At Sriperumbudur,
The birthplace of Ramanujacharya
What floated idly in our dreams
Incorporated our liquid selves,
Quickly , into its fluffy cotton clouds.
We are not we of our dreams
But just fleeting fragments of light
That roamed the silent inky night
To coalesce into daylight’s phosphorescence.
The luminous red-and-white chalk-lines
On our profoundly furrowed foreheads
Extended, over our tenement tops and temple towers,
Into an anarchic [...]
Archive for October, 2004
25 Oct
At Sriperumbudur, The birthplace of Ramanujachary…
16 Oct
Sideshow Things happened here, flowing from me …
Sideshow
Things happened here, flowing from me
The stage was set for my eventful existence
Other things happened elsewhere, other time
Couldn’t you hear the loud thump of my feet
Amidst the muffled creaking of bones
My world was self-defined , its contours pre-set
But my luminous eyes looked far beyond
The other small mimes did not matter
Only their laughter rang intermittently in [...]
13 Oct
Existence The rain touched bunches of crows…
Existence
The rain touched bunches of crows
Intermittently in the wet treetops
Stirring them from their half-sleep
Diagonally viewed from my hotel
Their caws deliciously defined my dawn.
On the earth spirited brown rain-moths
Went about their business like nobody’s .
I sit in the crowded ground floor café
Sipping brown coffee over a pastry
A white man came down with a thud
In the hotel [...]
10 Oct
The firangipani flowers The firangipani tre…
The firangipani flowers
The firangipani tree bloomed
In my village temple compound
And where it hurt it bled milk
Just as it had done in my childhood.
I smelt God through the peephole
Of a child’s memory enclosed
By the fragrance of its flowers.
(The firangipani trees (also called plumeria ) are fairly common in temples in India and their flowers fill the [...]
2 Oct
Alive in a train It poured in bunches, quickeni…
Alive in a train
It poured in bunches, quickening
Acacias that needed no quickening
Once in the train I cogitate on
Fevered awareness in my skin-pores
Heightened and hysterical
A youth makes small-talk over chicken-rice
Aliveness eats aliveness, recently dead,
I withdraw in pretended disinterest
And submit to forced sedation
Let eyelids fall smooth and unaware
Followed by forced ceasing of being
Like that piece of once-aliveness
Unkicking [...]
