Negotiable Instrument

I yearned to be born a piece of poetry

But as it usually happens,

I earned a life so prosaic and dull

Like that of a bank draft or a cheque.

He who made me, (surely not on demand)

Could have printed a nice piece of verse

Or could have

Daubed some colour on me,

Instead of filling those words and figures.

It was none of my fault that

I got the life of a negotiable instrument.

Yet they took pride in me.

I changed hands from bearer to bearer,

And was made to order

Which I could not bear (poor me)

Given a number and status was driven

From post to pillar;

Given a name and title

I was made to sit behind tables and counters

And made cages and chambers.

They stamped my face

Endorsed my background

And lived in princely pomp

At my expense.

But I kept my grin in tact

Even when I became a prey to

Bargain, assessment, criticism and dispute.

When I fell a victim to ridicule and laughter

Nobody cared for me.

Those who used to look at my face

With gleam in their eyes

Turned their faces away in despise

Seeing what has become of me –

‘A defaced cheque’

And finally

They threw me over the counter

With ALL THEIR STAMPS CANCELLED.  

23.11.1997

Kanai Kunhiraman has two wonderful creations, a Yakshi in the north among mountains and palms, and a Mermaid in the south on seashore. Both are legends in concrete complementing each other, and together a mega tribute to their creator – Kanai.

Gone are the days of frolicking mermaids

Gone are the days of stalking vampires

Gone are their desires haunting starry nights.

Kanai

No marines abducted me, a submarine being

No Medusa lithified me, a reclining splendor.

Yet I lie on the sandy beach, as miniatures pass by.

While I bask in the beach, in shifting sands and gazes

My sister squats far north, gazing the palm-land skies.

While cement makes our forms

Black magic forms our souls

Legends and myths give us life

As we lie or squat on this earth.

We rise above elements all

High above humans all

Filling spaces above all

Diverting nasty glances off.

To make landscape of a woman

Or, to make woman a landscape

You have to be a mermaid – shored

Or, a yakshi fallen off a palm tree.

 To adorn this crowded sandy beach

Leaving behind teeming depths

I left my emerald castle and mates

In the deep sea coral rocks.

Bathed in eerie floral fragrance

Yakshi stalked the moon lit nights

Preyed on tender human hearts:

But left the dark wooded hills

To guard the dam and garden

When Kanai’s heart beckoned

We had, and we were

Centuries of wanton desires

And centuries of stories

In the old fabled tradition:

Lend your ears and mind

To the soft lull of little waves

To the whispering lips of breeze

To the heady winds of ghats

Crooning our golden stories soft.

No more have we any place

To dwell in awesome mystery.

As the world keep shrinking,

As the earth gets denuded,

As the nights get neon lit,

As the oceans get explored,

As the seas get polluted,

As the minds get jet set,

As the fables get old age homes,

As the tales seek internet

As the fairies lose their charm,

As the vampires die young,

Where can yakshis perch?

Where can mermaids hide?

Hence, I am shored, she landed

For you to behold and say-

Yonder lies a myth, a legend

A fossil of old fairy tales

A piece of mystery – frozen

For you to touch and exclaim,

Akin the dinos of Jurassic age.

No pedestal, no canopy

No garlands, no wreaths

No candles, no demonstration

No prayers, no bird droppings

Thanks to Kanai, our Pygmalion.

We lie, sit and gesticulate

Under the open heavens

Caressed by winds and rains

With our frozen grin and grimace

AUTUMN MEMOIRS

The city sighs smoke and soot

The boughs bend on melancholy weight

Fog thickens in the foliage grim

And I sulk on my lonely perch.

Smoke hangs on my dreams

Like dirty rags on the line.

Left behind by the migrating mates

I sit, nursing my wounded wing.

The roads smell of decaying mire

The gutters run with spittle and stool

I do not want to flutter around

In the depressive autumn filth.

Where the meadows are ever green

Where the sunshine is molten gold

Where the fields are ripe for harvest

Where my mates sing and prance

Where the song of my loved one

Rise in the moon-lit nights,

Where my  young ones sweet

Ride the bovine backs and tweet:

To those memories my heart aches

And from restless broodings I wake

To the bland feelings of twilight air.

When the dark clouds shroud the horizon

My expectations fall like autumn leaves

To be stirred round and around

By the north-wester winds

Scribbled when left alone in the great city

An anonymous tourist left this for you and me to read before he took his fatal plunge off The Green Valley view at the land’s end of Kodaikanal.

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The Suicide Point

The mist billowing from the plains

Washed the granite face of the cliff.

The blinding white expanse

Grew denser with the drizzle.

The wet sunlight got scattered

Thickening the opaque whiteness.

Nature stood shivering -

A graying man on uncertain feet.

A thousand dragons from the plains

Blew their misty venomous winds.

The pines guarding the bottomless pit

Stood shivering, lining the ledges.

I stood on the land’s virtual end

And peered down the dizzy depths.

The gust of wind from the abyss

Raised the veil of mist awhile.

The smoky purple face of the valley

Lit up, pale in the dim sunlight.

It beckoned me down

And I converged into a point.

I saw the coordinates of Life and Death

Meeting at the edge of the cliff.

My body trembled and vision grew hazy

As the expanse beckoned me down.

A  sudden vertigo seized my limbs

And sent me flying down the cliff.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = ======

How pleasing is the sight of a horned beauty on a sultry day in a muddy pond, ruminating under the bright sun, eyes closed , without cares and worries……….

  I        am         a           buffalo

I always think of myself as a buffalo

Lying in the cool mud of Time

Chewing the cud of my dreams

Over an earthy earth

Under the sunny sun.

Dreams are not my pastime,

But the essence of my existence

It is the food I take and ruminate

Over this earthy earth in the sunny sun

With my eyes half closed

Immersed in the heavenly slush

Call me a horned reverie

Immersed in a pool of colours

Slowly chewing the cud of time

Over the earthy earth.

I am not a tetrapod

Nor I have a bovine existence

I exist in colours and colours

And assimilate my Dreams.

 And as I go on ruminating

Up comes my violet dream

In grains and pellets

Down goes my indigo dream

Into the recess of my gullet

Followed by the blue, green and orange.

Dreams and dreams after dreams

Shuttle between my mouth and gut.

And up comes my dream glorious

As an explosion of the Red

Blinding all my other dreams

And persisting as an eternity

Through the lids of my closed eyes

Under the sunny sun

                                                 S  H  A  D  O  W  S

Did I hear a suppressed sigh

Breaking in the depth of a bosom ?

Did I hear a drop of tear

Breaking on the steps of time ?

Did I hear a hesitant knock

On the cold threshold of fate ?

Are the lights dim on the path ?

Are you going to suffer alone ?

What broke thy heart lone sufferer ?

Unkindness, Death, Desertion ?

Did I hear a dull resonance

Of a heartstring, strained and snapped?

Did I hear a suppressed sigh,

Dying in the depth of a bosom ?

Versova

Hark !

The breakers break on the shores

The breeze wheezes on the palms

The hovering cry of sea-gulls

The dreamy smell of marshes

That is my sweet abode -

Versova.

The birds twitter and usher in the dawns

The magpies call from the ledges

The crabs crawl on the sunny sands

The corals decorate the embankments

The bivalves and conchlets plough the grit

The crow pecks in a lunch of dry fish

The sunset display of orange to scarlet

The figures of fishermen silhouetted at dusk

Leaning over their day’s haul

That is my sweet abode –

Versova.

The stars that twinkle and blink

The lamps that dip and blip in the sea

The distant drone of planes and

The soft lull of waves, I am home

                                                                      Versova.          

************

Versova is one of the good places I happened to live in Bombay, near to the sea and inhabited by fisher-folk. The common sights and experiences of the place bring home much nostalgia.  Later I find out to my dismay, that the place has become overcrowded like any other Mumbai suburb