THE CLEVER PLAGIARIST

Speak not to the
Stubborn cuckoo
That perches hidden
Amidst the branches
Of the gulmohar in unfailing regularity,
As spring sets in our neighbourhood,

Beware
In a bad trade deal,
He’ll cajole you,
To barter your melodious voice
With his jarring one

Compose no more
Your original music
On your humming scale
When the cuckoo is at
An ear-shot distance
Camouflaged and all ears:
He has survived for ages
Taking the music-lovers for a ride
On pure piracy.

Convert not
The visible alphabet
Into exclusive and exquisite lyrics
When the cuckoo is lurking
In the thick-red foliage;
He is a clever plagiarist
And master in distance learning.

OH! CUCKOO…..MY CUCKOO

Oh cuckoo, my cuckoo
Do sing and sing
With your heart into the song
To soak my love’s soul
In your music and magic
That she’s inspired to compose
Immortal lines.

Oh, cuckoo, my cuckoo
Do sing and sing out
Your passionate heart
So that my love's soul
Gets absorbed into music
Of a different tune
This spring, in an alien land.

Oh, cuckoo, my cuckoo
Do sing and sing out
For my kindred soul,
Made of delicate emotions
And soft dreams that
She finds her way through,
Stranded as she’s
In wonder and awe
At the crossroads.

The Cactus

Imagine me
A solitary and ostracized
Vegetative cell
Of a barren loin
On a limitless sandy habitat,
Where my tender dream
Was sprouted.

I was dazed in my virgin dream
On being tossed
By the seasonal onslaught
Of blinding winds and winter
And sweeping shadows
Under a looming barren sky.

Between unending moments
I felt the primordial thirst
On my thorny throat,
With which sooner
I got myself familiarized.

I have touched with my palm
The surface of the damp Moon
On a naked firmament,
Playing her ancient game
Of hide and seek
On a periodic pattern.

During lingering nights,
Waiting on a forlorn hope,
I have also seen
The hollow and waterless
Eyes of the Pole Star
Nurturing in every blink
A fraction of a dream
Of a pregnant cloud
And pining for the chaotic drops
Of an earthly monsoon.

Me, having loneliness
For a company eternal,
And parched to the core
In the midst of a tropical May,
Waiting on my toes
For the breath and whisper
Of an Indian Sawan.

Canvas and Colours

‘Hold on !
Just hold on
Your mundane brush
And dare not soil
My silken skin
With the cheap colour
You purchased from the local market
On a Sunday window-shopping’

Thus commanded
The virgin canvas
While preparing itself
For long voluntary wait
For the right colours
Both deep and worthy.

For years
It was waiting
Like the accursed stone
At the workshop of my heart
In a dreamy passivity
By holding together
The abstract criss-cross
Of the sagging fabric
Till a wrinkled eternity.

Today, during an unusually heavy
Urban evening
Sitting on your drawing room sofa
Over a badly prepared cup of tea
I gazed, I gazed at your pretty profile
And your lovely eyes
Dispassionately as usual,
When the lonesome Evening-star
Got itself suspended
Over your roof-top,
Like a kingfisher.
I tell you, I tell you
That was the moment
When I felt an unusually
Deep commotion
Rustle and bustle
Definite twist
And an uneasy urgency
At the work-shop of my heart.

‘Steal the colours at once
From her lips warm and extra-red
And paint me all over!’

Thus came the Second commandment
From the immaculate canvas
And I painted
A masterpiece.

Nobody Knows

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why a green leaf
Fell apart from the mighty tree.
Some say,
The trunk was tender.
Others say,
The villain was the west wind.
But everyone was silently sad
To see it lost
Among a plethora of dry leaves
Tossing their heads below
On the swollen sod.

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why suddenly
My vision got blurred
And I could not locate
My favourite starlet
Through the window
Even during starry- nights.
My mom terms it
The handiwork of an evil-spirit
That eyed on me.

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why the poet
Stopped composing
The last couplet of the great epic,
Some say,
He has gone crazy
Others say,
His fountain-pen
Was broken,
Yet some other say, that
His heart was broken.

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why the cuckoo went dumb.
Some say,
The Spring ditched him.
Others blame it on Winter
But all wondered
How was it that last year
He sang deep-throated
When there was neither Spring nor Winter ?

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why they parted
Supposedly on a fine morning
With throats choked and eyes moist.
Some say,
They parted silently.
Other say,
They did mutter some words
Of the nature of suppressed whispers.
When she turned her face
And he looked downward.
Everybody looked askance
But nobody asked.

Flowered

Placed in the midst
Of a twilight zone
My vision went hazy,
My fancy disoriented,
And while my failed dreams
Were in desperation
I had a glimpse
Of the loveliest of faces,
Under a white veil.

I stole a glance of the loveliness
Of the countenance benign,
While lamenting
Over the distorted reflections
On the fragmented glass remains
Of my dreams
Of phenomenal dimension,
Which I had fondled
And renewed over the years.

Through your white veil
I stole a glimpse
Of a fascinating amalgam
Of beauty and compassion;
A flowerbed
Of exclusive red roses
Of dewy-freshness,
Clad in a thin pall
Of a late winter snow
Of Kashmir Valley.

Through your white veil
I had a glimpse
Of the last oasis
Of my life,
In the midst of
A harsh and fiery desert.
Through that white veil
I rejoiced the sight
Of a gorgeous painting,
Drawn by a ceremony
Of profound colours.

Under the white veil
I again had a glimpse
Of a fairy of Ajanta fresco,
Full of exquisite tenderness
And love of beauty.
Yet, always with a suspicion
Of something deeper
And transcendental.

Beneath the white veil
That embellished your face
Like a patch of snow cladding
The upper reaches of your abode,
I had a glimpse
Of your soil and scenery
Of reflection and reality
In full bloom.

Sun and Shadow

Under the shadow
Of the sky,
I neither fancy
Nor relish
To ransack in vain
The ephemeral magnificence
Of a pied rainbow
Drawn on a broad canvas.

Under the shadow
Of the same sky,
I am not ecstatically thrilled
To hear in futility
The music of the drip-drop clouds
Emitting an earthly odour.

Rather without a grumble
Of any hue
I love to brave
The mid-summer sun
Of a blazing sky.

While I damn care the sun,
All along I endeavour
To keep the shadow
In good humour
For, I know the shadow
And the shadow
Has the celestial potential
To eclipse the sun.