On the eve of mourning.
Ganga moonlight shimmers.
Hallowed soul… ancient spirits.
Steps falling into water.
Hazy, lazy, rolling.
Completeness, full circle… transcendent.
Circled blood red sun.
Bells clanging, clanging.
Dust to dirt and dirt to dust… dependent.
Ever changing, ever remaining, always the same.
in the tinge of a valiant wickin this season of a thousand flowersit will never be dark in the house, the veiled silence of voices is everywhere the white mountain shields our grief fingers overlap on the tambura note for…
To write a poem about womanhood, you have to become a woman first. And to become one, you have to survive one of the world’s best-rehearsed rituals of stealing away a young girl’s girlhood by a touch in the shadows.…
at a time in my life a late phase of transition to eternal life during which my ambient thoughts are becoming more detached from reality giving me perspective seeing through things to their underlying significance egad I have become a…
Here, next to the stone elephant at Kailasa temple,on the streets of Aurangabad,in the waves of the Arabic Sea,I will always be a brightshameful white sheetamong more practical brown.I will be bleached as a stainon the dark khadi fabric,unnatural shine…
It was a malformed face with a twisted mouth, made worse by a fixed smirk on it. It was not a genetic disorder, the man was sporting it, just the way he sported a shirt with large brightly-coloured checks and…
I have seen A nightjar now and then, A bird flying at night, Flying past at night, Something like a bird Flying past at night, Something flying past At night, Just when The headlights alighted On them. A head-on collision…
The Toto-wallah Asked for more. He made it sound Like a legitimate demand. Perhaps I was miffed not to hear, “Please, Sir, may I have some more?” As I got off, I gave a thirty. A gesture for me, A…
On first glance, The warblers at Ibni Seem the perfect role-models For free birds. They bide amid the bamboo grove, They bicker among the hibiscus, One can’t tell their home from their retreat, Their lodgings from their home. Are birds…
I am an uneven bird, Quite contrary. All your cajole Lay heavy, unmoving, Upon my heart, My brooding, Incubating shut-eyed Hen of a heart, That won’t budge From the egg of torpor Toasting under Her warm underdown. Flights of freedom…
They put a swallow in a cage. It fought and fluttered, Squacked and scattered, And generally ran amok. And then they asked, Whatever got into you? The bars of the cage, She said. The bars are outside, They said. I…
Lanes for the seekers who Stand over the shades Of our joy Go on for miles Pretty harmless but cold. Buildings and trains, Screams and horns, People falling off their bicycle People dying for their sport People toying with their…
Once in a while, the tides turn high, And I go searching for you on the street. On a heavy night with sky cold and dry I ask with my creaking voice,”Has anybody seen her?” The lonely winds carry the…