There was a pavement

By the Hospital for the Dying Destitute

There was a crowd

She said, bye-bye madman

I felt her hand slip out of mine

A last look in the eyes

And she was gone

There was no way that I was not to find her

She was the journey’s

Destiny and its conclusion.

Oh Kali, fiercest Kali of Kalikata

Protector of the hearth Godess of strife

come

The streets of Kolkata

Defy pain

And the contrast between melody and noise

is so stark that it defies sensation

Kali it is your turn in this cosmic mess

To break the harmony

I would like to hear beyond the melody

which you respect to such distraction

I don't sense your feelings coming through

the perfect symmetry of notes

Oh Kali explain to them

now

BBD Bagh, Chowringhee

Howrah Bridge – the noise, the push-carts and bullocks

Chalo, chalo, chalo and the infernal horns

Break through hymnodies and songs

How do we move beyond the drone

Away from the eternal essence

But the discord, the draining

Impatience of movement, chalo, chalo, chalo

All 200 ragas that you’ve learnt are false

Their notes and playful cadences, falser

The charisma of great sound is the grand excuse – falsest

Pure treason

Hosting mahfils is feudalism's revenge

Gharanas – sites of repression

Was Hanuman ever a Naxalite?

How thousands of years of civilisation

crush each time a dalit speaks unfettered

each time she speaks, what if she sings?

A wounded civilisation, Kali?

Never:

It wounds.