Runaway Runway
In a room on the flight path to Palam,
A late teen and IIT freshman,
Found black nights startlingly welcome,
Beguilingly handsome and a pal incomparable…
Whose company poeticized his imagination.
For they brought at intervals of ten
Minutes, farers of the Silk Route of heavens,
Transporting over yonder desert and mountains,
Cargoes tantalizing on grunting Boeings…
But with a crucial difference from loads ancient.
Amid equations sheet printed,
Winking green and red,
The youngster’s head, new milieu stretched,
Felt the nightlong traffic… a la Arabian Nights,
At futuristic lores hinted…
In which soft riches,
Their polishing centers and traders coruscated.
The deep skies networked and navigable,
Echoing radio calls multi-lingual,
Urged him to reimagine Sinbad’s fables,
Centered around souls like himself…
Then someday soon seek a runway
And an air current to set sail.
Warmed by the companionship and attention,
The freshman would invite often,
The friendly night before rose the sun
To share with him at Surd’s dhaba
An omelette and bun.
- Bolbul
Milk Out of Doodh
‘If you drank mother’s milk,
I challenge you to pick
The gauntlet!’, they routinely said
In Bihar… from where he left
For the IIT, with a rank
Bespeaking a high quotient of intellect.
On the fancy train to Delhi,
The teen imagined naively,
Grazing pastures green with the currency
Of success, fringed with palms friendly.
For the morning’s queue for registration,
Had him sandwiched between lads
Named Sam, Danny, Andy and Mads,
Discussing affaires de St. Columba and Modern,
In English… rapidly fired over and through him.
That night he wondered if his name
Would as a particular noun remain
Or whether Harry, deriving from Bihar,
Or Bhaiya, meaning milk carrier,
Be a generic replacement.
Descended from mighty Patliputrans,
His ego… fashionably teen,
Curdled in retreat, even felt recalcitrant
About mixing with a city generation
That had tasted not mother’s milk
And clung to Western teats.
Climbing out and away
From milk or doodh pockets
Would be a couple years’ wait…
But what’s strange is that his ‘friends’,
All living in the USA,
Are now Samir, Anand, Madhav and Dinesh…
Whereas his own name of Anirudh,
In American sounds sweet as doodh.
- Bolbul
Hail Rajma Devi
A freshie’s right to question, much less
To suggest that the concrete set menu
Of tinda, tandoori naan, occasional dosas, etc.
Should be supplemented by a Bihari dish,
Would’ve been laughed off
By the senior cabal ruling the mess.
But a Bihari has never lived without
Aloo dum, kheer, matar parathas and goes not
Months… Holi, Diwali, Dussehra stand out…
Sans puas, Motichur laddoos, rich dahi vadas
Sweetened with imli and jaggery…
Thus the freshie felt bereft, distraught.
Only god could rescue him he thought,
Wondering if there was a presiding deity
At the mess who’d agree that
Adding new threads to the culinary tapestry
Would more fillingly portray her bounties…
Supplicating in manner pitifully devout,
Young freshie pleaded then with Ma Rajma Devi,
Resplendent in the violet red of kidney beans…
Who ruled Delhi with unrivalled clout,
For teary weeks and sure enough got
A miraculous prasad.
Within a month the mess witnessed
A new head cook, mustachioed,
Muscled and prone to assigning epithets
In Bhojpuri to those who dared
Question him… but reserved jokes only
For the freshie, plying him with every
Ask… with the blessings of Rajma Devi.
– Bolbul
Testy
The use of a whipping string of tests
To herd batches toward their intellectual best,
May be in the IIT DNA
But aligns no way
With what students feel or say…
As the case is with a freshie today.
No cattle fodder… the synched out philosopher
And spited rocker has spent the night
Composing lyrics about freedom
From rear poking examination…
But now faces the Chemistry calendar in morning light
And is seized with stethoscopic fright
That a Minor will soon breach his personal rights.
Unshowered, hurtling to the doctor
Who in his campus encroaching clinic
Plays Floyd-ian ‘another brick…’
He begins to panic…
What if the guy figures a patient,
Too lackadaisical to even name a complaint,
Shouldn’t be saved with a medical certificate?!
‘Back pain! While playing soccer…’ he blurts
Before even a question is hurled , ‘Sir, terribly hurts!’
Comes a voice, ‘Take off the shirt!’…
Well, at a cost of twenty rupees and as many minutes,
He turns back with a ‘Certy’ and a totter,
Determined to write a poem against Iodex odor.
- Bolbul
An Integral Over ‘t’
We met early mornings aged barely double digits,
For PT, in classrooms, library and soccer fields…
Yogesh and I, imagining life’s starry trysts,
Learning its calculus, axes and horizonless limits.
We met late nights again
As IIT young guns,
Over omelettes and buns
Discussing forbidden fun and tutorial conundrums
Integrating memories over time,
Under an ascendant plot line.
As I coddle yesterday’s files
Now, wondering how ‘t’ flies…
The stars have wetted eyes.
- Bolbul
Pic – Yogesh with sister. We were classmates at Netarhat and the IIT
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