Works of RK

They see my starched white linen And my custom leather shoes: Another White guy, they think And don't hold my glance They make way for me So that their dark hungry frames And their smelly patchy clothes Don't invade my privileged spaces Nothing from their struggling beings Should waft into my being And fight my Davidoff. Even their children A ball of unkempt hairs and leaky nose Rarely return my smile Ma Bharati This land that I walk on Is not my land It is their land The land of the slowly dying And the barely living I should be dead For the unforgiving sin Of merely being alive. 

The undulation of the terrain Matches the ruggedness of the soul Here I grow into you Grass and roots and boughs and all And there you run away from me Silt and soil and sand and all Here I am the land And there you are the river Together, muddied and sullen and silent We whirl our destinies Into the awaiting Sea With our longing and our lust And our memories and our Souls entwined We all journey Into the Sea, Into the Sea.

Can I stand tall In the face of this all As if it were my life And it were my battle And my hell Full of my favorite daemons In my own closed attic rooms, Alleys and corridors? Can I call to this Yagn All the angels and the Gods And all the Patriarchs From the abode of the Old? Can I stand tall In the face of this all As if it were my life? I close my eyes And I can see you sulking through Shoulders drooping Eyes no longer ablaze Your soul tired From battling all this All alone.. I can I Can.

If I could reach out to you Through the crisscrossing noise Of the crushing static undertones You would hear your name Read out aloud In every prayer I let out Into this now empty universe. You are in the crackling And the sputtering Of breeze stricken diyas From all Diwalis past You are in the daily din of life That is walking by Without looking back at the souls Stranded on cobblestone pavements And left behind in time. If I could reach out to you Through the dense fog Of distant minds and angry hearts You would hear my heart beat With the same erratic thump That you left behind.

For me you have been a traveler The one who rides the oceans and the big blue seas Seeking experiences That can be framed into postcards Of wonderful memories For a future  That is yet to unravel.  Your today's rush you Into your tomorrows  And in its wake Small boats likeme Would mostly sink Into long forgotten memories Of abandoned islands  Where you now live no more.  As I watch you sleep The glasses back on your face The little girl back in the rug The silent one yearning for a hug I feel you tug at my cuffs Ten more minutes,  you say Stay with me,  for ten more minutes... And then I am scared Of who you will be When you wake up.

Sometimes,  life drums itself into a crescendo. The high notes bleed you and the low notes depresses you  When you decide to change your skin You realise that you got it all wrong! You will hurt  Your loved ones will hurt  And you will see red,  Everywhere.  Who ever told you,   That it will be easy Lied to you.  Whoever told you That it will be tough Lied to you too. Nobody outside of you Will ever have a clue.  And if you pull through Whatever you go on to become May or may not be What you ever wanted to be. A puppet on strings invisible As you dance to your present death Everybody else out there Is just watching you And probably Having fun. 

It was a roller coaster life Until it was not fun anymore   Whirlwind tours Large, life changing projects Lots of love Lots of attention Until it was a party no more. When it rained And the grass was green again When it was springtime And the Vishu flowers Bloomed again I could sense her call In the increased longing Of my lines now gradually filling With pathos and loss I looked at the work-bay So antiseptically clean! The computer screen With a background That now had no new stories to tell! And I looked out of the window And saw a million cars Being driven To now meaningless places For now meaningless reasons. I closed my eyes and she spoke to me... Through the pollen and the petrichor Through the call of the fisherman And the song of the paddy field worker I could hear the evening drums from my village temple Now beat closer home than ever before The deity would visit me in my dream And ordain: Follow me home, follow me hom...