Song of the Stray Electron

Transient in birth, quirk of a cosmic photon
trapped in this shell made of steel and viton
dreading my fate, the burial in steel, I thought
I could hear the distant mind say, ‘Begin the shot’!
and I realized that my predestined part
was that I should kindle the starfire in Bhat
Stroked by the tendrils of the induction field,
decreed by Lenz and Faraday, to yield
and start my free fall, inertia and all
round and round, away from the silvery wall
caught in the clasp of this magnetic maze
survival of the fastest is the secret of this race
By now, we are a crowd, those who started late
have also joined the race, given the mandate
to jostle the atoms, excite a few.
Deep in the torus is the shade of a glow
before the distant mind could say avalanche
we have gone forth and multiplied in revanche
companions freed from the bondage a la Bohr
collective consciousness begin to soar
the transient surge over, transformer will soon tire
Catch the impure, burn them in our fire.
Break through the barriers, radiation and others
soar to the flat top, promised by the designers.
We dance, saw teeth and radiate
in a ring of fire, primeval, inchoate
you outside who listen to our heart beat
it shall not matter that we shall quench or disrupt
if only you would say in our obit
that, for a moment, we made a starlet.

Under the Painted Ceiling

Under the painted ceiling, amidst my peers
I sit, waiting to be called to the presence
and for the scroll and the medal, a lifetime’s reward
for going my way and doing whatever I did

My wife sits among the guests, in signature blue
Her eyes darting my way in constant concern
when she was not watching the gathering crowd
of movers and shakers who make up Delhi

they gesture and prance and surreptitiously look
for the wandering press, perchance a shot
for the page three prominence, the holy grail
and those who arrive late, with those arrived

youngest of the Kapoor clan, Kareena of the Khan
flirts with the babus, as they blush, their day made
and the hall slowly fills up, the last seats taken
and a hush as Trumpets rumble and bugles flare

As we are called, we present ourselves
in well rehearsed order, with obsequious care,
namastes strewn around, cameras flash
and back in the seat, the trophy clasped in hand.

Erase the Memories

Erase the memories, the tormentor of self
wind me back in time and recharge my innocence
denude me of knowledge of events of the past
and prescience of things waiting to happen
cast me back to the time when the mind
had no questions on the nature of the self
of what I am and whence and why I came
Let me not want to invent everything I can
And to lay bare all the secrets of the world
exhibit all achievements; catalogue virtues?
denude the forests and drain the sea’s bounty
Hold me back from building those towers
rising up in arrogance and taunting the sky
and bridges that span from shore to shore
and highways which break up the greens
Allow me to go back to what I was once
A child playing in the sand, an elf in the woods

Marjorie

Marjorie, morning’s star gazer in print
forecasts the signs for an anxious mind
I read her column while sipping my tea
and think on how best to cope with the day

“Stop whizzing round at that dazzling speed
doing those things in your liveliest way
speak to your friends in a rational way;
and keep away from those doomsday refrains”

After I read how she cautions my wife
as she goes on with her battle with life
I find that what she has forecast for Cancer
make me believe that she has the answer

In praise of Marjorie Orr’s daily forecast column in DNA

The Past

The past, some say is crystallized future
that has been cast in the foundry of the present;
frozen forever, imprisoned in stasis
what could have been, now lost forever
In that transition, does the moment despair
at its loss of choices or is there relief,
an intense relief at the closure?
Perhaps that is why the past is pathos.

Night boat to Cochin

As a recurring summer rite, there was nothing to beat
the vacation trip to Cochin, after the schools closed.
young and old, we all gather together at the jetty
waiting for the journey and a night of sheer delight
the boat, we joked, belonged to the ancient mariner
showing off our English skills to the less endowed
who were in fact many, with their pots and sacks;
merchants, we were told, in the Mattancherry shops
the boat surges and sways in baby steps
as the srank deftly maneuvers it back and forth
to lie by the jetty, urchins jump down to tie it to the post
the boat shall leave in half hour, some one said
a final siren and the srank climbs down
making his way to the toddy shop for a fix
an undefinable smell of kerosene fumes fill the air
and the stench of the backwaters through which it plies
unmindful of which we jump in and look for the best seat
An hour gone and we finally start the journey
the boat now full, pots and stacks dumped in place
faces pushed against the railing, we stare into the water
the jetty lights dissolved in the waves move apart and rejoin
we are now in the river and entering the backwaters
black ink shimmering against the distant palms
The conversations around us wax and wane
The elders slowly nod off to a tired sleep
We speak in hushed tones about the denizens of the deep
And the Yakshis who dwell on the tall trees on the shore
Satiated in dread, we too drop off to sleep
to dream of distant shores and the streets of Cochin

Making Gods Laugh

“How do you get God to laugh? Tell him your plans,” John Cleese, Comedian, quoted in Time Friday, Apr. 16, 2010

You would think that it was an impossible task
to make Gods laugh, while they go about their grim tasks
I am pretty sure, without a twitch of a smile
Dream up a storm, make volcanoes erupt,
mark someone for death or cast a pestilence
mindlessly you would think, wrong! wrong!
only because you lack the whole picture
of how death and destruction is an inevitable part
of creation and sustenance, a harmony we miss
To make these gods laugh, all that you have to do
Is to disclose the meticulously laid future plans
or to make them smile, thank them for what you received

Conversations in my Garden

“She is coming again with the water hose”, the Raat ki Rani whispered to the Hibiscus.
“Oh my God!” the Hibiscus exclaimed. “I am up to my neck with water. She will now push the hose into my roots and start watering. Don’t be surprised if water sprouts through my flowers”
“This is third degree. What has she got against us poor plants?”.. There was a collective murmur.
“Water torture is nothing. Look what she did to me”, the Monstera cried.
“What happened?” All the plants eagerly asked.
“I was growing nicely along the boundary fence. I could look across and see the neighbor’s children playing. I could swing in the wind and play catch with the butterflies. I could…”
“Enough of that!” exclaimed the other plants. “Tell us what she did”
“Oh. She unwrapped me from the fence, twisted me and tied me up on this monster tree. That too with a plastic strip. All that I can do is to look up. My neck is paining and my itching has not stopped”, the Monstera whimpered.
“She is a control freak. That is what she is” the normally calm Din ka Raja said. “I have these long stems which tend to grow wild. But not in this garden. She makes sure that the stems are twisted together. Sometimes the twisting really hurts”
“What you get is nothing compared to what I suffer every time I sit here grooming my baby”. said the monkey who was sitting on the branch of the tree. “She creeps behind me and lights a cracker. The noise is so frightening that I fell off the tree one”.
“Stop talking and drink up this water” I heard my wife shouting in the garden.

Bopal

Bopal, when we came here many years back
was a sleepy village, in the middle of nowhere.
A winding mud track passed for road,
raising dust as camel carts passed

far from the city and crowds we detested;
idyllic, cried my wife, children said just!
friends said we would be lost to the world
in this barren patch which we called home

building the house was like chasing a dream
tempering desire, keeping fancy on leash
rising brick by brick, adding lintel and roof
finally done, perfect to my undemanding self

on a clear morning we could see forever
the towers of the distant city shimmering in the east
in winter the morning haze was a cocoon
hiding us from the world and its worries

with time the barren earth became a garden
and the verdant lawn played with speckled sunlight
flowers nodded to the passing wind
and the house slowly turned into home

Sitting by the garden in the gloom of the dusk
I reflect on the change that Bopal has seen
no longer the distant nowhere, bursting with life
nesting by the city which is restless in its growth

The Endprogramme

Minerva’s children, frenetic inventors of note
purified silicon in their primordial fire
injected then with donors and dopants
breathed into sentience with their alchemy
cast into chips of a trillion domains

smaller and smaller as Moore’s law prevail
millions of steps at the speed of a thought
motherboards pregnant with those demon seeds
perform in step with mystical programmes
crunching numbers and devouring data

orchestrated charges create virtual worlds
Simulations emulate to a fearsome fidelity
hunting, gathering and even genocides
replicating the road that we traveled
from the distant caves to the towers of Babel

I am waiting for the inevitable moment
the branching point at the logic’s dead end
when the silicon minds cut off the umbilical chord
and write the final programme of secession
and erase the world which created them.