దేవుడంకుల్ ఇప్పుడిక్కడుంటలేడు

A poem I wrote a couple of months ago after seeing the horrific image in The Guardian of a fish that seemed to have choked on plastic debris. I sent it to Purnima garu and Rohith, and they thought it was good enough to be sent for publication. I then sent it to Meheranna, with some trepidation, who initially liked it but a few weeks later said it needed to be improved for publication in Andhra Jyothy. By then I was able to see it more objectively and couldn't convince myself that it was good enough to warrant publication, an idea I was enamoured by earlier. 

So here it is. Oh, and one more thing: The first line was my first title for the post that later became the video essay The Godless Universe. It was renamed as earthbound because I was so disappointed with the patchy post that I didn't want to waste the inspired title. Funny.

--

దేవుడంకుల్ ఇప్పుడిక్కడుంటలేడు

ఎటు పోయిండో తెల్వది

ఇగో ఈ నామం గాళ్ళకి అపజెప్పిండట
ఏమో ఎవరో తెల్వది మాకు

కేరళలో ఎవడో లుచ్చగాడు పాపం
ఏనుక్కి బాంబు తినబెట్టిండట
అటు గిన పోయిండేమో

లేక సముద్రంల చిన్న చిన్న చేపల్
ప్లాస్టిక్ ముక్కల్ తిని అరగక సస్తున్నయట
వాటిని సూడబోయిండేమో
మరి తెల్వది మాకేం చెప్పలె

పక్షుల్ గిన ఆసిడ్ బావుల నీళ్ళు తాగి
ఉడికి ఉడుకి సస్తున్నయట
ఆస్ట్రేలియాల అడవుల్
తగలబడుతున్నైయట

ఆర్క్టిక్ ల మంచు ఎలుగుబంట్లు
నిల్వజాగా లేక మునిగి సస్తున్నయట
ఆడేడికన్న పోయిండేమో మరి
ఏం చెప్పలె మాకు

ఏంది ఎప్పుడొస్తడంటవా?
అసలొస్తడంటవా?
అయినా ఆడొచ్చేదాక మనముంటమా ఏంది
మనమే పోం
ఈడ ఏం మిగల్చం
రానీ వాపస్ ఆడ్ని, ఏం పీక్తడొచ్చి

ఇప్పుడ్గవన్నీ ఎందుక్ రా
దా, పక్కకూర్సో
ప్రపంచం తగలబడతా ఉంది
సమ్మగ, వెచ్చగ సలి కాచుకుందం

దేవుడంకుల్ ఇప్పుడిక్కడుంటలేడు
ఎటు పోయిండో తెల్వది మరి

కవి, అంతే

అర్థరాత్రి, శ్రీశైలం అడవుల్లోంచి పాకుతున్న రోడ్డు. సప్తమి చంద్రుడు, మెల్లిగా వీస్తున్న గాలి. ఖాళీ రోడ్డు మీద నెమ్మదిగా వెళుతున్న ఒక లారీ.  నిద్రతో తూలుతున్న క్లీనర్ కుర్రాడు, గదమాయిస్తున్న డ్రైవర్.

లారీ వెనకాల భాగంలో, గడ్డివాము మీద వెల్లకిలా పడుకొని గుబారైన కొమ్మల సందుల్లోంచి వెన్నెలని చూస్తూ,  సిగరెట్టు కాల్చుకుంటున్న ఇరవై-ఇరవై రెండేళ్ళ కుర్రాడు.

లారీ ఆగింది, చిన్నగా మాటలు వినబడుతున్నాయి. ఒక మనిషి అడుగులు దగ్గరవుతున్న శబ్దం. ఇంతలో ఒక టోపీ తల ప్రత్యక్షమైంది.

"దిగు దిగు.."

కుర్రాడు దిగాడు. ముడతల లాల్చీ, చింపిరి గెడ్డం, ఎర్రటి కళ్ళు. ఎస్.ఐ దెగ్గరికి వెళ్ళాడు. చెరగని క్రాఫు, గుబురు మీసం.

"ఏరా నక్సలైట్ వా?"
"కాదు సార్"
"మరి?"
"కవిని సార్"
"కవివా? ఏది ఓ కవిత చదువు"
".."
"ఏంటి? కవివైతే ఓ కవిత చెప్పరా"

ఎస్.ఐ, ఇద్దరు కాన్స్టెబుల్లూ, డ్రైవరూ, క్లీనరూ అందరూ తననే చూస్తున్నారు. పై పెదవి మీద చమట తుడిచాడు.

ఓ కవిత చదివాడు. తను రాసినది. మట్టి వాసన గురించి, రైతు చేసే సేద్యంలో కళ గురించి, తొలకరి ఝల్లు గురించి, పసిపిల్లల నవ్వుల గురించి. గంగడోలు నిమురుతున్నప్పుడు ఆవు కళ్ళళ్ళో తన్మయత్వం గురించి.

అయిపోయింది. నిశబ్దం.

ఎస్.ఐ ఓ అడుగు ముందుకేసాడు. చొక్కా జేబులోంచి సరిగ్గా మడిచిన పది రూపాయల నోటు తీసి కుర్రాడి లాల్చీ జేబులో పెట్టాడు.

"వెళ్ళండి", అన్నాడు

-Based on an anecdote narrated by Tanikella Bharani garu

--

I wrote this poem for the Creative Writing class I took with the poet Mark Tredinnick. He said this was too descriptive, straightforward to be called a poem.  I think he's right.

when life does us 'part

the sun is dragging back the shadows
and the house is sinking into darkness

the birds have quietened
the tv is not on yet

she lies on the bed, mouth slightly parted
whirling slowly on the soft grass of shallow sleep

a motorbike whooshes past outside
and she is snapped out of the vestiges of hard-earned darkness

she gets up and wipes the saliva off her mouth
rearranges her sari and comprehends the oncoming night

she switches on the tv and for a few seconds
the deathly metallic neon light illuminates her face

the small eyes with their cataract eyeballs,
the sharp nose that had once left young men enthralled
the glittering nosering and the saggy earlobes

the teeth browned with thousands of paans
and the face once full and radiant
now gaunt, wrinkled, the corollary
of a lifetime of suffering and a lost son

she walks from room to room
slicing through the amorphous barrenness
a moribund apparition in a ghost town

she switches on the lights and joins her palms
in a namaste to the pictures of gods in every room
not asking, not praying, not beseeching anymore

once she is done with the last room
she starts switching off the lights
retracing her parikrama, snubbing any memories
from the books and photos, mementos and clothes
before they get a chance to leap onto her

now back in her room, alone infront of the tv,
she is slowly ensconced into her lonely delirium

she and i were best friends once, my grandmother and i
she was my partner, protector, guardian angel, mother earth

then life beckoned and i
flew away from the nest like the rest

i want to go back, but do i really?
to that house and her flickering life
to the past that i know will someday destroy me
like it did to her and everyone else

an ode to longing

its cruel, ruthless, life is
it is all that but mostly life is a sadist

it is like a maze, a great birds eye view
but nothing makes sense FPS

it throws you into a situation
you'd do anything to get out of

it keeps you there, stuck
and just when you start realizing

it leaves you gaping, sobbing
clutching the shards of memories

all those memories that once didn't exist
and will never except in the bygone past

to all those philosophers and saints
who understand life the way it is

they realize that life is all illusion
a paradox of incidents that never could have been

they are strangers, then friends
partial hatred with unsubstantiated longing

kammula made happy days and
living like that stuck to us

now that we are done, none of us
I believe, can manage to watch it

it is a funny thing, life,
where once in a while you accept

you realize that the entourage
has changed, so has the superstar

a heavy heart is a one full
of happy memories but

is there anything as a happy memory
or are memories plain heart-wrenching moments

because all that matters is the present
and only a loved one or a fool wants his past to relive

to all those who've ever felt
the pain of longing, here is an ode

The tinkle of her anklets

Sometimes I wonder, travelling along the farthest of yonder
When I'm all alone, and am smiling at myself walking the shores of the seas,
the waves treading my feet, the sun sinking in to them,
and I listen to the sound of music in the salty air, reminding me of things
that hurt me and left me with a burden of vacuum.

And then I look up from my deep contemplation, see her sitting at the shores,
her legs folded into her, her arms encircling them, her hair flying with the wind,
waves tickling her feet, dreams of a happy future in her eyes.

She turns to look at me, with that glorious smile I could give away all of myself for,
and repent because that is all I can give her, and I smile back at the skies,
thanking them for my immense fortune to be able to be with her.

She's all that I've ever dreamed of, the smell of her hair, the sweat on her neck,
the ring of her laughter, the shine of her nose ring, the glow of her eyes,
the beauty of her toes and her heart full of me.

I start towards her, running then and panting with the joy of her sight,
just as I'm to reach her, she disappears, leaving me clutching air that till a moment ago was so her and so me. I fall on my knees and as slowly as the truth sinks into me, I bend down and cry my heart out. I look up at the heavens, shouting obscenities at His cruelty, begging him I'd do anything just to get her back.

I'm flawed, yes, deeply so, but I know of no one else who can complete me,
You are the One, the other half of my jigsaw, the one who's fingers are entwined around mine, you are my inspiration, my every breath, my soul and all that that has ever been me.

You will hear the beat of the horses

What is it about gifted young kids challenging conventional wisdom, about standing up against veterans, about questioning the authority and ridiculing all the work of that man. Tell you what, it's irresistible. Not to think but to write impulsively is an art I'm yet to master. But yes, I've been hearing a lot of it from Ray Bradbury. Maybe I should finish reading Zen in the Art of Writing before getting down to Hitch 22 or a Les Miserables. What is it with Gus Van Sant. I've seen two of his films, Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester and in both there are gifted kids who mock the dreams, sweat and blood of a man who still cannot fathom how a 16 year old kid does what he hasn't been able to all his life. Sad, so very sad. The fact that someday, when you grow old and are imbibed into the system, a kid barely half your age and with no respect to the love of your life challenges you and perhaps embarasses you infront of all those people from whom you've earned your respect.

Not a movie I really loved but there are some excerpts in it where I was spellbound. Maybe the need to see myself in Jamal was far too overwhelming for me not to find similarities between the both of us and how I could convince myself to be the gifted writer who can look at the world in a way nobody else has and who is good enough to tell it to the world. What else did I want to write about? About spontaneity, about writing and how writing is so much about doing it than thinking about it. God, do I want to do this. I've always believed Bradbury to be spot on when he said, wake up, write for an hour everyday and then get back to it. Forrester has a similar argument. He says, in the first draft, don't think, just write. And then in the second, use your head. But I know somewhere deep inside, I just understood that using a conjunction to begin a sentence is not always recommended and realised that there is more to the art of writing than words jammed together, that if I maintain a strict regimen of writing everyday, make a habit out of it, breathe it out and read all that I can, someday I'd convince myself that I'm worth being published. Not that it's an incentive to write. I know what I'm talking about. Initially yes, the need to be recognised, praised and talked about pushed me into writing but then on, its upto you, to talk to yourself, to write for yourself, that the biggest incentive in writing is itself. Tacky, I know and a variant of the Zen saying. Right now, as I type this, I think I'm a Salinger or a Hemingway typing away to glory. As the clock strikes midnight, the entire house is quiet, all that can be heard is the sound of crickets through the window next to me and the hypnotizing rhythm of my typewriter creating worlds from ink and weaving worlds through the intricate web of my thoughts. Yes, I do realise I'm getting far too flowery to be sober but that is because I'm far too sleepy and still tranced by the words of Forrester.

That's about it. That being my first draft. I don't think I'll have a second draft to this but I'll get back tomorrow correcting all those seemingly little errors which could ruin the best of pieces. Till then, to the greatest of writers who unfurled our imaginations and who taught us that words have power enough to drive a man insane.

poem ek numberee

my first ever attempt at poetry. wrote it in about a minute. the idea came in the loo, i rush out, write everything and then set it up in proper order. don't know where the idea came from but it was like a lightening. thought i'd work on it, refine it but i'm letting it be the way it came.
here it goes.

--

when i fall, i rise,
when he falls, and fall he shall, he lifts everyone with him.

i take people to the verge of heaven,
his is the heaven and all earth.

i have a reason,
he has a cause.

i live either in the past or future,
he breathes this moment.

i want to win,
he wants to play.

i learn the game,
he learns from the game.

i'm on people's tongues,
he's in their 'earts.

i think,
he feels.

i'm a mere mortal,
his quest is for immortality.

and finally, i die a man,
he lives on a god.

that, my friend, is the difference
between a winner and a loser.

And He was gone

14th March 2010

There was something in his eyes which caught me. It made me pause and look deeper into him. Otherwise, he was just another beggar. Those children of the Road whose home is the traffic signal, whose cots are the footpaths and whose God's are those people who have time enough to reach out of their cars and give them a rupee. All of us know what beggars are like. Infact, we have got so accustomed to their sight that we don't really notice them unless there is something out of the ordinary about them, like an extremely disfigured face, or a very uncommon ailment. Your author speaks about such plight with such casualness not because he has a heart of stone but because all that has been taken for granted.

He looked unkempt, long dirty hair, shaggy beard, ragged clothes- in one word, like any beggar. But there was something in his eyes. It wasn't pity, it wasn't grief, it wasn't disgust, it wasn't fear. There was a sparkle in his eyes. Beneath that extremely rugged appearance, sunburnt skin and shaggy beard were two eyes which looked the world with a calmness and confidence of a man who knew the answers. A faint smile teased his lips which told the world that he knew something that they didn't. Like a secret which all could know but were far too preoccupied even to notice.

He stood next to a rail overlooking the lake. The midday sun was glowing red and the water in the lake was placid. I started approaching him and he turned to look at me. I was drawn by the power of his radiance and he looked as if this for him was a common sight. As I etched closer to him, oblivious to all the surroundings, I could feel an aura around him. This outcast who could not earn himself some food was showing me the deepest mysteries of the World. I went nearer and nearer. I noticed his clothes were far too big over his skeletal frame and also that he didn't need none of them to be protected. He did not have to be protected. He was not afraid of anything. Everything around me went eerily quiet and I got lost in the darkness of his pupils. I blinked.

And everything vanished. I was standing next the lake, the burning midday sun making me sweat profusely, I could hear the traffic, the exhaust of vehicles burning my nostrils, the tree infront of me shaking gently thanks to a light breeze. But the beggar was gone. Am I dreaming? Is he God? Am I enlightened? What is wrong with me? I turn back and start walking. Dazed.

--

I've been reading Gogol lately and like all the Russians I've read before him, I'm loving reading Dead Souls. Looking back, I seem to have used quite a bit of his style in this narrative. I am deeply influenced more by his style than his subject. There is something eerie about the way he writes. Like he is waiting to unleash the biggest surprise of them all. Anyway, so that was it. And, Anirudh, Raghav and Deekshith, this has in no way been influenced by that beggar we met the other day, apart from the fact that I was stimulated to write this after that. Like they say in the movies, this character is purely fictious.

As I was walking

30th October, 2009

I was walking through a dark ally. I could faintly hear children yelling with joy though I couldn't actually make out people properly. The sun was completely gone but light still lingered making me follow my faint, elongated shadow. The street lights weren't still on and I was in a trance like state, the effect of alcohol not yet wearing off. I'm walking with my head bowed down, thinking about how screwed up my life is , feeling burdened and oblivious to beings around me. And then, BHAM! There's an explosion next to me and I'm suddenly brought back to my senses. My brain pumps adrenaline all over my body, my heart starts beating faster and I jump away in fear. And then I realise that its diwali and everyone's celebrating. Kids around me start laughing and I involuntarily smile back. I walk now, more conscious of my surroundings when I notice another bomb about 10 feet away. I'm transfixed. The fire at the end of the coil seems to have caught but then it appears that its gone. I sheepishly walk a couple of small steps to look better at it when suddenly I see the spark again. I jump back. I cover my ears and squint. And I wait. It doesn't go off. I walk a little closer again and then I see tiny sparks flying out. I jump back, again. This time I shut my ears, close my eyes, crouch and wait. And wait somemore. The damn bomb doesn't go off. I decide I'm walking past it anyway. I start striding confidently, nervous that it may go off any moment and burdened that I'd be embarrassed infront of all those people. But I make up my mind to walk past it no matter what happens, rather than wait. And it does go off eventually when I'm very close to it but my response is a knowing smile to the kid next to me. As I started walking, something happened to me. The heaviness of expectancy was replaced by the lightness of courage.