THE TREE THAT SURRENDERED TO A HUMAN GARLAND

Oh, this is too big
And a Buddha
Or a Jew
Could have sat beneath it
And the chameleon paints itself
In vivid colours
As we go about
With our little hands
Susannah , Nafiza, little baldie man,
Women in the red apparel and a green umbrella
The one with the friendly wink
Oldies and goldies
Fag-hags and menu-purses
Put-ins and facials
And a regime of lawless love
And the spirit of youth.


The one with Zedane, Inca, Jimmie Durham, Chimamanda
Beckham blows a whistle
This time
Is Derrida
Dislocated and properly
Dismantled?
The loud and hearty voices
That the tiny spaces fail to satisfy or contain
The temperament
Of a huge tree
Around which there is some
Merry going around
And crows,
Carrying bread
That  have been broken.

The girl in her wet dhothee
Peering in
Am I party to this?
Obviously, when you hug a tree
In this swan song.

I felt lost in an umbrella of saffron or red
Of military juntas that reigned the world
Of promotions and demotions
In this Stalinist den
Where the din of plates in friendly hands
Would serve even Hitler a dish or two
While a Jewish woman
Or a Muslim, or Sikh
Maynot be able to makeout
What all this meant.

And Bali before whom
A Ram would run for cover
Shooting a barrage of innuendos,
He want someone to help him kill
Ravan to whom Seetha has escaped
And the independence
Of Bali wouldn't do
Like the servitude of a Sugreeva
A Jew, a Muslim, a Jain
Bahubali from the first Gujarati text,

Mahabali, whose regime was famous for its sense of equality
And egalitarianism
Or Ottamala amma and Chelakkompu mooppan
Liberators of entrapped women.
And even a Kashmiri
With a ledge to stand on
And a kiss to share,
Anywhere on earth’s ledges
With a glass of wine in between.
Indi-go fields
In the Indus
Suffocated by strangling hands
And unreal pyres
Of the Bhrigu's  and Manus
And injunctions to step-well
Within your bounds
And the baths and the dam in jamnagar
Where the water was laid stagnant
And was ordered
Into non- existence.

In this land
Where Nimbu plants
When you planted
Gave good yield
And no trouble
And women excelled
In ‘witchever’ form
They would choose
And where bounty-full
But the Aryan orange
Failing to mix 
Being proud
Of great use and pedigree
Was no more deemed fit
For the soil
And where the bael treeis unto itselff
With the empty lore that went around.
Do you wanna ban your travels
With a ban-yan or pad your stomachs
Or make them bad?


A kadamba tree
Blossoms in the backyard
A wild Amba
Shakes its branches and sings out aloud.
The parasite weeds that dry up every branch
Succumb to their fate
And become self reliant
Since the people are now
Well aware of the men who loot every bit
And pleases themselves
On climbing to their shoulders
Calling themselves kings or Masters.