THE WATERMELON CART
(from Avadha 1986)
You can forget everything
but
how can you forget
the
bullock-cart piled high
with
watermelons that
disappeared
round
the corner in the street?
The
cart of our
many
memories and
many
dreams,
in
this crowded street
as
we were watching –
where did it come from
where did it go –
even
before we could think of these,
it
disappeared!!
So
quickly!
§
Akhtar Hussain
(from Avadha 1986)
The one who showed the way is not
Abhimanyu, but
Akhtar Hussain.
Though he could have come out as easily
as he rushed in,
he has willfully remained inside
for ages.
Passing through narrow lanes and
turning sharp corners,
stumbling in the dark, and
groping our way along the walls,
we finally come out.
We’re saved, we thought, relieved,
and who do we see there,
the same fellow,
Akhtar Hussain!
‘Nobody went anywhere,’
the serene smile
on his face seemed to say.
IchchamaraNi.
One who can die at will
is not scared of death.
He crouches on his knees
and weaves blankets.
He enfolds us all
in his prayers.
§
APPU’S TRAIN
(from Avadha 1986)
Unceasingly it moves, round and round,
Appu’s train, around
Hyderabad’s plains,
from Falaknuma to Bolarum,
unruffled by whys and whats,
calls out to people day and night,
Malakpet – Kachiguda – Sitaphal Mandi.
To all places, this is the only train –
morning noon evening night,
till one starts dozing off sitting
till one starts dreaming new dreams.
Nobody knows when people reached their homes,
each of them carrying a sack.
What’s in them? All a mystery!
Only sometimes, midway, would it stop,
Appu’s train.
From its chimney rises smoke,
reaches the skies, forms clouds,
pours down as rain and
calls out to frogs.
But it’s just that people won’t wait.
Wherever they can –
on bridges, on open grounds –
they alight and disperse
like hallucinating ants.
The buffaloes lolling in the ponds
by the wayside
climb out and wonder
what is happening.
After standing for long hours in the same place
Appu’s train,
just as we think it would sleep the night here,
suddenly with a ha ha roar, its wheels would come to life
and it would start –
and then … and there would come people,
who till then were nowhere to be seen.
Where had they gone, these people?
to the mosque, to the temple –
this is prayer-time!
Appu but is feeling sleepy.
What is visible between the closing eyelids?
Oho, a hundred steps leading to a room on the
terrace
and in that room,
a dancing bear.
§
