ASSOCIATIONS
 
The fading sun
mixes up the blue and white
with red
and splashes the electric combination across
the dark-grey of the lonely sky
 
hues natural and bold
modulating strokes and lines
like heaving tattoos on a maiden’s chest
 
the masterly juxtaposition
starkly reminds the lonesome terrace-viewer
of Monet
in a deserted museum near the Paris Mall
 
simultaneously
the self-same sky and its varied colours
make him hear an old strain
of the Blues
 
once heard
by a rapt audience
in the Harlem of the 1960s
 
then imported of New Delhi of the 1980s.

  
POST-INDUSTRIAL COMMUNICATION
 
All the social life compressed
into a clutch of apps only
 
controlling every thought and action
of the culture fixated on gadgets and virtual spaces
but frightened of the real-time realties
 
the smart-phone---
real heart of the mass society
 
the new device
exalted as the latest deity
 
displacing the attic gods
with new mythologies.

 
NIGHTLY CROWS AND SOME MYTHS
 
The crows caw
at 1 am
 
on this stormy Mumbai night
with thunder and lightening
popping up frequently
in the background
as they do in a horror flick
repeated on the TV for the
ones seeking thrills in the
beyond of the physical life
 
the crude call rises up
consistently like some
 
broken notes of a symphony
no longer in circulation in a hungry market
 
the crows
some place
 
wake up a solitary figure in a sleepy house
off the main road, near the sea
 
scared by the harsh sounds
that continue for half an hour and then stop suddenly
 
the listener shudders as if re-reading Poe in an empty theatre-hall
minus the macabre-lusting spectators.
 
Is death around?
Is it visiting the neighbourhood?
 
Some sounds
Mid-night hours
Can be s-o-o e-e-rie!

 
 LANDSCAPES
 
In each petal-stalk
on this blessed spot
 
i see the imprints
of the Olympians
 
the scent and presence take me back
to the early dawn of the Greek civilization
 
where i mingle with the heroes and divinity
in alleys, lanes outside ramparts
 
and see Homer talking war
and Sappho---of love and nurturing!
 
Oh, Athens!
Oh, Lesvos!
So close, yet so afar
 
Each pathway there
of the ancient Greece
 
each bower trod by the gods
so heady a concoction this---
earth sky ocean fused
in a single instance!
so many possibilities
mortal.

  
IN THE COLD
 
A pigeon perched on the cable
Shrunk within its grey feathers
Head bent inside the underbelly
To beat the cold draughts.
 
It is 10 am and 10- degree Celsius.
 
A man, grey stubble, head bent, sits hunched
On the tiled pavement in the Connaught Place
In a sun that hardly warms the air
He clutches a torn quilt around shrunk shoulders
Blankly stares at the high-rises and frenzied vehicles.
Both--- pathetic figures
Un-cared!
Welcome dear disenfranchised to Delhi of the Moguls
The constant Indian power centre.