Hungry Hands

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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

O Sir, in your big black car.

Why don't you roll down the window?

Let the air-conditioner rest for some time.

It's hot and dry outside, but isn't it beautiful too?


O Sir, we know your boots are expensive.

You wouldn't want to step on our dirty dusty land.

But you too must have run barefoot once upon a time

Before you became so rich, so grand!


Don't scrunch your nose like that, dear Sir.

Our faces aren't as pretty as your children's are.

We too don't like these bellies of ours, the way they stick out.

Mother doesn't wash us everyday, no water in the house.


Yes, come here, the view is perfect.

Look at that parched soil there,

This is where our green fields used to be.

Look at that well over there.

No need to peep in, it's now empty.

And there far away among the bushes is where

Our father was found hanging on a tree.

He left us hungry.


Now, they tell us stories with you as the hero

Who would bring us food in his magic bag.

But we see your hands are empty, and your eyes are cold.

You have no roti for us, you only have lots of gold.

And though they say that you have promised you will make our lives good

We won't tug at your clean white shirt to beg you for food.


We have mud in our hands, and it tastes like grain.

You won't like to try it, so you won't know.

But we will lick it off our palms like we do everyday, and have our fill.

And we'll let you go.

We'll let you go.


http://www.hindustantimes.com/Mud-for-meals-SC-damns-UP/Article1-549540.aspx

Show Me The Way

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With baby eyes I would look at you with awe,

With baby hands I would hold on to your Superman ones,

With baby steps I would follow you and no other

man, my Papa, my perfect father.


Well, although your daughter has grown up now and does not live with

the illusion of you as the 'ideal' Pa anymore.

Although your arms so strong once upon a time, do not seem that strong anymore.

And that smile that used to be so winsome

fails to hide your wrongs anymore.

Although I can see your mouth eaten up with tobacco,

Papa, you still are the only hero I know.


I have seen you solve my Math problems.

I have seen people revere you at work.

I have been known as your daughter.

I have admired the way you remember the way to all places in the city! And

the way you drive on busy roads and

the way you can calm down angry people and

the way you handle all crises and

the way you clear all my queries with the logic that only fathers have and…

I know you are great.

But now I know, not invincible.


When I used to read tales of valiant warriors, I would think of you.

But then I read the tale of a sarpanch of a village far away.

I read of his greatness, of the power he possessed in the palm of his hands.

And I read of the disease that crippled those hands, twisted his fingers

so that he could hold on to power no more and there was nothing that he could do.

And Papa, I thought of you.

I thought of you…

You too have that disease, don't you?


Hands tell me that they won't be able to forever

hold my universe together.

And that they would someday not be able

to grip the steering wheel of my life.

And that there would come a day when I would have to hold them

they would be so weak.

Greatness too, can get deformed, misshaped, distorted-and crippled,

is what hands speak.

How will I survive?.

I have tried to defeat you. I have tried to make you known as my father.

At times I have succeeded but through words unspoken

I have known that you have supported me even when

I have rivaled you. Because you were always for me, never against.

How will I survive?


Maybe I will always be your baby girl.

Dependant, love-hungry, lost, awed by your magic and a follower of your footsteps.

Maybe when life would intimidate,

suffocate and menace me,

I would come back to you and ask you to change

my disillusionment to clarity, my confusions to certainty.


No matter how weak we are, we will never lose the strength of wisdom, hands tell me.

No matter how crippled we are, we will still guide you in the right direction, they say.

Very well then, I might as well never grow up, because whenever your bitiya would lose track in her life,

Her Papa's hands would show her the way.



Land

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The marks of her tears are

etched permanently on her pretty cheeks.

Her beautiful lips seduce

even when she shrieks.

Her desperate cries go on and on.

Her voice is now hoarse.

She begs us to stop but

ends up provoking us even more.


We rape her

And watch her bleed

Beauty itself invites destruction

So isn't she responsible for our deeds?


She flails her arms.

She screams.

She tries to fight.

She cannot challenge our iron might.


There will come a time when everyone will know, she says.

We slap her across her rose-tinted face.

Everyone already knows, but there is no one to fear

because everyone is an animal out here!


Someday she will fall silent forever

after cursing and begging in vain.

And although we would be the murderers of her flawlessness,

do you think we would bow down our heads in shame?


We wouldn't mind pressing, for one more time

her dead woman's arms under our iron hands.

And then raping for the last time, her dead woman's wealth.

She is, after all, only a piece of land.

[To Kashmir]

THE HONOUR OF KILLING

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

She came all alone
To that solitary place
Where he used to sit
And looked at the village
Nestled against the mountainside.



She looked at him
He looked at her
They never shared words
But camaraderie herds.




The cerebral view
Did not exist
Born with a new feeling
Of an undecided and unheard mist.



They walked along the slippery sidewalks
And gazed at the river
Still no need for words
Where their hearts had become a mirror.


Away from the brutal land
That marks its scents of sabotage
Away from the monsters and culminate
A new feeling.



Before THEY took him
He only said


SHE IS NOT OF MY CASTE
SO SHE CAN’T BE WITH ME
DEATH CANNOT BE BESTOWED UPON HER
SHE IS NOT OF MY CASTE
SO SHE CAN’T DIE WITH ME
HEAVEN OR HELL
WE SHALL NOT BE TOGETHER.

The story dies..

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Monday, August 16, 2010




As I feel the embossed void on the sheets of my life..
I close my eyes ..For there is nothing in here to see..

As my fingers touch the paper.. The ink smears across ..
Each letter losing form.. With nothing left to read..

Some music.. Melancholy tunes..
Some omen.. Some distorted sand dunes..
And then a storm of ice cold passions..
Over powers my land..Tearing off each leaf .. Coldly..

Pieces of paper.. Now run off haywire..
Flustering in panic.. Some last attempts to hold on to the binding..

The anxious hope of a lost writer..
In vain wait of the promised reader…

Like a long abandoned shore..
Of a weed poisoned ocean..
Who still fights the waves of venom..

And holds on to the few footsteps..
Of a traveler who never walked upon…

So the sand sit stills..
Rotting under the suns..
Wishing and hoping.. For a pair of hands..
For new castles to be built..
For new prints to savior..
Yet the sun’s too strong.. And waves full of poison…

And now the pages cripple as they fall..
The winds of stillness..
And with storms of ice..
They lose each reddened letter..

The story’s lost now..
Forever and after..
The pen’s tired of moving..
And so is the raped letter..

And hence I fall down..
On my knees bruised by harsh leather..
And as blood surrounds my grave..
I pick up a black rose ..An eagle’s feather..

And now the pages burn..
My funeral.. My corpse set ablaze..
My soul enters hell.. My ashes weep in dismay..

And hence .. The story dies untold..
And hence ends the writer..

Both corpses lying unheeded..
And chimera's like rodents feed with satanic passion..

एक अभागा पथिक

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Friday, August 13, 2010

है इशारों से बुना हुआ
है ज़िन्दगी से भरा हुआ
ऐ मेरे इश्वर , ऐ मेरे अल्लाह
क्या तुम्हे न दिखा वोह?
रुका हुआ , खड़ा हुआ .

यह है क्या पर एक पथिक ,पसीने से सना हुआ
हिम्मत का तहखाना इसके दिल में अभी भी खुला हुआ.

यह है खड़ा तेरे दर पर झोली फैलाये
क्या न दिखा तुझ इसके माथे पर वह
शब्द खुदा हुआ ?

वह शब्द जो तेरी नहीं बल्कि इस अभागे की लेन है
वह नाम जो इसकी पहचान पर एक व्यंग है


विश्वास करो मेरा
यह भटका हुआ पथिक अब और कहीं नहीं जाएगा
पर अगर तुने भी ना सुना
तो तेरे ही दर पर अपनी जान दे जाएगा

शायद इसके अपवित्र खून से तेरा दर लाल हो जाएगा
पर कम से कम इस अभागे को मरने का
एक मकाम ही सही मिल जाएगा .

इसकी मौत उतनी सस्ती नहीं
जितनी इसकी जान है,
पर जान देकर भी कौन सा यह संसार
बदल जाएगा?

है शीण हो चूका इसका उत्साह
है मर चुकी इसकी आत्मा
शायद इसी तरह इसका भी
उद्धार हो जाएगा.

इस पथिक की क्या गलती?
इसने तो रास्ता है काटा
पर तेरी भी क्या गलती
जो तुने एक वही रास्ता ही दिखाया..?

चल रहा है दर बदर खून से लथपथ
ना यहाँ रुका ना वहां
शायद थक चुका है विनती कर.

अब चढ़ना चाहता है  वह सूली,
जो है इसके खून की प्यासी
शायद यहीं आकर यह इस
दमनचक्र का शिकार हो जाएगा.

है रो रही इसकी बच्ची
जो अब अनाथ हो जाएगी
पर कोई बात नहीं
किसी दिन इसी भीड़ का
एक हिस्सा बन जाएगी.

बुझ गयीं हैं मशाल, बुझ गए हैं दीपक
न जाने इस हवा से और क्या बुझ जाएगा?
हैं उड़ गए छप्पर , हैं उजाड़ गयी बस्तियां

न जाने यह आंधी कितनों को लिलेगी ?


हैं बरस रहे अंगारे इन लाल आसमानों से
हैं झुलस रहे झोपड़े
हैं जल रहीं फसलें.

इस मंज़र का सच अब और लितना बताऊँ ?
इस अंगारे की तपिश को और कितना समझाउं ?


है इस सूरज की ताप जितना इसका बल
कहीं कोई और राही न जाए इसमें जल .

At my funeral pyre ..

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010


When I die..
When I silently close my eyes..
When after the cruel most moments..I give into the pain..
When all that is left of me is blackened void ..A stain..

Cover me with black roses please..
And let me free..
Let no one shed a tear..
Except a few.. Please beg them for their cries..

And then on this beautiful bed of thorns..
Lay me down..
And as you ask the priest to set me a frown..
Set ablaze my nude carcass..
And hold your noses..
Till I rot to death..

Then my ashes nude..
Take them in a bottle tight…
And bury the glass..
And let loose the sprite..

And then spit and stomp..
On the land above..
Let no stream near..
And as I seep into the sand..
Come piss on the land…

And then puke and shit..
To cover my pit..
And let some vultures out..
Ask them to search for any last clues..
And then finally erase me off scene..

And then
Let out an army..
Of rodents and seep in deep..
To reach my dead done ashes..
For one last ensuring sweep..

And then with whatever is left..
Which please promise me..
Would be next to none..

You would gather it all ..
And throw it down the longest possible fall…

And then take a snap where I had smiled..
And then paint me black..
And cover me with a veil..

And then take the book..
Where they wrote my name..
And tear of the page where it had begun..

And when I am here.. where there is nowhere..
Know that I will thank you..
after you've given me enough pain..
know that i'll love you..
after you've removed the stain..