I Need No Name

I leap

leap out of my body

hair on fire

eyes flaming with the fury

of a thousand years

dagger in my hand

red-hot

And I burn

I burn every fence

every wall

every shackle

every muzzle

I burn, and watch them

crumble into ash and dust

I hack

I hack at every tongue

every hand

every eye

I chop them all, and watch

as they leak blood

And I bathe

I bathe in ash and dust

and congealed blood

in spaces that no longer

grope me

in words that no longer

bend my head

in catcalls that no longer

deafen me

in gazes that no longer

undress me

I bask

I bask in the sound

of my words tumbling free

in the sound of my feet

clattering off to places it dreamt of

in the sound of my hands

stomping on surfaces it yearned for

               

And I step back

into my body

moment of madness

evaporating

in the heat of my boiling blood

and slowly

I burn my silence

I hack at my fear

I bathe in my euphoria

I bask in my voice

I strip down to the marrow

of my bones
I bleed

I yell

I am

---

Again, anger fuels this. Immediate inspiration drawn from a senior talking about her experiences with gendered rules on occupying public spaces in a college, where she's attending a fest, and an incident in another academic institution where first-year students misbehaved with a female student until seniors intervened. The powers-that-be dismissed the girl's account as a fabrication, and the senior students now have a ragging case foisted upon them.

Autumn, a haiku

out of turn, autumn
bears witness: one more leaf
kneeling before time

The Nation Wants To Know Why You Write Poetry When You Should Be Studying

THE NATION
WANTS TO KNOW
WHY YOU WRITE POETRY
WHEN YOU SHOULD BE
STUDYING

This pesky nation of yours
seems to want to know a lot,
so I will say this:

I am young
and furious, and my voice
gathers rust,
prone as it is to noise
that demands I sew my lips
into silences

where only
canned dreams
and clockwork desires
speak

I am young
and furious, and my voice
yearns to sing
to a different tune

and it will:
its frayed ends and jagged edges
will spill blood
on all that you declare holy –

on the 207-foot-tall tricolor
and the mandated 1-foot space
between
me
and the
boy
sitting next to me

on the weighted boots
of history
that condemned to death
a boy’s yearning for stardust

on the six yards of sanskaar
and fifty-inch veils of modesty
which brand my love
an obscenity

on the madness
that lynches a man
with just a lingering whisper
of look in his fridge

on the lines
that become fences
that become walls
built upon grave after grave
of frozen uniforms
and butchered hearts.

Yes,
hear me as I drip blood –
its red seeping
into an earth

where answers are weeds
and questions burst
into life
without fear

where poetry
hits every discordant note
on the way

as it soars above

auto-tuned voices
peddling doctored truths
and photoshopped patriotisms

So hear me
as I sing
as I kiss
as I tell

---

Written in solidarity with the JNU students protesting the state's crackdown on dissent in academic spaces (and the country as a whole), its excesses ranging from slapping outrageous charges of sedition on student leaders to giving a free rein for violence against journalists and students.

This poem was featured in the first issue of Mithila Review.

A Foray Into Translation: Love, In Four Fragments

I know, I know.

I know I haven't written in a long while, and if this blog were a physical space, this post is just dusting the cobwebs, trying to infuse life into its musty corners.

I really don't know how or why writing slipped from me (or did I let it slip?) For months now, it was as if thoughts shrivelled up at the tip of my fingers, in terror of shape-shifting into words. Maybe I just lost inspiration. Maybe I was too lazy to sit down and coax words out of their shells, when once upon a time they used to tumble out of me like a row of toppling dominos.

I was bereft. 

So when my schoolmate and friend Sulyab posted his Malayalam poem, Pranaythinte Naalu Varnangal, it was with a vengeance that I took it upon myself to translate it, possessed by a faint hope that I could rediscover my love, find purpose again. I'm not sure if I did, but I did have a lot of fun in the process.

With my limited exposure to Malayalam language/literature (something I'm not proud of) and this being my first attempt at translation, I'm well aware it could do with a lot of work. Nevertheless, I'm proud of my baby steps!

If you appreciate Malayalam, find this wonderful, ridiculously self-aware meditation on love here.

And then, find my translation here. (Nothing's stopping you from reading it as a standalone, non-Malayalis! *hint hint*)

Do let me know what you thought of it, especially bilingual Malayalis around here: how did I fare as a translator, and what could've been done better?

Tread

Feet,
tread softer.

Tread on hearts

as you would
across
sterile white floors

with mud-caked caution.

Feet,
tread softer.

Walk through hearts

as you would
through
muted hospital corridors

with clacking heels’ restraint.

Feet,
tread softly

slowly

hesitantly

or even better –
tiptoe.

Tiptoe
until you forget
to clatter through arteries
and veins

until you forget
to leave prints
in heart-chambers

until I forget you

and the world
forgets
me

Poem: Shrapnel

O you who search for songs here,
turn back –
there are none

only screams
drilling through deaf ears
to reach
empty brains and emptier hearts

O you who search for knowledge here,
leave now –
you shall find nothing

but pens
bleeding ink, and children
leaking blood
onto empty notebooks

O you who search for the school here,
you know nothing:
this is a graveyard

where
half-read lessons
and half-eaten lunches

mourn
the unread and uneaten

where
the ghosts
of half-dreamt dreams

haunt
all the tomorrows
yet to dawn

Poem: Beyond

Out beyond ideas
of rightdoing and wrongdoing
there is no field

Only lies –

under the gnarled roots
carpeting
the shifting earth

Lies

beneath the dense foliage
veiling
the eavesdropping sky

Lies

across the entwined vines
curtaining
the whispering tree-trunks

And more lies
sewn into the linings of truth

for the rest of the universe,
if it dares to pry.

I’ll still meet you there.