Aftab Yusuf Shaikh: 2016

QUAKE / QUANTUM

The son doing things in the phone
that the father only dreamt of.
The quiet pious daughter wrecking havoc online.
The phone was the only family everyone had.
Mother Earth was so angry
that she shook dispassionately in angry haste and
opened her mouth wide with a shrill cry.
Everyone's phone and computer
and what-not fell into the cracks.
And then she shut up and relaxed,
bringing everything to the start again.
And leaving humans with their last possible quantum of humanity.

PROBLEM/ PAIN / PATIENCE

At the edge of all patience,
fed up with the pain of living,
I stood before the open window.
The rope on the fan waiting for me.
I was sure
I had the greatest problems in the world
and none will understand my ache.
What is love, bread, life, peace without
that whiI don't have.
Ah! My great problems were only great
until I heard the neighbour and his wife arguing
whether a rope to hang clothes
was as important as bread for the hungry children,
with the week's savings.

OBLIVION/ ONUS

If the dazzle of this world blinds you
and the made-up faces
and individuals interest you,
you are the one for me.
You are one of the billions,
not my one in a billion.
If silence and darkness haunt you,
you will die of suffocation in my life.
For when you wished to be with me,
you should know I am a strange being.
Not your regular born-sucked-dead guy.
I am the best creation of my Lord.
When I embark on my journey towards oblivion,
you have the chance to come along
and be popular in my world of two.

NEXT/ NOSTALGIA

I am burying bits of me in the hearts
of all those who love me,
for you I am preserving the heart.
There can never be a next after you.
In you I will pour myself to such depth
that you may lose yourself but never me.
They have a word for the endless evenings,
those entwined fingers, those entangled eyes,
those words and sweet nothings,
every passing moment will become our past
and sum up as nostalgia.
That strange sweetness of our gone lives.
So when I leave this world and go to meet my Lord in the next life,
I shall beg him to grant me this bag full of nostalgia.

MYTH / MEMORY

What do you expect after all your transgressions,
lowly human? I am no god,
I know no forgiveness.
Your great words and high promises of forever
and whatsoever are all lying broken in the dingy lane
where we shared our first kiss.
Your soul had kissed mine and
that was tge only closeness we knew.
And then this!
This lie you uttered has pushed me away.
Too far your hands to pull back.
The myth of your love and titanic words,
has been wrapped in a sheet of shit
and thrown out of the cabinet of my memory.

LIBERTY / LIE

Standing right before the underpaid judge
and the perfectly blind lady of justice,
they emptied on me all their accusations.
They said I burnt their book,
and hid how they burned my whole house.
They said I cursed their mother,
and hid how they cut open dozens of pregnant mothers.
I was sentenced and they were freed.
They rejoiced at their liberty to lie.
I was apalled by the lie that liberty was.

KILL / KINDNESS

When the child saw the state
if the world it was being sent to,
much before its birth,
it cried to the mother, 'Mother dear, kill me,
for I know I am your dream,
but kill me.
Be kind.
I see a nightmare awaits me.'

-*-

When the lover saw the dagger in his back held by his very own love,
he said, 'My love, twist it hard and pluck the life out of me.
Kill me by your hands.
Be kind, let not me live after this treachery.'

JUDGMENT/ JUSTICE

'Be just, good king.'
The crowd expected the king to let go his son.
The blacksmith's daughter hardly mattered to the people.
'Love is worth everything,
justice is worth all love,
' his heart shivering and eyes wet,
'The accused be hanged for ruining the honor of a daughter of my kingdom.'
The son smiled.
Being born in a palace cost him greatly.

INTUITION / ILLUSION

Do we really feel things
when we utter them
acting as human beings?
Our words travel through by the wavelength
of emotions and hit the hearts of people who believe us.
We play with the trust people invest in us,
fooling ourselves to believe
we will never be fooled like ways.
What inch of earth will we have to stand upon,
when our intuitions turn out to be mere illusions.

HISTORY / HATE

HISTORY/ HATE

There are always three versions of a story:
your version, my version and history.
Then history itself has three versions:
your history, my history and the truth.
I hate that history of mine
which is drenched in your mistakes.
You hate my history garnished by your suspicion.
An unwanted child born out of time's womb.
Waking up to from your bed is no flattery,
making up what you don't know is not history.

GOSPEL / GOD

GOSPEL/ GOD

When the earth was not there,
and the skies haven't seen themselves,
and when water didn't know it was wet
and stars had no light to show;
then I had loved you.
If you do try to understand.
Before all of these,
we were souls kept in some cosmic vials.
Your vial kept next to mine in that divine inventory.
God, almighty, lovable, commanded us,
'Be!' And we became. We are all gospels of truth.
We are as well the Word of God.
But we forgot ourselves on this soiled earth.

FATE

'Do you love me?' he asked.
She took some time and said,
'Don't know.'
He smiled and looked away.
It his last try.
The doctor had said,
'Not more than a month.'
And he knew
she will then shout her guts out
but then her I love you will mean nothing.
Sadly, she will blame fate
while it was her all the time.

ETYMOLOGY / EX

Once, somebody came to my life
with a fake world of love.
I was so much into that somebody
that I lost myself and still haven't found.
That somebody was a mistake and not love.
That somebody should know their broken promises
are rotting in an alley of my heart.
Also, I have found somebody
who is the first love of mine.
This somebody is a hell different from that somebody.
Undear that somebody,
I never knew you.

DESTINY

I missed the train and got late for work.
I reached late for work and was fired.
I was fired and hence couldn't pay my rent.
I couldn't pay the rent
so became homeless. Bad day.
The train I lost met an accident.
The job I lost was sucking my blood.
The ceiling of the house Ieft, fell down.
On my first homeless night,
someone near me a bag full with seven million rupees. Bad day?

COFFIN

They said, in this mad storm
it was not easy to bury his wife.
And the cursed woman,
the sinner that she was,
the coffin must be burned.
Set afire the coffins of the sinful,
they cried. These small two pennny worth gods
he couldn't fight.
He was dead without her
and the resting places of the dead are called coffins.
He went ahead and set fire to his house
and the village church.

Brothel

BROTHEL

Her heart had become a brothel.

People came, spent some time and went away.

Leaving behind their smell and dirt and what not.

She was disgusted with herself when there came a man

who thought she deserved honour.

He gave her his name and they together

begged forgiveness.

He washed her heart with God's love.

And the brothel became a temple.

For the people,

it is still a prostitute's residence.

AGE

People could never stop
talking about the age gap.
'A decade' they would exclaim,
those filthy do-gooders.
In spite of the age gap,
the thought gap and the sanity gap,
they both thought of jumping
down the bridge that night
when it became
impossible
to hide.

Benares

Each morning,
the Ganges comes to the
doorsteps of Benares and washes herself of
the sins her own sons have thrust upon her.
Here, in our land,

you can churn out any favour
from a woman,
you only need to call her mother,
Sweet sweet Ganges,
your nectar I am fond of,
red red Benares, your skin, a coat of prayers,
reminds me of my thousand years old self.

Those who could have
attained peace in life well lived,
foolishly throng to this city,
to die and gain salvation.

QUIET KASHMIR!

The cry of the cock,The ripple of the Dal,The hum of the breeze,The muezzin’s call,
The laughter of two girls,Playing with their pony tails,Somewhere, a fakir sang hymns,Somewhere, a goat wails,

A singing but broken radio set,Struggles on one porch,The electrician’s young boy,Playing with his father’s torch,
A group of kids engaged in fight,Over a game of marbles,A small girl looks on, amused,An old man doing gargles,
And then out of thin air,An atheist bullet is shot,The shooter unknown to all,And as strange his god,
All sounds, all play, all ceased,Even the breeze quiet and,All joyful faces now sad,Their small children frightened,

Quiet Kashmir! Be quiet dear,Frail hearts enveloped by fear,Morning comes and evening goes,It’s the same, each day out here.

The Gods of Men

‘Ganpati Bapa!’ Said one,
‘Morya!’ shouted the rest,
A truckload of men and an idol,
Two lorries of women dressed their best,
On their way to immerse their god,
In the waters of the sea,
They came upon a white structure,
The beautiful Mosque Ali,

In respect for the faithful,
Bowing their heads to their Lord,
The procession went into silence,
As they neared the mosque’s yard,
When the truck faced the white dome,
In the silence, a mouth cried hard,

And a shrewd fist threw color,
In a moment the white dome now dirty,
A silence in the air, all minds numb,
Blood froze in veins, breath flowing curtly,

Out of the many windows of the mosque,
Flew out a stone shamelessly,
On the forehead of an old woman,
It hit the aged skull briskly,

Her blood blew life in the crowd,
And things changed abruptly,
Shouts resumed, filthy calls,
Honor left their bowel’s assembly,

The crowd of the truck and
The gathering from the mosque,
All mixed in one created a scene,
Such an ugly scene that,
Shame closed its eyes for hours,

Shame saw, when it opened its eyes,
A carpet of dead bodies,
Blood and blood on the breast of earth,
Dead men blind to their follies,
The broken wall of the mosque,
The broken idol in the puddle,

Fathers dead, mothers dead,
No children alive to tell,
The maulvi safe in his chamber,
The pundit still ringing bells,

The Name that you misuse,
Shamelessly all your life,
Shall disown you, grab your collar,
He Himself will then question,
Which Allah would you then call?
Which Ram, Ganesh, which Kishan?

No Hindu was in the crowd,
Who liked not the white dome,
Nor any Muslim did approve,
A woman being stoned, her broken bone,
Their souls were being checked,
They all failed the test,
The mischief of two soiled souls,
Became the destiny of the rest.

Love Note

I ate your flesh once
out of fury,
I tore your hair, too.
I remember
I have drenched your skirt
once when I wept for a week,
and I even spat on your frock
when we were in bed,

Yes, New York,
I love you.
Ofcourse, I do,
but not the way I loved
that cursed daughter of yours!

Deliverence

Deliverence! Famed Deliverence!
The saints say much of it,
Nowwhere do we look for it?
I long for the touch of it,
I know not where it is to be found,
Which way to go, which nation,
How on earth is the journey?
Or is the journey itself the destination!
Your slave is tired now,
Can’t tread this street of deception,
Purify my being, clean me,
Change my perception,
Relieve me from grief, from hate,
Breed in me some fairness,
Save me from the pangs of fury,
Save me from indebtness,
I trust no one but you,
And beseech you to be my Guide,
My Lord, my Beloved One!
Lead me on the path
To Deliverence!

GODLESS TEMPLE

The holy man with the holy thread,
stands proud at the temple door,
honey licked, saffron rubbed,
milk on a black stone poured,
jingle of the coins last night scored,

stumbles a woman to meet her god,
stammers a woman to make a prayer,
a widow she is. Impure!
seeks to cross the door.
her voice is the hum of blasphemy,
her faith a fake act.
entry to the temple denied!

he then turns to move in,
and hit head before the idol,
hoping the fine sculpted clay
will look after his prayers,

not knowing that,
the True Hearing God,
has long abandoned this temple!

ENVIOUS WITCH

Who is this woman
in the mirror that
looks back with discern?
So what if she had in a life
too many heartbreaks for
one four roomed heart,
why does she look at my beauty
with contempt,
envious witch!
You say this is me?
Was I dust or
those nights and evening were
those joys and grieves
agonies and longings,
idle afternoons and
crippled memories- were
they dust too, Going by the manner in which
they withered off the
attire of my being.
Bring me a mirror from that
evening, which fooled me into
believing it will never end.
Or at least, tell a lie to my face,
I need my vanity back again
for a moment before I die.

Before My Funeral

Her finger at my cheek,
Voice timid and meek,
I see the ends of her lips shiver,
Words dying there which she couldn't utter,

She choked and smiled and cried anew,
And her soul whispered, I love you,
She looked at me, her eyes red,
As I lost the love I once had,

Then she asked that which I feared,
'How can you be so hard on me dear..
Was everything a lie you said,
Was it never there, the love we had?'

I shook my head, my eyes bowed low,
I was crying and she shouldn't know,
How can you be so hard? She asked again.
My love, you stone, said her eyes in pain,
I wanted to console but could find no way,
How do I tell her I am dying today?

If I Were Death

Chants and rants of me being
               Your life, your love, your breath,
I hear very often these days,
More often than the temple bells.
Who is averse to life? Honestly!
             Shall not one love the color
The fragrance of living?
             My dear woman, what new is in it,
If you love me as life?
But love if such be
That you embrace me in my worst flow,
                  Disown I will all world’s wealth,
                  Abandon I will all matters of relation,
             If you prepare to love me
Even if I were death!

Quoth Bombay

Come to my armpits,
quoth Bombay,
and flourish to the peak
of what your dreams can fancy.
Stroll on my shoulders and
throw stones at the sea,
here, you are allowed to
hurl pebbles at others even if
your house is of glass.
They came to her and
her breath,
they lapped up the dust of
their wishes in her eyes,
they stabbed glass shards on her arms,
mirrors we need, they justified.
Hung rings in her virgin earlobes
and swung on them,
we need some air, they claimed.
Like any woman, not knowing
how much she has capacity to bear,
said Bombay,
leave me alone,
I am sorry, I called,
you know no mother,
you know no whore,
forgive me for I beckoned you,
stop calling me yours or
I will shrug you into sea
made filthy by your own shit.

New Morning

Each morning
I have to be ready,
To gulp down scores of tablets and capsules,

Be ready to bear the continuous
Prick of syringes, the whole
Troublesome day.

Be ready to see father hold back his tears,
And be ready to escape the vision of mother
Smiling fakery, while her heart bleeds
At the plight of her blood son.

Be ready for the momentary visits of people,
Relatives, cousins and friends,
Who come with heavy hearts and leave with silent prayers.

But today it is not that morning,
Those mornings are left far behind,
The grasp of prayers has pulled me back,

And for this new beautiful morning,
I thank with all heart,
My Caring Lord!

THE THANKLESS WIFE’S JUNE

Children from the houses

to her left and right, call her,

aunty!

and she longs someone someday

call her mother!

in the first rains of June

she fries for them delicacies

and plays with them on her porch,

as soon as the rains empty their fill,

as soon as the clouds drift away,

the streets are filled with children

children of other men and women.

and how she admires their

playful shrieks,

their toying with pebbles and marbles,

the sinking of their paper boats,

and how she discerns and despises

the emptiness of her house, where

she cannot hear

even the flap of a dead leaf.