NIGHT OF THE CRESCENT
The spill of bodies
lined up edge to edge
motorcycle fumes mixed with
rickshaw-puller sweat
perfumed headscarves
swishing abayas
a carnival
of dancing dupattas
over the latest crop
of farshi shalwars.
Deluge of
henna-seeking hands
bursts forth
from Abdullah Hall’s gates
of romance.
Amir Nishan’s chaand raat
is the collective clink
of bangles
scarlet with longing,
magenta with desire.
A feast of jhumkas
and chaand baliya’n
dipped in the sheer khurma of
lovers’ secret glances
over the shoulders
of the mehndi-man.
Arabian or Indian?
What classical tune
would you like played upon
your blushing pink palms
with the choreographed
snake-dance
of curling cones
belting out vines and paisleys
like legends
from ancient lands;
each palm a new page
in the burgeoning manuscript
of a marketplace
of moon-dance.
‘This is a women’s market,
why do men flood this place?’
grumbles my sister, dodging
a bike’s wheel by inches.
‘Why do you think?’ I smirk.
Even my grandmother knows
Amir Nisha’n is a palace
of tilism. No mere bazaar
but an Indian adaptation
of Alf-Layla romance–
coy smiles melting
in the mouth, like sewaiya’n
all set to be served
the next day;
hide-and-seek of glimpses
amid applique-work kurtas,
gota-patti shararas and
Kashmiri shawls.
It is the ghazal
of the lover’s gaze;
a city’s bashful longing
stitched in latticed lace.
Amir Nisha’n is a bustling marketplace in the Civil Lines area of Aligarh, a city in Uttar Pradesh. It comes alive in a throng of celebration on the nights of festivals like Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Azha.
ĠHAAR E HIRA
In the cave of Hira, Mohammad trembled
receiving missives on Gabriel’s wings.
Room 610 B,
Harry Agganis Way
The Word arrives
on the wings of poesy, sudden and insistent.
– In the sixth-floor room overlooking the Charles River,
as inch-long sailboats and catamarans pass by;
like fleeting pecks on the cheek,
left by a child.
– At the Boston Public Garden with its Dawn Redwoods,
roots crocheted across grass-jewelled earth,
bending low, peering at their reflection
in an infinity- shaped lake.
– On an Ithaca-bound plane that lifts up alarmingly
after touch-down once again, buzzing like a bee,
skimming low over emerald canopy,
making people wonder if this be their last journey.
– Beneath the perpetual rainbow perched atop
Niagara’s roar; in a dream-state above
the Cave of the Winds,
beyond the plastic world of borders and passports.
‘You have wahis descending upon you,’
marvels my uncle at the rush of poetry.
Not all poets are prophets.
But all poetry is prophecy.
Revelation. Revolution.
Ilham. Inqilab.
A vision of things that might have been.
Things that might still be.
~~~~~~~~~~
Ġhaar e Hira is the cave of Hira where Prophet Mohammad would go up the hill to meditate, the place where he received Divine Revelation, conveyed by the angel Jibraeel (Gabriel).
The phrase ‘wings of poesy’ is taken from John Keats’ poem Ode to a Nightingale.
‘Wahi’ is the Arabic word for revelation.
This poem traverses the landscape of several cities – from Boston to Ithaca to Niagara Falls – inhabiting them not as spaces that produce alienation but facilitate contemplation instead; not as separate from ‘Nature’ but interwoven with it.Of islands of silence and serenity within the city, where one might almost receive revelation;of pockets of joy; and of moments of ‘flight’ that connect people even in danger, in the realisation of their humanity and mortality.