The Tribute - II

To a wonderful niece who apart from being a great kid also writes beautifully: Divvi

The Tribute

"Even If she said something like - let's go to the Temple, it would sound erotic"
~ Balu Mahendra on "Silk-oo" Smitha

The Travelling Salesman's Problem a.k.a Sour Grapes

The ground for the walkways, I traded
some elaborately carpeted, others, naked
he a backpack, a goatee and a baseball cap
she a boycut, frisbee earrings and a map

I caught sight of them, ahead, about to board
A camera on her shoulder, a vaction on the road
through the large windows as they saw the red sunset
to take a picture they stopped, and our eyes met

I stopped as well, to take in the sight for a while
could use the time to rest, having walked a mile
fished out my phone and looked through its camera lens
beautiful in my head, why dwell in this posterity nonsense ?

The United Colors of Germany

Way back in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, a man standing 5'8"tall and armed with a toothbrush moustache started a political party that apart from many stupid things also believed in the racial purity of his countrymen. So committed was he to this ideology that, legend has it, he was a little miffed with the podium finishes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and refused to acknowledge the winners of that second-class race.

Recently, I took out my planchette kit and summoned his soul to talk about his country's performance in the FIFA World cup of 2010. The following is a Q & A with the Fuehrer himself, the only published interview with a dead man's soul ever. In this regard I seem to have surpassed the TIME magazine's interview with Paul, the soothsayer. The following are excerpts of our conversation:

Me: Fuehrer, Thanks for dropping by, it was quite an effort to get you here. How are ... [cutoff]
Fuehrer: Are you Aryan ?
Me: Errr, I'm Indian , and I think I'm Dravidian. Apparently, we have two races in India, Aryan and ... [cutoff]
Fuehrer: Good, you're Aryan. So what do you want from me ?
Me: Just a few questions on the performance of your team in the FIFA World Cup 2010
Fuehrer: What performance ? We won it.
Me: But that was 1990 in Italy. This is 2010 and you lost the semis to Spain. Spain meets Holland in the finals now.
Fuehrer: Same difference. Be quick. I need to attend a mass killing now ... [as an afterthought] What we lost to those Moors ?
Me: More Catalans than Moors. Well to start with one of the lead scorers for the team this time was Miroslav Klose. Klose is Polish by birth. Klose himself once stated that the decision to play for the team instead of Poland was not an easy one, and if Polish officials had been faster, he would be playing for Poland now.
Fuehrer: But we invaded Poland in September 1939 ...
Me: The same with Lukas Podolski. He is Polish born and chose to represent the team only when he did not get the chance to represent Poland. Also, Piotr Trochowski is Polish-born as well. Trochowski's mother sent several letters to the Polish Football Association informing it about her talented son and about his willingness to cap for Poland. The Poles were not interested, which disappointed both Trochowski and his mother, and he chose to play for Germany.
Fuehrer: [Rolling eyes] Not the Poles again ...
Me: What about Mesut Oezil. He's a third-generation member of the Turkish community in Germany
Fuehrer: Third generation ... These people multiply rather fast ...
Me: And the team has people of African descent as well. Jerome Boateng is the product of a German mother and a Ghanaian father. Sami Khedira is of partial Tunisian descent as his father is from Tunisia
Fuehrer: [Beaming] but we have Oliver Kahn ...
Me: Ahem .. that was way back in 2002. He didn't play much after that ...
Fuehrer: [Rather pertubed] [on his announcer] Get me Goebbles ... even better, get me Riefenstahl ... I want the final to show our team winning 106-0 against Holland. It should be like Triumph of the will, an epic match
Me: Which brings me to Bastin Schweingsteiger. He has a Dutch great-grandfather
Fuehrer: [almost losing it] Where are my countrymen ?
Me: All of them are Fuehrer. It's a changed world. Look at Cacau. He is Brazilian-born and became a citizen in 2009 having lived and played in Germany for over 8 years
Fuehrer: [fuming] What is this ? A Benetton ad ?
Me:Even better. A sign of everything you stood for being undone
Fuehrer: You @#$%& ... [disappears]

Hyderabad Blues

A play here and a concert there
Time away,a real nightmare
Breakfast with chutney in the morning fog
Compromised work and a forgotten blog

Watching the sun go down from the lake
Sharing a ride, binge eating, carrot cake
Planning for tomorrow, for the week ahead
A laundry list of things, it's lost in my head

Code words that just don't stick
A dialect that could make me sick
Raising a puppy, not ready yet, I guess
Shopping to reduce my ramshackleness

The time since my last writing was long
since then life has been one happy song
Hear,oh men, far and near, my tale
The last 2 months, that passed like a gale

Jugalbandhi: Ramulu and Julu-yettu

She wanted no traces of their meeting,
And, she was an expert at that,
Like the many times they were together,
He stared into the open; helpless, smitten

It wasn't him, but it was him, afterall,
And it was his head on the chopping block,
He knew he had no way out; She was mean,
And had her gadgets drawn out for the kill, gingerly

She had him by his white starched shirt,
Between the first and second button, precisely,
With one swish had him fade to history,
Had him slump to the ground, lifeless

She picked him up nonchalantly, and trashed him,
And examined what was left; pleased, satisfied,
A beautiful silver framed photo of her sitting,
Her head against the end of a white starched curtain

The times they are a-changin'

When the local chronicle replaces the one since 1878,
so much that you wonder where it was all this while,
but still go back for them crosswords,
When irani cafes are in and posh eateries are passe,
so much that you stop asking for what you need,
but have it served by raising a hand, a nod of the head,
When your mother-tongue pips the world's Lingua franca,
so much that you switch to frustrate those non-speakers,
but still inject a few words to rile them purists,
When old habits fall to the ground like winnowed rice paddy,
When new habits emerge like sprouts left overnight,
When old friends hug you like you've just won the derby,
When new friends feel like you've known them for ages,
And in the process you find yourself, again, and yet again,
and see that you are very much at peace, piece by piece,
When you love where you are going,
Just as much as where you came from,
You have to wonder,
You have to think aloud,
You have to ask yourself ,
If this ain't life ... what is ?