just in case

all this traffic and my careless driving
the newspaper today morning offers no respite
and yesterday during teabreak someone looked at my palm
and said my life line was very short

iam sure you will reach this space somehow
not now but when you are old enough to read
without running your index finger under every word,
without me next to you
when you are not sitting on my lap anymore

and i dont know if you remember me at all
and the wonderful time we have had.
but my love can never leave you completely
i will live on in your smiles , in your tears
in your songs, when you fall and when you pick yourself up

when you were born Samuel, i was still a girl
unprepared and still searching
but when i held you for the first time
i knew happiness. it was three in the morning
a very cold july morning and i felt like a queen.

you were born four weeks early. i was impatient
tired with the waiting. i didn't listen to your grandmother
i washed all your baby clothes in advance,
laughed at her superstitions, cleaned all the cobwebs
balanced on a chair atop my old desk.

but when the water broke that night
i was scared. that maybe you wouldn't make it.
and i buried my head in the pillow at the labour room and cried.
but then when you arrived you were so handsome
and the doctor exclaimed that you were not a day early.

you are only eight but you give me so much joy
to watch you play batmintion and win
when you rattle the the states and capital for your social studies test
when you fight with me when i tie up the puppy
when you hold your chest out and smile

Sarah, you were born with your eyes open
precocious. beautiful and content .
the perfect little girl. my knee, your favorite perch.
you arms tight around me ,you bind me to life.
splashing light on me with your crayon colours

no you weren't planned.
your brother was not yet 2 when you arrived.
my neighbours thought i was a fool.
our maid cautioned me indoors during the solar eclipse
but i couldnt. mayabe thats why you are so special

for now i sleep between the two of you
in between my own version of Cinderalla
rumblestliskin and Snow white.
for now i know i live near angels
blessed with innocence love righteousness

and my heart has never encountered a stronger tug
and my life is blessed . twice over.
and if i didn't climb Mount Everest or get to say that well rehearsed oscar speech
its alright. i got the chance to be your mother.
you taught me how to love.

confession before easter

-->

The Confession before Easter

15 minutes. And I would have missed the train to heaven.

No signature against my name in your Confession Register

But here I am.

You look at me and sigh. Then smile.

“How can you smile after this endless outpouring?”

I wonder as I kneel before God and you, his friend.

I open my burden of sins for this quarter,

Father I’ve been bad this summer

Must have been the heat, the maid has been gone a month

Or maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mother of three

Should have stayed single and taken up mountaineering or something

I played truant on 10 Sundays in a row

Saying “the baby cried during mass and Must I go?”

Don’t cringe, Father there is more

I sat home and watched MTV.

I can quote Khalil , even recite his poem “On giving “ by heart

But Giving exhausts one so. The Downturn hasn’t helped.

I thought I ‘d give to charity and all but then I go on a shopping spree

I wrote a poem on the environment, in that I am pagan high priestess

But I piled junk in my backyard.

As you know I completed a course in Divyabothanum,

But shouted at the kids all summer.

At least now the monsoons have started

The other night I woke up to find termites swarming

Under a light I had forgot to switch off in the drawing room.

Standing there in the middle of the night half asleep under a eerie dark cloud of insects,

Hundreds of them dying for a wrong cause.( It’s a wonder this insect isn’t extinct)

And I switch off the lights and rub insects wings from my face and hair

Lie awake half the night. Thinking, Am I living for the right cause?

Or will I die like a termite, growing wings for a night

Only to throw myself at the wrong light and dying for a wrong cause.

But in the morning the sun was all over the garden

The kids playing in night clothes were all smiles

The baby was laughing, the kitchen tidy

And then I sat and counted my blessings and prayed

I cleaned up backyard and then went in to clean my heart

The songs I sang were all hymns, and washing up after dinner

My prayers wafted into the night sky

Hypocrites need some more help, a contrite heart is not enough

So Philipachen when you say mass this evening make it especially sweet

And when Jesus leans to listen, plead my cause,

Tell Him Iam trying but I failed, I am still searching

Tell Him to send me some angels and more sweet rain

Tell Him to keep me tight when I am dazzled by city lights

This evening, rise up on your wings of prayer and touch His feet for me.

recycle guys!!!

its 12 ,midnight.
while day sleeps, the night is awake with windy dreams
lashing on the edge of consciousness
thoughts disconnected , lighting up then falling away softly tingling me in my half-sleep and then dying

and i sit , selfish. Because i thirst a turquoise poetry wave
a lashing of exquisite words. of this world yet not quite
for the day: kills every thought. there is no more perfume in words
maybe it is that the incessant rains and flood , have drowned my dreams

nowadays i brood too much on plastics,
depressing moulds of plastic and food bundled together,
Testimony to our busy mechanical lives

Nowadays  herons sit around the open drainage ,
that flows next door,
 Instead of paddy fields
their long pink beaks beaten down, they fold their majestic wings-hiding them
wary of opening such visual luzury in such darbiness

eleventh hour citizens cannot write much poetry, i guess
we know too much and yet we cling and clutch on to our laziness
the world is crumbling-but slowly. and we yet  hurry on
The rains never stop, nature is raging,
the herons are dead , the trees mourn silently ,
their cries stretched out from dried branches
But we look at our excel sheets, delibrate over mutual funds,
The stock market ,our childrens report cards

But wait as day dawns
Life calls out ,don't give up
Nature even in her fury throws a beautiful sunrise,
Cajoling us to rethink
To  lift our eyes and see the truth
So listen with a selfless heart
That skies are shouting , the seas rise up to warn us,
The earth shakes to wake us from this slumber
Slow down
Live and let live

after the flood!

After the flood i dread the rain

I hide my face from lightning streaks

After the flood i catch my breath

When the winds blow at a faster pace

After the flood i shy away from sunrise

Iam a little scared to romance the moon

After the flood i feel a rift

As if iam caught cheating at last

After the flood i know nature knows

That the love i showed was only in words

After this flood i promise to live my love

Every breath i take i will redeem my debt

I have suckled, have grown up in your lap

After the flood i will try to earn back your trust

fighting for God?

Fighting for God?

Maybe that's when we fight our hardest.

For Our beliefs , our earliest truth.

My grandfather's God lived on the first floor corner room,

Next door to mine, there before Dawn,

He grappled with his demons,

For a full hour, in the dark.

I lay in bed soaking in his sorrow.

Always loved my grandmother's God better.

She didn't have time at dawn for Him,

I sat dangling my legs on the wooden fence of the cowshed,

At dawn ,waited patiently with the dogs, the cat,

Listening to the sound of creamy milk jetsetting on to the full bucket,

By evening when we returned after grazing the cows,

The church bells caught us always by the Brook

At sunset, the sky aflame, the hills mellow ,

The emerald of the paddy feilds never ending,

And she would stop , lift her hands to the heavens

And we with her.

You know why I dont fight for my God?

Because He is the emerald paddy, the azure of the sunset, the mellow hills and the gurgling Brook,the peasants' smile, the mooing of the cows

My God lies scattered in you too , my friend

Death Upgraded!

Death upgraded.

He rides the Yamaha 350, red and silver.

Looks twenty. Is stylish. But knocked me over.

For a second I lay on the road,

Admired the unbearable blue of the sky

Like I saw it for the first time,

Disco lights of the afternoon sun, through the canopy of leaves, the  colours of the market

 Evoked a new longing in me to get back to life,

Life was truly a blessing, I thought

Need to watch our precious flame of life

For it's a gift . And lying in the middle of the road

Just seconds away from being crushed.

I knew, it was the only gift we need.

All the rest was so infinitely miniscule compared to the richness

Of just being.

And the night before.in my dream

Jesus came home to stay.

I found him at the door,and he strode purposefully upstairs.

Have come to stay. Have To watch over you.

As I changed the sheets in the guest room

I remember being perplexed in my dream

Shouldn't he be at church?

But looking at his face, his love shone through

Burnt through my dream , my sub conscious

Blanketing me  forever.

Now as I  lay helpless , the traffic a ferocious  river around me,

My dream skimmed by and I heaved and sprung back,

To life. Truly alive.grateful.

beloved street, Park Avenue, Marine Drive

this street shocks you

one minute you are in kochi in her coloured bus

navigating her streets lined with billboards of jewellry , silk sarees

pliated school girls at the zebra crossings,

afternoon crowd throng mall courtyards.

and then you are in Salvador Dali' s painting

a red ship , imposing, parked a few feet away

her curves resting  easily on the blue waters

rocking. Sea birds take flight into a picture postcard sky

the park with  flowers that look into the water

and the strange  sculptures that knew me young

tender coconut hawkers . all still the same

and ahead as we near the college grounds

sheltered by trees ,wisps of my youth caught in their boughs

light thoughts, bottled memories release

as i sight the boat house, strange happiness!

and i smile at the little girl in her ferry boat,

Promise of adventure rekindles at the fleeting sight

of blond golden tresses from foreign lands.

as fallen flowers still line this street,

outside the city groans with fresh pangs

of growth -churning out taller and  meaner concrete abodes.

where earth is called dirt,

as the city hums a grim funeral rite

for the once green spaces of yore.

 let this little street stand like this forever

with the sea on side, where destructive waters purr

and the ancient trees on the other.

this street , untouched with blood of felled trees

or with the hoarse breath of greed

a shrine for our children,

to what was once , is lost and yet can be.





















 

Snake
Early morning in the western ghats
With Ayyapan- a tribal now guide
a dagger in his shoulder bag
sole defence
in a 2 hour jungle trek

feet sinking into brown earth under the tree canopy
fingers caress rough tree bark
part heavy bamboo thickets with berry stained nails
ankles heavy with honeyed morning dew
as ayyapan introduces every tree, flower, paw print , dung even

there coiled , folded into the roots of a banyan tree
a sleeping python, beautiful yellow
savouring wetness,smiling?
under a blanket of dead leaves
resting after a fruitful nocturnal hunt
its content over pouring
embracing us even.
beauty in a snake? Maybe it was beauty of the ancient tree
the lazy streaks of sun corseting it,
and the jungle ablaze in the green fire of monsoon
enchanting streams, fern- fringed, dance to
the lulling jungle music of
the cicada’s rhythmic song and high pitched languor call
And later the sacred spectacle
of elephants tottering downhill, throwing kokum dust,
as the matriarch stood sentinel
holding up her trunk like a sword, deciphering all the scents we threw at her
as we retreat, walking backwards in rapture, in awe.
As our resting place only seconds ago
Is trampled, fondled rather by mammoth feet.
Ayappan saw them with ears- just in time
Soft whispers of breaking branches .
Now over dinner as you recount your Europe trip,
You talk of tulip gardens , quaint villages, serene churches turned to pubs by dawn
like Wordsworth’s Daffodils
snake , you crawl my thoughts
return me to ayyapan’s jungle trail.
Holiday respite distilled into one memory.
Peace: if that is why we travel
Then I found you as a sleeping python in the western ghats.

My Lift Operator’s Onam
My Lift Operator
Was unusually moody ,
a few days away from onam
Otherwise she is dignified with gentle ways
Always with a pleasant smile or word
For me on my busy days
On probing she said” Oh, its just that’s onam,
And alone in my basement chair
iam flooded with memories of happier times
past onams meant a house full of brothers , thier families,
and a courtyard with a welcome flower carpet for mahabali
“ Till an accident wrecked my life , she said
"oh that explained her slouching gait
there are 20 stiches on her face, her eyes has lens implants
her left leg has a steel rod, her elbow she cannot bend
through painfully expensive recontructive surgey her family gave her back her face
her expenses a unending abbyss finalling cut every human bond
Bed ridden for a year, slipping in and out of consciousness
on death's door, orphaned
Jesus walked in
through the tangled tubes and gauze
Stroked her head and said” you will be well”
And I was.”
"head injury, dementia, you might laugh but
it was Jesus , in white dhoti , whiter locks
and i can feel his hand on my head still", she said
“I cant complain”, she mused,
“I lost my life and it was given back to me.
But its onam and I am without a house or a courtyard
To lay out flowers for mahabali”. For a nair matriarch this must be hard,
But for me Mahabali was a long dead king and onam a holiday
To cook vegetarian and shop for clothes.
As I left her there amongst an assortment of bikes
The little stitched up lift operator and her tall sorrow.
Life had shaken her inside out but could not touch her heart
where a selfless banished king still lives, her love for him intact
and even in the madness she knew the sacrifice of the cross long ago
and the benevolence of the bowed trampled royal head- were one
This onam made grim with the U.P riots and Delhi verdict
My lift operator friend , fret not
If jesus of nazereth crossed religions and seas to ease your pain
Mahabali is just a few blocks away and when he visits you
To welcome him don’t bother about the flowers
All the colours of your heart will do .

An ode to the Morning star(Varghese's Batmintion club)

Early mornings are a no for me, Early mornings are alien to me
The July rains are a monstrous lot
Killing the romance of kerala monsoons
Have our once soft rain gods gone rash?
the birds in our neighbours mango tree
sit drenched and call morose wake up tunes
their summer songs forgotten
to the incessant mad melody of falling showers
my sprained right foot
refuses to wake up,, maybe its tendonitis
or an early onset of osteoporosis
or maybe it’s the pain of being abandoned at dawn?
I limp to the cold kitchen to cook common breakfast for a polygonal family
an obstinate toddler, Sibling teenagers who have contrasting tastes
2 senile in laws who audit my idlis and sambhar
with the fervour of certifying agencies and of course a ravenous husband
Breakfast done and lunch tiffins still to pack
and i sprint upstairs to wake my offsprings from slumber
my 4 year old is a curled up into little ball, impossible to unfurl
my teens so lost in their world of dreams to hear my yells
I balance lunch boxes, umbrellas, my little boy and coffee mugs
cajole the kids from bed, maybe with a blow or two
weave a magical story to help my son drink his milk
then suddenly it’s over, the buses arrive and the morning rush is over.
It’s just a few hours but mornings get the better of me
My yells echo in our tiny street, my blood pressure peaks
My neighbours fathom terrible things and my in laws cringe
It’s just a few years I tell myself and my mornings will be calm once again
the cold morning breeze brings in with it my smiling spouse
in his sports gear he is still a boy, far away from the domestic chaos
his world suddenly shrunk , uncomplicated
where anything is possible. triumphant and peaceful
The 2 mobiles lie silent at his side, There is no persuasive marketing talk
For now all the demons of the day are dead.
For now It’s just a bright morning , full of promise
Corporate battle wounds healed . Spirit revived for another day.
morning star, kindly light, shine on
for balding heads need the safe sanctuary of play
a hard fought win ,some friends to taunt
to make light of life and a place to be your own true self.

Rains , please

Summer just scorched me
I am burnt, scalded now

A little too bright this summer sun
Never tiring, this heat

Memories of rains , soothing winds
Light dreams and laughter


Return to me , please, with the june rains
Lightness, cooling greens , youth


Innocence , hope , aspiring thoughts
Lie dead for now this summer
,

Rains, return to me my song
And find my smile if you can

on breaking my mil's chappati stone

I broke my mother in law's chappati stone
it lies dead in the pantry as i write
2 halves, like a broken heart
the rolling stick is widowed
and mother in law is in mourning

i blurted out the 'passing away' to her gently
she is nearing seventy,
i made her sit down with her chai
and slowly uncovered the broken stone
A cruel morning this, heartless careless daughter in law- me.


ask my maid Dhanalakshmi
and she will tell you amma bought the stone
in '85, when she went to visit Jaipur
she had been yearning for a perfect round piece of marble
ever since she saw it at her cousin's place

and after the customary round of bargaining
(she gestured rather, hindi mallom nahin)
for Rs 25 she returned triumphantly
the chappati stone was coveted by many
and i can imagine amma's smile

tread carefully in the kichen
the lemon squeezer is 50 years old
(amma's wedding gift), the nerolac container for our atta
is as old as my beloved
the tea strainer , we cant throw away because
thats the only thing father in law ever bought
way back in the 70's


the plastic bag that hangs on the corner
belonged to amma's mother(my grandmother in law)
dont use that jute moram
cause that is 49 years old
the sugar container, ha! is older than me.


every corner of amma's kitchen has a story
memories hang like cobwebs
and every spoon is a friend
every mud fish vessel a treasure
tread carefully in this much loved kitchen

velvet kohl

One half of my hanky,
the one I tore,To tie my finger
when I cut it by accident
The other I had to give you,
for you cut your hand too
And held it close to mine,
to see if it was the same.
The colour of our blood.

You were the gardener's son.
Seventh I think.
And I, the doctor's pampered middle one.
You, a Nigger, and I was then Indian.
We,
in an African estate of corn fields,
papaya trees and yam

I didn't like you at first, for I was only five.
Plucked out from emerald pastures.
From soft wet mud.
Yanked off from the grandfather's knee,
where I felt his bristly cheek
On the back of my hand.
Warmth of his love on my heart.

Silver anklets I tied for my dance lesson,
glass bracelets with dots of the rainbow from the annual fair,
Monsoon rains that opened the heavens so we could canoe in paddy fields.
You didn't know them.
You under a cruel sun in oversized beige dunkers.
Afterwards your black became permanent Velvet Kohl.
On my Eyelashes.

You would crouch under my window for the boiled egg at half past seven
handed clandestinely down
From the dining room
For I didn't like eggs and you did
When Big Sis climbed the deceitful papaya with parents gone on another shopping spree
A Naïve midday snack. Crunchy, not too ripe, just right.
Then she got stuck.You brought out the Dunlop. A safe landing.
And We made the top of the bookshelf Appollo1 and poor Dunlop the moon.

You didn't read Enid Blyton.
But you knew the secret password in to our hearts
Then we had to Change from Terrible Three to Fantastic Four
We tried to get you read Famous Five under the water tank.
And you taught us to catch bush rats.
And eat toasted grasshoppers.
And to run. For you ran faster than the wind.

Then you who taught me to ride the old bicycle with no brakes
After you learnt it by riding it downhill till you bounced off the iron gate
Your smile when you picked yourself carried a little red on your knee and the purple on your arm.
For you always wore your Soul on your face.

And every time we got pocket money,
we'd run to the wall by the corner as I climbed over to buy bubble gum I would step on you bent as my foothold
I loved to come by your tin shed under the orange tree
And swirl the dead snakes you had caught for dinner,
while you were roasting corn over coal embers

And then we couldn't run fast enough,
I stood under the orange tree again with a cardboard box
books, tears,
my thirteen year old heart in it.
You didn't have anything to give.
You didn't know. And I think I didn't too.
But I took your black. For keeps.

But our truck sped away with our washing machine food processor and Sony TV
I think we left behind a little pepper, dhanyia, tamarind, pickled bottles of vain
And tightly wrapped up prejudices we had bought from home eight years ago.
You followed us in your cycle without brakes,
I took a snapshot of you framed in the car window.
I didn't have to.

Because no monsoon shower could wash my velvet kohl away.
From my eyelashes.
From my heart.
And my half of the handkerchief?
I have kept it. Use it for my soul.
I was Indian. Christian. Fairer. Richer. And you wiped it all away.

india

I taste of the murky waters of the ganga
That washes the souls of the dead
Find me in the Kumb Mela , somewhere among
Mercedes, incense , the standing sadhu and lady nicotine

If you could kiss the lips of the drugged infant, borrowed for an hour
Sleeping in some beggars bag, a sari end tightly clenched by its unaware fist
when you stop for the traffic red
taste the helplessness , know its me.

And in the languid Forest ranges of the south, smell of cinnamon and clove
And in some odd temple under the waterfall, the drunk handsome pujari
With a flower in his ear, if you could taste his song , hear the anguish of the tenders of the earth, You would know its me

Find me in Govinda’s colorful suit, in Kareena’s pout
Taste me in the sacred spaces of the golden temple,
In the pathos of the wail that cuts across the evening sky
From the stained glass of the masjid,

Wonder if my sorrow could join a flock of white geese in a precise v
And fly until it found a sunset and never return to me.

Taste me in the mujra in some dingy brothel ,
Drink me in the pure strains of the gayatri mantra too
If you could taste the robin white of a nun’s attire hung out to dry
You would know its me ,

If its raining and you are dozing in a train homebound
And you wake up to find it swimming , don’t nudge yourself, you are not dreaming
And if in the obscure Rural you find passengers solemnly
Sit like mute Budhas Atop full rickety buses, don’t be alarmed

for it happens in India
Anything goes around here

Don’t sing about the life after I want to tell the church choir
Because there is no heaven. Sing only for this morning
For that’s only what we have . Before noon some of us will be neatly tucked
In mother nature’s four poster bed , her brown covers drawn tightly over our heads

And by dusk the sobs and sighs will melt into the benign black.
Because in India anything goes.

Don’t mourn for me for you didn’t cry for Kashmir.
Don’t wear black for a day if you didn’t hear my silent cries over the years.
I was burning but today you saw the smoke.
Don’t cry for me. For you don’t even know me.