The Tweeting Haijin

It is still too early to say what memories will crystallise around you. For now, it is the bedpan not emptied, the smell of ointments and pills in your room and your waning voice damning the world. But once my tears have dried and the puja flowers have withered, perhaps I will freeze you at an age when you looked better. Will it be the black and white honeymoon photos taken on a boat in the lake in Matheran when you first let me down ( couldn't you find any place cheaper?), and the mundan of our first-born where your mother made such a fuss and that stupid photo from the wedding of some cousin of yours where your middle-aged, balding face and paunch made me fall out of love with you for the first time? And yes, the shaadi-ka-video, the cassette recording of our kid reciting nursery rhymes and certainly all the unrecorded fights (you never earned enough, drank too much and never bought me enough flowers) and that ne'er-do-well son you gave me who lamented loudly at the funer...

They see much, these statues standing guard at Goddess Kamakhya's dark temple; there's a nose lopped off here, an ear eroded there, by wind, by time, by swords. Now they've become nesting sites for doves that mate, rear chicks and shed guano on these timeless sentinels. They see cows amble around bestowing sacred dung, they see the fresh blood of sacrificed buffaloes. They still stand, these statues, their thousand-year silence covered with vermilion and ash. They see the rag-clothed pilgrims shivering in the morning drizzle or wilting in the noon sun not unlike the oleander petals and mango leaves that they bring as offerings to the tantric Goddess. They see the priests in red vestments; arrogance writ large on their pouchy faces. They see the banana, papaya, margosa trees shelter a sacrificial goat. And they see me, eager tourist trapping them in camera stills. monsoon showers— the forest bursts into flames blossom by blossom (Published in cattails May 2015)

I jingled them in my hand. I had no fresh notes to crinkle. No soiled ones either. They were all that was - four nickel coins. I looked up at the counter, at my palm, at the counter again. It lay there upon the counter, encased in thin plastic. It too, was all there was. The choice was clear - either the acid in my stomach digested it, or the acid digested me. The coins now jingled behind the counter. The plastic crinkled in my hand. I threw it away, and fingered the bun. Hard, stale crust, thankfully not mouldy yet. Cold, oil-oozing patty. Tomato slices, slightly rancid, their sourness accented by fermentation. Limp onion slices that failed to sting. The onions failed to sting. My desperation did. half-eaten sun; the street urchin sifts garbage Published in Cattails

Déjà vu m'arrive tant de fois, mais pas dans le sens psychological. La semaine dernière, nous sommes entrés dans Suzette, un nouveau restaurante breton dans Mumbai, offrant une gamme des crêpes. J'étais excité parce que je n'ai jamais vu une crêpe avant. J'ai demandé une "crêpe aux épinards, feta, basilic frais et tomates fraîches", en essayant mon français livresque au cours. Que j'ai reçu était une choc électrique. J'ai vu des crêpes avant—elles sont appelées les "dosas" dans ma langue. Les bretons les préparent de sarrasin, nous Tamouls de lentilles. Je viens de payer 20 fois plus pour quelque chose que je mange chez moi trois fois par semaine! J'admets qu'ils n'ont pas du fromage feta et des épinards, mais je peux les mettre dans un dosa, n'est-ce pas? Les seuls choses français de cette affaire etaient les couteau-et-fourchette, le désespoir Houellebecqien, et peut-être le Chopin jouant en arrière. Et bien sûr —déjà vu. ...

a few poems in the saki's* diary when reading I remember my stories he always listened to chand ashaa'r-o-nazm saaki ke roznaame mein jo padhe maine mere daastaan yaad aaye jo woh sunte reh gaya Raamesh Gowri Raghavan India *The Saki in an Indian & Middle-Eastern bar or alehouse is a person who acts as bartender, waiter and more. Saki also refers to a personal servant employed by merchants and aristocrats to serve wine. The British short story writer Hector Hugh Munro used 'Saki' as his pen name. The saki is a recurrent theme in Urdu poetry, with many poems addressed to him. I have therefore left Saki untranslated, 'bartender' seemed odd. Published in Cattails

watching a fly that's thrashing about I come to think of the struggles in my own bowl of soup Published in Cattails