Diwali-3

The shiny curtains that hide your beautiful wrinkles,
If I were to set them on fire, and bring to life,
your letters, written in coloured wax,
Would it reveal any more than your silhouette did?
Would an earthen lamp suffice ?

The ugly knots, all wrapped up in shiny gift paper, your craft,
If I exhibited your eyelashes too and the Kajal, smeared, of its own virtue
Would the onlookers read in your eyes, the encrypted tales
of the storms we've passed and the smiles we wear?
Would a heavy heart suffice ?

The songs, of the seekers, the puppets and the plastic flowers,
lost in the sooty flames, in the face of the blackened verandah walls,
and the ones the folklore haven't sung for decades,
Would a day of music, of brightness dissolve the anguish?
Would an insane laughter suffice?

Amidst the pompous crackers and the guileless lights,
the sweets gone sour and the blunt edges of tethered bookmarks,
for the naive birds singing poetry, creating illusions of depth
What am I, more than a mere narrator, a heard-unheard voice?
Would a festive season suffice?

Garden-weed

I see from my rooftop,

the garden of a medicinal nursery

The lawn-mover comes and goes, the garden is levelled

The weed grows with the herbs,

gets shortened with them,

The sun, the moon and the wind

nourish it no less, no more than the herbs,

until the day when it will have to be pulled out,

or be made aware of its identity,

and left to die slowly of alienation,

herbs can wait, and so can the ailments, can’t they?

Dead or alive, weed shall be weed.

Do these words even matter?

A free bird

In one corner of this art exhibition,

A little girl sits with an empty cage,

and draws on white paper- dark portraits,

silhouettes and ink sketches, all of wingless birds

birds with shiny feathers,

hopping in the lawns, perched on live wires,

on leafless branches, none trapped in cages though

When you reach her corner of the exhibition,

you’ll notice on her shoulders, the sprouts of a new pair of wings

Every fortnight these grow to their full span,

and are clipped, sold to young and old dreamers.

She is a free bird.