Poetry

Ek badaav ashilo
man tu tugel kaani divsa shuru kele
aaj megel kaani haav kash baraytasa
tu youjalna

Ammi bashil thaiy
Chikmangalur bus stand antha, don ghante. ratri.
Hoona, galija, cheeda
Apnale ghar nashil tena votu lokkal ghar bare dista

haanv tugel bage barainashi ani kasan barou, Shahid?

Haanv basla hanga atta
Goyant ek poola laggi.
Amgel gaanv kash karn davarla pale amma!
Hoona. Galija. Cheeda.
Megel ghar asa. Hang nai, jalar thai chan mak sookh ditasa.
Thaiche ghar, mak hang bare dista.

He is small and cute and
won’t eat unless he has company

He is tiny and long and
upset when I sleep away from him

He is loud and incessant
especially when he hasn’t got his twenty minutes of extra special focused attention today

He desperately wants to be in my lap
but won’t come unless I pull him in and plop him there

His big yellow eyes close softly
Kissing my cheeks so gently
Is this a portrait of him? Or is he a portrait of me?

I left you behind
ten years ago
you don’t use chains
your image everywhere
for my to eyes see
you play me like a theremin
I am the air
you bat away
I am the low note
you are the sorrow thus wrung

I go up and down and have only one eye.
Who am I?

I am full of holes yet full of water.
Who am I?

I have space but you can’t come inside.
Who am I?

I have teeth and sometimes bite.
Who am I?

I have no body, but I come alive.
Who am I?

Talk to me, eternal love
We grow and we change
We say the same words but we mean different things
Or they mean different things when we hear it

Talk to me of passion
You watched me lose it
Ask me how the search is going?
Invite me into yours so I may see

Talk not to me of devotion
I am all too familiar with it
Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of crows.
Where does the chick belong?

Attachment. We’ve talked about it.
Old wounds, strangely healed.
A future that should have been two years past
haunts me with the rest of our unfinished sentences

Just talk to me.
We’ll Ina Mina Dika our way through the rest.

My ajjol didn’t live with paintings
They lived with memories
portraits
of their parents
commissioned at great personal cost
hung up on the living room wall
Garlanded

My ajja and ammama lived
cheerful hard lives
in a house with 40 people
8 portraits garlanded and memoried
on walls of lime green and on top of
floors of red oxide and in the
darkest corner, graced with wood from the
tall jackfruit, teak, and mango
was a treasury and a shrine
filled with jewelry, hope, idols, and the
bright blue, pink, and gold foil pictures of
87 deities

Today, only 5 people live there
but the gods and the spiders
keep me company

Splash
A pink cube
plinks
onto her thin skin
slides
down her chin
Goosebumps
mocking me

The taste of freedom
fresh air
91% water
a hint of green
“over fifty thousand seeds
snuffed out”
she tells me

Olive skin
breaks
under mine

I am not a set of known variables and understood constraints
You cannot create algorithms to live with me
I keep telling myself

To be with someone is
to allow the space for them to surprise you
How then, can I let myself be loved?

My parents
from Chikmagalur
My context
the old forgotten gulf
My constant
english entertainment
A true false third culture kid

Let me be one of your continentals, Shahid
Let me study for a degree that makes me no money

In the Gulf I was taught to be patriotic
Now mom says I’m not enough nationalistic

Accounts of large crowds, told matter-of-factly
What taint is attached to the journalistic?

Thirty years spent meekly, then explosion of hatred
on return, no empathy. Why am I not optimistic?

No one walks anymore, only iron bubbles on bad roads
eyes closed to the scores gathering at Majestic

I am drowning, holding on to the feminine
While here insists on being chauvinistic.

I’ve been told that I should rhyme
but not to worry about the time
or meter set inside this poem
so lend me your ear to hear this koan

What common knowledge taught
transcends the Buddha, is often sought?

A sesame bun.

In the muddy waters of my childhood
a river used to flow here.
gulu gulu, gulu gulu
joyous intertwining best friends meet upstream
and tumble by in the backyard of my mother’s childhood.
Sprouts of jackfruit planted when she was a pre-pubescent teen
feed me and 80 more on hot summer days
green bean horse bean mushrooms moss green
mangoes in tadka on our fresh banana plates.

The waters rise and the power cuts are longer
A cobra slides over her feet
the light of our portable inverters
keep our secret card games company.

in their excitement, Tunga and Bhadra poured in uninvited
ruining
sacks of coffee beans piled to the ceiling
The houses of innumerable bugs in the rooms with the machines
Leading them to rust

today the jackfruit trees are just stumps
felled by bitter sibling wars
the river has before it a road
uncaring drivers punctuate dry summers

Why does land being divvied sound like heartbreak?

You taught me how to handle a nano
With fish
we hauled over long distances
And configured with so many extensions I didn’t understand
that the machine crashed

Nouv varsha Tanvi sakaali pode uTun yoga kartashile, tigel vastar iron kartashile, ani vattishele bhi, schoola vach kint pude!

Aiche Tanvi? Madhyan uTuna, nhavchak char paTi yochan karta.

Ushaar nashilten aashi jata. Konaki kasane karcha jaina.
Udgaas davarnge charduanu, ushaar naashil tena, tugel aang bhi oorna, tugal man bhi urna.

Kasan urta?

Tigel yoga tik shikayle - tik kasht ashil kaam karcha jata.
Tigel vastar tik shikayle - tigel anga khushi tik davarta.
Tigel pustak shikayle - tigel man gelar bhi, dusral thodeee mangungetlar, kayiin chuka na tantu.

Tugel aiche jeev tuk mukar kasan shikayta?
Hain yochan karna, bare karn need kadati.

9-year old Tanvi would get up early in the morning and do yoga, iron her clothes, and even study a little bit before heading to school!

Today’s Tanvi? Gets up at noon and wavers 4 times on taking a shower.

This is what happens when one is sick. There’s no way to hedge against this inevitability.
Remember children, when you are sick, your body will disintigrate, and your mind will be consumed.

What’s left?

Her yoga taught her - she can do work, even if it is very hard.
Her clothes taught her - her joy in her body will keep her.
Her books taught her - even if her mind is depleted, no mistake is made in asking to borrow some from other people.

What will your life today teach you tomorrow? Think about this, and have a good sleep.

At large public events I always have noise dampeners in.

What is it about us that we need an excess to feel alive?
Why does celebration have to
    overwhelm the senses
    drown out any thought
    to be successful?

I want the quiet
I want to feel my body
I want to dance - not to be carried away by the music, but to float on it

yell at the people around me
sweat on them
clutch at clammy hands
    but still know that I am okay
                                 I am here
                                 I am here