The amazing Mrs Pashtun

At Heathrow
My bag burdened by two litres of whiskey
Jack Daniels - Tennessee whiskey
I sigh on a bonded leather seat
With my Jansport

An ancient Pakistani woman
Screeches in Urdu
Hindu, I've lost my husband at the airport
I say, I'm so sorry to hear that

She slaps my thigh
Informing me, technically, I'm not Pakistani
But a Pashtun
Who breathes mountain air
Like my great great grandfather
(One Mr Lodi, it seems, who ruled the Delhi Sultanate)

The Heathrow team stare at my thighs
Ask me to help
I do
As interpreter of sorts between Mrs Pashtun and the airport staff

It's chaos
Her PIA flight is ready to take off
Wireless transmitters beep SOS
Mrs Pashtun is pushed in her wheel-chair
She recites the poems of Khushal Khan Khattak


They trace her husband
In Terminal Three, Area E
Two minutes before departure
He was buying duty-free stuff at Ermenegildo Zegna
For his other wife

Mrs Pashtun says khuda hafeez
She whispers, Hindu, I've almost managed to do something
What, I ask?
Something most Pashtun women have failed to do
Get rid of my husband

I say, okay
She guffaws
Till she is wheeled
Into the belly of the Boeing 777-300ER

All the way from Chola to Angkor Wat

1.
The actors at Hanuman Theatre
When will they perform
If they perform, again


2.
I wait for the bus
In the hope the bus will wait for me


3.
The fishermen of Weligama
Perched on stilts
Balance their bodies
In the sea waves

This is the definition of fishing in Sri Lanka



4.
Life is simple
If you're planting rice crop
One day before the monsoon rain



5.
Dust storm, dust storm
Please go away
Before the dust from your storm
Blinds my eyes


6.
I welcome the pilgrim
What do you want?
I seek to re-build civilisation, says the pilgrim
I offer him a fire to warm his hand


7.
Widow says marry me
The monk starts to meditate in his monastery
Till it is Holi

Now, the monk can't recognise the widow beneath the red face-paint


8.
I want Ganga Jal from the Ghats of Varanasi
Till then Coca Cola from Bodh Gaya will do


9.
The one thing the inhabitants
At the Jokhang Temple
Wish to do
Vote in a free and fair election in Lhasa


10.
My wife and I want to cycle
Should we cycle, singly
Or double seat
All the way from Chola to Angkor Wat

Why I love windows

Why I love windows



Rum and Cola
Kidnapped in Sindri
By abductors with moustaches twice the length of limbs
His ugly wife put sindoor on his forehead
As he sat on his under-weight two-wheeler en route to Bokaro


Three men kidnapped him
In front of his house
For a ransom of 10 million in ten rupee coins
Hid him in Dhanbad
Along with seven other ransom kidnappings

Rum and Cola was chained
Hands bound with a moustache-piece
Rum and Cola escaped through the window
When the three men were engrossed in the cricket score

When he reported to work, after five months
Rum and Cola said
Thank god for broken windows

Five things I did today

1. I watered my artificial plants with soda.

2. I read about a 600-metre wall with electric rods. Will the electrified portion of the wall be removed, thereby allowing Dalits from entering Uthapuram village, near Ezhumalai in Madurai district?

3. I speak to my nephew who tells me the iPhone is his favourite pet.

4. I lose a game of chess in which I had visualised the winning position a full 13 moves ahead. My opponent tells me, the number of legal chess positions is 10⁴⁰. And the number of different possible games, 10¹²⁰.

5. I read Gul-e-Naghma. Now, should one accept Firaq Gorakhpuri's poems as anthropological truth?

A few basic truths for myself

A few basic truths for myself

1.
Keep it simple
I say
Just keep breathing

2.
I stood poised before two mountains
Climb me, said one
I'm older than him

3.
I'm awake
Cannot walk to the bathroom
The sea is under my bed

4.
I am a skydiver
13 miles above the ground
I finally figure out
What happens to a cloud in the wind
When my parachute jams
And refuses to open


5.
A nutmeg tree knocks on my window
Don't under-estimate me
Your ancestors were colonised due to me


6.
When I'm mellow
I change the bulb in my room
From battleship grey to lemon yellow


7.
The Hibiscus was unlucky
To be plucked
For the tomb of a wastrel

If he had bloomed a day later
He would have been presented to the King of Bhutan
At the international airport


8.
One beer said to the other
Lets have a martini tonight


9.
My plan to replenish the government coffers
Tax all sinners


10.
What are nations for?

Why I stopped breathing

If you say Stravinsky couldn't write music
If you hope Krishnaji Howlaji Ara could paint like Gainsborough
If you feel Sterne can't make a book coherent
If all you get from Proust is: 1.25 million words on 2,408 pages

Then I must reduce my life to
A narrow typeface, claustrophobic margins
Semi-colons, subordinate clauses
And stop breathing

Joshi Book Depot

I stand in front of Joshi Book Depot
To buy a book

What if I open the shutter
Commas and full stops will leap out
Plus well-told lies
I don't fully comprehend

Or

I stand in front of a book
Should I open it
Will words leap out
Attack me with commas and full stops
Plus well-told lies