Indu Antony, Vincent Uncle has hairy legs, Archival print, 2018, courtesy of Blueprint 12
The Trident and the Tea-seller
The trident lightning arrestor
looks more constant than before—
besieged by discomfort,
bygone joys and pain—a belief
flowing endlessly into the future.
The creepers cannot
offer love to it—no red or yellow flowers.
The tea-seller beside the closed factory
never noticed it since the trident
didn’t ever arrest or spear any lightning
especially when the radical flags
were offering a yearlong monsoon
to a sneaking venomous rust.
There is now a vacuum inside the gates,
patches of love and strife on the trident
and outside some tea for passers-by.
The Biscuit Factory
The biscuit factory
still bears a baked aroma
on its unwrapped metal.
The leftovers are soil now
but it failed to engulf its breath.
The blurred slogans on its walls
are old bruises—still longing to heal.
It feeds on time to shed its colour
for the bricks to appear—
the way a tree longs to shed its leaves
without our staring.
Dussehra
The ice-cream seller and buyer
stood by the wall of a hut.
Both were kids.
Both smiled,
a forced alliance erect
on either side of a border.
Dussehra’s Ravan
was burning in the background
of a throbbing countryside.
A doll in outmoded attire
looked through a peephole
in wide-eyed rapture.
A Breeze from My Childhood
On an afternoon
during my summer vacation
Mother made me a few small clay figures—
and painted them with a red dye.
The bargain was, I should bathe
in the well and eat my lunch
before I could have those toys.
Placed on the edge of a charpoy
the toys fell off and broke
as I was executing the deal
with rice and curry in my mouth.
From a distance, I felt water splashing
the freshly painted walls of my mind.
The dye was the colour of my thoughts.
After decades now, I wonder
about the exact moment when I grew up
and the exact moment I would grow old.
It’s like a glint vanishing through rolling wheels.
I am still at some distance and can see
the walls of my house falling off
like those clay toys Mother made.
I feel an air cooling my shadow.
It must be travelling from the meadows
surrounding my childhood home.
Hungry Faith
The fisherman in the Sundarbans
was hauling his boat out of mud
and into an intoxicated river.
Between the prow and his hands
a sweat-soaked turban
hollowed out the sounds of struggle.
His bulging veins more resolute
than the wary holes
of the fishing net—soaking up the sun.
The stooping trees of the forest
tried to lend a hand
but, held by the riverbank,
moaned in the wind.
The water looked warm
but didn’t rise to the boat.
Somewhere in the fragmented sun
hunger was savouring muddy toil.
These poems were part of The Poetry Issue 2023, curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of these poems should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
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