Dr. Binayak Sen

Yesterday, early afternoon, I received an sms from my sister who lives in Delhi: Supreme Court grants bail to Binayak Sen. I was at Dhanbad / Bokaro standing by River Damodar reviewing construction works of an upcoming water intake system of a steel plant. To put it simply I was delighted reading the sms; I took a break from the review and smoked 2 cigarettes back to back. I immediately shared the news with my colleagues. They were happy too. I was very worried since the day the Supreme Court had adjourned the bail hearing; the Chattisgarh government did not file their reply on time. I was very tense since yesterday morning about the outcome; we had had a brief speculative discussion about the outcome at the breakfast table where I was staying. It was a great relief to learn that the short term anxieties of Dr. Ilina Sen, Dr. Sen's 84 year old mother and his daughter had come to an end. 

3 things:

1. This intervention by the Supreme Court is likely to bring greater focus to revision of outdated sedition laws.
2. How perverse is the Chattisgarh government? Ram Jethmalani, a BJP politician and a political comrade (on a wider scale) of this government, ended up fighting Dr. Sen's case in the Supreme Court for the injustice had reached a level where even he - a seasoned and first-rate criminal lawyer that he is - could not stand its moral burden.
3. The difference between movements surrounding activists Anna Hazare and Dr. Sen is: one is conducted on a large stage almost similar to a grand concert in full view of the media and the elite while the other happens trapped inside the suffocating darkness of our jungles and tribal backyards.

Death rattle Clan

They forgot to put my body on fire

On freshly chopped logs of wood

On oil cracking and boiling

They forgot the charm of cotton ball plugs, the sight of wetted white petals of fecund flowers, the absent-minded twirl of smoke chains, incense sticks, the sonorous trail of holy hymns, crackling sounds of earthen pots and above all, the communal mourning around a corpse

Instead they hurled me down inside a pit – laboriously excavated, dark and deep

And, instantaneously covered it up with fast-setting slurry

With a sleight of hands that can be defeated only by mystic magicians at work

So, I exist there frosted miles below

From where you are waging your philosophical wars on trains against commuters struggling to reach their office on time, commissioning ecstatic cocaine soirees on yachts and rafts, executing orgies with strangers on a plane, stealing antiquity from private museums of nouveau billionaires

For you had told me once: I will blow up my life

Indoctrinating me with the scent of your body and introducing me to the nucleus of this explosive club: Death rattle Clan

What holds me here is an intricate web of undefined silence and darkness – so pure in form –

In this marsh of soil, water, plant roots and rotting flesh

You worry sometimes, don’t you; struggling in sleep:

Do I remember your face and touch as I crossed over the perimeter of life?

Do I know that your face is one among their faces?

Do I remember all their faces as distinctly as I should?

Do I remember our plot of blowing up our lives?

Might I end up sharing it with a fellow corpse?

Remembering and forgetting are complex phenomena even otherwise; more so after you’ve crossed the gate

Sometimes – nowadays – I will to laugh at our words – words crafted out of beliefs –  mostly non-beliefs – yet preached with so much intensity, precision and timing – a way of time passing for all of us at this explosive club, Death rattle Clan

Frosted Glass

A book comprising a story cycle of 14 stories and a poem cycle of 21 poems.
In the category of literature of metropolis.
Published by Frog Books (an imprint of Leadstart Publishing).
Being sold online and offline at bookstores.
The Frog Books link is at:
http://frogbooks.net/frog-books-leadstart-virgin-leaf-poolani/frosted-glass/

Pentacles

A book comprising a long story and four long narrative poems in free verse.
In the category of literature of metropolis.
Published by Frog Books (an imprint of Leadstart Publishing).
Being sold online and offline at bookstores.
The Frog Books link is at:
http://frogbooks.net/frog-books-leadstart-virgin-leaf-poolani/pentacles/