Three Bombay Poems

i`m a little irritated by the ease with which americanisms -- colored, millimeter -- cohabit with standard english spellings.

i also think far too many words may have been used -- not enough time or space to chew over lines or paragraphs: not enough white space, as we say on the desk.

i`m not sure if that makes sense.

i wish i could offer more constructive criticism, especially since i`m a mumbaikar, but i don`t have the bandwidth.

regards

aakar patel

WOW!

Excellent!

``Ten million scavenger ants dream

Their delirious dream

Of feasting on the chief minister`s

Succulent ,gelatinous body.``

Soooooooooooooooooooooo Dali :)

One of my favorite painters.

Harish:

Wonderful. Not ONLY Dali. Capotish as well!

I had to check with three Bombayites to get most of the references.

The first one was eclectic, frenzied, colourful, pulsating.

Seems you set the pace for the quiet to follow in second and third.

Street Sepulchre haunted me most -- squeezing out grace/from ugly ...worn bodies.

But I loved the Colored bats most. Whirling. Voyeurs of law, rust genitalled, universal pimp.

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Would love to read the Happy One. That does not exclude views of other poetry lovers.

___________________

Welcome back. Hope you had a good time in Goa and Kerala, you beach bum.

___________________

(...and ... excuse me while I don the other cap....)

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‘Bombay..’ is marred by formatting inconsistency, contemptuous disregard for commas and periods and two unforgivable spelling mistakes. If this was the ‘riposte’ you could have revised them.

How could they have escaped you? Must remove you from my mailing list ;)

regards,

temporal

CONFESSION

(This must appear today. Since I have three or four articles already in the pipeline I think it will be unfair to ask the Editor [She is smiling, and nodding appreciatively, I can feel it;)] to let this supersede them. Besides this needs some whipping up to shape it into a decent article. Hence I seek forgivance in advance from all, specially Harish for using this space.)

DURGA PUJA

(reproduced and condensed from several sites on the net)

Origin of Durga - the mythology

In the ancient times, a demon called `Mahishasura` earned the favour of `Lord Shiva` after a long meditation. Shiva, pleased with the devotion of the demon, blessed him with a boon that no man or Deity would be able to kill him. Empowered with the boon, Mahishasura started his reign of terror over the World. People were killed mercilessly and even the Gods were driven out from heaven.


The Gods scared and unable to combat him, requested Lord Shiva, Lord Bramha, Lord Vishnu to stop Mahishasura`s tyranny. In answer, the three Gods combined their devine energy and summoned up a feminine form so brilliantly glaring that it illuminated the heavens. From the glow emerged Devi Durga, a beautiful yellow woman with ten arms riding a lion. Despite her grace she bore a menancing expression, for Durga was born to kill. Fully grown and beautiful Durga was immediately armed by the gods and sent forth against Mahishasura bearing in each of her ten hands, symbols of their divine power. Vishnu`s discus; Shiva`s trident; Varuna`s conchshell; Agni`s flaming dart; Vayu`s bow; Surya`s quiver and arrow; Yama`s iron rod; Indra`s thunderbolt; Kubera`s club and a garland of snakes from Shesha and a lion as a charger from Himalayas.


Riding a lion, she attacked Mahishasura. After a fierce battle, Durga transformed into Devi Chandika, the most ferocious form of the Goddess, and beheaded Mahishasura.

Bengalis worship Durga as the mother goddess, the epitome of `Shakti`(divine power), to deliver us from the evil and bring peace and prosperity in our lives. But the most interesting part of Durga Puja is that, instead of placing Durga on a high alter and worshipping her from a distance the Bengalis embrace her in their hearts and make her an inseperable member of the family. We welcome Durga to the earth as our daughter who comes at her parents` home for her annual visits. Durga stays for four days-Shashti, Saptami, Ashtami and Nabami along with her children, Ganesha, Laxmi, Kartik and Saraswati and sets for her husband`s abode on Vijaya Dashami.

_______________________________

Why this intro about Durga Puja?

Well, it is the most important festival for Bengalis. And the beginning of this festival is also the birthday of my sister M, whom I met a second time through Chowk. (How did we meet? That’s another long story!)

It seems the letter M has acquired an undue significance in my personal life.

Today is the first day of Durga Puja, an auspicious occasion according to M. She was born this day. I wish her peace, health and happiness. (A and R, take good care of her. Love you all.)

Dear fellow Chowkies, since you have allowed me this intrusion, let me share one related thought. May I?

On other boards we are bludgeoning each other to death over seemingly meaningless and irreconcilable differences. Who is a Muslim who is not one. Who is a greater leader who isn’t. All the while the poor live in denial of basic necessities of life. Roti, Kapra, Makaan and DIGNITY.

I find these pissing matches distasteful and generally avoid them But lately I have found fresh infusion of concerned thinking here. Inter-actors who advocate doing something anything positive to alleviate the conditions --- be they environmental or people related. More power to you, folks.

And a Happy Birthay, dear M, once again. And Happy Durga Puja.

May our gods bless us all with health and inner happiness.

---t

How could you forget masturbation?

aakar,

Thanks for the read aakar. Your first para is directed to chowk editors. Yours truly does not spell that way.

The second...is a fairly valid point. However, I had hoped the explanatory note i had in the end had taken care of it...when i read it again...i notice I did not use the word excess...also a part of it all.

I would love to know if you smelled...if not saw...our city in the threesome. If you notice...verbal profligacy is not a favourite weakness in the other poems.

Deskwise...does it explain why so little poetry gets published in aamchi Mumbai or hamaara bharat.

I think too many indian desks do suffer from a chronic...disease called a Uniform Civil Code of style. Wonder if you ever thought about it. India Today...was overtaken by the sheer uniformity of its style. It was Dilip Bobb all around. Therefore...if anybody switched the bylines...no general reader would notice the difference. Though to Mid Day`s credit...its pages remain fairly unaffected by this general substandard.

cheers from mumbai

harish

I feel like a village idiot- I didn`t get any part of it :(

Urstruly #7,

You don`t have to ``get`` every poem that you read.

The interpretation and understanding of poetry is different for different individuals. I know you know that, and if you don`t, you ARE an idiot.

So don`t feel bad.

ali1 #83 Thanks for the congratulations. I also have similar kinships with urdu-speaking people too, so dont feel too bad. Since this brotherhood is based on a certain way of thinking, and not on the sexual activity of ancestors, I think you will have some trouble figuring it out.

To me a form of expression different from the usual textual narrative is meaningful only if it conveys some thought or message more forcefully or effectively. Initially my reaction was the same as aakar`s - too much verbiage and stylistic pretension without much substance but then a little more reflection and second reading and I kind of enjoyed it. For lack of more explicit parallels(after all I am a prude at least on Chowk!!) the experience was akin to drinking some really strong capuccino the third time round. Refreshingly different from the usual mushy(decaffeinated) stuff that passes off for poetry on Chowk.

Harish: Thanks for an enjoyable read.

later

-sac

Harish:

Thank you so much for the poems - really enjoyed them. You said the FIRST one was an ?attempt to do in verse what Salvadore Dali did in painting?. To me there was surrealism in all three of them. Maybe not as intense as in the first poem, but definitely there.

`Bombay: A Paranoic Critical Landscape`:

I wish I were familiar with Bombay so that the references made more sense but nevertheless the images you used were very pungently vivid (does that make sense? don?t know how else to describe the impression I was left with). I thought the verse ?At the Worli seaface...... to substitute their two-inch complexes? was amazing. Again, I wish I were more familiar with the Bombay landscape. I liked the way you ended the poem on such a buoyant note after all that heavy stuff. The poem seemed somewhat erratic, disjointed in its content to me. As if you were that fruit fly and the poem was a collection of snapshots from your mind of different areas of Bombay. Oh, of course, Dali...

`Colored bats`:

This one I liked the most. The imagery was very original. It had a smoother flow. More controlled compared to the first one.

`Street Sepulchre`:

I found this one to be the most poignant one compared to the others. One single image was left etched in my mind:

?Street death has a peculiar habit

Of squeezing out grace

From ugly worn torn bodies.?

How come you don`t contribute more poetry? Think you should.

-Lubna

hey, what`s with those `?` in my previous interact?

anyway.....

t:

thank you for the info on Durga Puja - very interesting, didn`t know about it. i am now in a better position to wish some of my Bengali friends on this occasion.

dear harish

i cannot remember the last time everybody praised a writer on chowk in such unison.

``I would love to know if you smelled...if not saw...our city in the threesome.``

of course, i did -- but made no mention because your description is so obviously excellent.

``Deskwise...does it explain why so little poetry gets published in... Mumbai or... bharat.``

i`m not sure. i do know that writing that makes people think is not popular for obvious reasons. mr akbar started a poetry page in the asian age, and that didn`t last too long for lack of response (apart from the bengalis).

``I think too many indian desks do suffer from a chronic...disease called a Uniform Civil Code of style. Wonder if you ever thought about it.``

ya, india probably has the worst stylesheets on earth. mix of cliche and corn.

and yes, india today HAS become totally unreadable, though i refer to the stories/story ideas as much as the writing itself. they have the most dreary covers imaginable.

btw, mid-day`s desk is way too young to have a formatted stylesheet in place.

regards

aakar patel

ps: chowk editors, i would like to protest against this unilateral americanisation of writers` spelling. it`s totally unaesthetic.

I spent a several hours at night in Bombay a couple of years ago. Trouble is it was at the airport lounge between connecting flights, and from your poems I see that I missed out on all the weird stuff going on outside in Bombay.

aakar patel #14

[i`m not sure. i do know that writing that makes people think is not popular for obvious reasons. mr akbar started a poetry page in the asian age, and that didn`t last too long for lack of response (apart from the bengalis).]

Arvind Passey invited me to send in contributions to Poetry Splash at http://www.poetrysplash.com
You may check it out.

Ofcourse I seldom respond to un-addressed, unsolicited mail ;)

Which means I have to offer you an apology and explanation for your kind invite to write for Mid-day. Apologise: am lazy ;)

Hey, is Karanjia still alive? Is Blitz?

[ya, india probably has the worst stylesheets on earth. mix of cliche and corn.]

You want me to mention the nightmare scenario from the other side and start a war?

[btw, mid-day`s desk is way too young to have a formatted stylesheet in place.]

Helpful Hint: Gentle reader, and those not familiar with what is being said here and those who scan the newspapers daily --- you must learn the Art of Reading between the Lines. What aakar is saying here is that (a) Ansari is a hands-off boss or (b) he {aakar}is lazy.

regards,

temporal

temporal:

Thank you for the kind words. And plead guilty for the unforgivable typos. Hope previous record will bail me out back into your mailing list.

scout

thank you for your kind words.

veeresh

sorry for the oversight...

rehanhasanansari

feel good to hear that from you...gone are the days of poetry as editorials...

sac

glad your patience was rewarded. The first poem has had similar responses earlier too...

Lubna

Thank you for your encouragement to post more. Maybe I`ll manage the courage. This itself was after much wrangling...and temporal`s encouragement.

aakar

before you jump in to chide me about crowding the reponses...please to note..i have clubbed them in one...and devoted one exclusively to you.

cheers

PS: temporal can you send me the url of a SA literary site you had sent me earlier. thanks in advance.