FROM THE PROUD NORTH
(Trekking the tribal hunting and grazing lands of
the Nilgiri
mountains of Tamil Nadu)
I
I am of the proud north,
My ancestors grew from the steppes
Beyond the snows;
Cattle herders they were,
Singers of grass and rain,
Their hands smelling of milk,
Their eyes filled
With the silence of centuries.
Tempered by wind and water
They broke through dusty hills
Of the north-west;
Children of fire come to fulfill
The prophecies of history.
Grass grew sweet from blood-rich mud,
Their cattle heavy with milk
And child, multiplied;
From the loins of my ancestors –
Legions, like stars.
My ancestors built homes
On the banks of rivers,
Built empires,
Wrote history with the blood
Of broken black men.
I am of the proud north,
I am milk, I am wheat, I am fire;
I am the cattle herder,
The invader, the conqueror,
The builder of empires;
Life and death meet in my eyes,
Meet in the notes of my song;
My children flow from my loins;
I am your elder brother,
The maker of history,
The flaming seed in shara grass.
You know me well,
By my nose, my skin, my voice,
The life and death of my eyes;
You know me well,
But wonder why I’m here.
II
I have followed two white beetles
Across the worm-brown plateau,
Up into these hills,
To the sacred places
Where the plough parts folds of mud,
And the stories of your faraway fathers
Rise like mist;
In the groves of bamboo,
Branches scrape and cry,
A calf walks wet on smooth rocks
Following buffalo-bellow
In the forests of Masinagudy.
I have walked through seasons
Of showers,
Passed cold mouths of streams
And the fire of flowers
And reached a buffalo newly calved,
Milk dripping down thighs,
Turning butter,
Lighting lamps
At the temple of Mariamma.
In frost-times, smoke rises
From Mount Koty,
Footprints of vanishing tribes
Spread out among the rhododendrons,
Ice-fruits melt to water on the grass.
I have come to see God dip his hand
Into empty hives
And make them full with honey;
I have come to eat puffed millet
In a brass bowl.
IF THERE IS LOVE
(In Gosaba, the Sundarbans)
If there is love, I see it here,
In scabbed hands and wooden thighs,
In these eyes touched by primordial fire.
You people of Gosaba,
Time has made shoes of your skin,
Strung up your skulls on Sundari trees,
Worked you into clay
And spread your soul
Like weed upon a running tide.
They can take nothing more from you,
Your life is the life of mud,
The life of the reed, the fish, the bird,
You are the inheritors.
In this pot of honey, this packet
Of salted fish, of salted turtle meat,
Is all your love, is all your peace;
I have found at the end of my wandering –
This home, this beginning.
Here I am, trapped in a garb of words
That do not say, that cannot say…
What peace is, what love is;
“Give,” it says, “give.”
If there is love, I see it here,
In this dark delta
Where the rivers bring the story of the hills,
Quietly, very quietly, every day.
THE TRAVELLER
He had traversed the quiet hills
In the cool
sunlight, in the faithful dark,
Till love closed its wounds,
Scars
glistening;
Memories of
caves, flesh, rain,
Turned over and over, hardening,
Crumbling,
spreading;
He remained,
walking in the hills.
There was no past, no future,
Only stones
beneath his feet,
Gentle as sadness;
Only hours
of forgetfulness
Sucking at
breath;
Only the journey, walking in circles,
Spiraling to the center;
He wondered what the end would be
And studied scars, their constellations.
He studied the language of seasons,
Of sleep and waiting;
He spoke sometimes in their tongues,
Not expecting replies;
Nobody saw him, only felt him;
Peering through open windows,
Waiting outside closed doors,
Leaving drops of sweat on fresh
bread.
One day, a scar burst;
He felt his silence pouring
through;
Empty, he became a shell,
Caught the rattling of unknown
lives –
Trapped in war of flesh.
They gave him a name, a home, a wife;
She brought him children;
The language of the future tied
his tongue.
Today, the father of people,
The tiller of soil, the builder
of homes,
Nations, empires, hopes,
He remains,
Sometimes he studies the wounds,
Their constellations;
He is waiting for the moment
Of the glistening scar,
Quiet hills, cool sunlight,
Faithful dark –
Where there will be no past, no
future,
Only stones beneath his feet, gentle as sadness.
(At Dholavira, the remains of an ancient
Harappan city on Kadir Bet, Kutch, 2000 AD)
Worlds lie beneath my feet,
Tangled among roots, stones, worms,
Fractured mud pots, dead
fireplaces,
Crumbled homes, beads, icons,
Extinct rivers, footprints of a vanished sea,
Scattered meteor dust.
Worlds lie beneath my feet
And I’m afraid to walk –
So I sit down and wait for wings
to grow.
My shoulders sag, arms limp,
Palms staring at my face,
Whilst on the edge of the desert
dusk
Threads of straggling camels
Stitch up frayed patches of light
And a Rabari tribesman
Strides across the land, singing to his herd.
Worlds lie beneath my feet,
And history weighs me down
With all its rubbled tales of
burnt out lives –
Idiots, saints, sages, despots,
Human beings who were afraid to walk
And sat and sagged on stones –
Waiting for wings to grow.
I AWOKE
I awoke to a dawn full of ravens
Dragging a map of the world
Painted in turquoise on a shroud
Over the feather-tops of rain
trees,
And the incessant hoot of an express train
Rode a low wind,
Brushing window panes.
I awoke, cracked out of a dream-shell,
Still yoke-filled, formless,
helpless,
Gluey with pale light –
Whilst the ravens flew overhead,
Hauling the turquoise shroud
Towards the receding dark.
(Walking Khali Nadi, Kotara Chakar, Kutch, 2000 AD)
It was the day of the river –
Bone-dry
stone, baked,
Burning through shoe-soles
As I walked
the corpse
Of Khali Nadi,
Her giant
heart fossil-choked;
Light, full with camel grunts
And bleat of
flocks,
A lost wind wandered
Like a child-mother
Searching
for home.
How many more river corpses
Will I have
to tread
To reach full pools of living
Where water
is sweet and cool,
Grass tall and feathery,
Air steaming
with dragonflies,
A wind humming mantras
Over
worm-rich earth?
Kutch, you frighten me
With your
unrelenting heat
And stone and dust –
Footprinted
by an ancient sea;
You frighten me – an yet
You teach me ways
I never knew
How to
withstand and outlive death.