Yellowknife—

twilight of the midnight sun

lifting up

moon, mosquitoes, northern lights

and calm

(Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2024-38)

birdsongs

from the neighbour’s yard

this incessant urge

to figure out

who’s who

(Haiku Katha, July, 2024-33)

monsoon’s frenzy

gradually mellowing to

Durga puja—

the smell of coconut sweets

from mother’s kitchen

(Haiku Katha, January, 2024, 27

Chai, Cinema and Cricket

Unusual trios, it may seem,

commonality, hardly will you deem,

except the first letter in the name,

but that’s nothing to start a poem.

First, a drink we grew up drinking warm

second, we watched in theatres, now at home,

third, a game, that also has changed its form,

let’s see if we find something common to affirm.

From the history we sure can wrest,

all three came to the east from the west,

then all three got spiced up in the east,

and circled back to the west with a twist.

Went in, the first, as tea and came out as chai,

with milk and sugar, had a few faces turn wry,

now the same at Starbucks, to ask, none is shy,

how it has changed now, and I wonder, why.

Eastern movies, came with song and dance,

like opera moved from stage to films by chance,

then, I saw a couple of figure-skaters’ prance,

how their act, a Hindi movie song, did enhance.

Cricket, the English played for days five,

when they brought it to the east in their hive,

theirs were the rules but the game did thrive,

now shortened, five days have games five.

Churning is what everything goes through,

little changes to the three changed their hue,

small things they’re, still a sample of the crew,

changes there must be to keep the world anew.

(Contemporary Literary Review India, Vol. 10. No3:CLRI August 2023)