With Billy on the balcony

 

This season we aren’t going anywhere

no Almora, nope, not even Darjeeling

and certainly no quaint cobbled foreign square.

There’s rain. Coffee. The hibiscus is blooming.

 

How pleasant it is to avoid all hill towns –

I have the poetry of Billy Collins.

No need to trudge, out of breath, up and down.

Home with coffee. And the sound of the rain falling.

 

No urge to charge in to ancient monasteries,

marvel round eyed at gold icons and things.

Here’s the flamboyant. And the frangipanis.

A rain soaked bedraggled bird that still sings.

 

And Billy points out that Bologna and Rome

aren’t a patch on rain and coffee at home.

Desert Rose

 

The desert rose has bloomed in green places,

in coordinates that it may not choose –

in the narrowest of urban spaces,

under heavy skies and a light too diffuse,

 

in soils that are clogged with too much water,

in planters meant for different sets of roots,

in shadowed courtyards, against its own nature –

in circumstances that don’t always suit.

 

It doesn’t bloom prolific but the flowers

bloom a stubborn red as the shadows deepen,

as taller and higher rise the towers,

as the light’s withdrawn they get deeper even.

 

It doesn’t quite meet the trending standards,

but still blooms quietly in a hostile earth.

~~~

I wanted to write something ebullient - festive and season appropriate for this post, but that didn't happen for reasons various. Story of my life. Meanwhile, this plant at the back of our house, I've been fretting about it for ages because it looked peaky and wasn't producing buds - it bloomed suddenly. Red and green. As appropriate as it gets.

I first came across the Adenium, or Desert Rose as it is commonly known, in the Sahel in West Africa, where it originates. My mother's gardener Matthias had, after due consultations and round table conferences, lined the back and sides of the compound with these plants in Maiduguri. I spent a whole chunk of my afternoons out in their company, the flowers were a different colour, light pink rather than red, but I'd know the species anywhere. 

Never saw them in India during childhood home leaves - east was east and west was west then, desert was desert and green was green and no one probably attempted growing exotic foreign plants in gardens over here. India anyways has a huge heap of native flowering plants, my folks were content with the local varieties I guess. Things have changed now, I've spotted quite a few desert rose specimens in our neighbourhood. 

Kolkata is quite the opposite of a desert, you turn your back for a minute and there's a banyan or fig sprouting in a crack on the windowsill of your building. The northern Sahel has an average annual rainfall of 200 mm. Kolkata on the other hand might get 250 mm in 24 hours during peak monsoon season. And this year has been exceptionally wet. Therefore, growing a desert plant here is a serious undertaking! :) Not all plants need great gobs of fertile soil and pouring rain to thrive. 

The one who took this enterprise up in the back was my jethani, she was a keen gardener. She passed away untimely in 2023. Jethani is untranslatable in English, the western society is not so specific about extended family relationships. She was my husband's elder brother's wife, what would you call her? Sister-in-law doesn't really mean the same thing, does it? Some Indians translate jethani as 'co-sister.' Even then it falls a little short, because the 'elder' part is built into the word jethani.

Anyway, I digress. She planted several perennials, some foliage, some flowering, both local varieties and a few foreign ones. Among them this desert rose. I think of her every time I see her pot plants - they are a comfort. I'm glad the desert rose is blooming.  

Happies and merries to you. Wishing you and yours all the joys of the season and a happy New Year 2026. May your desert roses bloom under every sky and soil that comes your way. 

Fernweh

 

All round me is autumn, but over there it’s spring.

The lure of a distant season’s strong. Everything

here’s gold, but it’s a withered gold – the end is near,

there it’s newly green, different world and hemisphere.

I’ve dived into that world,  and I’ve been forced up too

and home wasn’t home anymore, all strange and new –

it morphed to a restlessness, a vague sharp ache

for distant worlds once touched, and those I’d hoped to make.

Not that they’re not splendored, the withered, the yellowed,

but there’s a yen to be again on unknown roads

to drink once more from some strange stream, to face crosswinds

never felt, to plumb worlds never quite imagined.

Not that these are not enough – they are. They are.

But there’s a lure to green and gold that’s somewhere far.

If you google the title -  the straight translation is wanderlust, but I like a different one that explains it as 'farsickness' or 'farsoreness.' Way more on point. I'm quite often farsick. A friend posts pictures of fall colours in the higher latitudes and presto! - farsick. Another puts up ones of flamboyants blooming in the southern hemisphere - farsick.   Yet another shares travel pictures from Africa - you get the idea. 

I'm a constant tug of war between wanting nothing more than to be curled up on the couch at home and to escape it and get thousands of miles away this instant. Armchair travel is one way of indulging the farsoreness. Poetry is one too. There are a thousand virtual ways to escape. 

However, I'm pleased to report that I'm off the hills in a couple days for a much needed break. Most unvirtual, though in the same hemisphere and season. Back next week. Till then keep well and happy. See you soon.

All through this month and 24/7

 

III.

If I had nine lives, like a cat, I would hold

more pens and placards, be a bit less bothered

with hemlines and hats, people’s different thresholds.

Give silence its due too, be less awed by words.

Though I’d look at the hollow made by your head

in the cushion, I’d still want to write sonnets

starting and ending with you whether you read

them or not. And I’d almost never forget

passwords. Maybe try being an accountant

in some life midway – if it suited better

I’d stay in it for the rest, I’m reluctant

to change for the sake of it. Write more letters

by hand, use them more mindfully in all nine

and each time, I’d still want yours to hold in mine.

~^~*~^~*~^~

Last November I wrote a series of nine poems in which I explored the theme of love and posted a couple of those at the time. I'll be putting some of the others up here through out this month as I celebrate the same in all its myriad shapes and sizes. And mid-month we are starting off with the first Write...Edit...Publish...Challenge, a new look site and prompts based on movie magic, what's not to love, right?

~^~*~^~*~^~

In the Hindu belief system - and I might as well tell you at the outset, I am no expert on it, it is held that death doesn't part the souls of a wedded pair, their union is said to persist for seven lifetimes. The whole system is predicated - not on a single life and then eternal rest but reincarnations through many births and many deaths and some bonds lasting for more than one cycle. I'm quite happy with that part. Personally, I'll take the same pairing for the next however many lives I have to go through, no issues with that.

Whether a soul gets reborn or not depends on the weight of the sins, its karma, accumulated in a previous life. If it leads a sin free life, then it gets free of the eternal cycle of birth and death and unites with the cosmic soul and is absorbed into an Absolute Bliss. It doesn't have to come back to earth to suffer any pain. Earth is referred to as Martaloka or the domain of death while where the soul goes once it is freed is called Amritaloka and Anandaloka - the space of deathlessness/ecstasy. All material things are an illusion, earthly bonds hold the soul back, the smart thing in this given system is naturally  to detach pronto and hurry to that blissful cosmic union asap. 

In short, the belief is that life on earth is generally a pain in the neck and the sooner one can escape it the better, the greater the part of eternity the soul can spend in perfect communion with the One, in perfect bliss. That first part I'm not so cool with - earth seems a good enough space to me, and being in a human body does not feel as horrible as it's made out to be - death, attachment, grief, suffering, all the nonsense and violence going on in the world notwithstanding. I mean, I'm not knocking absolute bliss, moksha, detachment  or anything, they may well be as super awesome as the sacred texts promise. Only that I don't think this entire earthly existence needs to be so thoroughly trashed, that's all.  It can be mildly enjoyable here too, at times, no harm in admitting that. The planet's breath taking, being human can be quite alright too, there's love and kindness and inspiration and all kinds of other goodies, so c'mon, ditch the nonstop negativity already.... Just saying. 

Here's to a mildly enjoyable week and life on earth in general. To your February and mine. May all conflicts be gobbled up by the forces of love everywhere. 

Easy peasy

 

Living in a house with umbrellas hasn’t been

something given for the longest time. The rain

comes but rarely in the desert. I’ve only seen

a rainbow there once, though some places do contain

the word within themselves, in their very name -

it feels aspirational – more a hankering.

In the local language it’s simply not the same -

the vowel sound, the suffix, mean quite different things.

 

I watch it come down, drip from the overhang of

the porch, umbrellas shut and open like moth wings

colours darkened by a shade, bedewed, glistening,

and climb back into rain compatible living,

the feel of damp laundry, dark, moistened earth. Love

comes easy - for the desert, for the rain falling.

For those who are interested, the project of the celebratory Love Song of the UnPrufrock in nine parts is coming along nicely, seven done, two more to go, so more than halfway there in less than half the month - good progress. I've been dabbling in other love songs in between...

Learning to be more catty

 

If like a cat, I had nine lives, that is, eight

more to go, I’d choose to be married to you

for seven as the sacred texts indicate

anyway, maybe I’d swap to a man to

see if I liked it in one, and then change back.

For the last, I’d take that round-the-world trip, not

in eighty days though. I’d find a way to pack

the important things. I’d learn to sail a boat,

to grow a tree from seed, to write in blank verse.

I’d waste less days searching for that perfect rhyme,

fill them instead with the words of foremothers.

Read more Bengali poets from scratch this time.

I’d live more deep, look more closely at the dew.

Leave more space for wonder. Leave more space for you.

November happens to be a month of personal celebrations of various kinds. This week,  I'm celebrating through the writing of a series of nine sonnets, here is the first of them. A celebration and a thanksgiving for the guy who's stuck around staunchly for more than half my life...despite the shortage of elbow room...

Not Happening

 

There are some things I know aren’t happening

although I’ve wanted them with all the force

I could muster from the very beginning.

A dormer window. Guava tree. A course

on floating. A tripfree tongue. The universe

has other work, can’t always be listening,

aligning the Rubik’s cube of perverse

desires that snatch at arbitrary things.

 

Some things aren’t going to happen I know

they’re going to be always denied me - 

what earthly use is a dormer window

on dead flat roofs? It’s an anomaly.

Still I press on, undeterred. Who knows? Maybe

next time, next life? Maybe just moments to go.

It's Diwali, which is actually a festival of five days the main point of which is the festival of lamps. Shubha Deepavali if you are celebrating/observing. 

May the light of peace and plenty shine brightly around you always. 

The Keystone and the Arch

 

Could you hate the arch yet love just the keystone,

could you love the person but condemn the sin?

All these years – for a lifetime -  it has borne

the stresses of the position it was in.

 

It’s fallen now, by all means evaluate

if you like the arch enough to build again,

what changes you would want in height and shape,

the designs that suit the present taste of men.

 

As for those who never travelled that path,

those whose ways diverged long decades ago,

let them not talk about it, nor the arch

and let them not judge what they do not know.

 

The stone’s fallen, accord it the position

it deserves for a job consummately done.

 

I'm am not pro- or anti- British monarchy, it's none of my business the systems of government in other countries. I am an admirer of the Queen, for her own personal qualities, nothing to do with the system she represents. India achieved independence a few years before the Queen became the queen. She would have had very little to do with it even if she had been on the throne, given that the British monarch reigns only but does not rule. So I don't quite understand these memes which are circulating. And I certainly don't understand this vilification of the sons for the sins of their fathers. 

No empire was ever built to look after the interests of the subjects. Emperors were ruthless people not teddy bears out to wipe the tears of the hoi polloi. They strategised to expand their territory by fair means and/or foul, mostly foul because no war is fair really. So why should anyone expect an Imperial power to treat its subjects softly softly I can't fathom. Neither can I understand why bash the Queen now, after her death, for what happened prior to 1947. Sure, I would have liked it better if the royal family/UK government had made a formal apology for Jallianwala Bagh. But I don't know how much discretion she had over that decision. At any rate, I don't think this is the right time to air that particular peeve. And all peeves can be aired politely.

If you ask my free and frank, East India Co would never have got the advantage it did without the active collusion of Indians, not just Mir Zafar but also the Hindu mastermind of the whole scheme and the Hindu financiers of it. If the then Indian ruling class were politically astute and a little less greedy and class-ridden, Clive would have most probably lost that battle and likely none of this colonisation business would have happened, who knows? 

Not excusing any of the excesses of the Empire, but personally, I think the Queen has navigated a difficult job with great dignity and a quiet, self-effacing grace, without any drama. Ninety six years old, obviously in frail health but still on her feet, smiling and serving her people till the very last. If a few of our own current politicians were to be a fraction as devoted to duty as she was, India wouldn't be in the mess it is in right now. 

Okay I'm done now, thank you for your patience if you've read this far. :) 

The Still Point

 

 

There’s a point beyond which all clamour stills;

you step into it – at the beach…in the hills…

right in the middle of the city square…

and the world falls away, it’s just you there

amidst the rush of traffic, vendor talk,

the cheap trinkets, or the staccato knock

of a woodpecker in the trees somewhere…

 

the sure knowledge settles in your pith, deep,

you know it from then on, awake, asleep –

like a pebble thrown in an endless well

lost in the most complex, magical spell

the planets cast, the secrets galaxies hold

the moonpaths of nights, the daily rivergold –

that point’s finally home, peace, where you dwell.

Flipped

 

He’s been in these new spaces and he’s slept

under this roof, called your name, sat in that chair,

handled utensils and fresh bread. He’s stepped

into the garden, the seafront, on the stairs.

No footprints though. And even though he’s left –

he’s made this into home. The soil, sea and air,

their gritty strangeness now easy to accept.

That’s how it’s happened, happens everywhere.

 

The places touched to home, the unknown stripped

in one instant remade and familiar,

strange flipped to comforting and you equipped

to deal with it. Because someone close and dear

for one brief moment has stood beside you here.

My son was here on a short visit, back in his campus now a gazillion miles away. I forget to panic 24/7 when I am in face-to-face mum mode. :) 

I hope your loved ones are standing close to you, physically or metaphorically. Have a brilliant week ahead.

Canopy

 

Wouldn’t you rather be in the grasslands

dancing to the winds and rains, being a blade,

being green and grounded, centred in the land,

watching the timelessness of light and shade?

 

Wouldn’t you rather be in temperate zones

be a willow weeping into a lake,

the paving under old arches, or keystones

or those meandering routes rivers take?

 

I do love the grasslands, I love the woods

and I adore the shapes of conifers

but the rainforest is equally good -

the different beauties of the universe.

 

No, there's no other place I’d rather be

content where I am – the current canopy.

Closed, but also open

 

Did you know that shop down the corner here?

I went looking for it, but it was closed…

Son, it shut when the lockdown was imposed

and never opened again. How many years

 

have you been away? The last two have changed

so many things – how we work, play, buy and eat,

the number of shops shut down on this street

the entire neighbourhood’s been rearranged

 

a hundred homes upended, windows gone blind

livelihoods destroyed, a war without a war

shutting down our lives, never mind the store

the last couple of years haven’t been kind

 

where have you been, son? Stuck on the other side

of the world, waiting for the plague to subside.

Last two and a half years, I've been treading water as far as writing goes. Posted here regularly of course, and at WEP - these are like breathing, can't imagine life w/o them (Thank you my WEP and blog families!) 

But I made no submissions anywhere. Zero. I wrote plenty...I was just nowhere near up to editing the stuff into submission-worthiness. Hopefully, that out-of-control spell is now broken and I am now open, business as usual. For which I am grateful. 

Check out this link here - Portrait of a Garden, and if you feel able, please share on your sm platforms. Thank you for your support. 

Worm's eye view

Lomolomo. Juky 22.

 

The sun has almost touched the horizon

and I too want to stay close to the ground

to read the stories silken sands have spun,

where the ocean’s scattered seashells around

 

The tide is low and a tired old white kite

lies asleep, its tail like a mermaid’s fin

fluttering over the last of the daylight.

Their day’s work’s done, the boats are drawing in

 

My body is crumbed with glittery sand

and my hair is billowing with the tide

I’m neither of the water nor this land

and I’m neither the road nor still hillside.

 

Just want to stay close to the wash of blue -

never the bird, rather a worm’s eye view.

Incommunicado

 

Hibiscus schizopetalus. Common names

- fringed rosemallow, Japanese lantern,

coral hibiscus and spider hibiscus. From

the garden earlier today. First intro. 

Recognised it was a hibiscus from the 

leaves. So Botany Teachers, your lectures 

haven't gone completely waste :)

What’s a solstice? or even three -

I’ll still be reaching for the phone

till the last stronghold of memory

tumbles into ruin and is gone.

All seven seas and all time zones,

include the seven ages of man,

and seven more births that follow on

and the entire galactic gameplan -

 

it will still flash into the brain

instantly at anything new

that I must get back, call and share -

transmit this pulse of thrill to you,

before the surge ebbs out again.

You are out of reach, everywhere.

Harvest of hate

 

I'll go far away. Your hate and prejudice

will be like sand between my toes and won't stick,

fall off from my skin even as it dries -

not a grain nor crumb. Not an atom of it.

Not one yarn of this entire tissue of lies

will touch me, nested in a different life.

Nothing but rightful the balance of justice

not each thrust acid sharp silver keen as knives.

I will stand here steady on my own two feet

and what you've sown is what you'll have to reap

today, tomorrow or centuries hence -

food grains grow only where the waters run sweet.

You'll sit alone with your sharp words and weapons,

cold your fireside. And the harvest in ruins.

Counting

 

Don’t think and grieve I count out days

in loops of memories and sighs,

that I fritter my life away,

that I stop my ears and shut my eyes.

I count instead how your laughter rang -

transformed the earth and made it glow,

and how the fireflies came along

to show off their light at your window.

The angle the stars held up your sky,

and the seas wove an orchid foam,

how the trees lobbed their branches high

just so they could shelter your home.

Their flowers still dance and pirouette.

They do not grieve, nor do I forget.

Reaching for the phone

 

I think of you at half past four,

that was the window for the call.

You’re an ancient pitted mosaic floor

you’re a bird hooting at nightfall -

at every turn, big and small

you are the groundswell of light

and a memory bridge of recall.

Nothing else to say or to write.

 

I reach for the phone like old times

the heart leaps at the strangest things -

seashell crumble on a beach,

washed up driftwood and tree rings,

the politics of violent crime.

Then I recall you’re out of reach.