(AA) Canto 80: Raj & Rose
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This supreme intellect Sarasvati
Illuminator of speech
May you adorn my throat
With words to clarify the world
Gendun Chopel
Inspirations
Always catching the thread
Of actions, histories,
To live, to think, to feel, to love
Boris Pasternak
The glitz, the glamour & the grandiose
Reduced to rubble at that privilege,
Now future tourists shall forever pose
By Taj & Trident as at Arnhem Bridge;
The all-clear sounds,
The hotels are secure,
Namore howling hellhounds must Mumbaikers endure.
While standing in the CST
I closed mine eyes a moment,
Imagining the liberty
Of murderous militant
The escharotic agony
Of scrannel innocent –
My gloomy heart begins to palpitate
Full ruminating on a friendless fate.
I desquamate to sleeper class
Upon the Goa train,
To slowly pass that mighty mass
Of skyscraper & crane,
Sat fingering my bullet-wound & wincing at the pain
Mumbai
December
2008
Golden Goa
Oh to be a boy once more,
Curly-headed, sitting singing
’Midst a thousand flowerets springing
Thomas Aird
We trace the outline of the Western Ghats,
Dawn stirs the steaming jungle from her sleep,
Goa gleams! Golden garden of ex-pats,
Dream shores Iberian…what Dolphins leap
From wave to wave
As deft as nymph on lyre –
Last lingering enclave of Lisboan empire.
For to oust upstart invader
The Marathas march in mail,
Ramparts stout at Fort Aguada
Fearsome wrath fails to avail,
A hiss…allowing another
Elizabethan pale,
Assault abandoned, acceptance express’d,
Obeysive message offer’d to the West.
We revv’d n masse to the Nine Bar,
My mount a twin-wheel’d steed,
Thro’ sunset sha to Shangri-La
Twirl’d with the techno creed,
On LSD, blues, ecstasy, beer, dexys, weed & speed.
Vagator
December
2008
Seasider
To guard all joys of yours from time’s estranging,
I shall be then a treasury where your gay,
Happy & pensive past unaltered is
Alice Meynell
Waking up in Goa I must admit
It feels nice to get away from it all;
Rainy days, credit crunch, fake news & shit,
Eking out existence from work to dole;
Come cruise the road
& set the spirit free,
Four thousand miles from home thro’ hill-gouge junglery.
Sacred Lord Parashurama
Striding mighty mountains high,
Drawing on the force of karma,
Letting cosmic arrow fly,
Landed with much melodrama
As Gods on Earth apply –
No business but obeyance as the land –
Pure, perfect stretch of sand – like summer spanned.
Dragon’s moon gazes on Goa,
The guest houses all full,
Half-built villa! homeless squatter,
The dogbark silence dull,
& when I woke the waves rolled white, the sun’s rays wonderful,
Benaulim
December
2008
Idyllicity
I open my eyes, but still cannot see,
the best thing I have, you’ve given to me,
I’ve searched all my life, to fulfill my being
Matthew Welsh
A little further down the Konkan tide
I found a beach & bay of perfect pitch,
Curvaceous groves of coconut groves ridge-side,
Divided by the sunset’s tribal switch;
Alive by night,
Days laze so solarful,
On motorbikes alight for quests historical.
Oporto’s captain strode along
The rampart’s red ramshackle,
“The moat is deep, the walls are strong,
Terrain too tough to tackle,
Still… tell the men in three-fold prong
Teach the East of battle!”
Another day of bloodshed to appall
Raja of Soonda soon surrenders all.
Cocktails at the Cafe del Mar,
Sharkmeat at Palolem
The beach, the bar, the Greek guitar,
The sweet peace of Patnem,
The cosmpolotania, life’s cool creme de la creme.
Canacona
Decemberr
2008
Paradise Beaches
I want to breathe the Lotus flow’r,
Sighing to the stars
With tendrils drinking at the Nile
Gwendolyn Bennett
To Pterodactyl town I took the train
Where brahmin study sanskrit in a chain
Of hands on shoulders, sat in groups of four,
Whose sacred dusts now coating my shoey skein;
As beach-by-beach
I stroll the island’s edge
With coconuts & peach, naan, roti & non veg.
I watched the golden fleeces hang
Upon the sands all gorgeous,
Beside Om Beach a young stud sang
A strong Oasis choruss,
From teeming jungle monkeys sprang,
Summon’d out by Horus
To share the sheer delight of Paradise –
Next up a plate of biryani rice.
On Half-Moon Beach with beer quite chill’d –
Refrigeratorless,
Each dawn unfold, out of the hold
Of vessels as they pass,
Big blocks of ice heave-carried in to cool the tourist class.
Gokarna
January
2009
In Search of Wellington
I anoint my flesh
Thought is hallowed in the lean
Oil of solitude
Wole Soyinka
Beside the rushes of the Kaveri,
Yon the silicon crush of Bangalore,
Lies the capital, lost to history,
Of Tipu Sultan, Tyger of Mysore;
An elfin town
Its ruin’d fortress wall,
Once keeping safe a crown, testament to it’s fall.
His Highness storm’d the British breach,
Precious pistols in each hand,
Teeth clench’d, show’ring curses to teach
This heathen to leave his land,
But royal flesh feels soft as peach,
At this, his final stand,
Troops of scarlet Scots, drunk on blood & rum,
Made murder to the beat of Wellesley’s drum.
We skirt the spot where wailers found
Bejewell’d Raja spread
On crimson ground ‘neath mangl’d mound
Of proud & loyal dead –
“Drive on,” my pony carriage whipt, to other beauties sped.
Sriringapatanam
January
2009
Saint Thomas
There’s a smile on the vine-clad shore,
A smile on the castl’d heights;
They dream back the days of yore
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
My soul’s boatman cuts thro’ Karnataka,
Bursting once more atop these feisty Ghats
Crowning luscious jungles of Kerala,
Where crucifix, idol & muslim mats
Share in delight,
Harmoniously furl’d,
Rare bastion of light in this conflicted world.
The swanhelm’d ship came in to sand
Bearing bearded apostle,
Stunn’d naked natives watch’d the hand
That stroked the Lamb’s own temple,
Fish levitate from sea to land,
Faith inspiring symbol –
From this day hence the sound of Jesus’ name
Shall burnish certain Asian hearts with flame.
A space in some young side I fill,
Amid the Toddies tall,
They sense my skill, a tense nil-nil,
‘Til as the shadows fall
I slink past six defenders (two were trees) – the winning goal!
Calicut
January
2009
Oriental Oasis
There are days like that
which sing orange and red
in the forest of our ordinary green
Moya Cannon
As Ghats give way to wide Deccan plateau
Hard is the journey – dusty, hot & dry –
As into view wyrd mounds of boulders grow
Ruin’d pillars that yore-since bouy’d the sky;
An Eastern Rome
Once soar’d amidst the stone,
The great King Krishna’s home’s now rubble, husk & bone.
This was a place to muse on man
In the ruins of his past,
Far from the world’s tobacco ban
& it’s television mast,
Was this part of a divine plan
Or mortal plaster cast –
Scenery settled in serenity,
A haven from human hostility.
Gliding by graceful coracle,
Serene as English spa,
Aft brief ramble, robust scramble,
Claim summit…from afar
Pastel luster’d sunsets muster’d oer Vijiyanagar.
Hampi
January
2009
Real India
But when thou joinest with the nine
& all the powers of song combine
We listen here on Earth
John Keats
I took a walk about the environs
Of Hampi’s lake, & found, there, India;
Chai at the crossroads, where old men in talk
Matchlight beedies all squatting together;
The plodding gait
Of water buffaloes
Disturbs the days debate… nearby a gang of crows
Attack the fruit the wee truck drops
Outside the beauty parlour,
Next door, each side, two little shops
Sell Lay’s ‘Magic Masala’
To smiling schoolgirls in white tops,
While the rickshawala
Waits to transport them to the school convent
I sat, & smiled, & watched, as innocent
Life seems in such a quiet place
Where venture’d, I, this youth,
In some made race thro’ time & space,
A child faced with life’s truth
Existences thrive everywhere – beware the bear’s buck tooth!
Sanapur
January
2009
Mumble Words 