Birds perform anting
without any shame,
in the open.
In different forms,
the same
relates to humans.
Literature is anting.
Love is anting.
Talking and listening, anting.
Reading, anting.
Like birds,
we wallow in there
to soar high, again.
The thing to remember, however,
is this: every body reeks of ache.
A disenchanted Maratab Ali
mourns lyrically for his beloved.
A teenage conductor swanks
his counterfeit jacket.
His yells pose a competition
to the singer while
guiding passengers to the bustling,
nevertheless seatie-khalie bus.
Meanwhile, woustie keeps
a close eye in the side-mirror
on sadah trunamath inching closer.
The handwritten board at the front
reeks of human agency.
Random couplets in graceful Urdu
adorn the side panels.
Just below, hastily, is written
laddias seat with an arrow
that hints at nowhere in particular.
Woustie's gunj baanie rests in between
some grease-ridden cloth and castrol bottles.
My dull memory,
of the Tata bus,
of the Mazda bus,
grazes past
the historicity
of your Smart Bus.
In a world
where cackling is
nation building,
where progression is
an unending résumé,
where hollowed out
mountain is development,
where truth-telling is
unequivocal cheating.
In such a world,
life is a hearse,
stuck in a traffic jam.
The earliest and the faintest memory
I have of you, is you listening intently
and diagnosing your patients
in your meticulously set medicine shop,
while I'm waiting
on a wooden plank by the counter.
You handed me a mint candy
and promised
that if I wait calmly,
you'd take me to your home,
to which I smiled like a patient
relieved from a latest asthma attack.
Decades later,
things have changed drastically.
The shop is no longer there -
neither are you.
However,
I'm still waiting on the wooden plank,
in the middle of what is now a road,
faking to unwrap the candy.
The Manna Salwa
that was, yesterday,
drone-delivered
reeked of mould.
We had to sift
the breaking news
from the legumes.
In order to reach
that scintillating part
by the lakeside,
one needs to cross the leper colony.
Isn't this what Farrokhzad taught us?
A leper imagines
God to be a leper as well.
How sublime!
Isn't this what religious scriptures teach us?
On our way a leper
raised his hand.
Was he greeting or
exhibiting to us his ailment?
We could not make
any sense of the gesture.
Thereafter,
capturing random photos around,
gossiping and fiddling
with our smartphones,
we left the spot
ready to brave the world once again:
we, the conscience lepers.
I would have loved you more
Eclipsed any romance in folklore.
But on a wall is freedom written.
I would have happily grabbed a placard
And swaggered it through a protest hard.
But on a wall is freedom written.
I would have blabbered about progress
Meticulously drafted a beautiful mess.
But on a wall is freedom written.
I would have advocated a pogrom
While greeting everyone with a Salam.
But on a wall is freedom written.
I would have shed the thorns of hate
Transformed my careless sorry state
But on a wall is freedom written.
I would have surrendered thirst for blood
Yielded the exacting power of thud.
But on a wall is freedom written.
I would have…
Alas! on a wall is freedom written.
