Other morning sounds
soon filter in.
Sloshing sounds tell me
someone is taking a bath
with a bucket and a mug.
A pressure cooker whistles somewhere.

The traffic is a low hum
in the background.
Mingling, right now, with
the hum of airconditioners
and the whirring of ceiling fans.

The milkman rings the bell to indicate
he has dropped his sachets in the bag
that hangs outside the door.
The flower seller taps the door to convey
she has hung a string of jasmine
on the door knob.

Somewhere, a radio switches on
to devotional music.
Is someone singing along?
Televisions blare news
and religious discourses.

Maids chatter downstairs
as they arrive for work.

In a few hours, the muted traffic hum
will rise to a dull rumble
punctuated by honking cars,
shrill scooters and deep-growling trucks.

The city will have woken up
and like a beast of prey
it will start to make its presence felt.

I am walking towards winter, I know
In summer the fruits ripen and fall
In autumn the leaves ripen and glow
and now they too lie fallen below.

I am walking towards winter, I know
The lush green grass is covered
with a red and gold autumn throw
and soon it will be covered in snow.

I am walking towards winter, I know
leaving bright days and cheery sun
for day-long dusk and feeling low
It’s like going through a tunnel, except
this one takes a few months to go.

- Lekhni

(c) The Imagined Universe

]]> http://elekhni.com/2009/10/poem-walking-towards-winter/feed/ 2 http://elekhni.com/2008/12/a-3-am-cricket-match/ http://elekhni.com/2008/12/a-3-am-cricket-match/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:00:16 +0000 Lekhni http://elekhni.com/?p=1031 I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
but my inbox has a hundred unread messages
I better start replying, this will take ages.

I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
but my feeds need reading, my blog needs updating
and all readers’ comments need responding.

I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
but across the world, my friends are tweeting
shouldn’t I be replying, shouting out a greeting?

I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
But a friend has come online to chat
My status is “Available” – too late to change that?

I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
Now my eyes are groggy, I need some hot tea
A cup or two, or maybe even three

I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
It’s 5 am now but I am ready for breakfast
Should I make idli, oatmeal or toast?

I woke up at 3 a.m.
to watch the cricket match
The match got washed out by the monsoon rain
but I got so much work done, I think I’ll do this again!

Too often, we have been silent.
We have solved problems
through resourcefulness
and private enterprise.
But silence can sometimes mean
acceptance, acquiescence
or tacit assent.
In our silence, we assist
injustice, for who else
will speak up if we don’t?
We should be heard more often.

Too often we have raged
just as we do now.
We rage at the terrorists,
those inhuman villains,
We rage at the government,
at politicians and bureaucrats,
We rage at the media
at irresponsible reporting.
But too often, we have fallen silent
as if we were apologetic
for a momentary outburst.
We should be outraged.

Too often, we have forgetten.
Injustices, atrocities
bungling and incompetence
fill the pages of our history
but not our memory.
We focus on today
but our tomorrow
comes from yesterday.
We may not forgive, but
when we forget
what is left to forgive?
We should strive to remember.

Let us not confuse
resilience with apathy.
Resilience springs from courage
Apathy from cowardice
and laziness.
We should be resilient,
not cynical or fatalistic,
not silent or accepting,
not cowed down.
We should be resilient.

What do they mean when
they ask us not to be resilient?
Should we be fearful
of every person around us?
Should we fill our minds
with suspicion and mistrust
should we be paranoid
and profile others around us?
No, we should not forget
our essential humanity.
We should be resilient.

The car ahead spun
slowly in the snow. Rush hour.
She was glad to flee.

***

Six minutes before
the week’s laundry finishes.
She can check her blog.

Wimbledon matches
bring back memories of black
and white TV sets.

***

Monsoon rain brings frogs,
croaking all night, power cuts
Keep her awake too.

But then, Shefaly came along and (perhaps not knowing how loquacious I am) tagged me with a lovely Haiku tag.

Here are the rules of the tag :

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst movie you can think of. Bonus points if you have to show off your Google skills because you can?t remember the name of it and all you can come up with is that it features Roz Russell and Sandra Dee. Turns out it was some tripe called Rosie! Exclamation point the producers? idea, not mine.?Auntie Mame leavings.?

In seven syllables, no more, no less, describe your worst date. Bonus points if it was sordid. Subtract points if it sounds too much like an overweight fifteen year old Goth girl.?He pushed my head down. I puked.?

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst job you ever had. Extra bonus points if it consists of Grim. Taxi dancer. Miss Janey, I?m talking to you. I had a miserable spell where I sat all alone in an empty office, handing out the keys to various hell holes for rent around New Orleans. One Lady came back and complained there was no window in the kitchen, I pretended to sympathize and said something like ?Yes it would be nasty to have no light and air in there.? She replied ?No, hone, you don unnerstan. Dere?s a hole for de winna but ain?t no winna in it.? ?Slum lord in training.?

Put it all together and you have a haiku of life?s low points.

I have a strong suspicion that the Miss Janey bit is not really part of the rules.? I actually traced the tag back two rounds and it seems to start with a Miss Janey.? But it’s entertaining, so I am leaving it in anyway. All you tagees are free to delete it.

Here is my attempt at haiku:

Worst movie ever (5 syllables): Aliens ooze slime.

Worst date ever (7 syllables): His jowls sank in the soup bowl.

Worst job ever (5 syllables): I slept on Sundays.

I see I also have to write a short explanation.? Hopefully, the lines themselves give you some idea. Your imagination can fill in the blanks much better than any of my explanations. But here’s a little background :

The worst movie I’ve seen was undoubtedly Aliens, where I thought the depiction of the aliens was very disgusting and creepy. I had a hard time sitting through the movie, even with eyes shut at times.

The worst date? Well, the picture he had sent me had somehow managed to shave off some 40 lbs from his actual figure. I remember reading a description of a guy in some book that went “his jowls rested thankfully on his shoulders”.? (I think this was P.G. Wodehouse describing a motion picture magnate, but I am not sure.) In this guy’s case, while his jowls were not actually resting on his shoulders, you could see they were aiming to retire there, and soon.

The worst job – this was the time I frequently found myself waiting at the subway station well past midnight.

Now, whom to tag??? I have put in a lot of thought into this (in fact, the tagging took way more time than the haiku).?? I would love to read your haikus…

A Cynic in Wonderland

Gargi

Gawker (Hope this helps him fight the strong desire to write another towel guy post )

KM

Patrix

Vijay

Haiku away!

Post edited to add:? I should have said this before, but here goes – this tag is not restricted to the tagees alone.? Perhaps I just tagged you, or I don’t know that you would be interested in haiku, or even that you lurk on my blog.? If you are reading this, yes, I am talking to you.? Please skip over to the comments section, and just haiku!?

The rules are simple:

1. Take any recent blog post of yours (say, not more than a few months old).

2. Hit the Enter key at random intervals.

3. Copy the poem you get into the Comment space on this blog.? You have to add a link to the post it is from.

Or, if you like, you can do this as a tag.

What do you guys think?? I know I had great fun doing mine in the comments section of the previous post. I was doubled over laughing at the results.

Here it is, again:

The first paragraph in my post on tulips.? It’s not a particularly good poem, but it is a poem, what?

It would be even better if you can come up with something really funny

Gray Day. The rain
has been falling
steadily
for the last couple of days,
obliterating my sunny mood,
pouring water over any
weekend plans, and reminding me
of the cold winter days
I thought I had left behind.
But the rain is good
for my tulips.

Reading the poem made me start thinking, what exactly is a poem?
I started answering the question in Space Bar?s comment section. So the first paragraph of this poem was my comment in Space Bar’s blog. But the more I thought about it, the more my poem grew… and I ended up with this:

————
I am more and more confused these days
Not that I wasn’t confused before, just
that I am a little more lost and bewildered
I ask myself, and I ask passersby
the same question every time
No one responds, perhaps no one knows -
What exactly is a poem these days?

How does one write a poem?
Do you start off with eloquent lines
About the red earth and purple coneflowers
Swollen rivers and windy nights
Throw in some flying Chihuahuas
For that magical, dreamlike touch?

Or perhaps you write about emotions
Melancholy sounds a good word to use
Also grief, joy and passion.
Soon your poem will start to take form
The lines on the page even taking on new shapes
Like a saw-toothed blade, or a picket fence
That has fallen down.

But where is the rhyme, you ask
Here is no pentameter, this is just
Broken Prose, where is the rhythm?
But you see, we are not in the dark ages
When poetry was corseted in rhyming words
And metered lines.? We are modern.

Our thoughts are new, our words are new
Spelt differently, compressed,
vowels excised, numbers added
Thumbed rapidly into concise messages
Who has time for verse?
Our music is fast-paced, our life is a race
Our poems stutter to keep pace.

The dictionaries, you insist, define a poem as
Metrical writing. Perhaps the dictionaries
Need updating.
We update our Facebook pages
every fifteen minutes.
A new word forms every minute, yet
Why do we update our dictionaries only
once in several years?

Perhaps you may want to take
A course in Poetry Appreciation, 3 credits
And four thousand dollars.
Or buy the bestselling book,
?Poetry for Dummies?, that may (or may not)
Help you identify poetry.

So what is a poem, then?
I hate to break this to you, but you will find
If it is shorter than a novel, in most cases
(Though there are some that are really long.)
If the lines are short, even if the words are long
It must be a poem, but trust me
The real rule with a poem is
You will know it when you see it.

Sometimes, though, you may find
A beautiful poem, but the author
may have really intended to write prose
In which case you can always say
“The author?s lines are very poetic.”
For really, who knows what a poem is?

Now your color is closer to brown
and the freshness has long gone.
I don’t dislike darker skin
but I dislike it on you.

I wish I had met you before,
I’d have taken you home to my mother.
She would have loved you, I’m sure
Now you look too old for me.

I can pick and choose women
I do that frequently
I go to “see” women
and then I reject them.

They lack the perfect height, I’ll say
Or form, or flawless skin.
Sometimes I just reject at whim.
Do I need reasons? Am I not King?

I may be an imperfect man,
But I am still a Man.
So I deserve a perfect woman,
Don’t you agree with me?

Yes, I demand perfection,
and you fall short.
Why should I pick you?
What rights do you have?

I can be cruel to women
And no one will ever object
But you are not even a woman,
You.. are just an apple.