25 ragas of sorts

1.
What will fade first?
The ferns I forget to water?
Or my memory of Bengali?


2.
B told his son
Every fifth brick in that house is laid by me


3.
A test for true music is to stand on your head and listen


4.
He was my best friend because he owned an owl, a Bullet motor-bike and back issues of Playboy


5.
The angry young man told the rich man
Time has been synchronised by the Swiss
It's 12 o'clock no matter who you're

(Please nb: they didn't use the line in the blockbuster film)


6.
The bandicoot, crushed on the zebra crossing, has become two-dimensional


7.
Every time we pass the kebabs and paya stalls
The BEST bus belches and burps
It's a sign of hunger


8.
I stare at a Hebbar
It declines to look at me


9.
Do pigeons shit in the darkness


10.
The Chief Minister smiles at his people, everywhere in the state
Except the lady's cloakroom


11.
He bathes with beer
If he had the money
Says he would have preferred scotch


12.
His feet are in a trance
Every evening, the camel trots faster than usual when he approaches home on seeing his beloved partner
Is it love?
No
It's the fear that the foodstock will be consumed


13.
The cloud resembled Gandhiji's head
All the other clouds stay far away from it


14.
The grass has over-grown, he says
As he has been repeatedly saying everyday


15.
So many donkeys in the bazaar
All braying in togetherness
It's a sign of the times


16.
The tea tastes better whenever the sun enters the glass


17.
A young boy reads the political poster along with me
Until a friend came along and told the boy to stop pretending he can read


18.
The rice mill shall be no more
Where will the rice go


19.
Whose life do I know better?
Proudhon? Ramprasad Bismil? Or mine?


20.
The bust of Narmadh in the town-centre has been displaced
Like his poems never shall be replaced


21.
The two ladies on the jhoola count the dust particles on the sole of each other's feet
That's one way to pass time


22.
A cat on a pile of books about philosophy somehow looks sexier


23.
In Tollygunje he learnt three things
Naxalism, Ray's cinema and that he looked prettier in a frock


24.
The official guide narrates an entertaining history of Hampi
Till he loses his job for indiscriminate lying


25.
The town was renowned for
Dhrupad, doctors, donkeys, dust
And despair