FeAther(weight) fAll

The feather fell down
It stretched its own fall
It went round and round
And fell without a sound.

Featherweight fall.

It too came down
In a protracted fall
It went round and round
And drowned... in a sea of words!

Just like the feather.
But nothing featherweight about it.

Pi GoD

Life of Pi adeptly maintains a balance between telling of the fictitious (yet heart wrenching, inspiring, frightening and a lot more) ordeal of Pi and the factual details of the ways of various species. Every page throws up details about tigers, orangutans, hyenas and more! Details that normal people, living a city-life, exposed to the dismal zoos they are exposed to and uninterested in animals beyond the mandatory visits organized by schools to zoos would miss. Being one of those people, these are invaluable and even interesting details which wouldn’t have interested me in any other form or on any other day. However, in the form of Pi’s life in the zoo and then at sea (literally and literary ly), I am fascinated by them. Every page spews vital survival tips. The whole book is one survival guide in literary form and having a philosophical undertone to it. And as I find myself getting tired while with the book and reading the words but not taking them in, I feel I have lost out on something that would have come to my rescue were I to be stranded in the Pacific or the Sunderbans. I read it again just to be safe. I wait till survival facts register and then continue on Pi’s journey hoping the pieces of information have found their way in my long term memory. The book is educating and entertaining at the same time. Also draining with the textbook attention I am giving it! I cannot let a single sentence escape me and that becomes impossible when Martel / Pi launches on his long-drawn spatial descriptions of the life-boat, the position of his fellow survivors, his innovations and manufacturing of things in order to survive and the detailed step by step description of the processes. The reader is required to SEE it all! And I cannot. As I read how he took the rope from behind the oars and pierced holes in the mast only to pull the tarpaulin over the lid of the store box that lay towards the curving stern of the ship which had the gunnel a few inches above the water hoisted with the solar fills…. I lose myself! He ends his long drawn process description with “and my canopy was ready”!

I end the same paragraph with “Phew! However he did it, I am glad his canopy is ready!”

I continue, for the spirit of Pi and for the wonderfulness of the myriad species this book talks to me about.

MAThura NAgARpati

Before daybreak, in the hushed glow of dawn
My Lord you lie, spent and wan
The turmoil at its crest when you decide
To head to Gokul and her side.

Abandoning gold and glory and your Mathura O King,
You take to the flute again, heading
To that world where she waits, your Queen.
These riches you so heedlessly trample
Tell me, which song did she sing?

This song that kept tugging…
With unslept puzzled eyes
I watched that flowery bed and you
Tossing and turning.
Who is she, who waits and weeps…
For whom are you leaving?

The Jamuna is quiet, in tranquil thought…
The wind is at peace, but you are not
As tunes of the past haunt, you clutch your flute
Irresistible is Gokul that your feet do not stop,

Your Radha is with her King, trust me
She has learnt to love, believe me
She has found her solace
In her King’s land and his palace
Wiped away her tears long ago, of longing
But you still rake it up?
Can’t you stop Gokul from calling?

I am still here!

Eet Rassi

The Punjab Mail T.C. called him "hero"
For his Vivek Oberoi looks
Oberoi's Bhopal ized version
He said people in Itarsi are "not good"
I hope someone is picking you up?
(I nodded)
I live in Bhopal
Take my number and do call!
I took it...
Itarsi was forty five degrees hot.
Blessed with the frenzied work
of the Sister and her lot
It is, In Pope's befitting words
"A world forgotten by the world forgot!"
Sheetal Palace is the best in Itarsi (they said)
There are the usual reptilian brats.
It will only get a "little" bad
When they are joined in by the rats...

They did…join
It did get… very bad!