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.

Yeah, that's right

I ran into my friend S the other day on NH Road. At first he pretended not to know me --- may be he thought I was one of the many creditors he had shaken off in the temple city. After I had reassured him on that point and promised to write off the small cash he owed me he deigned to step into R Bhavan for coffee.

He had grown a beard, dyed his hair brown and was wearing a tie. I looked under the table and noticed he was even wearing shoes. In school he used to wear a perennial band-aid to dodge PT masters. " I don't believe in them[shoes]. They're not for the tropics" he used to say. For somebody who just managed to get a degree, couldn't hold a job, didn't have much family support, he looked prosperous, indeed. Worse, he was speaking or trying to speak like an American.

Oh, now, I'm a faculty member with the Personality and Accent Institute just down the road! I'm paid 30K!

Here I was struggling to persuade the city's elite to switch over from pizzas to good old rice cakes, when this wastrel had gone and become faculty!
So, you're still selling rice cakes! I'll get you a regular dinner order for 50, except Sundays. How do you like it!

Hiding my resentment at this gross injustice of life, I tried to listen objectively as he fleshed out his job profile.

My portfolio is deportment and accent!

Deportment! For someone who walked like a sodden duck, this was a wrong allocation, obviously. He was quick to correct my perception.
His institute's primary aim was preparing management candidates to face interviews in MNCs. According to a survey his organisation had done most candidates goof up in deportment and accent.
Deportment, S said, boils down to how you carry yourself when you walk in to the interview hall and the way you sit.
1. What must not be done is to walk in like a sodden duck.
2. what you must not do is sit like a couch potato --- here he pointed insultingly to my relaxed posture.
3. Sit upright, with your shodden feet crossed under the chair and smile confidently.

His first job was to din these three elementary things into the aspirants.
The other task was to teach them to say Yeah like the americans.Why?
You know, Yeah, has a ring of authority to it. Yes, sounds weak and defeatist!

For the next two minutes he was teaching me to say Yeah!
"How did I do?" I asked anxiously.
"Not bad!" he said. " But to get it pat, enrol with us. We've got a package even for caterers!"
He fished out his visiting card, let me pay the bill as always, and walked away like a sodden duck.
I turned into N Street, muttering "Yeah" like S taught me, and trying to get it right.

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
Urchins erupt in joy
As if darkness were godsend,
Candles disappear and when found
Bring the walls alive,
One's a child again
Marvelling at the shadows
One can shape into deer or hound...
The air hums with unheard sounds
The empty chairs glow with life
The Buddha stretches and laughs
The streets flow with chatter and laughter
As one sits and comforts
A dying flame

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)