The Last Goodbye

I wish I never had to write this piece. Momo left on 31 May 2016 ; she was less than 03 years old and we never found her remains, which lie lost in Binsar wildlife sanctuary.

Beethoven’s Five Secrets will always be kept safe

Between us. The music hanging onto the webs of our oak trees.

Into the crevices of each rock you sniffed

Every blade of wild bamboo that  you fought

As it bristled in the winds of our forest trails.

We met, Momo, when I was old enough to embrace a baby

And you were young enough to be blind to my inexperience.

And in these past years, we grew—I, into a scattered parent

And you, into a gorgeous brown, beautiful lady

From the puppy with rabbit ears and eyes

Eyes, that showed me what a volcano and a sea meeting would look like.

Your love for the cello and drools for Tiger cookies lie untouched

Like books abandoned, a fine line of dust just appearing,

In my heart, where you live on.

And in my eyes, watering with the reflection of your fierce golden green ones.

This goodbye is a helpless stacking together

Of all our stories together, all our little memories

The time when you walked around proudly with a white moustache

And then declared, in the smelliest farts, that you hated milk.

The rat which you hunted and proudly served onto my shoe, for dessert.

The times you chased your friend Basanti,

Convinced that the little brown fox was your mother.

The first time you met your lover, Simba

And played so hard to get, he had to kill a langur to impress you.

The days you spent languorously sprawled in the sunshine

Which bathed you golden and me, tanned.

Every time, I climbed the stone steps to my room

Which for you had only one name, “Cookie time”

And you raced me till we panted, empty of breath, full of joy.

The nights you scratched at my door and slept on the wooden floor,

Staring into the fireplace, like you had all the answers to this universe’s ways.

All the pots you broke, bones you chewed, pieces of toast you buried away.

The way only you could make your entire bum wag, when I came home

Your sprawl, tummy up, staring at the bright blue skies

Always keeping a lookout for flies and my hand on your belly.

You taught me, Momo, that food is all the joy in the world

And hugs and walks come a close second.

That it doesn’t matter what the world thinks,

One must drool and wag like there is no tomorrow

And one must sleep away all stress.

You showed me that your wet nose and warm paw on my knee

Can fix all kinds of heartache.

This last goodbye, is mere words,

Of which you only understood a few.

You spoke with your eyes,

Scolding, nudging, prodding, loving, fearsome eyes.

You left, barking into the face of a leopard.

And in that too, you taught me

To look fear in the eye and shout.

To look death in the eye and not give up.

I have not found you, or the red collar you hated so much.

And as you remain obscure in the forest,

I will learn to embrace all that you left behind,

Until the day we meet again.

Until the day I can let go of this boxful of memories

And begin anew, with you.

Momo and I, January 2016

Secrets of the Mountain

I met a little girl today

Named Joy.

I climbed over a mountain,

And sighed at the shades of green of a forest

So full of trees, you’d think these were the tresses of the earth.

Briars bruised my shoulder and a thorn pinched my thumb,

Almost as if, instructed by Joy, to stop me.

Like a child left alone too long, pushes your love away.

So I climbed on, leaves cushioning my footfalls

And grassy sides of the mountain,

Half gold, half green scrunching underneath.

Joy sits on a side of the mountain,

Watching the thick forest change colours

With each passing cloud and piercing sun.

You’d almost miss her, left alone, under the history of the ruins up above.

The gallows after all, are more terrifying than a little girl.

Joy, born 31 December 1908,

Died 5^th June, 1909.

An infant, buried.

Almost, as if in her own backyard.

And no epitaph to guide her own.

Except the fading whiteness of the marbletop.

Lt. Molesworth, you did an injustice.

To a white baby.

As much as to the brown Indians you enslaved and hanged here.

Graves, don’t they say, shouldn’t be left solitary.

The dead too, cannot live alone.

Especially, not so far out with the silence of leopards.

Always cautious, always preying.

View from Joy's grave site

To You, Delhi

I am always looking for poetry,
Wafting down mountain paths lost over time.
The city comes with noise I fear to call my own
In its renditions are thoughts  manifold,
Teeming with laughter, cafeteria blenders, horns, voices--
Solitary and crowded.
Buildings-- all blanketed with plumes of smoke.
So I fear to call city noise my own.

Tinkling glasses of wine and short dresses here
Are accompanied by bow-ties and credit cards.
Perhaps, I've got this wrong.
Perhaps, the steely mane of finance is not so cold.

I wish I could tell you
The moment I saw you reading a book on the couch
Let's go for a walk in the park.
There is no need for credit cards, dresses, bow-ties here.

I do not know you or the yellowing pages you hold
But I wish that in this fall evening so thick
With Delhi dust and cooling winds,
We could walk together, unknown, in the park.
Until dusk, or the end of the path.

"You" Delhi, refuse to walk in the park
Instead, you stubborn old fool, you douse yourself
In garish, fanciful cars, malls and
Artificial, cling film wrapped people.
Like dirt under the nail, you hide
That Chandni Chowk gramophone amidst tyres;
That man who walks daily to work
Just so he could buy grain for pigeons from saved money.
That funny man who resides in the book market
Drawing laughs outside and inside? Inside, who knows which city resides within him?

So in these people and places you call your "errors" Delhi,
I look for you. I look for your letters to me.
Whose words have been lost in your circular roads
And changing signboards.
"8 km to South City", "Turn right for Terminal 3"
Bright city lights and you Delhi. Oh my love,
You are blinded. Don't you see?
Don't you see?
Don't you see the debilitating death force suck the life out of the withering couple?
You cannot be happy about life while they giggle over the joys of wheelchairs.

And as the airplanes depart toward your grey skies Delhi
I shall immortalise that wheelchaired couple giggling on the runway.
I shall immortalise you Delhi, in my nails and teeth.