Pandorathon 23rd May TSL Prompt replied to but desultorily - yet going on

 "Rains sprout happiness" May 23 TSL Pandorathon Prompt by given Sarmita Dey

Writing to keep my hand in

We called him Bird/Kili because he had a bird tattoo on his face, on the side of his right eye that looked small, beautiful and impressive but was probably some scar and not a birthmark. It looked a bit like that of a kite and was an indentation. He was very friendly to me, appreciated my intelligence which was not much, knew I was good at English and made me write a love letter for him once, and basically was just a fun guy. He used to start his answer papers with JMJ which stands for Jesus Mary Joseph and draw a cross on it being a Catholic but was weak in studies. Don't know if it helped him or not. We shared a lot of stories together, and he had a cycle on which he used to take me around. We had a lot of adventures and memories we made together. Then we drifted off, apart from each other, when we came to college. He died, I heard later, from my Whatsapp school group for those who studied with us from first to fourth or the other one for those from fifth to tenth.

It seldom rains out here. Memories of rain bring back memories of such times and friends and rain sprouts happiness remembering him, and walking from British Council to Jacob's or something near, back to his gf's house behind her and her friend, with him on his cycle. Same one I wrote the love letter for. Riding on his cycle in front or back. He was bigger, taller, so did not expect me to take him on the pillion and ride doubles as the lead.

Show not tell, But not in the mood. Can't. Won't. Shan't. Tell this time and not show.

The rain of memory sprouts the happiness of childhood back of a friend long dead and gone with memories that cannot be shared anymore with him or anyone else.

TSL Pandorathon May 22nd prompt done by me

 May 22nd - As I prised open the wooden box, I gasped. Use this sentence in a paragraph max 200 words with Santosh Bakaya

It was one of those days when everything had gone wrong. I had missed the bus to work. I had to take an auto and that was expensive. I had, to start with, forgotten my mask and had to go back to get it. Work had been full of small irritants, mainly made up with that looming thought everyone had these days of being laid off, salary being cut or not given, of having no money or getting no new job if laid off, and of catching one of the many infections going around. Covid 19, its variants, from Maharashtra or some other place unnamed as yet, black fungus, white fungus, you name it, or just plain bothersome unshaved fungus.

After struggling through the day I went home. The movie I had watched last night was running through my mind. Pilgrim's progress. Yes, nowadays every man was a pilgrim and all still wanted to reach the celestial city but no one knew whether it existed or not, anymore. In fact, most were sure it did not, just like those in the cursed city called 'not cursed', in the animated movie did. Go home or go forward? What was he supposed to do? For the hero there had been no shortcut, to go forward was the only way to home, if any. For me to go home was to go forward, things were not to be taken literally but spiritually, to run away was easy, instead of to stand and fight.

I reached home and my family was there, and a package arrived from Amazon. It was a yellow cover with the usual styrofoam packing and I wondered who the hell would send me anything in the midst of a pandemic even as I felt happy to have reached home to be with my wife and kids after a long tiring day full of stress, strain, and fatigue, exhaustion and feeling out of sorts. They were happy to see me reach back in one piece too. Everything was uncertain these days. After fumigation, bath, and all the rest of it, and a meal, and distancing and doing whatever like quarantine that was needed, I opened the cover. Inside was a wooden box, with intricate carvings on it.

As I prised open the wooden box, I gasped.

TSL Pandorathon Prompt 21st and my reply

You can cage me but I shall still sing.

“You say you’ve seen seven wonders

and your bird is green but

You don’t see me

You don’t see me” – Lennon/McCartney/The Beatles from the song “And your bird can sing.”

“Do you know why I still sing?”

The caged bird asked the free bird.

“No. Do you know why I sing?”

The free bird asked the caged bird

“I sing because I am free

I sing because it comes to me

Naturally, spontaneously”

She told the caged bird, flapping her wings

Just outside her cage, fluttering around freely

“I sing remembering freedom”

The caged bird said in song, sad, and sweet

“I sing imagining freedom

Though I am caged, and alone, I am free

Now you know why, though my wings are clipped

I still sing, and sing free.”

I still sing as song can’t be caged

I still sing, as song is free

I sing through to song, to create the free

Now I too know why the caged bird still sings.

You can cage me too, but I shall still sing.

All rights reserved by Dr. Koshy AV

TSL Pandorathon 21st prompt by Dr. Santosh Bakaya: A conversation between a caged bird and a free bird.

May 20th TSL Pandorathon Prompt and my reply

 Pandorathon TSL May 20th

Prompt: A pillow fight between a cat and a dog - given by Dr. Santosh Bakaya

It was the battle of the ages

A cat and a dog in their paces

They sold a hundred tickets

From Kanyakumari to the Himalayas

The cat was brought by his mistress Kitty

And was named Patti

The Dog was brought by her master Pety

And was named Beti

A hundred people sat and cheered

As they brought out the pillows and they started

Blow by blow, the two went at it

Each pillow was rent and the feathers the ground hit

Who would win or lose?

What were the rules?

No one knew or cared

It would never end, it seemed

Money exchanged hands

Alcohol flowed in the stands

When people unwind

They act like they have no mind

Cat and dog fight

That's what life is

Or a rat race, not light

Pillows weighed with stones

"Man to man

So unjust

Children don't know

Who to trust"*

You treat cats like dogs

And dogs like dirt

Humans are dorks

Dicks who only deserve dirks

People on the streets

Having nothing to eat

Dreaming, dead beat

Wishing they could afford pillow fights

*Bob Marley

Translation of Parul Kakkar's Shava Vahini Ganga but from the Malayalam with some transcreation by me.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKT4P-up3Xg

Parul Kakkar's Shava Vahini Ganga (Corpse bearing Ganga.)

Translated by Dr Koshy AV

Don't be sad but rejoice, say the corpses in one voice

O King in your Ram Rajya

We see the corpses floating in Ganga

Lord, the trees have all become ash

There is not even a speck of a place in the crematorium

There is no undertaker/overtaker there or people to carry the corpses to the pyre

No one to sit near and cry

To those of us who lost everything, only the dance of death/Yama continues around us, O King

In your Ram Rajya our corpses float around in the Ganga

Spitting smoke and spitting smoke even the chimney is panting

The virus has caught us and is shaking us

Our bangles are breaking, and our insides are hurting, burning like fire

When the city is burning, the pandit is playing the veena

O King, in your Ram Rajya corpses floating through Ganga too I see

What pomp and power there was in your get up and style earlier

Now the city sees your real face

Say no excuse now but come out in the open and say loudly, loudly

That you are wearing nothing and have no ability and are lazy

And we will not rest now as meek but act, watch!

Smoke rings rise and rise to touch the sky, the city is angry and seething

Don't you know in your kingdom through Ganga the corpses are floating at all?

May 18th Pandorathon prompt and my attempts that did not come out so well with me being in an uninspired mood

 A Rapscallion's sermon. May 18th TSL Pandorathon with Santosh Bakaya's prompt

Bhaiyon aur behenon,

mitron

mere pyaare deshvaasiyon:

Spring is the mischief in me

so I give this sermon

though it is becoming summer

Today we have gathered

in this year of the Lord 7 Modi

to announce a certain sea change

into something rich and strange

in our policies

We will roll back demonetization

GST

and remove the eyesores that are statues

of unity

in the land

No more bullet trains

No more Central Vistas

NRC, CAA. riots, mobs, lynchings, banning of beef

No more Ram mandirs

Farmer bills to be rolled back

No more victimizing Muslims

Instead, free vaccines

No more monkey baths

instead tan ki shakti man ki shakti

No more arrests

for pasting posters

instead defense expenditure cutting and

spending money given to temples

for hospitals and education

for creating jobs and industries

businesses

For elections

no more EVMs

and a new EEC

as well as transparency

No more drinking cow urine

You may say

I'm a dreamer

But one can

always wish

rapping on

being a rascal

like me

and a rapscallion

chortling aloud in glee

Rapscallion's sermon -2

Friends, Indians and country men, lend me your ears. I have come to praise Modi, not to razz him. Modi is an honourable man, so are they all, all honourable men. Modi, Amit, Amit, Modi, Adani, Ambani, Ambani, Adani, Tejasvi, HIV, HIV, Tejasvi, Coronil, Ramdev, Ramdev, Coronil, Yogi, Bhogi, not Yogi, not Bhogi.

When Modi sold tea was that ambition on his part? Never. When Amit campaigned in WB did he know it is not World Bank? Never.

When poor workers pasted posters asking why vaccines they should have got had been sent abroad and got arrested, did they all know anything about it. No, they were fast asleep.

Adieu, adieu, adieu, for the time being, lest you think these are wild and whirling words.

May 19th Pandorathon prompt and my story

 May 19th TSL Pandorathon

'She stood hypnotized, rooted to the spot " a short fiction of hundred words with these words. -with Santosh Bakaya

Title: Vandal? or The reaction of an ordinary/common woman/citizen from/of Delhi.

She had grown up in Delhi and found it unbearable. "As a part of the project, three iconic buildings in Delhi -- the National Museum, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), the National Archives Annexe -- are set to be demolished..." "Around 4,58,820 square metres in Delhi will be demolished as part of the renovation process, which includes Shastri Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan, Vigyan Bhavan, Vice President's Residence, Jawahar Bhavan, Nirman Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan and Raksha Bhavan." In the middle of a pandemic they still had money for such large scale construction and destruction, such ornateness and ostentation.

She felt her childhood fall away, hearing of and watching the demolitions. The blood in her turned to ice in determination, in anger. They were conserving, they said. What were they conserving? Not her memories of the city she had called home, at any rate.

She stood in front of the .gigantic, new building. It was quite a huge Vista. She had a Central(ized) view of it. She giggled. She looked around surreptitiously. No one was looking. She bent down, took a stone and threw it at one of the windows. The sound of shattering glass was music to her ears. Someone spotted her and alerted the authorities who started running towards her.

"Mad, must be mad."

"Be careful."

"It's a woman!"

"Terrorist?"

"Naxal?"

The voices floated to her and she started laughing. "Run", someone shouted, at her or the ones approaching, but "she stood hypnotized, rooted to the spot," still laughing, soundlessly, hearing the shattering of the glass again and again in her mind, music to her ears.

TSL Pandorathon Prompt May 17th done - Satire on present Indian English poetry writing scene

 TSL Pandorathon's prompt The Cauldron Speaking in the Nocturnal May 17th Santosh Bakaya May 17th

Mack and his Beths

To the wood of Indian English poetry then I came

"Where a cauldron of unholy loves sang about my ears."

'Wicked wizard in white', I watched with unholy glee

Them cook up the broth and brew of so-called great Indian English Poetry

On the top will float Gitanjali in translation, they cackled

He is the only one who got a Nobel, see

Not that they had read Gora, unlike me,

Or understood it

But only that they came from the same neck of the woods or tongue

The cauldron hissed and sputtered. The fire under it grew warm

They threw it in, as it was light enough to float to the top

We need a Dalit for seasoning, so Namdeo Dhasal in translation is in

We need a kind of Christian, so let us have Jayanta M

A Brahmin convert stews well

The semi Anglo or Catholic can be Jerry Pinto

We need a Muslim, it can be Sahir in translation, presently

We need someone to talk of tribals, like Mahashweta Debi, though that is prose

We must look and speak like democracy. The fire now grew real hot!

And a couple of foreigners who quote the Gita, please!

Rest can be Left, or Centre or Right, or might

Throw in a few women to stir the pot with a little blight

Call one the Nightingale of India and the other behind her back

A Nympho and also say she lost it, you know, at the end

When she became a Muslim, so let's still call her Das.

Add a few Parsis for garnishing

And a Jew, measure for measure!

But as for the main set

Make sure they are all Brahmins

Kshatriyas and Vaishyas

Who think they know English

Better than the rest

(Only that they don't!)

-Don't you know that democracy is majoritarian or the minority with power? -

But don't forget, ne'er forget

"We are Siamese" multiplied, "if you please."

The three witches, or muses

Laughed uproariously

Double trouble cause now, cauldron, to boil, and bubble

They evilly cackled

Deaf, Dumb and Blind their names

And the cause of the death of poet-kings

No queens, they can only be witches, except for one or two

What of the songs of the Odiyas

Or Kashmiris

Or Tamils

What of the other states of India

Don't they have their music too?

What about the Sikhs and Buddhists and Jains?

Sikhs are accounted for, we have Gulzar and Khushwant (more prose)

Ambedkar (Buddhist prose), Jain; no idea

Or of the LGBTQIA? Hoshang will do, yaar.

He adds to the Parsi set too. And, yeah, Seth.

You think they don't have their spin and spiel?

The witches of the canon say

Koshy, don't worry

You, like King Peter Pevensie, will remain

The High King of the Clear Northern Skies

Of Narnia, where there's place for you

Where the magic of fantasy reigns!

Leave the cauldron to the deaf

Blind and dumb and let it steam and simmer

The chickens will be broiled

The others will be soiled

All will be eaten

And forgotten

Time will do it spoil, so toil

For whom the bell tolls

Tomorrow and forever

Is written on the sands of time

And most of the names get lost

Washed away by the waves of centuries

Only one or two shall remain.

Rightly, or wrongly,

The rest are just pawns in our game.

While Ramanujan sells his Vedic grass/gas

I remember Nakulan

Who broke his twice born thread

Coughing out his life, lungs, and poems

And the spittoon (kolambi)

Full of blood.

TSL Pandorathon Day sixteenth Prompt and story

 TSL's Pandorathon May sixteenth with Santosh Bakaya

The Gossipy Neighbour

She, Rebecca, was alone in a big house, rented. Till her husband retired they lived in rented houses, of various shapes and sizes. This one was big and she felt happy in it initially. But she used to get lonely as in the morning her husband would go off to work to ISRO, then one son to Mar Ivanios, then one son to Art's College, then one daughter to Women's College, and the youngest to St. Joseph's HS. One day, a new neighbour moved into the next house who was from another state. Rebecca could speak the language of that state which was not Malayalam. Thinking that the new lady, Ammu, must be feeling lonely too, in a locality where no one spoke her language, she struck up a conversation with her. Ammu was surprised at how well Rebecca spoke in her mother tongue, though that was alien to her.

Rebecca had a domestic helper and after some time Ammu told her she found it hard working alone with no one to help her so Rebecca arranged for her helper, Panjami, to go to her neighbour's house too.

The neighbour Ammu offered to pay the helper Panjami double the amount Rebecca gave if she would work only for her.

Then the neighbour also told Rebecca that the helper was a big thief. She would, she said, take away rice even under her fingernails.

Rebecca started laughing. She told the gossipy neighbour, "let her take it if she does, after all if Panjami tries to steal rice under her fingernails she can only carry ten grains away at one time each day and it will take her a long time to make it amount to something."

TSL Pandorathon May 15th Prompt on Identity by Ananya Dhawan and my take on it.

 May 15th prompt by Ananya Dhawan which is on Identity.

A Prose poem.

When people ask me what my identity is I always fall silent. I define it differently from everyone I know. So.

They see me as certain things, Keralite, Malayali, South Indian, Dravidian, Syrian Christian, CSI father, Mar Thomite mother, middle class, Bangalore, NRI, professor of English, writer, born 20th century, Indian, brown, medium height, democratic and left-leaning, straight etc.

When I look in the mirror I only see that I am middle-aged, brown-skinned and a man.

When I look inside I see that the soul has no colour, and no sex or gender or age.

When I look deeper I see nothing, There is no such thing called an i/Identity, only a den (the body) and nothing inside but a flux, a beautiful ever-changing constancy of a flux that will end with my death and be no more. It has no name, time, place, space or anything else attached to its namelessness or non-beingness. This does not mean it is meaningless. This scares the hell out of people who are all so hung up on their identity/identities, defensive, protective and aggressive or passive-aggressive proud of them/it, their petty I/i, me,me, my, we, us, ours, mine trip, so they end up avoiding me totally. It doesn't matter equals energy.

TSL Pandorathon 14 and my poem on it

 TSL Pandorathon #14 – 14.05.2021- When a kitten and a baby elephant became great friends with Santosh Bakaya

A/The baby elephant and a/the kitten:

One wore a glove and one a mitten

I called the former Pelephant

And the kitten Oliphaunt

The elephant herd was moving

Out on the green grass of the savannah, marching

And unseen, under a big foot's crush

The poor lil' ginger tabby kitten would have become mush

When Pelephant saw him

And squealed loud enough to reach the sky's rim

His dad heard, the king

And withdrew his foot, by Zing!

Now who the hell is Zing?

You wonder, while fingering your bling

Zing is the Elephant God

In Africa's savannahs, you clod!

Pelephant and Oliphaunt

Became fast friends, eating raw ant

When one day a lion

Attacked Pelephant, by Dion!

Now who the hell is Dion?

You may wonder, while grimacing like a moron

Dion is the God of the cats

You'd know, if you had anything under your hats

The kitten waved his mitten

And said, you big Lion

Leave my friend alone

Bully your wife, instead, at home

Why should I? asked the Lion

Because you are my relative. Now begone!

Said the kitten, not fazed

By the mane of the Lion, who was amazed!

He slunk away, suitably chastised

Pelephant danced, her happy butt wibble-wobbled

They were quits now, but happy-happies

To be friends, and have more adventures

Under the blue skies in the savannah

In the tall green grass of Africa

Pelephant and Oliphaunt

Our famed and storied tabby kitten with a mitten and glove-wearing baby elephant.

 TSL's Pandorathon May 13- "The sky had a sullen, resentful air today." Make this part of a flash fiction of 100 words. With Santosh Bakaya

Why today? Why not yesterday? If it had been yesterday it would have been good. Yesterday everything was fine with me. A little contrast would have been welcome. Today it is like the pathetic fallacy, pathetic...When you're down, the sky should be up like the ceiling and not down. Sullen? Resentful? Like one? Black, dark, frowning. Why? Well, for instance, all this bad news, and no end in sight. It gets to you, you know, deaths of relatives and friends and many sick, fighting and you don't know if they will recover, and absence of hospitals, beds, doctors, nurses, oxymeters, vehicles, ambulances, vaccines, oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, health system collapse, no Remdesivir, no meds, wear masks, gloves, what not.... The silver lining was the recoveries but then here come new variants, carriers asymptomatic, lockdowns, breakdowns, new or rather worse diseases like muco something or the other surfacing or resurfacing, immobility, happy hypoxia, young deaths, children dying, you name it, we have it, the sky at least should be exempt, right? Why the hell is it not?!

#TSL Pandorathon May 12 and my poem on it

 #TSL Pandorathon May 12 "He looked at her, his eyes twin dots of anger. " Write on it in any form you like but use a form of some sort and specify what your form is.

with Santosh Bakaya

Nonsense verse Form used: limerick

He looked at her,

His eyes twin dots of anger.

What a horror of a prompt!

I feel I don't get it, and am rather defunct!

Before my eyes swim (twin?) dots of lunatic terror!

May 11th TSL Pandorathon Prompt by Santosh Bakaya and poem by me

 TSL's Pandorathon May 11th Prompt: A conversation between a frown and a smile given by Santosh Bakaya

The frown said: "You are anti-national"

The smile said nothing but "You are mistaken"

The frown said you are against my religion

The smile said nothing but lost none of its lustre

The frown said you are against the high castes

The smile said nothing but broke into a laugh

The frown said you a ------------- NRI

The smile smiled on by changing the narrative of the adjective

The frown said you discriminate against the rich

The smile did not hear, it was helping the poor

The silly frown said pro-Islam does not translate to anti-terrorist

The smile became wider at the patently absurd

The smile was used to facing the contradictions

in others between words, beliefs, actions, and what not

because it faced them in itself already daily, everyday

so it kept on smiling through thick and thin

through the vicissitudes of life, the bouquets, and brickbats

the plaudits and the insults, it was equable to all

The smile kept on smiling despite all the frowns

It soon became all smile and vanished in a grin

a chortle, a chuckle, a mischievous giggle

Between the smile's and the frown's wars the smile always won

Till the frown had to be found far away, flown.