Fani
a storm
like us
raging
like us
ruthless
like us
circling
like us
rising
like us
spiralling
like us
tiring
like us
repenting
like us
wearying
like us
relenting
unlike us.
[Written while travelling to the ancient village of Gohaldia in the hinterland of Odisha, India, which was recovering from the ruthless cyclone, Fani, in 2019. The cyclone displaced more than a million people in the state as a result of the indiscriminate destruction of natural
ecosystems. A visit to Mayurbhanj that year was almost a beckoning of my own ancestral history, deeply intertwined with that of Odisha’s from a time of the Bengal Renaissance. It was during this journey that I witnessed the aftermath of the cyclone – and, more importantly, the resilience of the region’s people, hard at work.]
No cure but poetry is sure
what if I told you a poem was stronger?
what if I told you a poem fought longer?
the poem worked from away and worked from home
on burning lands, bursting seas
debilitating injury and disease
a para’s cetamol
rhyma moclobemide
sane-itiser
prose-thetics
healing the cursed
aiding the nursed
a spell four thousand years old
with the universe in its fold
what if I told you
it’ll fix this anxious, cold you
a poem in quarantine
a poem in a glass of wine
enough to cure a species diseased
enough to resurrect a humanity deceased.
[This poem was written in the early days of the pandemic to reiterate the mysterious beauty of the poetry we all carry within us as individuals and as a collective humanity; how the medicine to the ailing situation of loneliness is partly within ourselves, how we are capable of living, working and thriving anywhere if only we believe, and how one line, one expression of art or the experience of it could come to our rescue just as strongly as science.
The Sumerian epic from ancient Mesopotamia, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the oldest known surviving long poem that first appeared around 2100 BCE.]
Tempest for the times
this time the clouds kept racing
fast and furious
in city swarms like ours
they never stopped,
only grew heavy,
ate darkness and dust
but never poured
but then came the days unbearable
they roared quaked thundered
slashed the sky with violent silvers
lashing at land, flashing in flood
tearing roads, unleashing blood
a maelstrom of malevolence
they became us – the Tempest.
To be loved like the end
can you be
touched by that pious pourdom
kissed by those drops
covered in countless diamonds
of dancing natural ecstasy
from heaven’s purest waters
upon a 600-million-year-old sea
timeless soulsap of the universe
in deepest Langkawi
can you be filled drenched quenched
between those ancient islands taut and wide
can you be that rainforest of a thousand lifetimes
swept in a moment, dancing upon eternity?
[Reflections from a time of being briefly stranded in the middle of deep sea in Malaysia, flanked by 600-million-year-old rainforests that are dwindling due to deforestation and climate change. Instead of fear, a feeling of unprecedented bliss, love and grace suffused my being on this travel assignment. In that feeling of absolute abandon, even the possibility of death seemed like the perfect finale.]
A flame in the dark
my trātaka yoga in tune with the music of azān
I say a prayer for the seven tiny souls
devoured by agni in a corner of my city
and one for the 17,000 sacrificed to gore
some gone to a smoking “fun” zone
others played to ground in the war zone
two, to reckless fast-track racing
in a generation tom-tomming slow-living reels
but a bunch of Shameless girls giving hope
veracity cutting through veils of vile vanityAll That We Imagine as Light may shine
but reality, sometimes a brute of a blaze
(years later, a burning building in my neighbourhood
and a plane with a lone survivor)
and yet, to keep the spark
is to stitch yourself together –
like Nancy’s cool frills at Cannes that year
and dance around this ceaseless fire
of hell and hope
like ancients in abandon.
[The Shameless (2024) – a film by Konstantin Bojanov; All We Imagine as Light (2024) – a film by Payal Kapadia. “Nancy’s cool frills at Cannes” refers to stylist Nancy Tyagi’s appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, 2024, in an outfit self-made from scratch.]
Notes of nourishment
is it possible to cook a poem?
simmer it on low flame
rhyme spinach leaves and lentils
in mild flavour for soul soup
toss potatoes till they’re the shade
of golden words by the greats
pluck cauliflowers to branch beauty
in the basic – or bake sublime
the spaghetti of natural sight
with greens of broccoli conifers
red peppers of rhododendron
and yellows of peeping sun
olive rainstorms of oregano dust
smoked chicken of lover’s heart
morsels of bubbling magic
afloat simple nourishment
nothing makes sense
till it swims together
shares meaning
flavour fire essence body
an offering – just as a poem
of life itself
The touch
[i]
there’s something
now so rare
about paper soaking the tip of pen
like a parched creature
quenched, relieved, revived
plant of soul watered with ink
an ancient tree coming alive again
in its veins, drenched in dreams
of the writer as the written
of the human and the root
of you – anew
moistening the wired mind
with meaning magic meditation muse
wet is not a word of shame
nor is to drink and to pour
to each elixirous letter –
another drop of hope in flow
[ii]
pen to paper
as sky to scraper –
oh when do we touch
when do we touch
Excerpted with permission from Cries, Soumya Mukerji, Westland Books.
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