Tumhe Dekh Jo Eisa Lagaa

Seeing the older albums,The old house where I used to live,The river ghatWhere I had burnt my father,The lonely backyard of my houseWhere I burnt my mother.The older things bring outReminiscences and memories,Refreshing themWith a mere sighting of these,Older faces and acquaintances,Older houses and places of meetings.Older books and Ph.D. theses olderCan also bring aboutMemories…

Rustic jesters or courtly bards.

Do you love me,Do you love meTouching the cheeksAnd the nose?Pulling the cheeksAnd caressing the hair,Trying to appease you,I want to ask you,Do you love, love me?

Of politics and time,Marked he, felt heWhat it wentIn the making of the nation.The plots and trickery of politicsHe felt itWhen it was being hatched,He heard it from the whispersOf the wind, the walls,From the motherly womb as Saleem Sinai,The rest you can feel it yourself,Need not explain it.As a midnight children, he saw it…

And the silence sufferingWhich I have borne,Undergone,As there is noneWho has supported meIn India,Everybody has just triedTo suppress me,Sidetrack me.Be they the academiciansOr editorsOr politicians,But the embers,The fires and flames of itCan never be,Never beWhatever do theyOr is it in their withinTo keep it extinguished.

Light sparkling itBeneath.O, come you and go seeingThe face,The Face Divine,The Magnificent Face Divine of Hers,Mother in a strange mood of Her Own!O, you go seeing the Dark Maiden,The Maid Divine,The Leg Divine of Hers,Light sparkling beneath,Lighting Divine!The Dark Divine in a mood of Her Own,Yea, the Dark Divine,Grand and huge,Magnificent and grandiloquent,Weird and grotesque…