Monday, September 2, 2013

On Uprooting and Relocating

VIZAG VIGNETTES


The airplane hovers over
Cranes, conveyor belts, cooling towers
Jetties and docks, flames and fumes
Welding sparks and city lights
The industrial gaze of Vizag
gears up to gobble me

*****


Black and white.. and red
Coal and sulphur... and iron ore
open-air stacks of fine dust
like giant heaps of rangoli
bedeck sidewalks
Toxi-city

*****


Polythene bags and frazzled fabric
Clog the roadside nullah
Barfed by thousand factories
Blackened slurry and slush; in it
wading unsullied, a snowy egret

*****


Harried existence
Uprooted, struggling to drop anchor
Waves wake up on shores, gently
Unhurried, unnoticed

*****


The houses I have lived in
Have made home in my psyche
And I, in turn,
Have lent them my Identity

*****


I buckle under the burden
Of the baggage of our itinerant lives
My pace slackened I lumber to a grinding halt
For the moment, I am content
To watch dolefully, as the world races by

*****


Often, lights fade out
And fans die on us
Mother of pearl moon
Beams on the patio -
Bay breeze fans sweet dreams

*****


Trawling language zones
from Kiswahili to Konkani
we  now sashay into
Rainbow Sagarika RJ's
Telugu desam

*****


Gongura and Thottakura
fiery Andhra chilli
Greens from hawkers' market
titillate the palate
and lure me to local flavours

*****


No buses, no autos, no school
Bandhs and blockades
Protests and price rise
Between Samaikyandhra and Seemandhra
The T-word threatens …
to disrupt “normalcy”, indefinitely
Unsafe streets

*****


Political collusion and Pollution 
incites disquiet...
Notwithstanding - 
On Dolphin Hill
I get my eye-piece of the pristine bay
And I am good to go

*****


On Dolphin Hill
You don’t count butterflies
You only feel them
flutter your heart!

*****


Uprooted from Goa
Washed ashore Visakhapatnam
Mandovi Hill to Dolphin Hill
From West coast to East coast
The journey comes a circle
Begins all over again

*****