April Onwards

 Petrified pigeons in a flap

flapping away to safety

as a black kite glides

between our tall buildings,

a rara avis in these parts.

And now the children

Are going to school again

After two years of

Staying home, learning

Virtually, many of them.

I don't know most of them,

The children in our complex,

But today, it was a surprise

To see the little chap

I would meet each morning,

with his father, small,

Shot up, so much taller

But clinging, today,

To his mother's hand.

5th April

Tiny purple sunbird

Perched on the very tip

Of the huge fan palm leaf

A good morning indeed.

7th April

I went for a swim after years,

This morning, after a walk

To the milkbooth

Where I snarked at the booth owner,

because a young woman

Barged straight ahead,

Wanting dosa batter and chutney,

And then said that her kids

Had to go to school, lateness!

I said, a simple 'Excuse me'

At the very least,

Might have helped

I was also annoyed at myself

For being such a khadoos,

But sometimes one has to be.

The water was glorious,

The pool empty, more or less.

And the pigeons delicately

Perched on the edge

Sipping chlorinated water

I hope it doesn't hurt them.

8th April

Chidiyaghar?

Lapwing on the lawn

Sparrows chirping

Bulbul on the bough

Pigeons at the pool

Drinking daintily, but also

Pooping on the poolside.

9th April

Fallen dry champa leaves

From a distance

Birds pecking at the ground

Not soaring away

10th April

Cloudy neem trees

With a halo of tiny flowers

Summer beauty

Soon scattered

On the ground.

21st April

Pool ponderings

The thirsty pigeons drink

Perched on the edge of the pool

Bottoms up has a new meaning!

They poop there too, being pigeons.

My backstroke is haunted

By the thought of pigeons pooping

Mid flight, over the pool.

But they seem to need terra firma

For both input and output.

It's so hot that they cool their feet

In the balcony water bowl,

Shallow enough to feel safe.

It's just too hot to not care

About these creatures.

30th April

Puffed up pigeon

At the edge of the pool.

Many others came

And drank their fill.

This one preened,

Flicking water from its beak

To left and right,

Several times.

Cooling off, perhaps,

Pink feet at the edge

Enjoying the 'waves'

Lapping over, nervous too.

Pigeon sponge bath?

5th May

Tenth Birthday

The little boy is ten today.

A milestone in more ways than one.

This is, thanks to Covid,

His first birthday

Without his father's presence.

Not the only child so bereft, I know,

But it doesn't lessen our grief.

5th May

Low flying lapwing

Gliding over the Expressway

Have you missed your bus?

Are you going to Agra?

Or Mathura, Aligarh, Hathras?

Or a distant sector of my city itself?

The cars grouping for a wedding

Are left far behind, and you,

An unlikely guest!

My childhood triangle

Aligarh, Hathras, Agra:

Both grandfathers and ancestral home,

Place of pilgrimage too.

An oft repeated threesome...

The pilgrimage is much overdue.

I hope you reached your destination

safely, lapwing. Traffic can be hazardous.

15th May

Heatwave

I keep filling

The balcony water bowl

For the pigeons, and the

occasional sparrow, or squirrel,

in this extreme summer heat.

Yesterday afternoon was distressing:

A dead pigeon lay

On top of the window ledge, a floor below.

I couldn't bear to look at it again,

And watered the plants in the evening

With eyes averted, sadness within.

This morning, though,

There was no evidence

Of yesterday's tragedy.

Did a kite dispose of the pigeon,

Or did a cat?

Or did the wind blow it down

To the gardens below?

Or did its fellow pigeons

Fly off with it somewhere,

An avian cortege?

Perhaps it hadn't died after all,

A happy thought, but unlikely.

(It had looked completely dead).

One of life's many mysteries.

16th May

A magical evening. A neighbour singing on his front porch, microphone, amplifiers and all. Folding chairs, neighbours and passersby listening. A small girl whirling and twirling to the music. The sheer perfection of time and place. Pure magic.

30th May ( Memorial Day weekend, USA)

The elephant in the porch

Seemed quite unlikely

In a suburban home in the US.

Not a live elephant, of course,

But a statue of one,

The biggish statue you might see

In a state emporium.

I came up closer

With trusty camera phone

And clicked.

Not an elephant at all,

But a grey-brown covered

Thing

Perhaps a barbecue grill,

Or a motorcycle.

Homesick? No.

Just a desi who sees

Elephants where none exist.

3rd June

Impending departure

Packing up a month of memories

Of wonderful times

With children and grandchildren

And the cat,

a character in his own right

With his propensity to bite

My ankles. Pesky beautiful cat.

Our own lives beckon, across the globe...

Memories of cuddles and bubbles

Books and toys, walks and games

Car seats, and songs, both contemporary

And ancient ones from my childhood.

Will the little ones miss us?

We have to pack today,

Material goods, ours,

And things

For our other children

in another part of the world.

Our memories are already packed,

So why am I crying?

16th June

Father's Day 2022

This morning I woke up,

Jet and holiday lagged

To the realization that

I had completely forgotten

My father's death anniversary

Earlier this month.

I was in a time warp

At my son's home,

Cherishing each moment

With him and his family.

The grandchildren were the focus

of much of our attention,

And dates didn't really register.

And yet, not a day passed

When I did not remember my father.

I saw him in my son's balding pate,

In his tenderness towards his children,

And towards us, his parents,

Nurturing us with his care

And concern for both of us,

Sharing the sense of privilege

We had in being together

After so very very long.

Happy Father's Day, Anand Vivek Taneja

Seven years later...

 It's been seven years since she left us so suddenly.

When I think of her, I think of this beautiful song, Gori tore nain, kajar bin kaare kaare kaare

She had beautiful dark eyes and eyelashes, and never used kajal (kohl). She never needed to.

And this was something I noticed perhaps the very last time I met her, after knowing her my entire life.

I am so glad I went with her that time to see the flowers blooming in her garden.

I am so glad we had that brief period of living in the same city.

I am so glad we were back from our road trip to Amritsar, barely a week before she left us.

I am so glad she was able to come to Kolkata as often as I needed her to, despite her own health issues, to help take care of our parents when they were ailing.

I am glad that after she left us, I could take her precious gift to our sister-in-law in England.

I am glad she was not here to witness the devastating loss of her son last May, when Covid's malevolent second wave wreaked havoc in so many homes.

I am glad that I have wonderful memories of this immensely talented and determined person, who cut and sewed a beautiful frock for me when she was barely twelve. She was the one who plaited my hair, who read to me cuddled up in our brother's bed, when he was away at college. She taught me so much. We argued and we quarrelled, we loved, we hated. I was jealous of her privileges, she was jealous of the pampering she thought I got, as the youngest child, and of my shapely finger nails. She was immensely hard-working. She had beautiful hand writing, and would send beautiful cards for every birthday and anniversary. She sewed baby clothes for my children. She was immensely generous.

Where do I begin, and where do I end, dear sister?

When you left, you took away my childhood, our childhood.

There's no one left who shared it with me...

March Musings

 2nd March, 2022

The morning held

some more magic.

A labrador and an alsatian

at the cricket pitch

Catching practice.

7th March

Eye Contact

The white pigeon

Perched outside

the guest room window

Flutters nervously

As it sees me

Looking at it,

(Yes, we make eye contact

Through the glass)

And is ready to take off.

Until I go about my business

And it settles down again.

I remember holding

my infant granddaughter

Some years ago,

As she drank milk

From her feeding bottle,

Looking at me with big round eyes

But no longer sucking

(And crying too)

the minute I looked at her.

Strange creatures,

Birds and babies.

12th March

The utter stupidity

Of looking, in vain,

for a rich blue

Kanjeevaram saree

In your cupboard

All winter,

And realizing, today,

That it had always been

Hanging there

With the maroon palla

On the outer, visible side!

14th March

My printer hadn't been

taking up paper to print on :

much coercion, persuasion, even smacks

had to be used, single sheet by single sheet,

for the past couple of years.

frustrating in the extreme.

Yesterday, it just refused

to swallow even a single sheet of paper.

Nothing worked, none of my usual bag of tricks.

We thought of replacing it,

scroogy me wanting the ink cartridges

to get over first.

The spouse looked, online, at new models

and also found an authorized service centre

at the other end of our town, which option

we decided to explore today.

They delivered it home for us,

pristine, looking brand new,

and running like a dream.

It had been trying to tell us,

for so long, that it was unwell

and needed to go to Printer Hospital,

and have some money spent on its well being.

I guess everything and everybody

needs tender loving care.

16th March

Did you know

That pigeons can

Tell the time?

I water my plants

Each morning

At around 7.20,

After filling our

Drinking and cooking

water, from the RO supply

Which is what my plants

Thrive on.

The pigeons mutter

And splutter, impatient,

Waiting to drink

From the pots,

Once I'm done watering.

It almost seems as if

They are telling me

To hurry up and leave

So they can drink their fill.

17th March

I drove past your home

Yesterday, dear brother,

And fought down the urge

To stop, to enter the gate,

And ask the guard,

Mehra Sahib hain?

Knowing fully well

That you were not there

Not up those stairs,

Not there to call me Betey.

And neither was

my dear bhabhi,

Who would offer me

Narangi chutney

Made from narangis

From the tree they had planted

In the common garden

So many years ago.

Both of you together now,

This past year,

Still so sorely missed...

19th March

Afterwards

The detritus of Holi

And a little bit of magic too.

The elderly gentlemen

exercise together every morning

In the colony garden

And then sit on the benches

and chat for a while

Perhaps the best part of their day.

I walk around, on the path,

and a song wafts my way

One of the gentlemen is singing

Beautifully, tunefully, a Hori

A Barsaney ki Hori.

Happiness.

29th March

A hard fought battle

With the suitcases

( the old, hard ones)

In which our woollens

Have finally been stored

Till next winter,

When the entire circus

Will happen again.

I know I bought

A few cardigans

And pullovers last year,

Making it a huge fight

To close the suitcases!

I did win, though.

(Some old woollens

were too ratty to wear

And will definitely

Be given away

Before the next cold season).

For now, though, no guilt

Only triumph

At having completed, once more,

This daunting task.

North Indian seasons,

You are both joy and pain.

Can't have one

Without the other.

You teach me philosophy!

30th March

Petrified pigeons in a flap

flapping away to safety

as a black kite glides

between our tall buildings,

a rara avis in these parts.

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More Prose Poems

The doorbell rang

The courier handed

Me a packet, a book

And I thought that

It was the book in which

I have a story and a poem

And I reach the kitchen

And cut it open

To find a book

That the husband had

Ordered for himself.

My monkey mind

Had jumped so far ahead

Of actual reality

I was, in my head,

Posting a photograph

Of myself with the book.

Sorry folks, you'll

Have to wait a bit longer!

3rd February, 2022

I cannot, in good conscience,

Listen to Rolf Harris any more,

Or to the Gundecha brothers,

(Although their Jhini Jhini was sublime).

I also cannot stop the spouse

From buying a book by a certified creep

Who, I am so glad to say,

Lost the defamation case

He had slapped on the woman

Who accused him of molestation.

The spouse was reading the book

In the car, and fell asleep, snoring.

The book lay face down on the seat,

Infringing upon my space,

While I shrank away from it,

Distressed by the presence in my life

Of that ugly, beastly, name.

We didn't meet Vishakha this evening

(Her husband was one of our teatime guests)

But used her name to educate the spouse

on the guidelines of the same name.

The second set of visitors

Included my staunchly feminist niece

So the spouse was further educated

On the 'Me too' movement as well as

The creepiness of yesterday's author,

And other famous folks

Now infamous for their lechery.

Waiting for him to bury that book now!

4th February, 2022

Pre-dawn this morning

I hear the mellifluous notes

Of a magpie robin

Piercing the silence, briefly.

Then silence again.

Did it go back to sleep,

To snooze until dawn?

9th February, 2022

Treasure Hunt

For the past few days

The spouse has been

Missing a book which

Was on his bedside table

An unspecified while ago.

It was a book of Hindi poetry

A paperback, with a green cover.

Poet unknown, name of the book

Also unknown.

I say 'missing a book' deliberately

Because looking for a book

Seems to be too tough a task

For one whose mind is almost

Always preoccupied

I was willing to look, no easy task

In a house as privileged as ours

With many books in many shelves

Often in double rows.

I needed more clues.

The spouse had a photograph

On his phone, of a page

From this book.

Perhaps the font would help.

(How, I wondered, could it?)

He had shared this photograph

Of a poem with a friend,

Who wanted to know

the name of the poet,

Hence the need for the book.

And then, he saw that the photograph

Showed a strip of the adjoining page,

The edges of English words.

Eureka! This is one of

Javed Akhtar's books

Transcribed and translated

Into Hindi and English,

That much I remembered.

I thought it was Tarkash.

Into his study, into the cupboard

Where the overflow of his books

Is stashed, and I spot

The mustard spine, no green anywhere,

Of a book called

In Other Words, by Javed Akhtar.

(Hindi on the left hand page,

English on the right).

I hand it to the spouse.

Happy Valentine's day!

14th February, 2022

Random Recent Writings

1st February, 2022

Today I morphed into a gyaani

Publicly offering wisdom

to the young man in the bank

Young man with a maroon knitted cap

Who just had to get a cheque 'received'.

He tried jumping the queue

But the counter clerk told him

To join the line like everyone else.

The two customers before me

Had time-consuming dealings

And this young man, just behind me

Was grumbling away,

about how useless and

terrible this bank was.

With all the kindness (and patience)

That I could summon up,

Overcoming my natural diffidence

I spoke to him, telling him gently

That today is the first of the month

A busy day for bankers,

And if you are in a place

Where you have to wait for a while

Curb your irritation, and use it well

Think good thoughts, remember God,

If you happen to believe,

And do not let your mind

Be agitated and restless.

He listened, perhaps stunned

By this strange, masked woman,

And said that he believed

In his Thakurji.

I then spent half a minute

At the counter,

Getting two cheques 'received'

And left, exchanging with him

A warm and friendly smile.

I sometimes surprise myself!

21st January, 2022

When there's not enough

leftover rice to put away

or to give away,

and which you don't want

to throw away

the pigeons come to mind

as avian waste disposal

Put it on the outer edge

of the balcony railing

Whitey comes along

with a lean and hungry look

This winter has been a harsh one

others follow,

and you find yourself

reaching for a stale roti too,

wondering if you are being a fool

inviting the pestiferous pigeons

into your territory.

The squirrel comes along too,

foraging, charming,

as desi squirrels are.

A quick look in the fridge

finds a forgotten lump of paneer,

stale and smelly.

You break it into pieces, and leave it out

and wonder if it will be eaten

The squirrel sits there quietly

whiskers aquiver, while 'suspigeons' wonder

if this white stuff is food or not.

You come back after a while, and its all gone,

as are the squirrel and the pigeons.

16th January, 2022

The spouse sometimes has

Two hardboiled eggs

For breakfast, or dinner.

I knock them together

To shell them, and have observed that

The egg in my left hand always cracks,

Is the 'hittee', to coin a term

While the one in the right hand

Remains whole, the hitter,

Till I crack it on the worktop.

Is this a metaphor for life?

Hittee and hitter are both

Sliced,salted, peppered

Consumed.

12th January, 2022

In the cold of winter

In the midst of the gloom

The limes are ripening

As new flowers bloom

Many leaves are browning

There is much decay

But there's the promise that spring

Isn't too far away

#hope

3rd January, 2022

The sickness and rot

Spreading like a cancer

Through minds that know

No grace, no love

A cancer fostered by

Impunity pumped within

This sick system

Dehumanizing all

But the few they consider

Worthy of survival

In mera Bharat mahaan

Excluding many

Targeting minorities

The underprivileged

Underdogs, who ache

To survive with respect

Just a modicum of it,

As human beings

As equal citizens

In a country that belongs

To us all.

My heart aches

At the rot, seemingly

Untreatable.

Please prove me wrong.

Book Review: Write in Power: An Anthology of the Personal and the Political

 I bought Write in Power: An Anthology of the Personal and the Political in October 2021, after watching the beautiful webinar organised for its launch. It was a book I simply had to read, also because I had recently read Vijaylakhmi Harish's brilliant book, Strangely Familiar Tales.

When I browsed through the index, once I had the book, I was pleased to see some familiar names, of women I 'knew' on Facebook, Srishtaa Aparna Pallavi, Hema Gopinathan Sah, Anjali G. Sharma, (whom I have had the pleasure of meeting). Their poems are powerful and hard-hitting.  I quote from Hema's poem,  A Prayer For/To Everywoman:

There was a body I was born with, this body, though, I have earned.                                                         

I am not pretty. I am beautiful.

In another powerful poem, she writes

Do not insult these hands that wear bangles.                                                                                              

Upon them you are held.

It is hard to do justice to this book without writing about each and every chapter. Let me mention a few themes off the top of my head: a voluntarily child-free woman ponders the impending loss of her uterus, in a chapter that is both moving and hilarious. A visually impaired woman recalls the agony that was her schooling. A neighbour attends a memorial service at the home of an elderly mashima who seems deeply unloved and unmourned by her family. An accidentally pregnant woman is brow-beaten by several gynaecologists who disagree with her request for an abortion. A widowed mother goes to buy gold jewellery for her daughter's wedding, in a chapter that speaks volumes about the treatment and status of widows even today. A woman whose husband's criminal activities endanger her life and well being. A Dalit woman's agony at the death of her auto-rickshaw driver father's death. A member of the minority community decides to emigrate, sacrificing all his childhood dreams and aspirations. A community where young girls fake possession as Devis. A girl is fat-shamed by her so-called well-wishers. The difficulties of coming out as queer, not just to family and friends. The beautiful chapter called Meditative Monsoon Recipes for Healing Chronically Ill Queers. There is much much more, as well as powerful poetry, wonderful art.

It is a book that shakes you out of ignorance and complacence. It is an education in empathy, brilliantly and beautifully written, curated, and edited. I conclude with an excerpt from the editorial team:

The Hidden Pen Collective seeks to amplify writings from South Asia, from the margins imposed by caste, class, gender, race, religion, and sexuality. For aeons, our stories have been set aside, our voices have been silenced, and we find in the 21st century that we are still struggling to be heard.   In this compelling anthology of fictional and non-fictional prose, poems, and art, we present the writings of twenty-four writers and artists from an inclusive spectrum of human experience. These perspectives speak to the intersections of the personal and the political creating a space for discussion and change. We find our power in our traditions, or by breaking those traditions. We look outwards for love and acceptance, or to our own selves because we are all we have. Our stories - rebellious, accommodating, loving, suffering, defeated and in victory - declare our essential power.