Dream

I dreamt of you.

You were sleeping somewhere, on a rock, or on the sea, or on a white surface which I understood as the moon. You had your right hand raised and kept on your forehead. The pulsating whiteness of your palm, seen through your slender fingers, tempted me to come and hold it. Your left hand was resting on your stomach; on the wrist your one golden bangle shone brightly, as if it is made of sun’s light. Your third finger was beautifully bare.

You were wearing a sari. In the dream I felt that you were too young to begin wearing saris.

You were breathing softly and in the dream I felt your warm breath falling on my chest, like flowers falling. I wanted to come near you, sit down on the rock or on the sea shore or on the moon and take your right hand in my hands. And then I wanted to kiss you on your forehead. But I didn’t come, neither to take your hands nor to kiss your forehead, because I didn’t want to lose the bliss of watching you sleep so peacefully, I didn’t want to miss those rare moments in which I can see your tranquil face, those moments which I get only in my dreams.

And then suddenly everything changed. Your face lost its placidity of young trees. I found you withering. The rock on which you were resting crumbled. The sea started receding as though to foretell gigantic waves. The moon began to wane. You were crying in your sleep. Tears rolled down your white face, they made streams of bitter sadness, and your lips trembled.

I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t bear you crying. I couldn’t hear your whimpers.

I tried to wake up. I didn’t want to be in that dream; I didn’t want to be in any dream in which you are crying. But I was not able to wake up. It was like I was punished to stand there, beside that rock, on the seashore, in the sky watching the distant moon, and watch you dissolve in your own tears. I was punished to stand there without being able to do anything.

From somewhere in the world of that dream your voice was heard, though you were still sleeping with tears rolling down your closed eyes. Maybe your breath, those falling flowers, was speaking to me, or the strands of your hair that were waving in the sea wind, or perhaps your eyelashes.

Your voice, whimpering in unfathomable grief asked me –

“Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you hold my hand and kiss my forehead? If only you had come, if only you had come…”

Your voice choked. The tears streamed down and doused your black hair.

Not able to look at your face, but at the same time not wanting to take away my eyes from you, I looked down your body. I looked at your left hand resting on your stomach. But I couldn’t bring myself to look at your fingers for fear of seeing something unacceptably tragic, like a lost ring-finger. The eyes behind my eyes searched for a ‘you’ to look at without being burnt.

It was beyond my endurance. In the dream I too tried to cry with you. But no tears rolled down my eyes. I tried to console you, but I couldn’t utter a word. I tried to come near you, but I couldn’t move a step. I was like a marble statue standing in the scorching sun without even being able to breathe.

When I woke up I had another terrible attack of asthma.

The Encyclopedia

I read the “The Bangle Sellers”.
Then in the encyclopedia
I read about Sarojini Naidu,
and then I read about her brother
who was part of the Berlin Committee
and who was executed on Stalin’s orders.

And then I read about
Hindu German Conspiracy,
Ghadar Party,
Christmas Day Plot.

And then I read about
Rashbehari Bose and Bagha Jatin -
men who battled in ways known only to men.

Those delicate, bright,
rainbow-tinted circles of light are all shattered
and strewn in the vacant grounds of temple fairs.

What anomaly it is to begin with a poem
and end up poring over revolutions and assassinations
and trials and executions and at last forgetting !

The Slave

I wait for sleep
to subdue my eyes
and overpower my mind
so that someone within me -
someone in me who is nicer than me,
less guileful than I am -
may fly about like a butterfly
and be petrified by nightmares
and be lost in their morbid alleys
letting out breathless screams
and later on be eaten up by terrifying lizards
and thus redeem all my lustful sins.

Like a feeble slave redeeming the crimes of his master
with each of the whips falling on his bare back.

A Sparrow

A sparrow came and ate the illegible words
I scribbled on the borders of a newspaper.
As if they were grains of wheat.

Only when it flew away
and I became alone again
did I know that it was the corpse of my childhood
that flew back to me to gather its unrequited dreams.

History

Who are poets
but chroniclers of birds
and the way they fly.

Standing atop a peak,
a poet watches a bird, an eagle,
and see how it flies,
how it preys,
what colored sun rays lifts it to air.
Like a historian standing atop time
and watching a man, a nationalist,
and see how he revolts,
how he becomes a prey,
what colored bullets lifts him to air.

A poet watches a bird, an eagle,
swirling down
as if it is a piece of brown silk
and wonders about it.
That bird and its charming movement
in the cloudless sky are forgotten,
but the poet’s wonderment remains
like the memory of a soap bubble.

A chronicler watches a man, a nationalist,
swirling down
as if he is a falling flag
and fantasy about him.
That man and his dreams
about a greater reality are forgotten,
but the chronicler’s fantasy remains
like the memory of a childhood dream.

Defeat

Yesterday
my mother asked me –
Why do you act so strangely
as if you are different from others?

And for the first time I understood
why she hates me so much -
what she dreamed of was someone who is not different,
someone who do not have her own handicap.

Being incapable to overpower her genetic trait for being different
I have become the failed attempt of a woman
to overcome her own miserable fate.