Of Revolutions

Posting a thrice-published poem here today. i wrote this in my last year of school, and it was first published in a supplement of the Times of India, followed by a leftist newsletter, and then in The Stephanian in my first year of college. It begins with a reference to the colour lilac...if you scroll down to the poem that i've posted just before this one (called Exotic Transition and written in 1990), there is a nice continuity.

Of Revolutions (written on 18th April, 1989).

The lilac mist evaporates

to let the blazing mixture

of the heavens

reign supreme.

And the earth bows down

and is content,

For it approves

of this consistency of events

as they repeat themselves

in systematic succession

with an air

of time-tested perfection.

Then, a strange day arrives

with a different strain

and stranger hues

and shatters all

that once held sway.

The alien storm

uproots the old

and that past perfection

is made to appear

incomplete and erroneous

and is made to fade away

into obsolescence.

And Mankind finds

that the world must change

and that it holds no place

for those who cling on.

And the loss is great.

but what is gained

is greater still.

                                 By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)

                             

Exotic Transition

By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)

Here's a poem from my collection of writings in the 1980s and '90s. This one's called Exotic Transition, and i was reminded of it because it's about the colour purple, one that suddenly seems to be in vogue now. This was written on the 4th of January, 1990.

Exotic Transition

Mauve mellow breezes

drifted into time

And cast a net of purple shades

From earth's deepest purple caves

to the ultra-violet skyline.

Lavender-perfumed moonlight

caught the amethyst eyes of a swan

as it moved on

in the river of wine.

It was the reign

of the colour divine.

It could kill and it could thrill

the heart and soul of man.

And so it came,

the purple time.

And man wondered

whether it was dawn or dusk.

It was dusk.

It was dawn.

The new would come

The old would be gone

---

                                                                  - V. Shruti Devi

Canvasses

By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)


Somewhere
Between idea/s
And depiction.
No claims
to hindered skills.
Just art.
Dashes of light
to amuse
with.
Click on the link, then blink.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151637643257028.1073741825.650792027&type=1&l=bd22e704a4

Drink the Light

Fort Kurupam 2012 (written on 24th October, 2012)

Return from Viswanathapuram
Vijaya Dashami

Breathe into earthen cup
The Dasara moon
swirls
in the Earl Grey.

Solar systems
Pranayam
And it disperses
into galaxies

Drums and the dancing moon
Flux
As i drink the light.

Then write.


By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)

Limtum

Written on 1st Nov., 2004
Found that clear pool
tucked amid the hills.
Clarity
and darting fish
where a green deep
feeds a clamouring curent.
Waded through water,
staff in hand.
Slithering stones
and a brainful
of stories
of flashfloods.
A cloudburst
on the hilltop
would have me flailing and faltering
on the altering 'scape.
Preserve this, I say,
for me to replay.
Who?
A one-time wader
Yet no invader
- there's life across this brook
to meet, greet.
Limtum, then.
A culvert for that beat.

Weavers' Street 08

On a spin
step in
to looms.
Floor to sunken floor
Ribs and arms, wood.
Walls sprout hooks, embed rods
Person pushes pedals, bars
on counted thread,
girl deftly flings the spool
and gets it right.
Flesh and stone, teak and bone,
Organic.
(Written on 6th Dec., 2008)

Nirnayalu

Neeku, naaku, prati aaku.
prati aaku, prati panta
prati panta, prati vanta, prati manta
meeda cheyudaaniki nirnayam
eppudu wochestaadi
aa udayam?

(i wrote this in 004. It is a verse that wonders when the dawn that enables you and me to make decisions over crops, leaves, food and fires will break.)

Causes

People's rights
to Land
in a mess.
Pretentions to solve
wouldn’t absolve
of hypocracy.

Causes for discourses
on mineral resources
Abundant.
Siting to citing;
river-bed or death-bed.
Rationalization
points
towards
Nationalization.
We’re still watching….

18th Jan., '09

A Journey

15th Jan, 2009 (about ’08)

Nasik
and the surging
waters
-ashes
transported.

Thereafter,
steep climb
for mortals.
Stairway
to Kapaaleshwar
equivalent
to having
toured
twelve spots of light
of which two
were
in the vicinity
-a radius
of a few hours
as wheels roll….

Triyambakeshwar, Grishneshwar
Aurangabad.
Once, touched three stones-
the mudra,
disc jockey of the world.

Ellora
-masses
of stone and dirt
transformed.

A miniature Taj with variations
-Bibi Ka Maqbara
not macabre
as the name might suggest.

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.)