Friday, July 20, 2012

Happy Birthday

For You, Didi.

On your birthday a book you wanted
And for three years I daunted.
I'm much less of a writer
Than you are a fighter
And even lesser a poet
Yet today a poem is all you get.

Buying you a gift is reduced to a joke
As I'm unimaginably broke
Also, it is no easy task
As you never wear a mask
For you a gift is only fun
When it's a United Colors of Benetton 

For Three out of Twenty-Five
You had the most amazing drive
With a beautiful couple
Your life was perfectly supple
With close ones galore
A Russian baby they used to adore

Then Ninety brought a puzzle
And your baby fat gradually fell
You felt like the big one at three
Having the ultimate liberty
Of bossing over someone
Your ultimate childhood fun

For twenty-two years
There were few tears
But a lot of laughter
That would last many years after
Many a roads walked
Endless nights we have talked

From school to college
You always had an edge
Then, in white and blue a prefect
And now, in Biba you are decked
When they skip a beat
Because of all your heat
Don't blame hearts for playing darts
In the end, only choose lemon tarts.

Your talents, they feature
From financier to teacher
Be it lessons or Papercup
You manage to fill it up
Just the same way
I wish you many a happy day
To fill your walk of life
To play the perfect daughter, sister, wife.

For a day like today, a day which is a boon
Any fool would return from Doon
To wish you a 'Happy Birthday'
If my words may.




Monday, July 16, 2012

Iron-y


Truth is a gamble
All, nothing but a scramble
English, Math, Wonderland
A make-believe helping hand

English

Take the word fine
And think of a line
You have two in your mind
Separate meanings they bind
‘How you doing, Sir?’
Asked your chauffeur
‘I’m fine. Thank you
Take me to English Avenue’
For not obeying Traffic rules
He was one of the myriad fools
Who had to pay a fine
Which was worth a fine dine
He was then heard saying
After paying
‘That fine
Was not fine

Mathematics

He who had no (zero) money
Was now at Avenue Sunny
Started his journey
To earn some penny
He travelled a long round way
And made 360 bucks that day
At no other place but Avenue Sunny
Still none of us think that Math is funny

Wonderland

He had a date with Alice the same eve
Stories, that is what she loves to weave
Her best is named Wonderland
It had a queer reader’s band
It is written as a tale for the children
But is best understood by grown-up men
And women.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Leonino Monsoon

The quickest Monsoon
An unexpected boon
Came the year I recovered from my leonine fear

Match-boxed in a maze
Opposite a lion in a daze
In Summer, a chronic diesease
With Talk, a poetic lease
We dissected Calcutta, the organ
Using Sex, the paroxysmal gun

What followed was
Of course
The prediction of rain in a Land of Cards
And euphoric killing with colorful darts
Which speed-posted Monsoon
The quickest bullet balloon.

 

Monday, June 18, 2012

Dreaming Of The Gulf

Photography: Rathin Mitra

                                                                                                                    
I
You know a place has touched you when weeks after you have left the same
You feel and talk and dream of a return which is nothing but a waiting game
A game; if it is so, I am willing to play. Only this time without a playmate
without my moonshine, without my brother, playing Pillow Castle love-hate.


II
I know that place has tapped me because often I still smell the Emirates in the air
And feel the cutting sea wind by the Breakwater, a water break-love story so rare
I know that place is young when I see the blue of the sea, the sky and a cocktail
And sleep at the backseat of a Cruiser, with almost the feel of a sea sail.


The Shadow Lovers

Photography: Rathin Mitra

Running through the street
With a storm under her feet
She reaches the old man’s den
The timepiece, oblivious of when

Knowing he would understand
The ruin of her castle of sand
With hope she pushed the door
In need of his unusual lore

In the stead of him she found
The room oddly crowned
With a heap of broken records
Which seemed to play unheard chords

Passing through scattered yellow hardbacks
A smell which every paperback lacks
She sees her old man on his bed
With almost no wrinkle on his bald head

He always looked as young as a lover
Resembling a Marquez story cover
Who only became younger
In the company of her female hunger

This time she came to let him know
Her story of the lowest low
That for long she was ailing
In her last days she was sailing

She tapped him on the shoulder
To wake him up from his slumber
But he lay there on a bed soaked with urine
With ears which were not too keen

She called him for the next two days
But he was lost in his deceased haze
He never woke up to hear
Or to hold his ailing whore near

In a day or two she too took the cue
To start a flight, brand new
Amidst diseased books and infected laughter
The corpses lived happily ever after.