On Hunger strikes

So the spate of hunger strikes that animated Indian politics provided the context for this article that was published in Outlook Magazine.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?277553

So here are some poems...all dutifully trashed by certain critics. So they appear here in all their shunned glory:)

House Proud

My houseproud mother

Flings

her disgruntled thoughts on this bed

This bed piled

High

with boxes and mattresses

This little island of

Untidiness

Between their beds

While my father sleeps with the

conviction

Of a life lived well

“Your mother will vouch for that”.

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2)

Apocalypse

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

---- W.B.Yeats

The metropolis

The new Bethlehem

While in the hinterland

A shrill scream, a clenched fist

A finger on the trigger.

I await the tide

A second coming

The lash and their

Judgment.

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No one/place remains the same

Once you are gone

Moves on

On your returning

Even a ‘hello’

Unhomes you.

Private

On a public toilet…

graffiti

‘Im sory, I mis u

Pls get bck’

Etched on a public monument

The answer.

“bye, Wil love you 4ever”.

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Rajnandgaon

On a train

The radio

Crackles the-

NEWS

The poised

Sophistication

Of words that are state-sponsored,

“Naxalite ambush kills 26 policemen”

The words slide over

Us, settle around

us. Conversations

Resume.

A stone thrown in a pool,

No ripples.

No war of words here,

No action that speaks louder than words.

Ideas in the Oven

Just completed a short piece on the hunger strike as a category of political protest. Will put it up here if it finds no takers. Also thinking of something along the lines of Barthes' , "Lover's Discourse" with a nihilistic edge to it. Again very difficult to find someone to publish it! Lets see....