Keeladi

Have you sat in the dark
Not wanting to sleep
Though it's long past
When you would be asleep ---
Who was the quiet one
Whose name remains
On the potsherd, you wonder
From centuries before
Who taught him to write
All the others too
Potters, star-watchers, shepherds
Living in an urban settlement
By the river that yielded riches
That spoke across time
Women who burst forth in poetry
Who were so wealthy
They threw golden jewellery
To chase away poultry birds
Now we know where they lived
Loved, dreamed and died
Now can they be no more dismissed
As a figment of the imagination
Of febrile bards of yore ---
This was our cradle
Where we heard the words
That wouldn't let us sleep.

Stairs

When I climb the stairs
In the dark, the shadows
Climbing down could be
My past, the days
That disown me
For having stayed
Too long in a place
That knows only to fade
Recede into the night
Of still-born dreams
That no one remembers
Though they had been named
And had cradles and rattles
Waiting for them.

Moon

No more could we say
It's like asking for the moon
For something that's beyond reach ----
The grand old lady
Sitting on the ground
With her legs stretched
We thought we saw up there
Disappeared when
The first men landed ----
Further to learn in school
That it was non-luminous
Shining on borrowed light
Made its aura less bright
Still to look up at the full orb
When it rises over the highrises
Untouched by all the facts we know ----
The moon is still the moon
Something that cannot be fully known.

Truth

Do I not exist if you deny me
Will I stop dreaming
If you mock my dreams
What house do you own
If it can disown you
How is it permanent
If you cannot stay
How do you know
It is a ghost and not god
That the dogs bark at
How do you know
It is not just the silence
That they cannot bear
How many more orbits
Around the sun
Will this reluctant traveller go
Before all that the moon hides
Is thought to be known
And the moon is no more
The moon it was.

Home

Where is the home we have all lost
We thought we could come back to
After our feet were weary of the world
Where is the way back we have lost
We thought we could find when we left
Thinking that some things don't change
So much that we can't find them
Where is the god we lost when we thought
The word was god and worshipped the priest
Let the other be lynched because
We thought the other was other than us
Where is the truth we buried, when
We keep resurrecting untruths
Who do we wake with our chants
When it is we who are asleep
Where is the home we have all lost
Where is the home we can't remember
Where is the home we have never left.

Hope

Do houses have faces
The one the child has drawn
Looks so human
With eyes for windows
And hair for the roof
The street tap has
A long queue of pots
Marked with initials
Even the dog
Carries a puppy bucket
The clouds in the picture
Look promising
The little artist is an optimist
She has hung a raincoat on the wall
Is there a drought that doesn't end?

Faces

Do we lose our way 
Even in places we have been to before
Because the places keep changing their faces
And the faces keep changing their places
Where we live now strangers knock
At the door for the debtor who has fled
With no forwarding address
The failures can't show their faces
To the faces they cannot face
We hear the one who's hiding behind that locked door
Is a student who cannot pay off his loan
As he cannot still find work
He cannot go back to the village he has left
For the way back is not the way forward
For the face that has lost his face.

Monsoon date

The hills looked blue from far
With the shadows of the clouds
Giving the green a different tinge
The green became green
As we drew closer
The trees towered over us
Not so squat now
As we spiralled up
We were less and less
Sure of ourselves
Used to straight lines
Not these hairpin bends
Prone to accidents
Landslides and wildlife forays
The memory of the heat wave we were fleeing
Melted the fears over the climb
We took heart from the cold welcome
That awaited us, the promise of rain too
Happy to think we had come
Half-way to meet the monsoon
Still finding its way from the seas.

Water-friendly

Who floats these rumours
So ridiculous as to be
Downright suspicious
That a change of guard
Will bring copious rain?
The previous ruler too
Was thought to be water-friendly
Bringing a bountiful monsoon
Year after year, till the elements
Rebelled and almost submerged
The entire capital city;
The rumours have begun again
Now taking a digital route
Speaking in favour of another actor
Still waiting for his inner voice
To command him
To serve the people
In flesh and blood
And rescue the two monsoons
From the villainous El Nino.

Landmark

Something is always near
To something else
So it can be found
The little place linked
To the one better known
Soon is as well known
Sometimes better known
Even replaces
The first landmark
What rises falls,
What falls rises
The mother's son
Gives way to
The son's mother
What stares back
From the mirror
Is someone else
Ready for another
Metamorphosis.

Summer

In summer the discontent
Rises with the mercury
The grievances of the past
Shimmer before the eyes
Like the heat-stoked mirages
All who can be blamed are blamed
For the present still without little
The past had wanted and hoped for
The comparisons make the day hotter
Than it is, for what we do not have
Suddenly seems the only thing worth having
The power supply is off again
The trees too have quarreled with the breeze
With all the doors and windows open
Only the yellow haze of the afternoon seeps in
The mind has run itself out
It's time for the sun to expend its rage.

House

The house is not itself
At rush hour
When the little one
Leaves for school
Half-awake
Half-fed
Half-dressed
But armed with a knapsack
Crammed with alphabets, numerals
Crayons and cartoon characters
Even a diminutive teddy sneaked in
Amid all the hullabaloo,
Besides a lunch bag carrying
Dry food and a fancy water bottle -----
The house is not itself
When she returns
Whooping like a warrior
Who has had the best of war
With only her shoelaces missing.

School

The school will soon be no more
Like many it has lost its reason to be
Its silence when it is closed
And left to itself
Could be a kind of crying
The trees litter as if shedding tears
For a neighbour's untimely demise
At the hands of those
Who see other uses for the land ---
The next time I visit
There will be nothing left
Of this condemned temple
Where words became more than words
Gave me keys to unlock doors
Of worlds the eyes could not see ----
Two of the teacher's row-houses
Are in ruins, their tiled roofs caved in
The yellow leaves rotting on them
May hide a score of scorpions ----
To re-enter the landscape of the past
Is to ruin the memories with the present
To touch fallen leaves and be stung
Let the young stay young,
The old be the old of old
The past perfect never be lost.

Big questions

The little one cannot accept
That the train has arrived
She would have been happy
For it to have run some more
A mystery in the mysterious night
Making such horrendous noise
But hardly a threat with mother
And father to cuddle her
Answer her endless questions
Aren't all of us going to the same place
What happens to those who get off
At wayside stations, do they have
Homes like us, to go to, eat and sleep
Little girls with smaller dolls to care for
Children think the parents
Have all the answers
How do they answer the questions
Life throws at them, on destinations
Not the ones thought to be
The ways taken that will not be taken
If there was a second chance
For the young couple, there's time
Before the big questions arrive
For now what comes next
Is easily answered.

Twice lost

Should we not speak of the past
Just because we know it is past
Not listen to old songs
Because they are old
When like magic wands
They unlock doors to times
Only we know exist and will die
When we too turn into memory
The singer and the actor are dead
The one who composed the song too
Even father who took us to the film
When films did not come to us
Happy songs turn sad with time
For the sadness they now evoke
Of the losses they remind us of
Of the childhood lost twice over
Then lost forever.

Hope

Our little home is lit
With little else but hope
Even when there is little
To feed the little flame
That has fought like a fern
Gales that felled giants
Not meant to fall
The little flame knows
The hand that lit it
Had little else to go on
What is hope but
A flower that blooms
In the darkness
The sliver of horizon
The fisherman sees
The bird cry that hints
At the shore
The little flame
That feeds on darkness
Lights the way home
The little flame goes far
What hopes to reach,
Reaches the farthest.

Distance

How far is far, where
Distance can be measured
How far is far where
Distance is of another measure
Where the happy moments
Are not shared, where
There is no whisper
Of the unhappy ones
Where both pretend
The sun is lukewarm
The wind is even
The days are good
The nights so good
That one doesn't wake
In between to catch
The night awake;
The far is really far
Where the words hide,
And the silences are longer
Between the words.