TWO NARMADA POEMS

(I) Karnali Dec 2008

Though there isn’t much river here
I find my way
Out of the thatched sheds
Which cover the river bank
Dodging

The nauseating leftovers
Of death’s ritual dinner
Broken earthen pots
Shocking heaps of hair
Of shaved mourners
Women’s undergarments
With no women in them

No, I haven’t come here
To submerse my ashes
I am not completely cremated yet

Most of it is pale xanthous sand

This dried up river resembles
An old decrepit Hindu beggar woman
At the emigrations counter
She scrutinize my papers
For forgery
I have nothing to declare
Except my innings

You can’t cross borders
With your poems
She says

But I am a translator
I protest

You son of a bitch
She says with a toothless grin
And sparkle in her eyes
As she tears up my tourist visa
Into shreds

You bloody son of a bitch





(II)
Chandod
(For Dayaram 1777-1853)

It is over
Before I can make out anything
This small walk in the forest
Ends with an ambush
Of aliens
A mob of a million temples
Attack me
With their ugly whitewashed faces
Uglier than the whitewashed faith
That spawned them

I lost faith
Long time before
I lost my virginity
I don’t think I will recover
Either

I am taken
To the birth place of a medieval Gujarati saint-poet
It is an ill lit square room
With the poet’s poems and information
In the notice boards on the walls
It looks like an elementary school
In the village
The place where God’s most unpoetic creations are born
Is equally prosaic

The phrase `saint poet’ loiters aimlessly in my head
It is an oxymoron
Ambidextrous and androgynous
Every saint has a past
And every sinner has a future they say
But poets have neither

I chance upon a poem titled
` Love’s Satire’
In English translation
On the notice board

Got it pal I say
Got it
We have been doing it since ages


(4 December 2008)