EVICTION

Ferocious machines, roaring giants
Metal to metal, stone on stone
Hooded men shouting commands
of sedentary gods perched
at air-cooled havens in capitals
away from smoke soot
deafening noise parching heat

River’s flow smells extinction,
spawning the big dam

Hamlets awaiting submergence
shudder at pounding thuds
of each massive strokes
ripping the horizon.

Deserted villages fall mute
at silent tears of its people
on exodus, casting back
that lingering last look

Prophetic cats, the see-all mystics -
they have vanished.
In the mountains they feel free,
fleeing flood to come.

A lone buffalo, lame and infirm,
left behind, grazes fields forlorn
blinking primordial eyes
registering nothing.

Fledglings, nestling in bushes
watch uneasy activities around
unnatural, boding ill:
fear death by water.

Huts, awaiting razing,
pine for knocking at the doors
announcing the elders to enter
and children to ‘behave’.

Fields, wild with weeds
mourn departed tiny feet
trampling its dawn and dusk:
playground at their behest.

Unseen ancestral spirits,
blessing their brood,
sob unheard in the shades, downcast:
they cannot leave.

Where have they gone, the evicted?
Did they simply vanish?
Are they brewing storms that
one day would storm capitals?

What befell the lass, fearing loss
of young love, dared death?
Did she find her heart’s content
singing  in some strange land?

Where would they go, the forefathers?
Into oblivion? Come shimmering
above vast expanse of the flood
on the day for the dead?*

*(‘Day for the dead’ is a weak translation for Sanskrit ‘Shraadham’, which implies the day of rituals to commemorate the dead ancestors and give them yearly homage)

WARHORSES

SPENT WARHORSES

Sedentary rebels

Turbid iconoclasts

Cyber space ET

NEW HEROES

On retreat, off street to SEZ

An obsolete myth-

Angry young men.

APOCALYPSE

Streets on fire

Waiting for avatar braving

Depraved new world

MEMOIRS OF THE ILL-BEGOTTEN: A PREFACE

MEMOIRS OF THE ILL-BEGOTTEN: A PREFACE

Memoirs-

revelations treading the thin line

between the narcissistic

and the confessional

Look not the same herein-

The equations-

they all went wrong

from the very beginning.

Conceived unawares,

conceived unwanted,

his birth was not festive.

No contended maternal sigh

following soul-ripping pain

attended his nativity.

No beaming mother

lulled him to sleep.

No one celebrated

his toddling escapades.

No firm paternal grip

walked him his first steps

He had no father figure

he could set out searching

He had no moments to cherish

in play field or in school classes

wherein they found him

a whipping boy, a joke.

His youth-

Look not for the ideal

out of an outcast

haunted by dark shadows

of sneering societal malice.

It's a crooked living

where brute force rules

brute ways, remorseless,

a living answerable to none.

His family-

His attempt to tie up

the broken threads

in the safe anonymity

of some alien land.

Doomed by seeds of

dissipation running

deeper in his veins

beyond his control.

His death-

Was it revenge on god-knows-who?

On those ever-haunting shadows?

Was it sheer despair?

Was it philosophical:

his self inflicted death?

Who would tell?

That frozen woman in the corner

ogling vacant

into future unknown?

Those pathetic urchins beside her

gazing from face to face

of those around?

Those onlookers unconcerned

or oozing belated sympathy?

But then, why insist that a death,

being culmination of a life,

should make sense

where life failed to do so?

C0C0NUT GROVES HAVE MEMORIES

C0C0NUT GROVES HAVE MEMORIES

Coconut groves have heard it all-

ancestral reverberations,

patriarchal grumbles,

maidenly giggles,

night meetings,

sly matings,

partings,

sighs,

sobs

Coconut groves have received it all-

affection of planting

love of watering

care of pruning

hope of ripening

pride of cropping

agony of felling

Coconut groves have seen it all-

life brimming around,

death stalking behind,

birth most welcome,

seeds nipped sterile,

death rudely forced.

Coconut groves have memories-

history in sweat and blood,

resistance defying death

candid muzzle of power,

betrayal at thirty coins,

loyalty at gun point,

martyrs

Placed at its vantage point

Coconut groves have lived it all.

SOMETHING LIKE HAIKU

SOMETHING LIKE HAIKU

by Fazal Rahman on Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 11:35am ·

1.
NARCISSUS GOES FACEBOOK
Drained riverbeds.
Narcissus
goes facebook.

2.
NATIVITY
Starless east
The Magi retrace steps,
And the Child unborn

3.
AN ARACHNOPHOEBE IN SEVEN SLEEPERS’ DEN
An arachnophoebe in seven sleepers’ den
Insomniac
Two centuries.

4.
Demented street-walker
Humming lullabies
Unburied foetus all ears
(This one is particularly close to my heart since this is from one of my worst nightmares. The street-walker actually roamed my hometown some years back. It was rumored that she was being continuously abused, even at that advanced age and in that emaciated form, on a daily basis by nocturnal nobodys and she endured it with chilling indifference: 'like a log' was the term. One of the most heart breaking sights, she at times used to cuddle with a small piece of log, mumbling coarse indiscriminate tunes. She was living her own Comala)

5.
Computerate granny
mouse-tells Cinderella
in 3-D

6.
A day for sleep-walkers:
At traffic post
Cop hangs himself

7.
WAR-ZONE PIETA
Pandemonium of riots,
Dissipated child in lap
War-zone Pieta.

8.
PAEDOPHILE AT SUPERMARKET
Panick’d little eyes search “mom…!”
A foxy smile helps out “back home...”
It’s game time.
xxxx
(‘Game’ may also suggest predator’s prey or kill)

9.
MY OWN PEDRO PARAMO
In the wee hours, post-passions,
stalkers from past dark,
ghosts of my Comala.

10.
Dream team seraphim
Safe under lids
Day break martyrs.

11.
DOOMSDAY FOR STRAY DOGS

stray dogs teeming;
hired hunters on the prowl:

parody of genocide.

12.
STREET ARTIST BOWS OUT
at street corner, off a tight rope,
a mangled heap below:
call it a day.

13.
SUBURBAN DAWNS
Riding stealthy bikes,
Finance men grin at tin doors
dark-skinned, dagger-eyed.
(In Malabar area ‘micro-finance’ business is almost completely monopolized by men hailing from Tamil Nadu. They are identified with certain traits:  they are distinctly dark-skinned, they are total strangers to locals except their clients, they have a way of coming surreptitiously the first thing in the morning allowing no time for clients to leave home, they use almost inaudible new generation bikes, and, above all, they are menacing.)


14.
PEASANT SUICIDES

a life-time toil in soil wasted;
Sisyphus under tin roof
resigns.

15.
MOURNING DEAD RIVER

Slimy ravines mourn
Sandy days of spry streams
Fish for fowl ‘n drink for flora.

16.

HUNGER-STRUCK!
Vital stats demand
Wasted ramp girl done with.
Tasteless hunger.



17.
NOCTURNAL SHADOWS

psychedelic night
moonbeams phantasmagoric
shadows of lost loves

18.
NO WOMEN’S LAND
strutting mein kampf look
phallic orgiastic
wombless bastards

19.
HIRED KILLERS
hell-bent crusaders
of fast buck theology
possessed short-time thugs

20.
THE MACHO
flaunting icy looks,                                                                          
feigning tough mute bravado
creature of nowhere

21.
In limbo no one dies
living sans hopes memories
ogling hells black holes

22.
BIRTHDAY BOY

When born protesting
ripped off maternal heaven
honey you made me

(April 7- birthday of my first-born)

23.
Deluge rising up
Inside Noah’s ark, what’s up but
Decameron Tales!

24.
THE NYMPHS ARE DEPARTING WITHOUT ADIEU!
Poor maids have twin lives:
They dream Cinderella
And live Esmeralda*.

*(Esmeralda, the doomed gypsy girl in Victor Hugo's ‘The Hunchback of Notre dam’ falls desperately for the young Captain Phoebes , who, in turn, is only interested in her beauty, not even caring to memorize her name and quite nonchalantly misnomers her 'Similar’.)


25.
Fear is a grownups’ disease.
They don’t freeze at anything:
the little champs.

26.
MY AUTHORS SMELL KEROSENE
Down memory lane
they all smell kerosene:
my great authors.

(Before electricity came, kerosene lamps were used- Fazal))

27.
‘Eternal’ is fake.
Life sans death is no life;
‘In time’ is the thing.

28.
SUMMER RAINS ARE FOR THATCHED ROOFS
Wanna know summer rain?
Live under a thatched roof
where it leaks in profusely.

29.

Sunstroke April-
no time for wet dreams
Time for water dreams

A whiff of cold wind
soft-spoken herald-
It's raining in the plains

First rain drizzles
sweeps soon to downpour
It's chorus hymeneal.

Rain-drenched verdure
shuddering, still, dripping.
Willingly forced.

30.
SEED ROOTS BRANCHES

Seed-
A tree in conception divine
birds beasts await
Nativity

Roots
holy questers
Of ancestral blessings
In earth’s bowels

Branches
star-bent dreamers
of horizons mapped
by children to come

31
Crab on beach
short trip to sea-gull’s beak
a haiku on sand


32
FIRST SUMMER RAIN
First summer rain beats
parched earth sweats inferno.
Purgatory now!

Rain moths aplenty,
dwarfish dinosaurs on wall
mime Jurassic days

33.
Drowned kid’s funeral
Stilled in prime, silent tears
A lone petal afloat

34.
AMNESIC
Groping dark alleys
of long-forsaken boarding.

Tenant with no key

35.
Flames of funeral pyre
decrypt horoscopes
encrypted in skull

BLOOD OF THE POET

BLOOD OF THE POET

by Fazal Rahman on Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 12:21pm ·

Behind the poet is a failed son
Who, chasing wild dreams, forgets filial bond

Numbers do come*, but with no parental nod.
The muse is no family friend till you court success.

Rude is fatherly ways with a dreamy brat,
and mother’s heart, soft so-ever, it takes the brunt.

Times would change, and with it, tastes,
dreams would change, soft shades going harsh.

At war with a world you wanted to change:
an outsider at home, never at peace with any.

Saddest times for her, seeing two cold poles apart:
father and son-  pillars of her life.

Now, years going decades, you look behind,
your veins calm as slime, you, the ultimate ‘normal’

You see her pains, all too late,
though tombstones do not cry loud

You feel her pain, all too clear
though umbilical cord doesn’t remain

It runs your veins, her life blood,
your way back home, your only home

Every verse you write is in pain
a retribution, a homage

Behind every poem there is an image:
a sobbing mother, a storm of blessings.

*(”I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.”- Alexander Pope.)

THE VANISHING ACT

THE VANISHING ACT

by Fazal Rahman on Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 4:20pm ·

the vanishing act:
we all perform it
one way or another
one time or another

some of those
who were with you
sometime before
have already done it

some of them
might turn up one day
for theirs is no last exit
but a shelter quest.

they may be roaming
labyrinth of some metros
subsuming themselves
in its whirlwind

they may be lingering at
some fast fading living
you left behind
hunting chimeras new

they may be chasing
ever eluding dreams
in lands alien to them
one day to return home

some of those
are buried in dark
fathomless dungeons
of an amnesic mind

some of these one day
might smile at you
an unidentified ghost
stalking from misty past

and yet one day
life shall verily play
on you, with an epitaph:
“exit, pursued by a bear!”*

*(The famous way in which Shakespeare, in an utterly inexplicable single stroke, eliminates a character no more dramatically needed in his play “The Winter's Tale”)
08/05/2012

YOU LIVE ONLY IN TIME

YOU LIVE ONLY IN TIME

by Fazal Rahman on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 11:25pm ·

           ‘Eternal’ is fake.
            Life sans death is no life;
           ‘In time’ is the thing.

xxxxxxxxxx

Sibyl failed to ask for eternal youth.  Bad? Yes, under the circumstances. But what if she hadn't? Would it have mitigated her suffering? How would one feel being young when he/she sees his/her dear ones going the natural cycle of life from birth through childhood, youth, old age and death, getting what is due to them from time to time? The veneration of old age? The agonies and ecstasies of life? Would he/she be able to think: “oh, the lucky me! To be quiet unaffected by such ups and downs!” Would he/she feel at home with the newer generations replacing the older ones with whom he/she lived thus far? How far will one be able to put up with an on-looker status, no matter he/she looks an Adonis/Venus? In all probability he/she would sooner than later run the risk of acute depression and cry out: “Give me my normal wear tear back, give me my cross.....!Take away this aging youth from me and give me my own old age...! Give me my death...!”

They say childhood is a blissful time. Yes, when it comes when it should come. Else, it is torture. Was Benjamin Button happy, moving reverse from old age to youth to adolescence to childhood....and an innocent infantile death...? No, he suffered, suffered like hell. Those who grope in the dark alleys of memory loss, tenants of long forsaken tenements with no key, are mistakenly thought of as children reborn... But what are they? Relics of a ghost land lost in shadow worlds, fleeting images of memories pinning them down to their parched existence like nails into the wood of the cross: Santiago gasping: “Ay...!”. Caught in the twilight zone of births and rebirths, Appukkili was always restless, in communion with meanings the world of the sane was denied of. That is why he has to vanish for days and re-emerge from his keeping company for the dead, unscathed by the epidemic or the general grief over it.

Was Oskar Matzerath contented, chose as he did of his own accord, to stop growing at the age of three?  No, he fancied of watching the world of the grownups, from the detached point of view of the self-willed child, but ended up just the opposite: a child with the involved conscience of an overgrown intellectual, the ironies and absurdities of what he saw around him gnawing into his psyche, his very existence. His fate is to end up practically a genome, in a mental institution.

Life, with all its imperfections, is one stream. No theatrical standstills and resumptions, no maudlin protract ions or frozen sharp cuts, no flash backs, no fast forward gimmicks. No matter where it springs, and whereby it flows- it has to reach its confluence... in time. It’s pure Aristotle: it should have a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s a big joke. It’s very serious.

XXXX

( Sibyl of Cumae of the ancient legends, Oskar Matzerath of 'Tin Drum', Benjamin Button of the Story by Fitzgerald and the Movie, Appukkili of O V Vijayan's masterpiece, Santiago from Hemingway are remembered.)

LITTLE CHAMPS ARE NOT TERRIFIED

LITTLE CHAMPS ARE NOT TERRIFIED

by Fazal Rahman on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 6:39pm ·

          Fear is a grown-ups’ disease.
         They don’t freeze at anything:
          the little champs.


Beautiful.  Angelic.  Six months old. On a visit to his neighbors' in the arms of his beautiful mother.  My beautiful niece, short of ten by two-three years, stretches her arms to get him. But the little fellow would none of it.  Instead he kicks his legs against his mother, eying me. Stretches his little arms to me.  I am amazed at his sense of beauty, ‘excellent taste!’ as it were. You will have to wait, honey, I make aside to my niece, to reckon with him, and your charms playing on him; it’s just a matter of timing.

Chubby fingers explore the rugged contours of a face. Fiddling. His mother, herself barely out of her teens, blushes. Makes a shy excuse: “He thinks it’s (my) father...!” Possibly so. Her father, my friend, the little man's grandfather, too has of late begun to sport a beard. Little squeals, god's own language, two bright tiny stars in clear eyes.  Droplets of honey dew saliva soaking my shirt shoulders.  He has a jolly good time.

My wife finds some ice cubes to prepare soft drinks. I offer the tray to the little fellow. Chubby hands approach the tray. One touch and he pulls back, horror in face. We wait. Was it our laughing?  Or was it the elemental curiosity?  The young man brings his right hand closer to the tray again. Again the same reaction.  Repeat. This time the reaction is a little slow. A few more trials and he is home.  With both hands.

Nothing terrifies little champs for long.

He is on his way to make an important discovery. A sensation new to him. Of course he might not store it in his memory yet.  He wouldn’t name it either right now.  That would come some other time.

I recollect that immortal opening line: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice!”

My wife reprimands me: “Silly, he is not going to face anything like that!”

I know. This little champ here won't ever have to face the firing squad as such. But he too will have to face the firing squads of daily existence... in time.

SUMMER RAINS ARE FOR THATCHED ROOFS

SUMMER RAINS ARE FOR THATCHED ROOFS

by Fazal Rahman on Friday, April 27, 2012 at 11:16pm ·

Wanna know summer rain?
Live under a thatched roof
where it leaks in profusely.

26/04/2012

Summer rain always brought fond memories to me…memories of good old sad days. Living under the thatched roof where it leaked in profusely, it was kind of ‘catch-me-before-I- shatter’ challenge for us kids, with kitchen utensils to collect water, lest it drenched the cold mud floor. Father and mother, we could see, were worried extremely just as rain was in the air, because they were bothered about the precarious state of the less-than-moderate household, badly wanting renewed thatching which was not in their prospect to afford. But for us, with the ‘country urchins’ mindset, nothing seemed more exciting than being free to have an abandoned outing to the torrential downpour, which could put an end to the oppressive summer heat. Here again, boys had a clean edge over girls, who couldn’t even think of an out-door rain bath.

But summer rain held more prospects for us. Within the household itself, it created a kind of haven of domestic bliss. It invariably meant a gathering of all the family members to the safest corner within where the roof leaked least, probably some alley where the coconut fronds of the thatch were somewhat new. The close huddling invariably ended up in mother’s retelling some interesting stories or anecdotes out of the blue, as it were. Father was not very communicative, in the old ‘keep-aloof’ patriarchal fashion, though his love and affection for his brood was obvious for all of us to see. Mother, on the contrary, was an amazing treasure house stories, anecdotes and worldly wisdom, illiterate as she was. Moreover, she was, unlike father, not affected by any sort of skepticism, the kill-joy of a child’s world. All sort of wonderful creatures, like geniis, spirits, miracle-performing god men, and heroes of folk legends formed part of her personal mythology. Plus, she came from a renowned ancient family which could truly boast of participation in movements that decided the fate of the country. Ancestors from those worthy times often came alive in her stories. While it was raining hail and storm outside, we kids felt protected in the Noah’s ark of her wonderful tales. As it approached the meager lunch time and to go to sleep, we felt sorry to part with our wonder world. I would secretly conspire with my immediate elder sister, the ‘little big-sister’, my special favorite, to conjure up a gentle genii to lull us into sleep.

Today I wonder if mother is still ready with her stories in the other world, where her listeners are yet to find entrance. I can see father, close by, fondly mock-berating her for the ‘nonsense superstitions’ she is cramming his kids with. I can see several of my play mates, drenched in summer rain, frolicking the vales of no return.

Today, watching the rain shattering against window panes from within my concrete jungle, I miss the thatched roof. I miss the vast expanse of landscapes where puddles of water in mud holes forms little ponds to frolic in at the slightest provocation of single heavy rain, my fellow urchins to turn the clean water into a mess, … my good old sad days.

Thatched roofs are where you know rain.

MY AUTHORS SMELL KEROSENE

MY AUTHORS SMELL KEROSENE

by Fazal Rahman on Friday, April 27, 2012 at 5:02pm ·

Down memory lane
they all smell kerosene:
my great authors.

Village ways extended to the Shornur – Nilambur railway track. Just two passenger trains every day. An occasional goods train. Practically a fine, shortest-route pedestrian path. Six kilometers north-ward and you reached the Pattikkad Rural Library. Five kilometers south-ward was the Desasevini Vayanasala, Angadippuram, which was, and still is, a very good one of the kind. One day to north, one day to south. A cherished routine, especially on holidays and vacation times. Books never tired you out, especially in those pre-television sane days.

Reaching Angadippuram Reading room by 03-30 pm had an added attraction: you are just in time for the good old radio, a rarity of the days, to chime: “Radio Srilanka” which ensued one full hour of the best-ever of Malayalam cinema songs. It was the heyday of the best cinema songs- the unforgettable -'70-s. North-ward destination had already ceased to excite me, as I graduated from Muttathu Varkey and Kottaym Pushpanath to the likes of Basheer, Vijayan, VKN and MT. Hemingway, Emily Bronte, Victor Hugo, and George Orwell, of course in translations. I seldom took Basheer, my all-time favorite, home.  His books were very small.  Instead, I would take one, a special generosity on the part of the librarian to the skinny boy with eyes to gorge the entire shelves, and read it then and there, one full hour.  Ears to the melody King, KJ Yesudas, eyes to the Sultan of story telling; heart to both. No problem, no ego clash between the two within...A boy's heart has as many rooms within as there are dear ones to accommodate. I still remember those days I read O V Vijayan's Dharmapuranam in its original version serialized in the since extinct Malayalnadu Weekly.  04-30 pm and it is back-home trot. Mind fully set on the treasure in hand, and legs agile lest you missed the 'tournament' in the fields.  Out there your team mates wouldn't understand what it was to grab the book. They wouldn't wait.

One particular day is vividly etched in my memory:  that day’s pick was Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, in Malayalam translation.  It was quite abruptly that heavy downpour broke out.  With no umbrella and no shelter in sight, there was nothing I could do about it.  Drenched completely.   It is funny now to hark back how I managed to get the book comparatively unscathed.  One of the reasons I ever felt so close to Robert Jordan, Maria and Anselmo might be this.  My mother was to comment half-mockingly: “he wouldn’t protect even his child like that..!”

Night. Time to immerse in the treasure hunt. The kerosene lamp to the left. The night is young to the wee hours. Father, awake for some primary needs, mumbles something about the lamp still burning. Again the stillness of the night.  In good company. Then, sometime into the wee hours, you fell asleep, the story-teller also at rest for the day.

Today the eye doctor diagnoses me 'bi-focal'. That's fine. Kerosene lamps are not very doctor-friendly.

My Hemingway still smells kerosene.