The Bulbul: A Serenade

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Seventeen years down the line I'm still writing. My best is yet to come. It's only too elusive. Anyway old grapes are the currants of today..not stale but something to wistfully savour. As I go back and back, I find this poem of mine, a serenade. With no simile and no metaphor, it was simply my unadorned muse. I wrote it on 25-201998, to be precise, when I hardly knew the meaning of the word serenade. Still I wrote it for what it's worth. I like going through it, reliving the moment and muse. Aha! A reward, a self-reward.

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It provokes a surge of nostalgia now
Aha! Once upon a time donkey's years ago
Aha! Those eventful moments of the days of yore...

The lovely little Bulbul

Braved the frightening look

Of a grotesque scarecrow

And sat upon its shoulder

With a deja vu writ large

And started to sing...
chui-to-ture-to-tui

chui-to-ture-to-tui...
His sweet inviting melody

His lively, enchanting rhyme.

Forcing his novice throat

Streams of rhythm

Escaped effortless

To far and near

To every cul-de-sac and all the corners
in quest of a connoisseur

His sweet little adorer
Finally to bump

Into that dreaming little doll

Seated there on the windowsill.

The cute little Bulbul

sang serenade and and sang once
And went on singing then on

In sweetened intervals

Of waiting and encores, for Dolly, the Juno

And she beheld motionless

Through her eyes eloquent

And curves sensuous.

Then on one fateful spur

The selfish intruder

The 'legal' owner

Of his long-forgotten doll

dying for a cuddle

Came, grabbed and escaped

In his briskest possible steps

Miles away from the rendezvous.

The lovely little Bulbul

Returned ready the next day

For even a sweeter spell

Of his heart-throbbing melody 

to melt her finally

But alas! With dismay discovered

The windowsill deserted

Confounding and clueless.

The cruel surroundings–
Sombre and sneering
Stern and sarcastic–
All had already assembled,
to ceaselessly deliberate
Sitting in judgement
For his millionth crime 
And his unmindful confession. 

None to say him an au revoir
Nor a parting promise for his memory lane
His undying hope for a miracle kindled,
Bulbul the impulsive, started to sing
A few more melancholy tunes 
Along the streams of tears
His lovely, lonely tears. 

Before bidding the reluctant goodbye
To his straw throne on the scarecrow
And the memorable dreamy window
The lovely Bulbul sighed 
melting layers of sentiments
Wiped the droplets of distress
In his sickly shaky hands
to mingle in moments
In the distant unfailing horizon.

Port Blair

25-02-1998

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By

A. N. Nanda

Trivandrum

04-11-2015

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Winter Anarchy

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These are the two poems I wrote at different points of time with a gap of 18 years, but when it came to choose a caption for the new one I just repeated it as I thought eighteen long years ago. As they say, styles change but to come back again: similar phenomenon also occurs in the poetic process. This is the maximum I can go to explain why I revert to the same idea again and again.

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Winter Anarchy -II

Finally the freezing morning
Is here again
With its big burden of bounties
Up for grabs—
The falling flakes from the firmament
The pretentious, the blithe, the deceptively silent
The ambitious little assailants from the ozone
It’s white, white, everywhere
Not a spot of grey.

It’s the new age
Begin all to speak the same language:
White is purity and black is bane
White is insight, black is taint
White brings compliance, black the defiance.
All of us, the wise homo sapiens
Love to see it white, perfectly unstained.

In the process
No matter if Ajanta is white-washed
No matter if white goes the murals
Ceding their space to wall putty
It’s all for the sake of purity
Everything now should look pure
Even white turns the human blood.

Gung-ho, the frigid air is now afire
Ending Kalyug, the age of black
No place is left
For myriad spectrums
Look yonder
Here comes the platinum
The pure white, as white as snow
The hard-hearted, the dangerously obstinate
The sombre, the sedate
As white as the widow’s clothes.

In this way
Ends, finally, the autumn phase
Gone are the heydays
Of the gold glittering
Golden is no glory now
Golden is garbage
All are on their last legs
Atop the bough, the yellow foliage.

Any moment from now on
Barbarian from the sky would launch invasion.
Amid the snow-white, in the new dispensation
The phalange of slayers will pound the pavement
Everybody should think white
Think alike or else face the venom.

Killed will be the weak, the children, the disabled
Deviating from white, the path dictated
The slavery shall reappear but glorified
With whip and disgust and torture
The blood whitened will leave no trace
The tears will freeze for a full compliance
It’s the zeitgeist, as white as snow
It's zeitgeist, as white as platinum. 
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 Shimla/ 19-12-2014

Winter Anarchy - I

Come now the loathsome December

The pungent smelling quilts grow flamboyant
The spiteful crime of April night
Gets merrily effaced from public memory.

Water flirts miserably for acceptance
Windows slam with bangs all of a sudden
They loose their interest in the outside
The horizon squeezes within the miniscule walls.

Laziness rules rampant
with hearts narrowed and ears spoilt,
We keep listening to gossips of the woollens and quilts
Smoke, the fugituve, delivers incomprehensible sermons
Streams of foul-smelling saliva inundate everywhere.

We go on begging moments of servile warmth
Everybody willingly forgoes his right to protest
Indignity and exploitation--all accepted
We inhale, continue to live a few more moments.

Port Blair / 04-12-1996

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By

A N Nanda

Shimla

19-12-2014

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Rebirth

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I get inspiration looking back and it consists in the distance I've covered, the learning I've derived, the failures I've endured...and looking back isn't an indication of stagnation, not at all. This is the poem I wrote on 21-11-1998 and included in my poetry collection "In Harness" that was published in 2004. Since then I've not published my second poetry book but gone over to short stories from English and then to Hindi. Now I'm struggling to complete my novel in English "The Roadshow". Despite the development when I revisited this particular poem of mine, I found remarkable similarities between the character I'm currently exploring in the novel and the one I had in mind while composing this poem long sixteen years ago. Really! Inspirations have remarkable ability to linger on: poets slip into regression, sometimes so very sweet they are! And so very creative they turn out!  

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            Rebirth

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Her present contrasts her past;

She hated and escaped the distress

in search of a meaningful existence,              

She dreamt and craved the very modest

from her life of struggle and protest.

She aspired just a few bowlful of steaming rice      

There was no dearth of these in this world of plenty

True, she got them in abundance,

when she chanced upon them by accident

She was overwhelmed, as the events unfolded.

She has now the means to acquire

the pleasure of existence

sauntering down the narrow bylanes

of the slippery world,

And people turn lavish for curious pleas

to compete and reach for her graceful nod.

The devil called destiny that taunted for years

has started to smile jovial,

Lady luck, the darling with her impetus bizarre

has extended her friendship,

And everything now looks perfect

No explanation is sought, no apology offered.

Born again,

She now pines for taking the revenge

Against everybody

Starting with her careless parents

Or the mocking neighbourhood,

Or the avaricious kin

Or all those pretentious souls...

They all would be her victims,

if she really means it,

She can inflict the revenge

sour and caustic in their contents,

And her victims would not understand

the lethal blow would be perpetrated on them

in silence behind her gossamer veil.

The past…

How would she forget…?

And the present…

How would she forsake…?

And the future…

How would she ignore…?

She would live with malice

taking her existence

so painfully for granted,

Mingling with her dislikes

in their baffling sequence.

First composed at Vizag on 21/11/1998

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By 

A. N. Nanda

Shimla

05-10-2014

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My Village Barber

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The caste system will go ultimately. A hundred years from now, people will find it difficult to distinguish between a brahmin and barber. When the whole thing goes into the depth of oblivion, people will forget all the negatives associated with it; only literature, paintings and other objects of art will make them stay in the memories of the future generation. I can cite the example of palanquin here. We don't use palanquin these days but this object of transport has been immortalised through innumerable paintings. It's hard to remember that this object was once instrumental in degrading the dignity of some who were made to work as the palanquin bearers. In mythology we find a king employing a monk to carry his palanquin on his shoulder! Now, as for the exact historical use of it, what one can visualise is only the romantic dimension associated with it: the newly-wed bride aboard a palanquin going to her husband's place with a lot of dreams, the bearers singing their tunes to entertain the beautiful lady sitting behind the veil.... Some day barbers and brahmins will have to be illustrated in the dictionaries for imparting the meaning of the words. 

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My Village Barber

 Sitting folded his rickety legs

Knees projecting to shoulder height

With his dirty loin clothe sans undergarment

On the ancient bricks seasoned and hardened,

The old man did his brisk business

Month after month, year after year

My village barber.

Blunt razors honed umpteenth over

On the broken slate, the precious vintage

Stiff scissors for cutting hair

Of heads smooth or soiled, grey or bald

Thinned alum smeared with soap dried

Belonged to him as possessions dear

My village barber.

He could silence the juvenile impatience

Clasping tiny heads between his knees

Passing foul wind in cunning stealth

Straight into the nostrils of the hapless child

Raising dreadful screams to intimidate and scare

Yapping garrulous hour after hour

My village barber.

Broken English to impose his judgement

He feigned ignorance of dirty secrets

Shared gossips withholding their source

Agreed and cheered the rich and the famous

Had little time for his poor patrons

Treating their heads with disdain for ever

My village barber.

He took care of everybody's head

In every nook of my tiny village

They took care of his belly in exchange

Doling out each a mound of grains

A due for the hand that did care

A share for the hair- just and fair

My village barber.

Sons and daughters groomed unlettered

For schools modern would make them wayward

The leather and iron, the glass and alum

Stacked inside the box wooden

Had all the answers to his problems mundane

His present was vital, future misnomer

My village barber.

Age withered away his witty existence

A family of five left bereaved

With fashion flew his all customers

To the town saloons at dingy corners

His new generation with their fumbling future

Scrambled the soil as marginal farmer

My village barber.

PORT BLAIR

12-03-1997

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By

A N Nanda

Shimla

10-04-2014

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