Clouds in the valley...

  Another Lucknow passes by, But no, not the green one you may know, That, despite the hot baking summer’s breath Has grown for years by the Gomti’s flow No, not the one where the winter mists Weaves dreams despite the shivering cold, Where the tales resonate for aeons and on And yet, those that never grow old   This one is a younger born, laced in ores of gold In red earth and dust, far away from home Uncovered only when you decide one day There’s so much left to vagrant roam Differences now can there be more? One, a drop of life, beyond the mountains Blue The other throbs with a sea of hearts A memory of all that once was true   Somewhere between, walks an author lone Who can flip from one book to the other, He who waits to read those broken lines That others won’t even stop to bother There’s more in his bookshelf, he smiles – A Malabar here, a Coromandel there All bookmarked with the leaves of fall - Pages left behind w...

There was age Written all over the basalt hill, Who would have known millennia ran Through the summer songs - The cicada’s trill   Caves of lore From the Silk Route days Nestled here, in this corner where The bustling city doesn’t know The backyard where it plays   The giant Buddha Takes my breath away – And the monastic cells, the chaitya halls Frozen in stone from long ago - Upon the sangha’s way   I think I hear Where streams of time converge, The tapping sounds, the chiselling hands Nirvana for the saffron souls Where all our sins can purge   Then bit by bit, The pliant plateau fills with caves, An ancient centre sprawls with lives A little Ellora wakes anew Upon the Arabian waves And I the artist, I have come here too Yes, I too have filled these rocks with life A Yaksha here, a Buddha there I come full circle in my view   Kanheri thrives Upon the Salsette of the seas, And I – have ...

At 2 in the night, The city looks fresh to the tired eyes – Dark as it may seem, The streetlights bring forth magical gold The fumes, the horn, the sea of multitude Looks like a story forgotten old   One single thread links the two worlds new The old chai-wallah – With his cycle, kettle and one hot brew Waits for moths like me, Who flit through time, And live and die as they pass through   H ot elaichi tea, thick, sweet As if a reward for staying up late, For a vigilante, when The criminal city has gone to sleep But who holds the dream, As the magical night turns golden deep   The chai wallah smiles I am here again, at 2 in the night He doesn’t know He sets the city in my fairy-tale free Perhaps he knows that I don’t know I come for dreams in a cup of tea…