Oedipus
Mother, I want to curl up in your womb
And not be born.
Mother, don't push me.
The Wait
The trees are shedding
Yellow leaves. Autumn
And high time you looked at me.
Suicide
The ground 24 floors below
Invites you to step off the ledge
See your whole life flash past
In fast-forward
As you discover
Yet another irony
You want to live.
The lesson
Whenever grandpa farted
We were taught not to giggle
Or wrinkle our noses
Just sit still for 30 seconds or so
And then, start breathing.
Here I am on the threshold of thirty
An old maid to family, friends and acquaintances
Who've toed the line and produced children
For social respectability.
I've been spared the humiliation
Of being shown around coffee and conversation
That hinges around the books I've read
The music I listen to
While all the boy does is imagine me in bed
Virginal and ripe for his taking.
I've denied relatives the pleasure
Of complaining at my wedding about the food, The presents and the groom's family.
I've puzzled matchmakers
By letting many a good catch
Slip out of my hands
Into the lap of a more willing bride.
Here I am on the threshold of thirty
Not entirely insensitive to a mother
Who prays that I discover
The joys of holy matrimony.
Marriages are made at 247 Usmaan Road
Under the chants of a bald, toothless man.
They say he chants Vedic mantras
For the happiness of the couple.
Bride, included.
So then, I've been made a woman
Or so my husband says.
He lost his virginity last night, you see.
...and singe the night air with embers
Of my ego plastered with Paris
Past lingers on, the perfume stays in bed
All day to wake lazy toes.
I'm a dew drop on the autumn leaf
Afraid of smiles that wade through
A sea of thoughts
Interrupted by the doorbell.
Wait a while stranger.
Let the trees bathe in the blue
And that whisper of light stay.
I want to sin.
The flame that lit silences
Has burned out and left ashes
For tomorrow's prayer.
Treading on seeds Papa planted yesterday
I think of pursuits left behind
In pot joints and coffee shops
Touching wood, wearing amulets
Tying the black threads of Kashi around wrists
Why bathe in the Holy Ganga?
I'm afraid to be reborn a lizard.
In hushed whispers
I hear my father call.
Ma says the convent school may pollute my thoughts
And fill my head with Christianity.
It's a final threat.
The sun has scorched the cynic, my father
And scared him with damnation.
The habit fascinates me.
Blowing rings of smoke in toilets
Or letting Smack curl my hair
Till toes tickle.
Maybe I shouldn't have let that summer
Strip my defences and rape the grasses of thought.
Here I lie, thinking of Eliot and Pound
Willing to write and cannot
Because the sun set long ago
And the dark has filled me
With doubts I cannot clear.
Today, the 8.10 local from Badlapur
Solved the mystery of the unwhistling pressure cooker
Where in the knit there were two purls
And three dropped stitches.
Why the maid ran away with the watchman
And how the boss said 'good morning'
To the giggly bank clerk.
Missing the 8.10 is like missing your period.
Honeymoons are a bunch of photographs
With the husband's arm around the wife's shoulder
And nostalgia for other women.
Honeymoons are Ooty, Kashmir and Kodaikanal
Where the idea of a stranger making love to you
Is something to get used to because he is the husband.
Today the 8.10 had a panty seller
Who sold pink panties for Rs.30 a pair
And screamed that pink was a colour
Husbands liked as a rule but never said so.
Today the 8.10 had women with
Thinly threaded eyebrows
Unwashed hair
Purple lipsticks
Garlic breaths
Bushy underarms
And the kind of confidence
A Germaine Greer or a Gloria Steinem talks about.
Give me the vagrant meandering of your soul
The little secrets you store in recesses forgotten
Long sighs of things that could be or couldn't
And a look in the eye
That makes promises you cannot keep.
