Since I have a heart, I’ll let you keep yours

This is what my ideal day’s menu would look like-

For breakfast I’d like your tongue, pan fried
In between two toasted slices of wholegrain bread
With some chutney made from your testicles/ovaries

Mid morning, I’d like some of your fingers as chips
With peanut butter and cheese
Toe chips would serve just as well

Get me your liver, steamed, for lunch
With peppered mustard and salted veggies
And some fingers too, grilled

With my evening tea, I’d like some skin crispies
Roasted over a slow flame
Preferably still on you when it’s served

My dinner, I’d like it to be wholesome
So let is start with a quart of your blood
Along with some sautéed kidney strips
Follow it up with Thai thigh curry
Served on a bed of buttered rice

Now if this much you cannot do
Then I have a humble request to make
Keep the other living beings
Off my menu as well

Or fear the day I am in charge
Of hell’s kitchen
For you will be there
Sure as hell
And I’ll make quite a meal of you

Morbidity

Birth
Inhale
Exhale
Drink
Pee
Eat
Shit
Sleep
Wake up
Nick-nack
Riff-raff
Slave-to-the-grind
Death

Abou Boom Adam (no relation to Abou Ben Adam)

Abou Boom Adam, his tribe is on the rise
Smoking hash filled pipes without reprise
Day in and night out
Very much devout

One pale evening,
There was a knock
Boom Adam opened the door,
It was six o’ clock

The uniform was there to search
Every nook and corner, every perch
Find every gram of drug there was to be found
And pin Boom Adam firmly to the ground

At half past six
The search was done
And Boom Adam called all the cops
Sons of a bloody gun

Since nothing was found
His innocence was assumed
And Boom Adam died at seven
Because of all the shit he’d hurriedly consumed

Hyd' Blues

The bus ride
The guilt
The Banjara Hills apartment
The altercation
The anger
The hopelessness
The cheap Lakdi ka Pul lodging
The lonesomeness
The walk to the railway station
The elongated interactions
The aloofness
The night
The confusion
The disturbed sleep
The walk in the morning
The bananas for breakfast
The losing of the wallet
The desolation
The money for the ride back to Bangalore
The boarding of the bus
The smile
The end

Basti ka Log (People of the Slums)

“Ignore them”,
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

“They will not change”
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

“They’ll live there, they’ll die there”,
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

“They deserve no better”,
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

“They are a thorn in our side”,
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

“Gutter ke keede”,
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

"Don't bother helping",
I am told, time and again,
Them ‘Basti ka Log’

Arrey behenchod,
If we don’t help, then who will
Them ‘Basti ka Log’?

smoke in my eye

I’ve got smoke in my eye
A few tears run by
Makes it seem that I'll now cry
All this, while I water the cacti

More than a little high
With no thoughts about wanting to die
And a moment later I shall sit down and sigh

But for now my dearie
Tears run bye
Because of the smoke in my eye
Aye! My Eye! Aye

Perfectly continuous tense

The past tense,
The future tense,
What about the
fucking present tense?

The brain is tense,
The muscles, tense,
This is the tense
present tense.

Baghdad is tense,
Colombo, tense,
New Delhi, tense,
Present tense.

The West Bank, tense,
East India, tense,
Central Africa, tense,
Present tense.

Christians, tense,
Muslims, tense,
Hindus, tense,
Present tense.

The tenses, tense,
Future, past,
Present,
Continuous, perfect.
Perfect?

this is how (rhyme time crime)

The sky is high
So am I
I try to fry
What cannot die
‘Coz this is how
I like my plate
And this is how
I operate

I try to say
What I may
I cannot stray
This life away
‘Coz this is how
I test my fate
And this is how
I operate

I try to see
How things should be
I think of thee
To see you free
And this is what
I want to state
This is how
I operate

a song yet to be sung

I think I’ll write
A song yet to be sung
I think I’ll craft
A fad yet to be set

Feed one hungry mortal
For every beer you have
Give an old shirt away
Every time a new one’s acquired

A song yet to be sung
A fad yet to be set

Castrate the rapist
Lynch him then
Some crimes can be warranted
Ask the weed smoker

A song yet to be sung
A fad yet to be set

A liter of cola a day
He weighs a hundred and ten kilos
He’s the couch potato
He should keep fit

A song yet to be sung
A fad yet to be set

Governances rule the world
I’m told where I can and cannot go
I wish to see, all that can be seen
Another lifetime, I might not have.

A song yet to be sung
A fad yet to set

New Delhi Railway Station

The New Delhi railway station,
The parcel office,
A nightmare within,
A nightmare without,
Habits die hard.

Three boxes,
A twenty kilo monitor,
A ten kilo C.P.U,
Standard measures,
Plus thirty kilos of junk.

Five minute wait (only),
The man in-charge arrives,
Says, “A couple of minutes ‘sir’”,
He couldn’t be talking to me.
Dusts his own table,
Hangs up the cloth.

The lackeys arrive,
Ask him how he’d like his tea,
He’s obviously new,
However, he says.
One disappears,
A couple linger on,
They see us,
They see an opening.

He motions to me,
He was talking to me,
A seat is offered.

During the melee,
The luggage weighed,
Twenty plus ten plus thirty it is,
Sixty kilos,
I check, he checks, check.

The lackeys impede,
The C.P.U counts as twenty kilos,
Regulations we are told,
Twenty plus twenty they say.
That’s what the computer must weigh.

“Regulations must be followed”
Says clever man-in-charge,
So my bill of loading is made,
Twenty plus twenty plus twenty,
Is what I paid for.

Sixty kilos,
I check, he checks, check.

The New Delhi railway station,
The parcel office,
A dream within,
A dream without,
Habits die.

who are we

To be done, there’s so much.
So much to do
So much to conquer,
Conquer your fears?

Fight your way out?
Resist?
All is well?
Give in?

I’m no better than you,
Better myself I can.
You’re no better than me,
Better yourself you can.

Run? Run!
Walk? Walk!
Get carried away,
The end.