http://scribbler.co/r/582a97ec0bff651419aa40a4/ts-cityscapes-%5Bdelhi%5D-it-comes-and-goes
(January, 2016)
Month: December 2016
दरमियान
तुम्हारा न होना
तुम्हारा ज़मीन पर न होना
हवाई-जहाज़ निढाल सा
झुक पड़ा है किसी अनजान शहर के ऊपर
घर सड़क टाइम ज़ोन्स का जिस्मानी अनुभव
कैसे हो? मैं ठीक। और तुम?
बस, फिलहाल सारे समझौते
तिरते हुए नज़र आ रहे हैं
भूरी मिटटी के बीच अटल बन जाऊँ
फिर प्यार करें?
बिलाशक। बिलाशक।
(for Jaideep)
it doesn’t matter when it returns
it doesn’t matter when it returns
like a four-year old on his tricycle
pedaling round and round your first floor landing till you grow dizzy
watching those white pupils spin
(you haven’t communed with a vision this bright in years)
when it returns with the unnecessity of those large eyes
and their swift, importunate charm
– it doesn’t matter.
when you feel its risk graze your knees
and turn your toes away from the tomorrows that were
its hardiness holds the thick promise of appearing every time
you crack the door open at that afternoon play hour
tell yourself:
you cannot let it matter.
when all that is prehensile in the affections rises, haloed
by a blurry winter sun – nourished, glowing, rudely happy,
and asks you if it does not indeed…?
learn, then.
know, then
how not to catechize your full pulsing orbits.
linear narratives
“Let me tell you what I bought,” he says.
“Frozen rotis that you can make
on a tava. Turkish yoghurt (10% cream)
so thick you can eat it with a fork.”
I picture a lifted fork with creamy white
tines. There are no fingers.
“A CFL so my bills come down a little.”
An affectionate grin. “Lime marmalade
– bright green – peach slices in a tin.”
And there goes summer
as it did in story books: a brief dazzle
of colour and food and packaging
and names that hover without a fit.
“Cherry tomatoes. Colgate total.”
He finishes the second portion
of a grocery list ordered by a
logic I cannot know. The last lap now.
“A loaf of bread, a litre of milk,”
– I can sense the pace quickening,
does he think I’ll feel impatient? –
true, my eyes glaze over a little
but that is only the halting awareness
of an entire home and its provisions
for the future, just for him to plan;
“a dozen of eggs, a kilo of potatoes,
a small tin of pate, and a bottle of shampoo.”
– end -. He catches his breath.
I cast around for words.
Between the fact of the list
and his saying of it,
somewhere among the spreading shingles
of our nights
is a truth to be found,
to be held with all ten fingers.
(June 21, ’16)
sthiraislostinamaze.wordpress.com 