one
Gray coarseness of the fear-stricken evening road
Sixty five degrees to the left, fluttering dewy white fluorescent light
Scattered
I send petitions to slippery friends in Delhi
With three cob-webbed petals of a wild rose
The Fuckers are still involved in feminist poetry composed by Men
Like the Women of Kaitharkala
And that garrulous Avinash still sucks in puffs of coffee bite
My wife of yesterday has eloped
with a Punjabi officer from Happy Valley
She must have surely reached Alipur Duar by now
I am still arranging my suitcase
Cannot find my black socks
Friends if you come, I would introduce you to the secessionists
Even they listen to Lucky Ali
in their white Ambassadors
two
In the south, uncouth Bengalis and
Khasi coolies acquainting
In the North, peeking out of the
‘Waiting-for-rain-this-sawan’ window – me
me who sports
a Momo-Beer relationship with about Five Khasis, eight Bengalis, four Biharis and three red ants
there in India
in celebration of
Acquittal of fascists
glasses of Beer froth plates of Batata Bada sizzle
three
Cow Mother’s thigh should be rubbed with pepper
and kept for about twenty four hours
When the morning hymns of Radhaswamis echo
put it on a seventy five percent cold charcoal fire
and wear your purple glasses, then yellow
You would see famished children returning from churches in their Sunday best
four
Yaar, you haven’t tasted my pasta yet
If you feel like getting up from the bed
Then go and throw all the letters in the valleys of Sohra
where the red beaked sparrow
will teach her chicks
how to discriminate between
a Lie and a Worm
If you wish, go and visit Tsering Wangmo, the owner of Bombay Restaurant
Ranting stories of Lhasa in Nazareth Hospital
While in Shillong Lhasa Market, his daughter, Chimmi Wangmo
sells a blue sweater with a red –
up AGAINST THE WALL motherfucker
If your fingers tire of shaving time
Then say, ‘Tarun go see if the newspaper from Delhi has arrived.’
While I would still be deciding
till when can I kiss
the curd-like sweat of your fingers
As soon as you take away your hands – I would be breathless
like Gora Line
five
Now every poem (no, roads) cross Delhi (no, Hastinapur)
The ashes of Pandit Ramvilas Sharma cooed
The Sacred thread ceremony of Saint Marx was solemnised
With every aggressive facial gesture
Right then Kynpham spread out a game of plains-dwelling giants and
life-size Gods
Mawphlang Mushrooms
in fake Chinese chow mein
Shillong Times via a Bihari D.C.
Some slit-eyed boys are making an AK47 dance
and the second dose of Imphal grass
Ma put in the Aloo Dum.
Translated from Hindi by the poet.
Tarun Bhartiya is a documentarian, hindi poet and political activist from Shillong.