Weathers of the World / The Heart
Again four in the morning rain
Fifth time in a row this late September
Striking my concrete terrace as if a tin roof
In monsoon madness
Bringing memory of other rain and pain
CNN said Typhoon in Japan
Rain in the heart of South India
Never laugh at someone's pain I say
As I awake to this poem:
Rain in Canberra
Rain in Spain
Rain in Malaysia / The history of suffering:
The PM having slandered his rival
Through a driver, Azizan
(The boy took a reversal again / Perjured himself
Even the KL airport porters laughed)
Everyone wanting to get somewhere
Last night -- The Moslem Night of Waking --
All the little boys wanted to go to Heaven
Including my Rafi in the elevator
Ascending to my top floor
-- Nearer my God to thee / Nearer to theee....
And Guru Dutt wanting to just go die
In Waheeda's arms or at least his wife's
It's such a romantic notion says the Critic
Ashamed to be a romantic / Afraid to suffer
And Iqbal Masud: If you don't enjoy Pyaasa you're not Indian!
Pyaasa! The hungry and thirsty poor poor Indian poet
Throwing the world's praise back into its face
No poverty / no poetry I say
I say Do not laugh at another's pain
Especially if you've pained him in Love's name
There's no other way to say it except as baldly as one can
When an ex-lover calls I hang up
Such a little thing against such great hurt
But this little too kills
The Hindu bathes in world-pity
Fastidiously cleans himself
The country's a cesspool
The Hindu too fastidious to clean it
(Give me the Moslem for hygiene, any day)
Kabul, Kandahar, Herat bombed
Does it rain blood in Herat just now
The much dreamt lakes of Bandi Emir I'll never live to see
Like the bombed out Bamiyan Buddhas
Do they drain blood these days?
History suffers here
What does CNN say on that?
CNN has nothing to say.
And the Afghan still prays five times a day
And that Istanbul boy
Following me in the streets
For a bit of love for money in my hotel
Until I had to stop and tell him off
So that he fled into the rain from which he came
Searching yet the house of the friend
The suffering of history
One day soon it'll stop raining
I'll open the door to my 7th Floor balcony
The world will stream in
They would've seen my laundry hung out to dry
My laundry clean as my heart
They'll know I'm home / I've stopped travelling
I'll forget pain
It'll rain again, the rain of love will rain again
I'll live again I'll love again
The cage becomes the bird
I'll sing of love into old age.
16 Oct 01