So This is Bombay

www.artconcerns.com presents three poems by the Thiruvannamalai based poet and environmental activist Ananda Surya.

Ananda Surya

Ananda Surya is born in Kerala and he has been involved in the political movements during 1970 and early 1980s. As a student Ananda Surya was involved in cultural movements that underlined the revolutionary progressive movement in Kerala. During 1990s he initiated Tree Festival in Kochi. He shifted his base to Thiruvannamalai along with his artist wife Gayatri Gamuz in late 1990s and since then he has been involved in environmental activities. His poems carry the spirit of a youthful revolutionary and he tries to capture the world in word images that reflect his belief and skepticism in the current world order.

So this is Bombay

So this is Bombay,
city of rags to riches story
and Bollywood dreams.

Money has the smell of dead fish or refuse
but then you get used to it.

The poet, in the city of Dom Moraes
and Nissim Ezekiel,
walked the talk
with Ranjit Hoskote
on a product of expensive taste,
a Baiju Parthan User’s Manual
was beyond his means.

Beer or cappuccino at Leopald’s café
where the poster on the wall told of ancient glory,
desert palaces in times of Nebuchadnezzar.
There is a blanket ban on nukes for Iran today
or see Teheran carpet bombed to Nostradamian doom.

Better South Indian ‘thali’ lunch
at Kamath’s (Kannadiga pride)
or Sindhi curry and Malai Kofta
at Kailash Parbath..

“You are not stupid if you look under the seat’.
You will not look stupid anymore
if the bomb explodes.
On the pavement opposite Bombay Bose’s J.J .School of Art
the hawker threw the motorbike again and again on the table
and exclaimed “Unbreakable”.
Unbreakable Bombay is a plastic toy.

Yellow taxi is a love story.
A shiny clean car with plastic flowers,
a baby doll hanging for good luck.
The handsome clean-shaven young driver was Naseem for sure,
his name was with Shahina
in white sticker
on the dash-board.
“She is my girl friend,
got married with a rich man”.
She would elope with him,
but he is not so sure
if that is what he wants now.

Art discussion over samosas
at Samovar
with over-grown gay friends
who still live with their mothers
and home-made pickles.

An invitation at dawn for
‘chillum’ behind the Taj in Colaba
politely declined
but not the cliché Polaroid photo with family
at the Gateway.

The Iconoclast

The street was full of monkeys in the twilight hour,
the door lay open for the white peacock to enter,
chameleons running around for the last few hours
were dormant, the colors were muted..

Drop by drop blessings poured down to the earth
It was the time for poetry for the cosmos was still
in it’s mad beginnings…..before starting out on the epic
story telling the poet was a highway robber and a murderer,
but now he was lying nearly dead, he had made the crossing,
swimming across the great waters, reaching the other shore
with the last reserves of his strength.

Or was she a witch, her mind rambling gibberish
pretensions of leading monkey warriors into the light
while flower girls came one after the other
with wreaths to lay at the burning stakes.
Was she a saint?
Were cups and saucers flying in the air?

Were the squirrels really engineers
constructing bridges to take whole armies across
from land to land like Marco Polo
who took whole varieties of food from China
to Italy that the world may not starve
during times of bubonic plague or aids.

Did blessings and love always take the form of food,
like coconuts thrown on rocks in offerings, or ghee poured
over stone idols or milk fed spoon by spoon
to the earthen gods. Shall we break bread
and drink wine in his name alone, what about us
who are not white elephants but just common crows?
Should we always eat refuse or refuse to eat
while native women who went around bare-chested
and wore flowers became impressionist paintings
or another woman was brought from Africa
and put in a cage in Paris
and jeered before Picasso invented modernism.

No. the poet is not a simple arsonist
or petty thief, he is a post-colonial, post-modernist
and did you say, iconoclast? 

Eclipse on the night of the full moon

In the total silence I made one big sneeze
and the universe was created.

Is the eclipse over now
on the night when the moon is full?

The moon is the mother of all terrorists,
we have to free the Earth from her influence.

Stand up and be counted like men,
it is the coalition of the willing
Pluto is a dwarf, a lil yellow boy, a dog
who cannot be counted in our lynch gang of eight.

We have unleashed Rahu and Ketu,
two mad dogs to keep the moon in check
This is not a pirate bazaar of Kalashnikovs
it is the global hypermarket
where stealth and nuclear deals are sold
over a hand shake or a slight nod of the head.
do not forget to read the fine print
for freedom is a word like fellatio.

In the moon-lit night
the alluring white datura flowers
invite the crazy suicide wish
but remember
when a star dies
a black hole is born.