To celebrate, on the day Munawar Farouki was granted bail, I went to buy a kg of guavas and oranges. The fruit seller asked if he could make change with one perfect banana and two handfuls of grapes. I said,…
Poems about the dark times.
To celebrate, on the day Munawar Farouki was granted bail, I went to buy a kg of guavas and oranges. The fruit seller asked if he could make change with one perfect banana and two handfuls of grapes. I said,…
What if they jailed the students and scholars who disagreed or outlawed peaceful gatherings all over the city? What if they stopped counting the votes in parliament or made it criminal to laugh at a court judgment? If all this…
You’ll Join Us, I Know, My Friend -for Umar Khalid It was late in a South Delhi warehouse, it was cold, but I didn’t feel cold; Umar Khalid was swaying to jazz, or was it hip hop? I looked over…
A rooster outside my window, has been crowing all afternoon— something about the thinning clouds, or the breeze; it’s hard to tell. They’ve arrested Munawar Faruqui for making ‘indecent’ remarks against a god or a devil— or was it just…
-a letter to W.S. Merwin Today I am reading The Moon Before Morning I should have read it years ago when a friend gave it to me but I was lazy and anxious it is filled with unpunctuated invitations to…
-Christmas Eve, 2020 Tonight in Taloja Central Jail, Father Stan Swamy shakes but also rejoices; he knows that soon enough carpenters, fishers and blunt speaking women will join others who labour— in fields and factories, forests and homes— and that…
-Nine months after the Delhi Riots In spite of the November cold, a cat went into heat and wailed into the night, like a sick child or a faraway ambulance. I thought of you then, and the stray you used…
-Delhi 2020 Would you still love me, my friends, if I lost my sense of smell? Could we still touch from a distance? What if I had a dry cough? If I lost my sense of smell, would I still…
-for Varavara Rao It settled on me just before dawn the day after I came to pay my respects— heavy, like a thick wool blanket on a not-quite cold night. It stayed until the scratch of a distant grass broom …
The clothes left on the line outside the flat across the street are flapping in the dirty wind; one shirt has just flown free, and someone’s firing atom bombs or guns; it’s hard to say— the autumn air tastes acrid,…
-for Natasha Narwal I don’t smoke, but somehow I’m smoking on a cramped South Delhi terrace; I’m looking down at a wide, brown field of dry grass and scattered trash. Beyond, are trees and more trees, and gathered in upper…
-Delhi, October 13 Smoke presses down on the 5 pm sky leaving the sun bloated and glowing, like a molten bronze medal, or a strange neon fruit. As raptors glide in high, hungry circles, crows keep watch from ragged rooflines,…
If you fear you might be condemned for committing atrocities, go file some FIRs and claim there’s a conspiracy; sedition or 144, incitement or simple foul play— if anyone asks for bail, just invoke the UAPA. Clichéd, yes, but also…
-Jantar Mantar, October 2 Last week, we dreamed a feathered thing dangled high, in tangled wires— the scent of wood and petrol smoke, the violent glow of pre-dawn fires; some terrors are too large to name— some wounds, so deep,…
-for Varavara Rao It’s easy to remember the slow shuffle back, the way the ceiling fan’s slow turn makes the hair on your arms stand up, how the morning light falls with such gentleness on every green, growing thing— how…
You asked me if it might be fun to try to hold gloved hands and kiss through our new masks, but when we did, your aunt came barging in, announcing she had urgent things to ask about the state of…
-Delhi, August 15 I tried to type a list of those imprisoned for ‘incitement’— instead of reading like a poem, it read like an indictment.
-Delhi, August 13 Rain drenched the city like a bite of ripe pear after a hot, oily meal, and there was no dry path through the narrow lane behind the masjid, so two giggling girls picked their way through the…
-for Hany Babu and Varavara Rao We met near the pond, I brought something to eat: tomatoes, bread, your favourite sweets— old couples strolling, children laughing; it would have been perfect, except for these things: the ducks were caged, the…