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MuseIndia

Issue-38

Nitoo Das

Nitoo Das teaches English at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Her interests include fractals,

photography, caricatures, comic books, horror films, and studies of online communities.

She is one of the featured poets on Poetry International Webs page on India. Her poetry has been published in

online sites like Pratilipi, Muse India, Eclectica, Poetry with Prakriti and also in several anthologies.

Dass poetry works with voice, soundscape and comic defamiliarisation. Her first collection, Boki, was published by

Virtual Artists Collective, Chicago, in September 2008.

She can be contacted atriver.slant@gmail.com

Tejimola

She crushed me like grain.Flying husk dust gatheredscattered like rain.

I floweredinto sharp chilliesand burning wordsdevoured my fathers brain.

No, dont touch me.

Dont pluck me.Tejimola is my name.

She threaded me like a loom.Strings upon strings tetheredfeathered like a womb.

I souredinto tart fishesand spinning wordsshowered scale hooks of gloom

No, dont bait me.Dont hate me.

Dont lead me to my doom.

She trapped me like a cloud.Blue whirling wisps shattered

weathered like a shroud.

I coweredinto spry swallowsand soaring wordsclamoured a strain to the crowd.

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No, dont snare me.Dont scare me,

said Tejimola out loud.

~

Sunil Uniyal

Sunil Uniyal (born 1953 at Lucknow), working as Under Secretary to Government of India at NewDelhi, has been writing poems since his school days and haiku especially for the last 25 years. Of late,

these have appeared in a number of e-journals like Muse India, Kritya, Enchanting Verses, AHAPoetry, Notes From the Gean, Haiku Dreaming Australia, Poetica Magazine and Sketchbook. He iscurrently transcreating Hindi Bhakti poets like Sur and Kabir and Urdu poets like Mir Taqi Mir andGhalib.

Garhwali Folk songs

1.

O high mountains, bow down please

O thick pine trees, disperse please

My mother's home is haunting me,

My father's land let me see.

2.

Sleep tells me to fall asleep

But my mind doesn't let me sleep.

"Come home" is ever my mother's plea,

My mother-in-law doesn't let me leave :

She's narrow minded like a buffalo !

She always keeps a watch on me,

Away from her, how can I go?

3.

I've left my father's home

I am now in an alien land

Married off beyond four mountains

How can I see my mother's home?

You will have itching in your feet

And in your throat hiccups, Mama

Kissing both your hands together

Won't you remember me, Mama?

4.

Love, take care,

you are going out to graze the sheep

for the first time.

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Sacrifice a he-goat to the forest-deity,

You are going out as a shepherd

for the first time.

Hitherto you've slept

in the warmth of my breast,how will you bear the biting cold?

Love, before you sleep

wrap your blanket triple-fold.

Be careful not to smoke near the fire,

and see your walking stick

doesn't slip into the ditch.

Love, take care,

you are going out with the sheep

for the first time.

...

5.

"O my friend, just confide,

why has your face wilted?

I see black rings beneath your eyes."

"Nothing really,

my man is far away,

my mother-in-law pricks me with harsh words,

I'm left with nothing but sighs !"

Ten 'Bajuband' Poems

(The Garhwali 'Bajuband' poem is a folk verse of Uttarakhand-Garhwal region, in the form of a couplet

of one and a half lines, the first line consisting of two to three or four words and the second line, five

to eight words. The first line is, more often than not, meaningless and irrelevant, but is necessary and

the words are so chosen that it rhymes with the second line and the entire composition becomes

melodious. It is, however, in the second line that the real meaning of the poem is hidden and the main

theme of the 'Bajuband' poem is indeed contained in these five to eight words only. These poems are

normally in a dialogue form between a boy and girl or between a man and woman, and express a

variety of emotions: love, wrath, hate, envy, tragedy, chivalry, satire and humour. Indeed, in the

category of short verse, the Garhwali 'bajuband' folk poems can fairly compete with the traditional

Japanese haiku of three lines with five-seven-five syllables.)

1.

O cloud in the sky...

Promise, you won't leave me high and dry.

2.

O golden ear-ring...

Hearing my flute, why do you swing?

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3.

O serpent's hiss...

Beloved, how deadly is your sudden kiss!

4.

O diamond nose-pin...Seeing you at night, my head begins to spin.

5.

O night of full-moon...

Your henna-dyed hands make me swoon.

6.

O mountain-stream...

Your longing for me is a fool's dream.

7.

O tiger in the vale...Do not ever walk against the winter gale.

8.

O ghughuti's nest...

My love, don't forget to take your rest.

9.

O wet monsoon...

Behind the hills pops up my Moon.

10.

O God-offering...Your songs in my heart I silently sing.

Ankur Betageri

Ankur Betageri (b.1983) is a bilingual writer and poet, writing in English and Kannada, based in New

Delhi. He has a collection of short fiction (Bhog and Other Stories, 2010), a collection of short fiction in

Kannada (MalavikamattuItaraKathegalu, 2011, Sahitya Bhandara), two collections of poetry in

Kannada (Hidida Usiru, 2004 andIdara Hesaru, 2006) and one in English (The Sea of Silence, 2000). He

holds a Masters in Clinical Psychology and is presently the Assistant Editor ofIndian Literature, the

literary journal published by Sahitya Akademi. His work, both in English and Kannada, has beenextensively published in leading newspapers, literary magazines as well as webzines.

Ankur is also an avid photographer specializing in candid, conceptual and people photography

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/betageri/) whose works have appeared on the covers of various books,

magazines and journals.

He can be reached at -ankanita2004@gmail.com

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Lizzie, My Roommate

Though we share the same room

the lizard in my room

is from another world.

She runs away when I approach herI am supposed to feel humanly disgusted

at the colour of her skin.

But we continue to live in the same room

hiding from each other

unable to comprehend both god and his purpose

who enfolds his loving arms

through the walls of our room.

Bureaucracy

A man smells different when he is lived long in the dustbin.

He looks at men and sees only bricks

and these bricks pile on top of each other

and make an office building.

A man who has lived in dustbin for long

has invisible elephants all around him.

It is impossible for him to sail on a raft

or keep his sickness inside his three-piece.

A man who has lived in dustbin for long

is given to seat his corpse as stand in.Until one day the corpse shits him out

and flushes the toilet bowl clean.

A man whos lived in dustbin for long

forages food in rabbit carcass.

His loose handshakes and shifty eyes

often betray rats nibbling his insides.

The dustbin-man finds his regal glory

when he lords it over men from his bureaucratic chair

Ah look at the bricks, he says, all those wasteful bricks,

wont you order them neatly around my office chair!

A man smells different when hes lived long in dustbin

his words, his thoughts, even his dreams stink of death.

A man whos lived in dustbin for long

can never tell the State from his own grave.

Julian Assange

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All art is subject to political manipulation except that which speaks the language of the same

manipulation.

NSK Statement

A sheep sheds tears of blood

standing in a bathtubsinking into the desert sands

The loudspeaker atop the post goes

blah blah blah

and, when it stops, the sheep bleats,

maaeh maaeh maaeh

The vultures of the sky

make way for fighter planes

and the camels of the desert

run from camouflage tanks

At night, as the palm tree snores,

there are explosions in the sky

and morning sees a legion of crows

fluttering inside the clouds

There are clouds of smoke,

clouds of print, clouds of televised

images, drifting

casting lazy shadows

across the desert expanse.

Suddenly, a crow escapes its cloud

and looks at the sheep, and the sheep

looks up and their eyes meet

Now theres blood on our hands

and the crow is pinned against the wall.

Delhi

for A.J. Thomas

City of parliament and gol chakkarsCity of artists, fog and drains

City of the stinking rich and the withering poor

City of sublime poets and stuck up government employees

City of masquerades and revelations

City of cruel winters and soft springs

City of tears, hungers and unbridled love

City of strange women and distant humming birds

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City of cruel saboteurs and ruthless businessmen

City of conspiracies, rumours, hopeful mornings and backstabbed nights

City of heartbreaks and distances

City of riddles, romance and triumph

City of heat-waves and honour-killingsCity where little girls in little homes dream of being starlets

City which embraces you in all your foreignness

City whose roads smell of urine and coke

City of vanished dreams and palaces of kings

City of wandering apparitions of great loves

City which enters your room like a Big Heart

And sleeps by your lonely bed like your love.

Anuradha Vijayakrishnan

Anuradha Vijayakrishnan was born in Cochin in 1974. She has a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering andan MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Her interest in literature stems from her culturally oriented family. Shehas also received training in Carnatic music. Her poems have been published in Femina(1995) and in theanthologyVoices in time(Poetry Society of India, 1995), and her short story in Indian Literature(2002).Her short fictionNarayanis Journeyhas just been selected for inclusion in New Writing 14, aninternational anthology from British Council and Granta.

She is married and has a three year old daughter. She lives in Chennai.

Her email address: annuvij@yahoo.com

Painting Prague

Watching her make pancakes

She holds out long red nails in steady benediction

over each thing she cooks, wrists moving

in slow circles over the fire.

She does not look up till it is done

and the brown smell of crisp edges

is fulfilled; melted sugar smell of good things

made better, sweeter. She rolls each one quickly

as though these are secrets

that must not be left out for long

in the crowded dusklight.

When I hand her money, she smiles, fingers brushing

mine when I think of witches

and magical women who might be found

in any country, any city.

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Vltava

How many times must you cross a river

till you lose the fear of falling in?

This is not a holy river. These waters cannotredeem me. This river merely flows

though they say it sings at times. Music

is not enough to redeem

my ashes, rock my alien bones

towards some safe sub continent, some quiet

palm fringed bay.

And when it rains the deep water seems

even closer, right beneath

my uneasy feet.

Tramp

He surprises me at a corner that rises

from the shadow of a shop front. He does not

see me, he is peering into the window of a car; he is

dressing his hair.

He throws his head forward, pushes back copper strands,

piles some to one side, catches the light

in his dull eye, smiles, steps back in awe

as if he sees a newly crowned king .

His skin is stained cotton and his collar is torn.His jacket is thin dignity; it cannot stretch

much further. But he smiles

at his king and raises a foot as if ready to dance.

I let this foreign man be and he , hobbles away.

Dogs in the city

The dogs are everywhere. They smile up at you

when you step into trams; they move aside to let

you pass.

The dogs are in every colour, the red ones wear white

ribbons and the tall white ones wear little bells

in their hair.

The dogs sprawl on the warm grass, nodding at flies,

licking at ice creams. They wade into the river,

hop into boats, laugh when the water

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gets their silken coats.

The dogs are everywhere and sometimes fool you

into reconsidering where you are. They bark

only when they must; their city seems

to be at peace.

Girl eating melon

She puts her fork aside, cups the ruby slices

in her hands. Her eyes are jade, a colour

that would startle me in my daughters face.

She has long brown hair that dances

when she laughs, melon juice slipping past

her lips, past her sweet chin. She does not

wipe it off.

The fruit is cold -- you can see it in the way she

sucks her lips in, pauses after each bite.

Her green eyes catch the lamp light

and river breeze ruffles

our napkins. She does not see me, two tables

away, behind my book but when she leaves

I bless her in a language

she will never speak.

Flying back that summer

We flew low in the beginning

and there were scents of grass and pigeon fuzz

in the air for a while. The music that played

was the jazz of the hills.

The woman next to me drew pictures

on napkins, she must have been going home

too. She drew pictures of tall buildings

and cars lined up on wide streets.

The scent of summer grass and old stone stairways

eased away, left far behind. We sleptand the hills washed back

into silence.

Palace walk

Light has a strange colour

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inside the royal church, colour

of ambitious heart , painted glass

and a rich shade of ritual grief.

Palace gardens bend to the whim

of a suddenly rainy sky. Trickles

of sunlight shiver on the weatheredfloor : we slip and slide, letting

the hushed light lead us.

There is talk in the corridors

of warrior kings and grand coronations history

repeated as it must be

yet only this rain and its deathly cold

within

shall be remembered.

Jenitha Alphaeus

Dr.J.Jenitha is Assistant Professor of English in Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tamil Nadu. She has one

published collection of poems titled Songs of Arethuse (2009). This debut collection consists of her poems

accumulated over the years, but the chief theme of the collection is love and separation. Her poems have appeared in

various magazines like Furtherance,Baliar Nesan(a bi-lingual Christian childrens magazine), in the poem

collectionPoets Paradise released at the International Poetry Fest, 2010, held at J.K.C.College, Guntur, and also

inMuse India.

She has several research papers to her credit, focusing chiefly on poetry which is her area of interest in teaching and

research, along with creative writing.

She can be reached at her e-mailjenithaalphaeus@yahoo.co.in.

Water and Child

I beat the water

With splashes of joy

It thrilled little laughter.

For water is a toy.

Our loud noises rose

As my merriment grew,

Water danced around me

became a friend true.

Then mother came,

Why do you beat the water?

My little voice sang,

It was naughty, so

Then shall I beat you?

She in smiles returned.

Then I laughed again,

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As my friend grew silent.

On Waking up

When father wakes me,I hear a deep voice,

that rumbles like thunder,

and shakes me to rise.

The stretches of sleep are broken at once,

and I face the water as cold as ice.

But when mother wakes me,

she hugs me close,

whispers a teaser,

and kisses my cheeks,

makes funny noises,tweaks my two ears,

says they are noses,

then even makes,

to eat them up,

like murukku!

And while the sleep lingers,

these hold me close,

and bring me to waking

like a fresh morning rose.

(murukku is the south Indian snack, rice flour in concentric ringlets fried to a crisp)

Fish in Rain

I wonder what the fishes do

when heavens rain on them,

do they hold little umbrellas?

or close their eyes?

wash their fins of muddiness?

or watch with quiet surprise?

Perhaps as us in ether,

wince when the wind gets wild,

tis just a little nuisance,

in water circumscribed.

When the oysters shut their shells,

and the sharks descend to depths,

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and the little fish in colours,

dart out to drench again,

like little wet children,

they dart out to play,

out of the wet bath,

and into the wet rain.

Jennifer Anderson

Jennifer Anderson is an English instructor at Central Michigan University. She earned a

Bachelor of Organizational Communication and English from Alma College and an M.A. ofEnglish/Poetry from Central Michigan University. Her publications have appeared in Kavya

Bharati(a publication of the Study Centre for Indian Literature in English and Translation)and Postcolonial Text.

Laborer

Shirtless,his ribs stretch across his skin, tiger stripes,

his entire body plunges a shovel into the ground.A commercial building, smooth granite floors,smooth like nothing on his body, save maybe the inside of his upper arm,or his penis. Only his wife would know.

We who drive by him forget his wife,forget he wasnt born a machine, vibrating through his moms canallike a jack hammer. His feet werent made rugged enough to climbquicker than electric lifts.

We buy cardboard cutouts that look like himtack them to our doors

for Halloween. These sunken-cheeked skeletons cost thirty times his daily wages.

We forget that what makes his living will also make his death,splitting stone with a hammer in the quarry,fingernails cracking with impact,shards cutting his legs.His heart beats fast,like a babys at its racing entrance,skin no longer smooth like granite floors.

A Man Takes A Clay Pot Toward the Water;Sit, Kutti Says,I Will Explain Hindu Burial

Burn body.Take ashes from head, center part,Hands, and feet.Put in clay pot.Wash ashes with waterThen with cow urineThen milkThen ghee.Keep pot in house for one year.

Wearing white,

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Burn oil daily next to pot.Take and release ashes in holy river.[the first son must do this;if there is no son, the closest male].Son must submerge into stream of ashesTo release soul completely.Feed bowl of rice to the crows.

Call them by clapping.The crows will carry the soulUp to the gods.

I Use the Village Kitchen Alone

I make tea for my motherdropping sweetened antsinto boiling water.

The Fever

I didnt get the one that Peggy Lee sings aboutor the thermometer kind.I got the fever,

the one that blows its nose in completevillages and districts, all at once, achooingthrough windowless buses like rain storms.

I triedto learn when Keralas fever was coming,but I was in the Innovawhen the headlines topped The Hindu.

My driver, a friend,

has bloodshot eyes when he comes to the gate.I think hes drinking again.I see his wife and daughter in the backseat,hankies to mouths,laughing and waving with their free hands.

I get in the front.Too sick, my friend says, pointing to them,then coughing, hacking, rubbing his soiled hankieto his neck.

We ride through the rubber treesto his homehis father, amputated leg, sits outside

on a bench. A wood planked roomlike an old chicken coop leads to the kitchen.

His wife serves me my favoritespineapple juice, made by hand,Kerala puffed rice, washed by hand.I think of the food in my mouth, grateful

for the hands that made it, the handsin the hankies.

Fever.

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Back at Aunties, I wake upthe next morning, stiff. My body is a plasterof foreign white girl reclining on bed.From the nape of my neck to the bottomof my spine, I feel a roadblock,and a million horned Nilgiri Tahrs ramming

at it.

I whine.Make little whimpers like a kitty.

I cant roll or sip the broth Auntie brings mein bed. The closer she brings it to my mouth,the further I feel Im drowningdeath by rice water.

Auntie strokes my head,hugs my body, praying in a tongue

I dont understandNo playful Malayalamshes pleading for me, like Im dying.Shes holding me like my American Aunttold me to hold poor Indian babies.

These moments with Auntiemake me feel most Indian.

Only after those moments are passed, I want moreof them. Until then, I resistwhile she pulls me to the doctors house,my ponytail and American pajamas attracting moreattention than my sickness.

When I have medicine,when I fumble my way into the doctors housein front of the truly dying, and I have my pills,Auntie wont give them to me.

Not before you have kanji, she says,nudging the hot water near my bed.

I steel the medicine from her hands.

I can walk after a few days, and I goto the coffee table to read the back issues ofThe Hindu.Fever Tightens Grip on Pathanamthitta, I read,the dumping of slaughterhouse waste in riverstightens.I brush my teethwith a bottle of mango juice.

Alone in Her Sari

Pinks, blues, and yellowsMingle togetherIn Aunties South Indian Sari,A strip of unstitched fabric,Nine meters strewn over rocks,Drying before she wraps it around her waist,Drapes it over her shoulder.She imagines her husbands hand

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Caressing her supple skin,Her husbands hand,That is in Dubai,

Caressing keyboards and cargo.

Kameshwar G

G Kameshwar is a software engineer who believes that good engineering is a matter of art. As a child he loved hismarbles, all of which he lost somewhere along the way, and has since been engrossed in expressions that seem tobe of little interest to people at large. He is usually lost in voyages in mythology, traveling, seeing and exploringIndian culture, knowledge and art.

His first book Self Abidance was a translation of a Hindi work of philosophy. His second book was a novel-travelogue titled Tulu Tales A Soota Chronicle, published by Rupa and Co. His third book, another novel-travelogue, titled Bend in the Sarayu A Soota Chronicle has also been published by Rupa and Co. His next book,a collection of poems, titled Seahorse in the sky, has been brought out by Writers Workshop, in Oct 09.

He has done poetry translations from Tamil and Sanskrit to English, Tamil to Hindi He does book reviews, editsand writes columns for children. He is an avid story teller in the Indian oral tradition. Since 2002, he has beentelling Mahabharata, for an hour every week, to a small group of people who have accompanied him all the way onthis epic journey The voyage goes on.

In his day job, Kameshwar has been in the software scene since the era of punch cards. Working for TataConsultancy Services since 1985, he has led and been part of teams architecting solutions for clients in many partsof the world.

He lives in a house of books in Chennai.

He blogs at http://gkamesh.wordpress.comHis email: gkamesh@rocketmail.com

Stop News or The Hindu Sports Page

With blurry eyes

Of the just awake,

He hurriedly scans the newspaper,

As if he was sliding through

The days gallery of rogues,

Rascals,

In columns,

Each more distasteful

Than the other;

As hot tea clears his neurons,

Bringing focus to eyes

And purpose to mind,

He cuts through direct

To the bare truth;

Crawling on all fours,

Easy does it,

Ready now,

For that solemn column

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Of obituaries.

When God takes rest

There is no option

but the quagmire.

"Sir, sir,

there is no power

the network cables have snapped

since the road has been dug up,

surely you must have had difficulty

parking your car, sir,

sorry sir,

Sir, sir,

The hardware mechanics are looking into it,

Sir,

Right now they are in basement,There is no water in the wash room

Since motor is not working, sir,

Moreover, the municipality water supply

Has not come,

Also, bank is closed today

There is all India strike,

Huge procession they are taking sir,

Blocking the main road and all arterial roads sir,

Big nuisance sir,

The smell sir?

Thats the pesticide sir,

Today we have sprayedevery square inch of the office sir,

insect menace, rodent menace,

routine maintenance sir,

the smog is choking sir

because the air conditioner is not working sir,

we have informed the vendor one week back itself sir,

hopeless people sir,

coming-coming they are saying

but they are not coming,

surely they come today sir,

your room top priority sir,

And er, sir, er,My father is having mild heart attack sir,

I mean heart condition sir,

My brother is having other commitments today,

Wife not also keeping well,

Sir,

Request your permission

For leaving early today sir,

any other help

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I can do for you sir?"

The other woman

She is the one person

Who can interruptHis war council meetings;

She is the woman

Who has his unlisted number

At her beck and call;

When he is right in the thick

Of dog eat dog

Corporate matters

Of money and might,

She rings insistently,

And wants him to reaffirm

His commitment,

"Do you love me?" she asks

blowing a kiss,

And when he gathers himself

And somehow splutters

Yes,

"How much?" she asks,

"I want a kiss" she says,

"I dont care what meeting you are in"

And more,

All this as a precursor

to several demandsThat she will put to him

For proof of his continued love.

And in the end

She bangs the phone dead

Enraged

About a slight lapse in attention.

He better put even God on hold,

When his lil daughter calls.

Of graying mane

Like a lioness

Returning to the lazy lion,

After a stressful day

Of daring and hunting,

She comes back to him

As a ritual of love;

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He is worried

About her pace.

You must keep in step

with me, my dear

he says,Or you will be left

far ahead.

She roars a smile,

And falls deep asleep.

He yawns a while,

And surfs channels.

Rinzu Rajan

I started writing in early 2007 after a personal debacle and since then have been writingpoetry and short stories. Although I have no formal training in creative writing I managed to

break the ice by attending workshops and events to sharpen my skills. Since then I haventlooked back and the ink has flowed off my pen in concourse.

I believe that poetry is a wonderful gift and with encouraging support from other poets the

gift of words can be perfected and the art can be carried to a level of gracility that appealsto the layman as well as the authors. I'm a formal poet and have written in more than 30forms.

An Act of Compassion

A deadly cylindrical stick

Containing embrowned residue

In its hollow abysses

Pulverized into wads of destruction,

Those tiny flakes wait

To be burnt into cinders

And pen the final chapters

In the chronicles of a man's life.

When the barrel of tobacco

Is set ablaze, each lump

Transforms into ringlets

Smothering the lungs

With unholy smoke,

Carbon monoxide and nicotine

While laminating it in

Ebon black smut.

Renovating your lungs into

Cancerous chimneys,

Bronchitis paving the way

For ephysema

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The rhythmic systalsis

Of the heart changes

To abusive batters

Throttling the cardiac valves

Of oxygen.

It crumples the skin

Greying it, of its gracilityAnd painting the teeth

In amber hues.

While every organ wails,

Squirming in suffering

A last call of salvage

Maybe unheard by you when

You maybe very busy

Paying for doom

Ripping apart the membranous folds

Of skin and mutilating your body

Into a cadaverous corpse,

There maybe someone

In some part of this world

Who may be longing to have

A morsel of food,

Famished by the whips of poverty

Why can't this priceless silver

That you smoulder into char everyday

Go into giving them a plate of food

Will it not be an act of compassion

For them and for you?

My August Moon And the January Eclipse

i)I have felt the smudged smoke

blaze into a forest fire, and the ether

drowning my chaste figurine

in its swelling pride,

even then there has been an urge

to offer myself as a victim

to their cannibalism

only to be able to eradicate

the pollution, a bastardized love

caused to my marrow.

ii) In torment, the ulcers dangled

on my parchment like beaded pearls

each shining like a souvenir

metaphorically penning memoirs

of betrayal on my forehead.

For once I had learnt to wear those

embroidered rags given to me by him

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his mother, sister and friends,

canonizing me as a whore.

iii) Since then I have seized

the meaning of what a stinking swain

can really do to your soul,

perform a "love me" and "love me not" actdenuding a rose and letting her bleed white

I haven't since looked for the silver stars,

condoning creatures more humane and beautiful

than my culprit of love and perhaps once

when I saw an August moon gleaming mercifully

on my horizon, I decided to let him walk away

for I feared another January eclipse

and perhaps I knew

I could never be his sky.

Youre My Poetry

You may perhaps be a sonnet

The couplets beating

With the rhythm of my heart

Tripping on the toe of a meter

You tango into a metaphor.

You maybe a renaissance moment

Of the day painted

On the canvas of the earth

Cupped in my petite fingers

As a three lined haiku.

You may even flow

Freely as a verse

Not circumscribed by the boundaries

Of rhyming perimeters.

But most of all

You are every vowel

That twined itself with my alphabet

The truth that healed

My morbid ink.

An Indian Summer

The blazing fingers of the sun

A necromantic vampire

Caresses the pallid florets

Subdued in fragrance,

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Dancing on the shroud of heat

The gold flows from the boughs

Of the birches

Roasting the bones of the air

Broiling into umber brown

In the furnace of death.

Somewhere a cricket croaks

Chanting his lover's name

From behind the peepul

As a bird picks a worm

Seeking refuge in the soil

And off she flies into

Her nestling abode

The loo flows in confluence

Like an ocean of cyanide

Elegizing a coronach.

The night prays in muted benedictionOn the bosom of the moon

Fragmented by the sentence of doom

The weeds braided in silver asters

Wean from the chalice of the sky

A bead of life hanging on the neck

Of the ghost of summer

That which is a heartless assassin.

An Ode to Gods Own Country

Her canopy is a virgin blueMushroomed in the abysses

Of the cumulus

Encrusted in starry sapphires

Her aura radiates the golden corona

On tiny smithereens of water

Mirrored into the Arabian Sea

The periyar,pamba

And bharathapuzha

Seeded into her womb

Bless this land

With the fruits of fertility.

The Western Ghats crown

Her in majesty

Where every eventide the sun sets

In the abysses of its bosom

As the lucid silhouette of the waterfalls

Closes her eyelids

Draped in the shimmer

Of the chlorophyll.

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The sand dunes arbour

The lagoons and backwaters

Encrusted with the sea gulls and canoes

Flowing in concourse with

The silver rain that falls

Off the cottoned clouds.

The stilly skies

Are marooned in the cuckatooes

And hums of the feathered creatures

Fluttering in the kaleidoscopic canvas

Resonating in the time honoured chimes

Of the age old, and a wave

Of modernism blending into

The crest of your flesh.

Sa. Raghunatha

Sa. Raghunatha (born 1954) is a noted Kannada poet, short story writer, culture critic,

columnist and a translator between Kannada and Telugu. He has told stories and lyrics tochildren that have been compiled in four books. He has around twenty published titles to hiscredit.

Sa. Raghunatha lives in Srinivasapura, Kolar district, Karnataka and works as teacher. Hehas been in to philanthropy since long and he has been helping the children of beggars and

such other deprived people to pursue education. His works have been translated into

English and Indian languages.

Telephone 08157 245124/ 099805 93927

Pots

They dream in the space crafted over a potters wheel

That they would keep filled to the brim

Cool and sweet milk, yoghurt, nectar or water

For the souls journeying across in the whirling space

They keep dreams and nourish them

While they take birth in the whirling space

and in the kiln as they harden and perfect

Mature and fit to hold

They embark upon a journey before the sunriseExuberant over a cart drawn

By the jingling pair of bullocks

To the market place do they arrive

Someone buys them in bulk

Towards the evening they get in to another cart

And sit shyly like a newlywed girl

On a journey to her future home

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In the cool evening begins the journey

They spill laughter, tell secrets

They sway like the coquetting damsels

Another day

A silent journey they finish

Their neck tied to blossoms in a palm slitThey hang like the skulls

around a demons neck

Something begins to drip

In the space displacing the dreams

The day progresses, dreams sour

Disillusion froths bubbles.

Those that Came

They ask me to wait, I doBut they dont come. Someone else

Knocks at the door, sure I know

I wait. Tea boils in the tea pot

For him and all

The wristwatch tells the same lie

Just another minute, just

The jewel case, the bracelet, the machine

Just add more weight to my obese body

The curtains sway, calendar sheets flutter

They play with the evening light sifting throughThe brew spills hissing, eyes drop - waited enough

In the slurred mind the fish move

I close the door but leave it unlatched

Let the mind know from the peeping frail shade

That they have come, if ever they did

The door opens and I rise to see who it was

So felt free to sneak in to the crowded mall

A strong breeze, A misty rain

A gush to take me a step backward

I close the door behind and go outThe evening hue fills the outside world

A pearl of rainwater sits over the nose of red champak

Like the one who came without a word, uninvited

With the one who said but did not come

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Shefali Tripathi Mehta

A Marketing Communications professional, Shefali writes interactive e-learning courseware for a livingand stories to make living worthwhile. She is a Bangalore-based freelance writer who has publishedshort stories in anthologies and is the author ofWhat Were They Thinking! a book on observationalhumour. She writes on travel, humour, parenting and a wide range of issues in national newspapers

Back

View from the fifteenth-floor terrace

is refreshing

after a long-houred city job.

Its as dark as a city can be.

The froth in the mugs

dies spurting.

Cant get over it!

35 rupees to Salem, imagine!

Really? incredulous pours beer nonchalantly.

Who goes to Salem! half-laugh digs the toothpick

into the gory red insides of glistening

Gobi Manchurian.

Who goes to Salem!

Its not a question.

Nor a thought.

Does he think its demand and supply?

That wayhow much to Bangalore?

Blood

A faint moon lingers

the sky not yet dabbed with the morning blush

I rise only so I can see

the parijaat rain

the white skirt sits at her feet

when I bend to pick

she dresses my hair with some

I do not shake them away

but I always ask

holding her gift in

my palm bowl

Can I take some inside?

You can see them.

And they you.Ill keep them on the sill.'

She nods

and continues to dress my hair.

Yesterday when I ran to her

Late, I thought

And so picked a handful in haste

The chaste petals

were stained.

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Not bruised by the fall.

Not yet bronzed by the sun.

But embossed with scarlet veins.

I looked up to ask.

She was bare.

Not one left to put in my hair.

I dropped my saffron-tipped jewelsand rushed indoors.

My feet on the wet floor

left prints

like a brides

red with alta.

They looked at me with horror.

How dare

I reveal

what must stay inside!

Chide me like when I soiled

your floor with my muddy babyfeet.

Scold.Hold.

Dont cry.

Dont ask if it hurts.

I wont lie.

Just hold me to your heart

For you still hide stuff in there.

I will not learn now.

But before I take leave

Let me feel the warmth of that which runs inside

as it must.

The Nightie Seller

Nononsense ones

in which women can walk into balcony

and answer the door.

untransparent to be exact.

the nighties they sell.

I dont make eye contact with salesmen

especially those that sell womens inner wear.

Must be something from the past.

Ive been coming here for

more years than I can rememberfor these lovely white cotton nighties

with little flowers not chintz, not calico.

A garden, a spray of mauve, blue, pink or orange.

Loud colours keep me awake.

Big prints want to eat me at night.

They know, the sellers.

But who is this that picks

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each by its ears?

I see young hands that bring one by one

from the pile

not holding, but barely touching

as if afraid

it may offend me.

He lines the counter with delicate flowerscotton smooth as a peaceful dream.

If I take the mauve flowers home

will the sea green hurt?

but the green is too like the green bedspread

wont I get lost?

or they?

the green in green?

so in the morning I wouldnt know how to tear away?

and may take some of the bedspreads green with me.

depleting it every day...

Im thinking when the call comes

the azaan from the mosqueacross the road

his hands become restless

as I linger over sprigs

then he lifts his cap to his head

and I look up into

slate eyes

so dense the colour.

Slate. Nah.

Warm.

Cool.

Crystal clear, opaque but.

How do they see?they hold

as me now by my skinsoul.

Ive made my selection.

He hurries away

adjusting his crochet cap.

The gray will not blend into the green.

nor bleed into it

like an impatient watercolor.

Fallen Trees

Stunningly stripped

They stood in the water.

Pale bodies,

arms raised skyward

Taut to a smoothness.

Bare gopis.

Days and months and years

against the gossamer Bangalore sky.

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Long lost childhood dreams

began to breathe.

A small bookshop

Sitting beneath the traffic

selling glossy stories

of Svetlanas and Ivans

in a bare, blankRussian winter landscape.

Then the machine gang came.

Heavy dutychainsaws.

Against the sullied Bangalore sky

I saw them

fallen in the slush.

Arms above, stretched in surrender.

Cleared.

A clearing.

To be filled with

grey living holes

booming contraptions.Vera must turn into a picture again.

The blue god will need to play his flute elsewhere for me.