Ennamo Vagaiyay Varuguthu Maane

"Three minutes." our tour agent was pretty straightforward, looking at me in between counting the people hurrying into the bus. "You'll have to ask a hotel or something, or do it on the side of the road."  Public toilets are not a thing in this part of the world, and at -2 degrees centigrade in the middle of a mini blizzard, I wasn't about to complain.  Manali is perhaps the most lively town in the Beas river valley. The buses that brought us from Bhuntar were too wide for the city streets leading to our hotel on Mall Road. We had to get down outside the city and transfer to these small 10-seater vans. Hurrying through the snow, I made my way into the parking lot of a hotel. Hotel Neelam . The area was slippery from all the water and hailstones. I carefully tied my new hiking shoes, which I had gotten for cheap from Kasol, and gently walked inside. 'Sa'ab, may I use your restroom? '  He motioned to the door. Without saying thank you, I rushed to ...

 He took out his grey earpods and stuck them in, deep. He was now seated in the train, in a car that by its looks seems to have been coupled onto the others ages ago and repeatedly dragged from each end, back and forth, for hundreds of miles, every day. The unreserved cars on the Intercity were packed with people as usual, but fortunately, no one could be seen standing anywhere and a few of the three-seater chairs had only two occupants. He could eventually find a seat, and retired to his favourite music. Indian classical. Not many people are into that. Especially not people his age.     The train hesitated to leave Trivandrum Central. It was already two minutes past five-thirty and the crowd was not in the mood for a languid, laidback journey. Youths, probably here because one of their friends' sister got married, stood in the vestibule after realising how late they had arrived to secure a seat. The crowd clears after Kollam, someone consoled them. Proud government ...

The old man took his umbrella, turned around and walked away. The boy looked on at the figure hurrying somewhere in the rain and thought a hundred things. They were light years away from one another when they met and now they were moving yet many tens of meters away, the boy thought. Their lights, propagating through the ocean of lives, met for a brief instant, likely never to meet again. But what is separation? Many tens, hundreds of meters, light years the man must now have walked. He felt he himself had walked that walk once, in another life, another time, another pocket of reality. The rain fell on their earth incessantly, washing away the last starlight of a conversation. The boy then recalled how their meeting had begun. The man wanted to board a bus and he had to tell him that there was no stop anywhere nearby. A taxi, too, was impossible to come across. He told him as well as he could the way to the nearest stop. The man then sat and undid his satin black umbrella, coercing the...

One may think of this as a continuation of my earlier poem, When the sparrows learned to sing again . He stands in the way of a King. The gulmohar, a foot thick, towering-tall, has promised to speak to us today. Does he want to hear? "Fie," he cries. "Begone, I would hear no such thing, for what does the gulmohar know of the mountains, or the sea, Or the cold that descends unto one in the hills here east." "The tree is no scholar," I say, "but it is to you that he cries. Unto you he calls, confesses; unto you does he bring words of great meditations." He obliges. "What is spring to the land of the axe-wielder?" The gulmohar is enraged. "I spit at your seasons, the four creations of your masters. Here, there is only rain, and no rain. The river is a quiet one, but today, she cannot but tell her children, the waterfowl, of the Malabari spring. There are two, one comes and goes, leaving the laburnums a golden yellow. The second comes ...

Why go if you know what lies beyond? Come, come, come to the shade of the white sky and the canopy. Come, for beside us, rivers run from the mountains into the sea. The water sees us, it wishes us well.  Not a sound does the river make that we do not hear. The canopy is quiet, fear not, it does not have a single secret. Why must you hear everything? I ask. He simply must. To not hear is to go. To go though he knows what lies beyond. To not hear is to leave the shade of the white sky and the canopy, he scoffs. Stay, I say, and hear. These boughs have no stories to tell. The river only wishes and wails. The birds are quiet; They would speak any other day. Only I speak today. And only you hear. ---- I have spoken. You have heard and have solemnly ignored the canopy, the rivers, and the birds. What have you learned? The windows have opened, he says. The windows have opened, and beauty has itself incarnated in your words. Crossing these banks, innumerable sparrows have come and perched ...

Being inside for the past two weeks on account of the COVID-19 outbreak picking up steam in my part of the world, I learned some things I never could straying outside. Among these is the beauty of the world seen from a window. Writing this poem, which is my first one in years, I was reminded of Mirza Ghalib's famous ghazal bazicha-e-atfal   hai duniya mere aage . bazicha-e-atfal hai duniya mere aage hota hai shab-o-roz tamasha mere aage ... go hath ko jumbishen nahin, aankhon mein to dam hai rehne do abhi saghar-o-mina mere aage (My translation, with some of my own poetic elements. I invite Urdu native speakers to correct me.) The world to me is a playground of little children. Night comes, and then day, and their play comes about. My hands are lifeless, but in my eyes, there is a little breath. Leave me be, let the glass and wine come about me. -------- Spring has brought the flowers to bloom, but there is nobody to see them. Outside, a sultry rain has ...