THE

INDIAD

O lord! Thou beloved of Gauri! Deign to accept this – the maiden of poesy –

adorned with the ornaments of various figures of speech, charming by the gait of

beautiful diction, possessing the virtuous conduct of excellent meters, having the

bright complexion of sweet sound, praised by the world of good men constituted

of holy sages, endowed with the amorous sentiment of devotion together with

the virtue of loftiness, planned with the suitor of Brahman as an objective,

invested with the most auspicious marks of high literary qualities endowed with

numerous brilliant decorations of the literary art, revealing the modesty of poetic

humility bearing the ‘wealth-line’ of clear meanings, & possessing the virtue of

working for the good of the readers

Sri Sankaracarya

ARRIVALS

Q - What is this universe? From what does it arise? Into what

does it go?

A - In freedom it rises, in freedom it rests & in freedom it

melts away

Upanishads

AMABANDON

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Lao Tzu

As planets in their stolen orbits sway

Enraptured by the sun’s eternal day

So too must move the motions of the heart

& lovers from each other cleave apart

& so I go, some Rama far from Seeta

Or then again, maybe I’m yet to meet her<

As Autumn’s vegetation makes decay

Down Goldenacre-Warriston’s pathway

I saw the sun rise up on Arthur’s Seat

& silhouette the city’s spinal street

This is, I think, a hint of things to come

Like Sufi’s singing Sindhi to a drum

With poet-prospects loading up with ore

I set off south to see Savitri’s shore

37,000 ft

He who tells or hears this tale shall reach the same place

Bhishma

Across Europa we have both progress'd,

By foot, by boat, by tram, by bus, by train,

But this hour, from a cool & pleasant plane,

Sees me sailing air on a higherer quest,

The scenes by cyan skies & soft cloud blest,

How seldom seen & varied the terrain

Of ashen peak, urban sprawl, verdant plain,

Gleaming sea, wastes of sand & wylde forest.

As soon as we abandon Europa,

I could already taste the eastern scent,

The sun was setting west of Syria,

The starry heavens singing its lament,

As somewhere yon the grey Arabia

My pilot was beginning his descent.

MUMBAI

It had been the cradle of two of the five world-religions; it had

given birth to poets, statesmen, warriors & kings who take rank

among the great men of history; its foremost rulers had made their

splendor felt, not only in Asia, but in the Western world

Sir Edward Grigg

Our plane approaches as the ghostly wraith

Through nights black regions steadily she falls

Into this lab'rynthe of a billion souls,

Vast myriad of language, race & faith.

So I am come, come to this sultry shore,

First diamond of the crown Victorian

Earth’s epicentre of empyrean

A melting pot of empires to explore.

By Eastern flair was Western thought inspired

I am recently led to understand,

With me I have fetched a mind of England

& all the love of beauty there acquired.

Swooning beneath an infant urchins, "Please!"

How many times would I see sights like these?

SACHIN RAMESH TENDULKAR

After the fourth six, the smile had gone from Qudir’s face,

& later that evening he told me that this boy was an

extraordinary talent

Imran Khan

Some worship Christianity,

Some pray five times to Mecca,

Kali, Laxsmi, Saraswathi,

The Buddha, Krishna, Siva,

Yet to these Indians one god ties all –

Tendulkar, like a tiger, towering tall

This was no movie shooting moment

All eyes knew them watching history

As with a flash the century was sent

Like a rocket, hurtling to the boundary<

They said you could hear the roar in Pune

They said Bradman would never be better’d

But this Mumbaiker, brighter than the moon,

Is the verve of these Indians unfetter’d!

This is the only test century Sachin scored in his native Mumbai - 148

runs off 244 balls v Sri Lanka at the Wankheded stadium on 3rd

December 1997

DHARAVI

If my mother’s face was bright in sleep, it meant we had

nothing for the next day. God will take care of us

Nizamuddi Auluga

I stand at the gateway to India,

Grand sentinel arch of Britannia's stream

About us the swirl of Bon Bohia,

Thou seven-islanded mercantile dream;

Our senses drown’d

In native hue & cry,

Cut swathes thro sights & sound

Sweat-streaming, lips parch'd dry.

Squallid, one-room'd, tarpaulin lives

Smile at me thro' the glass,

Human beehives, men, spawn & wives

E'er buzzing as we pass

Identical dim-lit shanty streets

Clutter’d with the underclass.

BOLLYWOODER

Cinema in India is like brushing your teeth in the morning.

You can't escape it

Shahrukh Khan

Some say Bollywood is monotonous

Verdict of thirty thousand King & I’s

But life, I think, best led monogamous,

Too many genres & too many pies;

& now a lucky extra was I made

Full power fancy dress & thousand rupees paid.

I met her in a dressing room -

Fair actress of the Deccan -

Both hearts beating a little boom

As though we duelled at Tekken

The jewels of romancing bloom

Well, that’s what I reckon...

...From this pretty princess of the Raj

An invitation to dine at the Taj!

26/11

The overwhelming public sentiment in India was that no

meaningful dialogue can be held with Pakistan until it

abandons the use of terrorism as an instrument of its foreign

policy

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

With a whimper they rode to the seaside

With the bang in the bags on their backs,

With a clang they slamm’d into the quayside

Like a poker shark playing his jacks,

An old man shuffl’d near them

& asked them, ‚Who are you?‛

To hear, not in Mharati, but fluent Urdu

‚Mind your business,‛ & with this off they flew

They clasp’d each others shoulder-blades

& there did pray awhile,

Ten young, outrageous renegades

Into five pairs now file,

Now flagging down five hackney cabs

To fly the final mile.

VICTORIA STATION

Man washeth his body with water,

But in his heart there is evil of every description

Ravi Das

Still dripping in her British Empire bling

Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus,

To wages, temple, village & wedding,

Carries half of her country’s passengers;

Lives fifty-four

Buy their one-way singles,

Yama comes with a roar,

& random murder mingles.

As the coppers leapt into battle

They stopp’d & then leapt out,

Pot-shot pistols, jamming rifles

Were never in the bout,

Where should be floods of bravery

Those lawmen offer’d drought!

THE GOLDEN DRAGON

While the modern artist consider’d the canvas to be his

universe, those form the earlier times made a canvas of their

surroundings

Ravinder Sharma

I felt a famous movie star

Soaking up the superb views

Some Maharajah at the bar

Sparkling in his diamond shoes

My soul sensed Durga’s avatar

& there began to muse

On this moment’s explosive catalyst

A thousand thoughts too terrible to list!

I’d never felt alive before

Our streets now the front line

As more & more the art of war

Moves through this life of mine

First nervousness on undergrounds

Now gun-sounds as we dine!

DEATH OF A BELL-BOY

Lord, the world is bad. Make it better beginning with me

Chinese proverb

Inside the Trident Oberoi hotel

The boy stuck to his joyless, strict routine

Of guest & bag & lift & room & bell

Same, same ground out since he was seventeen;

What was that sound,

Like cars caught in a crash?

He fearing spins around

He sees the front doors smash,

He caught a bullet in the gut

His vision deliquescent

He slowly lets his eyelids shut

His heart grew hesitant

Then beat its last & as his limbs relax

His brain shuts down like wick-flame doused in

wax.

MODERN BATTLES

We must conquer the world through our spirituality &

philosophy

Swami Vivekananda

A shot ripped through my upper arm

& I fell down death pretending

No pagan psalm, no magus charm

Would prevent death’s impending

Holding my breath I waited for

My ‘murderers’ descending

I stagger’d in a bloody daze

Up to the rooftop high,

Watching these blazing fingers raise

Hot angers to the sky,

& waiting for my rescuers

Sat down & wondered why?

‘Is this the India that I had dreamt of?’

I thought as palls of black smoke made me cough.

REACTIONS At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of

salvation for mankind is the Indian Way

Dr Arnold Toynbee

Mumbaikers bolted every door

Their streets were mostly empty

They’d never felt such fear before

Though fear they’d had & plenty

Through them incredulity tore

As down at CST

Their bodies tow’d away on porter cars ‐

A city under siege & under stars!

Sunil sketch’d out a synopsis

Then made a hunch of calls

From actresses to researches

Before the camera rolls

‚This stuff is thrilling dynamite,

We’ll fill the movie halls!‛

AFTER THE BULLETS

Where dost thou seek me?

Lo! I am beside thee!

I am not in outer rites & ceremonies

I am by thee, with thee, within thee

Kabir

As infants love a lullaby

When fearing stormy weather

A soothing motion calms Mumbai

Place of peerless endeavor

All thinking wildfire swings to why

Our lives are changed forever

No more the former normalcy parades

A city haunted by those tortured shades.

She was a happy citizen

& now she has no legs

Another slumdog denizen

To join the gutter-dregs

Like blind & tuneful eunuchs

Or the waddling leper-pegs.

LEAVING MUMBAI

He who is desirous of the greatest attainment should right

from the start adhere to virtue

The Mahabharata

While standing in the CST

I closed my eyes a moment

Imagining the liberty

Of murderous militant

& the extreme agony

Of a screaming innocent

& felt my heart begin to palpitate

For each of them who faced that friendless fate.

I found my way to sleeper class

Upon the Margau train

Right slowly pass that mighty mass

Of skyscraper & crane

Soft fingering my bullet wound

& wincing at the pain.

GOAKARNA

After reaching India I spent some time on

going about the country

Ghandi

VAGATOR

We trace the outline of the Western Ghats,

Dawn stirs the steaming jungle from her sleep,

Goa gleams! Golden garden of ex-pats,

Dream shores Iberian...& still quite cheap;

Love life by night,

Days spent in solar beams

Or motorbikes alight

To tour the temple scenes.

We revv'd En masse to the Nine Bar,

My mount a twin-wheel'd steed,

Thro' sunset SHA to Shangri-La

Twirl'd with the Techno Creed,

On LSD, blues, ecstasy,

Weed, dexys, zanex, speed.

THE EAR CLEANER

Stepping out one golden Goan morning,

Drowsy with the sunken sun’s adorning,

Content was I to be in nature’s hand,

Soul-freshen’d as bare feet sunk into sand,

From out of nowhere stept a wizen’d man,

‚Sahib! cleaning your hearing well I can!‛

Shows Western praises in his little book,

Black blocks of wax from both my ears he took

I shook the hand that scrubb’d my hearing clear

Said fond farewells & watch’d him disappear

Round red & rugged hill flank'd by the view

Of Konkan coast careering into blue,

When first finding the profits of his fee

I never knew how sweetly sounds the sea.

OLD GOA

They were the first white faces to arrive

& the last fascist feaces to depart

Whence inbetween a race envangelized

You can still taste the breeze of ther Tagus

By Mandovi, in spacious Spanish rooms

One takes whenever pausing in Panjim

That pocket Portuguese emporium

The stuff of fallen empires lingers near

Array'd as if an eastern Nuremburg

Had Speer inspired, these barrel-vaulted rooves

So cleverly conserv'd, where faded scenes,

Like Shivapurams on a temple wall,

Paint papal hagiographies, spread proud,

& round us in the old Latino style!

GOD’S OWN ABODE

A little further down the Konkan tide

I found a beach & bay of perfect pitch,

Curvacious coconut groves ridged its side

As out to sea the dolphins please the rich -

Dance wave to wave

As deft as nymph on lyre -

Last lingering enclave

Of Lisboan empire.

Cocktails at the Cafe del Mar,

Shark meat at Palolem

The beach, the bar, the Greek guitar,

The sweet peace of Patnem,

The cosmpolotania,

Life's cool creme de la creme.

SILENT NOISE

I rock'd into business with a swagger

& tinky disco on an MP3

Where, being born a beautiful blagger,

I found myself dispensing energy

All thro the Alpha Bar, where after ten

Crisp crickets complement the sing-a-longs

& stamping feet, as in a Goan zen

I play'd my personal penchant for songs

Where blinging with the kudos of the decks

I found myself in a flash romancing

For music elevates the fairer sex

Invigorating vixens in their dancing

& so, skinny dipping to day's dawning

She led me to the milk of the morning

CREATION

Parking my scooter in Canacona

A great prostrate cow seem'd to be dying

Guts on the pavement where she was lying

But no... close by lay her hour-old daughter

I watch'd the wee one make her falt'ring first

Steps in the world, like an ambitious teen,

Thro her mother's dung, slippery & green

Then in the hot noon felt an earthly thirst

Went looking for something, nuzzling half-blind

She suckles on her mother's rough larynx

Who stood up, stands motionless as a sphinx,

& with a lick acknowledges her kind,

Who now creeps forward to the golden teat

& clamps down hard as angels swoop the street

FINDING GOKARNA

The beatnik & his blues guitar

Stumbl'd on a perfect place,

Serendipitous Sandabar;

Sand, ocean, sun & solace,

But secrets are soon scatter'd far,

The Western tourists race

To plant their towel standards on the beach

Where restaurants limpet & hotels leech.

& so, needing a quiet place to play

He stumbled on another nirvana

Only an hour or so from Canacona

For him the best place he would ever stay

This cow-eared naval of the universe

Whose beaches gleam like ingots in a purse.

DIWALI

Ever since an eager mentioning

I have dream'd of Diwali

Not knowing what its festival entail'd

Until today

When a rocket rushing past my cheek

Warns me of India’s unpredictability

Awoken by vietcong firecrackers

Echoing the brutal death of Ravana

The city night ablaze in light & magic

From hotel rooves

Watch the wide smiles of fathers on motorbikes

Carrying Catherine wheels to the bambini

& for once, the arms-width, one room'd shanty shacks

Are more affable than the harbours of Saint Tropez

PARADISE BEACH

Writing in silver light

Enough for poet’s pages

Full Moon over Paradise

This vista my heaven

Palms fringe soft beaches

Fisher boats have gone

Home through foaming waters

Under hoary jungle cliffs

High waves lap restaurants

From black, volcanic rocks

Sounds of drummers rise

Dancing rainbows sprinkle sand

Hippie sin their element

Music, nudity, magic, stars

GANJA

Between Om Beach & Half Moon I was startl'd on the path

By a native in his 'office' selling charas to the tourists

I thought awhile then bought some to aid my morning

musings

There is a Westerner wasting in a desperate jail

They'd found a tolahs worth in his hotel hidey-hole

& four years down the line he is still awaiting trial

The Saddus are allow'd to stack their chillums to the hilt

The exhaled smoke their primevil gesture to the divine

That is their Lord God Siva, pre-eminent among deism

He had discovered its narcotic properties one night

Injesting natural posions & injecting quicksilver

Would dye his skin psychadelic hues of electric blue

Then he would lay, en opiate, his back of cobra’s swooning

As his truthful, calm Parvati wash’d the world from off his

feet

QUANTUM LEAPS

Lapsing on a ledge over Paradise

Among my beads now glows a silver rose

The first one I had found, Italia

Makes sound as India, & as those pees -

Pisa, Portovenere, mark'd that find

Me playing music nel strada a Pisa

& sleeping open air... here, up Patnem

I’m busking money as a top DJ,

&, as Portovenere swept my peace

This Paradise has too relaxed my muse

Enough to think of sticking too one's path

When all its little wonders still surround

Composing songs thro bitter British snows,

But far away, where sun & sky fair meet

KARNATAKAN COAST

Beach-hut crowning Paradise Bay

Dolphins, ferrymen, swimmers

Swimitation round rocky outcrops

Mellow Half-moon Beach

Serpentine forest trails arise

Guarding sepia seashore

Om Beach’s three-way bullfight

Remarkable mammary bays

Across black volcanic plateaux

Next beach reach’d

Kudle’s curve becomes Gokarna

Hiking through cricketers

Cliff-top over miles-long surf

Imagining circling pterodactyls

MAGIC INDIA

‘Tis better to call it an oasis

Amidst we wealthy patrons of the West

Far from the hustle -hassle of the road

& the politics of familiar relationships

That plaguing the imperfect Paradise Beach

One settles by the sands of Half Moon Bay

As have a handful of deep tanned survivors

Of Goa's halyconic ‘place-to-be’

& there, stacking a mighty chillum,

I met a Belgian 'baba' on the beach

& tell him of my meager miles thus far

‚My boy,‛ he said, ‚this whole land should ye tour!‛

& with a hint of Flemish arrogance

Went on to list the laws that work the land

THE INCREDIBLE INDIA CODE

1 Book your tickets in advance

2 Expect the unexpected

3 Rub turmeric in your cuts

4 Keep tabs on yer tabs

5 If they say they’re a masseuse – they’re not

6 Murder mosquitoes before bed

7 Never trust touts or farts

8 Anything is possible in India

9 Check your room thoroughly before leaving

10 Be prepared for a train strike

11 Eat with your non-wiping hand

12 ‚I was an Indian in another life!‛

13 Plenty of change for journeys

14 Ask five different people for directions

SOUTH INDIA

Hamlet & village saw the fate-vanpass

Homes of a life bent to the soil it ploughs

For sustenance of its short & passing days

That, transient, keep their old repeated course

Unchanging in the circle of a sky

Which alters not above our mortal toil

Sri Aurobindo

HAMPI

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully

developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on

the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should

point to India

Max Mueller

As Ghats give way to wide Deccan plateau

Hard is the journey - dusty, hot & dry -

As into view wyrd mounds of boulders grow

Ruin'd pillars that yore-since bouy'd the sky;

An Eastern Rome

Once soar'd amidst the stone,

King Krishna Devi’s home

Now rubble, husk & bone.

Gliding by graceful coracle,

Serene as English spa,

Aft’ brief ramble, robust scramble,

Claim summit... from afar

Pastel lustr'd sunsets muster'd oer Vijiyanagar.

FINDING SARASWATHI

India has two million gods, and worships them all. In

religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only

millionaire.

Mark Twain

Before first footfall in this India

I convers’d with a Winchester hippy

Who said, ‚Son when you reach that rat-rich realm

Beware of nothing but your lack of soul

& choose a god, although the gods choose you.‛

So with that wise advice I took the field

Where in a moment of the truth sublime

I found a goddess, or did she find me

Chief escort & courtesan of the Raj

Vedic apolless, lyre & art entwined

With us in all we muse, her temple found

Innocuous in Vijiyanagar

Wehere she was shining as a silver star,

Singing ‘Jaya Saraswathi Matha<’

SARASWATHI

Who can be insensible to that warm welcome that is worth a

thousand cead mille failtha of the Irish tongue

William Howard Russell

I fixt mine inner eye upon a star,

In darshan disturbing this diety,

Lull'd by the tantric strains of her sitar

A pure white flowing goddess flew to me

Upon a swan of hue ambrosial,

Her fertile smile still'd time, her luted look

My hearts consort - sublimely cordial

She read from the Pustaka's sacred book

"Wand'rer, thou art welcom'd to India,

This sari I have sewn know as thy guide,

Where e'er she willows there stay close behind!

She closed the page, sail'd high skies to Brahma,

Perform'd the blissful duties of a bride,

Rare have I seen such beauties in my mind.

MONKEY TEMPLES

Listen, O Hanuman: be not depress’d at heart; you are twice

to as dear to me as Laksmana

The Ramaayana

My goddess led me back across the stream

That is the Tunghabadra, in a dream

I pass'd thro boulders piled up demon strewn

& fell upon a temple as the moon

Rose up oer Rishimuka’s famous hill

A baba there burnt branches from the chill

& in a flash of hands we were well met

& read all night until the moon did set

of how Rama had once roam’d to this place

& praised Sugriva of the monkey race

Whose minister, the holy Hanuman

Born stones throw near, old Anjamadri’s son

With dawn I left that dear one-legged man

My muses oozing to the Ramayana

KARANCI

Scratch a rock

& a legend springs

Arun Kolatkar

I took a breath or two of night time air

My heart not knowing why, my legs not where

The starry skies obscured by gremlin cloud

I headed for the hilltop temple loud

Where rattled such a throng of Saivite

Songs echoing thro Niligrisian night

Seeming another Tuscany to me

For India oft feels like Italy

& all was silver as a Silver Oak

For searing thro the deep & astral smoke

I found there was a full moon pulling clear

Are these the moments poets hold so dear

Thro selene scenes setting dream‐trails in store

When ´morrow morns may pass these ways once

more.

AUM SRI SAIRAM

MATERIALS NOT ALLOWED DURING DARSHAN

Camera / Video Camera / Calculator

Big Bag / Battery / Binocular

Tobacco / Time piece / Toffeebags / Umbrella

Mobile / plate / Time Piece / Needles

Blades / Water Bottle /Eatables

Scissors / Cassettes / CDs / Calculator

Knife / Book / Lighter / Ciggarettes/ Pen

Flowers /Footwear / Flashlight / Walkman

Indian & international descends on Puttupathi

Form the swarming cult of the new Sai Baba swami,

A mark'd contrast to the monstrosity park'd outside

That cathedral of consumerism, devotion's grotesque bride

But safe behind those guarded gates one meditates quite freely

& joins in Dharsan with, oft-times, Sai Abba, though him eighty

Being the second avatar of a word-wide, tutelary spirit

That three times only this green planet will grace with a visit

Upon his death the first foresaw his rebirth after eight years

In obscure Puttupathi, where many years after the prophecy

The teenager toss'd flour on the floor in the middle of a thrashing

Spelling out Satay Sai Baba - the boy had always been holy

& soon the world's second largest NGO, after the UN of course

Springs up, a shaft of light providing free health care for all

NANDI HILLS

We're living in a time when the world has suddenly discovered

India because it's run out of raw material for its imagination. The

raw materials for imagination are inexhaustible here.

Deepak Chopra

Chicaning up this Karnatakan steep

T’where Tipoo Sultan rode the summer heat

The Deccan plateaux rises from my mind

The bus-stops & the longhops & the grind.

As this chorus of hypnotic crickets

Soothes away that clamouring for tickets

For here, above the views, up in the clouds,

The poet in us blends with nursery crowds

Of herb & pine as ‘midst his canine team

He like a lion keeps his stray harem,

Butch dog barking praises to the divine

"This is my realm, these trees, this peak is mine,

Mine ancestors here came a-hunting

With dear Lord Cubbon, Nandidurgan king.‛

NANDIDURGA

Make the merchants of distant foreign countries who import elephants &

good horses be attached to yourself by providing them with daily

audience & presents & by allowing decent profits. Then these articles

will never go to your enemies

Krishna Devi

India! India! thy charka spinning ceaselessly

Reflected in the flags lifted oer Nandidurgan walls

Built by the bearded chiefs of Chikballapur, who nearby

Preffer'd this mile-high safety to avoid war's sorry squalls

Until power bow'd to the Maratha's of Shivaji

This hill of pleasure, Siva's sacred vehicle, chang'd wheel

‘Til Mysore's mighty Sultans claim'd this Kushmandagiri

& won its wondrous watchtowers with cool persistent steel & would have haunted hunting grounds with hordes of happy children

But Britons reckon'd otherwise, better blood presuming

& under Lord Cornwallis this fortress won for London

Until they quit the Rajship, when native rule resuming

O India! Wild India! see how thy charka spins

When battle banners surface like the rise of dolphin fins

KERALA

Following a casual track in our hunt for artistic discoveries,

we had come out into that lost place in the jungle of South

Malabar

Alice Boner

My soul's boatman cuts thro Karnataka

To burst once more atop these feisty Ghats

Thro groves of coconut boles we venture,

Stand where the epic Lusiad lay ceased,

Fisher village where Vasco de Gama

First sank renaissance gaze upon the East;

They palanquin'd ambassadors

Through crowds wide-eyed & gawping,

Decadent Zamorin glitters,

What did these envoys bring?

Strange instruments of medicine & war,

The winds of trade blown to his spicy shore

A space in some young side I fill amid the toddies tall,

& slink'd past six defenders (two were trees) to score a goal!

SUPERPOWER

I have to say that the most surprising aspect has been the

speed at which the folks in India adapt to Western practices.

They learn fast, really, really fast.

Sanjay Kumar

This cityscape best replicates the verve of a world emerging

From the dour economics of obscure orientalia

To fiscal calisthenics crafted by master Gopitua

On the stage where global markets push to sponsor the special seats

For some years now the money has been seeping steadily downward

To the laps of middle-class aspirants whose sheer weight of numbers

Drives the consumer boom, pressures pushing the rush for real estate

Like these HG Wellsian phantasma marching on Bangalore

Explosions of energy are releas'd from opening borders

This land link'd by jangling ring-tones to the tune of seventy crore

Tho somewhere, still, a wizen'd shudra sits employ'd as a scarecrow

For this is phoenix India, fabl'd land of milk & honey

Freight flying about the country in a furious pharoe fashion

To clog her timber arteries on highways like the MG Road

BANGALORE

Sunset or sunrise you ride into hell

India Today

A whirl of British companies,

Thought it better to offload

Its highly taxed dependencies

Sending cyber jobs abroad

Computerised communities

Spread down the KH road

Eye of the vortex that is man's progress -

Xerox, sports complexes & western dress.

As I tried to reach the city

The streets were cramm'd gridlock,

Grimy, gritty, slimy, shitty,

Til well past eight o clock

A vision of commuter hell,

Confusing Ragnaraok.

SRIRINGAPATANAM

When the missionaries came, they had their bible & we had

our land. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed,&

when we opened our eyes we found that we had their bible

& they had our land

Jomo Kenyata

Beside the rushes of the Kaveri,

Yon the silicon crush of Bangalore,

Lies the capital, lost to history,

Of Tipoo Sultan, Tyger of Mysore;

An elfin town

Its ruin'd fortress wall,

This keystone to a crown,

Testament to it's fall.

We skirt the spot where wailers found

The Maharaja spread

On crimson ground 'neath mangl'd mound

Of proud & loyal dead -

"Drive on," by pony carriage

On to other beauties sped.

INDIAN RAILWAYS

Never did I behold out of Calcutta such heaps of despatch boxes,

such mounds of record boxes, such vast fabrics of pigeon holes,

such abandon of red tape WHR

I found myself waiting at this train station

Not for a train, it was just to buy a ticket

Not even for that day, but eleven in the future

The next one available from Ooty to Calicut

So I´m waiting & waiting & I´m waiting nit-pick longer

& the guy behind the desk´s on his third guy in an hour

& I was fourth, but the seventh guy´s hand starts waving

His reservation form as the third guy was about to finish

So I warned fifth, sixth, & seventh they´d be a foolish to try

linecuttin’

after all, Id been walking in the sun all day like a mad English dog

& my legs felt like lead & I was definitely, definitely, going next...

So the third guy finishes & just as I thrust my form through the window

The guy behind the desk decides its time he went to the toilet

& then, when he gets back, the bounder closes the window for

lunch!

FORT COCHIN

Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,

And from his native land resolved to go,

And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;

Lord Byron

Come share a second with serenity

Up in this lake of European rooves,

This crescent lamp'd oer th’Arabian sea

Lulls me thither, I hear the sound of hooves...

At once a sacred chime grows on the breeze,

Some teller of a thousand ancyent tayles,

Some from the world's crop-fellers overseas,

Some cross the Karakoram's lofty trails,

Some were seekers of immortal glory,

Some content to be husbands, to be wives...

Though the vision all clutter'd & hoary,

With me a single memory survives,

Being extras in the global story

We are stars in the movies of our lives.

THE

TAMILIAD

Photo by TP Kiernan

I wanted to learn Tamil, only to enable me to study

Valluvar’s Thirukkural through his mother tongue itself<. It

is a treasure of wisdom

Ghandi

KANAYAKAMARI

Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land,

with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is

called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square

miles

Jules Verne

At last the Ghats have peter'd to their end,

Sole, savage witch-peaks all which now remain,

Then nothing but the grand Cormarin bend

Where ends Amritsar's forty-eight hour train;

Join'd eclectic

In one wylde, chopping squall

Waves from the Antarctic,

Araby & Bengal.

Ghandi guides a blood red bindi

To rest upon the line

Slipping slowly into sea,

The sky an evening wine,

I turn & face Dhruva-Lok,

Taste Himalayan pine.

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

The Hindus make little distinction between the gods & their

great men

Jayant panda

Narenda left sleepy Simulia

To realise deep faith, this mortal quest

Brought him to kiss Sri Ramakrishna´s feet

Recipient of pure Sansayan force

O lotus bliss, bliss indescribable

Now changing names he roams thro all Tibet

Mastering secret Buddhist principles

& stepping south he put them to the test

On Kannayakamari´sacred rock

Meditating for all his countrymen.

He saw man´s lot just had to be improved

By way of modern practices, & saw

Each creature´s soul seam´d by the quartz of god

& Ramakrishna beckoning him West

THIRUVALLUVAR

The outstanding greatness of Tamil Nadu was that it gave

Valluvar to the world

Shudhannanda Bharati

As I rested on a fine, empty beach, by the Bay of Bengal

In a soft second of existence I was alerted to a flutter of birds

A mile or so along the coast I saw a distant figure approaching.

An old man swathed in white robes, sporting a thick, black beard,

I expected him to pass, but as he came to within a few metres

He veer’d slowly towards me, leaving nor footsteps in the sand,

"What is your profession?‛ he curtly asked, ‚I am a sonneteer, sir!‛

His magnificent eyes burrowed into the heartlands of my soul

‚By any chance, are you carrying a silver rose?‛

Astonish’d, I show’d him the flowers like faitye round my neck

After humming an Upanishad he said, ‚I’ve been expecting you,

As seven words a kural make, seven kural form a sonnet!‛ Knowing this numbers nuances through the Tibetan Book of the Dead

This was for me high epiphany to the hidden depths of sonnetry.

MADURAI

In Madurai

City of temples & poets

Who sang of cities & temples

AK Ramanujan

Casteless, classless, in a Lancashire cap

I shook to this train's novelty suspense,

Six sardine hours & then a thunderclap

Of busy little city streets intense;

This temple, this temple is a wonder

This city, the Tamil-Nad Cadiz

Thro its wacky-racer streets I wander

One evening, wondering ‘just what this is?’

Opium! Coleridgian wish

Heeded by bloodshot man,

Dark, oily dish, crunch..."What is this?

Liquerice!..." My mind's span

Blew interspatial round the room,

Thought flying with the fan.

TAMIL ANIMALS

If you are as you have decribed yourself, the King of Animals – it

would be better for you to call yourself King of the Beasts< you

have tried to make yourself a tomb for all the animals

Leonardo DaVinci

Pastel Gopura

Monkeys perch´d like mountain goats

Squabbling like humans

Our once proud peacock

Begging at food-stalls for scraps

Far from Kings & Camps

Manless mountainside

Dragonflies dart on the breeze

Butterflies ablaze

Piglet playtime

Scampering thro fishbone filth

Young stags ajousting

Nuzzling thro wild rubbish dumps

Cows, Crows, Goats, Swine, Hens, Dogs, Apes

NALATIYAR

The English novel was parochial in the 80s. Indian writers

have given us the color

Martin Amis

Her :

O lord of fertile land & everflowing waterfalls

O lord of cool sunshine warming ocean´s running waves

O lord of good country with beautiful ebony mountains

O lord of flowery hills with lush & sparkling waterfalls

O lord of honey-bearing woods in the good country

O lord of long seashore with fine, unfailing salt-pans

O lord of the hills with lovely sandal groves on

O lord of cool lagoons & bays brimming with water

O lord of prosperous vineyards & huge gem-studded

caverns

Him :

O beautiful lady with breasts like budding flowers

O lady of beautiful hair with fragrance of musk

O lady of long-eyed spears & bow-like eyebrows

Him & Her

O lord of bewitching victories bring these beauties to me

CROSSING THE KARVERI DELTA

Though the resplendent sun in diverse quarters rise,

And though the silvery planet to the south decline,

Thy land shall flourish, where through channels deep,

Kaveri flows with bright refreshing stream;

Along whose banks the sweet canes' white flowers wave

Like pennon’d spears uprising from the plain.

The Purananiru

From Niligris’ evergreen water-tanks

Rivers aim plainward

Kabbadi, washerwomen, rickshaw repairs

Madurai´s bankside institutions

Thanjavur´s impressive medievil cityscape,

Trichy´s towering temple

Kaveri, Coleroon, Arasalar, Mahamakham

Kumbakonam´s sacred waterways

Ghostly, seacoast colonial fortress

Idyllic, white-wash´d Tranqebar

Lotus-pool, paddyfield, rainflood, riverine

Wonderful watery world

Kollidam crowns Kaveri´s imperium

Pitchivarum´s pirhouetting Cu-Co

THE MOTHER ON YOUTH

An architect hewing but self’s living rock

Phenomenon built Realty’s summer-house

On the beaches of the sea of Infinity

Sri Aurobindo

‚You will become the Person you want to be

Our future is in our own hands

The higher our private aspirations

The higher our realisation

This is the key to youth

Never accepting the irreparable

& with firm resolution follow our true life´s aim.

Those useless years age us

Contentment beginning the decline

But unquenchable thirst for progress

Keeps us moving ‘til our dying day

Those deeming completed tasks

The start of things to come

Will never feel the weight of passing days.‛

INCREDIBLE INDIA!

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without

which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!"

Albert Einstein

How much of mankind’s mind is Indian?

From the Caesarian of Sushetra

Through Baskarachara’s heliocentricity

To the priceless decimal point

The Indians gave the world Caturanga

Whose four divisions of the military

Foot-soldiers, Chariots, elephants & cavalry

Would show the world the wonder that is chess

A game of maths & poetry, a game

So close to life it form’d the sport of kings,

That now a Tamil sage its master is

Viswanathan Anand of Mayiladuthurai

It is as if the mighty sangams of an antique age

In his opening repertoire & analyses renew

BASIC TAMIL

My Tamil is very bad, & the sign painter I work’d with

didn’t know any English. We mostly communicated through

sign language. But we discussed everything from atheism to

the nature of art

Ryan Germick

1 Woner = Wanacum (hello)

2 Render = Nan-dray (thanks)

3 Mooner = Yevolovum (how much)

4 Nar-lee =Rumba Soo-aye (very tasty)

5 An-jer = Time Enna (what time is it)

6 Ah-roo = Poy-too-varen (see you later)

7 Air-lee = Oon Pair Enna (what is your name)

8 Eh-ta = Nar England (I am from England)

9 Umbodoo = Nalla –kay (cheers)

10 Pa-too = Sarry (yes)

11 Padi-nooner = Ta-poo (no

12 Panander = Nunbar Nan-dray (grazi raggazi)

13 Padi-mooner = Nalamar (how are you)

14 Padi-nar-lee = po-dum (full/enough)

AUROVILLE

The great saints impart sanctity to places of pilgrimage,

render actions righteous & good, & give spiritual authority

to the scriptures

Narada Bhakti Sutras

Gorgeous Coromandel, crown prince of coasts,

My wanderlust has earn'd thine ancyent treats,

Meagre are glimpses of the Gallic ghosts

Haunting Pondicherry’s well-ponder'd streets

To the north gleams another sliver of the West,

Where lingers still a hint of apartheid,

Went I, somewhat the uninvited guest,

Perfect place to read & write

Where over dust & termite mound

The Mother sprinkl’d Flanders’ green,

As dew-eyed adepts gather'd round

The brook peace of their queen,

Forming a calm co-operative of souls,

Surrounded by tough fields & begging bowls.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO SAVITRI

I have found a guru whose glories cannot be told

Dady

Discovering rare poetry

Is the poet's shooting star,

As at Kannayakamari

Towers Thirruvallavar,

& the bard of Pondicherry,

Mused on Miltonic par,

Words wonderful, more wondrous to behold

Than Cortez ever would with Moctezuma’s gold.

I join the morning reading group,

A poet’s sacred text,

Pass'd round the loop, devoted troop,

Their leader hints me next,

& so I sang a poet's song,

Made every circumflex.

TSU-NA-MI

A myth actually arises when the imagination interprets a

natural event as the action of a personified being resembling

the human agent

Aa Macdonell

Remember them fleeing those huge walls of water

That snapp’d them & toss’d them & made bloody piles

In Mamalapuram she search’d for her daughter

A sad scene repeated some three thousand miles

Remember the sounds on the shores of Sri Lanka

The crunching & breaking & snapping & screams

As ships of pig-iron are ripped from the anchor

& people-pack’d trains flung from bent, broken

beams

Remember the mood in the days after Christmas

When so many strangers shall shun the new year

A new doleful sound as the river grows restless

As so many tears crystallize the new fear

From Asia to Africa surged a wild sea

O sing a sad song for the TSU-NA-MI

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

There is sufficiency in the world for Man’s need,

but not for Man’s greed

Ghandi

Eight Onges died two weeks ago after drinking spurious hooch

But a boy was born on xmas day bringing the tribe to 93

& what, what of that other tribe by the wide bay of Bengal

The mighty Tamil nation now divided into two

Parted by Adam´s Bridge, where Hanuman strove for Seeta

The native, mainland Tamil – burning proudly independent /

& their Lankan cousins, killing for independance

Whose fate procrastinated at the dawn of the Age of Obama

Exploring Ramashwaram´s shores with the mythos of the

Ramayana

I listen’d to Kilinochi as Waterloo entertained Felixstowe

Til silence speaks volumes...

‚The Tiger´s have been tamed,‛ bray the international tabloids

‚We must now change our tactics,‛ affirmed determined

Prabhakaran

Within an hour a suicide-bomber activated in Colombo

ARUNACHALA

From sorrow (shoka) was born verse (sloka) you shall sing

the story of Ramayana in this very poetic meter for the

benefit of mankind

Brahma to Valmiki

THIRUVANNAMALAI

There is a town the Tamils hold

As holy as a brahmin

Where spicy shops in lanes unfold

& sundry sweets in streets are sold

Where food-stalls vie, both hot & cold

With carts of local farmin’

Now with your hunger satisfied

Stroll through the buzz & bustle

Bus, bike & rickshaw down roads glide

With shop-on-shop stood by their side

As with a cry bull-whips applied

To oxen of pure muscle

From country quietude an artist flew

Now drown’d in life, downtown Tamil Nadu

LITOLOGY

As India rolls round relentlessly

I spare a thought for Thiruvalluvar

His statue at Kannayakamari

His Kural & how I have travell’d far

His poem is to me a polar star

Some guiding light above the Bengal Bay

Where the voice of this avid avatar

Sang with such ease that all the world should say

Here is a sublime mind, his was the timeless day.

I find the perfect library

Twelve Thirukkural texts

Such energy pass’d down to me

Each fresh context corrects

His predecessors premises & now a new voice next!

SRI RAMANA LIBRARY

Far from the Goan pleasure-bubble’’s burst

At last a quest to quench mine arty thirst

This is a moment when a lifetimes strands

Flail as a wounded cobra in the sands

Or hose blown loose, yielding to youth’s demand

I sent my muse to travel spicy lands

Who settles in this little library

Where I can pass the days endisciplined

Thoughts focussing on page & poetry

The cortex soothed by cool cerebral wind.

I felt as if I was Viashampayana

& Thiruvvalavur the first Vyasa

Reciting the then unknown Mahabharata

For King Janamejaya at that sacred Sappa Satra

TRANSLATIONS FROM THIRUKKURAL

As ‘A’s announce alphabets

Divinity begins existence (1;1)

Rain's continuance preserves existance

Speaketh, then, ambrosia (2:1)

Falsehood conferring faultless fruitfulness

Nature's truth contains (30:2)

Kingly fame fades forgotten

Without righteous government (56:6)

When soldiers fear bloodshed

Kings cry destitute (77:1)

In miserable poverty's train

Many more miseries (105:5)

Her jewels perplex me

Celestial? Peahen? Women? (109:1)

VALMIKI

Upon Arunachala I did poise

The Cadair Idris of these eastern rhymes,

Breaking my trance I glance toward a noise,

& saw a Saddhu to the summit climb;

‚Aalvaar,‛ he said, ‚Valmiki is my name,

Pray tell me of the worlds from whence ye came?‛

‚Alas,‛ said I, ‚My plane seems shorn

Of Universal Values,

Depite all things tis still wartorn,

Battle splatters cross the news…

Tell me, has ever there been born

A soul that all this rues,

Brimming with truth, honour, corragio

As Florence did a thousand years ago?‛

RAMAYANA

‚There was,‛ replied old Vaalmeeki,

‚Such a man of Karma,

Truth, honesty, heart, loyalty,

Love, righteousness & dharma,

A life led for infinity

So many souls may armour

Come listen son, sit close by me,

To the legend-lines of Rama.‛

I sat cross-legged by the bard

As he star’d out into space

Tho skin baked hard, wrinkl’d & scarr’d,

Beauty once knew his face

& I sat, waiting breathlessly

Like a hare after the chase.

RAMA

I sing of Rama & his noble way;

Of humans & animals, queens & kings,

Of monsters, heroes & that dashing day

That keeping faith in heartfelt belief brings;

He was no ordinary lad of ordinary birth,

In him Vishnu had hidden godhead on the Earth.

& gave him up to Ayoudha

Midst the first sprigs of the Spring,

In the kingdom of Kosala

Where the Vedas Saddus sing,

His father was Dasaratha

& him, too, Rama’s king,

Outshining men as moons outshine the stars,

First patron of our Prince of Avatars.

EXILED

As Sita was a child of divine glow

Many had tried to win her hand in vain,

Only the bending of Lord Siva’s bow

Shall King Janaka’s tender sloka gain;

Now Rama tries &, with a heave, at last,

Into the cloudy skies his arrow flies full fast.

& as two loving souls reunited

So their woes on Earth begin

Ancyent promises recited

To Dasaratha make him spin

His former promise to a toothless crone

Must drive Rama from his bepromis’d throne

& with all of Ayoudh aflood in tears

A king banish’d his son for fourteen years.

MAGIC WEAPONS

As exiled are these captains of a race

Just leaves & deerskin cover modesty,

Thro pathless forest, roofless place-to-place,

Met many rishis pledged for tapasvi;

Now one of them to Rama drew,

‚I have three gifts for you!

Here is Brahma’s shining arrow

Its target never misses,

This, here, is Vishnu’s sacred bow,

Shaped by heavenly blisses,

& Indra’s quiver I bestow,

O such a gift this is,

For if to thee the Rakshasas appear

Thou art the only man that foe will fear.‛

SITA

Now comes the times of Rama’s deep distress

Trick’d by the guile of Lakshana,

He has left his lovely Sita helpless

To the cruel wrath of Ravana

Who has come to her in a hermit’s dress

Feigning a humble manner,

That with a laugh is thrown off with his guise,

Ten heads rise up & burn with blazing eyes.

By mule-drawn golden chariot

Them to Sri Lanka flew,

Though Sita sweats she does not fret

Down to a summit threw,

Her jewels< hoping mountain monkeys would

know what to do.

HANUMAN

Soon Hanuman, of Monkeys great,

Whose name was writ in water,

Learns of the grievous Lankan fate

Of King Janaka’s daughter,

& hoping he was not too late,

Leaping as he sought her,

Bounded the Ocean to Ravana’s isle –

A single wave-leap vaulted mile-on-mile.

Once landed he transforms feline,

Soon Sita came in view,

O weary whine, O pining pine,

Til faith she does renew,

Sweet news from this whispering cat,

‚Rama shall rescue you!‛

LANKA

As Hanuman relays happy report

Rama is charg’d with strength fantastical,

Now with Sugriva & his immense court,

All march on Lanka for the grand battle;

Into the waves

They fling great rocks & trees,

Enough for monkey braves to skip across the seas.

Soon conflict flurries night & day,

Elephants swerve thro dusty fray,

In the mountains & the plains,

Morasses of mad melees sway

Streaming blood like summer rains

Until, at last, Ravana faced Rama,

Promising his life & wife to Yama.

CLIMAXES

The duel raged, all mercy gone,

Both sworn to each attack,

Maul marathon as one-by-one

Shorn ten heads growing back

Til Brahma’s barb pierced demon heart

With wild, climatic CRACK!

As demons die so do the skies grow dim

No longer lit by fine heroic fire

Indra himself could never vanquish him

Who now lies lifeless on a burning pyre;

Alas, denounced by drums

& shadow’d by dishonour

To Rama Sita comes,

The taint of shame upon her.

REUINION

Rama sighs, ‚Love, if ye doubt me

I, too, shall go to the flame,

For tho I bare full purity

I hear gossip of your shame!‛

So Sita stepp’d up happily

Onto that burning blame

But not to ashes did her fair flesh fall fair

For she was honest – Agni heard her call

& saved her from those lethal burns,

Her faith her fate embalms,

& justice earns, now she returns

Into her chosen’s arms,

As when a Trojan poem ends

& all that fuss becalms.

ANDHRAMAN

Like Sterme’s starling, prisoners there may cry, ‚I can’t get out,’

forever. But there is no food on these savage-haunted isles, & I

think I remember the water is scarce

William Howard Russell

TIRUPATHI

While a palm-crack'd father fear'd for his mast

I was forc'd to sit out this cyclone blast

Hiding in the hills til the storm-devils pass'd

In a madhouse full of colour & caste

Where opining upon the rains length-last

An old beedie-man piped out the forecast

‚Clear skies tomorrow… before breakfast!‛

I dreamt of a storm where the wild wave crash'd

& the thunder roll'd & the lightning flash'd

& the foam roll'd awe-golden, all gouging & gash'd

& the boats out at sea were so bitterly bash'd

As with cats-o-nine tails the surface lash'd

A future-coming widow wail'd & gnash'd

With three hungry kids & their last meal cash'd.

TIRUMALA

Earth's second-born antique massif

Adishesha's sheer Sehachalam

Seven supreme planet-pregnant Naga-hoods

Vishnu's glories singing

Temple sprawling seven hills

Humbles Papal visitations

Seshadri, Neeladi, Garudadri, Anjanadri,

Vrishabhadri, Narayanadri, Venkatadri

Queing patienly brings divinity

Epiphanies, ecstasies, ablutions

Lord Venkateshwara, Vishnan avatar,

Govind, Srinivasa, Balaji

Daily lakh's of devotees

Brahmotsavam's half million

CHENNAI

Let me take you to an Indian city wild with enthusiasm

Where the levers of this heaving Madras

Make a constant crank, as curry turns the cogs

What wonderful creatures these Indian dogs

Barking intermittently from meal to meal

With hardly a strain in the gene

By Fort Saint George a chapel

As English as the downs

Carved on the wall the battle role

Of heroes & of towns

When English lackeys grappl’d

& Toppl’d Hindoo crowns

Of course there's so much more as unpeels London's Onion

Too brief my Tamil domicile, but now, to Andaman

DEPARTING FOR ANDAMAN

Gazing across exotic ocean stream

Shamrock musing drifts to distant Burnley,

Where for as long as breathing there shall be

My family, my friends, my football team –

So far away, for following my dream

I am a stranger in a strange contree,

Though slowly hook'd upon its cup of tea,

Darjeeling serv’d up with a Devon cream.

The sun has fallen & the ship has sail'd,

The last lamps of the mainland shrink & fade,

A momentary notion has prevail'd

As Vagu & Varuna soft notes play’d

Next time by solid ground my feet regaled

Into youth's fleeting heart I shall have stray'd.

ADRIFT ON THE SS NANCOWRY

On this hard holiday of a lifetime

I spent a night I would never forget

Sat buttock'd on a hole of solid slime

With fluids gushing thro my body's net

For this was my first tropical disease

A brutal bout of dysentry at that

& I seem'd stranded on the silver seas

Too weak to shoo the scuttle of a rat

Ere morning rose I haul'd up from the gunk

& found the good ship's doctor did exist

Whom with a pill this raft of ills hath sunk

With all that fleet of thoughts too dark to list

& now, tho slow, a bloated mosquito,

I'd live to see mine archipelago

ANDAMAN

I dawdl'd four days on the Nancowry,

Small taster of the voyages of yore,

Fodder'd on a bland, suspicious thali,

My heart leapt up to see Hanuman's shore;

Some deep & sheer

Mountain range submarine

Here thrusts its summits clear

In shades of leafy green.

I took a boat to Ross island

Across clear water'd bay,

Wylde Banyans stand on buildings grand,

Imperious Pompeii,

Where was the White Man's Burden

Rots a ghost town in decay.

Port Blair

KALAPANI

God save the KING, they said, god bless the tax

Alas, civilisation really meant,

Ignorance, condescension, excrescence, tax;

As freedom arose from crores of throats

The Jalalabad forty seven

disembark at the onset of their rebel heaven

Each drop of blood they shed would spring anew

upon the mainland freedom fighter born

The cellular jail built to last

Thro good ol' British know how,

Some collonial Dachau,

Where bull whips crack'd & rough sticks flash'd

& Savakar composed Kamala every dawn

In solitary confinement, for them all

HAVELOCK ISLAND

I set off with more nomads from the boat,

To one of Andaman's more famous isles

A little slice of paradise was bought

The heaven of Beach Seven’s shipwreck smile

This day may be my youth's highlight,

Behind a Finn with flaxen hair

The jungle tall upon our right,

Upon our left the ocean fair

Above, ahead, sublime sunlight,

& we were half way there

With hammocks slung oer hermits crabs,

We both adored our home

Then make love in the wave breaks

Silver moonlight snakes the foam

SHIPWRECK’D

Down southern Andaman lies Jolly Bouy

Thick with bright coral & of snorkling joy

I spent an hour lagooning in a laze

& fell astoned... then woke... to my amaze

The boat had leftme... deserted, alone,

No rizlas, samosas, water, nor phone

A mile or so across the sharky foam

A trail of smoke show´d someone was at home,

& so I built a raft but that soon sank,

So off I swam, my goddess I should thank

For showing me this was a wild riptide

My muscles haul´d me back, I´d nearly died

Then shouting to some boats around sunset,

I was the strangest fish they´d ever net.

VISAKAPATNAM

We sail'd from the comforts of Port Blair

Into the wide-wave level loveliness,

That is Ratnakar’s girdle

We men have conquer'd mountains, moats & air,

But never on deep ocean made impress

Secrets too deep to hurdle;

A wild-eye’d Karnatakan mariner grabs my hand

& saith, ‚In these waters, for Bangladeshi freedom,

The Pakistani submarine, PNS Ghazi, was sunk

By the INS Rajput, defending India’s sole carrier,

Her surging pride forever etch’d in the blood of her foes!‛

Tis night, & twinkling across the silvery sea

Spreads Waltair’s City of Destiny, & as we close

Billions of Bogimantalu beam from the Dolphin’s

nose.

AVATARAS

At the back of the ship, at the height of the trip,

Drawn by the harmonies of Lord Vishnu's call,

I saw cross the waters navel rooted lotus

Absorbing the beauteous bay of Bengal,

Transcending to milk, pearly seaway of silk,

Thou lavender cushion of infinite white,

Surrounding the foetal spirit centripetal

Sucking upon toenails painted starry bright.

"Rider, thou art return’d to India,

Saraswathi, I see, has smil'd on you,

Thy mortal aura bless'd in her prayer,

Thine energies hued in a rainstorm blue,

Come drape thyself in the Himalaya,

For there, thy Silver Roses shall renew."

SRI SRI

Srirangam Srinirasa Rao awoke before dawn

To wander Vizag’s shadow lanes of bonfires Bhogi born

Soon Andhra’s Dante cruis’d through Maupassant oer hot poori

Mulling over his revolutionary poetry

& now his city embraces as London once did Dickens;

Ram Nagar’s little Treblinkas – feet-tied, deep-fried chickens

Yon KGH’s mediworld - it Southwark & him Keats –

Across the portside’s Asta Chamas chalk’d upon the streets

& down the long Beach Road with lakhs of Nathli dying

& kids stretch’d tight their new strings for Sankantri’s kite flying

To climb the hillidyll – Our lady of the Sacred Heart –

& stood a true Mahakavi, from people set apart

Gazing on em’rald waters as the fisher boats inspire

His muse to pull from movie making’s lucrative quagmire

POLITICIANS

Is this what they died for, those fighters of old

The freedom for which a nations bravest sold

Alluri Sita Rama Raju turn’d in his grave

When Yediguri Reddy rose on his voters’ wave

Andhra’s ‘messiah’ minister begins with just four crore *

Sat in the bank, of course he knew he was destin’d for more

For with democracy corruption trails along hard-heel’d

& keeps its starving farmers debt-deep in the paddy-field

Observe, within a single term of bribery & presents

Reddy calls in the reddies at twenty five thousand percent

Fact angering Lord Visakh, the Hindoo god of honour

& yes this mortal of Kadapa has anger’d Lord Visakh

Who roars, ‚This thief of Kapada I’ll very soon attack

By summoning a thunderstorm to strike him from the skies

The next time his wee whirlybird oer Nallamalla flies!‛

* Despite the slightly negative tone of the above poem,

during my time in Andhra Pradesh I encountered differing

opinions as to the nature of Mr Reddy. On account of his

Free Health Care & respect for all religions, we was

venerated by many, ‚A very fine diamond man,‛ in the

words of a Muslim I met in Vizag.

THOTLAKONDA

I’d been studying at the Swami Vivekananda library

Of how the tumbling Sanskrit couplet first utter’d by Valmeeki

& so, choosing its nuances to explore in composition

I left Vizag’s fair vibrancy on a morning’s musing’s mission

My subject was now the Buddha, or at least his great influence

I’m certain Jesus merg’d his teachings at an eastern confluence

Boneshaking bus pass’d Rushikund, tree-fill’d beaches, Goan hills,

& dropp’d me off at the colourful foot of Mangamaripeta

From there I climb’d a pleasant hill flank’d by pretty pastel’s

blossom

Another Lingala Konda, another Gopalapatnam

Stood red & ruin’d where Ashvaghosha’s plays were once enacted

& like the Hill of Pigeons, the sacred rains cistern extracted

With views of hills & skies, & the breeze & an ocean sunrise

Far from Siddhartha’s vision, an aloofness to aid his demise

THE

ORISSIAD

Nature has bestowed fullest possible gifts on India & decked

the entire landscape with the best of beauties that nature

could possibly bestow

Dr Giriraj Shah

ENTERING ORISSA

In this country of a thousand surprises who could say when

the most inspiring experience might come

Alice Boner

As I railway'd out of Vizag for to write poetically

Verses concerning Kalingan Kings mix'd with state modernity

Above breathtaking beauties, rising on the valley's western side

More stunning than the Niligris, only a mile or more wide

A thick white bank of fog & cloud eagerly envelop'd the line

& I found it very wonderful for this world, sweet world, still mine

I'd nearly died on Andaman, but today my eyes were seeing

By Boddavara, steep hill-slopes perfect for a spot of skiing

But far too lush vegetation, as if the Cumberland fells

Had time-warp'd through to Jurassic days, as today the tunnel

yells

Of giddy kids exhilarates climbing to Shimiliguda

Asia's former highest station, a summerhouse for Garuda,

Beyond Aruka, scenery seems less savage Scottish sister,

We sierra thro this Spanish spaciousness of South Orissa

POTTANGI

The entire universe is Siva’s stage

Leela Samson

As more & more Odesha felt another Caledonia

Growing keen to claim a mountain like a high king of Kalinga

I took a bus from Koraput thro a region of hilsl & lakes

To disembark quite rapidly as Calliope put on the brakes

Above Pottangi's pleasant sparseness by the nearest rise I went

& there feel that true solitude, a Monte Falcano moment

The climb was tough & ticklish, but the view from the summit

immense

I hope its wonders to recall for the rest of this life from hence

As hovering like an eagle & lording over all of it

As still as sacred Surya, sat with the planet peaks in orbit

I must have felt how Wordsworth did on first conquering

Hellvelyn

Indeed, this could be Wansfell Pike on a rare Summer's Cumbrian

There's Pendle Hill, there's Arthur's Seat like a sea-lion, wait a

minute

My God! this land is India & I'm a traveler in it

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF PODIA

The bodies keep coming out of the forest. Slain policemen

wrapped in the national flag; slain maoists, displayed like

hunters trophies, their wrists & ankles lashed to bamboo

poles

Arundhati Roy

More than Syed Shah Geetani, Ayatollah of the Valley,

They are seen as the greatest threat to internal security

The proud, waverless Maosits of old, tribal communties

Sick of phoney social rhetoric & oppression of the poor

Cadres meet in secret, blatant disregard for the one-four-four,

To landlords & multi-nationals carry their Yu-Chi-Chen war

& in the heart of Malkangari district they flaunt their bases

Places dangerous to visit, suspicious of stranger's faces

Where laws are only local, Praja Courts & even Love Cases

As Delhi-day approaches the district is becoming tense

As far as Koraput a glut of posters warn the consequence

Of unfurling the Tricolor, "Flying the black flag makes more sense,

We live, in such a hotbed of incorrigible Naxalites

Soldiers silent as wild leopards, we must stand by our father's fight.!"

KALAHANDI India profoundly changed my outlook on life because you see how

people can be content and very happy with little or even no possessions.

It's the reverse of the West

Gary Wright

Hill spires rise among the princely plains of Mahakantara

Where Asurgah once halted the royal progress of Asokha

& a young, unbearded Jesus smash'd a host of Hindoo idols

Then wooed the king, who loving this lad's love, declared him deity

That fortress now a happy, bent-back paddy-planting village

Where Orissian traditions still fill their silver 'Pot of Arts'

Narada's Dalkai folk-dance energizes tribal Nataka

Led by god-like Ghumuru, Lord Ravana's breast-beating Haka

& soon must come the deadly drought, when the Udaya Sagar dust

Hooch-hollow turn the men as skinny kids scrap for a single crust

Snatch'd from a dog-tired dog, as work-searches marathons of blisters

& a boy is sold for sixty rupees to feed his starving sisters

& then there are goats to please the goddess Manikeswara

March'd on to Bwanipatana to join the bloody ten thousand

KADLIPALI

The old & the young alike have turned couch potatoes - glued to the

idiot box - overnight Riyan Ramanath

There is a village in the world not yet connected to the grid

Where life is led at the pace of the plodding Water Buffalo

& puppies freely play & all the children collect wild berries

As paddy dries in the searing sun, peck’d at by Sonepur’s chickens,

Where dogs spend all day dozing & the pigs get into everything

The cute shack of a shop somehow tends to its community’s needs

From herbs for the turakarree to the village alcoholic

There’s eggs & rice, there’s flour & spice, imli, semme, plastic toys

& boys divide their leisure between the volleyball & cricket

& a wee minority possess power bars on their phones

Where the old men chatter drinking chi & smoking perfumed beedies

By squatting women sporting nose-bling, arms full of glimm’ring

bracelets

Discussing another happy bride’s matrimonial TV

That gathers dust, unwatch’d – you can hear it in the serenity

MANI WEDS SUKANTA

A wedding is a display of wealth in the garb of showcasing our culture

Ranee Kumar

It begins with an advert, on the internet increasingly

& discreet meetings to appease concord throughout each family

Then a swirling bull of energy erupts in flashing lights

Emanating from the envelopes of seven hundred invites

When disco beats down lane & street leads the groom thro

Sakhipara

To his deer-eyed, lotus face of a bride, opening with mascara

It is a beautiful ceremony on an auspicious day

The priest presents which parts of the Vedas in Sanskrit he should

say

Their hands are bound, happy promise of prosperity & children

Then the newly-weds share their joy midst many benign

presences

Where women shimmer glamorous as the lads dance with aplomb

All hoping to avoid the pitfalls of Matrimony.com

‚It’s all a lovely fairytale!‛ ‚O! the couple fit like a glove!‛

‚Well, its not long now, I hope, until their platinum day of love‛

JAYADEVI

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity is of wonderful

structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and

more exquisitely refined than either

Sir William Jones

From the village of Kenduli by the banks of pretty Prachi

Rode the poet of Orissa, singing Sanskrit to perfections

Marrying his temple dancer he would live the life artistic

& give the world his Gita Govind, sang of Krishna & Radha

All aspects of love’s passion fires from the times of it awaken’d

To contentment in possession, a musical still enacted

From Kerala’s Kathak actors to the folk singers of Nepal

I sing of Krishna’s springtime passion with the melodies of love

Twyx the handsome chief of cowherds - urgent, charming, uncommitted

-

& his delicious consort – playful, sulky & tempestuous -

Whose hips & heaving breasts sport with the black bodies of gold robed

bees

To & fro the Dark Lord’s earings stroked her cheek, stirr’d her girdle

zone

Til morning’s lips exhausted, his body claw’d, her garlands broken/

KHARAVELA

I am one of those who prefer the violence of the brave

to the non-violence of the cowardly

Ghandi

How many conquerors have spread their banners throughout India

The Guptas & the Mughals & the British & once Kalinga

Led by a liberal, Jain in spirit, Kartikeya in arms

Who spread the old Odian script as grows the wild buffalo horn

Restoring former glories a century since Ashoka’s march

From sea to sea, from Himalayan pines to the Tamil-Nad plains

& push’d back the invincible Demetrius of Bactria

Uttarapatha, Maghada, Patiliputra in the fold

How come we know him? The obscurity of the Kalingan kings

Legendary among those who set man’s annals in precious store

Then let us set our eyes upon the caves of Udayagiri

& the Hathigumph inspictions on the brow of the Elephant Cave

A wall of fossil-letters carefully carv’d into living rock

Facing Ashoka’s famous edicts six miles direct to Dhauli

THE TURNING OF ASHOKA

Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, conquered the Kalingas eight years after his

coronation. One hundred and fifty thousand were deported, one hundred

thousand were killed and many more died<Now Beloved-of-the-Gods feels

deep remorse for having conquered the Kalingas.

Asoka

The year is 261 BC/ After the bloody battle of Kalinga at Dhauli,

Asokha is riding beside the River Nadi

Ashoka

O blessed day! What glory gain'd, the battle still pounds my senses

& in mine ears still echoes the cries of battle & death-yells loud

Those leonine roars, those clam’rous shouts, the din of drums & cymbals

& what sights - great elephants renting each other with bloody tusks

& great chariots exploding in shorn limbs & wooden splinters

But what is this? a worn woman weeps by the river running crimson

My goodly lady why shed thy tears on this auspicious of days

When I am flush with the victory & feeling very generous

Whatever on this Earth ye need my attendants shall see to

Woman

I hear you, Chakravartin, in thine armour as white as clouds

& yet, ye are a hypocrite for thy palms bestain'd with blood

& yes there is one thing I want upon this Earth above all others

To feel my husband's warmth but his body is as cold as the snows

A broken corpse - if ye have no power to make men, why kill them?

OLD BOOKS

Better we live ones destiny imperfectly

than copy someone else’s perfectly

The Baghavad Gita

On Saraswathi Puja I awoke in seductive Puri

To stroll a chi-stall-crawl to the most magnificent Jaggernath

Where being western in my ways, stood forbidden of its secrets

Upon the Raghunandan roof with three Serbian Buddhists,

I make my way back down stairs to a silent, private library

But for the crazed cacophony of the world though open windows

& found my Silver Muses examining antique bookcases;

Clio presents Howard-Russel’s ‘Diary in India,’

Calliope brings me legends from their fight for independence

While Saraswathi lays the Dhamma-Padda, on palm-leaf, beside.

& so, sat searching thro all those wonderful, worm-ridden pages

I plann’d a few set-pieces to fortify my broadening song

As if this was my first school day, such an auspicious occasion

& reason for festivity, as in these heaving streets below

THE CHITRAKARS

Indian art forms are like an agarbati, soothing, pleasurable & all

pervading. Western music & dance are like firecrackers that excite for a

while but quickly fade

Sandeep Chauhan

As Michelangelo made art to raise & praise his messiah

Three hundred families must preserve the image of Jannergath

& his twenty four incarnations, for those ten days every year

He & his siblings got to praisetheir Auntie in great chariots

Preserv’d by painters of Puri, Dandshahi & Raghurajpur

Who cloth their canvas, coating it with the gum of Tamarind seeds

Then play at Chitrakarita with vivid & natural hues

Drawn from green leaves, from indigo, from conch-shells & from

Cinnabar

To depict in epic splendour scenes from the Mahbharatra

& Krishna kissing Radha, taken from old family sketch-books

Pass’d down for seven centuries, assistance for apprentices

From Puri’s beach one morning I came to dancing Raghurajpur

To see intricate palm-leaf etchings of Talapatitichra

From bottles to stick-puppets, from bookmarks to wedding envelopes

COSOMOLOGY

The art critics have made a legend out of it

Dr Giri Raj Shah

As a continent was entering the twenty-first century

The ATMs sprawl’d nationwide could be number’d on one hand

In only sixty years her surface scruddy with plastic acne

Spreading with time, a time that changes & yet remains unchanged

As at Konark when gazing on its spectacular temple

Drawn by seven spirit horses, one for every day of the week

Upon twelve pairs of mighty wheels, for the months & the zodiac

Full well the Hinoos conjured the complex duplicities of time

For as the width of seven barley grains forms a single finger joint

Time stretches from the twinkling instances of starry Kshana

To the vasty Kaliyuga spanning twelve hundred divine years

& beyond, to the Kalpa quatorzain, Manu reborn at the tunrs

‚Very well,‛ I told my guide prospective, ‚I am impress’d with you,

Lead on...‛ tward Surya’s shining seat, dreaming ancient scenes, we drew.

UPENDRANARAYAN

The destiny of India is being shaped in her classrooms

Nehru

From the fermenting Orissa of Fakir Mohan Senapati

Where birdsong bubbles with the sounds of Odesha’s printing press

Banishing the need for sweat to make palm leaf scratches readable

Gushing out its native literature to comfort many households

Atibadi’s Bhagabata& the Utkal Darpan’s pages

Inspires the promising headmaster of Balasore’s Zinna school

Feeding his mind & spirit for he had lost his wife & daughter

& rais’d his family with such a stoic determination

Respect was won on every side, even in his very classroom

Where pin-drops echoed & single stares did drain delinquent faces

& when dreadful malaria murder’d through his locality

He organised Sera Samiti to alleviate the sufferings

& like Sir Walter Scott his muses collected local folk stories

His pupils heard these lovely tales, they listen’d & spoke not a word

CONVERSATIONAL ORIYA

Kind words can be short & easy to speak

But their echoes are endless

Mother Teresa

Night fell on the many, many tranquilities of Chandipur<

As I embark’d a stroll, astride its epic, crab-fluttering beaches

I heard a distant disco boom as if I near’d new Glastonbury

So through the trees I darted into the dark village of Mizapur

Quite power cut mysterious, & came upon a cavalcade

Of young endancing Indians, surrounded by prancing fireflies

A perfect place to practice phrases I had pick’d up on the road;

Tomorrow nar kono - they ask’d my name – mor Damo – I replied

Sundoro millano – I said – Apono komiti achanti

Mor bholochi – he answer’d & then offer’d me some turkurry

‚Bhollo swado,‛ my compliments for the sauce was very tasty

I ask’d them – ke ta tonka – but they did not want one rupee

Ho donyobad – I thank’d him & then off like a prajapati*

I moved on musing to myself – mu Orissa Kuhalapay

* Butterfly

NORTH EAST

Photo by TP Kiernan

GUWAHATI SUPERFAST EXPRESS

But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes

it to disappear or to merge in something else.

EM Forster

It has been so very wonderful this sojurn through Orissa

But now another India sends its beckoning from Bengal

So I hopped aboard the superfast but as the sleeper full for weeks

I bought a general ticket but the carriage spared not one inch

So I though I’d try the sleeper, for after all was just four hours

& got caught by the conductors & narrowly escaped a fine

By pleading English ignorance, at Kharagpur changed carriages

Stuffing myself inside third class to looks of sheer bemusement

But all I felt was friendliness as now two pretty, teenagers

Flow’d tho the carriage looking like the wives of a regal Mughal

Voices merging in harmonies to the rhythm of the djembes

& of course I gave them money, upon reaching Santragachi

The train emptied onto the tracks for a quarter mile procession

Of bags & blankets, strangers in transit to change trains for Howrah

Whose bridge screams ‘Welcome travellers to the city of Calcutta!‛

HYBRIDABAD

I believe that it does India no good to compete with western

civilisation on her own field. But we shall be more than

compensated if, in spite of the insults heaped upon us, we follow

our destiny

Tagore

Give me Saint Andrews with sea-views & putter

Or take me to Ascot to big-shot & flutter

Give me a hot-pot with good bread & butter

Or if not, just give me Calcutta

Give me the mornings stroll ‘long the Maidan

Give me the games grand Garden of Eden

Give me the Hoogley’s green glide Thamesian

Whenever I yearn for my London

For as she once was the pulse of an empire

& Edinburgh the mind that built the Raj

Then surely this great city was its soul

Where men would recreate their distant shire

Til freedom’s furnace burnt this vain mirage

& Caudhuris Kolkata did recall

SUNDERBANS

The forest which has tigers should never be cut,

Nor should tigers be chased away from the forest

Mahabharatra

Ten thousand years ago

The soul of India

Daub'd upon cavern walls

Aeons of abundance

& regal reverence

Where sages ashram sat

Midst placid Tyger packs

Fast forward to the Raj

& man-eating panics

From the Chowgarh Tigress

To Bengal's precious cubs

& on, thro Dodo time,

Man's fur-greed has left them

Annihilation verged

SANGAR ISLAND

Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all

Will Durant

Drip< drip< this snow-bed’s propitious melt

Shall carry over fifteen hundred miles

Along it’s overpopulated course

But verily the soul of India!

Whose waters sent to many sacred tanks

A nation wide, & on this delta strands

One is reminded of her creation

The ashes of sixty thousand princes

Griev’d on this isle - to purify their souls

Himalaya sent to them a daughter

Tho lost in Siva’s locks a thousand years

By terrible austerities releas’d

Those locks are like the Ganga’s many mouths

Where camphor, corpse & flowers seek the seas

PLASSEY

The East India Company's domination of the Indian

economy was based on its private army

Robert Trout

Empiric British ambition

Found a human pulse in Clive,

Whose self righteous indignation

At the Black Hole did arrive

To address the situation

All inside the Nawab's hive,

Where in this monsoon of Indra's

Growling with the guns of France,

Go rhino shields, glint curv'd daggers,

Howdah'd behemoths advance...

Halted rudely by Clive's soldiers!

Mir Jaffa sees the chance,

& leads his decisive mass from the fight,

Beams, ‚I must be the new Nawab tonight!‛

BUS CRASH

As the officers told me that a man had been carried off the road by

ay a few nights before, & the driver said there were many about

tonight, I began to comprehend I was travelling in India

William Howard Russell

My auto-rickshaw gliding hies

From the glean of battle,

A poet’s prize...dark dragonflies

Dart oer the arable

I woke to moans? to my amaze,

Bags lying by my concuss'd head,

Stumbling out in blood-soak'd haze,

From hospital I sped *

I took a room to convalesce

Amid palatial surrounds

A was a mess for more or less

A week of sights & sounds

‘Has Saraswathi saved me?’ I was glad

To catch the bus out of Murshidibad

* Berhampur

HIDDEN ROSES

I am from the back streets of Burnley – Accy Road & Stoops Estate -

& it was there, wandering Stoneyholme, that I first smelt India

Curried intoxications! Now a man deep in her hinterland

Of nothing but plains & paddy squares & dried out river beds

An intensity of flatness on every side as the immense

Ganga glides gargant, flank’d by snow white sand banks,

Not an idol, nor an article of faith - but deity on Earth

Thro Kaliachak we crept, on through Malda’s mango gardens,

That bizarre English Bazar, gateway to the Himalayan hills

Then on to antique Pandua, city of the Bengal Sultans

Whose grand Ekhlaki mosque turns to birdsong one’s own whistles

Alhamdulillah! inside the abandon’d Adina mosque

I sniff a red rose within its garden immaculately kept

A perfect moment’s respite from this all-engrossing country!

GORKHALAND

A distant view of a snowy mountain... has a strange power

of moving all poets & persons of imagination

Douglas Fairfield

They are totally different, but somehow the same

Yet have no friends in the cabinet

Of a government that owns their land

Built on the haunches of heaven

Hills heavyweight, houses high & low

Above the plains there's no heat in the head

The tea's champagne, mens' minds mountain fresh

But Bengal still clings to jealous oppression

No colleges, no comissions, no IPS

Tho darjeeling is such a fine capital

Sprawl'd epic on these steep forest spaces

As if Rome had been sunder'd by Poseidon

Where Hooker's flora fills the golden vales

That lead to Kangchenzonga, over all

KANGCHENZONGA

The institute trains young men not only

to climb Himalayan peaks,

but also create in them an urge

to climb peaks of human endeavour

Nehru

I came on Pemagangtse in the night

A leopard passing slowly in the snow

& waited til a precious pinch of light

Announced the phoenix day in foetal glow

I gazed across the Kabrus unaware

That to these climes had Calliope come

Slopes gloomy grey, as sunbeams fill the air

They turn the burnish'd burgondy of rum

Savitri's spell impells the Sun to strength

Red turns to orange, orange burns to gold

& as all shadows shorten in their length

What summit sparkles white, where, very cold,

My muse sits, singing, wisest of the nine

"On Nanda Devi waits my sister's sign!"

THE NORTH EAST STATES

A crooked cartographic handle, way out on the edge of the

national map and consciousness

The Lonely Planet

Meghalaya's lofty limestone plateaux

Mawsyram's endless rains

Tripura's tiny, territorial tribes

Agartala's Maharajan Ujjayanta

Mizoram's demi-centennial bamboo blossomings

Locustal rats attracting

Manipur's love-laden Loktak lake

Dancers jangling divinely

Assam's vital tea plantations

Perferate lime-laden tenga

Nagaland's brutal guerilla insurgencies

Dimapur's Kacharian reliquery

Tawang’s unstable, unfathomable monastery

Arunachal bamboo-cupp’d apong

KATIHAR

A bundle of contradictions held together by strong, but invisible threads

Jawaharlal Nehru

There is a certain sadness in this land

The handicapp'd are heap’d with all my heart

The twisted feet of those too low to stand

& me, all in their midst, but set apart

& when I wait to catch the midnight train

So many shudras spread about the floor

A spell of blessed respite to obtain

From drudgeries of being born so poor

& like the swine from meal to meal subsists

Therein lies the archaic chaff of wheat

On which this young democracy insists

"Caste is caste & never the twain shall meet!"

& even dreamlands which all equal share

Are here disturb'd by tannoy's constant blare

THE TYGER & THE DRAGON

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries

without ever having to send a single soldier across her border!

Hu Shih

I mean, come on, fifteen hundred kilometers

That’s one helluva difference in opinion *

Two growing superpowers share a common border

With half of the world's population

Intersecting interests & nuclear throats

The Dragon is insular & aggressive

While the Tiger is becoming a brand

Where loss of village values drives the rupee to Kubera

By a youthful nation striving for the stars

Is it too early to predict that in the face

Of free-speech, however bakshish accented,

The chained up Chinese pressure cooker must split

& India shall dominate the world

* While the Indians insist on the boreder between the two

nation s being at 2000 kilometres, the Chinese reckon the

figure is more like 3,500

VARANASI

Since early in my life I've been fascinated by India, and I have

spent a great deal of time traveling in that country.

Bianca Jagger

Alluvial flatlands roll ever West,

The Ganga Matha shimmers into sight,

As Kentish countryside our journey bless’d

We dine on the age old City of Light;

Siva's domain

I sit beside her fragrant flow

Watching lush marigold & grain

Ash-daub'd ascetics throw

Hypnofixed on that bamboo bier

Down by the riverside,

The pyres appear, fire'd atmosphere

Reeking for those that died

Kashi lit up their blessed death

While Vedic chantsmen vied.

SARNATH

Bhikkus, what have I taught you is comparable to the leaves in my hand,

what I have not taught you, to the leaves in the forest

The Buddha

To Sarnath, ever draped in bliss bliss,

Stretch'd by the Holy River,

He came, gave men a tender kiss,

"No longer I Siddhartha!"

They knew not what to make of this,

"Call now me the Buddha!"

They sat & listen'd to the first sermon

Soft on the lips of the enlighten'd one.

As Ashoka wept devotion

Dharmachakra set in motion

Pillars rais’d up for his people

Heaven-pointing English steeple

Capp’d by ornate capital

Preaches Joy Unspeakable

THE

DHAMMA

The ceremony of the Dhamma is timeless

Asoka

HATRED

Those dwelling on injustice

Chaimn’d by hatred

Insult, hurt, defeat, robbery

Ignoring these liberates

Hatred never conquers hatred

Only love triumphant

Seeking happiness thro hatred

Denies us happiness

As victory induces hatred

Better we surrender

Among those we hate

Live in love

Despising faults in others

Amplifies ones own

WATCHFULNESS

The paths of unwatchfulness

End in death

Deem them never watchful

Foolish ignorant careless

Greatest treasure of watchfulness

Is watchfulness itself

When watchfulness conquers thoughtlessness

Wisdom’s mountain ascended

From ever watchful self-erudition

Passions pass away

Compare garrisoning natural borders

With preventing carelessness

As elephants escape swamps

Raise ones awareness

WISDOM

If people were horses

Wisest runs swiftest

As humanity builds canals

Wisdom guides mentality

Deem revering worthy gurus

Life’s measured excellence

Those loving transient pleasures

Eventually envy ascetics

Better to conquer oneself

Than enemies numerous

One contemplative day outweighs

An ignorant century

Age born form experience

Not passing years

MINDSET

From demanding unholy minds

Cravings grow creeperly

Hidden within mysetrious consciousness

Independant, incorporeal minds

Minds unsteady & dishonest

Never feel wise

Enemies may harm us

Wayward musings worse

Drinking waters of truth

Gains mental serenity

Deem highest thought swans

Leaving lakes heavenward

Community awards contented minds

With happy lives

DESIRE

Currents of strong desire

Carry away lustfulness

Those pursued by lust

Deem hunted hares

Pandering to niggling desires

Imprisons us perpetually

Neither iron nor rope

Fetters mortal passion

Deem hungers of passions

Humanity’s greatest diseases

Strong/rooted trees survive chopping

Like unchallenged cravings

Passions ruin ill-guarded minds

As monsoons hovels

EVIL

For devious arrogant libertines

Life seems easy

All our evil deeds

Inside us born

Those who speak lies

Access every evil

Minds delaying doing good

Imagine sinful pleasures

Dishonesty, theft, adultery, drunkenness

Unearths life’s roots

Which weeds damage fields?

Hatred, illusion, desire

Better leave them unbefriended

Evil, ugly souls

BODY

Those who love life

Never drink poisons

All beings fear danger

Life universally dear

When surrounded by illness

Live life healthily

Want of healthy exercise

Rusts ones beauty

Against death’s regent power

Even relations useless

As torrents flood villages

Death drowns everyone

From life’s burning fever

Infinity brings freedom

PURITY

Along paths of perfection

Fairest flowers found

Floral scent travels metres

Virtue’s perfume miles

Discovering & teaching virtue

Avoids pointless pains

Whereas bodies decay eventually

Virtue never disappears

Nobody can purify another

Purity springs within

Joy! Joy of Truth

Conquers all pleasure

As silversmiths remove impurities

Improve oneself meticulously

BEHAVIOUR

As anger boomerangs woundingly

Never speak harshly

As coachmen control carriages

Peacefulness handles anger

While perpetuating good deeds

Never repeat wrongdoings

Wrong-doers redressing negative actions

Moons piercing clouds

Father – mother – elders - teachers

Require uppermost respect

People praising personal posipraxis

Never chastise themselves

Never praise or condemn

Without just cause

FOOLISHNESS

Down long weary roads

Fools travel lifetimes

Better to go alone

Than accompany fools

Fools thinking themselves wise

Humanity’s highest buffoons

Pyres of personal destruction

Foolish labour builds

Smouldering fires consume wrongdoers

With unwise actions

When sages fault us

Their criticisms priceless

Better we travel alone

Before accompanying fools

CONTROL

Those mastering pentasensory chariots

Admired by godheads

Deem one’s personal realisations

Our supreme refuge

To climb over sorrows

Recognize their circumambience

As elephants endure arrows

Handle slander silently

Friends who control themselves

Life’s foremost escorts

From a mind self-controlled

Springs cornucopian joy

Before conquering countless thousands

Better conquer oneself

HOLINESS

Where holy men dwell

Deem joyful places

From credulous belief systems

Greatness lives apart

As carpenters fashion timber

Holiness controls soul

Unencumber’d boats of life

Swiftly sail nirvanaward

Neither birth nor appearance

Reflects inner holiness

Faith, energy, contemplation, wisdom

Overcome our sorrows

Both humble & giant

Can heaven obtain

MINISTERS

Armour laws & sentencing

With universal uniformity

Examples of good kingship

Inspires regional ministers

Better we persuade minds

Before regulating lives

Never promote bored ministers

Reward energetic enthusiasm

Ministers placed over peoples

Must win affections

Envy, cruelty, anger laziness

Affects ministerial impartiality

Whenever forgiveness is possible

Forgive repentant criminals

KINGSHIP

Frequent tours of inspection

Makes monarchy accessible

Pacifying neighboring nations peacefully

Outcharms invasion’s bloodshed

Into improving public works

Channel state resources

As your own child

Treat every citizen

Better conquering thro dhamma

Than wastrel warfare

Protecting & promoting religions

Fosters inter-mutual harmony

When humanity rewards greatness

Pacifism out-accolades warmaking

1857

Outwardly the native sepoys seem to obey your orders. But

do you have any idea of the tremendous fire that burns in

their hearts? If this fire becomes a conflagaration, it will

reduce the British Empire to ashes

John Dickinson

BEGGININGS

Europe is merely powerful; India is beautiful

Savitri Devi

As crabs emerge quite candid from their holes

Then scuttle back when danger tingles near

Shrewd Azimoola Khan his country calls

to see the battle-sunder’d Crimea

& there observes the British with a sneer

Beside the French both morale & physique

& depress'd opressive camp atmosphere

Indications that London has grown weak

His Nana, back in Oude, delights to hear him speak!

While touring northern hill stations

They planned their villainy

Demonstrations, protestations

Would never set them free

Only firm force could drive these aliens back to the

sea

MEERUT

When in the midst of the all-beauteous skies

& all this lovely world, that shpould engage

Their mutual search for the old golden age

They seat a phantom, swelled into grim size

Out of their passions & their bigotries

John Keats

As Nature panders to her mightiest

How great a gulf is fix'd twyx Siva's sons

& La Race Blanche, whose puff'd up Chelsea chest

Thro races, taxes, churches, dance-a-thons

Rules haughty & imperious, whose guns

Would often hammer insolence at whims

Of English boys, fresh from shelter'd Etons -

Resentment simmers, loyal lustre dims,

They felt it in their hearts, they meant it in their

limbs.

As all wars need a catalyst

The cartridge greas'd with fat

That loadings kiss'd, twined faiths insist

Our Gods forbid us that

Soon hundreds were court-martial'd & sentenced to

ten years flat.

ALLAHABAD

If the watchman breaks into the house

Who can protect it

Bhai Gur Das

The torch is lit, the blaze of battle burns

To mudhut Meerut’s freed hero returns

The air has changed, gunpowder stirs the sense

Tongues drunk on bloodshed bray independence

All of the northern states are in a stir

‚Surenda Sai is freed in Sambalpur!‛

Delhi's Mughal imperium restor'd

Bahadur Shah proclaim'd its latest lord

Quite central to the Gangeatic plain

The massive keystone of red Akbar's reign

Defies with ravelins & bastions

Those petty princes & their pounding guns

& if she fell India would the same

A miracle the Fleet Street mob proclaim.

CAWNPORE

Cawnpore is by no means alone in any of the circumstances which

mark the turpitude & profundity of guilt

William Howard Russell

On mouldering parapets

Patient vultures gather

Sensing confidence &trust

Lies shattered in humans

Escaping siege diseases

Women & children are slowly raped

Chanell’d toward a bridge of boats

Thick white puffs of smoke in the trees

Leaves rustling to the flight of deadly grape

A very grievous cannonade

Tulwars slash, sabres hack

Meat cleaver dismembers children

As women’s screams are silenced

Scarlet flows the waters

LUCKNOW

Why are we in India at all? ‘Because Heaven wishes it,’ says some

gentleman, who meantime thinks that Heaven’s sole design with regard

to himself is, that he shall make as many rupees as he can, get his

pension or his debentures, & at once leave the ‘confounded country’ for

ever

William Howard Russell

Midst a city large as Paris & impalaced on each side

The British peckerd up, their residency fortified

Three thousand souls, of them only a third were train’d in war

On which a constant cannonade spreads all the guts of war

Wounds greening with their gangrene, now scurvy & now disease

Runs rampant, as Hades swoons to its warm, stygian breeze

& this seems a good metaphor for this was living hell

The lower orders starving as they dodge shot, spear & shell

But not the Upper Ten, forged by a stoical grandeur

They would die the Upper Ten while hand fann’d by the punkah

Now, underground, the Cornish, proper mining family

Deflect the tunnel traffic of the brave Zemindaree

As overground attacks toss'd back, as a sortie or two

Defended British int'rests as relief toward them drew

WHILE PLAY’D THE CANNONADE

Whether it be the heat or the curry, or the state of one’s liver, it

seems that the disposition of Englishmen alters in India, & they

become very argumentative & theoretical

William Howard Russell

General - My how hot a day this is

Reverend - I cannot agree with you sir

There was a lovely breeze this morning

The hour was three I think

& if you ever had visited Stuffcote

You wouldn’t dream of calling this hot

General - Stuffcote! Why, I have been there sir

Was there, in fact, for three years sir

It is one of the coolest stations in India

Reverend - Poppycock - in august - what nonsense

General - Yes, sir, especially & most particularly In August

I have felt positively chilly all thro the month

Reverend - Chilly? In stuffcote? In August<

Servant - More champagne, Sahib?

THE FIRST RELEIF

Freedom did not come to India with ease

AB Raypee

There is a wonder griffinish in war

From the baggage-train impedimentum

To the bubbling euphorics of the kill

Come observe the famed Sir James Outram

March into the heart of rebellion

Thro groping clouds of dust - his Goorkha guns

All discipline & bunderbust beside -

That clearing reveal, through ‘Troughton & Sims,’

Lucknow’s glittering towers & turrets

& in a final drive relieved his charge

This pocket-watch of Saxon resistance

To enlarge & improve its defences

& wait upon the larger armies march -

A quarter of his boys dead in the dash.

THE OLD ELEPHANT OF RANEEGUNJ

They are strange beings these old soldiers. They tell you war is a

dreadful thing; that it is a terrible trade – a curse to the Earth; but still

they are never so happy as when they are at it

William Howard Russel

He'd fought for Clive at Plassey

&, wounded, refused to die

The Mahratta & Pindaree

He had swatted like a fly

Now on this crackling density

He cast an intense eye

A knowing look, pluck'd from his hundred years

Each blasted field of battle reappears

Of all those shambling quadrupeds

Him gnarl'd & warted most

Of those heavily armour'd heads

His trumpet chief in boast

A Guatama inspiring to the fray

His great, grey herd, & if them brave they'll charge again one day

THE SECOND RELIEF

Arise, awake & stop not til the goal is reach’d

Swami Vivekananda

Two months had pass's, two months of growing doubt

Among the sepoys restless for success

& now the British coming on in force

Thro cruel Dilkusha, La Martiniere

& Secundras Bagh – as in one hot day

Rare crosses forged from Sevastapol steel,

Some twenty four, were won in the storming

& when the residency was relaxed

They still had waggons bubbling with Moselle

& with a street of screens escaped the noose

That tighten’d into knottage as they left

A swarming host of hard fought liberty,

An India for Indians, as now

Saddhus perform their poojahs pure in peace

POOJAH

I saw Indian brahmans living upon the earth & yet not on it,

fortified without fortifications, & possessing nothing yet

having the richness of all men

Apollonious of Tyrana

Morning devotions as pure as the Chutrak

Who drinks only raindrops, he takes his brass pot

Strolling turblanless into the peasoup hue

Rinses his mouth in the steaming stream

Pours & rubs libations on crown & chest

Squinting with satisfaction

Squatting in the waters to his very neck

He utters forth his low-noted song of joy

Then returns, full of awe, to the shore

Smears mud across his quivering torso

To kiss the earth repeatedly, invoking RAM

He turns his misty eyes up the heavens

& with one last taste of Goomtee spring

Leaves, mud hardening into thick yellow paste

ONE NATION

O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womankind is Sita,

Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant,

the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, are thy flesh & blood, thy

brothers. Proudly proclaim, ‚I am an Indian, every Indian is my

brother.‛

Swami Vivekananda

This fair city was there’s to defend

Mussalman & Hindoo, poised as one soul

Dug in their rifle pits from wall to wall

Form’d an independent native blend Forged by thoughts of futures they would now spend

Stood up from the dust where the coolies crawl

Without the threat of a gruff, English drawl

Dispensing impositions trend-on trend

Here comes the British legions - contact made

The suspense of a daily cannonade

‚Sahib, the Sikhs have sided with the foe

They look so better fed, so better paid....

Their flights of optimism slightly fade

& fall into attrition's sluggish flow.

FINAL DAYS

The fact is, we must get this work over,

or the sun will become very deadly

William Howard Russell

With cavalry curvetting

Bahadooring with their swords

Every hoof step seems blessed

The certain concomitant of success

A cumbrous train of men, bullocks, guns & tumbrils

Dew-diamonded with silver howdahs

March on infested Lucknow Invested immensely with the matchlockmen of Oudh

All willing to sacrifice their breath for Brijeis Kuddr

Exalted with the dignity of the planet Mercury

Choking up the Goomtee & the Kokraal stream

Headless bodies poison the water

Forming perfect perches for buzzards & crows

Whose thirsty caws urged each side back to war

THE FALL OF LUCKNOW

We made an expedition

We met a host & quell’d it

We forced a strong position

& killed the men who held it

Thomas Love Peacock

The Martiniere was the first to fall

Its statues arrayed eccentrically

Amid colorings incongrous

The Imambarras next, Cairo-quaint

Nearby, the vast Kaisar-bah

Looted outrageously

In a yellow house on the racecourse

Brave sepoys make a futile stand

& kill the beau ideal that leads the Sikhs

O proud warriors, last race to join the Raj

Though living by their Guru’s auspicious practices

Morality drowns in blood

They dragg’d a sepoy out to burn to bits

& laugh’d as flesh fell hanging from his bones

THE RETURN OF THE RAJ

Who rides at the tail of a Border thief,

he sits not long at his meat.

Rudyard Kipling

Shots cease & Lucknow has fairly fallen

Choked with furniture & corpses swollen

The stench of blood & powder taints the eye

Course doggerel emblazen’d everywhere

The victim pyres of pride begin to burn

& citizens have started to return

Their murd’rous faces scowling with defeat

The Brits all nervous, sweating in the heat

The plague tower of their Residency

A shrine to patience & tenacity

Those timeless Saxon traits, as rule hardens

Men once more tend the Badshahbagh gardens

Where a wild fakeer wick with coughs & spits

Amid the ruins, Marius-like, sits.

NORTH WEST

INDIA

The character of Indian culture may be expressed by one

phrase: acceptance of unity in diversity

Suniti Kumar Charterjee

NANDA DEVI

There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your

heart and won't go. For me, India is such a place

Keith Bellows

Up to the world's rooftop I slowly rose;

Checking upon the progress of the soul

Appears a mountain prospect a la snows

Of Austria, New Zealand & Nepal.

I left Almora for the Kashyap Hill,

High commune of fairest tranquility,

Fresh dawntint drew me to the lofty chill

Of this monolithic Axis Mundi.

& as the sun did smother all with awe

I saw the famous lips of Clio smile,

& sing to me as I have heard before,

"O lover of the lyrical lifestyle!"

Until these sonnets circuit all the globe

Thy thought, thy life, with poesy ye must robe!"

BHAGAVAD GITA

A human becomes the best when he aspires

for the welfare of one & all

Mahabharatra

Let us transfer to a field of battle

Where two armies are solemnly opposed

Forever on the Gangeatic plane,

Between, steering a golden chariot

Drawn by four horses whiter than the eye,

Stands Krishna, sacred keeper of the cows,

Him born when all India was asleep,

By him knelt Arjun in woeful weeping,

Shedding tears for brethren he must affray,

The king bouy'd up by his charioteer,

From potent lips gallops the song of God,

Defining how a man should live with peace,

& though Kusukeshetra flows with blood

On this famed field has Karma pitch’d its tent

KASHMIR

The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an

end if we want to have a united integrated modern India

BR Ambedkar

As Britain bowl'd a leg bye at Palestein

Her Indian partition fall wide of the mark

The Vale of Kashmeer - considered quite divine

From sanity stranded, any day might spark

The violence of Rama & Ravana

Go far beyond Kennedy’s Havana

For as thro Busselhra, when bhandar coats Jejuri,

AGNI ones & twos shall spread the fall out fury!

Most Indians want peace, they say, to live in peace

With brethren, though them by faith divided

But Delhi’s central government daily funds release

To maintain the Sinchen Glacier, how misguided

This energy expended on insults & impasse

How Laleshwari would have wept into his kahwa glass

JESUS

In the course of his fourteenth year, the young Isha, blessed of God,

came on this side of Sind and established himself among the Aryas in the

land beloved of God.

The Unknown life of Jesus

The moon-gold sweetness of Heaven’s moon-gold child

The prophet Isa, Jesus, whatever was his name

Refined his faith, I believe, in the monasteries of the East

From Jaggernath to the lakes of Srinagar

& in the Hemi Gumpha of the snowy lands of Leh

On the frontier between the pagans & the sky

Buried deep in the archives, far from prying Vatican eyes

A scroll sleeps, revealing the lost eighteen years of Christ

He had preach’d to to the Israelites of the Yus Marg plains

& read an Ashokan edict in his native Aramaic

Head full of Buddhist principles he went West to meet his

fate

To return a bearded godhead on the back of a Catholic mare

I thought so much, way back in Asurgah, where perhaps I saw his face

Though’ young & black, never in doubt was the tranquility of his grace

DALAI LAMA

They have been taken under our protection, & we cannot in

any way stretch out our hands upon their lives or property.

Permission is given to them to worship their gods. Nobody

must be forbidden or prevented from following his own

religion

Muhammad bin Quasim

As he climb'd the highest mountain he would climb

A bird above the churning pale of men

To prosper, for a time & half a time

His peers projected ‘Chinese Citizen,’

A nation’s soul to exile sends its ghost

Headless behind its Hamelin mother hen

India’s Himalayas play host

Havening the fourteenth Dalai Llama

Half decent, half to curb the Chinese boast

& so, on Kangra's Dharamasala

Tibetans soon outnumber Indians

decimated, yes, but still full dharma

Awaiting the change of world opinions

& some Tiananmen to spike the Chinese guns

AKBAR

There are perhaps very few nations in the world with the

enormous variety that India has to offer

The Rough Guide to India

There’s a full moon over Fatapur Sikiri

With which five thousand women are in synch

But one man has their measure - tender, cheeky

He plys them all with opium & drink

& Kama Sutras with such appetite

Harlets have begged to enter his harem

Though jealousy & intrigue seeds for fight

& furious frustration makes them scream

These dancing girls in their damsel dresses

The cutest Abyssinian concubines

Slave girls of Asia dress’d in Persian tresses

& Arab eunuchs’ henna-ful designs

Presents from all parts of growing empire

To satisfy its emperor’s desire

THE

BEATLES

By the time the Hare Krsna movement first came to England

in 1969, John & I had already gotten a hold of

Prabhupanda’s first album, Krsna Consciousness

George Harrisson

Being no ordinary year

The world high in the Merseysphere

Whose top stars of its firmament

Quite Sergeant Pepper opulent

Join saddhus, sannyasain, yogi

By Ganga Matha’s mass as she

Crashes into her golden plains

By Rishikesh, whose crows & cranes

Compete to claim the wooded bluffs

where four la, tinky, scouser scruffs

The timeless Ringo, Paul & John

Merge harmonies, as Harrison

Clutches Khusro’s sitar to chest

Bridging the gulf twyx East & West

KULANTHAPITHA

All the deities of the Hindu pantheon, who represent the

infinite aspects of the one true being, exist within us all as

well

Mata Amritanandamagi

As Rome has its pickl'd Lampascione

That is, the bulb of the wild hyacinth

Every village of Himschal’s most idyllic valley

Palanquins its Devta on a plinth

& pay noble homage

To Raghunathji, riding on his six-wheel'd rath,

Haul'd from the Rupi Palace to the stage

That is the Kulla Maiden, by the path

Hot chi stalls combine with circus chancers

With snakecharmers & trinket sellers small

With quality, decorated dancers

Until the viscerals to end it all

When the moon climbs full & they cut the throat

Of a cock, a buffaling & a goat

KUMBH MELA

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human

speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the

great grand mother of tradition.

Mark Twain

My Baba hobbl’d from Rishmuka Hill

Upon his twelve year march to Haridwar

Where fifty lakhs of fellow babas mill

About the nectar dropped by Garuda

Sharing the joy of kinship by the ghats

Intoxicated as the mobile phones

Of young babas bubble with girlfriend chats

How Ganesha giggles at our ring tones

& as all festivals have headline acts

The Babas do yagas by the ganga,

The sanctity of solemn poojah pacts,

The sealing divinity with ganja

Then leaving friends with words & waves

They head home to the mountains & the caves

NO-ONE KILLED JESSICA

Today in India there are all sections of people, as the BJP

realized when the poor voted them out

Lalu Prasad Yadev

There once was a time in India

One could get away with murder

If, of course, your father sat on the Congress

She had look’d so lovely that night

A celebrity bar-maid socialite

In a fabulous Gucci dress

He was drunk, he was adamant

Her murderer proved innocent

As hostile turn’d the witnesses

A nation in uproar,

‚Manu Sharma,‛ they deplore

Cannot get away with this!‛

A modern Magna Carta, the people implore

‚Nobody can be too powerful for the law!‛

DEGREES OF SEPEPERATION

OH, East is East, and West is West,

and never the twain shall meet,

Rudyard Kipling

In Edinburgh I live

Lord Robert Kerr had brought home

A rare Vivaldi flute concerto

Soon lost in the national archives

Italia I love

Antonio pens his II Gran Mogul

Pe4rformed at Venice's Ospedale Del Pieta

To be seen by a grand touring lord

In Panipat I stand

Here Babur won India for Islam

& placed the sons of Ghengiz on her throne

His descendent, Aurangzeb,

Inspires an Italian composer

As Sicilian sonneta drive these rhymes

THE CAPITAL

To Delhi spread the Mohammedan hold,

First city of the Mughal emperor,

& as the streets of nine Cities unfold,

Emerging dynasties merging with old

Each new wave of settlers changed Dilli & was changed by it

Sohail

Amidst the most British of her faces

Tis Republic day as India Gate

Crowns the uniforms of many races,

Land, Air & Sea, the keepers at the gate.

Aggressive, competitive, energetic & violent yet vibrant

R Vasundra

Tuqluqubad’s bat-infested battlements

The roller-coasters of the Appu Ghar

The salubrious Deer Park of Safrdarjang

It’s delicious street food – spicy kebabs, paranthas & golapas –

definitely make the city the food capital of the country

Neha Thirani

The families spilling out of their tents

Rajouri Garden’s bartering bazaar

& the West, all ghetto’d in Pata Ganj.

AGRA

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stele

Dante

To leave no regrets is to lead good life

& so, the source of the tourist trail,

That glory-monument to man & wife

Over my wanderlust must now avail;

Oer crowded lanes

A wonderment arose

Nothing in all the Spains

Could match her matchless poise

The house of Shah Jahan grew hushed

His grief was overbaring,

He briefly with the heavens's brushed,

All who saw were staring,

A testament to beauty's deep adore,

The Taj Mahal, Cupid's conquistador.

SNEHALAYA

The one who earns his own living,

& part hereof offers as charity

He alone knows the secret of the path

Guru Nanak

Thro friendliest western festivity

East Lothian offers its Linkey Lea

To sooth severest disability

Of a child, & to curb the cruelty

Outmeted by the tough society

That India is still, such poverty

Must harden a happy heart to pity

But pity still we must, this great city

Of Gwalior offers sanctuary

A bird-cage in bristling bandit country

A mate o’ mine, Cammy, from Edinburgh

Had donated his guitar, here hung on wall

I took it down, the children drew together

& sang to them the play-songs of the small

RAJASTHAN

My mind blossom’d, bathed in the many-hued light of

divinity, & the events of millions of years gone by rose up

within me

Mata Amritanandamagi

OVERTAKING LANES

Two walkers sat by the side of the road

Staring at a truck that had spill’d it’s load

By that, an old wreck that just would not start

Bypass’d by a man in an ox-drawn cart,

& faster still; first a cycle rickshaw

A dull green tractor from the days of yore,

Auto-rickshaw belching dirty black smoke,

Bright red scooter missing many-a-spoke,

Some weird lorry’s siren psychedelics,

Bus driven by two mad alcoholics,

These by breezy motorcycle bypass’d

Then last, & an Ambassador of Rajput caste,

O lawless highways brave gangs of robbers stalk

You know, it’s a nice day, I think I’ll walk.

A SPOT OF CRICKET

This short, Byronic sortie to the East,

Sometime tourist, sometime adventurer,

Sees sublime sunsets as each new night pieced

This myriad India together;

Yon Udaipur,

Love’s honeymooning dream,

I trundl'd to Jaipur

To watch my native team.

With friends I met at Andaman

We watch'd a thrilling game,

With ticking ton K Pieterson

Those cunning spinners tame,

Each stroke applauded by our hosts,

For talent & for fame.

AYURVEDA

I caught a cold once in Rajasthan

Incongrous, yes, but all the same

I was all afevered in an influenzan haze

A kind coolie sent me to a free clinic

Where a Vaid there would be sure to treat me

‚Disease is imbalance,‛ the doctor proclaim’d

& enquired of my family history

My habits & emotional status

Five thousand years of holistic medication

Now hones in on this peculiar moment

When the fundamental sameness of self & nature

Sends indigenous plants & yogic cleansing

A ridding my body of waste & woe

Cloth-swallowing, removing bloody bile

PUSHKAR

Amid the arid plains of Rajasthan,

As jagged peaks rise from the calcined earth,

As man bedecks camel & caravan,

I taste the astral nature of the tirth;

An oasis,

Defies the solar bake,

Centre of pilgrim bliss

Cluster'd round sparkling lake.

I stroll'd a stroll from ghat to ghat,

Chess session camst upon,

Cross legged sat, on woven mat,

Sparr'd with their champion...

Mixing Anandian technique

& sleek gambitry soon won.

DESERT RANGER

Beyond gigantic Jodhpur's sea-surf rooves

Phantastic sandstone streets rise from the sand

Still echoing the sound of horses hooves

Still sensuous with scents of Samarkand;

We trek on west thro' realms of chivalry,

Follow'd barefoot by this gypsy player

Conjuring scenes upon his Sarrangee,

Charming the desert night with their prayer;

Down desert roads from Jaiselmere

A town was left to rot

Thro fiscal fear, with wistful tear,

The locals left the lot,

Leaving their ghostly memories

& one small broken pot.

NATARAJA

One timeless night in the scorch'd wilderness,

When sands & stars ranged with immensity,

Sinew'd with the verve of youth's loveliness,

Lord Siva, the destroyer, came to me.

He left Kailash with single, flashing stride,

Three velvet eyes a-gleam with dreamy hue,

Caphor white, clad in an ivory hide,

He had come to consecrate my Saddhu.

Nearby smoulder'd a fresh cremation pile,

Soon daub'd in ash we danced a pirrouhette,

Absorb'd in the Daemon Damaru drum.

His snakelike dreadlocks spun in sundry style,

His halo trail'd a blue blaze-tail'd comet,

My senses drew an esoteric numb.

BUNDI

Reaching the eastern edge of Rajstahan

A fortress stands abandoned, goblin-hewn

While wandering within & round its span

I wondered if it was some vedic boon;

Neath red rampart

I Kipling'd for a week,

For poets slowly part

From places quite unique.

I took a ride thro villagery,

Sought out a waterfall,

It seemed to me like ecstasy,

Immersing body's all,

& driving back, dried by the breeze,

Felt burdens lift from soul.

POVERTY & WEALTH

Two goddesses bickered about beauty

Prepared to start a second Trojan war

Srinavas wisdom thunders crore on crore

My Jyesthadevi, my Laksmidevi

There is a young carpenter of Bundi

Who is so very honest to his core

& soon they both were standing at his door

‚Who is the most beautiful, she or me?‛

The katputlisan thought a mortal while

& says Laksmi most lovely on arriving

Yet Jyestha more gorgeous when she departs

This answer made each goddess equal smile

& he, celestial wrath surviving

Learns flattery will woo immortal hearts

JAIT SAGAR

If India can make a man a man

More than the veshyalay of Amsterdam

If thro the chaos he can make a plan

Respecting Hinduism & Islam

If he can give the beggar his rupee

& tip a tout charging over the odds

If he can read his Rajput history

& choose a god but still bless other gods

If he can sleep upon the railway run,

Find fresh clean waterfalls amid the dirt

If he can wonder how the Raj was won

Then pause upon the horrors & the hurt

If he can haggle down & know his daal

Then does he have to see the Taj Mahal?

MOUNT ABU

Green peaks rise up from Rajasthani dust

The oldest in the world - or so I'm told -

The desert heat cool'd by the breezy gust

On which great teams of dragonflies take hold:

Yon Tunbridge Wellsian Toad Rock

Some Hindu New Year's Night,

Then thousand flock to cheer the shock

At sunset’s sacred sight!

They descended from this place, Agnikula’s clans

A figure from the fire-pit their sire

Alas, thro battles chivalric these scatter’d caravans

Denied the tribes the privelige of empire

Like city states of Italy these Rajputs of song & story

Form clans diverse as Churan sweets; souf, wati, & gilori

GAYATRI

Hearing a true Upanishad so beautifully sung

I turn to face its source & see & swan-sate goddess young;

‚I am sacred Gayatri Brahma’s second, loyal wife

Combing present, past & future with all the realms of life

Thro all-pervading & unchanging Parabrahman flow

T’was I who sang the Vedas by the Indus long ago

& tho ye’re soon departed, in the days when ye return

Of the Bharata wars & pious Purana’s ye’ll learn!‛

Now from the stars another swan descends, ‘tis Saraswathi

Who sulking is insisting on my muse-fidelity

& tells me of her lateness once for the Yajna of her husband

& so needing a consort married this Gayatri out of hand

Then raps her cosmic sister in a lost, archaic tongue,

& bids me leave this Pushkar to complete my epic song

RAJPUTANA

Gigantic Jodhpur

Round mem’rable Mehranga

Rippling sea-surf rooves

Oasis Jaiselmer

From turret & tower gold

Homesteads blend with sand

Jaipur's pink lady

Thro the Tiger Fort breaches

Fledgling climbers rise

Oer shanti Bundi

Stoic Tarragarh hovers

Grand & goblin-hewn

We have few days on the Earth

Friends, better ye see them soon

KHWAJA-MUIN-UD-DIN CHISTI

Beside Snake Mountain’s steeply shelving spur

There stands the saintly city of Ajmer

A jewel of the dusty Dhundar Plains

Seistan’s Khwaja wander’d through its lanes

Pondering religious diversity

‚We are all part of one divinity

& must attempt to strive for unity

& to accept God’s love for god is great

Let us be gentle & renunciate…‛

As daily he did fast & meditate

His fame began to rage thro Rajasthan

That this wild Sufi from Afghanistan

Looking more like itinerant fakeer

Could solve crusades like Belfast & Kashmeer

QUAWWALI

To the tombs of the Sufi saints they came

To the beat of an Arab drum

For the furthering of his families fame

He watch’d every audience come

To the tombs of the Sufi Saints he went

Like a mendicant troubadour

Went swinging his single-string’d instrument

To sit with it on the floor

As all sang in harmony

He ventured into intacy

His spiritual ecstasy

& velvet voice to the fore

With commendable creativity

Hopes Heaven to restore

GHANDIJI

We will always remember the great soul who changed the

world with his message of peace, tolerance & love. More

than 60 years after his passing his light continues to inspire

the world

Barrack Obama

EPOCHFALL

I am a servant of mother India & it is my duty to break the

fetters binding mother’s feet

Lokmanay Tilak

Life after Lucknow

Whitehall seizes India

Woes of child widows

The Tyger is tamed

Treasonous Bahadur Shah

Dethroned, Red Fort thrown

Ghandi’s full get up

Prime Minister of Rajkut

Hindoo banyan caste

The next Ghandi born

Father frowns as he plays with

Untouchable boys

‚There’s a twinkle in his eye‛

All the villagers agree

ENGLAND

I have nothing new to teach the world.

Truth & non violence are as old as the hills

Ghandi

Whitechapel Ripper

The fumbling fogs of London

Shroud her latest guest

Inbetween lectures

Reading Bhagavad Gita

Ghandi mused on faith

All religions right

Yet none are infallible

One truth together

Eighteen ninety one

Britain’s latest barrister

Waves its charge goodbye

Not knowing in his soul force

Grew the seeds of empires fall

NATAL

I have never been able to reconcile myself to untouchability.

I have always regarded it an excrescence in Hinduism

Ghandi

Africa! Empire!

The merchant Seth Abdulla

Needs a legal mind

With fair wife beside -

Loyal, lovely Kasturbai -

Durban welcomes them

Dogs & Indians

Not permitted in first class

Rigid apartheid

Successful protests

‚All men are colour’d equal!‛

London’s press impressed

News filters home thro reuters

India has a father

Thro tending wounded Zulus,

His deep love of Man is born

1905

I shall take birth in my motherland again & again & would

die for her again & again so long as she is not free

Kartar Singh Saraba

Sighing India

Shame, shame on you Lord Curzon

Divvying Bengal

Sri Aurobindo

Preaches passive resistance

Mass protests differ

Khudiram Bose

Missions in Muzaffapur

A train exploding

Chief Presidency

Magistrate Kingsford survives

A teenage martyr

Mass protest now are mourning

Ashes reliqued in gold casques

LOKMANYA BAL GANGADHAR TILAK

The land of India was being devolved. We had not only lost

our freedom. But were faced with the grim prospect of

losing our language, our religion, our culture, & even our

self-esteem

Shivrampant Paranjee

Patriotism

O when was this feeling deem’d crime

Tilak spurns the yoke

Curbing British misrule

He preaches purna swaraj

Fleet Street brinksmanship

His freedom to write

Crush'd by so-call'd liberals

Thoughts emprisonment

He posts to Durban

The most important letter

He would ever write

‚My friend, come home & help us!‛

Ghandi chokes on a tear

SATYAGRAHA

A moment’s fight & a continuum of constructive work –

that was Ghandi

Dr Uttamrao Patit

Midst Ahmedabad

Ghandis ashram phoenix-born

Rigorous, austere

Emancipation

Women glow with equal rights

All celibate sworn

Sectarian proof

Weaving, cooking, farming, press

Beer & baccy bann'd

Donning peasant dress

Ghandi insists non violence

The key to freedom

Simple poverty embraced

The common crowds appealing

AMRITSAR

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,

history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of

arms as the blackest

Ghandi

By Golden Temple

Ghandi's Jallianwallah

Cramm'd with protest

20,000 hearts

One hundred & fifty guns

Omdurmania

Grisly turkey shoot

Saxons show Teutonic roots

Indiscriminate

Lass shot in the back

Where panic thought was cover

Bodies fill the well

Six month Whitehall cover up

The Raj straining at its chains

YOUNG INDIA

The cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering

than my remaining free

Ghandi

Nineteen twenty five

Heart-wrought periodicals

Undermine empires

Dissaffection spreads

Ghandi writes poeticaly

‘Seven social sins…’

Section one-two-four

Of India's penal code

Castigates its soul

Six year sentencing

While Hitler rots in Landsburg

Britannia sleeps well

Tremendous ticking time bombs

Burrowing beneath her bed

SWADESHI

Vande Mataaram, Vande maataram

Sujula sufala Malayaja – Shitalaam

Shashya – Shyaamata maataram

Vande Mataaram

Bankim Chandra Chaltopadhyay

Given time to think

Ghandi conjures strategies

Emasculating

Political knight

India's national congress

Loves its new leader

Of Jyesthadevi

This Sahasravandhani

Sings for his nation

Mother India

Find her in the villages

Life’s synthetic whole

Integrate our panchayats

Vast Pantisocracy

QUIT INDIA

Gandhi has asked that the British Government should walk

out of India and leave the Indian people to settle differences

among themselves, even if it means chaos and confusion

Stafford Cripps

Clutching bamboo staves

Singing Bhagavad Gita

Babu goes hunting

Turn the other cheek

Civil dissobediance

Passive resistance

King George receives him

This ‘half naked fakeer’ spits

Wheres our koh-i-noor

Matanginin slain

Singing Vande aataram

Tamluk’s Parvati

World war two - blood sacrifice

Fast-forwards hard fought freedom

PARTITION

I have seen the slashed corpse of the slaughtered child

Heard woman cry ravished & stripped & haled

Amid the bayings of the hell-hound mob

I have looked on, I had no power to save

Sri Aurobindo

The schisming Raj

Reversing inadvertency

Mountbatton’s quagmire

Jinnahs rising star

With bimbisaran foresight

His hegira nears

Ghandi warns of blood

Both sides dismiss the ‘buri’

‚Old & doddering!‛

Maharajan tears

Nehru hoists the tricolor

Punjab torn atwain

As Sikhs swarm out rampaging

The Hoogly fills with corpses

HERO

I, therefore, demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim

State in the best interest of India and Islam

Muhammad Iqbal

Sprung from common womb

The sacred vedas birthplace

Verse foreign place born

Brahma’s happy clan

Mohammed’s Pakistanis

Churning murders turn

Ghandi fasts, tho frail

While goondas roam Calcutta

Dilliwallahs rage

Lakhs of chanting crowds

India's galvanic saint

Civil war prevents

As neighbors embrace neighbors

See their fledgling nation saved

MARTYR

I shall be alive in the grave & what is more speaking from it

Ghandi

As the Punjab quakes

Serene as Lodhu gardens

Delhi’s mood beclams

Nathuram Godse

Edits the ‘Hindoo Nation’

Violent radical

Outside Birla House

‚Namaste Ghandi‛ - three shots

‚He Ram‛ - the world grieves

From his ghee-fuel’d pyre

Ghandi’s ahses scatter’d wide

His sainthood wider

Young Mandela, Luther king

Much moved to match his marches

GOA

What mattered it how mighty were those emperors

All at the last went hence with nothing, bare of foot

Guru Gobind Singh

Tagore's Mahatma

Some divine Kagasarum

Moves men from the grave

Empires are crumbling

As Pondy parts with Paris

Just proud Lisbon clings

Doctor Lohia

True Ghandian devotee

Sings satyagraha

Goan guerillas

Nehru’s national army

Portugal retreats

Three centuries since Plassey

Modern India was born

DEPARTURES

I noted that people are happy here in India. When I went

back home, people had everything in the materialistic sense

and were surrounded with abundance, but they were not

happy

Goldie Hawn

SEVEN FAITHS

Religion does not consist in patched coat, of yogi’s staff or ashes smeared

on body. Religion does not consist in mere words. He who looks on all

men as equal is religious

Guru Nanak

As the Mona Lisa smile beams out 83 percent happiness

The same sacred ratio applies to the Hindoos of India

With their seven holy rivers & their seven sacred cities *

Of the G_O_D of gender, the operatives & devotees

But such is the diversity of history, climate & culture

Six other significant religions milk the energy of prayer;

Islam’s divine well trodden path of a Sunni disposition

Brought from the Meccan desert by the princes of Tamburlaine

The Buddhist clan resurgent beneath the fourteenth Dalai Lama

The Parsees of Zoroastrianism's Persian sense of duality

The Christians who came in riding on the backs of Portuguese

horses

The Jains spreading mystery & purity in their karmas shedding

& Punjab’s turban’d Sikhs, soldier saints of Guru Nanak

Whose songs are still sung daily, his picture on every wall

THE CHARANS

This benighted country

S Prasannarajan

All hail to thee! Ye Gujurati singers

What melodies these blissful rishis bring us

Dwelling in a sameekan ignorance

Dismissing modernisms - aids the trance

Of tribal bards - the Megharals consent

On maya & celestial descent

Whose singers of love songs, stirring story

Are deified upon their death-glory

& poetesses’ spirits prized so much

Their sisters rise in praise throughout the Kutch

Where scattered stones bare witness to those bards

Whose curses shatter egos into shards

Of how their victims cave din terrified

& gave in to the glue of suicide.

THE INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM

Our real problem in India is not political , it is social

Rabindrabnath Tagore

Ever since pale Aryans declared darker skin inferior

The caste system entrenched in a ruthless, divisive psyche

Some socio-political blockage of the DNA vein

But you can’t stop consensual commensality

As PROGRESS forced the weavers into factories

Education has dragg’d India’s archaic system

Kicking & screaming into the modern age

Indian fathers once made all manners of handicrafts

& at the same time taught their sons the trade -

Lohar, Sonar, Kumbhar, Dhobi, Darzi, Kewat, Teli –

Today industry denies vocation, caste shrinks in status,

Lovers intermarry against grandmother’s firm objections

& the Brahmins have crises of identity & conscience

While others go to college & simply choose their lot in life

L´ENVOI

I have spent more than 5 years in such research, wandering

from the palm-wreathed shores of Ceylon, & then through

the wonderland of the Hindoos, to the glacier-clad heights of

the Himalayan ranges, seeking out the wise men of the east

Evans Wentz

I catch a final sleeper

Neath over-reaching sky

Beyond the pale Narmada

Pull back into Mumbai

I settle on Andheri

To spend my final day

My heart’s roseate duty

Has gone, I hope, OK

I step ‘tween mendicants, oxen,

Fresh stools, strays, tips & crows,

Strange monkeymen, hags, swine & then

A sense of friendship grows,

"One glorious sub-continent,

As complex as a rose!"

DIU

India was the genesis of the spiritual East, & also,

incidentally, the refuge of European intellectuals seeking

escape from their own pattern of life Romila Thapar

Long afore captain Hawkins of Her Majesty's Hektor

Landed in these, the real Indies, prosperous Portugal

Already a part of plots & heated intrigue

Would win a bloody battle off this island

With Zamorin trade & territory at stake

A day still rippling here & roundabout

Being an enclave of western touristry

That peppers India, where I have seen

Wonders enough to last a happy lifetime

& satisfied in Ghandi's nascent state

Having just penned an epistle in his name

With these words I make my from sea-salt

Living lyric lifestyle, while London’s grasping laws

Struggle to admonish me, half a world away

THE ESSENCE OF THE VEDAS

Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to

the seers who founded the Vedas

Wheeler Wilcox

These years I live with changes coincide

As from desperate poverty arose

The Indian giant, & as she grows

The Raj is just red ruins on the ride.

One thing remains unchanging, here< inside

Still resonate those primal Vedic hymns

The spirit of mankind foster’d to guide

Us & shed light on where our knowledge dims

The Upanishads & Puranas keep

A sacred system sound five thousand years

Where Hindoo gods first given form & name

& knowing how long songs can bid us sleep

The ride of my returning reappears

To sonnetize this live, Rigvedan fame.

THE RAJ & THE ROSE

I will lay my bones by the Ganges

that India might know there is one who cares

Alexander Duff

I saw so many miseries

Marvell’d at much beauty too,

All of mankind's categories

Through a single country drew,

What mixture of cacophonies

Climb'd with the morning dew -

Them to mine ears did seem a morning choir,

The chauntings of the children of empire.

My muses blend with India,

O diamond in the crown!

The hag-beggar, the emperor,

The pale-face & the brown,

The gutter-dwellers looking up

The godheads looking down

DEPARTING INDIA

I know it's more five-star now than it was then,

but it's still a difficult tour

Ritchie Benaud

A decade pass’d since that piazza

Where first I flirted with the myrtle muse,

Now knoweth I a new peninsula

Whose galaxy of monuments enthuse

The spiritus, where all Earthly aspects

Have form'd a microcosm of the sphere,

A foundation for when I travel next,

Days of endeavour drawing ever near.

I spend a moment, musing on the wing,

As oer the sea of Araby we sail'd;

Around the Raj was flung a faerie ring

& all it's channel'd poesis regaled,

I have succeeded in my soldiering

Where Ghengiz Khan & Alexander fail'd.

HOMECOMING

I had never imagined in the wildest of my dreams that

young Indians would take over Piccadilly Circus & make me

feel as if I was in Bada Panda, the Grand Trunk Road of Puri.

I ran over to join this devout band of young Indians &

danced with ecstasy all over the Circus & Leicester Square

Joydeep Nayak

At last my gaze is cast oer English skies,

The thrills of one’s homecoming multiply,

Bursting through cloud we claim a poet's prize;

Big Ben...Tower Bridge... & the London Eye.

& I am back, back from my epic tour

Ten rupees all that furnishes my purse,

Scraggly & tann'd I call upon the door

Of compassion & an NHS nurse.

"Well I got shot, I gush´d out dysentry,

Wee mozzy bites became massive bags of puss,

Salmonella, concussion, entwisted knee,

Neuropraxia... Love, just look at us!"

"It's lucky you survived"... I smil’d a smile,

"Dying," said I, "It's never been my style

INDIA

Everyone has his own idea of India

JM Haynes

Nation of nations, hot & happy land!

With spicy dishes morsell'd by the hand

Being a valorous & graceful race,

Thy universal mullet firm in place,

Despite taking three men to stamp a form

& creative corruption Laksmi's norm

A fanatacism for the rupee

Cements this secular society

Of power-cuts & cripples & bazaars

Neath a pristine panapoly of stars,

Of swastikas & cricket in the streets,

Bounteous crops & oversugar'd sweets,

Ashrams soothing riot-torn religion

& always blaze the rays of Asia's sun.

TRANSLATING NALATIYAR

A great thing in my life was going to India

Beatrice Wood

Pendle obscured by fog

Bulging in my pocket

Tamil literature’s priceless Koh-i-noor

Bodyclock revolving Bombay time

Tranquil parkland hiking

Toes & fingers numbing

Tamil texts in Towneley

Ancient Jain gnosis

Thirukkural’s esteem’d sacred sister

Baynan & Margosa

Vital lamps lighting all mortality

Converting quatrains into Kural

Many miles from Madurai

O remarkable poetical sensations!

THE ENGLISH CASTE SYSTEM

What have I gained in England?‛ I knew I had learn’d to wear a collar &

tie, to polish my shoes, to brush my hair & to say ‘thank you’ & ‘I am

sorry’ many times a day< I had learned to be fashionable & to drink as

they drank; in other words I had learned how to worship my body< I

saw far more evils in England than I ever did in India

Bakht Singh

‚Call that Democracy!‛ harangues the hypocritic West<

While a monarch sits sycophantic to her taxpayers

Her beggars sleep in hostels, addicted to all-sorts of bullshit

& skivers, real or blagging, milk the great state cash cow dry

Our primal meat is eating – farmers, chefs & grocers serve us

Then Builders & architects provide the other basic need

& factories manufacture all life’s myriad necessities

Administer’d by penpushers in bright satanic offices

Next are the social cornerstones – doctors, teachers, soldiers

Then life’s little luxuries – reflexologists, film-makers -

Above all these the moneymen bake cakes & hand out crumbs

Above them rule the overlords - judges & parliamentary elect

While hovering over them fossils rotting in the House of Lords

The only difference I can see is about 4,000 miles

MEDITATIONS

A single spirit in a multitude

Sri Aurobindo

The world is changing mate

In the face of fact & feat

Colour-obsession regressing day-by-day

Usain Bolt, Lewis Hamilton - fastest men on the planet

Vishy Anand - chessmaster extraordinairre

& thro sheer will, skill & luck

Obama comes to fend off world oblivion

& all as black as crows

Like a Rosa Parks sit-in or a Martin Luther march

Far from the Dravidian stigma of varna

When Brahmins could slap him for caste & colour

A youthful Dalit doctor suddenly stands & declares

‚Milega Muqaddar! One fine day

I shall be the Prime Minister of India!‛

MY PENELOPE

Ultimately it is the individual that counts

Nehru

Four months have pass’d

Our love’s bulb buried

Whittinghame’s fertile soil

Footprints melt snow

Yours hot with Kalahari

Mine with Goan gold

Gathering firewood

Spring heralds surround us

Parachute snowdrops, rainbow crocuses

Year’s first lonely lamb

Envisioning Sivaratri

Perhaps her prayers answer’d

For love & life renew

With Glenda’s tender kiss!