Aparna Sanyal writes

THE MINARET

They say
The minaret
At a certain angle
Blocks out the sun
Seen from below
On the street
They trundle
A cart with bullhorns
And saffron battlements
Ready to do ululating battle
With the muezzin
Whose call for
prayer
Will call instead
reinforcements like rats
Skulking insidious sewer-laden
They will emerge wetly slick
Battle ready, join the fray
The minaret knowingly
insouciantly angled
Offends their sun
Eagerly green
Crescents
Are grins
They mock
The bullhorn, the caste thread
The fibres vibrating
Within these men
Novitiates
Or are they ephebes?
They who are picked
to be lost in the scrum
Their itinerant revolving door ties
Pastel-ing red ire
To orange
Today 

 

 --Megan Noel

Aparna Sanya writes

THAT LAZY AFTERNOON

That afternoon

in the Aurangzeb Road garden

we sat sated lulled into

a near afternoon siesta

on the long veranda, khus fragrant

through slatted wood and muslin shutters

dancing lazy in the whirring 

of the Ram Cooler

Even the bees, drowsy

collapsed, plumped 

onto stamens and bulbs of pregnant flora 

The Heliconia drooped to the flagstone

cobbles 

And even the grass shushed us 

Be quiet, for it is a long day!

The dog was briefly chased 

by an irate mother bird

some sort of partridge, it picked

up its feather skirt and chased after 

the dog, much like an incensed Victorian 

lady with plumped collars and jewelled buttons being goaded to rap a thug on his head

with her flimsy parasol 

We watched half lidded, semi smiling 

summer dress armpits soaked with 

gritty sweat, young smooth rubber hose limbs tangled

sitting back into and over large wicker chairs

hair tied in tight braids and jasmine 

a tumbler of RoohoAfza trickling beads 

Of ice water down its sides

Then 

three cracks, sudden torn sky

A congregation of parakeets burst 

from the wild foliage blanket 

that crept, so slow each day claimed

a small step more into the timidity 

of the garden 

creeper vines snarling onto rose trees

tenaciously taking back to shadow

what sunlight stole each morning

Three cracks, we looked up

at each other, then shrugged

The unknowing witnesses

to history being writ in blood

at our doorstep 

that lazy afternoon 

 

(The poet was a few homes away from Mrs. Gandhi's residence on the day of her assassination, and heard the shots fired.) 

Aparna Sanyal writes

UNREQUITED 

The absence of love

Can hurt as much as hate

The gods of uncaring

Have pitchforks sharper 

Than any devil mischief bent 

Even a flower would wilt

Were the rays of the sun

To pass by unheeding

Enough mornings

Then how can a mere mortal

Survive 

The non-onslaught that comes

Of disinterest?

Withering seems natural

To any landscape

That lies fallow of

Your touch 

 

Famine and Empire -- Gobardhan Ash