Two types of people

There are two types of people in this nation of ours
Those who are malnourished
And those who are mall nourished

The Dubey brothers

The Dubey triplets
Who typeset in Sanskrit
For a two-hundred year old company
That published subsidised copies of the Bhagwad Gita
(Sold for 50 paise only)
Passed away
One day after they were given their resignation letters

Three shorts by the sea

1.
Mr Barrister
Your late father was a gentleman

He would have been reading
The small print
Of the petition on your table
Instead of staring at my beautiful lips


2.
My darling is home again
My pretty one is here

Asked where she had been
The darling brushed her hair
And replied
To London to drink whiskey with the queen



3.
Man is a disease
For which a woman offers many home-made remedies
When the disease is incurable, and all remedies fail
The woman marries

Two shorts: The young girl and the matriarch

1.
The young girl
Who resembled the tacky woman
In the phillumi poster
Worked so hard
On the streets

That one sultry night
The tacky woman from the poster
Stepped out
Offered a marijuana leaf to chew
And told the young girl
Take it easy, yaar



2.
The matriarch
Who gave birth to 16 high pedigreed sons
Lay on her death-bed

She
Hoped her 17th son
Who the village elders said
Measured his own shadow
Predicted earthquakes and floods and droughts
Would sit by her side
Hold her mangled hand
And prevent
An inevitable death

The father's idiot son

When
The local idiot
Spread a rumour about excavating
A dinosaur testicle
From the village Ramlila ground

He didn't realise
It would be as much fun
As the time, a sea monster with 97 legs
Crawled onto the beach
Mistook his father's bald head
For a turtle egg
And dragged his father
Into the depths of the ocean

I wish ...

I wish I had 400 nostrils
If I had a bad cold
I could still smell baked bread
From the local oven

I wish I had 400 ears
So that the sea breeze
Could whoosh through them
From one ear
To the next

I wish I had 400 pairs of hands
One pair to wash my bums
Everyday
A fresh pair of hands

My lover
Who hears me,
Sighs
She seeks 400 days of silence

Dr N and Dr B's pet

A dog
Has made my swing
His home

It is thin
And resembles a fox
That's why we call him, foxy

I feed him milk from a saucepan
Sometimes popcorn
Sometimes mango cheese cake

It tries to play with me
But weariness takes over

Eyes shut
In the middle of the summer heat

He listens to my scratched record
Of Monteverdi
And moves its tail in slow harmony