Dear friend, yes
I am still writing posters
As we did in the JNU hostel
Posters on rape
Posters on the uprooted trees
Piled up for a funeral pyre
The missing dead bodies
All I can talk about now
Is the bygone thing called Hope
The lady next door
Brings in cookies
Sweet and chocolaty
Onion-like and caramelly
And she smiled
Is that my smile???
I have a disease of forgetfulness, they say
The paththal* tree laughs off in the wind
While its sticks beat
The Ten Commandments
Have I forgotten the pepper sprays and tear gas?
The mirch masala?
The safety pins?
Strips and strips of quitipin tablets have arrived instead
Manipulating consent
Imagine!
On a single tired body
A gang of invaders….
Are you still enjoying the single status?
Or are you in a happy family life?
Newspapers carry the shit and the urine
And all forms of human secretions
How to dispose them off and where?
All the clothes,
Washed up and sun-dried
Are kept in the iron cabinet
Amma has gone off to her
Post-meal sleep in the forenoon
And in the afternoon
And then on and off
Upstairs,
On the balcony
Lies a wooden board
With nails fixed on them
Sharp, pointed nails
Pointing upward
Adorning the chair
I just have to go and sit on it
Otherwise,
The cats will occupy!
Enough
Enough
Enough
Oh yes,
Finally,
The story of the unpublished book
I am tired, but I repeat
It just lies somewhere
Refusing to be converted
Into another cocktail
Another mocktail
Visitors from far and near
Intrusions into privacy
No choice, no real rest
Restlessly, I am drawn
Into another trouble
Another turbulence
Now, on the TV screen, I write
My own everyday death
Bye for now, dear friend
A reply after thirty long years
Would be no stranger to you, I pray
Next time, the soonest,
I shall write
A small happy note
Till then,
Love to you
Love to Tithi.
* A tree commonly found in Kerala
***
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at [email protected].
-30-
Copyright©Madras Courier, All Rights Reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from madrascourier.com and redistribute by email, post to the web, mobile phone or social media.Please send in your feed back and comments to [email protected]
