Letter from a Husband

My wife could be a concert pianist,
maybe the best there is,
but my mother insists
it isn't enough until
she cooks the traditional fish curry.

My wife could be a literary theorist,
but my mother-in-law feels
she is a failure if
she can't vacuum properly.

My wife is the fellow-traveler I need
and I married,
and I insist,
she steer clear of these houses we could never live in,
steer clear of the kitchen
and the laundry.

I can get my own dinner,
as long as you promise
to read me your poetry.

Winter

'Winter is for women,' she said.

The phoenix has no illusions.

Graveyards and wombs
are both
hollows that refuse to be emptied.
November
is not unlike April,
in another kind of deformity.

Digging for buried treasure
in the act of creation -
Push-Shove-Breathe-Stiffen.
The mercury measures intensity
and then explodes.

The cradle pushed to the edge
where maturity waits matronly,
for the changing of guards.
Rites of initiation that transfix me
into this or that.

My oracle delivers me into doom.
Entrapment has coveted my pride -
So long
So monotonous
So much.
There is no need for surrender,
the mind is a go-between.
Put to test,
the warrior hides
like the serpent from its god.

The struggle for  words,
for lost foothold,
is much too severe,
to take shape and form.

Of a woman am I born, of a man I become.

For eyes that can only dream -
nothing reveals the strength in me.

Some secrets become stories.


November - 2007, 2013.

Haze

Through a haze the voices come
and barely touch the ground
on which I lay.
I am covered in weed,
wet from the waves in which they came.
A creature of the shore,
everyone stares at me.
I stare right back,
unafraid and smiling.
It is almost as if I can no more get hurt,
bleed all my blood out and yet stay alive.
The ground never gives way, but moves
aligned to my feet.
He asks me to sit, when all I'd rather do
is move,
move all the rocks from my shore,
and let the waves touch me
undisturbed, unhindered.

My feet leave no mark behind,
as if the memory was false
or never meant to be.
But I can re-enter this haze,
climb much higher along the slope
and refuse to come down
the next time.
I'd just put my feet up
and watch the waves.
Every crest like a bath,
washing away what was unclean,
until I am born renewed.

10/11/12

Beast

This is from 2007. My dear friend and 'dottie' Apoorva deserves a 'unique' thanks for reminding me of this. You can read her blog at http://apoorvaunique.wordpress.com/


Do not blame the beast
It lies still

As death
As the eye of the storm

A long time it did

Sleeping and Silent
Decaying in its foul peace

Now it remembers
Hills unseen
Where the corpses rot in

Hiding and Seeking
Its partners planning
Miracles of being

Inhuman is that self
Beastless and Free

Darkness exists
In fairy-dreams.

---
19/07/07 

Monsoon in Sikkim

There is too much mystery,
the heart skips beats
the hand pelts stones
the foot splashes rain
the green canopy covers
this unstoppable monsoon.

Tall grass mushrooms-
breeding leeches and butterflies,
spreading tentacles to bare feet,
that touch and withdraw
to warm blankets and quilts.

The lethargic mind is poisoned
with guilt,
faced with so much levity.

It rains ceaselessly,
crosses limits with its arrogancy.
(I know the word is fancy!)
There is no pattern
in the sunlight's occasional visits,
no assurance of laundry
drying,
or fresh water subsiding.

A lone pine stands its ground
aloof in its mystery

24/7/12
Rabong

For my nephew when he turns 15

I see you in this room-
ten years hence, a teenager
-wonder about what
adorns your walls, your mind
and how old I am

and I see you, walk
into the room, playing
with tools, still five.

The sound of children enters my room
sometimes, their laughter so immediate,
it makes one think.

I live
on the fringes of
this playground,
making noise, un-listenable for you.

I wish you thrive,
whether in
or outside the fringes,
the boundaries
others create -
I hope you break

and I hope you know that
where aunts like me come from
is no evil place.

Abritti is upset.

And still the sun cracks
through these July rain-clouds, often
enough for her to make her way.

Braving the heat,
and the molesters,
ignoring or yelling back at cat-callers,
she sings.
In her head, her playlist zings.

It is she,
who gazes at the landscape
and the horizon,
just before sunset.

It is she,
who should've had
heartbreaks for breakfast,
but she falls asleep
dreaming of fairy-tales
that are feminist.

11/7/13

Late Night Nipples

Very late last night or very early today morning, as  I morbidly sat through the first half hour of James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ ( yes dear mother in  film heaven, I have sinned!) I learned a very important lesson. While we are used to public service warnings like ‘Smoking is injurious to health’ and ‘Smoking kills’ every time some character lights up a fag on screen, did you know nipples (of women, of course) are far more harmful?!

The half hour screening did not improve my opinion of the movie or the director, but one of the most (in)famous things about the movie for black-hearted, cynical, shallow MoFos like me was (gasp!) blurred! No!

Why?

Because watching Leonardo DiCaprio and most other males inhaling nicotine may only just, you know, innocently, kill you. But O dear unsuspecting, virginal, bred on Indian tradition, late night TV watcher, even a glance at Kate Winslet’s nipples will completely, interminably, sinisterly destroy you.

With the end result being that they (the guys who do blurring jobs) almost managed not to show the real mystery- the Heart of the Ocean necklace- in their life saving bid to present Winslet as a woman without breasts, and with a lack in her chest area. As if Feminists didn't already have trouble dealing with the original Freudian lack, now I need to get my breasts chopped off to not offend the 80 year old and not corrupt the 8 year old up at 3 am in front of the TV set.

Why can’t they show nipples with appropriate warning signs stuck on the screen like they do with cigarettes, (though not with violence, or item girls moving their hips like it was the end of the world or thrusting their boobies in your face, you know, the harmless stuff), or at the beginning of the film? For example, in keeping with the spirit of Titanic’s iceberg tragedy, flash the words ‘Nipples ahead!’

Here’s a tiny tentative list of warnings that ‘guys who blur nipples’ can use (as imagined by my wormy brain) :

1. We do not encourage male viewers ( even the queer females if any, but don’t worry they don’t exist in India or the subcontinent or South and SE Asia) to react to the nipples on the screen by attempting to grope any set of nipples within range of said viewer’s hand.

2. We definitely discourage viewers from venturing out into public and staring at other people’s women’s nipples (because Men don’t have nipples! and because Who is Salman Khan?) or requesting/forcing women to flash them (think about it, what better way than to spread anti rape messages while showing a movie)

3. We especially discourage female viewers (btw, only pervy and frustrated women stay up this late at night. Sigh!) from fantasizing about Winslet’s nipples.

4. Nipples may explode if not handled carefully. Be on your manly guard before venturing to touch them.

In solemn conclusion, nipples are not remotely harmful. Because every time I see male nipples or Mipples (as I will call them from now on) I don’t feel like squishing the ‘pungi’ out of every male in my family and vicinity, or need smelling salts because I have fainted at being so offended. If I have to endure Mipples, you better sit through Nipples!

<END of RANT>

P.S. Views expressed are completely personal. Please do not start a blood/mud bath in the comments section. My nipples won’t be able to take that and will explode. You are most welcome to add to the Nipples Ahead! warning list. Be playful and say no to sexism and misogyny.

From a darkened roof

As far as I remember, this guy I had just met was 'mansplaining' the song 'Country Roads' while trying to convince me to get a horoscope reading. Apparently, I was wasting my potential by- A. ignoring that I was born in the Aries-Taurus cusp, and B. aspiring to a single life and studio apartment instead of a family and a country farm house.


This is a piece of real estate tranquillity,
built on the graves of yellow flowers,
green grass, and insignificant insect life.

I remain untouched
by stereotype
of country versus city.
Country roads do not always lead
to some safe harbour of beauty.
The city has its own patch of poetry
set free in some lonesome night
from darkened roofs, silently.

This is not where I've always lived.
But this is where I become, be-ing.
Softness of pearls
hides a cruelty.
White beauty,
born of sand
borne by the sea.
Such waves surround this city.
The grave- just a memory.
One home of loneliness
split into many.
'The Aries woman walks alone'
'The Taurean is a stone'.

I am solitary.
I walk in my city.

14/5/10

Tunnel

The smoke forms a pattern around my eyes
like a mesh of wool
held up close under a microscope.
I see others through this
like a new vision-
the edges smooth and fluid,
a tunnel carved in dreams,
across which I guide myself
seeking the light on the other side.

My desperation ignites
sparks in the darkness.
A cavewoman struggling
with old bones
of women who disappeared in the gap,
in crevices very deep and very forbidding.

My only fear is-
to not complete this journey
to not reach in time.
I run-
across desert, forest, and mountains
to find what it is exactly I need.

Not redemption or even safety,
I want to feel
the risk, the thrill,
the rush in the discovery,
and not have to ever cease.

11/12/12

Guilty Pleasure

Something I dug up recently. Written in 2009. Back then pleasure was regimented, and self-pleasuring filled with guilt.

Your face lingers,
clinging like the feeling
that I savour in your absence.

Inevitably,
tears flow out,
like the promise of love-
made and un-made,
over and over,
again and again.

What is this pain
that rushes in
along with pleasure
rendering it guilty?
The satisfaction never reached
without your face
in front of mine
or your fingers touching me.

The desire to be animal
lost
in the need for tenderness.

-----------------------------------
28/05/09

Boyfriend

It is not you I run from,
it is the change, the inevitability.
I call you 'boyfriend'
with ease,
surprising my craving for difference,
delighting my mind-
yes, with youthfulness.
I am the teenager who met you very late,
the romantic, the poet,
who turned cynic-
too soon,
too soon.

Balloons can still unleash
from my grey mind.
Balloons-
red pink yellow
and also grey.

You stand,
at the rooftop's edge,
letting your kites
out into my sky.
I realize
the need for threads.

22/6/11

Yeti Dreams

Whiteness lies in wait
to be touched
and explored.

Rise,
like mountains from holes
and release of soul
into blue clear sky.

No talk.
no hesitation.
A bird on her virgin flight
into ice
and cold
and numbness of all and every pain.

The weather forecast
of no matter,
the harmful stranger
no threat.
Fear gone
like breath in air.
The knots loosen up
and let go.

Even the Yeti dreams
of its existence
as of a special kind.
Boundary-less,
it scratches upon snow,
and rock cliffs erupt
into a thousand echoes.

There is hardly a sun here
hardly a harsh glare;
only the blue cool moon
in the glittering frozen sky,
a sculpture
cut from piece of midnight
when the owl broods
and the eyes close.

Into distant dreams and longings
the breath releases sighs.

The wish to be understood
The hope to be embraced
This oldest love
of your little life.

-
04/04/12
Rabongla,Sikkim

To One who is not Mine anymore

Coconut trees in columns of three,
love invested with desperation,
on this journey
no dreams match no destinations.
The heart flung into wind
like hurt spread over years.

That name recalled, an old companion.

I am blown away, in dismay
overtaken in this crowd.

Lethal injection pointed at skin
the needle pressing on,
persisting.

What did I leave behind now
that I am unable to flow.
My mind frozen, corners turned
into prickly pears
that feel no love
not thawed by any emotion.
My skin evaporated into dust-
a powder puff, pollen
gathered and scattered.

I can so easily still pretend
to not care anymore
about you.

29/12/12

After Christmas

The morning after Christmas-
I need to sort myself.
Bathed in cake and wine,
the night before churns
in my belly,
pregnant with feasts
I am festive.
A large Santa, a bear huddling in contentment.

The room is still hazy
with the ghosts of the ones
who came bearing gifts,
not wise, but smarter than wise triplets.

I am left alone now
with the pigeons in the balcony.
Too full to desire anything else,
I am cushioned with anticipaton for New Year.
I drink my superficiality
from bottles
that litter the house.

I decide to just sit here,
waiting for time to happen to me
in the passing of the day to the evening,
learning patience and emptiness,
imagining judgements passed on me.

26/12/12

This is not about Protest

Today is a mirror of its own self
I protest, cigarette stubbed into hand

Driving late at night
the guilt flows from my veins
blood oozing from wrists
slashed open through wires
of change-less-ness

I stand, mid-road, naked
cars pass, their lights on high beam,
unaware, unresponsive.
Thrown stripped from a bus
I lie-
mangled and manhandled.
My cry is a savagery
released into the night that
does not stop, does not have time
to care.

I rest my case, my body.
In death, there is no peace,
no protection from vengeance that
rots like my bones, my skin.

'Fearless' they name me
and yet I am scared
of passing into another realm,
outside of memory, and consciousness-
conscience hardly applicable anymore.

I refuse to be pleased
with the outrage, immodest still
with my last breath.

The ceasing of my speech
is when you cease to notice.