Driven Engine Afterlife

Driven Engine Afterlife
Drove in a State of Zen
When on the Road.

Did she need a prod?
“I know not”.

Did she need a fix it all jack?
“Course, When she Went
Round the Bend.
The Tyres Rode Till The
Rubber Got Nailed On
The Road.
They Were Fill-in-Dates Really.”


About Remaining Flat, Did the Tyres and She Tire of That?
“The Tyres Did,
Their Trance like Endurance
Looked Away When Lassitude
Made its Presence Felt.”
“As For Her ,She Drove at Being Agile
and Towards Being Virile
Till the Brake Oil Level
Went Downhill.”

Did She Move In
The Fast Lane?
“No Zoom Junkie,
Steadiness She Thought
Of As a Distant Parameter
And An Intimate Need.”

Was She Sharp
When She Turned?
“She was Swift,
Independent of a Dent.”


Driven Engine Afterlife
Drove in a State of Zen
When on the Road.

The Four Wheeler
Would Wager if
She Were Pitted
Against a Racer
She’d Get Richer
Being A Winner.

“Cut Across the Racer "
Was Her Favourite One Liner.
And With That In her
She’d Render their
Hopes Asunder.

Commanding Respect at
Full Throttle Had
No Place Save
The Race Course.
Not One For
A Collision Course,
Nor A Car Crash
Was She Set For.

She Thought
An Errant Driver,
A Transporter of a Three Wheeler,
A Cabbie
And a Bus Driver
Immeasurably Inept
At the Wheel.

A Crooked Cop
Who Overlooked
Their Transgressions on Tar
She Thought
Buggered and Bribed.

Gettin Hold of a Spiteful Three Wheeler
Miss Four Wheels Took Up Cudgels With Him
Quizzing Him About His
Misdeeds On the Street.
The Spiteful Bugger remarked
“I Couldn’t Care Two Hoots
About Throwing the Traffic
Outta Gear.
A Safe Passage is Only
For the Traffic Lit Emissaries.
The Best You Can Do
Is Hoot At Me.”

Miss Four Wheels
Shot Back By Stating
“You’ll Speed
Like a Spoilt Seed.
You’ll Harass For
More Than the Exact Fare.
The Next Time
You’ll Pull
Such Stunts
I’ll Put Your
Lights Out.”

Virility, A Strength
Of Her’s, Was an
Irrepressible and Incurable
Facet.

“ Now the Engine,could it Cushion
the Vehicle’s Breakdowns?
“Yeah it Could.
The Engine Was
More Redoubtable Than
The Vehicle Itself.”

“Could it Get Out
Of Being Redoubtable?”
“Yeah it Broke Out
of Being Redoubtable
This One Time.
That Led Her
To Her Maker.”

“How Did The Occurrence
Come to Pass?”
“The Engine Blew a Fuse
When she was Driving
Back From a Drive In.
Thereafter She Stalled
And the Lights Went Out.
The Redoubtable Element
Kept Immovable in a
State of Zen."

Svelte Spy Pushin Anna

Svelte Spy Pushin Anna happens to be none other than Anna Chapman, the Russian Spy.She appears to have made a splash when it comes to foreign affairs. Chapman was apprehended in July in this year itself. Her beauty which left me enthralled inspired me to pen a piece entitled Svelte Spy Pushin Anna.



Svelte Spy-Pushin Anna
Has alarm bells ringin
For she ain’t given to
Being in an officious
Pigeon Hole.

The works harnessing
Espionage,
Gleamed bright
in her dress,
She seemed an ingress
To all those she could caress

I sure wish she
Wouldn’t go to gaol.
It ain’t a role she
Can starr in.
Whatever she's done
Doesn’t weigh a ton.
It seems that way coz
of diplomatic racketerrin.

Spiffy Anna cut both ways
Cutting out as and when
She wanted.
“I don’t whether to remain in
or stay put out” Spiffy Anna
said from the edge.

Her bust showed herself
To be at her best
Begetting zest with
A wry spy smile.
They came across
As the Real Deal.


Diplo’s roaming
in Peccadillo Depot,
How she paperworked them
Into an Arm Twisted Jam.
Diplo’s sure made a hash of
The hush hush affair.
Fair to say she got
The dope on them.


“Anna would calling you
a tool befit you?”

“ Once I got wise
To my invaluable foibles
The Wikileaked Bunnies
seemed Fair Game.”

“Clearly desirous of the give and take
that ensued they made a beeline
to get into my pants.
Them suckers were Caught
With their Pants Down.”

“Anna did you give the
sucker an even break?”

“Oh yes at every step
Of the way.”

“We weren’t whoever
we took each other for
yet we ended up procuring
equal amounts of each other.”

"Let It Be Said that
Svelte Spy Pushin Anna
Was Pursuing felicity
and Collecting Her Results."

Oracle Pool Paul

Oracle Pool Paul
We hope a Clean
Bill of Health is
Comin your way.


Oracle Pool Paul
Has a few looking
Stony and feeling
Cut up and has many
Looking blissful and
Feeling Pleased as
Punch.


“They make many glow
And feel forgetful.
Do our world beaters
And Oracle Pool Paul”,
the many Spanish say.


He glanced the other way
When he had to Pick and Choose
Coz he too Reckoned
Some had to Prevail
Over the others.
All but One
Earned a Solitary
Nod of Approval
From his Myriad Tentacles.

White and black
Looked for answers
When it came to
Getting it right.
They were within
Striking distance
Of bearing the
Winner’s crown
On their heads.

Orange saw Red
And were caught off guard
Although they came
Within an inch
Of raising the
Bar to which
Joy was attached to.


Oracle Pool Paul
Made Killjoys of
The Losing Hopefuls
And Struck a Chord
With the Bloody Minded
Spanish.


A Clean Bill
Of Health Beckons
Paul albeit
The enraged few
Are Intent on
Turning Paul into
Eight Legged Soup.


Some of What he says
Isn’t a Sum of What he Thinks.

Well he’s For Real.
He's been flagged after all.

Leeway

Leeway for
An iconoclastic spree,
Springing from
A Stout Cloud
Would bat for a gold nugget
and the strains of a guitar.

Being late and falling away
In a quicksilver world
Enables me to float
On tranquil seachange,
Without a care
In the world
Wrecking illusions.

An Eagle Eyed Skull
Clapped in Chains
Buying time for the Crafty Ash
Billowing from where its
Broken away,making asses
Of birds in the skies.

Virile antipathy
Getting into the hair
Of an Ironclad veneer
Chucking it into the
Scrapyard.
Fairweather Sickles and Fungi
in plush and lush grass
Being Cut Down To Size
with a frayed Mace.

Printed Tinted Sunshades
Playing hooky on
Blades of grass
With potsherds and parrots
Sticking out of
Brick Windows.

Leather and Suede
Put the brakes
On bein barefoot
But hey the
Hippies have
A ball
Bein bare
From head to
Toe.

Gin Pool House
Little Sister Soul
Playin It Out
“Deadeye Saturday
looks like the
sky in a frame”.

May said" you
may play
in May."

Bent out of Shape

Its either goin to leave ya mad,
or blind or dead.
That's what the scribes have noted
it down as.
They sure won't be toasting
to country liquor.

I gravitate from one corner
of a hopscotch grid into
a dusty ensemble.
Tweak a sleek curve
encircling a bend
bent out of shape.

An outpouring of faience
raising visions of a
lucent dwelling.
They are here to stay
and scram leaving behind
a ginger scent.

The colour left Light
in the dark,
the content had Grace
hoodwinked,
the composition left
Mirth befuddled.

Wheatish traces of history
snapping at our heels
had us lean into walls
pegged down as hardy.
The pecking order
rolled into a
square comprised of
accessories worthy of
being in the eye of
a sandstorm.

A trenchant winter laden
with a silver flurry made
its way onto twigs.
March' s hung over on
summer as spring read
it the riot act.

A brusque breed,a probing lot,
a blithe smile ,piece themselves
in a jigsaw puzzle with fame
around the corner.

Smiling heralded exhilaration,
bypassing killjoys,riding as
far as it could.


Smiling opined
"don't slip of
the stepping stone.


Smiling spoke of a fracture
as she gave the loon the axe.
What is perceived as wrong
could end up being in the right
after all.

Smiling hoped and asked for
Stone Neckin Change,
for the process was akin
to a mouse demanding
half eaten cheese.

A Dusty Ensemble

As the title suggests I have had a thing or two to do with dust in the recent past. I had been to a dig recently to an Indus Valley site christened Farmana which is in Haryana.The site is located in the Ghaghar Basin. This is a bid to recount the occurrences in Farmana .Farmana was something completely different to anything what I've experienced before.
We set of to Farmana on the 13th of January boarding the Goa Nizamuddin Express which was to transport us to Delhi .Our train came in at 4'o' clock in the morning. The train reached Delhi five hours late due to the dense fog. It was bloody cold. It had turned extremely cold as soon as we had entered the north. At Delhi we caught a bus to Mehem ,a town in Haryana. Farmana is 10 kilometres from Mehem.We got to Mehem in 3 hours I think. There was a truck and a car waiting for us. The boys rode in the back of the truck and the girls in the car.Riding in the back of the truck made me liken ourselves to the Dirty Dozen or the Inglorious Basterds .Intensely freezing conditions greeted us in Farmana.
The weather bore the stamp of biting cold conditions till the time we were there. I was attired in five layers of clothing throughout the month. My fingers used to become numb, so much so that it made handling the tools difficult. The intense fog deserves more than a line .It used to be so foggy that trees a metre away could not be seen. A mark it did make. We saw the sun come out at 3'o' clock in the afternoon on occasions. It seemed as if the sun set sail for someplace dark while the moon stayed put on its feet. I got to see the sun set and the moon rise at the same time. The sun set at 5-40 or so. So much for the weather and its quirks.
Our lodgings consisted of a house while the abode comprised of a couple of rooms where we ‘d cave into slumber . We went off to the land of nod on the floor on thin mattresses better known as Razai’s. My sleeping bag came in handy. The boys lived in one room and the girls put up in a room below. Farmana has a burial site and a habitation site. Unfortunately, due to the owner not giving us permission to work in the burial site we could only clear the grass there. All our work was done in the habitation site.
We flagged off proceedings on the 15th of January. The supervisors showed us the ropes. They taught us how to lay trenches, dig, separate the artifacts from the sand, record the antiquities, scrape the ground and brush the trenches. We students had to work under their strict gaze.
There exists a tradition there that whenever a male child is born the particular household bangs a spoon against a plate to announce the boy's birth. Whenever we were called for breakfast or dinner the gong was sounded in such a manner.The villagers must have reckoned that we men must have embraced fatherhood overnight.
The wake up call was sounded at 5-30. We had to start walking to the site by 7-30. Work began by 8-15.There was a short tea break for 15 minutes at 10.Work went on till 12-50 which is when we broke for lunch. After lunch we used have siesta's in the sand. Whilst snoozing I used to tilt my cap forward and pretend that I was a cowboy. At 1-40 work began again and it went on till 5-15.Then we either walked back to the camp or hitched a tractor ride. I can now mount and dismount a tractor successfully.
Our work involved digging, sorting , chucking the sand, brushing and scraping the respective trenches There are two ways of digging-a horizontal and vertical way of digging. If one wants to expose the cultural sequence one digs vertically and in order to unveil objects, antiquities and structures such as walls, roads or rather the town planning we fashion the excavation horizontally.
The team had dug horizontally. We uncovered walls, shards of pottery, beads, bones, pieces of bangles and objects such as terracotta rattle, a stone ball, a polisher .People delighted in finding beads as they evinced wealth and because one had to strain one’s eyes to find them due to their small size. An assortment of beads of various colours such as Steatite, Carnelian and Agate were discovered. Steatite is white, Carnelian is red and Agate is brown in colour. Objects other than pottery and bones had to be kept in zip locks as a way of recording them. Pottery and bones were kept in lots which had been drawn out on the sand .
On the 6th we were taken to Rakhigari,the biggest Harappan site in India. I got back shards of pottery and a piece of a bone. Rakhigari's built at an higher altitude. Oh yes out of twenty nine days I bathed thrice only. Was too cold and deadbeat after nine hours of physical labour, hence the scruffy state. I could kickstart a new fad called blue muddied jeans. Only one pair of socks remained which did not stink. I sported a beard and my already dark complexion had taken on a tan due to the strength of the rays that emanated from the sun.
Farmana was awash with mustard fields as well. Some of the culinary items such as sarso ka sag( mustard leaves with spinach inside them),homemade butter were pretty tasty. I liked the roti's also as they were more crisp. Breakfast was awful. It consisted of either Pohe or Dahlia or Upma. Upma wasn't that bad. Parathas made up of radish commonly known as muli ke paratha was also made on one occasion.
Our train to Pune was on the 9th of February at 3'o' clock in the afternoon. We boarded a bus to Rohtak and then caught another bus to Delhi. The outskirts of Delhi seemed as drab as any Harayanvi village. The town planning in the villages hasn't changed much by the look of it. They seem to have carried on in the same vein as their ancestors. The layout of the houses is big but the rooms were pretty cramped .
A word about the villagers here. Although they were conservative they weren't narrow minded like some of the owners of the houses. We boys speaking to the girls(our classmates)raised the owner's hackles and as a result he complained that we were too noisy.
We students worked tirelessly and did not let our spirits take a beating in spite of the grueling work. The excavation did create an indelible impression in our minds while the impressions we made could assist future generations in uncovering remains of history, which might have vanished without a trace. Reckon we spent the previous month slaving over and for a slice of history.

Eye's Riddle

Eye entered the maze
in a goggle eyed daze
sending it to the blazes
as it’s desultory gaze had
attempted to graze
his pupil.

It remained unfazed
as the recurring theme
lay there half-crazed
for it had been sold
down the river
with a goggle eyed glaze.

As it had seen itself
too brazen for a
hoick givin
gettin lazy a shot,
flaunting a lily white
vase.

Swimming into the haze
meant Eye had to run the gauntlet,
he refrained from throwing
in the towel as he flung the
kitchen sink at the maze
smashing it to smithereens.