How alone am I

With a dishWith sweets, candle and vermillion,To show light to,To put sweets into the mouthAnd to impress a red spotOn the foreheadAnd to touch my feetAnd the brother givingA token sum of moneyTo her fasting sister,Waiting to tie onAfter a bathAnd having tied the rakhi,She will take food.My dear brother, you forget her notIn futureWhen…

Just think before saying, what are youAnd say to simplyAs my love your love,Your love my love.

Of yoursLie I hereinStandingUnder the clouded skiesThe fair moonHiding under the patches of clouds.

They are not gipsies,The nomadic people,But the Mesopotamian people,The same historic descendantsOf Sumer, Assyria and Babylonian people,The sun-worshippers, the fire-worshippers,The light-burners, the flower-offerers,The Yezidis,The Yezidis of Iraq!

People waiting to enterThe Great Temple.For a darshan,PranamTo Jagannath,The Natha of the Jagata.The Lord of the World,VishnuThe PreserverThe small-small puppet-likeGods ogling beautifully.It’s a dawn-break,The dawn-time,The sun glistening, glowing,Focusing with the frail light.

The big catWith the coat of furSpotted withSpotsReddish brown to black.The jaguar,JaguarWith the broad headAnd sharp jawsAnd the spotsReddish brown to blackOf the jaguar.

That I writeAnd want to be a poetAnd he too saying itThat he is a poet.My God, in a poet’s corner, lie I pushed in,One poet praising another,One saying about oneself a poet,One praising anotherIn mutual admiration.Their faces and moods fear I,What they take into,What they think,What they feel in,My God, let me slip and…

Forgetting the Indian connections,Indo-English, Indo-Portuguesewith a cigarette burning into the handsAnd the alcohol of the alcoholic into the other.

Passing and pausingWhen signaled,Letting the route trainsPass by,Glide and slideWith the giddy imagesHurrying pastIn a huffAnd the freight trains waiting,Waiting for the signalTo green,The red light to turn greenAnd to be allowed,Allowed to goWith the cargoes,Wagons hurtling,Hurtling,Dragged and pulledAnd going.They stop it not,Keep it,Keep it going,Going and hurtling,Hurtling alongWith the cargoes of loads,Wagons full withOr…

And topplingCities and townsWith lashing rainfall,Gale windsSo terribly,So horriblyJust like a nomadic horde!

Setting poems to music and wordAs per sound scheme and letters lilting?The poet a song-writerSinging the songs of life,Songs so lyrical and touching,Striking the heart.

You shunned and abandonedYour daughterDinaThe daughter fromRuttie PetitAnd this muchYou could not compromise,JinnahJust for your lovely daughter,Jinnah,This much tooYou could not compromise with,JinnahAs how fanatical and biasedAnd prejudicedHad you been, JinnahNarrow and small-mindedCompromising not with his own daughter.