A selection of poems from The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City—verses that capture the moods, memories, and moments of urban India, from its ancient roots to its restless present.
SUBURBAN FRIENDS
ESTHER SYIEM (B. 1958)
Orchids for city have-nots,
rotund potatoes rolling lustily in bamboo backpacks,
pungent, aromatic fish
freshly dusted with chaff
from fresh packing ice,
honey gathered from
the lowlands of Ri War.
They come, from barren hamlets,
windswept, buried in fog,
whittled down by poverty,
even crumbling shacks
of flattened kerosene tins
and makeshift days
of the city’s inner courtyards,
to strike a deal.
I’ve brought these bottles to you first
knowing how you chase the thing called time.
You look fidgety this morning
it’s Saturday em?
Yes I’m better now
should I tell you
how she stilled my palpitations
that woman from Sohiong,
who sees even in the dead of night?
That doctor you sent me to,
he was hopeless.
To sich ym lei lei,
believe me, I always know when
to bring the potatoes.
I’ve delivered here since the great flood.
how should I charge you?
Kong you hoarder, you, sell me
all your old clothes, old shoes, old newspapers.
Umm, your bitch knows me.
No discards for my grandchildren today?
Shi shi, so hefty and you can’t even lift this pot!
These orchids are called hybrids.
What other names would they have?
You call yourself a gardener,
look at insects feasting on shrunken buds,
those flowers so wilted!
Didi my fish, so alive,
look at gills glistening
I rush to catch truck early,
I choose best one for you
but I go now three months
to visit ma-baap and arrange shadi.
After Mei’s death
their visits they tailored
to suit mine;
only Saturdays and holidays.
Legal tender—strictly cash,
but always
something more
to bond us.
***
TRAFFIC JAM
NILIM KUMAR (B. 1961)
(Trans. from the Assamese by Bibekanandan Chaudhury)
As I drive out from home
I forget suddenly
where I’m headed.
But when I’m in a hurry
and stuck in traffic jams
I grow restless
and I remember
Many people tell me –
“I saw you the other day
in the traffic jam”
Yes!
But who was it that saw me in the traffic jam?
I have to enter another traffic jam
to remember.
***
THE CITY WANTS TO
COMMIT SUICIDE
SUSHILKUMAR SHINDE (B. 1988)
(Trans. from the Marathi by Dileep Chavan)
Rejecting the existence
of thousands of years
I began to walk
towards my primitive creation;
then
the city
calculating the income and expenses
sitting along the seashore
shivering in the cold,
a shelterless child on the verge of death
keeps knocking the door of Jama Masjid;
then the doors of the Masjid get stuck more firmly,
then the city begins to shiver fatally.
A life died without food
stands in the long queue of the temple as a beggar.
Then the senses of this city
that bakes the hunger
on the burning coals in the stomach
become numb.
To cover the stragglers
living in the open spaces
Don Bosco’s hands are short of length.
Then this city begins to tear itself to pieces;
it opens in the seam
exposing its limitations and the old wounds.
***
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