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