Works of RK

I look around and I see all my known acquaintances busy as an ant. I think they live in a different dimension. I think I am plugged into the wrong nodes of the universe. The blind beggar woman who lived in Bolaram Bazaar is probably dead. It was only the other day that I picked her up from the middle of the road and gave her some water. There were so many people around her. No one came. I asked a bystander who was cuddling his dog what had happened? She just fell down, she is probably dead, he said. I was on my morning walk that day, and on the way to the park I had seen the woman begging into thin air. On my return, as if by some invisible force, I was driven to the bazaar road. Like all the educated crowd, I absolutely stay away from busy places for the fear of catching the Virus (Covid19). But it was almost as if I knew that something had happened to her. And there she was, lying bang in the middle of the road, with scores of people simply looking at her still body. As if it w

The river of time flows muddied  Through weeping shores in spate. It carries with it The hunger of our orphans And the neglect of our masters Here a child died  There a friend held on To a dead friend Here a mother gave birth To a still-born And there a old man Sang to the Sea For redemption from the heat The sins of many Would hang heavy on all of us And when it is time to collect Let's be ready,  without apologies To pay.  The river of time runs sullied From the lament of the multitudes Who were sacrificed by some  Who blamed a virus For the wretchedness of their soul.

They see my starched white linen And my custom leather shoes: Another White guy, they think And don't hold my glance They make way for me So that their dark hungry frames And their smelly patchy clothes Don't invade my privileged spaces Nothing from their struggling beings Should waft into my being And fight my Davidoff. Even their children A ball of unkempt hairs and leaky nose Rarely return my smile Ma Bharati This land that I walk on Is not my land It is their land The land of the slowly dying And the barely living I should be dead For the unforgiving sin Of merely being alive. 

The undulation of the terrain Matches the ruggedness of the soul Here I grow into you Grass and roots and boughs and all And there you run away from me Silt and soil and sand and all Here I am the land And there you are the river Together, muddied and sullen and silent We whirl our destinies Into the awaiting Sea With our longing and our lust And our memories and our Souls entwined We all journey Into the Sea, Into the Sea.

Can I stand tall In the face of this all As if it were my life And it were my battle And my hell Full of my favorite daemons In my own closed attic rooms, Alleys and corridors? Can I call to this Yagn All the angels and the Gods And all the Patriarchs From the abode of the Old? Can I stand tall In the face of this all As if it were my life? I close my eyes And I can see you sulking through Shoulders drooping Eyes no longer ablaze Your soul tired From battling all this All alone.. I can I Can.

If I could reach out to you Through the crisscrossing noise Of the crushing static undertones You would hear your name Read out aloud In every prayer I let out Into this now empty universe. You are in the crackling And the sputtering Of breeze stricken diyas From all Diwalis past You are in the daily din of life That is walking by Without looking back at the souls Stranded on cobblestone pavements And left behind in time. If I could reach out to you Through the dense fog Of distant minds and angry hearts You would hear my heart beat With the same erratic thump That you left behind.

For me you have been a traveler The one who rides the oceans and the big blue seas Seeking experiences That can be framed into postcards Of wonderful memories For a future  That is yet to unravel.  Your today's rush you Into your tomorrows  And in its wake Small boats likeme Would mostly sink Into long forgotten memories Of abandoned islands  Where you now live no more.  As I watch you sleep The glasses back on your face The little girl back in the rug The silent one yearning for a hug I feel you tug at my cuffs Ten more minutes,  you say Stay with me,  for ten more minutes... And then I am scared Of who you will be When you wake up.