Tuesday 4 April 2017

Genes and God's will

Forty-five kilometers from Aurangabad
in the outskirts of village Sarifpur
sits a generation: Vanjar Vasti
in squat blue and green house,
etched with tragedy dreadful.

Vijay, the youngest sits on the pyol,
who lost his eyesight after turning twenty-one.
It started with cataract, he says
without a trace of self-pity,
before converting irreversible blind.

The Vastis of half-century have suffered
an incurable: Retinitis Pigmentosa,
a genetic disorder rare.

His elders, in-laws and their children
all beg out of misery, all blind.
Vijay never hoped to join them,
he cried on his first day.
He reminisces how he worked on cotton-fields,
meandered places on his Hero Honda,
favorite visit being Mumbai
on mahaparinirvan day of Dr. Bhim.

His wife who is a daily-wage laborer
gave birth to a son a year ago,
Vijay longs to see his face.

Friday 31 March 2017

Ebullition 1

I think,
and I go on
‘bout him
endlessly, as if that’s all;
faraway, he leads different,
and here a mannequin I am
to watch him grow with—
generalized anxiety disorder;
i grow the same with all this thinking,
bemoaning.

Thursday 23 March 2017

The Bluest Eye

There is more to beauty
than just beauty.
Whites hate Blacks,
Blacks hate black
and try better.

“You little black bitch,” one barked,
she lowered down;
how bitter ‘tis to look into one’s beauty
through another’s eyes.

Quarts of white milk etched with
blue and blonde Shirley Temple
incessantly gulped down
by blue-eyes-fanatic.

Her mother sides the Whites;
daughter enters and knocks over,
white girl asks, “Who is she?”,
mother replies, “They are none.”

Unnoticed, unshared, unloved;
even the black cat flaunts blue eyes;
seeks a fortune-teller, says—
“Only you’ll be able to see them.”

Her imaginary friend threatens to run,
but promises to return soon
as new blues are bequeathed.
She loves her new blue eyes,
wants them to be the bluest.

Tuesday 28 February 2017

Vague

Was reading a quote of Kafka yesterday,
he seemed very, very unknown.
Blotted by tears, soon, upon my face,
or was it, mind, instead.
It was a stroke in my soul:
a mental picture.

I don’t remember it today,
its vague, addressed in ‘life’ and ‘death’,
and that is all I want to think;
in-between is all I do,
and if, by-chance
i understand – what it means,
i know
i will wish the end.

Thursday 23 February 2017

Je crois en quelque chose

quelque chose qui est très petit(e),
une particule obscure.
Une particule qui
ne se voit pas,
ne se sentent pas,
et
ne peux pas être goûté.
C'est à l'intérieur de ton âme,
je parle, mon âme, ton âme.
Pourquoi tout est si vague?

Thursday 19 January 2017

- So yeah

- what?
- so yeah
- what?
- the war
- what?
- the world war
- you're crazy
- think so?
- wanna bet?
- the war boy, the war, hellyeah do
- well shoot ye'self
- man, oh man.

Three American soldiers lie half-buried in the sand at Buna Beach on New Guinea. This photo was taken in February 1943, but not published until September, when it became the first image of dead American troops to appear in LIFE during World War II. George Strock's photo was finally OK'd by government censors, in part because FDR feared the public was growing complacent about the war's horrific toll.

Monday 16 January 2017

Jawans

There are our jawans, brave but tarnished
On the frontiers and Siachen glacier, they toil and spend.

Months of varying temperature shower upon them
Yet they stand with immunity and what with their grace!

Yes, now, few do peek at the nameless question:
They, no doubt have a family; their children must be proud?

It sparkles very commonly now: India and Pakistan
Brothers but bloody brothers, sigh, what future intends us?

Their truth, our truth; claims and disclaims; fiction and non-fiction
If this is what we are headed to, we cannot be better dressed.

Deep hurt. Who is so much? Government? People? Paper or trees?
No. Would not so much hurt us straight. Later. The children on the horizon.

Peace and harmony is the solution; much heard, goes unseen.
They sacrifice, we deliver only for happy sleep and avarice.

Debates, blame-politics, insufferable-confronts, tweets, comments
Pour and out-pour. The gloom over us, to be extinguished
Is only fumed further.