Words can create magic and I want to get lost in them for some part of each day.

June 26, 2010

Respect not Honour!

When
the minds
the hearts
and the eyes
of society
become polluted
Honour is made to hide
between women's legs
and constantly needs
to be avenged
by killing
raping and
moral-policing 
Women.

June 22, 2010

Proudly astray!!

                                              Moti

He was a runt –his ribs stood out
He cowered on hearing a human shout
Lurked near the rubbish dump
Salvaging leftovers from the gunk

Tail tucked permanently between the legs
Feral,furtive,dogly dreg.
Mothering a dog was not on my list
Already had more than I could possibly hold in my fist.

But there was no getting away from that gaunt face and the brown  eyes
Chewing empty milk cartons ,potato skins, or vainly trying to prise
empty jagged tin cans with his paws-
that brown teenaged puppy with a bloodied jaw.

So we carried some food each day
He waited to eat till we went away
And one day I imagined that his tail twitched
On seeing me coming-maybe just a little bit.

And why it funnily made my heart soar
How I started expecting him outside my door
The twitch tentative and hesitant
Gradually became a full blown thump ebullient

Now I contentedly walk with  dogs at my heels
And curse and scold as they jump and squeal
For Moti has friends and attendants
And all of them are egregious miscreants

Their hobbies include chasing squirrels,chewing shoes
And occassionally dragging in dead mongoose.
My home is now their official terrain
And no strangers dare trespass this domain.

Moti sees all of us off - my daughter as she gets on
the school bus;he  fawns on us on our returns.
He loves us but loves his friends too
And doesn’t panic each time we bid adieu.

He may not be a Labrador or German Shepherd
But he is handsome,proud and sharp- like a wild leopard
Lolo(my late lab) beams benovently  through some heavenly webcam
Her spirit smiling at this canine bedlam.

June 17, 2010

Monsoon!


Plump, comely
raindrops rush
to embrace
the wayward
flighty
dry as bone
motes of dust,
and pin
them down 
with reckless abandon
making the air heady
with the
fragrance of love.

Anchored and replete
their love
creates and multiplies-
greenlings
nodding their baby heads
all over the lawn.
And a hundred
moths,bugs,mozzies;
creepy,crawlies.
Birds applaud.
As they feast on
succulent worms.

June 16, 2010

The Zebra!


The Zebra is a cousin of the Ass
But with far better fashion sense and pizzaz
He swishes his mane with a lot of sass
And disappears elegantly in a black and white razzamtazz.

June 8, 2010

Kookaburra Gyms!

"A kookaburra(an Australian bush bird with a loud laughing voice) is undergoing personal training after growing too fat to fly because she ate too many sausages.The kookaburra got into trouble with her weight when residents at a Sydney park began feeding her sausages at barbecues."
(I promise I did not make this up-this is a TOI news item)

June 2, 2010

Misadventures in the Beauteous Parlour.


Have you spent a Sunday afternoon
Feeling swindled irritated and thoroughly buffooned?

 I wonder if you have felt the same
as I did when I innocently went just to have my mane tamed,

And received treatments numerous and arcane.
Hair Spa,thermotherapy and more rolling,ironings and pressings than I ever bargained.


By which time my hair lost what little verve it ever had
And looked gazooked ,startled and pretty sad.

Prompting the lady who runs the saloon
(who incidentally,looks like some copiously painted balloon.)

To say that it is not all that bad;and then sanctimoniously advise,
What you need is some streaks-maybe russet or red, to disguise-

the thinness,the grayness and the lack of volume,
and I wanted to strangle her but could only inwardly fume.

For I was already looking like a frightened porcupine.
And didn't want to go to the next level and look like a streaky,red something that would be disowned even by the porcupine.

So although the vamp wanted me to yield once more to her ministrations and rebond and colour my hair into lustrous locks,
And not just that-to detox,botox and smite my pocks;

I gently but surely and decisively threw her off the track
By saying that it would not be right for her to colour  me red and earn my husband's flak.

Russet and red would freak him out
He will get apoplectic and forever pout.

It's not that he does not like streaks you see,but being rather patriotic and traditional,
He prefers me to colour myself like an Indian peacock in green ,blue and some cobalt nominal.

Her jaw dropped and she gave me some spiel on customer care
I escaped to tell the tale:Buyer Beware!