For the Pilgrims of Uttarkhand

The earth flowed,
a river in spate, waters
churned in an inferno.

Death came to you,
sibilant, in a searching
wetness.

Why did my God,
He, the pillar of fire,
do nothing?

You were pilgrims,
utterly His.
Today, they will consign

What remains of you,
putrid and lifeless
to His cleansing embrace.

Consign you to fire,
if the rain wills it, weeping
wetness.

Hindu, I cry too.
And pray. Shiva, Shakti,
Amma, Bhoodevi

Mother nature be kind.

Stray Birds in bookstores

Looking back more than three years, I remember how I had to hustle to place Moving On in the bookstores. And how the so called "big bookstores" repeatedly rebuffed me for being a small publisher (and unknown "author").

Fair enough, books are after all business and if Chetan Bhagat and his ilk sell more, and deserve more shelf space in such bookstores, so be it.

But an achievement of sorts from back then was getting to place Moving On in two lovely, old and quaint and very "bookstorish" bookstores of Hyderabad -- Walden and Akshara.

Largely (of course) due to the intervention, goodwill and help of friends -- my PR sucks.

Ink Dries went a step further and had its launch / release at Akshara Books, largely again (of course) due to the intervention, goodwill and help of friends.      

I will of course, be headed for Akshara and Walden soon with Stray Birds, but speaking of bookstores, Stray Birds is already available at a bookstore in Hyderabad's original shopping district, Abids; a place famous (among the bibliophiles at least) for its second hand books market (where incidentally U saw a copy of Moving On as well!).

At a very "bookstorish" bookstore -- AA Husain, where almost every single inch of the place is laden with books.

I feel very Hyderabadi to say this. And I intend to go to AA Husain soon to see what "out of print" and "impossible to find anywhere else" treasures are roosting there.

BTW, if not for other rare to find books (and Stray Birds), AA Husain deserves a visit for its big collection of bird books and field guides. Because its managed by someone who knows the worth of anything to do with the feathered folks, a fellow birder.

So, do head out there soon!              

How not to beat around the bush

The one thing that writing poetry does to you is, (over a period of time) help you craft a crystal clear mirror -- for your self.

This mirror doesn't lie, it just cannot lie. In fact, its a mirror that is painfully honest to a fault and best not seen into, even glanced into. But poets being poets probably cannot escape getting eye to eye with its "dazzling" visage. The result is poetry that cuts to the bone and shows everything in between (something that a lot people out there would call self-reflexive) especially the wounds that have not healed and the collected scar tissue of the years.

Unless they are professional poets, or poets writing for a cause or something equally safe.

What do I see in the mirror I look into?

A fat middle-aged man with almost no social skills.

A professional for whom work means the hard labour of words.

A pair of bum ears who have never managed to deal with truisms like "what women want".   

A hustler of poetry books.

Hmmm....


*************

Talking of being fat (or well-built and big and lumbering), one thing many people (and not necessarily women or for that matter dainty / waifish women) have wanted to know from me is how I can handle the weight of the Sigma and the Nikon D90 (D600) so well, while not using a tripod*. I guess in an evolutionary sort of way, totally self-taught, I have managed to learn a stance that works for me, and a stance that uses my girth to the best advantage.

Other advantages of this girth are a "full frame" and a shoulder breadth that helps me lug my photography gear for long distances pretty well. Can't say comfortably; even a mule wouldn't like being laden with 5 kilos of weight day in and day out, no?

But how do you hide all that to the cameras? And lately, I gave away my Ray Bans as well...

I know for a fact that birding burns a lot of calories, its just that I haven't done it with much consistency for almost two months now.

The question is -- does writing poetry (and the worries of bringing out a book) put back all those calories? 


**************

Indie.

That's a good, honest and even fashionable word.

And its "indie"cative of someone small and low-budget and someone more concerned about the quality of what is being created -- a film, music, poetry or other art -- rather than the thousand and one associated / supporting / supplementary things.

Also, someone who is broke plying a trade and trying to cut costs to the barest minimum, of course.

I have talked earlier about lugging my books (the full frame and the breadth of the shoulders help, also I am slightly mulish when it comes to weights, I can carry a lot of it) and I must say they weigh a lot, they weigh a lot...a new experience this time was carrying my own bird photographs.

Thankfully, they did not weigh that much (is it because they were of weightless things, birds?) but still, all that bulk and still the fear of all that glass breaking!

Poets, its said live in a world of heartbreak.

Bird photography is more heartbreak than any other genre of photography. Comparatively shooting glamour is like turning up at office and writing code (or clearing files).

But transporting glazed photographs in an Auto wheezing and stuttering its way through the maddening and chaotic traffic of Hyderabad takes the cake (and the Double Ka Meetha) any day.

Or maybe I am just getting old.       


*The credit is not entirely due to me, the Sigma 150-500 has amazing Image Stabilization properties, and this is digital after all...  

 



   

Print runs

What matters
is that the poems we write
survive

(And even find other homes)
like all things mortal
we don't.

The cynicism of faith (and other truths)

I have faith and I want to be good and happy; and yes, at one level, I have always wanted to be a normal person with a normal life, like most others out there.

But instead, here I am -- having just brought out another book of poetry, still dealing with the hustle of placing it here and there.

Lugging books in haversacks and hustling them to people who probably have absolutely no trust in the merits of poetry as a genre or no understanding of the value of the medium.

I mean, I have done this twice before -- lugging books here and there, couriering them to Flipkart, even couriering them to individual buyers, couriering them to some great / established names...

And now, I will be doing all this a third time.

I guess, that's normal for some.



************


A quick look at two lies associated with poetry.

Fame.

Money.

You know of any other?

Do tell.



***********

To end this post on a bright note (so to say).

It has rained quite a lot in Hyderabad in the past week or so. And since I have wandered a bit on my feet all around my place for the past two years as well, I would say, they have arrived almost two weeks earlier than they usually do.

I mean, the buffalo wallow did not dry to a puddle this year, nor some of the quarries through which I had walked, raising dust, in the years past.

I am not saying the heat was any lesser -- for some 2 weeks in end May, it was positively infernal. And that was when (while out in the 40 degree heat in the afternoon, hoping to come across a nightjar) that I saw lapwings belly-wetting and also came across a yellow-wattled lapwing's nest.

There, there...let me not digress, the rains have arrived earlier than usual and like for most, its a relief to me as well.

Yes, its a big relief to see the same earth that seemed as lifeless as a baked brick in summer, grow green -- a green that defies description, and in fact makes you stop and search through all your soul and being for that one word which could express its dazzle and sheen when it catches the sunlight...

And its a bigger relief to know that the poems still come to me.

Maybe it is allowed for poets to hustle. As long as the hustling is of poetry books.

A dog called Bozo

Meet my only and most steadfast companion on my birding rambles (at least around the buffalo wallow near my place) -- Bozo.

I am not being disrespectful when I call him that, in many ways he's much more than a Bozo and then again, I don't know his name either. Not surprisingly, considering how intelligent dogs are -- and how friendly too, a cluck of my tongue is all it takes for him to come around to me, provided he is not away on some ramble already.

I have known Bozo for almost two years now, meeting him first when he was a puppy being pulled around on a rope and shown around as a toy / trophy by some kids who stay near my place (that was when I intervened and told them to not strain him too much as he is still a baby; naturally I also picked Bozo up and nuzzled him and held him for almost thirty minutes, till his heartbeat slowed down and he almost dozed off in my arms). That family ended up giving him to another family and then, again Bozo was given away -- to yet another household.

Naturally, every time I came across him I would pick him up and play with him and nuzzle him close to my chest as well -- as all little puppies deserve to be.

Bozo's current owners are a nice family and they neither ill-treat him nor ignore him, but for some reasons best known to him, he always keeps an eye on me. What this means is that for all purposes I have a dog without the attendant responsibilities. For he will come willingly, play with a boisterous abandon and always thump his tail up and down, even deep in slumber at 3.00 in the morning when from up in my writer's shack (waiting for either a barn owl or an errant poem to come) I would cluck my tongue.

I have never really understood what Bozo thinks of me; there are days when he will just lie in front of our gate, for hours at end, following me with his eyes when I come and go, totally desultory and somnolent. And those when he will follow me to the corner shop wanting me to buy him some buns, frisky as a two months old puppy. On other days he would refuse the same buns but walk inside the gate as if intent on following me into the house. And there would be other extended periods of 15 days and more when all he would do Is to resolutely walk up to me, stand up on his hind legs and plant his forepaws on my chest.

The most peculiar of his behaviour however was introducing his friends to me, approaching me with this or that stringy 5 or 7 month old dog and then standing by me expecting me to probably bend down and shake hands with the newest ( and obviously wary) mutt on the block.

Sometimes, things did not stay that humorous though. Like one night, when I was returning back late, Bozo ran up to me tail wagging and then left me to go and come with a dog I had never seen around before. I have never seen a dog try to speak with its eyes as I have seen Bozo that night, for his friend had a deep cut on his chest and was bleeding. There was a gang of borewell workers (along with their truck) that had been working in the neighbourhood that day who were now eating (and drinking) and if canine eyes can speak, I could see that they had done the dastardly deed. But, though I woke up a couple of neighbours and accosted them (with Bozo right at my heels) they naturally weren't admitting anything and meanwhile, unnerved by all the gesticulating and the chatter, the other dog just walked away somewhere, so there wasn't much in the form of evidence either.

As the cliched saying goes, I could write a book to recount my birding rambles with Bozo. Who knows, I may even recount some of them here.

Bozo got into a fight with some dog a couple of days back and when I met him on Saturday, looked mad enough to go bite an iron pole. And though I clucked my tongue enough for all country hens in this part of Hyderabad to hear, he wasn't interested in coming birding with me. The reason wasn't only mental, he had a very badly injured foreleg.

That day I slipped and fell at the buffalo wallow as if I was a two-legged Bozo.

As I write this both Bozo and I are limping, what a doggone connection, no?

As copies of Stray Birds head to Flipkart...

I have never really known what to say when the topic is my poetry or my books. I mean, I could probably talk a lot about why I write poetry -- talk in a ramble, a walkabout, a meander, a dogleg... -- but talk nonetheless.

I could also say what I have said any number of times, and what is the most basic and truthful part of my poetry, that I write primarily for myself and for release.

But ask me to sound articulate, measured and meaningful and there isn't much I can say.

Maybe I am too inward looking, or then again, I am probably too artless for being measured, etc.

**********

I have signed quite a few copies at Goethe-Zentrum (yes, the turnout was surprising and so was the involvement of the people) and now I have finished signing some more. This lot of the copies are headed for Flipkart, where (I am told) quite a few books have already been bought (on pre-order).

I should be happy.

I am happy.

But then, this is a book of poetry...

************

What exactly does success mean, in terms of writing poetry (and authoring poetry books)?

Who do you use as an yardstick to measure against?

Another "famous" poet whose book sold 100 copies?

Or someone like Amish Tripathi who has bagged a 5 Crores advance for his upcoming series of books?

Well, then again what is a poem that can be called a success? One with which everyone agrees, or one with which everyone disagrees, or one that just "works"?

*************

So a nice guy chases me again and again and finally meets me and asks some questions. That resulted in this 

Do take a look.

************

Another birding ghoom, another fall.

That, just about sums up what happened on Saturday. I slipped and fell / slid on the bund of the buffalo wallow. And have skin that's scraped off -- on my right leg, a bit below the knee and a bit besides the ankle.

I am like, bloody hell -- again the camera and lens survived it all, thank God!

Oh yes, they did not touch terra firma, either. But I did, I did and it burns like anything -- to remind me.  

    

Stray Birds -- the Photo Poetry Exhibition

Apart from being a book of poems, Stray Birds is also the name of the Photo Poetry exhibition currently ongoing at Goethe-Zentrum.

The exhibition comprises of 25 large (12X18 inches) and 24 medium (10X12 inches) size, artistically framed, high quality prints of bird photographs (guaranteed to not lose colour for at least 5 years) and some of the bird poems from Stray Birds (the book).

These are photographs that will grace any wall (at home or office) and add a birdy touch to any environment, and yours for the taking (after the duration of the exhibition; ask at Goethe-Zentrum for more details).

The exhibition is open from 9.30 in the morning to 5.30 in the evening and on till the 23rd of June.

So hurry, go see a stray bird in the eye!

Thursday the 13th, June 2013, a grand evening

The title more or less says it all.

It was a grand evening indeed.

Was this my best "book release" ever?

I don't know.





But I must say I was blown away, by the turnout, by the amazing professionalism of the guys at Goethe-Zentrum (specifically Anna) and the fact that I sat in between the one and only Aasheesh Pittie and the one and only Vijay Marur. 

The best part of the evening was when a nice lady wanted me to sign two books for her with "birds" added to "wish you all the best in life".

A big thank you to all who came over braving the rain

A bigger thank you to Anna, Mercy and Amita for putting up with my "first show" jitters and resultant delays.

An even more bigger thank you to my brother Sashi, if not for his stewardship, I would have been headed towards Hussein Sagar with an auto load of prints and frames.

The birdman is happy and humbled, thank you everyone.

Some of the pics of the event are here 

And if you would like to follow what is happening vis-a-vis Lil' Blue and Stray Birds, keep checking out this page on FB

Book launch and opening of Stray Birds (a poetry book and Photo Poetry Exhibition)

The day waits.

Its the 13th of the June.

Do be there!!!

The Cleansing

Now, the morning after
these puddles, unblinking, wet
hypnotic as bird eyes.

So, the night wasn't a dream
wasn't a mirage, another false dawn of love.
Sleepless, the cold was real,

Realer than your warmth.
True as a migrant bird, again
the rain has come.

Now, the wait
to strip clothes and skin,
naked, to scrub soul and being

Wait for deluges of cleansing,
to shower in its embrace, alone
your memory a bar of soap

A scent, dwindling...

(From Stray Birds)