Khandit Kand Poems

(The Khandit Kand poems were written in the wake of widespread communal riots that followed Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. The first 5 poems are translated by Ranjit Hoskote and the poet; the last one by Keki Daruwala.)


Hestia Domestica

I am an old fashioned sort, I say
the fire’s place is in the stove
or in the earthen lamp in an alcove
or in a lantern.

Of course, the fire godess might have wandered
as a child, naked from forest to forest in ancient times
or she might have rolled in the grasslands
in the yet unspoken confusion
of goose flesh, first-flush youth.
Or she might have danced in abandon,
aroused to love, hugging to her heart
the lava spewing from an erect peak
that had attained the revealation of orgasm

But the blazing lava has long been frozen
in rusty roofs; the forests reduced
to worm-eaten rafters. And the grass
is a threadbare thatch beneath which people
with dry hair, dull eyes, reeky armpits
huddle around a dented pot of rice.
In their withered bellies
fire’s cousin, hunger, blooms.

Now fire, hunger’s cousin, instead of feeding
her desires, throws away her shame,
runs naked down the avenues, screaming,

Grab the wanton by the arm,
pull her unkempt hair,
smother her with dust
and tie her as one lowing
to a pyre in the cremation ground.
all alone by herself.


Oh, Name!

I never knew
that around your simple and ordinary name 
would be stewn stones
of these broken yet spear-sharp teeth,
lacerated sandy palate,
torn-flagged lips
bitter slimey saliva 
and coiling snakes of breaths and sighs.

To utter that one name,
to search for that single name
this dry tongue,
attired since ages with sharp spikes,
would need to fare all alone
in this fading solitude,
leaving behind the lifelong company of
dented pots, cracked jugs, patched rags, burnt huts, twisted roof-sheets
in the bridal palanquin of smoke,
with every thorn decked up,
covered with scarlet veils of blood-tinged spittle
wearing flame-feathered wedding-robes,
holding a fistful of native earth,
on departure
to whisper
in the end 
just one Name.


Stone Play

The stones are aplenty
Ram! now come, to play.

The moon’s friend, the mirror, lies shattered.
Scattered all over is ocean’s rubble.
Pips are strewn in unploughed fields.
Fallen feathers flame in the sky
I want to hold something, to connect, to raise,
to join something, to let fly.
And while just heaving a few pebbles,
come rushing forth sand, fire, lava in torrents.

To float
There are many stones
Ram! now come, to play.

Heaps over heaps of ash,
There are waters, there is blood,
Breaths are whirling on the potter’s wheel.
Lumpy clay-dolls have made castles of sand.

Now the stones are aplenty.

Ram! now come, to play.


Incarnation

Trees of utter lies,
Leaves of flames,
Flowers of ash,
Lead me out, someone, from this forest!

I have wandered long,
Carrying a couple of damp words,
Stumbling over steam-blinded treks;
Feet slashed by
rusted vessels, broken tiles, half-cooked meals,
tattered clothes, roofless screams, broken bones,
stooped bodies turning to stone at a touch.

I roam everyday
Like some ghost from a stammering past;
or some ever hungry, never propitiated
unknown evil deity.
Blind to himself
a lost sun
or death
From these woods
of ulcerous , oozing , burning , cracked mirrors
someone,
lead me out of this forest.


The Ashoka Grove

We fixed the wall
When Seema was born.

There is a calendar, a poster
with a deadly terminator of a film hero
and perhaps two embroidered hares.

When Sameer was born
We put in a glass window

A torn bed sheet that served as curtain
The tinkling sound of Panwallah’s shop
And into the late night, the light
of the street lamp settling down
and refusing to leave.

The third time in the third month
A miscarriage.

The scattered debris
of unrecognizable household things;
rags, tatters, bricks, bamboos,
the mirror, soot.
cinders smouldering in a ditch

The tin-sheets of the roof
Were rotten.

The same old sky.



For those annihilated in riots , enduring and upright 

to whom history has granted no justice whatsoever 

(Translated from Gujarati by Keki Daruwala)


Long before I started scribbling letters 
you were already ink.
You were the forest 
which had proliferated
around the trifling shoot that was I,
blending earth, sunlight, water for me. 
You were the language
around my first utterance. 

You were smoke, steam, lava
sulphur phlegms that were coughed out,
carbon chunks, chorophyll
bubbling blobs of fat,
a slithering mesh of fibres
clinging together 
to forge a fragile testa protecting life
even before the senses clutched at colour, smell,
you, as language, were alive to the unspoken word.

Limestone megaliths
tiny seashell
bones.
You were blind rains; thunderous lightening; shining steel; pulverous rust;
radiant blood at the threshold gaping wounds.
Dry dust, a grating mass of clay
swirling on the cosmic potter’s wheel
splattering, spiraling and capsizing within itself,
hidden ultimately in invisible blackholes.
Retching in hollow depths
you were the scarlet scream of birth
streaming in particles and waves, 
the black howl of death.
You were the primal language of living and nonliving. 

Weavers, blacksmiths, cobblers, carpenters, tailors, butchers,
water carriers, stonemasons, brick layers,
you are the poor itinerant artisans
whose single day equals my whole life.
I am hand; you are fingers
I am palm; you are wrists
I am arm; you are the shoulder.
You ploughed the fields, you hauled water wheels
you hammered in bamboo posts, made grass roofs,
Screens of sack cloth that masqueraded as walls,
doors of tin.
Inside 
a fistful of rice simmering over smoking fire
a couple of meat morsels, scallions, fish, garlic.
Later, cuddling the floor,
dream - draped,
in a script dissolved in sleep,
you write names of several 
crippled, craven, ephemeral people,
whole unknown forthright
where you would possibly also find my name.
Within a scatter of disarrayed vowels, 
bereft of rhyme and rhythm,
You are that language

You were born just like me,
Sucked, wailed, piddled, laughed
burbled, licked toes, bruised your knees, took first faltering steps
glimpsed the first mirror-marvel - you found yourself
yanking fistfuls of hair - you found yourself
dismembering a doll - you found yourself
reaching for a naked flame thinking it a goldfish - you found yourself
forlorn on forest treks 
wandering alone on borders
jostled in crowds 
stifled in local trains 
tethered to wheeling grindstone and oil press
and yet dreaming - you discovered self

That self is the man.

Other sounds preceded language:
Chirp, warble, trill, twitter, croak, bark, bray, howl
Sneer, shout, scream, screech, wail, moan 
whine, wheeze, sigh, silenced in suffering. 
You are that language.

Peacock, crane, partridge,
rhino’s horn, tiger’s nail, blackbuck’s pelt, elephant’s tusks,
panther, crocodile, turtle, shark, dolphin, whale -- 
I wish to speak for them all;
so that the forests of ancient teak 
and pine and oak and sandalwood 
echo with a murmur of tender foliage.
Before I attempt to utter my first words 
you are hacked and burnt to black ash.
You are my ink.

Your dupatta, your bushshirt, your curtains – fringe, your floor decors, 
your moon, stars, sun and in the midst of your glittering colours my name suddenly 
turning up from somewhere. Your half-nibble is my flesh, gulp of cool water 
down your throat is my blood. Your cramped strength – my bones.
Your sweat is my lustre. 
Your faith, your dreams are my existence. Born over centuries 
you kept dying, hoping that surely someone will be born to
narrate your tale. But how can a dimwit like me decipher 
and articulate your violently shattered words? I do not
have the speech to transilluminate your truth. I have only facetious 
gestures of a deaf-mute. I join my trembling hands. I lower my
head, close my eyes. And with twitching lips, whether audible or no, say:
FORGIVE ME. 


Verse on Poetry

(This is a part of a long poem, Verses on Poetry.)


I am amused:
Nobody has even the haziest memory
of my father’s Grandpa.
And yet his sword is preserved still.
Blunt.
And yet on its hilt
a delicate pattern of leaves and flowers
is faintly visible
There are stains hidden behind
the tattered loyalty of the scabard’s silk and leather.
Are they marks of rust or blood?
Who knows?

Anybody would feel embarrassed of a rusty sword.
And who will not be ashamed of a bloody one!
I am mortified of the sword itself – that too still retained.

Those who will call my son Grandpa
perhaps will discover
a pen belonging to his father still preserved
at a time
when forest or ponds or squirrels or migratory birds
would be dried stains on the barren surface of rusted paper.
Nobody would have the dimmest memory
that poems were written with that pen, nobody would ask what is poetry.
And yet taking that pen
someone would draw a petal of Peony flower
and write P for the first time
and pronounce perhaps:
I am ashamed of my ancestors.


Address: Eden Gardens, Mumbai

(From Pandu Poems and Others)


What shall I write for my address
If Mumbai is lost?
Concealing the signals under their armpits
credulous looking crowds
force padlocks of Boribunder and forage
(In the forest red and orange flamed fire fairy
pours green waters on her uncovered breasts)

Everybody sweats
and yet from dawn to night
odorless sticks of local trains keep smoldering
At whose name do these squinted josssticks unblinkingly stare?
As such nobody is a stranger in Mumbai
and yet at times it is difficult
to recognize the reflection in mirror
However, per chance if you encounter a butterfly in desert
Kindly convey
that
neither famished nor forlorn
not by the lake side
is
(signed) Esquire Parrot
(In the forest shadowless night frolicks with her fingers)

It is a matter of courage
Cutting the wires, hefting the net, swallowing the hook
easy it is to dive deep
Difficult is to carry on to stick
like waterskin on buffallo’s back
like a twig turning into axe in the grip of iron.

Lately Mumbai has fetters galore
Encircled by the sea from the start
there are tramtracks and train rails
posters pointing to left to right
forward behind
parking boards for odd and even dates
horns hawkers brakes radios loudspeakers
and finally


oh one is ashamed to mention even
deep within full of stink
the coiled cables of telephones
How to start a tete-a-tat!

Hello yes Mumbai! hello since many days
I have longed to talk to you for ten…. five …..
Ok two minutes that I have longed to talk to you
fortenfiveoktwo minutes…getting together one last time
suddenly if Mumbai is lost?
(In the wood await niaads on bridalbeds)

Come on
Why to be scared of this Mumbai?
If Mumbai be a hex that is within her beat
Ghosts you can shoo away waving a cross
Just play the right switch and have fun
And now remedies are aplenty
Whisky and soda available at every streetcorner
In simmering May loads of ice in bullock carts
Just mind your toe and sign
and be conveyed straight to blissful heaven
If by chance a couple of drops blur the writing
put the scroll under the telescope of skyscrapers
and the ancient scripts will be unraveled
It came floating till last during floods
It secreted in caverns during blaze
It flew away when cannons blasted
It dived in deep sea while lava burst
It floated back bobbing up like bottlecork
This tiny island

A pair of coconut palms swaying
a hut, some flowers, shells
birds twittering from dawn to dusk
some warm ash cooling off
fish bones, crickets chirping in grass
a breeze wafting along
a tiny kerchief drying in sunlight
embroidered in its corner
a name
And suddenly if the sirens of forest start wailing
dear Mumbai 
your signals will be pulled down
and hordes upon hordes
poisoned by eight million snakes
will mount bicycles of cyclones
and start a stampede
kicking the island
trampling the island
leaving the island
erasing the island
searching for a forest-well
searching for a name

In search of a name
if I am lost, my chum
What would I write as your address?