My Lord Byron | Lora Tomas

Over chicken sausages and green martini
In a hipster neighbourhood of New Delhi
You are talking about traveling –
Hopping on and off
Trains
Buses
Rickshaws
Ferries
Looking for a cause to call your own
Give it all your best
Your manhood
In full bloom
Too often offered
To too many a man
While drifting through
All the red-light districts
You could map
Where, you say, life takes its liveliest forms –
Eating, drinking, gambling and love
Like that “hello from Sonagachi”
On my screen
And saying you want to be taken
In a boat floating
Up and down the Ganges
Whose waves tear the moon
Into shimmering pieces.
And then you complain
About
Unsteadiness of camels
Unreliability of horses
Expensiveness of taxis
And hurt in the feet
And how all that running about
Has drilled a vortex in
Your belly and you can’t
Gather ‘round it
You’ve been to an ayurvedic pharmacy
Close by
To get it fixed for 50 rupees
Along with all the rest
It is a universal thing
As much as the
Transsupstance
You felt on a Sunday afternoon
In a church in Bangalore
Where a certain young Father Angelo
Was nowhere to be found
Just a week after he’d delivered
His captivating
Speech.

Indian Review | Author Profile | Lora Tomas is an indologist, writer, translator and editor from Croatia, currently living and working in Bangalore. In the past, She has worked as English and Hindi teacher, and Hindi advisor and translator for Croatian Television. She has also co-edited and translated into Croatian a selection of contemporary Indian women writing Popodnevni pljuskovi (Afternoon Showers), published by the VBZ Publishing House, Zagreb, 2011, and have contributed travelogues, interviews, and other articles for Croatian, Indian and Asian publications, and web portals such as Him?l, Fountain Ink, Goa Herald, Jet Wings, and H-Alter.