Inviting

The sodium vapour lamps
Come on early like the night
Despite the illumination
My glasses look like they need changing
The air in my lungs
Whistles as it comes out
I think I should wear my woollens
Next time I dare to stir out
When I see girls go laughing along the road
Savouring cone ice creams
Mocking the nip in the air
Even death seems seductive
(Published in Kavya Bharati)

Interpreting English films

If relatives hounded you for being an English literature student with quizzes on "what does this word mean" friends insisted on taking you to English films without sub-titles to serve as interpreter. Action films like Five Man Army or Sudden Impact are self-explanatory but how do you explain a film like The Philadelphia Experiment, which talks about the Fourth Dimension. I really cut a sorry figure trying to interpret that film and was dubbed by those who sponsored the outing as an impostor. After that experience I used to pick and choose the films to interpret. Soon I found that going to films was becoming a chore. My clients kept interrupting me during interesting sequences. In a very emotional scene in a western as Clint Eastwood tells the murderous sheriff: Deserving has nothing to do with it -- the client on my right shouts into my ear: "what's he saying?" You wish you could do to him what Eastwood does to the sheriff. I had my revenge when I took a few of them knowing Hindi to a Dharmendra starrer and harassed them throughout. It was at such times one wished the world had a lingua franca. Now, ofcourse even James Bond speaks in Tamil and Jackie Chan swears at his enemies in Madras Tamil dialect. Interpreters can watch their films in peace.

Unswept house

I turn back at the door
For a last look, once more
At my home, no more
All bare, bar
Memory's footprints
On the wall
Where hung till yesterday
Frozen moments of fleeting joy ---
Toddler, degree-holder, newly wed ---
Two score years gone like a dream
Yet how harsh those summers were
Like hell's fire, burning, without destroying
I look at the floor
The landlady did not want wiped clean
I lock the door
Someday, I will be leaving
Another home, on other feet
Leaving behind, some pain, perhaps
Much relief, and, deathless verses
(Published in Kavya Bharati)

The Buddha laughs

When the lights blow out

The children forced to study

Cheer as if darkness were godsend

Candles which do not want to die

Disappear but when found

Bring the walls alive -----

We are all children again 

Marvelling at the shadows

We can turn into deer or hound ----

The air hums with unheard sounds

The empty chairs glow with life

The streets flow with chatter and laughter

The Buddha in the showcase stretches

And laughs at how time can come to a halt.

Cooum

Near the cinema
Stripping women of their souls
The river quietly breathes
Stoic like a saint
Though dying of the city's sins
On the bridge
The harlot
Too weary to walk the streets
Stands staring at the waters
Mourning the river
She had lost
In her hamlet green
Where it skipped like a girl
Without a care
Frothing, foaming, giggling
Unlike the river here
Dying of the city' s sins
(Published in Kavya Bharati)