Ajmer and Pushkar Trip

[Poem] Nightmare

Then there are some
inside the forgotten folds of mind
With sinister designs
time wakes them up, once in a while

Like that edgy drop on a leaf
then names play at the tip of your tongue
In stubborn refusal to come undone
voices deceitfully echo in your ears

You run around darkened alleys
Stumble, get up and stumble again
finally to reach a heap of discarded fetus
Into the repulsive heap then you dig deep
to find life, sense a throb, maybe
but vainly

A gloom sets in
before the chilly Christmas breeze
shakes you up from deep slumber
You slowly get up
Chary, lest you wake up a tomorrow
peacefully sleeping in your arms

Vijay © 24th December, 2006

An evening at the Cherayi Beach, Kerala

Pachyderms of Guruvayur

[Transcreation] Freedom

A photothought

Capture us for eternity, if you may

This moment shall be lost, forever

Stark reality shall soon deliver

our innocence on the dissection tables

of international art houses;

to be butchered by prying eyes

of wizards of the gab


Sooner than later

the spotlight shall turn on you


Amidst accolades and bouquets

when that piece of paper you take out

from inside your freshly stitched tuxedo

to thank friends, relatives and dear ones,

do not forget to start with a preface:

Robbed of their tears,

it is now dreams that they shed

Vijay © 10th December, 2006

PS: The photograph is displayed on my friend and Ryzer Kamakhya Singh's photo collection on Orkut.

[Poem] Salvation

Remember what we were told?
They extracted promises from us
when this journey we commenced
They assured us salvation
if we could
if only we could
get this horse to the destination

Try retrospection and you will realise
For them, we never were important
Only the horse was
Come what may to us
we were to endure this journey

In them, we believed
In them, we placed our trust
Unmindful of our hunger and thirst
We fed the horse, quenched its thirst
We bathed it, brushed its mane
In its beauty we were lost for a while

The ungrateful animal
never gave us back what it got
Instead,
it bit us, stomped all over us
The hoof marks are still fresh

Let us not now debate
whether we killed it
or it died its natural death
Truth, as it is today, is that
with this corpse on our shoulders
we cannot walk the length anymore

Let us bury it here and now
and walk
Walk on different paths, perhaps
I am sure they must have bluffed us
This must be our destiny
and the salvation they talked about
See, how happy we are
If not, let us take our chances
Walk further on our chosen paths
to another salvation on another day

Vijay © 4th December, 2006