Shudra

The usual dogs go barking in
A condescending tone.
The fat zamindar walks around
Staring, to detest our shadows
In front of his home.

Most refuse to offer us water
And even the virtuous ones serve,
Low-grade beverages in discarded
Cups that are kept outside their
Thresholds, which scream-

Our untouchability, as we're born
Out of the feet of the same God
They worship.
So much hate for a little foot fetish,
That the roads of our streets are..

Deliberately bent away from all the
Temples in the village, to protect
Their religious sanctity.

The intention of our thirst is questioned
At every pond and borewell too.
And even the nature of protein in our food
Comes out as a national issue.

Then the silent gag on our mouths,
The voice stuck like a wad in our throats..

We try to put warm-salt-water to
Gargle it out every election.
But all we can muster up is a
Bad cough that is often syruped down
By luring our votes for money and alcohol.

The Caged Bird

You'll be convinced that flying is an

Illness to be pushed in a cage.

Your songs will be beaten into submission 

Saying singing is a sinful disgrace.

Your dreams will be kept for display as

Ceramic cups to serve tea to guests.

Aspirations will be caged in a Saree,

In the name of a makeover.

They'll come at you one by one,

They'll be invited in fact to rate your gait.

And your body will be judged to be

Traded like a slave.

The forehead will be used as an 

Estate to flaunt ownership in Red.

You'll be awarded a uniform that's 

Widely recognised as a gown, to

Condemn you to a kitchen.

Cutting vegetables, preparing rotis.

Only after the third whistle of the cooker, 

Your presence will be felt.

The caged bird in our country, 

Can't even sing you see, she can just cook.

You either die as a Sanskari wife or 

Live long enough to be aborted in the womb.

Between the two, if you dare to grow 

Wings, you'll be deemed as a curse. 

And If you're 'manly' enough to fly, 

It can get worse.

Self-Loathing-Cannibalistic-Vegan

From childhood, I was warned
Against biting my nails saying
They would germinate in my belly to
Grow as a giant try to feed on me.

Though that gave me nightmares
Somehow, my fingers find my
The famished mouth even now.

So that's me, savoring the
Forbidden kingdom of dirt beneath
My fingernails. Sometimes even
The hardened skin around the edges-
I'm a giant who eats himself.

That's a low-key introduction of
Myself for the role of a side villain
In Tolkien's novel. What can that be
Called in a modern lingo?
A self-loathing-cannibalistic-vegan?

The vegan part is kept to trigger
A wokist dispute for that time in
The future where eating plant-based
Stuff would be cruel and you gotta eat
Yourself or your progeny, to not get
Cancelled.

Eventuality..

The fresh absence when a
Father dies,
Loudness of the vacuum..
No one wants to sit on his
Chair.

The air tries to occupy
The void after a few days.
Muffled sounds and feeble
Brush of music.

The first sweets prepared
After his demise, and
For the first time your mother
Hesitantly smiles.

One afternoon, your son would
Sit on that chair and
Years later, his grandson
Shall forget his
Great grandfather's name.

Third Whistle

It's ten past seven in the evening,

Her weary sandals take a hesitant 

Refuge besides the stingy shoes.

The saree retires to the wardrobe,

And the withered jasmines,

Part ways from her braids.

Her body is transferred to

Another uniform- a gown.

Then the vegetables are cut,

Rotis are prepared and only when 

The third whistle of the cooker 

Screams to the appeals of

The hungry stomachs..

For a brief while, everyone feels,

Her presence.

The Widow Maker

She breaks the bangles of women
Who's husbands die.
She rubs their vermillion-laden
Maang and wraps around them
A white saree like it's a shroud
To condemn them for life.

She herself is a widow,
She can't look someone in the eye.
Her shadow is forbidden on the kids
And they don't let her walk around
When the newlywed couples arrive.

In the seventh house on the fourth
Street of the village, she too
Has a humble life.
The smell of her sambar makes it
The streets daily twice,
There's hope in the bright eyes of
Her only child.

But more often than not, everyone
Tries to remind her of the closed
Paths to her maiden home and the
Jasmines in the backyard she can
Never have.

The last soft touch of her deceased
Husband crosses her mind sometimes,
Only to grip her with the cold
Hesitant hands of another woman,
Who wrapped what's left of her life in
A white saree, to make her a mere

Body of the walking dead.

Passing Precedents

They break and bend the joints.

Bathe the body and tie the neck

Against the wall to make it sit

On a wooden cot.

Women cry their hearts out.

They have to.

Men can't, they've to pretend

To attend to other chores.

Some gather bamboo to make

'Sidagi', some warm their drums

For a loud announcement.

Some wait for the alcohol.

Kids from the sidelines wonder 

About everyone's mixed behavior.

They're hungry but gotta tolerate it.

By this late in the noon, they too-

Understand that food can't be

Cooked in their house of the dead.

Sidagi- a carrier for dead body till the graveyard

Not About Dying.

So the nooses fail and the vehicles
Refuse to run over. Veins, coated
With steel, the blood doesn't ooze,
And the brain doesn't explode.

The writer of my fate somehow
Forgets to forge me a tragic end,
His writer's block must be serious,
Maybe I should lend him my technique.

There's so much at stake here,
The share in my ancestral property
My siblings might want,
The insurance companies, wanting

To declare that I'm a fraud.
The Taaviz of a Tantrik going unsold
Because my ghost can't make any
Noise in the night and

My wife, not getting a chance to
Play her ultimate victim card.
More importantly, the crows with
A fetish for funeral-food -

Returning to the virtue of stealing
Rotis from the backyards, after
Being deprived of the delicacies
At the wake of my demise. 

This liveliness keeps punching
Holes in my shroud and I manage to
Keep stitching it back with
Self-deprecating nylon jokes.

And it's bloody adamant, this life,
Infects with reason and a bit of
Purpose and lots of cowardice
To keep my breathing intact.

But living seems to be the biggest
Addiction we suffer as a species it seems.
And you're wrong if you think this
Rant is just about dying.

Forty Thousand

At a friend's funeral, when 

Someone said it costs at least

Twenty thousand to say a 

Proper goodbye after death.

The Oldman was worried 

About the onus on his son.

He knew it all these days but

It hadn't hit him yet.

The forty-year daily laborer, 

His son, of whom he's very 

Protective of, he kept coming 

To his mind.

'How can he manage that

Hefty amount in a village?'

It was a rampage in his head

While he walked back from

The graveyard.

He had to take into account

His wife too-- forty thousand now.

He tried to recall, whatever

He had saved, failing to reach 

A definite figure.

The anxiety in head made 

The legs walk fast if not run.

Forgetting to wash his feet before

Entering his home after a burial.

He opened his box that was 

Kept in the dingy corner.

The rustle of notes failed to

Assure him, the amount of his

Estimation. Thirty thousand

More he said to himself and

The photo frame above him, 

Of Lord Kuber, seemed to 

Mock him with a beguiled smile.

Buddha in the Metaverse

Buddha in the metaverse is
A gangster from Regina Hills,
Who left his wife to force-feed
Meditation to the masses
Instead of two square meals.

Buddha in the metaverse is
Is a reformer who took Anguli Mal
Under his hood as he needed a
Henchman to build himself
A teflon image.

Fingers needn't be cut now
To threaten people.
Fear is instilled in their head,
To fall in compliance.

The mother who lost her son,
Wasn't sent to fetch mustard
From house with no deaths.
A communal angle was given
To it, to swing votes.

Our Buddha in the metaverse is
No more interested in Prakrit,
He's a steward of that one
Language that doesn't have
Any sanction and if you prefer
Your dialect over it, you're
Anti National.

Stretching the body on
A rock under a Banyan tree-
With man ki baat in Saranath
He exports his enlightened wisdom
To other countries.

He's waiting to declare himself
As another avatar of Vishnu,
But his department of narcissism
Doesn't let him lose or die,
So the incarnation for now is
Stuck in appeasing the camera.

The Village I grew Up

The jowar fields and the ragi crop
Have been replaced by the sturdy
Eruption of sugarcane.
The road is all metalled and
The grand old neem tree, cut off.

The old bus stand is in ruins
And the tramp who slept there
Has abandoned his post.
The women don't walk forever
To fetch water and the kids
With no future don't fancy
Flying the kites.

This village I grew up has been
Painted in bright strokes of
Orange and the green now.
And the sparrows have to seek
Permission before they chirp
Or flutter their wings.

There's political correctness
In the bark of the dogs and
The bigots on both sides walk
Safely with stones in their hand.

Thanks to modern medicine,
The elders don't die early now
And in the village I grew up,
New ideas refuse to come out of
The cattle-sheds smothered by
The new stink.

With "The holy and unholy"
Self-contradictions of purification
In "flesh and urine"- my village
Basks in the utopia of an old order.
With a supposed financial growth
As bedrock of its flawed argument.

Clutter of Words

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What It takes to socialize

For the first time in her life,
Mom asked me for some
Spare money I'm left with.
I wondered, what changed.

She's going to the local market
With the other women,
To fetch vegetables these days.

It took all of her kids to
Learn well, take a job and
Go away from home and then
The husband had to fall ill..
For her to socialise.

I love it when she complains
About the prices of onion
And ridge guard. I'm happy
To see her manage a small

Budget and decide for herself
On the matters she knows well.

I imagine her negotiating with
The vendors over prices of
Brinjal and love it when she blames
The government for the price rise.

And each Saturday, when
The neighboring aunty gives
Her a loud call, I remind myself
The definition of welfare in

Economics as a number of
Choices one makes in a
Day-to-day life.

The Pride in Question

The Well awaits for
The newly wed bride.

But there is no water on
This summer day-
It has run dry.

The white clouds in
The clear sky fleet restlessly
To bring the nimbus laden.

The sparrows attempt
Songs of Tansen to hail
Upon the rain god.

To protect the village's
Pride, even the village
Goddess is on fast.

The bride steps out of
The threshold with the pot
Gifted by her mother.

The trees in the street
Wish her luck and the thirsty
Cattle wish her luck.

The Well awaited for this
Moment, it wants to wish
The bride, luck. But

On this fateful summer,
The clouds fail to gather
And there's no water.

Farmers' Cry

You make us grow, and
Compel to sell us at a price
Decided by you.

You steal our plates and
Self-esteem. Savour it
To fart in English.

And if we hold our noses
In disgust, you hold us
In contempt for talking-

In our dialects, while
Your mouth is an actual
Ass that gives away loads of

Shit.

To Those Who Look Down Younger generations

I miss the old days when we
Killed for food, land and
Most importantly, religion
And God.

There was an emotion in
Picking a weapon of choice.
Machete to a hatchet- neat.
Practicing all through the day-

All through childhood,
All through life-
To kill sometimes and
Mostly die.

We raised children to be
Brave, raised them to stab
In the hearts and we raised
Them to proudly die.

We took pride in killing
While we stared them in the eyes.
And we saw in the eyes while
We raped their wives,
Daughters and mothers.

And when the onslaught
Stopped for a while sometimes-
In the evenings, on Fridays
And maybe on the first week of
Rainy days-

We had our moments to
Store food, pile up wood
And fuck to breed fighters.
How will you understand?

Your generation, who got it
All easy.
How will you understand
What is it like to live?

Loving dogs, appreciating art,
Overeating, obesity and
Cardiac arrest at eighty?
Is that even a living?

Real living you know is-
Killing, dying, and starving

To death before the thirties.
Debating over gender fluidity..
And preaching your kids
Political correctness.

How cute. Learn from us.
Build bombs and destroy
Cities. Get a life by
Destroying everything.

Anarchy

Every season when migrants
Come to my village to cut sugarcane.
The Socio-economic scenario of
My village changes.

The chicken prices go up and
The demand for liquor skyrockets.
Those who know a bit of Hindi
Get a bit of importance and when

Someone from their clan utters
A word of our slang, our faces lit up.

One can see makeshift huts
By the road. Kids in messy clothes,
Unkempt hair- who takes care of
Even smaller kids and a bit older ones
Armed with machetes to cut and
Load cane.

Smoke off the burnt stubble in
The evening and small talk in
The street corners and pan shops
Finding usual, unusual references
To the affairs of our men and
Their women-

The smell of anarchy in the air-
Bit of intermixing with outsiders
Exposing the cracks in our social fabric-
And before the concerns-

Get out of hand. It starts pouring in June.
Our seasonal guests would be gone.
Chicken prices come down as
Monsoons become proper resets.

The turmoil in many homes, over the
Inflated prices and debauchery of men
Settles and the reason for tears in
Many kitchens would be owned by

Just the onions again.

Toys of Deprivation

When something glares up

In the night sky and 

The kid who knows about 

The shooting stars makes 

Wishes.

He wishes for more and

More toys.

And after each bomb,

The children who survive,

Run from one end of the city

To the other in search

Of their wishes from

The previous night-

An unlimited supply of

Toys in the form of

Empty shells- Only to 

Fight over better variants-

The ones with a tinge of red 

Over the soot-loaded 

Blackened scraps- it could 

Have been the blood of

One of their parents.

But it doesn't matter,

I guess.

When the streets are washed 

In blood and hunger goes

Beyond stomach and gets 

To ones head. 

Crimson becomes another 

Shade of red and for 

The children without a home,

It's just paint.

Sanctioned History

Some histories are hidden
Between the gap of
One thought and the next.
The ones- all the pens
Fail etch on the papers.

The tongues lose them in
The silence of the pauses,
Like it was collateral damage
To the mute citizens.

The stands, taken and
Not taken in the record books-
The words that are bought
And the narratives, sold.

Cuban missile crisis at
One point was important,
Only because Churchill didn't
Get his cigars in time-

My country was half-done
As it didn't have any oil.

And the bullies who write
History gulp down the gaps
Like coffee.
The blood of indentured labor-

On each cup is often,
Overlooked and the bitterness
Is dumbed down with
Extra spoons of sugar-

As the sweetness of words
Can romanticize even
Well-planned genocides.

Redundant Deity

Grandma once told me about
A deity outside the village
Who cured the children
Who uncontrollably cried.

He was offered oily Bajjis        (=fritters)
She says and my father
Was named after him
To stabilize his cry.

The other deities in the village
Have got elaborate temples
And rituals over the years-
To become lords and

The overlords to the wishes
And prayers of the seekers.

But not him.
Roofless, faceless.
No hands or legs or a
Statue that oozes charm.

This deity is just a puddle
Of a rock upon whom
Vermillion is smeared and
The left-out oil is poured-

When women return from
Seeking all other Gods.

Our shapeless deity who is
Just a rock had only one job-
The doctors now give medicine
To the children who cry and

The oily Bajjis are advised
Against a healthy diet.