I’ve been waiting for you
Across the waters of Shalimar Bagh
But have
you ever been there?
Where?
Kashmir?
No
Where?
Kashmir?
No
Then how
did you come to think of Shalimar Bagh?
It was in a
book I read. Not a novel, nor non-fiction, but a textbook, a middle-school textbook
that I was working on.
And you thought of writing a poem?
And you thought of writing a poem?
Can you
really think of writing a poem? Is that ever a part of the process?
Is this even a poem?
Is this even a poem?
Depends on
what comes next.
It has been two years and nothing came after. I’ve been waiting for you, across the waters of Shalimar Bagh. I’ve been leafing through pages of text, heavy text, curriculum, pedagogy, propaganda, call it what you will, sitting by the pillars of the baradari, Jehangir built. I’ve been listening to the wind in discreet concert with the water; the only other sound was from my anklet. The only other rhythm was inside my mind, transported to childhood taleems in kathak, where the still untempered feet danced to verbal boli’s, but the child danced to the music on her mind, ‘ghar nahin humre shyam’. Young, audacious she, trifling with the Meera-metaphor of her life!
It has been two years and nothing came after. I’ve been waiting for you, across the waters of Shalimar Bagh. I’ve been leafing through pages of text, heavy text, curriculum, pedagogy, propaganda, call it what you will, sitting by the pillars of the baradari, Jehangir built. I’ve been listening to the wind in discreet concert with the water; the only other sound was from my anklet. The only other rhythm was inside my mind, transported to childhood taleems in kathak, where the still untempered feet danced to verbal boli’s, but the child danced to the music on her mind, ‘ghar nahin humre shyam’. Young, audacious she, trifling with the Meera-metaphor of her life!
I’ve been waiting for you, across the waters of
Shalimar Bagh, across
the interruptions of lead on printed text, across the politics of punctuation,
across the dilemmas of degrees and diplomas, across degrees of divulgence, in
poetry, in prose, in silence ariose. I’ve been training to bring on the indelible
red, across the black and white of a page, I’ve been straining to keep to lead,
the great patron of amendments, while prolonging the dusk with a disbelief in night
and no greater faith, either way.
Diwan-i-aam,
Diwan-i-khas
inside and out
ringing with your absence.
inside and out
ringing with your absence.
Elevators,
trapdoors, panic rooms, cellars
heaving
parks, highways, mountains
breathing in
your absence
heaving
parks, highways, mountains
breathing in
your absence
Until yesterday, when the next came with all its finality of a
while the sunset steals the colour
of my terracotta skin,
to darken the only night,
of all my ages
to darken the only night,
of all my ages
2 comments:
And what came completes it with a inevitable hiatus...
I liked what I read...Hoping you won't change
Like a leech
And this is another reason
why
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