Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
I am subject to one swift updownup from his minders
who then let me be; neither the newspaper cone
nor the sukka puri is deemed a lethal weapon.
He eyes the mixture from left to right. The bhelpuriwalla
reads his Vito Corleone finger pointing accurately,
gathering up his favorites and giving them a hearty shake.
His choice is dry. Puffed rice ruffles in the hot wind
that blows in deference across the street from Crawford Market,
past PeeKay Wines to the stall next to the mochi shop.
I recognize him in an augenblick, but am too old to react.
The balding, azure-eyed man could be just another day-tripper
in this quarter of a town full of people from out of it.
He eats with a dainty touch, bhel moves to mouth
and further with hardly a hint of sound
while I scarf down my ragda-pattice, chomping like a cow.
My presence is acknowledged, like a new ambassador
presented across a long table. My bad oral manners are noticed
but he continues to demolish his latest acquisition in silence.
We stand mano a mano on the turning to Dhobi Talao,
eyeball to eyeball, like a standoff in a spaghetti western.
My weapon a puri, his a square of cardboard,
half yellow, half blue, remnant of an old Cosmo or Vogue,
stiff enough to keep mumra, sev, dal and peanuts in entente.
Nothing spills. No one talks. Time stands still.
Perhaps I’ll dream of him tonight, see him again
in his sky-blue Lacoste polo-neck and chinos, eating bhel
and perhaps in my dream I will ask him about his latest acquisitions:
This country or that region, or maybe ways to counter NATO
or stymie the EU, or strategies to suppress dissent internally.
And maybe I will try to convert him to ragda-pattice, to its wet,
gooey umaminess, instead of the dry chakna he seems to like.
Perhaps that might make him a happier person, like the rest of Bombay
after they’ve had their mandatory four rounds of pani-puri.