Poetry

Kumkum sticker

      is on her dress mirror

      is on her car’s visor mirror     

Kumkum sticker 

      is on my chest

      am I hers or just her reflection 

Piling cars with jewels, the King sped-on

By the sea, in Bombay luxury, he lives-on

“Fight elections, my sons.” Outskirts vote on

Jammu, city forgotten, would not move-on

Different tongues, in slogans, we fight-on 

Grudges of history, on everyday weighed-on

School-ground filled court-pond, is played-on

Bathe at home, pond devotees, with tap-on.  

Cricket edged marble-players, TV egged-on. 

In dead-court school, clerical-dream, lived-on

Translate-to-English, the learning, carried-on

Students on carpet, new jute-roll, stings-on.

Straight lines, ‘neath dense sounds, to write-on 

English words, with more letters, to explode-on

Can’t fit into lines, words spill, to dangle-on.

They said “Pick Hindi or Urdu”, and moved-on

mountain-snow or plain-dust, was decided-on

My destiny: to escape to plains, was locked-on.

I ended in the team, with more bullet clip-on

Remind me, my righteous song “Turn the TV-on!”

The plain did not love me, said, “Migrate on!”

Come back again, glorious sage of the past

Help me understand the words you had cast. 

Was your incentive to broadcast,

to compete with schools bigger and vast?

Were your views just fashionably biased?

Choose materialism to lambast,

because ‘nastiks’ went too far; you were aghast? 

Were you happy, Buddhists revised at last,

filled vajr-throne and around kings amassed?

Did you write and rewrite multiple drafts,

still picked wrong words and want to redraft,

use more precise word or a catchy podcast,

language has new words perfect time to recast?

Thought a bit more, now ideas to retract.

Did you ever feel you were miscast,

others miss the point and you are now typecast,

misconstrued in ways you could not forecast?

When your right-to-left script Gandhari was lost,

did you felt sad, abandoned  and downcast

your sounds were lost and words rehashed?

Did you love the texture, the pattern of prayer mat,

would keep it guarded, jealously racked,

loved new ink and were sad when nib cracked?

Are you just like me, a ‘householder’ selling for grains to outlast…