To Shantanu, With Love

Tags

India, kids, samosa, story, teacher

“This is madness,” chuckles Maya, as I gobble another samosa. I gulped, gasped, and groaned. Maya grinned. Two weeks in India, and I am yet to find a samosa that isn’t lava cooked in Saharan zephyr and seasoned with gravel.

Maya and I had been teaching 2^nd grade at an at-risk school. We called our class ‘Superheroes’; no crime went unpunished. Except Shantanu’s. With dark pools of menace for eyes and fight-ignited chalk marks for a smile, Shantanu was 2-A’s Joker; his tattered trousers made tables tremble.

This morning, terror struck. Shantanu tore my chart off the crumbling walls, ripped the Batman figure, and celebrated his slaughter. The kids shrieked and our vocal chords wailed, mourning Batman’s death. Maya’s eyes met my raised eyebrows: the adult red alert activated.

We tread to Shantanu’s house through puddles. Lifting our feet, each toe tied to buckets of doubt filled with gallons of guilt, consoling fragments of self-esteem that each step forward would ease the buckets. Or make us feel the weight less.

Delhi has a strange romance with rain. Some days, it’s a crush that abandons her with broken arteries and floods. Today, it’s a serenade; coaxing lovers, thoughts, and the past into naiveté.

A waft of burnt cumin and sweat caught my eye, a stone caught my foot, a puddle caught my startled face. Maya’s guffaws thaw the dilapidated walls of Old Delhi, merging with the icy, smog-fuelled air to shrink itself to silence, mocking our cloaked cheer. 

Shantanu’s house greets us with the sweetness of paan stainsand urine. Kissing the parched ground on a dying wire, pastel-hued underwear flirts for attention. They had been rainbow-hued, but the wringing of tired hands and time had stretched them to fit many skins. A Muezzin calls to prayer, his spell broken by Shantanu’s mother, who speaks as if she was racing her words to see which would win.

“So happy. SO SO happy. Shantanu! Water? SHANTANU! Have water some na! SO happy! SHANTANU”

As we wait, I glance at the memory-laden walls adorned with photos, hiding cracks. There, in the rickety left corner of the faded yellow wall, crowning a baby Shantanu’s still menacing-eyes and chalked-smile, I find the ousted Batman. Shantanu’s mother caught me eyeing Batman.

“Shantanu so happy he say he get prize. He so so happy. SHANTANU” 

My raised eyebrows met Maya’s eyes: the teacher red alert activated.

Shantanu comes sliding down the railing, sees us, and goes sailing back up, only to be caught by the ear by his mother.  His hands hold the snack tray out, and I pick a samosa. Maya grins. I take a deep breath and sink my teeth into the hard shell, hoping to make it to the soft exterior without getting burnt this time. Maybe it’ll sting less this time. Shantanu had stung less this time.

 

 

Circles

Tags

Love, Poetry

We meet eyes

Our ties make dyes

We bond conversations

We glue shapes

Your circle greets my square slate

Its edges seep into my palate

Sparkling your name on my fame

Your greys match my alibis

Your Woodstock charms my Fireflies

The circle and the square build allies

I teach you the beauty in being free

You teach me the beauty in me

I see your muse in me

My muse lives in your epiphany.

 

But slowly,

Your circle is altering

Our threads are unravelling

The palate is leaking

Our canvas starts bawling

Cupid is faltering

The shapes get colder

The canvas gets darker

Your circle becomes a chip on my shoulder

I become your boulder

Your edges are scarring my path

Carving their name on my wrath.

 

Your circle is shaking

Our canvas is cremating

The arms of time have stretched its legs

We become the other’s dregs

I am no longer blinded

Every mile is no longer guided

Your circle no longer forms a halo

I become the goodbye to your hello.

 

Today,

Your circle is a stranger

My square needs a new painter

My shape is anew

Our canvas will remain askew

Today, I start a new art

Today, my square becomes a heart.

To: Us

Tags

Light, Poetry, rape, women

To the eyes that seek malaise

from the hunting chase of perverted praise

 

To the breasts that expose

the misogynist lumps under sartorial blindfolds

 

To the legs that don’t feel complete

without the invasive graze of foreign screams

 

To the fingers that copulate in prayer

as He extinguishes a plea of universal repair

 

To the mind that conditionally cowers

under the scarring commands of carnal powers

 

To the headlines that find solace

in the shaming slander of stolen grace

 

To the politics that uncover precedents

under the medieval guise of common sense

 

To the blood that flames and flows

while the fuming universe between the legs grows

 

To the head that wears this deflowered crown

and won’t let the wounded prominence weigh its pride down

 

To the light that shines inside you

may the brightness bare the opaque views

may it find its muse in the house of truth

may it never diffuse on the use of a ruse

it will burn bright for every doubted dainty knight

through the ominous leeching and screeching of every  dark night

 

To us

To all of us

To all of us who create a ruckus, only when we believe that it’s a must

May we not just implore the wheezes of unwanted breath breezes

May our screeches not presume the presence of some breaches

May our scratches battle the gust of every unwanted thrust

May we gain the share of a wider terrain

May the world not foil us,

And may we always remain blind in our trust.

Salt of Soil

Tags

India, motherland, Poetry, rape, women

The sky spewed thorns
The earth swallowed the roses
Oh Motherland, why do you cry so?

“Because you burnt the crosses
You kept the garland
You swallowed the fragrance
You kept the idols
You swallowed the seers
You kept the rosary
You swallowed the roses
You celebrated my essence
But you sold my sense

Because the engine of my soul went up in flames
That bus penetrated my fallopian lanes
It tore its innocence in this neighbourhood of blame
It nurtured itself in the city of harrowed sin
It flurried across borders of law in dilapidation
And swerved through the roundabouts of negligence
It fled the flighty fist of myopic justice
It found its home in a temple of shame
It became One with the messiah it entailed
‘without fear’
She was framed,
In a country devoured by its esoteric gain

Because injustice penetrates my terrain
It finds its reins in the veins of the great
The snare of the weak held in restraint
It tours with poverty
False vows and water thwarting its ride
The invisible and the hungry are its aides
Because I am alone in this race

Because her blood screams through your ears
Hand-in-hand with the finger of fear
Hand-in-hand with the arm of power
Two sides of the same coin
But one shines brighter
Perhaps the one less trodden
Perhaps the one more forgotten

Because the universe is our name
Because on every soil, tears taste the same

You look up to me and you plead with lesions
When will you look down at me and prod the seasons?
Stop that bus
Change its wheels
Change its direction at the very least

You ask me
‘Oh Motherland, why do you cry so?’
I cry because you sob
And I cry because we can’t taste their salt.”

Tags

ideas, Light, Words

“invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that
they can
never
categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is

but only on the terms that you have
invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.”

—	The Pleasures of the Damned – Charles Bukowski

Redrawn

Tags

cynicism, ideals, ideas, Poetry, Sky, sun

In a world where the paper conquers the cut

 I’d rather be blinded by the ideals of the Sun

Than be left with perfect sight

at the cynic of a black night




For it is the blind that own a clean sheet

To redraw, erase and then repeat

This is

easily one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard

Ode to Words

Tags

Ode, Poetry, Rainbow, Words

You are the ink of a Treaty borne

Where the violet pen seizes the sword

Blowing the winds of change sour

In you, I find power

 

You are the indigo of the city sky

Take me to the recess of my mind

Where the stars stall the spire of time

In you, I find reflection

 

You are the hues of the blue heavens

Here I search for a cosmic presence

Seeking me in my cloudy essence

In you, I find faith

 

You are the crinkle of the green bill

Bring to life my whim, my trill

Make me the owner of my will

In you, I find ambition

 

You are the yellow of the morn glow

Awaken dreams, make them flow

The uphill ray of a still plateau

In you, I find hope

 

You are the grin of the orange pumpkin

Make the devils pray and the angels sin

Live in the mind of Dorothy’s kin

In you, I find magic

 

You are the blood of Achilles’ heel

The red petal amid the thorns I see

Within a fire that fuels blissful agony

In you, I find passion

 

Sway my sails every way

Make me every colour I am

Breathe the spectrum into grey

Be my sigh when the voice fades

Be my shrine, be my legacy

Always letting my spirit soar free

In you, I find me.

Two Roads

At the brink of the wilderness lay a fork,

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

The left less travelled by,

The right frequented by knights.

At the brink of the wilderness lay a fork,

With a stick and my wits, an own third path I forged.

And that has made all the difference.

Inspired by Robert Frost

Perspective

As per Jeff Bezos’ speech,

 

– Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

– Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

– Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

– Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

– Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

– Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

– Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

– Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

 

At any point that I choose to look back on my life, I hope my responses lean towards the 2nd half of the questions. My character and choices determine my life; not the other way around.