ROOKERY

Many-shaded squares on a durrie
Coalition-era chess mat
Hop-scotch the talk
Pitthoo ban gaya
everyone’s game
Kho kho gaya
Catch and blame
Kabaadi wallahs wheel their carts
Rocket launchers gather parts
Spokes and tyres
Dying fires
O to be an ember
And not a flame

Formulae

Picture-perfect
resolutions
On and off
-the records.
Olympian grit
the tooth
of the matter.
Victories wrought
from more things
than this world
ordinarily
dreams of.

Puri On My Mind

Big wheels are turning
by the shore today
Hands pull chains
The Saalwood moves
Leaves
Issues
Non-timber forest produce
Trees of yore.
The DNA of a peahen
might
Run through these feathers
Unruffled.
An island breeze
swirls in,
and brackishness
harbours rare species
aqua-guarded
by the mind’s lagoons.
Remembering
the poet
on a moonless night
Purna Chandra
on his celestial journey
this day
would write
-seize the light

dappled

succour

for

the masses

plights

of fancy

and other-wise

the collective

the noun

and a barn

or well,

a book, a note, a flick, a vote

- flickers

of light

discerned

Of doormats and flying carpets

O pressed flower
what status
quo
is this.
Generations
inherit pages
-lettered, seemingly unfettered-
Volumes
bear down
and keep you as you are.
-Bound
to be.
-Keep on the bonnet
And stay with the sonnet-
The buzz has set some free
to trample the air, board a wishing chair
to seas and creeks
and deeper notions

Borra Caves

shimmering walls
the mind unwinds forms
from stalactites, stalagmites
silicon glistens
to the swinging torchlight
which was a mashaal
three decades gone

ladderways
connect old pitfalls
deities reside in stone
light streams in from above
thousands surge in to worship
-on one day,
not charged by the powers that be
-free.

auspicious yellow
trickles past,
handed out
to women from beyond
the cordon.

the sound of bats,
-an overheard cluster
and honeycombs.

Outside,
the Gosthani flows and seeps
partly imitated
by a railway track.
Inside,
a giant seam of stone
has clicked the jigsaw
into place
for the moment
which is
a few hundred years

Spotted

Poachers
of delicacies in wine
Their Delinquencies
-ambassadors
of the fluffies.
Self-appointed
peerers
through tints of scarlet
(tinctures from ravaged hutments)
juggling hats and plumes
floating in bubbles
spewing
conservation priorities
and perfumes.
Fanciful insights,
marketable bytes,
Mangling contexts,
colouring texts.

From a vantage point: Eliot's Beach on 26th Jan

spray paint
by the sea
-psychedelic perch.
long-tailed kites
parallel the sand
-a mid-air zone.
scattered below:
vendors, spenders,
pakoda time.
roots, berries, nuts
shaken, garnished
-multitudes frolick
neath a tricolour
untarnished.

Who's Who

Jalebis
-lessons
in fries, cartels.
Spirals
-prices, priceless fumes
Sinks
-the notion's carbon:
untold, unfold
Criss-crossing ways
-hunters, gatherers
Stalk,
Exchange.
Land for paper, water for steel
Heavy Metal
-no combo meal

007: odds and ends

rang in with a bang
party hopping: 1-2-3
and a 2nd round.
restoration, rennovation
relatives
and the Republic
-tri-coloured fare
preceded a ten-thousand strong affair
-and there hangs a thread.

over-ruled
under-estimated
talked about
and debated.
Curly scripts
-another one crawls,
can read more lettering
on remote walls.

fitness fad
bone-to-bone
machines and metal
-honing.
retaining the edge
-resisting cloning.

reconnected.
went wireless.
also peered into the relentless
perches
of now wigless
fantasy.

star-spangled baithak
-a galaxy-view.
diversification.
consensus.
holding ground.

decisions and time
crafted
into non-events, saunter through
expertly unclaimed
unacclaimed, perhaps even awaited