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

a bird's word

Rare stakes
endangered passions
buffered zones.
the heat is up
there's eider down.
Glasses clink.
Peers
through chinks
and raises
to dispel the masses....
(Tickled by some pickled wits
exotic strays lose charming ways
-now turned to wolves
and generate loathing.)

non-conventional energy

Today
makes it.
Enrolment
w.e.f.
ten years ago.
First, at the bar
Racing, pacing
Supreme theme.
Precedents, collars
coats, then dollars.
Subsequently,
Crafting, drafting- ejusdem generis.
Appearances.
AIRS and cases,
glorified sharks- Noscitur a sociis
Cut to
the wilderness
-sanctuaries,
parks.
People's voices
the choice is
pre-meditated- ut res magis valeat quam pereat.
Chamber-practice-analyst-teacher-
Which is the undefining feature
-can't be serious
about
expressio unius est exclusio alterius.
Lawyers all,
bound to hammer out some lines
to mark the passage of such times.
Assurances
a decade
not decayed
m' lads and lassies
leave ye all
to pontificate
about
Contemporanea expositio est fortissima in lege.

stick flick

Taps into
pools
of wishful thinking
of the collective consciousness.
Fresh as groundwater
(-waves of cyanide, fluoride and other activity
recede in this bubble).
Seamless weaving of textures
fabricates a vision.
Some sold out...
we watch from the ground
-chhabees rupaiyah, tax deducted
packed.
Evolving strategies
Registering a swansong
of a Chanakya.

circulars in motion

The starkness visible
-luminaries
on one, two, three
and other Hidden Acts.
-see how they run
straight into the finishing line
chasing after unclear crumbs
-their tales chopped off
with the eagle's splice.
Except
there's a nation behind.
Changing track...
From nursery prints
to finer print
From iambic
to vent-a-meter
Pent up and gone
Or step-by-step.
Lunar eclipses
herald rebirth
-A sickle-moon
rising.

AGOG: The Week

sponge-soft idlis,
dosas flipped up, flying from the pan,
crisp as red lace
and other idylls.

keep up with the weights
from gym to Gym
heavy, light or feather
with garb to get trim.

Venuses in transit:
from the world of hospitality,
after an extended gap
-updated files: of rolled chapattis and talking styles.
then a siren
from a glossy world
-the schedule a mystery, the day, a whirl.
and finally, an alternative fox
some preoccupations: jackals, monkeys
-edged away from the box.

meantime,
another toast
to a gang of girls
is raised as a flag unfurls.

snatches

22nd July, 07
Rainbow
-the quintessential arch
notions of hidden gold
buried deep
in the seeds of a storm

Waterfall
Clearing, clambering
boulders
tangled shade
brooks some moss
-diversity.
Intrepid it would sound
or to the disbelieving, fabricated.

Foothills
Hill-brooms, womens’ craft
Hairstyles, pineapples,
Fashion statements
Value added
Vroom
Through fields and ponds
To pots of water
buried in the ground
A form of drip irrigation
Challenges the imagination

Ascent
To the cloudy range
Home-like.
-Connection.
Testers, feelers, plus-points, thoughts
On that day of the invincible Juggernaut.


























.

Off-shore

Cross currents pull swimmers down
The lighthouse waves
-beaming, lets them go

A depression over the bay
A cyclone over the shore
Victory at sea

-Rainbows from oil slicks
-Mined, the sand.
Quaint, the myth

A monkey’s burning tail
sizzled in these waters,
turned the shore murky.

In another aftermath,
’roaches roamed
-From baygone
to survivors of the bygone

(the epitaph to which read:
they took the bait
hook, line and aye aye mate)

6th July, '07

heat wave

Degrees
Of affinity, movement
On paper, in ether
and on board
Measure for measure
-text to some
elsewhere, a peg, an inch
and sometimes
a corporator.
Dealt out, nuanced
And the heat is on
Non-egalitarian,
it sifts and burns.
Banished rays
Conditioners
Planets transit
-the world's astray
Variant degrees
pull it away

the village rises

Circuits
Light up paths
House-fulls
of guests.
The Gramadevata's summerfest.
Nine urns for the twists and turns
of the lanes that wind through the foothills
A unique spirit binds us all
-from the swords of power to the plough that tills.
Current institutions, contemporary culture
Justified manifestations
-the Past the filter.
From each according to their capacity
-their mite.
Legends, mediums, beats of drums
Not to be dispossessed
The Cosmos is
this osmosis.

perceptions

From fine print
and words on Tao
back
to fiction.
Trod the Red Carpet
to southern lore
-liked-
the style, selection of themes
and the cultural stance of the narrator.
Would read more.
Had stowed away Nadine
-went through the palette
of her masterpiece
marvelled at the subtle shifts of narrative
-raced on, tanned by late hours, maybe fading light
captured by the sunbathers of Tamarisk bay!
And then a book with thick pages, hard-bound
nice colours, large font
never heard of it
but tossed it into the basket at an annual sale
Turned out to be interesting
-a tale of immigrant farmers who also work in mines;
the little girl wants to be a teacher;
ends up being a mill-worker;
life, with the usual phenomenon of unlikely
or at least inconspicuous
scenes
remaining etched
in memory
-the book as the viewer recalls it....