Jealous

They said you were seeing someone new

New flashlights, new Starlight

New fabrics on skin.

Old colonial sidewalks resounded with

A new pair of laughter.

Coffee light dusks and Cineplex afternoons.

Meetings, precious like

Grandparents’ anniversary photos.

And then the cobra pangs of jealousy

Hit me, Bit me.

Sunset horizon was green

And Sunrise dipped in chlorophyll.

They said you were unsure,

You’d walk a million mile more

To hold his hand.

And a few silent steps.

To trample on my heart.

The last twist of the dagger

And the green eyed adder.

A space shuttle is what I need,

To fly away, to places where

Roses are still red,

And your signature still the same.

The rhyme, the rhythms are all green tonight

For Iago is my name.

Iceberg Lipgloss

A floating iceberg you are tonight
In the backseat we were continents apart
Your straightened hair mocked the wind
We sat crumpled, un-ironed for months
Bruised souls and tattooed skin
Pierced nose, a bleeding heart
Angry words like poisoned darts.
Teasing, pleasing...Lip-gloss on collars
And our black and white nights
Shine in the forgotten albums of the city.
Operas run in empty theatres
The poet has too many visitors
Life is like Chaplin's movie tonight

Your eyes the log book
Of a storm driven cruise liner.
Iceberg heart light me up tonight
Make the Backseat inches shorter,
And your bus stop a million miles away.

Angel of the Third World

How are you today,
My angel of the Third World?
Has your school boy hair grown to rush
Like the Black Niagara your husband loves?
Do you still wear that fruity fragrance
The only thing I could bare sticking to your skin?
Do you seek me in the books I gifted?
Or do i reside in the forgotten
Whore houses of your memory?
Your nightly rituals of Love
Are colder than the winters we haven't met.
You looked wonderful in the veil
The last time i saw you
Majestic caged tiger.
A third world angel,
Unemployed in God's infirmary.

Inside Your Clothes

I want to be inside your clothes tonight
Drop dead like the apple on Newton's head
Pull me down into you,
Away from the overtime shifts
Working in God's toilet.
Hold me like gravity
And hit me like a cyclone meeting a city
Dreaming of a revolution sunrise.
Take away those empty promises,
The Presidential campaign vows
And those cheerleader Wow's.
Protect me tonight,
The Baywatch guards watched me drown last year.

Lines

Nights outside fenced houses
Refugees in foreign shores
Haggling for food, and for who we are.
Stars they seem alien tonight
The owl cries in a human voice
"Land mines", "Border lines", "My Lands".
As springs are gunned down
In forest highlands
As we count the dimes
For a pocketful of sky.
I was born with lines on my palm

I'll die with Borders in my heart.

The Man Who Controls the Mood of the Nation

The past few weeks have been abuzz with the hype surrounding Sachin's century of centuries and the entire cricketing world seems to be obsessed with it. The generally hostile Australian media is showering praises upon the little master, the rowdy, ruthless crowd gives a standing ovation to him every time he walks out to bat, twitter is tweeting, and every cricket expert worth his salt seems to deliberate upon what might be wrong about the great man. Let's not get into statistics here. And neither speculate about when he might get the elusive 100. It will come...But what has already arrived is something more special. This note is about that.
   People living in different time-zones are all up and ready watching Sachin bat. Morning has come early, work can wait. Classes can be sacrificed, meetings can be postponed. Not merely because we are waiting for him to score an academic century. But to appreciate the way he is going about his job. His batsmanship in the Australian series has been almost surreal. Yes, he has shown signs that he is human, going into his shell, and then hesitant at times. And yet, when he has gone about his job, he has made it look effortless. The cricketing arena is the only place where Sachin can be himself. Be free of the pressure, of the craving and the divine worship. He is the slave, carving out his invocation to the Cricketing Gods. And the Gods have been kind to him, and to us.
     Throughout his career, Sachin has been plagued by the debate and the comparison between him and Brian Lara. Lara, to me, is almost the last remnant of the West Indian era gone by, almost a Viv Richards born a millionaire. That arrogance of youth, the nonchalance of too much money. It showed in his cuts and pulls, his frequent disagreements with the Cricket board. Sachin is the Working man industry, a reverent priest dedicating his entire life to the service of the great game. And the Gods have been kind to him, and to us.
      The reason why people of my generation owe a part of our lives and growing up to him is subtly more significant that all the records he has created and destroyed. But because he represents something of the way India has come up, something of the manner in which people growing up in the 90's found their feet. Here was someone, who could go all out, keeping the field restrictions and the then 15 over rule. Today's youngsters who cry and crave for the hitting skills of Dhoni and Warner have missed the look of terror on the faces of bowlers marking their run-up, walking up to Sachin. Careers have come to an end, Captains have resigned. And here we have cheered, because someone broke the shackles of a timidly glowing self-belief and stamped his authority on the world. Gone were the days of Gavaskar, grafting out a century. Here was Sachin, smashing his way to making a statement. We went to work with our head held sky- high, exam fever was faced with the belief, that if Sachin could tackle Perth, Auckland, then so could we, calculus and the rubbing down of our bosses. The morning after a Sachin century, the sun was brighter, newspapers came up with epic headlines, classrooms were fish-markets, and people fought less inside public buses during office hours..His fall was our fall..when he raised his arms and opened his helmet, he was a warrior, fighting a war for us. An injustice against him was an injustice against the whole race.
     Oh Sachin, you have made us weep tears of Joy. You made us discover new superstitions, made us choose you over our wives and girlfriends and made us come up with new excuses for playing truant. You have made ardent cricket admirers of grandmothers, made the whole of India pray in unison. India lacks an emblem which brings the country together, even VANDE MATARAM seems to be politically loaded and communally sensitive. Not you...You have been our national anthem. Our national symbol. Our adrenaline. Make us wake up early mornings. Make us sleep late at nights...100 is just another number...

Come Over

COME OVER TONIGHT
LIKE LAZY FOG OVER MOUNTAINS
MISTY RAINBOWS INSIDE FOUNTAINS
COME OVER TONIGHT

COME OVER TONIGHT
LIKE BEATEN SOLDIERS CRAWLING HOME
LIKE VICTORIOUS CAESAR REACHING ROME
COME OVER TONIGHT

COME OVER TONIGHT
LIKE PRIDE THAT RIDES A MOTHER'S SMILE
TEARS THAT TRAVEL A MILLION MILES
COME OVER TONIGHT

COME OVER TONIGHT
LIKE STALE MEMORIES IN ALBUM PAGES
LIKE DIRTY WORDS DURING ANGRY RAGES
COME OVER TONIGHT.

COME OVER TONIGHT
LIKE STIFLED SORRYS IN AFTER FIGHTS
MUFFLED WARMTH DURING WINTER NIGHTS
COME OVER.......

Cartography of Love

Let it be Vienna my Love,
Let it be a December evening
Trudging along with April in our hearts
Down the city plaza
Where soldiers marched 70 years ago
Our new found faith
Our opened up hearts
Like the shutting down of Concentration Camps.
Peaceful graveyard
Where the little girl from the last century
Still sleeps her 12 year sleep.
We walk by bullet holes
Mortar wounds and silent Cannon shots
Echoing in the narrow by-lanes of the city.
History preserved in museums
In a city where pubs come alive
In a twilight called Cappuccino.

Let it be Florence my Dearie
Michelangelo smiling, Vinci half asleep,
And Vassari snoring in forgotten Chronicles.
The city square bathed with
A distant roar from a football stadium.
The muted souls on fresco walls
Giggling at us, two silent speakers
Soaked in traffic lights inside a taxi
Lips staring at each other,
Your strawberry lip gloss mocking my parched tongue
An "Inquisition" into our past
And a Renaissance of our souls
Yet we walk with a freedom,
Of a gladiator with his newly won,
Wooden sword.

The Promise of Ithaca
The call of Atlantis
Be it Warsaw, Milan, Hwang-Ho or Tokyo
Promises of love...Sonnets of pain
Etched on the knees of David
The walls of Louvre
The lips of a troubadour
Water of the Danube.
Fingers Curling around each other
Bridges that separate.
And when i reach your doorstep,
Your promise of the Chalice
Is deferred for another day....

Let it be Vienna my LOVE....

A WINTER'S TALE

I saw Winter walk by last night
Veiled Woman, Sighs of ice, Thiefly steps
As Municipal guys turned off street lamps
She sought refuge through half drawn shutters.
Tragic queen eyes, Machiavelli smile
Matahari delight at her untraced guile.
Her drama and darkness keeps us under wraps
And me at the street corner.
Etherised Nature, Our frozen tears.
And when she invites her sisters
From the roof tops of the Alps
I crave for that theatre
Her opera...Her tragedy
My Numb heart lit up with Bavarian snow.

The Match That Changed My Life

  I wonder why i suddenly decided to write about the UEFA Champions League encounter that took place between Inter Milan and Barcelona, almost two years ago. Then i realized that i have often bored my students and Satabdi by recounting the story of that evening, trying to inspire them but ending up increasing their boredom threshold in the process. But that evening was magic, emotionally draining and the feeling was that of a gladiator coming out of the theater..bloody, battered and victorious.

   The stage was set. Nou Camp..one of the most hostile footballing arenas in the world and the mood was set with all the pre-match talk in the Catalan Media about how the Barca faithfuls would make Inter Milan hate football in the span of the 90 minutes. Inter were up against it, a team which many considered to be the best of all times, two midfield generals able to thread the ball through the needle's eye and a certain Lionel Messi..ballerina on grass. Inter had a bunch of workmanlike group of footballers, the glamor, the media attention all absent. Just the Herculean faith of their owner, Massimo Moratti and the self titled "Special One", Jose Mourinho.

    And here is where it all started. The footballing fraternity remembers Mourinho starting his managerial career under the supervision of the late Sir Bobby Robson right there in Barcelona. Mourinho worked as a translator and sometimes as assistant coach and is said to have been highly disappointed and insulted when the Barca hierarchy didn't appoint him as the coach once Robson had left. The Barca fraternity had always sneeringly called Mourinho "the translator",something which didn't go down too well with him. And here he was, almost one and a half decades later, with the chance of experiencing the greatest emotion of all...Revenge.

     I was aware of all the complexities and the hype surrounding the match. Curiously, i was going through a particular crisis in my personal life and had decided to watch the match just to divert my attention from the storm that was brewing in my own life. Sports has always been the greatest healer for me, and sometimes caused the deepest wounds...friends who know me for a while would understand how i had almost slipped into depression after Chelsea lost to Manchester United in the final of the same championship 2 years ago.

    But this match was different. Inter Milan were up against it, and Mourinho by the sidelines was like a cat on a hot tin roof. Abuses poured, every time Inter touched the ball, boos rang out. It was a cauldron where a crowd in the excess of around 40,000 kept baying for blood. I must remind the readers that it was here that Figo was greeted with a pig's head when he returned as a Real Madrid player after his infamous transfer to the bitter rivals. And this evening was no different. Inter were beginning to feel the heat, and someone going through a rough phase in his life, thousands of miles away, watching the match in the comforts of the living room was getting sucked into it.

    To make matters worse, midway through the first half, Inter were reduced to ten men. A red card.. and the Catalan country had erupted. It was a given that teams do not stand with all personals intact against the pace of Barcelona. And here was their greatest enemy, with their strength diminished. I was almost angry to tears. replays had shown that the foul wasn't a grievous one, and that the referee had come under immense pressure from the crowd to produce that card. I was fuming and suddenly i realized that this is how bound and helpless i had been feeling for the past few months,as if the entire world had conspired to defeat me. I knew this would be a mammoth task, almost a miracle to come out a winner from this hell-hole. And then the cameras captured Mourinho, in all his glory and arrogance, smirking at the crowd and applauding sarcastically for getting the man sent off. In a moment, he was directing traffic from  the sidelines, marshaling his men and regrouping his troupes. I saw that he believed that this could be won. And if this could be conquered, so could be LIFE...

     The second half begun in much the same way. Wave after Wave of Barcelona attack raided the Inter territory, and Inter were defending with all they had and with more. Mourinho was still his usual self, and as the minutes ticked by, i began to believe. A curious thing was noticed by everyone watching-- every time Inter had the possession of the Ball, they gave it back to the Barcelona half. It is only later that all of us realized what was happening. Inter were a man short, and it was impossible to play Barca with the latter's speed and pace. So better give them the possession and wait with all 10men to defend, and in this way they wouldn't be in the danger of facing a counter-attack with men short in their own territory.

      The seconds ticked by.. And i remember, pacing up and down, literally praying. Every time Barca threatened, my heart was in my mouth. The players were tired, but still they hung on. Fighting for every inch of the grass, winning every tackle. Mourinho seemed to have passed on the message to defend with life. In the 82nd Min, Barca scored. But those aware of the away goal rules, would know that since Inter had a 2 goal cushion from the first leg, Barca had to score again to win. 8 mins were left on the clock. Inter were a man down, the entire stadium wanted them to lose. But still Mourinho believed, his men did..I DID.

      What happened after the final whistle blew is etched forever in my memory. Mourinho had run the length to the pitch, pointing to the Barca hierarchy Box. Those images have been played over and over on Youtube and remains one of the most watched football videos ever. But thousands of miles away, i didn't have nowhere to run, or to point, or mutter. With hazy eyes, my fisted palms kept punching the air, again and again and again....My grandmother (who was alive then), woke up to find me in a frenzy..my flashing eyes and my floating hair...In that trance I realized that this was more than a football match to me. A Movie from the home theater of God, asking me not to give up. To fight, To believe...To win..Even the "translator" may have been lost for words that night...