed.

I saw an artistically made dustbin the other day and admired its style.
It was a perfect round one with a built hangover on top.

Yes, you are right, it was a well reborn as a collector of waste riches.

122. Fantasy

The house looked too neat and extremely decorative
Unreal to the core, a borrowed scene from paradise
As perceived by minds surrounded by poverty and dirt
Dreaming of a future beautiful, fair and well to do.

Order not founding real life, created in imagination
Wanting to rule , to dominate with borrowed colour.

Centuries of desire culminating in electronic weavings.

Who needs to see life as it is lived once again?

Visual screens reconstruct lives, setting a model
May be to reach in later years and centuries to come.

Fantasy deciding governments and making the break.

Democracy established in shows of the mind
A need of the hour of transition in a moving society
Deciding the paths of the future by pre-decided taste
Difficult to understand, could be easily dismissed
As a sign of stupidity, if not perceived the underneath
Current of life behind what obviously seems to be empty.

Can anything be nothing unless it hides something deeper
What is behind the fantasy and choice of choosing?

Is it an imperialism demanding justice and kindness?

Is it the wanting of equality denied for millenniums?

A race waiting for great things, dramatized now.



123. Kindness

The man, no, the boy looked lean and wore fresh clothes
Not influenced by the iron at all in the colour of the driver
He had an over load of passengers wanting to earn more money.

The life of an auto rickshaw driver is difficult
And so I did not mind his ambition in this land of difficulties.

One by one the passengers got down and some air came
Inside the vehicle letting us breathe the cold air on a rainy day.

The two school girls got down, looking a little sad for they
Had to part with their hard saved money of five rupees.
The man in khaki saw their expressions on the faces
And said you need not pay on a rainy day and speeded off.

I still remember their pleasant surprises
And the unsaid thanks on their faces.


124. Uppuma

The guest came unannounced in the late night
Like lord Krishnan who came to the Pandavargal
What to cook at this time of the hour,
Thought the lady of the house, it is her job.
The children in deep sleep, the men in the family
Talking of the political changes in the world
As if it rested on their shoulders to solve
The problems of the universe daily.

The guest was hungry, he looked it every inch.

The woman’s heart could not tolerate a hungry stomach
Millions of years of feeding was in her blood
And went to the kitchen instinctively
Dismissing her aching feet, knees and back
After working in both places –in and out.

The ravai smiled at her and said don’t worry.
She put the kadai on the stove
Lucky she was that she need not light firewood stove
She thought, counting her blessings.

The oil poured, seasoned, heavy with onions
The sudden uppuma was ready, the invention of a genius.

Again, can sublime poetry talk about cooking?

Oh! No. It is only the job of women.


125. The festival

The woman was walking down the stairs of the shop
Her sari must have looked new a few years back
A child in arm carried in a light manner as if
It was a bundle of nothing with not even air.

There was another child along with her walking
An older one about seven or eight years exact
She had an old, old thread blackish in colour
Decorating her neck to tell about her married state.

She had a plastic bag, a new one that too
Proudly carried with softness and tenderness
The children wore lovely smiles and
Nothing much otherwise except torn dresses.

I didn’t tell you the parcel was so small
That it could not have contained a brand new sari
But would have had some dresses for her
Children alone just the previous night of the Day.

I will never forget the happiness on her face
On that day showing motherhood in beautiful
And consoling light in these days of divisions
The symbol of virtue and sacrifice even now.

Certain factors don’t change though
Modernization creeps in installments.



126. Smile

The bus went past like a fast bullock cart
The evening drew away slowly escaping
The schoolboy inside the bus with his load
Sat exhausted with the day’s listening.

God given opportunity not given to his father
And his forefathers from time forgotten
Not to be wasted with carelessness
But the lessons had difficulty entering
His soul and kept themselves away in shyness.

He sat near the window in mental exhaustion
Confused with the figures taught during the day
Wondering if there will be anything to eat
In his thatched house ruled by his ambitious mother.

The stomach’s desires were stronger than the heart
It burnt in hunger and anger with the sweet shops
That were spread just outside on the streets.
The boy longed to eat some of them immediately
Like the kids on the TV everynight and day.

And then on the road he saw the face of friendship
A smile broadened into a sunny brightness
Eyes popping up in perfect shining
Sweets forgotten, hunger forgotten and thrown
Away outside on the road like the previous bus’s ticket.


127. Snake

The poor thing did not know how to stand right.
It went in angles in a slimy way to escape eyes.
Facing life straight was not its style.
It did not ask any questions.
It had no questions.
But it knew the answers.
It knew how to smile and spread its hood.
People came on their own attracted
And touched its lovely smooth skin.
It doesn’t bite everyone knew.
It never displeased anyone.
So good it was.

It talked at the back in whispers
Assassinating characters.
It liked palms and greased them softly.
It knew how to live in this hot land.
Oiling is necessary to cool one’s hot body.
Wisdom greased well with practice.

128. Prayer to the lord
I
My lord I don’t know how to start my invocation
The desire to offer my thoughts to you is great
You have stood at my back not interfering with
The design of fate watching and standing aside
Not coming to my help but letting me fight
My own battles alone and perhaps blessing.

I am tired my lord my nerves ache in pain
Breaking with strain of living in put on peace
I need you to come in the form of showers
To refresh my mind and my dry country
We need your cool breezes and cold winds
Along with needles of rain and drums of thunder.

Electric fans donot cool our heat of hunger
Stories in light and glass increase our thirst
Images of luxury entering our houses
And escaping like unreal dreams of clouds
With a touch of the button in a flash
Of anger into the future of imagination.

My lord caught in this prison of lightening
Our minds start wandering into chaos
Swaying in artificial winds of nightmares
Horrors of the brain dominating the seas
Of reality right from our innocent beginning
Shaping our thinking and planning and living.

Multiple structures balancing one on the other
Like the girl with her karagam on her head
Dancing to the latest tunes from the media
Having lost her original music of the soil
And becoming the slave of the times
Wearing modern decorations on her face.

II

My lord take care of our children
And children wherever they are
Whoever they are
Let them study in schools safe
From massive earthquakes
And merciless fires.

Lord protect them from this knowledge revolution
From carrying loads of books
Another form of terrible child labour,
Sitting in schools for eight hours every day
Victims of all the diseases in the world.
We are laying roads of death to them
Taking away their health and originality
Making them plastic imitators
Barren and sterile
With techniques of shortcut
And survival and not living.

Lord protect them from pain
Like you do of the fresh flowers
Of the forest and dales
From the violence of nature
When it is angry with the lives around
On days of madness.

Helpless like the grass
Bowing to the storms of destiny
The young vessels collapse
But rolling down without clutter
Quietly like the dolls
Carried by them, the younglings.
Skins shattered along with bones
Tearing our hearts into pieces.
The ache is in the stomach
From the depth of sorrow
Spreading into the veins
Entering into the souls forever.

Lord I donot understand the pattern
That you are supposed to have
Woven into our lives
Without asking atleast one word
To us the concerned people
Too autocratic I feel sometimes.

III
My lord, time awaits me and others
Nature retaliates with a vengeance
Or that’s what we think about it
Morality rules our thinking
A cyclone a punishment
A tsunami god’s revenge.

My lord, little do we know the ways of god
Or of nature who may be the god our imagination
Fear dominates our future
And we run towards the astrologer
In search of confidence
Will the earthquake affect us?

The eclipses came on the wrong
May affect the world
And even the leaders
Should be careful.
Can one escape fate?

Is it fate really or nature?

The fantasy lasts for a while
It feeds us with boldness
To face the painful reality
To heal our fears of imagined futures
Living becoming a matter
Caught between nightmares.

My lord who are you?
Who created you?
My lord I am so confused
Are you a child forgiving instantly?
Are you a philosopher detached from us?
Are you a collection of mantras?

Repetition brings you closer to us
It gives us the power to dominate
Crush the poor to powder
Remove them from us to borders
Put us on the pedestal of holiness.

You are so closely united to material gains
The culmination of living with evil
Is power evil?
Is giving up totally good?

Samsara a river of mixture of vegetables
Like the avial of the down south
Holiness accompanied with familial bonds
Why do we mortals expect you to be ascetic?

We look at you from fixed points.
Lord, our values decided by station and colour.
Positions of imagination
Strengthened by food and plays
Practiced with diligence
Polished with brasso
Shining like golden figurines
On a festival day.

Established compounded chemicals
Tested in time and has acquired a rare
Polish of beauty that it almost looks the best.
If not this then something else
Polishes always influence
They shine on our finger nails
In multiple colours to attract other lives
Shining necessary to demarcate
That I am different from you.

Shining gets rusted with oxygen
A process of time
Can we fight against nature?

Lord guide us and lead us from this
Volcano of simmering heat.

Oh! Lord show me the way not because the way is dark
The route is clear, the end is seen, the question is not that.
Is the way the right one or have I made a mistake I wonder.
Can I live life again, will the pattern change to another?

God , how I wish you had given me the power to turn events
Give me a chance once more and I will plan my life better.
I don’t want to be caught in this religion or that caste
Could have belonged elsewhere born in a different land.
Why have you fixed me with an identity, my lord?
It has put me in a jail of myself from which I can’t escape.
Even before I am born fate has decided my character
Shaping my future thinking much before itself.
God I can’t offer worship to you with flowers and lamps
My mind is divided into various thoughts of culture
Exposed to from our school days to our college
Education has taught us to question everything.

To bring back our ideas into one unit we need your guidance
We live with our new names, cultures and imaginations
Thrown about in revolutions of the media our mind reels
Which is our real nature, or can any one have a real nature?
My dear god, you have so many names and so many figures
Just like us caught in identities unable to come out of yourself.

You are also fixed by us engraved in stones and walls
In calendars now, on television screens in the early mornings.

You are moving with times and why not I tell me.
Our attitudes are also changing adjusting to new times.

IV
God, are you listening?
Lord we believe in worshipping yourself
To give us more money, lands, power
To give us pass marks in our exams
To give us more than one house.
A few lakhs in the nationalized bank
A daughter married of with a huge dowry
A son well educated probably abroad
To raise our quality of existence
Eating pizza in expensive huts.
Dressing in suitable dresses and slippers
Wearing apt perfumes.

Lord we pray for good rains
A good harvest, good winds, monsoon rains.
The neighbour has got a new fertile field
I should also get one like that
To grow the chamba variety of rice.
Lord I keep failing in English
Let me pass at least this time.
If I pass in plus two exam
I will break hundred cocoanuts.
Lord my son is not sending me money
My daughter does not have children
Diseases eat me alive everyday.
Pressure mounts in my body.
Lord, I do not want another birth
Let me leave this world quietly
Without any noise like the stream
Joining the ocean in the end.

God, are you listening?

V
Oh! God, ideals tell us to be straight
Life surrounds us with bends.
They are everywhere pulsating with zest
Taking care of individuals seriously.
Your commands of self sacrifice make us
Appear like fools of first class.
It is the fool who forgives.
It is the fool who leaves an empty argument.
A fool does no fight for selfish reasons.
He obeys the order of self centeredness.
In fact he doesn’t know how to live.
May be one who cannot live well
Alone can become your favourite.
Should any one become your favourite
To become a failure I wonder.
Lord, my mind did wander
For a moment my balance lost itself
Let the short sighted ones dominate
Their insecurity has to be fed.

VI
My lord, how do you think this doubleness creep?

Can we pluck the flower from someone else’s garden?
Should we get his permission?
Our presence not in the class the previous day
The next day the signatures fill up the gap.
So what? Why should we inform?
Just put a signature in the previous day’s column.
No one minds. It is a harmless crime.
Doesn’t affect anyone’s life.
Are we stealing some body’s property?
Your property? Why should you mind?
You know how much I paid to get this job?
So many lakhs. Why should I work now?
Getting a government job is so difficult.
I have worked hard to get it.
That’s all.

129. Children in school

Rani went to school in morning by her school bus
And she sat in her last row away from the teacher
Her friends were like her, loved real life of fun
Tried to escape the voice of teaching quite often

Parveen brought sweets everyday coming from
A well of family who loved cooking and eating
Children longed to get the friendship of the girl
As she was the queen of dishes for the class.

There was Sumathi who sang so well that even
The teacher sometimes heard her during free time
She looked good with her nose ring and her bangles
The entertainer of this group of naughty children.

Anita was the captain of the team leading them
With her brilliance and courage to speak aloud
The girl hated by the teachers for her boldness
And loved by her back row team for the same.

The four decided to challenge the girl who won
The first rank every month regularly and had airs
Of arrogance looking down at everyone sitting
At the last row sitting like rowdies with smirks.

The first ranker had no friends as she had no time
To waste talking to people and spend her leisure
Her time was golden and she did not intend to
Make it silver or worse still the stupid lead.

The school announced its annual drama competition
And the teacher wanted the entries from the class.
Anita raised her hand and said her team will participate
Giving a sideway glance to their enemy who was reading .

‘Only one team’ the teacher asked wondering why
The boyish Anita has come forward to participate
As her group only was interested in mocking
The other girls in class and was feared by the class.

Anyway let us encourage the girls thought the
Kind teacher and said okay you can give your names
To me before evening and should give me the script
In a week’s time so that I can make the corrections.

The last row got alerted as never before and sat straight
Parveen took a piece of paper and started writing
A sight so uncommon the class wondered what
Has happened to the world on that day of august.

Rani stopped speaking and started thinking of the plot
How many heroes and how many heroines possible
When the team was so small and had only four
Members and no one else to act along with them.

She realized that they needed a few more students
And decided to get some friends immediately
She walked up to the second row and smiled
At the quite girl Shanthi and said a sweet ‘hai’.

Shanthi really a peaceful one smiled back instantly
And Rani felt she can be forced to act in one of the roles
And began telling the story in her mind a little aloud
That soon a few girls gathered there to listen.

The story was good even witty here and there
That the listeners started enjoying it laughing
And screaming in happiness and the teacher asked
All of them to shut up and get back to their seats.

Rani went home fully recognized of her abilities
And the next day went to the second row automatically
She had by this time written a draft for acting
And promptly she took out her papers and showed.

It was quite a good job and her new friends realized
And applauded her talents really well with enthusiasm
Rani ran to parveen and others and shared her joy
The four friends rejoiced in their new found confidence.

They took her play and came forward to the front
And went near the second row and began discussing
It slowly evolved into a friendship in the same day
As the freshly enlarged gang began their practice.

Parveen’s sweets now reached the entire class
And she became the darling of the ones that loved eating.
Anita’s witty jakes became the top news of the class
Sumathi entertained even the bookish of the lot.

Even the first ranker spent some time with them
Listening to clean songs sung with full innocence
And relaxing with a new atmosphere of fun
And frolic making her look her real age for once.

A week passed and tremendous improvement took place
On the part of the girls as well as in the drama
Shanthi felt so shy she refused to act initially
And was cajoled in to the role by the articulate Anita.

Shanthi acted as the heroine’s sister, a girl of calm nature
To suit her real character as per the decision of Rani
And the first ranker who corrected the script in and out
Took the role of the director to the surprise of every one.

Her name was Aruna actually, sweet natured and ambitious
That she thought to come up in life one has to read
All the time mugging up answers perfectly right
So that no teacher can mark her less than hundred.

Aruna herself did not realize she had directorial powers
Until that time that took her own self by surprise
She put her heart and soul into the project with dedication
And brought her perfectionism into the work.

It taught the others how to work watching her work
With perfect calculation and planning with her notes
The class came out of its jealousy and started loving her
Aruna became the heroine of the entire class soon.

The brilliant Anita learnt to listen to Aruna in serious matters
The playwright Rani admired the way Aruna brought
Her script alive with her thoughtfulness and sensitivity
As she herself had written the whole thing on her own.

How did they all start loving the girl they had hated ?
No one had the time to analyse such dry matters
What really mattered was the winning competing with
All the other sections in the eighth standard.

In the bus Rani dreamt her name being read out
As the author of the winning play in the annual day.
Parveen planned to bring mysore pak to the entire class
The day the prize would be announced, she was sure.

All said and done every one except the teacher was clear
The class would win the first prize in the drama competition
And set to work without any doubts that would have
Actually slowed down their working style and speed.

The d day did come the drama went on so good
That the head mistress announced a special prize
Along with the regular one throwing everyone
Involved into the sixth or the seventh heaven.

Should I tell you that Parveen distributed her sweets
To not only her class mates but even to the teachers
And got the approbation from the teaching community
For the first time for her sweets and her sweet manners.

I must tell you also the fact that from then onwards
The four gang though continued to sit in the back row
Competed with the rest of the class in a healthy manner
And Anita not Aruna got the first rank next time!


130. First day in school

The children had gathered in the class ready for the teacher
The first day in school with tears in eyes and souls
Leaving behind the security and the warmth of the home
Entering a new place, the practicing floor of democracy.
Slates in hand, water collected in a plastic bottle
Lunch packed in an ever silver box along with some biscuits
Fear dictating terms to the brain, the students sat
Waiting with a feeling of slipping underneath the ground.
Each one had brought packet of sweets to distribute
Lovely orange colour sweets rolled in transparent paper,
One for each, the instructions given by the teacher
Who had come in a white long gown hiding the knees.
You should call me sister the teacher in white said
To the tensed younglings shivering in fear and doubt
Of the class room and the vast school campus
Much away from the gate and the standing trees.

Will I be sent home to my mother to day?
Will I ever see my soft and gentle father?
Can I touch the sari end of my mother?
I need the warmth of my grandpa’s lap.

All of you distribute the sweets now the voice said
Coming from the white long gown’s owner
With the sweetest smile possible still not comforting
To the new additions to the class in the morning.
With trembling hands the sweets were held in palm
And opened slowly for others to take one by one.
One boy, an over smart fellow asked for one more
And one shivering distributor gave one more.
The boy began laughing and showed the sweet
Shining in bright orange in his mouth under the tongue
And showed of his capacity for getting more
The giver got angry and forgot the newness of the place.
She went to the nun and complained about the boy
Everyone wanted to know what has happened
Other children came around and started talking
And discussed the mistake in the boy’s action.

Life began in its full strength and took a new course.




131. Rats in an old house

They lived in an old bungalow dilapidated
As they had nowhere else to go
This ancient house once stood tall in character
That even lions came visiting it.
Now it was the thing of the past
That these rats came to occupy the place.

They constantly complained about the oldness
We are not recognized, they said.
We should be able to command respect.
We are not paid well, they cried to everyone.
The food available in the neighbouring houses
Are not fulfilling to our greed.
Aren’t we in charge of their welfare?
Without us their houses would come trembling down.

They went out in search of a better place to eat more.
They came upon a place looking like a palace.
It was full of similar rats much bigger in size.
Ah, here we are with our own kind
They breathed in confidence.
Here the food is plenty.
No one can question, it is the rat’s paradise.

They ate and ate and ran here and there
Even in the daytime not afraid of any one.
Who can question our running?
Everyone is like us here.
There are bigger rats of course.
Nevertheless they are rats.
We are a common kind.

Let us live, eating garbage.

Rats also die one day
Or clear away
Or change their lifestyle.


132. The tree that refused

There was a tree that was very ambitious to grow high
It wanted to see the stars at a close up shot
It drew a lot of water and minerals from the ground
To help the growth faster and with great foliage.
It planned its growth day and night and dreamt of
The d-day when it will be the tallest tree around.

It got a friend like itself equally intent in growing taller
Together they planned to compete with the rest of the trees
In beauty, grace, dignity and height incomparable
They became the talk of the town in their success.
No one could talk to them except the rich and powerful
As they didn’t waste their time with common mortals.

Some birds wanted help to use the branches as residence
And made a request to the tallest tree in the forest
Of course the tree said but shook the leaves so much
That no one could stay. The friend taught a few things more
How to avoid such requests in future even before they came
A lesson well learnt and learnt by heart inch by inch.

Soon the message spread that this tree along with the friend
Were not interested in helping others but only in growing
And birds stopped coming to make further requests
And trees continued to grow without any hindrance at all.
They spread out in beauty and were a pleasure to see
That travelers felt this is how a tree should be, neat and graceful.

The birds were away looking in envy longing for the thick foliage
To shelter them from the sun and the rain and plan a nest or two.
They were a group struggling together and having fun
Learning the tough game of life all alone without guidance.
Native climate gave them strength and the courage that grows
Out of facing life straightforward without depending on any one.

Time changes you see, the days went by, rolling down in speed
And the trees became now sick and tired of each other’s company
They wanted different faces and different moments of experience
One started blaming the other for the present position of dead end.
What is the maximum height a tree can grow after all?
No more growth nature told them and they didn’t know what to do.

Having never done anything else they broke down in a wind
So small that people wondered how it could have happened.


133. Smell

The stench is horrible
It needs to be washed
Waters to be poured
Bucketfuls that too.
Instructions given.
The washing done.
It takes time for people
To realize the need for cleanliness.

Opening the windows I saw cascade of cashew fruits
Bright yellow and red, some even gold
Fresh with a gloss of dew drops
Invisibly making the fruits waiting to be plucked
Shall I pluck them now?
Not now, but later when they are more ripe.
How blessed I am to be gifted with these
They spread on the sloping tiles like a carpet.
Hundreds of them all equally shining, same size too.
A sight so rare, a belonging of the other world.
I felt bliss standing there looking at the beauties.
Contentment reigned my thirsty heart
And ran into a smooth river.

134. Shunning

They came in a row
Carrying a banner
Forcing our conscience to give money
We suffer and you don’t, they said.
We cry and you laugh, they said.
You must do something for us, your duty.

I looked at their healthy bodies
Their sharp features
Sharper expressions
Knowing look
Intelligent carriages
Teamwork
Enough to run an organization.


135. In charge

You live else where
Your tastes are different
You are different from me
Your ways I don’t like
Your world is different.

I am good.
I have sacrificed, forced to do so
I live for others
I am not like you, selfish
I fight, I love.
I have a group.

Can you your way?
You are my charge
Wherever you are you should be in control
What is the point of your confidence?
I decide things.
I am in control.

My son is my production.
You are his slave.
I own both of you.


136. The turkey in the meat shop

I am beautiful, shining black in colour
My feathers spread out as large as the world
I stand at the entrance blocking the vision
I command attention.
The other birds look dirty
They are inside the grilled boxes
I don’t talk to them.
I am above them.
My feet are tied to the pillar
When the client takes a fancy to my body my hour will come.

The hour comes to everyone, now or later.

It is skipping away by days.

They come to eat me
Shocked by my beauty, buy the lesser birds.
I think I am immortal
Unless a heart that ignores my glory comes by.

137. Two thoughts

You people never follow the rules
You don’t have work ethics
You have no ideals
You don’t have the passion for living
You are not correct
You are careless
You are not confident
You are not hardworking.

When I was your wage I woke up at four
When I was your age I was already married
When I was your age I worked so hard
When I was your age I suffered a lot
When I was your age I read a lot
When I was your age I did not escape work
When I was your age I was more responsible.

Okay. What are you now?


138. Interference

The intelligent machine worked at command
Listening without comments or reactions
Spreading the net across the world in style
A worldwide institution powerfully installed
Worms here and there lurk
Waiting to bring this peace down
Advanced weapons created
To destroy the smoothness of knowledge
Cannot be killed with your fingers
Programmed with higher intelligence and care
Another type of spy now breaks through
To protect the screen from the creatures.

Which is irritating
Worm or the spy
Both equal
In knowledge and boldness
Unwanted
Recognized with respect.

Symptom and the cure
Created by arrogance.


139. Bus top

The boys were dancing
With a balance and rhythm
Smiles registering shock
The celebration of risk.

The bus did not bother
It had seen too many
Stamping his head
Calling it confidence.

The city did not give
Place even for walking
Money market expanding
On platforms.

Where do you walk?
Especially in mount road?
Only ones without money
Will walk. We have cars.

In the greed for survival
The people forgot
They needed space
For relaxing and playing.

Work is god
Play is evil
The attitude of poverty
Ending in hospitals.

Two year olds in school
To earn money after
Twenty years
No one can wait.

Race for super power
Compete with richness
Abound in alien lands
Inspirations wrong.

Earn somehow.
Can’t do it well?
Doesn’t matter.
No body bothers.

Money is beautiful.
Should be earned
At the cost of anything
Cheating necessary.

Pleasure, a bad word.
A walk, only for fats.
A lovely evening.
Are you mad?

A garden?
Too much of mosquitoes.
A plant in pot?
Maintenance difficult.

Replan roads.
Expand platforms.
Create space.
Breathe better.

When?
When we wake up.
Give children space to dance
And tell them the bus is for some thing else.
Marching

The greenery blocked negative thoughts
The avenues meant for walking
An ancient design, not available in modern price.

The boys looked through the trees
Seeing jobs and confidence
Uniforms lost in background neutrality
Shoes echoing a past of the west.

A little army it was
Standing straight and dominating
No nonsense airs, noses in the sky
Cultured attitude arising out of tension.

The leader barked
The marching began
The enemies ran away.

Only the wind watched in silence.

140. Advancement
Who needs to think?
Why should you any way?
Do you have the jargon?
The words, the words.
Your style is too simple.
How would you show scholarship?
If people understand you,
A sign of simplicity
Will think you don’t know the language.
Make it as obtuse as possible.
Where will you get such words?
Thousand works already there.
Cut here, cut there, its ready.
Cut and paste, the policy.
Pasting not so easy.
Needs a plastic surgeon.
No scar to be seen.
Smooth and neat.
Fine masterpiece writing.
Ghosts haunt me. I am scared.
Alien language still.
Originality difficult.
What is important?
Language?
Content?
Now language.
Borrowing right.
Pasting the only way.
Research in mother’s ways.
A tortoise. Winning takes time.
Let it. Let it be worth it.

141. Doormats

What will this person talk about me?
Terrible things.
I have to be careful.
I should flatter.
I should appreciate.
What if the work doesn’t deserve it?
Doesn’t matter.
Now the situation has to be in control.

That person.
So harmless.
I can speak whatever I want to.
When I want to hit others
I can use this person as a pad.
He is solid gold.
Doesn’t complain.
Good.
Will always do things.
Can give any amount of work.
Can openly find fault when things go wrong.
Need not appreciate when things go right.
Can take for granted.

We need such people in this world.
Without them this universe might collapse.
Good people bearing the weight of earth.
Made of twenty-four carat gold.

They may not come up in life.
They may not be smart.
They are the footpaths for others to walk.
They are the foundation.

Foundations grow into building.
Walkers see doormats growing
Wondering how mats can grow into trees
Sheltering other walkers now taking rest
Underneath its shade.

What big difference?
Then feet.
Now heads.
Trees, like doormats live for others
With a dignified difference of plenty.


142. We are an important category

The land is full of pain
Pressure of heart
Walled emotions
Needs an exposure.
Sugar deposits itself with freedom.
Air locks herself inside boxes.
One needs to take more fresh air.
Let’s walk, the man decided.
He began in his outfit of heavy weight shoes.
A step this side.
There the cobbler sat.
He got down from the platform.
Again he walked.
Newspapers stalked.
He got down.
Now it was milk.
Then a row of women selling flowers.
All holy.
Should not blaspheme.
A shop guy wanted to show his goods.
He put them just outside.
People should see his wares, right?
What is important?
Walking for health?
Working for a living?
Stomach or health?
Stomach first.
The man went home.


143. Dustbin on the road.

I stand here day by day
Waiting for attention.
They see me not.
Lost in their world.

I saw a guy the other day.
He stood smoking.
I waited to see.
He took his stub.
Put it down.
Stamped.
Saved the city from a fire accident.

144. The casual carelessness


I was taking rest with my long ears shaking
My long tail with a bushy end
The long haired plaited head of a young girl
Waving here and there chasing away the flies.

My fat paunch floating on the ground in contentment
The bones hiding getting scared of my excess
The gates of hell on my head
Made of the rarest material I don’t know what.

My master gone for a short nap after a biriyani
I sleep on the roadside under a tree
I drank some water not from a stream
And am munching and munching.

I can pull any amount of weight
That is my destiny, why complain and whine?
I enjoy it, a symbol of power and food
Some good grass sometimes when it rains in the city.

I too have a cross to bear
I miss my wife not my marriage
My family not by blood
My surroundings not owned by me.



145. We are a people


We are a people caught in institutions.
You are this and he is that.
This way to go that way avoid.
Directed by planets.
Lost our juices.
Blaming planets and directions and cats.
We live successfully, no guilt, no madness.

‘We must give to live in heaven’.
‘Feed others first’.
‘Give’, ‘give’, ‘give’.
We learnt more.
We learnt to take.
We learnt to demand.
We extend our hands in asking.
What’s wrong?

We are a people taking.
We are a people taking without pride.
Arrogance is sin.
Taking from others in style is right.
A birth right of a people shaped by the past.

You don’t know how to take?
Fool.
Why should you work for it?
Waste of time.
Be smart and make some one pay for you.

‘Give’ some one said
‘Take’ we learnt out of it.
Costly repercussions.

Chameleons walking with power to ask.




146. I am


I inherited languages.
Cities, concrete and strong.
Its mine.
Who said I can’t use it?
I’ll learn .
Practice.
Everything of everywhere
Becomes mine with time.
The world comes home to me.

Walls.
What are they?
A thing of past.
Segregation – from the museum.
Images from imagination.
Fixed and stamped for purposes.
Labels meaningless.
A soul wanting to fly free.

The cat sat on the wall.
It thought with conviction.

The tree understood.
And laughed.

The soil watched.
It did not like tree’s attitude.
Trees are younger to me.
They don’t know life.
Things change.
Change is permanent.
Fixities die.
Writings in imagination disappear.
Time erases.
Without a trace.


147. Decoration

Roads decorated with spitting
Reminding kolams.
Specialty of a people heavenly unconscious.
Detached we are to appearances.
Living our life of karma.
If our vicinity is not clean its because of past.
Its our destiny.
We are not lucky as a nation.
Its our, our bad time.

It all started with the stopping of betel leaves.
Genetical imitation.
The red juice no more seen
Underwent a change becoming white.

Don’t judge.
Everything is right for us.
Don’t ridicule.
What’s wrong with us?
This is we.


148. Power


Only if I do things right would come running
I know the order
There is a way of working
I know it
Its god’s gift, no the experience of mine.

I have built civilizations
Have decided grammar
Styled tones in music
Designed culture
I created authority.

You want to do?
Don’t try.
You are not good.
Something is not right in you.
Too immature.

You will learn?
No. why should you?
I am here till I go on.
Only I can do what I do.
When you do it becomes imitation.

No one is indispensable?
I know that.

Then why this domination?

It is my security against being ignored.

Would culture have grown without you?

They would have.

Its all a game, right.

Yes.

And the dialogue continued forever.



149. On the toes

Coming up to get more gold.
Coming up to get more land.

Why compete directly?
Plan a short cut.

Bring down the enemy’s work.
Analyze the deficiencies.
Be Machiavellian or Chanakyan.
Accepted forms of survival.

Needs life a little cunningness
To maintain relationships
Keep contacts.
A little hypocrisy here and there
The cement of life
Linking differences.

Morality. Dharma. Honesty.
Forgotten values in the movement of life.

Which is earlier?
Life or principles?
Language or grammar?

Concepts stay high
Unable to be reached by mortality.

Corruption of the souls?
Failure of intelligence?
Failure of character?

Why call it failure?
Call it life.

Justification of imperfection.
A quality of the people.
Acceptance of normality.
Acceptance of lies.
A land where flattery works.

Flattery – bad word.
Its feeding hearts with honey – the healer.
Necessary in an insecure society.


150. Epic


The father had five sons of great valour and strength
He trained them in all the sixty-four arts in style
They could fight with grace and cook with taste
Can manage a child quite well in the mornings.

Will this description suit the genre of epic writing?
The writer needs heroes, real ones valiant and dutiful
Obeying the father’s words and escape to forest
For fourteen or sixteen years as needed there.

We now have to squeeze heroes out of high schools
Rank them in the valour of by hearting information
Put them in institutions of reputation with jobs
Disgusting them with boredom and street smartness.

We repeat what is set before us and call it proficiency
We ban thought as assumption and floating in air
Either we must become heroes of body or of mind
For epic writers to write something great to record.


151. Democracy

I have my family roots in the white man’s land
Used to the islands, I grew slowly in continents
Crowns touched ground to let me in
Luxury running away from me, initially.

My stature secure, pillared by votes
I grew proud ignoring rules
Mistakes I ignored, why not, I thought.
Luxury came running back to me.

Now I live in comfort like kings in glory
The only thing I am scared is elections
Doesn’t really matter as I have power of money.
Who cannot buy any thing with that?

I am a king without the crown and scepter
Hierarchy needed to create awe
Born in such a family sentiments
Will not be a man of new taste.

Like wine money tastes better old
Coming from the grass roots it looks ugly
Assuming confidence and sound
Loudness screams with a sever throat infection.

Princes we need the people think
To lead them to a tomorrow of machines.



152. Sunset

Pink shootings spread across the heaven
Filling every inch of space in lines
A new field ploughed with long bends
In the colour of the region.

Families of thin shapes flying home
In order designed with hard work
No taking lest would lose balance
One needs concentration and precision.

Birds not symbols of freedom
Clichéd concepts of ununderstanding
We stay out side, see the body
Cannot read minds of complexity.

Bejeweled beauties hiding uncertainties
Planned harmony to fall in line
Groups of peace with fear inside
Walking on the needle sharp opinions.

Wonder what the tensions of the sky
Breaking out in pinky blushes
Every evening repeating experience
Is hidden behind the pale blue of the day.


153. I won’t change


I like to spit on the road
I like to spit on the path
I like to decorate the air with flavour
Its my land.
You don’t show off your western ways.


You are not able to walk on the dirt?
You find the place nasty?
I make the place look cheap?
Not to your global standards?


My saliva is irritating me.
I have sinus problem.
I have to spit it out.
Its my right.
Who are you to question me?


I am honest and upright.
I work hard for fifteen hours.
I need money, not a clean road.

Thinks hunger.


154. The fool

A concept of society, differing in climates
One taking a longer route acclaimed
One taking a shorter route acclaimed.

Deciding the fate of a people.

Excellent such performance.
Planned in short notice.
Great.

Fantastic.
Been planning for ages.
Great.

What is right, what is wrong?
It lies in beholder’s eyes.
Truth a great fluctuation.
Changing colours like chameleon.
Cannot be formulaed
As the concepts shift.
Good and bad imagination
To fit the needs.
Favourable and unfavourable.
Short term, long term.
Time decides.
Convenient decisions
To live, to breathe.

Survival drawing intelligence and stupidity.

Misfits are unforunate.
Should be born in the suitable place.
Should belong to one’s own self.

Birds of similarities fly together peacefully.

155. Concentration


The boys were keeping their heads on the ground
I peeped and saw a yellow and red paper underneath
Shining, in its brightness reflecting the morning light
And slightly fluttering uncontrollable in the mild air.

It was a kite they were getting ready quite in earnest
Pasting sides in uniformity, precision of a plastic surgeon.
The scissors neatly arranged, the thread filed in corner
Missing nurses moving around, tension waiting outside.

Their faces the warriors in kurukshetra bent on winning
No matter what happens, even if you have to kill
Your cousins, uncles, teachers, winning is what matters
Here in the tough game of flying a kite in competition.

Using trained concentration to win in Bharatham
Evoking the powers of wisdom, the power of the soul
For colossal destruction of a sea of people
Now used for studies, for flying kites and going abroad.


156. The ruler

The nerves throbbing, head cracking
Tension sat on the throne with ulcer.

No more wars of weapons of iron
Now it’s a fight of veins and blood.

‘I should lead with posed courage
My cold hands and cold feet
Not for the eyes of others.

Are my words coming fluently?
Is my head straight?
Is my tone all right?
Content? Yes. I can speak just like that.
Natural speaker.

Action?

Words are the foundation of civilization.
Smiles are the base of a good face.
Appearances are complete.
Enough.

You are good in working?
I don’t need you.
You might outsmart me.
I will order for your elimination.
No, no. No beheading.
Its just that your mistakes will be ballooned.

World doesn’t need your work.
It does better without it.
Growth is natural.
It doesn’t depend on humanity.

I know why you want to work.
Work leads to power.
To pull me down.
A risk.

The ruler sat with eyes alert
Protecting his seat and voice.

157. Kurinji

Once in twelve years the royal visitor comes
With his relatives who can’t walk fast.
Some are so slow that they reach the next year.

Blue aristocrats, can’t manage the heat
And will live only in the cold hills.
The subjects run to see a glimpse of them.

Centers of brightness making locals bend
Become nervous to impress their highness
Beating the native identity as nothing.

Twittering birds talking incessantly
Walking in front leading the beauties
Fair in colour, alien in language.

Power bases should be treated with backs bent.
No question of equality, commonness.
How can such dreams live in deserts?

Dry land needs honey in tongues
Pleasing rare visitors to get favours.

Ancient manners bowing to false gods.


158. School of thought

At her age her grandmother was married
She ground dough, drew water.
Had a few children in arms and stomach.
Everlasting carrying of lives.
What is so difficult about all that?
Nowadays, women make a lot of fuss.
Those days, women were healthier.
Nowadays women have lost their health.


Those days how many women lived ?
Tearing new life selfish in its strength
Threw the soul to heaven or hell.
The cries went unrecorded
Separated in further rooms.

Those days, women had no pain.

Recorded memories exist.
Life has to be chronicled.
Unrecorded pain does not exist.

Those days, women had no pain.

Electronic pictures have taken their eyes
Into the centers of pain.
We see the put on fuss in wheels
Directed with careful manipulation.
Oh, what a fuss.

Those days, women had no pain.

The third wifed man has no idea
Of the volcanoeing throbs his
Bitter half went through
Before her soul reached god.

Those days, women had no pain.


159. The hill with herbs

Standing tall in the neighourhood
Having all the valuable herbs
It boasted of being carried by
None other than the great Anuman.

He threw it in a hurry to get back
To Lanka, where his Lord was fighting
A battle, not with human bombs,
With weapons moving in concentration.

Wars sometimes danced against Dharma
The poets were upset describing the breaks.
Atoms and kaliyugam, a curious combination
Have rewritten war methodology.

Hills cannot be carried now to save humanity
Little spheres hidden inside humanity can wipe
The immortal soul from the body
And pack it off to where ever possible.

Did Anuman really carry the hill,
Postmodern question, I don’t want to ask.

Science powerful now, thoughts powerful then.


160. Spectacles

The towers were needled by a flying God
He took the form of burning fire to penetrate
The pencils started crumbling like bitten ones
Lives on windows, like bees looking out side.

A view in shades of morons of screen
The lens going to the heart of the matter
Enlarging everything except the minds
Moving in style forward and backward.

The viewer ate his breakfast, lunch
Had discussions with his friends, family.
Had fun otherwise as he was watching
A show, a live drama, rare of its kind.

Pain reaches only when it affects the body
Visions are only secondhand knowledge.
Used to much more terrible stories on the
Big silver plate, this is nothing, they thought.

Waves of suffering floating in the air,
Unable to reach the human heart
Went back to the place of origin
Failing to get inside protected area.

Sheltering its sanity from the box inside the house
The mind has developed techniques of survival.


161. Knowledge shallow


Memoried facts dictating life.

I have read a lot of books.
I know life.

The accent not right.
Not the way the angels speak.
Not the right background.
So sad. Poor. Not really right.

I am heard elsewhere.
Pronounced great.

You are local.
Locals cannot be bright.
Cheap, too common.

And the song continued
In the local land.



162. Platform’s story

My growth is envied by my enemies.
They block me wherever possible.
Flowers, vegetables, cycles
Shop wares, pillows, doormats, any thing
Saleable to reach the buyer.

I understand their need.
They are self-centered.
I give and they take.
When will they give me?

I need space to breathe
Need the softness of human feet.
Western creation that I am,
I am hated for my showing off.
Stomachs are more important
Than beauty and health, I am told.

How can any one think of appearance
When the reality is dying of hunger?
Give me food, cries the soul
And I become an extra fitting.

Frills are only decoration pieces.
The main part of the dress is the body.
When buses are there, once in an hour
Why do you want to walk?

Learn to live within boxes.
Look at walls for inspiration.
Stare at the neighbour when in anger.
Be part of civilization.
Steel almirahs of existence locking air out
Protecting emptiness from itself.



163. Politics of the ignored

Women in polished gold
Looking unnaturally new
Freshly acquired boldness
Like the jewels themselves
Pinned labels
Screaming artificiality.

Men talking whispers
Used to the hype
Noticing movement of times
Today this tomorrow that
Why get excited?

Thoughts flew
Waves caught souls
Heat absorbed ambition
Reflecting on the rented cars.

War cries on cue.
Mosquitoes.
Planned mantras.
Dinosaurs moving.

This is business.


164. Gita and life

Guilt of past.
Did I kill my brother?
My teacher? My cousin?

Safe to move away.
Detachment.
Water on the lotus leaf.
Raja rishi.

Everything is god.
The same.
Why the difference?
Caste?
Imagination.
Don’t get excited.
Relax.

Detachment?
Don’t touch?

Right and wrong are same.
Right is wrong?
Wrong is right?

Don’t confuse.
Move away from life.
From right.
From wrong.
For what?
To escape guilt?
Survival of the mover.

Concepts of a hot climate.

Wars teach faster.
Total involvement leads to death.

Move away and live longer.
Be kind.
See god in everything.
I am the killer.
Don’t feel guilty.

One needs to live.


165. Ant on head.

I saw an ant moving purposefully
On a woman’s head in total concentration.
It did not try to escape the hooting cars.
The movement graceful and poised.

In a few more moments it will die
Combed into order and silence.
Its destiny already decided above
Written in bloody colours.

Can one change the earlier verdict?
Wonder what colour pen is used.

The pattern.
The design itself a design.
Designed for convenience.
A people seen life
Technologies tested
Benefits analyzed.

A combination of life and sanity.

166. Stylistics of fear

The rooted division meant for organization
Growing into cancer of unequality.

Reserved natures wanting to be alone
Segregating a few based on colours.

Don’t touch me, I am higher.
Keep away, you are lesser.

A nature not confident of itself.
Fear of losing individuality.

A land never believing in pride
Secretly scared of life.

A backbone hurts.
Snakes live smoothly.

How do you fight?
Send the enemy away in contempt.

Tell him he is not worth it.
Teach him to detest himself.

When one species can manage
Without bones, why should others?


Bow, bow, be humble.
Tallness will block your speed.



167. City generous

The cows were born in the house nearby
They knew to eat paper
Lived on cinema posters
Managed without meadows
Had no practice of walking for miles.

They knew to stand in front of shops
And look at the vegetables with longing
The smart shopkeeper got rid of
The unwanted lives in a neat manner.

Well fed than their village colleagues
Fat stored in bulging tissues
Walked the flexible masters.



168. The Neem in bloom

The woman looked lascivious
With full grown body
Silent and supple
Thought the male imagination.

She doesn’t have bright red fingers
Her flowers look mild green
Fading into the background
Not standing out to threaten others.

Rooted with a grace so quiet
No loud arguments of reason
Fitting the world of silent money
Ruling without fuss.

Talk- a sign of ill culture
In trees of sacrifice.



169. Ice cream boys

I saw them ages back selling cold cones
A crowd waiting outside to buy
I wanted to know the secret
Divine manna melted on my mouth.
No wonder I thought.

What did strike me was the friendly vibes
Streaming from the boys to each other and others.
There was a trust in their faces
Unusual in partnerships.

Will he cheat me, the constant worry,
Usually written on men in business
Was missing in these two ice cream boys.

I wondered how long will the friendship continue
And was hoping it should
For friends are gifts of god.
And one should know how to keep them
And that is difficult.

Times has flown or moved or whatever it is.
Crowds have stopped walking.
Motorcycles have chased away
Normal humanity from the roads.
No body walks, why should they?
The age of machines ending in
Mechanized hospitals have arrived.

Now vehicles stopped in front of the shop.
Dignified old man, cloistered ladies
Standing in decent queue
A sight so rare.
And the boys grown into men.
Their sons also had come
And the four, I saw working in unison.
There was a look of wealth in their lips
A smile, a confidence, achievement.
Friendly waves continued, now from four faces.
How did they achieve this amount of trust?

The other day I saw one of them counting money.
He had one of those lovely smiles.
And the young boy was watching the counting
With an equally powerful expression.

Angels on earth I thought.



170. Hell of heat


The heat marched victoriously
Barking, ordering with arrogance
Victims escaped to shelters of shade
In the treeless modernities.

The tombed life under cement stretches
Dying of thirst inside
Unheard, unseen, therefore nil.

A day would come with waters
That cannot quench the thirst
Blocked by the fences of convenience.


The dry mouth went to complain
To the God of rains, Varunan
Asking for strength to breakthrough


Enormous ignorance parading as intelligence.

The gods have no power
To stop the action of destiny.
Time for the dance of blockades.

Times live for certain hours,
Certain hours only.



171. Bushes of dreams

I would perhaps been happy in the bushes
Living in the open woods
Roofed by the sky with its decorations
Soothed by the cool river.

A romantic picture.
A perspective from technology.

Another eye I have.

The lovely noise of the hootings.
Speeding machines of lakhs.
Flow of human feet, sounds.
My child sleeps in peace , in comfort.
I am proud of motherhood.

Neat platform my house.

The sky above me in bright blue
The clouds as usual
The crows sitting on the boughs
The gentle breeze easing the heat
I think this is life.

Nothing has changed for me.


172. Smell in crowds


Spreading like the smallpox
It devoured humanity
And walked around searching for more.

It peeped from every body
Standing close to the next one.

Heat from the heavens
Frying souls in perspiration.

Will I get it or not?
How many more in the line?

Time moved in atoms.
It sat with a heaviness of a champion.

Thousands of heads
Dripping of hot lava
Escaping from the office.

Expansion in humanity.

In cells.



173. Modern shylocks

Air conditioned, sophisticated, dignities
Carpeted beauties of culture and education
Deciding the fate of millions
With their capacity to live on interests.

On par with the first world
We need money to live up.

To what?

Machines have classified worlds
Set traditions, norms.

Why compete with them?
Why?

All are sinners. Borrowers.
Tied to bond.
The flesh will be taken.

To escape bond
Be on top.

Then exemption.
Need contacts.


The common man pays loans.
Pays for government’s luxuries.

It was always like this.
Why do you fuss?

Systems walk on the shoulders of the ordinary.



174. Division


Guns took a knife and carved the earth.
Took the money of the people
Classified it in economic theories.
All scientific.
No partiality.
Correct.

You have gold reserves?
Okay. Your money is good.

You don’t have gold reserves?

Your money is local. No value.

Gold is our culture.
We give kilos of it as dowry.

Exactly. You are corrupt.
You don’t list it in accounts.
Unlisted gold is corrupt.

But, gold is our personal belonging.

That’s your culture.
For us gold is public.
You bring it out.

No. No. That is not our way.

Then you are declared poor.

Weapons decide hierarchies.
Natural law of earth.
Weapons coated with love.
Preaching and practice
Complementing each other.


Earth laughed.


175. Old age of humanity

Mind wanted to say something
Tongue said something else.
Eyes wanted to see something, saw a halo.
Words repeated brought a smile
On the listener’s face
Unnoticed by the speaker.

I know, am right.
A thing of past.

Blood washes away the strength
Like Krishna took away
Arjunan’s power
After the Great War
That taught detachment.


Better not take seriously
The contempt felt by the raw ones.
Ripeness falling gracefully
Without becoming bitter.

Lived well shall die well.

Pre war or post war philosophies.



176. Dignity in the running

She was a dignified woman
Her posture was right
Her eyes did not look at the food
Spread on the dining table.

A misfit in society
Did not know how to ask and look.
No desire in her eyes.
An expression of pride rare in this climate.

People laughed at her pride.
Ask and ask.
Beg and beg.
Stand at doors.
Let people know you are waiting .
Then, you need not work.
Crows live better than donkeys.

She didn’t bother.
She continued her work.
Cleaned the already clean things
Everyday with poise.

Worked with the mien of a lord.

The goddess of the next era.


177. Atchya thrithi

Eighty thousand kilos gold
Will be bought on this day
The market declared.

Every year this happens.

I have the complete set
In green, red and white.
Do you have?

We keep everything in locker.
Do you?

It is not safe you know.
All are thieves here.

Rich people.
Poor country.

The boss will not question
These factors before classification.
He is blind.
Or pretends to be.

Can we ban gold as ornaments?
Then it will sell more.

Suppressed becomes more attractive.
Like the Indian woman in sarees.


178. The god

He came running in shivers
From the end of design
Convulsions shook his frame
Writhing on ground he dashed
Across with the speed of lightening
The music soared
Blasting the silence with rhythm
He stood obeying the tunes
Moving to the beat
Slave to the ambience.
Will he listen to the prayers?
Can he?
God or Physical trance?
Is god a trance?
Questions died with cowardice.


179. Nadhaswaram


The calculated music of the fingers
Essence of team work
Bringing out stentorian tunes
Of order and discipline.

The arena changed its look.
Auspicious hour has arrived.
Seconds measured by joy
Minutes planned, ununderstood by body.

Tun, tun the rhythm went on
Creating waves of sweet breaks
Like the pulse beat
Or the movement of the blood.

The loud music incomparable
Clear, distinct in its character
Welcoming good thoughts, moods
Inaugurating imaginations.

Who was listening?
Where are the people?

The team continued.

Philosophers without expectation.


180. Drama

The lady sang with a hoarse voice
She was telling a story
The Asuran was chasing the god
To test the power of his blessing.

The god ran here and there
And finally went to his relation
Who took the form of a girl
And killed the Asuran in style.

The woman sat in front of the vil
Used the golden sticks on it
Hitting at the strings
Bringing jingles each time.

The man at the other side
Asked the right questions
From the angle of the listener
Full of jokes and detachment.

The troupe took the shape of
Bhajans at times
Drama now and then
Solo singing sometimes
Discussion forums once or twice.

It taught the listeners
In a simple manner
The stories of the land
With a native polish.

The few who were listening
Or rather seeing
Were dozing as
They have seen better shows
Where the imagination need not work.

It was difficult for them
To grasp the pure language
Without images
As minds are now trained by shadows
Changes chasing old ones.


181. Transition


Who wants to be the member of an
Institution that defines itself
With dead concepts?

The village is meeting its death.
False shows, hypocrisy rules.
Brothers jealous of each other.
Who would be the ruler?

Joint family system with its
Secret devilish puss inside will go.

City life generates boredom.
It kills. Nerves collapse.

Go and live in a modern village.
The machines have
Created vast time spaces.
Gossips now rules villages.
People killing each other with words.
Biting backs, ears and eyes.
Worse than worms at their worst.
Contaminating the air
With meaningless talk.
Misinterpretation, deconstruction
Practiced with ease.
Time to kill. Nothing to do.
No work. Devils dance.
What problem is not there?

Still there are true villages
Where machines are kept away.


May be. Go there.

You are dark. I am fair.
You this caste.
Don’t use this well.
Bend.
Bow down.
Dismissal of personalities.

The city is god’s answer
To changes welcomed with joy.
Its problems are lesser.

Old selfish imaginations
Die in new cities.